I'm pretty sure that the majority of Barovian content creators have already seen some version of this list. I actually went back to update my original post of the list to discover that I never made my own post of it! I put together the first version of this list a couple of years ago. I'm pretty sure this is the most complete list of its kind anywhere: Alternate areas of Barovia that are commonly needed, besides the commonly published CoS specific battlemaps:
0) The (Dark) Carnival - nobody ever makes maps / assets for this, even though gobs of people always throw it in to their campaign, even though it's old as crap. I understand that there's a Carnival Realm in the new VRGtR book.. I'll probably never use the realm-carnival, but that's a second place the Dark Carnival maps/assets could be used. There are also a trio of third party Ravenloft carnival modules as well that they could be used in.
1) Battlemap sized maps of the towns. At LEAST a 5 foot per square / hex map for the tiger chase. (Obviously modern VTT platforms don't actually need the grid on the map. ;) )
2) Random shops, stables, blacksmiths and generic places the party is likely to go anyway.
3) Generic encounter locations.. country roads / rivers / bridges and combinations of the three. It sounds dumb because you can get generic encounter maps like that anywhere.. but it would be AWESOME to have matching Barovian roads and Svalitch woods on all of your encounter maps. Don't forget the specific crossroads with the gallows from CoS.. I don't recall if there were hanging cages mentioned, but you could throw in some PNG options for them.
4) A covered bridge, including the roof, deck and under views. (To tack on to the Headless Horseman add-in.) The Woodcutters hut as well.
5) Besides the Carnival, there are a few other old school modules that people like to bolt on to CoS (Adam, etc. etc.).
6) DragnaCarta, MandysMod and Pyram King have all developed alternate encounters and a handful of setting that might be able to use an alternate map here and there. (Orphanage.) In particular, I recall battles in/near the bogs, on mountain sides with/without roads and watch towers. Military and outfitter style tent interiors and exteriors and camps placed.. you know what? Make those camps be PNG assets that could be dropped in a bog, next to a river or on a mountain side as needed. ;) I recall Lunch Break Heroes making an encounter for Borgia/Borca, but I don't recall if they made any scenarios / encounters for Barovia. I got a special request for Beneath the Abbey.
7) The Interactive Tome of Strahd sends the party back in time and would be a PHENOMENAL set of maps to expand Barovia. Seriously, you could drop those on DMsGuild and make some bank. Some additionally pre-Strahd bright and shiny versions of the village of Barovia and other basic maps might be nice for some throw-back adventures.
8) Retro Castle Ravenloft.. Castle Ravenloft fully restored to its former glory! (Castle Barovia? I picture it as more of a walled garrison, looking like a giant stone bubble from a distance, but it did have at least one tower overlooking the cliff.) We know that the old pre-Strahd castle had multiple floors located in roughly the same place as Castle Ravenloft, but with significantly different floor plans, as the ghosts walk staircases and pass through doorways that don't exist anymore. :D (Important side-note: Strahd did not grow up in Castle Ravenloft. I believe that there is one (1) painting of him looking out over Yesterhill, through the mists at a vision of the castle he grew up in, but I don't think anyone has ever tackled it.)
9) The caverns and the alter area in and under the Pillarstone of Ravenloft (from Expedition to Ravenloft) are frequently added in to CoS. I've never seen a map of a hidden cavern entrance in the Svalitch woods, let alone a set of creepy Barovian caverns.. or the Castle side of the entrance, for that matter.
10) Around a decade ago, some weirdo drew an artistic image of Castle Ravenloft with the foundation bedrock rotted away under it. I'd like to see a detailed elevation map of the curtain wall and gatehouse with the bedrock still under the curtain wall, because that irritates me to no end. NOBODY would build a massive curtain wall on a questionable foundation. Reference Vlads actual castle (which is admittedly ten times smaller than Ravenloft) for a rather specific example of a (THE) castle built on the side of a cliff. As I recall, if looking at the gatehouse, the left side and back left corner of Vlads actual castle are protected by a cliff, and that's where the inspiration for Castle Ravenloft came from.
11)Speaking of elevation, at the other end of Castle Ravenloft are balconies and windows jutting out over the cliff. I'd love to see detailed maps of those areas, an 'ant sized' map of the Svalitch woods and Barovia as seen from the castle, and an elevation map of the cliff-side reaching from the Svalitch woods up past the windows and balconies to the Curtain wall. Parties occasionally decide to attempt to scale the cliff. Having a cliff and curtain wall that actually matches would be awesome.
12) Odd ball areas we never see. The druids must have huts or a village somewhere. The Roc must have a nest somewhere. The Mad Mage in Barovia has one of either a tower / cavern / pocket dimension somewhere. We could use Barovian flavored versions of all three. Oh, and the woods and encounters with said mage on the backside of the lake.. so a lake / forested area with spread out trees for players to run in terror or attempt to attack at range.. or whatever.
13) UNDER Lake Zarovich, there are a handful of generic encounters. There are also a few river monster encounters, generally near the Berez Swamp, could use a lair map and an underwater river encounter map, Barovia flavored. Speaking of Berez, I've never seen a detailed large scale swamp map for the Berez Swamp.. let alone the whole town being overrun by the swamp.
14) A proper Berez Swamp. A full sized swamp, with river banks, fields of cattail and reeds, murky backwaters, underwater groves of trees, and a couple of dozen oddly shaped islets and sandbanks.. a few dead logs.. not to mention a proper full sized assortment of Berez town ruins.
15) What's the village in the Adventurer's Guild Supplements?? Orasnou! There's a tiny village there (the size most people depict Berez as, because the CoS book doesn't describe the whole town of Berez properly). So that map is needed, along with.. 4 interior maps, if I recall? (Probably more, + a manor.) As well as an alternate werewolf lair and a few others, like a Barovian bluff, again if I recall off of the top of my head. I've had requests for the Gundarak villages Teufeldorf, Zeidenburg and Renika, as well as the other minor villages and..
16) The complete map of Barovia, post Grand Conjunction (done in standard modern style/graphics).
17) Various encounters have been depicted on Mount Baratok. Which would be a stark stone mountain, snowy and generally above the treeline, not like the hilly tree covered mountains where Argynvostholt and the Roc and etc. are located. I think a largish rocky encounter map of the mountainside would be the first needed. I (seem to) recall a three tiered monastery built on the side of a cliff, with a freshwater spring enclosed that would require an elevation map along with three small interioexterior maps showing the wooden stairs going up and down the cliff-side. I recall one encounter involving a lai small cave sized area.
18) Lots of people want Van Richtens magic shop and other stuff described in his escapades. We could also use a handful of Vistani Vardos and Camps. If I recall, there are only two described in the CoS book, but there are many more tribes of Vistani than that, and we're told that they move around frequently. If might be easier to provide PNG files for the vardos, outfitter tents and assets for a large scale camp. Come to think of it, there aren't a whole lot of tokens for those smallish horses they use either, so someone might whip up 10-12 smallish shaggy horses with unique patterns to show off. They don't care one ounce for a horses pedigree, and are more than happy to keep unique looking mongrel horses as their personal caravan animals. They use mountain horse stock when breeding their horses, so they would be a bit hairier and stockier then say an Arabian.. just scaled closer to a pony size. Donkey size! They're donkey sized horses. :D ..real donkey size, if I recall 5e has some weirdness going on with their official donkey/wagon sizes that makes no sense at all for Vardos sized horses and wagons like the Vistani would have.
19) The valley where the village of Barovia is located is described as a massive fertile farming area, yet we never see any medieval farms, ranches, graineries or farmers markets for Barovia. Definitely need a few of those. Barovian farmers and ranchers would SPECIFICALLY all have the buildings that (in the real world) later became fortifications, Thick werewolf proof walls and heavily barricaded doors everywhere. No window on the ground floor. Livestock was housed indoors, in enclosed courtyards with family areas wrapped around them, or with the animals on the ground floor and the family living above on the second floor. Horse stalls and farrowing areas would be fenced off within the area. Graineries would be large round wooden buildings with barricaded doors and sturdy out-buildings. 10 foot tall max, today's 4-5 story tall graineries are a modern invention. There would probably be a large stone community grainery far on the other side of the valley from the Village of Barovia. for that matter, there ought to be a functioning grainery or warehouse somewhere between the Village of Barovia and Bonegrinder. ALSO, if Bonegrinder is no longer being used as a mill, there would HAVE to be another windmill or waterwheel driven mill somewhere else in Barovia. Many artists have envisioned a water-wheel grainery on the River Ivlis near the Village of Barovia. Corn cribs would be on the second floor of a barn for drying grain, doubling up to dry bales of hay, not primarily as a hay loft. PNGs for 2-3 styles of fencing and gates, water troughs, and some medieval horse drawn plows and rakes would be nice. Dog kennels!! Every farm would probably have it's own horse pasture or rink with a training post, and a dog kennel or run for dogs to run during the day. You know those giant mastiffs that the Barovian nobles are so fond of? Yeah, the farmers in the fertile valley near Barovia would be the only ones rich enough to be able to afford to raise those pups for the nobles. Somewhere out here would be a medieval rancher set up to raise mastiff puppies with an assortment of full grown mastiffs. Mongrel pups or runts would be sold off to neighboring farms at a discount. Roaming wolves would stay FAR away from them, and werewolf packs would likely attack them for any reason at all (if they could find a way in to the basin). I picture a LARGE farmers market and stockyards just inside the River Ivlis bridge of the Valley of Barovia. We know that Barovia is a trade center.. so there MUST be one. The bridge would offer protection if needed, and it would be the closest place farmers and ranchers could set up to provide commerce with the other villages and domains and still have the protection of being inside the gates. Hmm.. they might have a dirt race track there for showing off horses going up for sale. Make that very probably, The Vistani/Romani are famous for defending their mountain horses at the drop of a hat. This would be the main place of commerce for farmers goods in Barovia. This is (the main area) where Vistani Caravans would import and export farm goods in to and out of Barovia.
20) There would absolutely be homestead (small) sized farms and ranches carved out up in mountain valleys or even on mountain sides facing south. In fact, a south facing mountain side might get enough sunlight to raise delicate crops, spices and herbs, whereas most of Barovia can't, due to the mists blocking the sunlight. Also, a couple of mountain pastures with matching rocks / trees bordering them would be nice. Honestly though, if you pass out some rock and tree assets that match the ones you already use, anybody could throw together their own mountain pastures, or even their own valley pastures. Rows of crops are hard to find though! You could easily have scenarios of wolves/werewolves hunting the party in a cornfield.. but there are no Barovian cornfield battlemaps. ACTUALLY, I don't think I have any battlemap sized crop assets, and I probably have the largest collection of map assets around. You could probably sell these farming assets/maps on DriveThruRPG and DMsGuild as well, I've never seen them anywhere. ..OR you might ask Forgotten Adventures or Tom Cartos to throw some together, whatever seems clever. :) I've been asked specifically to try to get Yaedrag (barbarian-esque village in the mountains that Dragna wrote up) made up.
21) Jenny Greenteeth's Hut.. perhaps a grove of her untainted trees from the Quivering Forest? (Also the Glumpen Swamp and Vanishing Hills, various locations within these.) I picture the Quivering Forest loaded with fruit and nut trees and songbirds fighting for real estate (the text mentions angry squirrels).. surrounded by classic Svalitch Woods half-dead spooky trees. ;) I recall seeing a couple of versions that roughly followed the description given in DDAL04, but they're just a hut, not the whole barrow surrounding her hut as described. Additionally, many artists have upscaled her hut to be a small trading post, and put it on wooden poles, swamp style (never seen a battlemap of it, though). Lots of room for creative renditions there. :)
22) Another thing that I haven't seen ANYBODY making is small abbeys. The hills and mountains of Barovia are said to be littered with small abbeys. ..some of them abandoned, some not.
23) Abandoned mansions and manors. Strahd massacred the noble families of Barovia for their involvement in his father's murder. There is one legend of a nobleman possessed by a demon that Strahd left alive, as a curse 'worse than death'. At any rate, there ought to be a handful of abandoned / haunted mansions and manors dotting the Barovian countryside for the party to stumble in to (or check out due to a hook dropped by an informative villager).
24) There are currently NO mines in the CoS version of Barovia.. bizarre for a mountain country. It would suit that some of those decimated noble families ran some mines that have since been abandoned. Of course, it wouldn't do to host your standard monsters in a Barovian mine. I'm thinking Lair of the White Worm. Something more horrifying than dungeoneering.
25) It's been mentioned that instead of murdering the losers from the werewolf trials, they might be shipped off to be slaves in a mine, or to a plantation in the swamp. The plantation would be stick construction, as you would expect in a swamp, they would collect tubers and reeds that grow in the swamp, not traditional plantation type crops.
26) The various Barovian villages NOT included on Schleys map of (Central) Barovia usually have a town sized map plotted out and published somewhere, but no really decent overview maps or battlemap sized maps of them exist. (This need might easily be filled by a couple of handfuls of generic Barovian village buildings, field-stone and dirt street assets, and sundry village constructions.
27) Besides the Gates of Barovia, there are supposed to be watch-towers dotting the landscape as well. An operational watchtower and a couple of partially ruined ones would be awesome.
​
Assets nobody has made like the Dark Carnival and lake/river encounters and the Mad Mages various lair options would be the most needed. I simply don't understand why EVERY CoS map developer doesn't provide matching roads, forests, rivers and generic shops with matching Barovian assets. The maps I mentioned which you could make money selling on DriveThruRPG and DMsGuild (to me) would just be silly NOT to make. ...Van Richtens magic shop is requested a LOT. When the party first enters Barovia, I can picture them being chased in to a fortified farm by a pack of dire wolves / werewolves at dusk (perhaps the first couple of farms won't unbarricade their doors). I'm sure you can see the utility of the rest. Will everybody need a Roc nest on a cliff above the forest? No. Will DMs derail their campaign for a minute just for the opportunity to make the party loot a Roc nest? Yes. :
Finally, I would note that since I wrote this list, a few cartographers have added some of the above locations to their Library, but the vast majority of these are as of yet, untouched. :)

tl;dr - How common is it for a contractor get "unlucky" and get lawsuit & safety violations?
I have received a few quotes so far for a remodeling. It is about replacing kitchen cabinets, countertops and same for the bathrooms. I live in high COL city. - A - $35k - B - $50k - C - $55k - D - $65k
The issue here is that when I looked up A's contractor license, I found one open lawsuit(?) or complaint with complaint amount over $150k+ that was filed last year. Interplead:No is the latest status of this lawsuit.
A also has a few safety violations from one year ago from large home remodeling project. 8 violations from 2 inspections - total of $3600 penalty amount. A does have a license & bond $12,000.
His license seems to be at least 4 years old, and I don't see any violations or lawsuit before last year.
When I asked A about the lawsuit, A said client was refusing to provide money while construction was in progress which ended up him having to stop working for the job due to unable to purchase materials.
For the safety violations, which are all marked as corrected, A said inspector mistakenly gave him penalty when he was working on interior & another contractor was working on the roof without safety measures due to communication issues. He acknowledge that one is from him.
Now, do you think a contractor can get unlucky and get these lawsuit & violations? The reason why I am considering A is because A has been able to get quote fast, price is low, can start the remodeling project within next 3 weeks & A said he can complete it in 2 weeks or a bit more. He also forwarded me to a cabinetry store which I was able to find cabinet style I liked as well as quartz countertops with some patterns. A also said small project like these shouldn't be a big problem.
C was late for site visit by almost 30min, and B actually takes forever to communicate.
Some other minor concerns are,

1. measurements A took was a bit off, so cabinetry store asked me to get measurements again.
2. A said wall space with 26-inch width cannot be installed with wall cabinet with 2 doors - and it has to be 1 door. But when I researched, 2 door installation for 24-inch wide space seems possible.
3. A does not speak English well and has agent who is doing translations.

I am talking to these contractors over Houzz/Bulidzoom.
How common is it for a contractor get "unlucky" and get lawsuit & safety violations? Would you hire A?

I'm planning to sell this laptop but don't know if it will have any worth. This is not a gaming laptop but I'm sharing it here because you guys would know better.
HP Laptop – 15s-du2063TX

• 10th Generation
• Core™ i7-1065G7 (1.3 GHz base frequency, up to 3.9 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, 8 MB L3 cache, 4 cores) Processor
• 8GB RAM
• 1TB HDD
• 2GB Nvidia MX130 Graphics Card
• 15.6 FHD IPS LED Display
• Windows 10
• Natural Silver

The battery is dead. It has been dead for a couple of months now and I didn't change it because I was getting a new laptop. It runs through the charging cable but not through the battery. It has 2 cracks on the panel.
What will be the worth of this laptop? Can I get more money out of it if I replace the battery and panel?

Hello Reddit.
If you want a little more recent context into what the last few months have been like, go check my profile and look at my post in JUSTNOMIL.
Some extra back story. I’m (23F) adopted. At 16 my biological mother sided with my rapist in court, tried to fist fight me and kicked me out. When I was on the streets a friend had found out I was at the shelter and took me in. I have been “adopted” into this family since 2017..
Over the years it has been a great experience up until my adopted sister got a tattoo and she (the mother) sent her to her fathers because she disapproved. Since then I have been there and other than a few normal spats it hasn’t been terrible. Enter baby daddy. Long story short, he knocked her up, got fed up, left, hit her, didn’t show to court, and it’s been just her (with my help ) taking care of the kid. Over time she has grown bitter. Or maybe over time I began to realize how toxic she truly is. Last September, my husband (24) had to move in while I was working out in another city. When I lost the job and came back she stressed that we had to get married or we would have to leave. We of course then rushed to get married just for her to “not have a good day” after she ruined my wedding day.
That really should have been the first sign that she was toxic as all get out but I tried my best to tough it out as to not have to be homeless again. Since then, I have been scrambling to find and keep a job. Most jobs don’t last long or I don’t get it and then my entire pay is going to her for rent (mind you we are literally in the smallest room in the house in which our bed takes up half the space, non safe window and we pay close to a grand a month) ok. That’s fine. I deal because I DONT WANT TO BE HOMELESS. Over time she has started to freak out on me more, acting like I am the crazy one and that I’m being unreasonable when most times my attitude is out of exhaustion of her verbally treating me like shit and it’s a reaction to how she talks to me.
She has a degree in psychology so she’s “always right” (her words not mine) and because of my diagnosis that I have (bipolar amongst other things) she just tells me to go to my room and stop having an episode. Since being there I have had 3 suicide attempts and have taken off to friends places only for her to call me saying I’m “not doing chores and can’t just leave without doing so” most times chores involve doing her laundry and dishes and babysitting and house keeping and if she even sees one of our dishes in the sink she screams at us that she’s not going to clean our dishes and we better take care of it.
Over time my friends have started to point out that myself and my husband are just glorified babysitters. They have also expressed concerns over the types of arguments that I have been getting into with her. Often times it is over minuscule things and she takes out her anger on me. When she tries to talk to other people about said arguments or tries to act like it’s no big deal,I will usually correct her and quote what was truly said in which she always tells me to let it go and to stop making a scene. She also constantly brings up in arguments how much she has done for me and how she “saved me” from a terrible mother when she’s honestly just as bad.
When I stand up for myself, I am overreacting. When I talk back, I am being disrespectful. When I leave I am being neglectful and taking advantage of her space. (Which she still refers to as her closet and not my room)
JUICY STUFF/ THE POINT HERE
Recently, she came home and immediately started screaming asking who turned on the sprinkler. I had turned it on early without realizing (4:30pm instead of 5pm) and she jumped to screaming at me over it and my plants that I had brought outside to get some sun for a few hours. I simply said “thanks. My day was good thanks for asking, how was yours” because again I am so fed up of her bursting in and yelling instead of communicating. She flipped out saying that my attitude will not get me anywhere. I told her that I don’t understand why she is screaming and she came back with “I’m the parent I can talk to you how I want to” I asked for some respect and a simple hello. She proceeded to flip out and scream that I can “just fucking leave” and that “I’ve been dealing with you for months just SHUT UP” and proceeded to repeatedly scream shut up until I left the room.
My husband had went outside to take care of the sprinkler when this happened and when he came back inside she was being nice to him and asked for his help cleaning before leaving to wherever.
I, however, packed my bags, snuck out to a friends and have been here for a couple days. They have a whole spare room and have offered it to myself and my husband. Rent free, a couple months until we can get on our feet and in time for me to go back to college. I accepted the offer and I’m terrified as much as I am excited. My husband stayed because he had to work and I’m in a whole other city currently so I’ve been nervous waiting for her to notice that I’m not there. She somehow hasn’t noticed and even offered to take me and my brother out to an art exhibit tomorrow. No apology, no acknowledgement, just a text saying “I’m planning on going with (lil bro) tomorrow, I know it is an event that you enjoy. Did you want to go?”
First and foremost I am so flabbergasted by that message. Second, I’m not surprised? Almost impressed that she really texted me that after repeatedly telling me to shut up and leave.
Unfortunately for her, it’s too late. This was the final straw and I’m about to go back, pack my stuff and be moved out in the next two days.
My question is, how do I tell her I’m leaving? What should my plan be? Do I tell her I’m packing? I can’t discreetly move, there’s cameras on the front door. (I bypassed them before but i can’t for an extended time period) I’m worried she’s going to hold the few months of rent over my head or try to cause a scene or even call the police. I just want to leave in peace and never talk to her or that family again.
I feel crazy typing this. I feel like I’m overreacting. I feel like without more solid examples I’m gonna sound crazy or spoiled. I didn’t ask for this but I feel sometimes maybe she’s right and I deserve it? I just want to be free. I’m tired of crazy mothers, I’m done. I’m so tired.

total is of $1951 but I know that taxes will taise the price so i'd need something a little bit cheaper. the power supply is a msi MPG A850G. Thanks in advance ;)

So I have a NUC that I built 12/2020 with these specifications:

• Intel NUC Bean Canyon i5 Kit (Tall) 2.3ghz i5 quad core $336
• Crucial 2 x 16 gb RAM $92. https://www.newegg.com/crucial-32gb-260-pin-ddr4-so-dimm/p/N82E16820156260?Item=N82E16820156260
• Samsung SSD 500 gb M.2 $60 Samsung (MZ-V7E500BW) 970 EVO SSD 500GB - M.2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid State Drive with V-NAND Technology, Black/Red
• Samsung 24" 75 hz monitor $102 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-t350-series-24-ips-led-fhd-freesync-hdmi-vga-dark-blue-gray/6420870.p?skuId=6420870

This NUC has been working well for me for regular home use and minimal gaming (usually just dota) at the total cost of $488 not including the monitor. I just purchased diablo 4 and found out the Integrated Intel Iris graphics card can't support the game and frequently automatically closes.
I thought of a couple of options and any opinions would be appreciated

1. Buy a new NUC completely built
2. Buy a new NUC barebones and transfer RAM/SSD
3. Buy a gaming PC

Favoring option 1 since I do like the size of the mini PCs and the barebones with a good video card seem a little sketchy. I found these options:

1. Intel NUC 11 NUC11PHKi7CAA1 Phantom Canyon Gaming Computer,Intel Core i7-1165G7, 32GB RAM, 1TB PCIe SSD, 28W Intel Iris Xe Graphics, NVI-Dia GeForce RTX2060 Discrete Graphics，Win 11 Pro Gaming PC $999. https://www.amazon.com/NUC11PHKi7CAA1-Computer-i7-1165G7-2-8-4-7GHz-GDDR6%EF%BC%8CWin/dp/B09BKRTSH9/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2G6WOGWA7QFWT&keywords=intel%2Bnuc%2Bphantom%2Bcanyon&qid=1685761867&sprefix=intel%2Bnuc%2Bphantom%2Bcanyon%2Caps%2C136&sr=8-3&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.2b70bf2b-6730-4ccf-ab97-eb60747b8daf&th=1
2. NUC11PHKi7C, Intel Core i7 11th Gen i7-1165G7, NVIDIA RTX 2060 Graphics barebones. They are cheaper around $740-780 but neither third party sellers really have great reviews though... Simply NUC has it for $1000. https://www.newegg.com/p/1VK-004K-02KU4 or https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Enthusiast-NUC11PHKi7C-Barebone-i7-1165G7/dp/B09DDJFSNY/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=NUC11PHKi7C+barebones&qid=1685763765&s=electronics&sr=1-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.2b70bf2b-6730-4ccf-ab97-eb60747b8daf.
3. Lenovo IdeaCentre Gaming Desktop - AMD Ryzen 7 5700G - GeForce RTX 3060 - 16 GB RAM - 512 gb M.2 SSD - on sale at costco for $800 https://www.costco.com/.product.4000051985.html

Let me know if you have any alternative recommendations or suggestions. Thanks!

Heyooo, I picked up my brand new 2022 SE Hybrid in September (drove off the lot with 4 miles [1.6km]), and I've done a decent bit to/for it since. This sub has been a huge resource for me regarding research/info, and I figured I'd make this post to hopefully do the same for someone else. This is going to be a relatively long post, so bear with me lol. I'll list everything in chronological order and try to provide as much context/info!

Horn Kit // Pic

I wanted something with a little more oomph. Quick 20-30 minute plug-and-play install. Kind of a pain getting the plastic cover out of the way under the hood, and not much room to work with when loosening/tightening the bolts that hold it in place.

Window Visors // Pics

Got them for winter car camping so I can crack the windows while it's raining/snowing, but chrome delete is a plus too. Another quick 15-30 minute install. Haven't noticed any issues other than the usual scratches.

Sequential Blackout Turn Signal Lights // Pics/Vid

Got these purely for the looks/chrome delete. Wish the light was a little brighter, but I guess it's what I should expect from the blackout version. Quick 10-15 minute install.

Windshield Sunshade

Wanted something thick and reversible. Just went with this one cause seemed pretty good, and it's worked as well as thick sunshades do I guess, lol. Fits great, and no complaints. Use the black side for low-profile winter car camping and the silver side for summer. Fits under the passenger seat when not in use.

Snow Chains

Got these just in case since I planned to do a lot of winter driving this year. Left the all-season tires that it came with (forgot brand/name), and only ever had traction issues a couple of times in my ~30 days of snowboarding this season, so never even used them. Stored them with the spare wheel, along with some flares.

Custom Sleep Platform

I made a post for this about 7 months ago, and everything is explained there.

Spare Tire Cover Support // Pics

As a part of my custom sleep platform project, I also found that two wooden 2x3 pieces support the trunk floor perfectly if you lay them across the spare tire (see pics). Have slept in the back using my platform a dozen times or so, and have had it loaded up with quite a lot of stuff, and no problems so far. Some might advise against putting unnecessary weight on the spare wheel like that, but meh, until I have an issue I'm gonna keep doing it lol.

Custom Reflectix Window Inserts // Pics

I'm an absolute perfectionist, so I don't even know how long these took. These were a huge pain in the ass to make, but I'm super happy with how they came out. I made these for winter car camping (summer too) to have max privacy, stealth, and extra warmth. I pretty much just followed the tutorial in the video I linked and got all of the suggested materials. I only added black canvas to one side. Figured I'd have more versatility that way. One other tweak I made was that I left a gap in the front window inserts so I could still have some airflow for when I crack the windows. I know it defeats some of the purpose of them, but my winter gear is plenty warm for down to the high teens (probably lower tbh). The small windows between the rear and the hatch use velcro to stay in place. There is a piece attached to the inside of the window with 3M tape, and another connected to the insert using hot glue. Was about $150 for everything I needed to make them.

Roof Cross Bars // Pics

Went with aftermarket cause fuck the price of OEM. These are super solid and I have no complaints/problems. Easy to take off when don't need them. Haven't used them too much, but nice to have for when I want to throw a roof box, awning, or mount up there.

Snowboard Rack // Pics

Got these for a trip I had coming up at the time, so it worked out, but I really wanted a cargo box. Went with this since it's way cheaper than one. Can hold 4 wide boards no problem. Super nice for car camping too since I don't have to keep the board(s) inside with me and don't have to risk leaving it under the car either.

License Plate Frames // Pics

The dealer-provided frames are so ugly, so for a while, I was rocking no frames, but ended up getting one for the front and one for the rear off Etsy. I was going to get the same frame for both the front and rear but ended up going with a silly rear one to hopefully get a chuckle out of someone from time to time.

LED Hatch Lights // Pics

Probably one of my favorite mods. These lights make such a huge difference, and anyone else who has them will tell you they're fuckin dope. Not a very hard install, but feeding the cable through the rubber grommet at the top center of the hatch was a bit of a pain. YouTube got ya covered though if you DIY.

OEM Hitch & Wiring Harness // Pics

Went OEM because I want to keep as much clearance as possible. Installed it myself and it took me about 8 hours to do the hitch and wiring harness. Took a bunch of breaks, had dinner, and was constantly scrubbing through youtube videos to figure out what the hell I was doing. Cutting the bumper was pretty easy actually. I used an electric jigsaw and cleaned everything up with a file. I didn't install the rubber trim piece cause I planned to do it after putting the bumper back on, but there is literally no chance with how stiff the trim piece is and how little room there is to work with, and I was not about to take my bumper off again. Still looks great regardless. Will update the Imgur link with a picture of how I routed the wiring harness tomorrow/later. I didn't take pictures during the process but will do my best to show. Got it mainly for smaller stuff (bike rack, cargo rack, etc). Hybrid doesn't have a high tow capacity anyway.

Dash Speakers // Pic

Just chose these because they were recommended everywhere I looked. Took like 10 minutes and obviously a big difference in quality. Saw some stuff about bass blockers, but I think my issue is more with needing an amp if anything.

Front Door Speakers // Pic

Was going to get the same speakers to match the dash, but went with some other Kicker ones that were recommended. Once I get more into car audio stuff in the future, I may switch things around some more. I do plan to get an amp and rear speakers in the future, but alas, I'm broke. Was pretty easy and simple to install, but drilling out the rivets was a pain since they were uncooperative. Crutchfield came with everything I needed (mounting bracket, wiring harness, and directions).

Sound Deadening // Pics

Since I had the doors off to replace the speakers, I figured I should add some sound deadening. Could've added more, but it was such a tedious process that I just called it at what I had. Took me about 5 hours to do the sound deadening and speakers, but took some breaks. Overall, came out pretty good, and I'll likely go back in to add some more. The front doors are noticeably heavier, they shut with a little more authority, and knocking on the door sounds drastically less hollow. Have yet to drive highway/freeway speed yet, but will have the chance tomorrow. Plan to do the spare wheel area with the material I have left since it's easy to get to and apply. Only used about half of what I bought (18sq ft). I also bought a roller cause no way in hell I was just going to use my hands to press it all down.

Hood Struts

At the time of posting, I'm still waiting for these to arrive. Estimated another few weeks at least, but will update this post after I install them. I don't mind the prop rod, but I wanted something for the sake of convenience, and I hope these will work well enough. I didn't really look into them at all, so if they're shit, oh well.

Interior Organization // Pics

Just some small stuff here and there to make some of the space more usable/organized. Was also considering getting the little organizer thing that sits on the dash behind the screen.

• Glovebox
• Armrest
• Center Console

I think that pretty much covers everything. There's still a lot I want to do/get, but in due time. As I said, I hope this post helps inspire some creativity and interest regarding mods for your own vehicle(s)! I'm sure there's some stuff I left out, so feel free to ask me about anything or give your thoughts/input. I'm also more than happy to talk about the lifestyle I have that I use my RAV4 for if you have some similar interests (snowboarding, biking, camping, etc). This sub and youtube have been such a big part of my new passion for throwing money at my car, and I'm going to keep doing it since I plan on keeping it for a really long time haha.

IQOO Neo 8 Pro Price In India

iQOO Neo 8 Pro price in India is expected to be ₹38,790. iQOO Neo 8 Pro launch date is speculated to be on November 16, 2023. The mobile will be available in multiple color variants.

IQOO Neo 8 Pro Details

Design, Display, and Security
The iQOO Neo 8 Pro has a high-end design aesthetic, which increases its attractiveness. Glass lends the device's camera module bump its elegant and upscale appearance. The gradient finish on the back panel improves the aesthetic overall. The phone has a punch-hole cutout on the front panel where the selfie camera is located. The iQOO Neo 8 Pro is offered in a variety of colours, giving customers a variety of alternatives in this price range. The smartphone has a large 6.78-inch screen for its display. The AMOLED display screen makes sure that pictures and movies are seen with vivid colours and deep blacks.
The gadget also has a fast screen refresh rate, which makes it perfect for gaming and web browsing. Additionally, the display has a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels and a pixel density of 388ppi, which makes sure that the pictures are crisp and sharp. The 20:9 aspect ratio of the phone also offers an immersive viewing experience. Additionally, the iQOO Neo 8 Pro provides a face unlock function and an in-display fingerprint sensor, giving consumers several choices for safeguarding their devices.
Performance, Camera, and UI
A MediaTek Dimensity 9200 Plus octa-core CPU powers the newest smartphone from iQOO. The Cortex X3, Cortex A715, and Cortex A510 processors of the chipset have a maximum clock speed of 3.05GHz. In addition, the chipset has the Immortalis-G715 MC11 GPU, which can handle demanding graphics and gaming. 256GB of internal storage and 12GB of RAM are included with the iQOO Neo 8 Pro. With this model, the firm has not provided the possibility to increase storage. In terms of cameras, the back panel has a triple camera configuration. The device has three lenses: a 50MP ultra-wide-angle lens, a 32MP telephoto lens, and a 50MP main sensor with an f/1.79 aperture.
The iQOO gadget is equipped with the most recent FunTouch OS 12 version and runs Android 13 as its operating system.
Battery and Connectivity
A 5,000mAh battery is available in the iQOO Neo 8 Pro. Additionally, the phone supports 120W fast charging, which is a welcome bonus. You have access to 5G, dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS with GLONASS, dual-SIM, and a USB Type-C connector in terms of connection.
The Latest IQOO Neo 8 Pro
Launched with a MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ SoC, the iQOO Neo 8 Pro includes the Neo 8's price and specifications.
Multiple storage choices are available with the Chinese debut of the iQOO Neo 8 series. Up to 16GB of RAM will be offered with the Neo 8 series.
The 5,000mAh battery of the iQOO Neo 8 Series is confirmed to support 120W fast charging.
According to the brand, the iQOO Neo 8 series will have 120W rapid charging. On May 23, the smartphones are anticipated to go on sale in China.
The Sony IMX866V camera sensor, 16GB LPDDR5X RAM, and UFS 4.0 storage are confirmed to be included in the iQOO Neo 8 Series.
China will introduce the iQOO Neo 8 series later this month. The firm has teased some of the most important phone specifications ahead of the launch.

IQOO Neo 8 Pro Specifications

SUMMARY

Processor Chipset MediaTek Dimensity 9200 Plus MT6983
RAM 16 GB
Rear Camera Dual (50MP + 8MP)
Internal Memory 256 GB
Screen Size 6.78 inches (17.22 cms)
Battery Capacity 5000 mAh

PERFORMANCE

Chipset MediaTek Dimensity 9200 Plus MT6983
No Of Cores 8 (Octa Core)
CPU 3.35GHz, Single core, Cortex X33GHz, Tri core, Cortex A7152GHz, Quad core, Cortex A510
Architecture 64-bit
Fabrication 4 nm
RAM 16 GB
RAM Type LPDDR5X
Graphics Immortalis-G715 MC11

DESIGN

Height 6.48 inches (164.7 mm)
Width 3.03 inches (77 mm)
Thickness 0.33 inches (8.5 mm)
Weight 192.3 grams
Colors Surf, Match Point, Night Rock
Screen Unlock Fingerprint, Face unlock

DISPLAY

Resolution 1260 x 2800 pixels
Aspect ratio 20:9
Display Type AMOLED, HDR 10+
Size 6.78 inches (17.22 cms)
Bezel-less display Yes, with Punch-hole
Pixel Density 453 pixels per inch (ppi)
TouchScreen Yes, Capacitive, Multi-touch
Color Reproduction 1B Colors
Screen to body percentage 87.51 %

CAMERA

Rear camera setup Dual
Rear camera(Primary) 50 MP resolutionWide Angle lensf/1.88 aperture1.49" sensor size1µm pixel size
Rear camera(Secondary) 8 MP resolutionUltra-Wide Angle lensf/2.2 aperture
Front camera setup Single
Front camera(Primary) 16 MP resolutionWide Angle lensf/2.45 aperture
Sensor Exmor-RS CMOS Sensor
Flash LED Rear flash
Digital zoom 20x
Video Resolution(Rear) 7680x4320 @ 30 fps3840x2160 @ 60 fps1920x1080 @ 60 fps
Video Resolution(Front) 1920x1080 @ 30 fps
Optical Image Stabilization(OIS) Yes
Camera Features Auto FlashAuto FocusFace detectionTouch to focus
Shooting Modes Continuous ShootingHigh Dynamic Range mode (HDR)

BATTERY

Type Li-Polymer
Capacity 5000 mAh
Removable No
Fast Charging Yes, Flash, 120W
Charging speed 50 % in 9 minutes (claimed by Brand)

STORAGE

Internal Memory 256 GB
Memory type UFS 4.0
Expandable Memory No

SOFTWARE

Operating System Android v13
Custom UI Origin OS

CONNECTIVITY

SIM Configuration Dual SIMSIM1: NanoSIM2: Nano
Network SIM1: 5G, 4GSIM2: 5G, 4G
SIM1 Bands5G: FDD N1 / N3 / N5 / N8 / N28 ; TDD N38 / N40 / N41 / N77 / N78
4G: TD-LTE 2600(band 38) / 2300(band 40) / 2500(band 41) / 2100(band 34) / 1900(band 39) ; FD-LTE 2100(band 1) / 1800(band 3) / 2600(band 7) / 900(band 8) / 700(band 28) / 1900(band 2) / 1700(band 4) / 850(band 5) / 850(band 19)
SIM2 Bands5G: FDD N1 / N3 / N5 / N8 / N28 ; TDD N38 / N40 / N41 / N77 / N78
4G: TD-LTE 2600(band 38) / 2300(band 40) / 2500(band 41) / 2100(band 34) / 1900(band 39) ; FD-LTE 2100(band 1) / 1800(band 3) / 2600(band 7) / 900(band 8) / 700(band 28) / 1900(band 2) / 1700(band 4) / 850(band 5) / 850(band 19)
Voice over LTE(VoLTE) Yes
Wi-Fi Yes, with a/ac/ax/b/g/n/n 5GHz
Wi-fi features Mobile Hotspot
Bluetooth Bluetooth v5.3
USB USB Type-C, Mass storage device, USB charging, USB On-The-Go
USB OTG Support Yes
GPS Yes with A-GPS, Glonass
NFC Chipset Yes
Infrared Yes

SOUND

Speaker Yes
Audio Jack Yes, USB Type-C
Video Player Yes, Video Formats: MP4

SENSORS

Fingerprint sensor Yes, On-screen
Face Unlock Yes
Other Sensor Light sensor Proximity sensor Accelerometer Compass Gyroscope

Just a heads up, I have been out of the PC parts world for a while so I'm not 100% sure if my expectations are realistic.
Looking for input on this list.
in the US but no microcenters or pc stores local. (aside from bestbuy) expecting to purchase through newegg/amazon/etc
Primary use: gaming
expecting: 60+fps @ 1080 (not expecting to run anything on high)
games: WOW, COD, MOBAs
pc size: no preference
OS: needed, windows
accessories: keyboard/mouse can get local.
GPU is provided, Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1080 OC edition
Overclocking: not really, unless it can help stretch a budget.
​
Below is the pcpart picker list. Please course correct as needed.
https://pcpartpicker.com/usesidewayzsocks/saved/gVPyK8
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor $130.18
Motherboard: Asus Prime B450M-A II Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard $79.99
Memory: Silicon Power GAMING 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory $29.97
Storage: Kingston NV2 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive $49.87
Case: Deepcool MACUBE 110 MicroATX Mini Tower Case $49.99
Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt 550 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply $79.99
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Home OEM - DVD 64-bit $117.98
Monitor: Asus VG278Q 27.0" 1920 x 1080 144 Hz Monitor $159.99
Total: $697.96

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

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

All Buyouts are listed in cash value.

KNIVES

★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $2500

★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $822

★ Butterfly Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $616

⎯

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $1300

★ Bayonet Autotronic FN, B/O: $1050

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW, B/O: $629

★ Bayonet Bright Water FT, B/O: $326

★ Bayonet Safari Mesh BS, B/O: $233

⎯

★ Karambit Lore FT, B/O: $1110

★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $840

★ Karambit Freehand MW, B/O: $784

★ Karambit Bright Water MW, B/O: $759

⎯

★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801

★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801

★ M9 Bayonet Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $751

⎯

★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1156

★ Nomad Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $544

★ Nomad Knife Blue Steel WW, B/O: $318

⎯

★ Flip Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $646

★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $574

★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $552

★ Flip Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $257

★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $255

★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $287

⎯

★ Huntsman Knife Lore FN, B/O: $461

★ Huntsman Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $436

★ Huntsman Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $353

★ Huntsman Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $212

★ Huntsman Knife Bright Water FT, B/O: $129

★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT MW, B/O: $129

★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT BS, B/O: $123

★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $127

⎯

★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $375

★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $363

★ Bowie Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $269

★ Bowie Knife Crimson Web WW, B/O: $192

★ Bowie Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $159

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $126

⎯

★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $616

★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $412

★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe FT, B/O: $227

⎯

★ Falchion Knife Lore FT, B/O: $214

★ Falchion Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $192

★ Falchion Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $105

⎯

★ Survival Knife Crimson Web BS, B/O: $216

★ Survival Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $198

★ Survival Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $111

⎯

★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $368

★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $228

★ Shadow Daggers, B/O: $201

★ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $108

★ Shadow Daggers Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $105

★ Shadow Daggers Black Laminate FT, B/O: $99

★ Shadow Daggers Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $85

⎯

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $1700

★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $223

★ Gut Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $203

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $191

★ Gut Knife Case Hardened BS, B/O: $127

⎯

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199

★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $138

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $111

⎯

★ Classic Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $146

★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $168

⎯

★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $476

★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $375

⎯

★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $1137

★ Talon Knife, B/O: $608

★ Paracord Knife, B/O: $305

★ Survival Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97

GLOVES

★ Moto Gloves Transport MW, B/O: $204

★ Moto Gloves Polygon BS, B/O: $142

★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84

★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84

★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63

★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63

⎯

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Kimono WW, B/O: $1215

★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike FT, B/O: $672

★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander FT, B/O: $305

★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander BS, B/O: $140

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web BS, B/O: $137

★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot FT, B/O: $75

⎯

★ Driver Gloves Crimson Weave FT, B/O: $359

★ Driver Gloves Imperial Plaid BS, B/O: $229

★ Driver Gloves Overtake BS, B/O: $77

★ Driver Gloves Racing Green FT, B/O: $48

⎯

★ Sport Gloves Omega FT, B/O: $739

★ Sport Gloves Amphibious BS #2, B/O: $733

★ Sport Gloves Arid BS, B/O: $292

⎯

★ Hand Wraps Giraffe MW, B/O: $212

★ Hand Wraps Leather FT, B/O: $160

★ Hand Wraps Desert Shamagh MW, B/O: $101

⎯

★ Broken Fang Gloves Yellow-banded MW, B/O: $185

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point FT, B/O: $67

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point WW, B/O: $59

⎯

★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened BS, B/O: $65

★ Hydra Gloves Emerald FT, B/O: $65

★ Hydra Gloves Emerald BS, B/O: $62

WEAPONS

AK-47 Case Hardened BS, B/O: $130

AK-47 Bloodsport MW, B/O: $79

AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76

AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76

AK-47 Bloodsport FT, B/O: $70

AK-47 Neon Rider MW, B/O: $60

StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge FT, B/O: $72

⎯

AWP Fade FN, B/O: $1039

AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139

AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139

AWP Wildfire MW, B/O: $95

AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93

AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93

AWP Duality FN, B/O: $81

AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79

AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79

AWP Chromatic Aberration FN, B/O: $60

StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68

StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68

StatTrak™ AWP Electric Hive FT, B/O: $55

⎯

Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $623

Desert Eagle Emerald Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $241

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Printstream FT, B/O: $54

⎯

M4A1-S Blue Phosphor FN, B/O: $434

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Bright Water MW, B/O: $55

⎯

M4A4 Poseidon FN, B/O: $1465

M4A4 Asiimov BS, B/O: $55

M4A4 Hellfire MW, B/O: $50

⎯

USP-S Kill Confirmed MW, B/O: $72

USP-S Printstream FT, B/O: $69

StatTrak™ USP-S Kill Confirmed FT, B/O: $139

⎯

AUG Flame Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $234

P90 Run and Hide FT, B/O: $147

Five-SeveN Candy Apple FN, B/O: $61

Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory

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

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

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Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20080104105659/http://www.goddess-project.net/index.php?pid=52
I am not the original creator. Posted on the old GoddessProject fansite
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Sora Unchained Examined to Unconsciable levels.
Part one of an as yet unknown number of posts listing assorted triva, observations, and other neat stuff from the Sora Unchained arc. I've been going back over my old posts on this series and collecting whatever I'd said about the stories while waiting for others to get their copies. Now I'm going to post them in chapter order along with whatever else I might have on that chapter. If anyone else wants to contribute, feel free. Afterwards I'm going to consolidate these posts into one article and post it for general information. If this works out well maybe I'll go back and do this for some of the other arcs.
Sora Unchained arc - Dark Horse Trade Paperback number 19/20 Issued Jan. 2005, To be Reissued Feb. 2012 Kodansha Tankouban Vol. 19 and 20
Part 1 - I Choose You, Sora. Dark Horse issue 105, Feb. 2004 release Let's Decide The New Chief Kodansha chapt. 119, July 1998 release Tankouban Vol. 19
Sora Hasegawa, closet debutant.
The cover illustration shows Sora wearing a "Lolita, Clash, Lolita Lempic... , Paris" shirt. While I'm still looking for details (My daughter seems to recall a punk/SKA group called Lolita Clash) it seems more likely this is a reference to a fancy french perfume label "Lolita Lempicka". It seems to be a fairly high end brand of fragrences with VERY fancy bottles. Further information is desired.
The idea of cheating when drawing lots is a common theme in manga and anime. It's been pointed out on other sites that Tamiya and Otaki are shown setting up poor clueless Keiichi to win the drawing for who gets to be the driver in the OAV's motorcycle contest, and cheating on such selection processes has been used in story plots in Sailormoon and Maison Ikkoku.
There are several ways this supposedly random drawing can be rigged, mostly by whoever sets up the lots in the first place. Hence the comments by the club members about irregularities by Sora's promoters and Keiichi's comeback line of "is this the face of a cheater?!" (Belldandy wouldn't cheat if life itself depended on it. She'd just be sure the right decision would come about.)
The untranslated names of the club members on the bottom of the Choosing Maze are Mitsuwa, Ishii, Hasegawa, Chikafuji, and Kawada. Exactly which name goes with which member other than Sora hasn't been firmly established, but I believe the one with the mustach is Kawada (kon) Suzuki (dou) and the large gentleman is Watanabe (based on wild speculation using information from the Hill Climb Motorcycle and Singing Contest stories). Exactly how this maze game works to select someone is something I'd love to learn, anyone know?
(Addendum - see next post)
Part 2 - The Shortcut To Winning. Dark Horse issue 106, Mar. 2004 release The Way Of Competition Kodansha chapt. 120, Aug. 1998 release Tankouban Vol. 19
The Racing Board shown is a real item. I found an advertisment and website for a Tanaka Paveracer, 40cc power cart that looks remarkably like the ones in the story.
The little creature Belldandy is using is called an Airbug Spiralee. It will be appearing in later chapters. Why Dark Horse felt the need to put an "and" in the name here is unknown.
A most important developement in this story is how a running theme that has existed throughout the series is made absolutely clear here. It wasn't really obvious at first, but a character trait BOTH Belldandy and Keiichi share is that they are gung-ho competitors and nothing makes them happier than squaring off against a new opponent. In the past, their pleasure in such competitions has been clouded by outside circumstances or unhappy results if they lose, but both Bell and Keiichi love a pure challenge they can devote themselves to totally. (This is first mentioned by Bell in the Anime Otoku story.)
This wasn't very clearly shown earlier in the manga, and many stories even made it seem as if Belldandy was rather timid about taking risks. (I know I thought that at first, and from the older posts on the subject I wasn't the only one.) That's why her occasional outbursts of excessive force or effort seemed so out of character. Actually, she's an all or nothing sort of competitor, who is just very choosy about what she decides to get involved in. Normally she tries not to upset things or push herself into situations, but when she decides to go for it (or she feels she's forced to), look out! This aspect of Bell's personality will become more noticable in the manga stories from here on, and if you go back and review the older stories I think you'll see what I mean.
Part 3 - The Director's Curse. Dark Horse issue 107, April 2004 release The Cursed Chief Kodansha chapt. 121, Sept. 1998 release Tankouban Vol. 19
If you didn't notice, Sora is still steering the racing board while riding tandem with Belldandy.
Belldandy HAS driven a go-cart before. She learned by copying Diana Lockheed's moves while racing her back in Winner Take All. However, this race WAS before Chihiro and the other current club members had joined the story.
This is also one of the story arcs where her competitive nature starts showing. (Observe her efforts to win in the races, fight off the sleep demon, and how she can ignore K-1's behavior without embarassment in order to get back on track.)
And for those of you following the TV anime, the next part of the arc (What A Miracle) is where we first see Tamiya in his cheerleader outfit.
It's interesting how Sora never questions just how Belldandy has such an accurate inventory of the interesting wildlife in the area in her head. (Especially as the animals in question would be in motion and not likely to be in the same places day after day. Well maybe the owl would, but otherwise how could a normal person know all those detail with such certainty?) Of course it is Bell saying it, and Sora was distracted.
Still its fun noticing how people just accept what Belldandy tells them without worrying about how she might know such things. (P. S. The Japanese text is just slightly less specific as to the racoons and owls locations, but more specific as to where the starlings are.)
Part 4 - Special Training Dark Horse issue 108, May 2004 release Crash Course Continues Kodansha chapt. 122, Oct. 1998 release Tankouban Vol. 19
The most fascinating aspect of this story is that it shows a 180 turnabout on the part of Bell's sisters. Skuld is going off on a rant about how Belldandy and Keiichi should always be together (at least as far as racing's concerned) , while Urd is saying (at least publically) that it's okay for them to do things apart.
We also haven't seen Skuld do the "PBTTT!" bit for awhile.
I try to not take sides in translation conflicts. I cannot speak or read any Japanese so I don't feel qualified to judge who's version is correct. (I do feel qualified to compare different versions however.) In this story however there are two places where the Dark Horse and independent translations differ in ways that I felt should be pointed out.
In the Japanese version, Keiichi is commenting on how Skuld and Urd are such sisters rather than Belldandy and Skuld.
More importantly, there's a joke in the sequence where the club members are preparing for Sora's next attempt to drive through them that Dark Horse left out. In the panel where the club member in the bandana is standing in front of the really large member, in the English version the smaller member is thinking, "Am I fast enough to dive for cover?" The Japanese version goes more like, "If I have to, I'll hide behind him... " That's what the arrow that Dark Horse left between them is refering to, and if they decided to remove the joke they should have removed the arrow.
Part 5 - Drive Dark Horse issue 109, June 2004 release Everybody Races Kodansha chapt. 123, Nov. 1998 release Tankouban Vol. 19
Not much trivia to report in this story.
The biggest discussion point here is how Dark Horse reinterpreted Keiichi's comments while he's practicing with Sora and what he and Belldandy say to each other that night in the temple garden. The Japanese text doesn't have him actually challanging Sora to follow him or making statements to Belldandy later that he thought he might have been considered as helping Sora. However, the drawings do seem to be depicting him doing just that, so in this case I think the Dark Horse/Studio Proteus version is closer to what Mr. Fujishima intended.
Part 6 - Miles and Miles Dark Horse issue 110, July 2004 release Keiichi's Distance, Hasegawa's Distance Kodansha chapt. 124, Dec. 1998 release Tankouban Vol. 20
Those stamps Tamiya, Otaki, and later Chihiro, are using at their check points are their signature stamps. The letters printed by them are their names.
Keiichi DOES have a Check Point list, his senpais are just choosing to stamp his face to aggravate him.
As a bit of speculation on my part, I'm sure you've noticed how Tamiya and Otaki put on hapi coats with the Whirlwind logos on them after they've stamped both Keiichi and Sora (so Sora and K-1 won't see them wearing them). Such coats are a form of advertising used by shops and worn by people employed by the shop to do things in public places. One of these things is handing out flyers and brochures at special events, which is what I think Chihiro is having them do for her after the racers have passed. More on this in the last story.
Part 7 - The Race Gets Hot, A Goddess Gets Hotter! Dark Horse issue 111, Aug. 2004 release The Race Begins! Goddess Acts Too! Kodansha chapt. 125, Jan. 1999 release Kodansha chapt. 126, Feb. 1999 release Tankouban Vol. 20
One can only wonder how Keiichi heard them tell Sora she might have to pay a toll.
As has been pointed out by many sources, the poster next to the locker room door for the sea slug society is the same poster found on the bulletin board next to the NIT-MCC recruiting poster put up by Keiichi in the movie. I believe this is the first example of a movie reference in the manga.
Urd and Skuld's assistance to Keiichi is interesting for a number of points, not the least of which is that it shows Skuld as probably being able to teleport and levitate the same as Urd. (She seems to have gotten there on her own, and later disappears behind her smoke cloud cover. It doesn't seem like she just ran away and does wind up in the tree with Urd. Now Urd may have been providing transport for both of them, but judging from their conversation I can't see them cooperating to that degree.
They both seem to feel they have a duty to help Keiichi, like he was family. Or to score points with Belldandy. Either way, Keiichi is now an insider in their world view.
The Freaky Potion - Stupid New Machine rivalry is finally firmly established.
Urd establishes the use of a kiss (first seen in the movie) as a method of passing on a spell to someone.
The car next to Belldandy in the parking lot where she's waiting for the race to end is a Caterham Super 7, the same car driven by Sena Wakabayyashi, Ken Nakajima's stepmother in You're Under Arrest. This is the first guest crossover between the two series that I'm aware of.
The conversation between Belldandy and the club members actual marks the end of Kodansha's chapter 125. Chapter 126 starts with the aftermath of Urd's kiss and Skuld's indignation at it. Chapter 126 is then split between Dark Horse issue 111 and 112.
For those (very) few readers who didn't get it, Keiichi is making steam train sounds (chuffa-chuffa! Whoo-woo!)
The trash stalls Keiichi lands in (marked flammable and non-flammable) is a recyling station. Wood and paper goes in the flammable side, plastics and metals are in the non-flammable side. Keiichi crashed in the side with the harder, sharper objects.
911 is not an emergency number in Japan. What Sora is refering to in the Japanese text are emergency procedure numbers in the community disaster response handbook. (There are guideline procedures for fires, floods, earthquakes, car crashes, injuries, heart attacks, etc.)
When Keiichi drives off the ledge and crashes into the recycling bin, he's saved from serious injury by Holy Bell spinning an air cushion for him to land on. But why was she there to save him in the first place? Belldandy is at the finish line in the parking lot, talking to the other club members and waiting for the race to finish, and Holy Bell should be with her. Unless . . .
Maybe Belldandy had already split off a copy of herself at the start of the race and had been keeping an eye on Keiichi, just in case. (The rules of competition are sacred, but she also has a prior commitment to take care of Keiichi.) Which is why she was in a position to dispatch Holy Bell just in time to save him. And also how she knew instantly that Urd had put a spell on Keiichi.
Which would mean she might also have known about Urd kissing Keiichi, but had dismissed it as just the method Urd used to get the spell into him. (So it was probably a good thing K-1 didn't finish saying "incredible kiss". Bell might have reconsidered just how harmless it was and gotten a little jealous.)
As an additional observation, I don't think that angels can be multipled, only the goddesses. As a seperate entity the angel would need to copied seperately and giving each mini-goddess their own angel would be just a bit too much power out there. Rather, I think its more likely that the angel can manifest itself through any one of the copies as needed. Thus, if mini-Bell needs Holy Bell to save Keiichi, she can summon her, but then Bell back at the parking lot cannot while mini-Bell is using her at the recycling center.
Part 8 - The Best Magic Dark Horse issue 112, Sept. 2004 release Aberrant Kiss The Strongest Magic Kodansha chapt. 126, Feb. 1999 release Kodansha chapt. 127, Mar. 1999 release Tankouban Vol. 20
Dark Horse issue 112 contains both Kodansha chapter 126 and 127 Chapter 126 is split between Dark Horse issue 111 and 112. Chapter 126 ends after Belldandy leaves Keiichi to fix his racing board and continue the race.
It was fitting that Dark Horse would celebrate its long established habit of recombining Kodansha manga chapters with its last two comic book issue releases.
When Belldandy and Holy Bell leave Keiichi after he wakes up, they transport themselves through a piece of chromed metal (a mirrored surface).
So Keiichi re-invents the motorized skate board with just the items in his pockets. Now that's a mechanic! I wonder if Mr. Fujishima wanted a chance to do a skateboard montage without making it look like that was what he wanted to do.
It's interesting to note that since the sign says "NO BIKES OR CYCLES" Keiichi is not actually breaking any rules since what he's riding doesn't fit either of those catagories.
As is revealed at the end of this story, a hidden sub-plot of this arc was how mercantile Chihiro can be. Her plot to use the Motor Club's race as an advertising stunt to sell the racing boards is foreshadowed by the scene in the first part of the story where we see how fast Chihiro can put on her "Salesperson Face" and Keiichi's comments on how she can "Turn It On." Later there are hints that she's doing something on her own behind the scenes, then we see she's got Tamiya and Otaki in Whirlwind coats at the check points, but doesn't want Keiichi or Sora to see the coats. Finally, at the end we discover they've been handing out sales brochures, that the race had been advertised as a sales stunt, and that Chihiro has already made a sign exploiting Keiichi's emergency conversion to a motorized skateboard as a sales feature.
This doesn't mean she wasn't honestly trying to help Sora and the NIT-MCC resolve their leadership crisis. It's quite obvious she was. It's just that its also being shown that she's not above using this as an opportunity to further her own mercantile efforts as well.
Kurthy133 Question and Answer
Tim, since you had some speculations about the cover illustration involving Sora's shirt in Part One of the Sora Unchained arc, I was wondering if you had any ideas about Bell's shirt in the cover illustartion of Part Two (39 hat and all.) It is much harder to read, but I figured that if anyone might know, it would be you!
While there might be some significance to the 39, I'm not aware of any. In general what she's wearing seems to be a fairly typical example of race crew wear.
In almost any motorized vehicle race (and many others as well) in Japan where there's enough money available for such things, the support team for a racer is dressed in similar, stylized, color coordinated, semi-casual clothes, often with the name of the sport, the racer's name or number, and the event or team's sponsers on them. (This is common for most professional sports around the world.)
What Belldandy is wearing seems pretty close to what other manga and anime characters I've seen wear at such events (including in the earlier AMG manga and OAV stories.) The board is a lap board where the driver's time is recorded for each lap and held up so the drivers can see how they're doing, Whatever that logo on the shoes is, it's probably a parody of some real sneaker label. And the visible lettering on her sleeve starts with a "G" and ends with "RT", the rest being to my eyes unreadable. While in no way defendable, I'd guess it reads "Go-Cart".
Now, did you notice that Belldandy seems to be wearing the same shirt while sitting on the motorcycle two stories later? The printing on the sleeve is either missing or not visible, but the shirt back has what appears to be "Team Hasagawa" printed on it.

The fuel needle on my '97 C1500 has started to "jump" for lack of a better word when I apply the brakes or accelerate. This is a new development, but my shop says all Chevys do that. I have had the truck since 1997, and it did not do this before.
Any ideas on what it could be?
Also, any idea where I could get the retaining clips for the interior door panels to the door? Had to have the window regulator changed on one door, and a lock replaced on the other and now the panels rattle because the clips (or whatever they are actually called) broke and there are not enough of them still working.
Thanks

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Small Story Rant: Hi I rarely ever get callbacks after applying to jobs of anykind. Recently though through a friend i got a painting job for $22/H they never asked for a resume and i think i am the lowest paid worker they have, (i think their minimum is $23.5) but i was pretty deperate for a job so i took it. They already increased my pay by $1 (it was $21), the company also does pay under average, anyways its spring/summer and because of that I thnk I have alot of leverage in my market, as the hot season for painting is during the summer, I want to be paid above average a bit at $27/h and in the past have been up up to 30/h or nightshift for 40/h in my field.
My resume: My current template goes like this
Objective: Seeking a position that will allow me to have strong communication skills, work ethic, and ability to work well in a team to contribute to company success.
Skills:

1. Communications: Excellent presentation skills, written and verbal
2. Solid Time Management
3. Bilingual (Spanish)
4. Fast Learner
5. Hard Worker
6. Creative and Adaptive (Problem Solver)
7. Teamplaye Leader

Experience:
2015-2020 Commercial painting
I was around 15ish when i started as an apprentice and I was employed by alot of different companies during this time some as little as 2 week (i think as a subcontactor) but it was pretty independent work but my summary is:
Consisted of Manual Labor, Moving Equipment and supplies, Cleaning sites, Taping, Scraping, Sanding, Painting, and Varnish in a predominantly Outdoor environment consisting of Fences, Decks, Doors, Trim, and Stucco painting (using a Paint sprayer)
Then I decided to work for 1 company for a year because i realized i couldn put the above on a resume properly
Painting Company 2019-2020
Interior painting (idk what else to but that was really all i did and i added the other things i did to my previous)
I got tired of painting after like my 18th bday and was really depressed cuz of covid and stuff and took a long haitus and decided i wanted to try other industries so my next job was
Job at healthcare facility as servehousekeeper october-may
Worked isolated and independently; preparing and Serving food, Setting tables, Sweeping, Dishwashing, and Housekeeping.
But recently ive been self employed a bit trying differnt industries ( i was an apprentice for this in one of my other jobs but never added it)
Self employed wallpapering @ differnt places (i have them named but dont feel comfortable sharing)
Feb-September 2022
Worked in a pair to create beautifully wallpapered rooms
Volounteer
2 Places 2018-2019
Availability
ALL WEEK ALL DAY (Can do nightshift)
Education
Highschool
Refrences
Available upon request
I have no refrences noone has ever asked and i never added them because i dont keep track of numbers and have noone to vouch for me im also super uncomfortable adding them tbh (not cuz im a bad worker i just have a bad upbringing and get anxiety when people ask about me or my life)
and thats it I havent added my current company though
I have about 7 years of experience in Painting
1.5 Years in Wallpapering
and i was an apprentice last summer for Tiling and flooring for like 3 months (just tiles tbh but on the floor) I didnt add it though ebcause i felt it was useless to add since no job would hire me as a tiler with a 3 month apprentership so never added it
During covid though i was fired twice but only during trainings and never added it to my resume (I was extremely depressed and it was a struggle getting out of bed and it was really hard to motivate myself to go do mundane tasks for 8 hourrs and bus for an hour or 2 for a few bucks)
​
I also need a resume template because my resume is white and red and i dont think its a good template but i would prefer one that would somehow highlight my more relvent experience and not go mumbo jumbo everywhere :/ I just want one so i can see if i can get a higher paying job and just switch but also recently tried starting a business (that is currently burning to the ground and taking me with it) so i also want to work less hours but thats negotiable tbh working about 70-88/h (mostly 88) biweekly worked 100 one time though and usually work 10H/Day cuz i want to have friday sat sun off.
Also im in Canada if that helps cuz the flare asked for location but i have a question or something i guess
​
tldr: need resume template and help formatting//

Candorick woke to the sounds of shells blasting above the underground barracks. The sounds had sent shutters throughout the massive room, knocking over anything that wasn’t bolted to the cold steel floor, from lasguns to prayer books, and even a few soldiers who slept too far on the edge of the bed. He stared across the room to the clock that now hung slightly crooked. It was about time to wake up anyways. He swung his legs around planting them on the floor. He then reached his arm around to the bed above him.
“Merok” he said, tapping his bunkmate's shoulder, “Time to wake up”.
“Five more minutes…” Merok groaned.
“Well I’m looking at the clock and you don’t have time to get your ‘five more minutes’ and not make the commissar angry” Candorick replied, now lightly shoving him to wake up.
“Fine, fine. I’ll get up, because apparently getting some karking sleep on this planet is illegal'' Merok replied begrudgingly.
Candorick threw Merok’s boots up top, their weight requiring both hands to lift them up, then promptly putting his clothes on and fully getting out of bed, meanwhile Merok was still fumbling around, trying to get his shirt on.
The entire barracks was awake by now, and the regular hustle and bustle of the base hummed to life.
As he walked along his route to exit the base for his post on the inner walls, he heard an announcement from the shoddy intercom system, “Will Corporal Candorick Lyels please report to Commander Lorals office immediately?”.
As soon as that information came on the intercom, a sense of immense fear ran through his spine. Candorick had heard stories of soldiers sent to a higher ups office only to come out in a body bag, and he did not want to be one of them. Even then, it was to go to his office or not go to his office and be executed on the spot, and maybe being killed by a commander would net him more fame in death.
So he walked towards the Commander's office, fear engulfing his body. As he saw the door, Merok sprinted towards him.
“CANDORICK! CANDORICK!” he shouted. “I ran here as soon as I heard the announcement!” “Are you sure you want to go in there? You know that people like us rarely come out of there alive right?”
“You and I both know I have no choice. So I’ll take my chances…” Candorick said as he opened the door to the commander's office.
Inside the well lit room, three people stood, one was of course, commander Lorals, behind him stood his faithful commissar. But another man who he had never seen before was also there. He wore gilded clothes, and was full of cybernetic implants, not enough to look like a Mechanicus upon close inspection, but from a distance it could appear so. Looking at them it appeared that most of these implants were there mainly to extend his lifespan. He clearly had wealth and lavished in the luxuries he had been given.
The rich man, looking at Candorick with a face of disgust, said, pompously, “Is this really my escort? He looks like he couldn’t even kill a single heretic.”
Commander Lorals replied in a calm tone, “He is actually one of our best soldiers. Before being assigned to defend this base, he racked up a kill count in the hundreds''.
“Well, he certainly doesn’t look the part, '' the rich man whispered under his breath.
The commander then turned to Candorick. “We have a new mission for you. This is Sir Retir Kurople and he wants to get off this planet. He is quite an old fellow and fears he might be in danger for assassination on his trip off Cadia, so he requested help from the guard, and since he is a frequent donator and owns the manufacturing company that produced the gun slung around your shoulder right now, we felt obliged to fulfill his request. You have been assigned his caretaker, and I trust that you will take care of him on his journey off Cadia.”
“Wait, does that mean I’m coming with him off planet?” Candorick replied in a panicked state.
“Yes, yes it does” the rich man says in a superior tone.
“Quite down! I am the one giving the orders!” The commander said as he pushed the rich man aside.
“You can’t be doing this to me! We’ve been holding off the heretics for four approaching five years now, and I have diligently been serving every step of the way. And now you want to send me off just as we…” Candorick trails off as he sees the commissar grip his hand across his laspistol.
“I am doing this to you, and you will do it, whether you like it or not.” the commander replies, “Let’s not keep the man waiting for us to be overrun, he requested we leave as soon as we could, and you can leave right now, right?”.
“Yes, sir” Candorick replies begrudgingly as he salutes the commander.
He walks out the door, and sees Merok still waiting outside his door, he is clearly on the verge of tears on the bench beside the office.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at your post?” Candorick says.
“You're alive!” Merok replies, relieved, he runs up to hug him.
“They’re sending me off-world to escort a noble to a new home” Candorick says, depressingly.
“I’ll take that my friend, I’ll take that” Merok says, tightening his hug on Candorick.
“At least I don’t have to mourn you.” Merok responds, still acting relieved of his friend's continual existence.
“I might never be able to see you again. And to think after all these years, I was JUST starting to stand you” Candorick says, chuckling. They share a laugh, and one final goodbye, as they part ways in the poorly lit hallway Merok yells out.
“You think I’ll ever see you again Candorick?”
“Hopefully, my friend. Hopefully”
The rich man then promptly exits the office, clapping his hands, then saying “let’s move brute.”
“I am not a brute” Candorick says back, angrily.
“You are as long as you choose to follow your orders. And surely you’ll follow orders…” the rich man turns his head towards Candorick, inquisitively. “Now let’s move.”
Candorick slings his lasgun across his shoulder as he speedwalks to catch up to the man, who clearly is in a rush to get out of this place.
The trip was rather uneventful. Obviously, the evacuation ships were a reasonable distance from the frontline, as to minimize civilian casualties from heretic bombardment. But a fair distance from any frontline was pretty hard to find since the beginning of the siege, and even once the ship came into sight, the screams of guardsmen and heretics could still be heard all around him.
To Candorick, the screams were nothing, it was nothing extremely special, the sounds of war had been tuned out in his mind. Those who let the sounds dig under their skin were normally the ones to go first. However, the rich man seemed more affected by it, he looked almost sick.
A line as long as the eye could see sat at the entrance to the ship. The line consisted mostly of the elderly and the young children, all looking malnourished and wearing ragged clothes. Everyone else had been drafted into the fighting. The sounds of babies crying and even some of the elderly crying echoed throughout the docking bay, and it was clear a sad aroma wafted itself throughout the dark metal building.
“Final call for epsilon class passengers. All epsilon class passengers please report to the gate for priority entry onto passenger ship 9-8-B Alpha.” A PA system echoed throughout the room.
“Oh that’s me! Candorick, will you please escort me through these peasants blocking my way?” The rich man said, ushering Candorick in front of him.
“Understood.” Candorick said begrudgingly, shoving his way through the crowd as the rich man waddled behind him.
As Candorick shoves the massive crowd, he hears an argument happening ahead. An older couple stood at the gate, arguing with the soldier checking the passengers' information.
“You can’t do this!” The old man says. “My family has served the imperium for a thousand years and now you reward us with this! You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“I’m sorry, but you don’t have clearance to get on this ship. Next passenger please!” The soldier at the gate said.
“No you don’t!” The older man says, trying to grapple the guard behind the table.
“Stop Gerald! You’re scaring the grandchildren!” The older woman says, moving her hand to hide a group of 5 or 6 small children behind her. “I already lost my daughter, I can’t lose you.”
The older man looks back at what appears to be his wife. Stopping his attempt at grappling the guard. “I’m sorry my darling I…” He stops as Candorick shoves him to the side.
“I’ve got an Epsilon class passenger ready to board the ship,” Candorick says, the rich man waddling in front of him.
“Credentials?” The gate guard says.
“Oh yes, I’ve got it right here.” The rich man says as he fumbles through his pockets, pulling out a small chip, and handing it to the guard.
“Sir Retir the Third of House Kurople and one soldier escort, check. Ok, you are clear to go.” The guard says, pressing a button on the massive panel in front of him, causing the small door letting them into the ship's entryway to open. “Your quarters are on deck A subsection C, have a nice trip.”
Candorick begins to step onto the ship closely followed by the rich man. As the door begins to close, the guard at the gate yells out to the crowd. “Ok that’s it for today, everybody clear out…” the voice stops as the door clamps shut.
Candorick looks back around for the rich man. He spots him already climbing up the stairs to the upper decks. Candorick sprints to catch up with him.
“No, no, no you’re not coming up here with me. It’s meant for your betters, not you, you brute! Stay on this level, make yourself useful.” The old man says as he closes the door to the stairwell.
Candorick looks around. He looks at a map of the ship. “Deck C subsection A” he sees on the metal sign plastered above the hallway. He heads down the closest hallway, the eerie silence of the ship, allowing for him to hear the creaks of the waning ship.
As he approaches the end of the hallway, he begins to hear the sounds of talking again. Above the end of the hallway reads a sign saying “Lower-Class Common Area”.
The room is a large rectangular area, filled with round, metal tables and chairs. Around each chair sits various groups of people, from what appears to be gangsters to poor families, all happy they got on the ship at all. Along the left side of the room rests several glass panels that would show space, if they were off the ground, but for now all they show is the cold, steel walls of the side of the hangar. Pipes run throughout the room, and while not cramped for space, the sheer amount of people in here clearly show this room was not meant to be filled to this capacity.
Candorick spots an empty spot on the wall and pushes through the crowd to sit along the wall, sitting down and leaning on one of the large pipes sticking out of the wall.
“Karking upper-spiremen, always think they’re better than everyone else, sent me down here even though he could clearly let me up there…”
After a long day of walking to the hangar and being worried about his imminent doom, fatigue had gripped Candorick, and he fell asleep lying on the uncomfortable, hard pipe.
He woke up to the sounds of screams of terror. He opened his eyes groggily, and saw that everyone was crowding around the glass to the outside. He used his strength to shove through the crowd, and got a clear view of what was going on.
In front of him lay Cadia, but something was wrong. Besides the massive battles that even from this distance could be seen, a massive structure was falling from orbit. It had been the massive fortress that the heretic forces had placed in orbit at the beginning of the siege. It was rapidly hurdling itself towards the surface, and was crashing itself down like a massive artificial meteor onto the planet's surface.
He watched as the fortress collided with the Cadian soil.
It was as if the world was a piece of paper, that had been lit aflame. The entire world turned orange as the fortress disappeared and instead became the source of a massive wave of fire that had soon engulfed the planet. Entire chunks of the planet tore themselves from the core. He could see the rays of light from the constant torrent of lasgun fire on the planet stop one by one, as the planet was turned into debris.
Merok, his family, his heritage, his homeland. All destroyed in the blink of an eye. Before he could process what had just happened, a voice sounded from behind him.
“This is all your fault.”
Candorick looked around, seeing a small child with an ear to ear smile, staring at him, blankly.
“You should have died with them,” another voice said from his side, coming from a man staring at him with the same look as the girl.
“It was your duty to serve with your fellow soldiers until the end, and you didn’t.” An elderly woman says in a monotone voice, staring at him as well with that same, creepy smile.
“What? What’s happening?” Candorick says as he looks around him.
Soon the entire crowd is staring at him. “You ran away…” they say in unison, as they all slowly walk towards Candorick, arms outstretched.
“No! No! Stay away! All of you!” Candorick says as they begin to grapple him, him trying to frantically push them off.
They surround him and pin him to the ground. “STOP IT GET OFF!” He screams as they begin to tear into his flesh. He lets out a primal scream as he wakes up, launching his head forward into the steel bed frame of the bunk above him. It makes a loud clanging sound as Candorick crumples back into his bed, rubbing his forehead, now in serious pain.
He looks around the massive bunk room in the Mourningstar. Everyone is fast asleep, resting up for their next assignment. The dark, damp room is mostly silent, except for the distant snores of the Ogryns (which have their own barracks apart from the baseline humans due to their bigger frame).
“Something troubles you, associate” the voice from above the top bunk says. “You’ve been tossing and turning all night.”
“None of your business, Keating.” Candorick replies.
“No need to worry, I already know what you were dreaming about.” Keating says.
“You were reading my karking mind again, witch! How many times have I told you to keep your freakish powers to yourself!” Candorick says, angrily.
“I don’t really have a choice in the matter. Your dreams are so strong that I can barely get any sleep around you.” Keating replies.
“Makes me wonder why they placed a witch above me! Maybe it would do both of us better if you slept somewhere else!” Candorick once again responds.
“You know we don’t have a choice, roughneck. We are assigned beds and you don’t move until you die, simple as that.” Keating states. “You know, if you ever need help, you can always ask. Might even be doing myself a…”
“I don’t need your help witch! I’m perfectly fine on my own. I don’t need you messing with my head to fix something that isn’t there.” Candorick says angrily at Keating.
“I beg to differ…” Keating says
“Be quiet witch! I need to be ready for tomorrow's assignment.” Candorick says.
“Have it your way.” Keating replies as both of them drift off, once again, into sleep.

Per the advice of user Ocelot859, I wanted to share a rundown of what went down at the INSANO listening last night in LA. A lot of this info is scattered on Twitter already from various people who were there and I don't feel terrible sharing because Cudi quite literally encouraged everyone in attendance to share their experiences. Some Spoilers below about the album release, features etc. Long read, feel free to ask any questions and I'll get to them when I get to them.
The Event
It was at the Peppermint Club in LA as most already know. Unfortunately, it was 21+, but that's because there was an open bar. Doors were at 10:30, I didn't get in until 11:15 or so. The line was fairly long, but when I entered, it only felt like 50-75 people. Think a lot of people showed up but got turned away because they weren't actually on the list.
They took everyone's phones, so I don't know the exact timing of everything and I didn't have a watch on, but the event let out at about 1:30am.
Good crowd - it wasn't an industry, record label thing with people standing around staring. Almost purely fans from what I could tell.
There were two DJs opening up, spinning various records, including A-Trak.
CUDI & Guests
Cudi came out during A-Trak's set with bright green, long hair (he posted pics on his socials) and was smiling the entire time. He said he's never felt better in his entire life.
Guests I saw: Wiz Khalifa, Chip tha Ripper, A-Trak, Ibn Jasper, Dot da Genius, Dennis (management)
He was passing out joints, taking tequila shots with folks in attendance, stepped in to the crowd at one point, and did a giveaway at the end of the event. One person got an INSANO jacket, another got a vinyl box set. He was signing people's CD's, shoes, and whatever else.
Told a story about how the artist KAWS was one of the people that helped get him back on track with creating music.
Cudi talked about the fact that he wants to make music forever. For some reason, it seemed as though he was trying to tell the crowd he'll always be involved in music, but not necessarily making it under the name Kid Cudi (just my perspective).
The Album
I forget every song name - didn't have my phone to take notes or record anything, but that's okay because we were enjoying the moment.
He played roughly 8 or so songs, including performing "Porsche Topless" live. Everything was upbeat, nasty hip hop production except for two songs. One of those was a more melancholy track he said doesn't fit in to the album, but he kept coming back to (song is 2+ years old). He said he wants to include it because it may "help some people." The other one was a funkier track that sounded like it sampled Ace of Base "All That She Wants" - specifically this part - and he said it was his song "for the ladies."
He shared the album version of "Wow" with the crowd
Wiz Khalifa performed part of his guest verse on the track that he was on. Solid track.
Song named "Superboy" was the last song he played - he said he recorded it in London last week while he was filming/recording the Knuckles movie (Sonic the Hedgehog). This is the "embodiment" of the entire album. Uptempo, super hard beat.
Guest verses I heard: Pharrell, Travis Scott, A$AP Rocky, Wiz Khalifa
Next single will be "At the Party" featuring Pharrell (on the hook) and Travis Scott - to be released in August
Album to be released in September (Cudi said "September is mine!")
He said there will be different versions of the album released, some with different tracks - sounds like he will have multiple "deluxe" or alternate versions
Vinyl will be ready on release day to purchase - vinyl will have 4 different covers and designs.
If I remember anything else, I'll post later!

Now that my 4 year old HP Pavilion Ryzen 5 3500U CPU and Vega 8 Graphics laptop is starting to fall apart, I am currently picking the parts for my first pc build for productivity/streaming/gaming. However, I am having trouble choosing which GPU to buy. I have researched the best I could, but the many online debates between team red and team green and the discussions of NVIDIA's overpriced GPUs has left me unsure about my GPU choice.
Here is the build that I have in mind:
[PCPartPicker Part List](https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/rgMszf

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i5-13500 2.5 GHz 14-Core Processor	$325.95 @ shopRBC
CPU Cooler	Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler	$72.90 @ Amazon Canada
Motherboard	MSI PRO B760-P WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard	$204.99 @ Amazon Canada
Memory	TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$72.98 @ Amazon Canada
Storage	2x Crucial P3 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	2x $61.99 @ PC-Canada
Video Card	Asus DUAL OC GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card	$809.50 @ Vuugo
Case	Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case	$139.99 @ Memory Express
Power Supply	Corsair CX650M (2021) 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	$104.50 @ Vuugo
Monitor	BenQ MOBIUZ EX2510S 24.5" 1920 x 1080 165 Hz Monitor	$333.74 @ Best Buy Canada
TOTAL		$2188.53 CAD

Generated by [PCPartPicker](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2023-06-02 21:46 EDT-0400
I am making a build that is primarily orientated for productivity purposes while being able to live stream some of the games I play. In terms of productivity, the relevant benchmarks I primarily use are Blender, Adobe Premier Pro, Photoshop and Illustrate (note: Davinci Resolve has recently piqued my interest so I have tried adjusting my parts to fit the needed system requirements in case I do install it). Gaming wise, I want to be able to livestream the games I play in high or ultra 1080p. In the list, the BenQ Mobiuz EX2510S is a used one which I already bought from a friend who recently upgraded to a 1440p monitor. Most of the games I play are fighting games like Guilty Gear Strive and Granblue Fantasy Versus, games like Warframe and the Monster Hunter series and indie games that do not require much from my 4 year old Hp Pavilion with a Ryzen 5 3500U CPU and Vega 8 Graphics. However, since I'm building a new pc, I do want to be able to both stream and play the more beefier benchmark games like God of War, Elden Ring and also the upcoming Armored Core 6 on 1080p High-Ultra settings. I don't care about Ray Tracing, I just want to experience smooth gameplay without having to reduce the game's resolution and without picking the lowest graphics settings.
From what I understand about the two main GPU companies, NVIDIA cards are better for productivity and have better encoding for streaming while AMD cards offer better gaming experience at a better price. The RTX 4070 was picked in my list for its performance and the fact that it is a NVIDIA card suitable for productivity/streaming/gaming. However, the 4070 goes for $800 CAD while only having 12GB RAM (but then again, it is considered to be the best performance value among NVIDIA's 40s series cards). On AMD's side, many online have recommended the 6800xt over the 4070 for its 16GB RAM while being within a similar price range. Some have also mentioned that AMD's encoding is starting to get better, but I do not know if this information is credible. But, the consensus online is that since I am making build focusing on productivity, NVIDIA seems to be the better graphics card choice.
However, as mentioned before, the 4070's price has got me considering buying the RTX 3060 instead. While the 4070 does perform way better then the 3060, the latter is more budget friendly and prices at $450 CAD, has 12GB RAM like the 4070 and is recommended by many as a good performance/value for 1080p, which seems to be a good fit for my Mobiuz EX2510S. I have also seen on the Canadian Newegg store that the MSI 3060s are going through a price drop which makes it even more appealing than the 4070: https://www.newegg.ca/p/pl?d=3060 . I also saw the news of NVIDIA releasing a 4060ti 16GB in July, but after seeing the failure of the recent 8GB variant and the backlash online, I don't even know if the 16GB 4060ti should even be considered as a choice. While I do plan on upgrading to a 1440p setup, I don't think that will be happening in the near future.
TL;DR, the 3060 is slowly convincing me to be my final GPU choice for my productivity/streaming/gaming PC build due to its pricing and overall positive 1080p performance among users online. My concerns are: is the 3060 is still viable for productivity/streaming/gaming in 2023? or should I just straight up buy the 4070 for its recency and better performance? Or should I pick a god and pray for the 4060ti 16GB success? Or should I consider buying a AMD card or even Intel's affordable A770 with 16GB RAM?
Thank you all in advance for the feedback, and take care o7.

****WARNING****
***
Body Horror, bugs, death, gore. Attempted horror.
By my own standards, this is fairly tame, your mileage may vary, content advisory.
***
Captain Van’tu, the Garaboosian commander of the Alliance of Free Stars light scout cruiser Mandrake, frowned, in the way of his species, and gestured with a lower lefthand at his human science officer to continue.
The woman turned back to her console, to peer into the hood of her ‘scope and minutely adjust a control.
“The ship is an old Terran Alliance Explorer class, the TAN Nebula Star. She was reported overdue for resupply a little over a hundred years ago, exact details are spotty as the station she was supposed to report to was destroyed in the Terran civil war. By modern standards she was little more than a heavy cruiser with an oversized jumpcore, and limited weaponry. The Terran Alliance Navy was very much focused on exploration and first contact, and several of their vessels vanished without trace only to show up decades later in pirate hands. However, this does not seem to be the case with the Nebula Star…”
The image on the holotable was mute testimony to this information. The old starship, much more massive than the Mandrake, but significantly less well equipped, looked derelict. Several holes gaped in her once-pristene white hull, the smooth lines marred and crooked, and the jumpcore bulb near the stern showed a terrible, blasted crater, black with soot and melted steel.
Captain Van’tu scrolled the smooth wheel of the holo controls, swivelling the image and zooming into the damage.
“What do we think of this, Sasha, that looks like an internal explosion, not battle damage.”
“Yes Captain.” Sasha, the science officer, agreed. She manipulated a pad on her side of the console. Several sidebars lit up. “Here, here and here. Chemical signatures we’ve picked up in the dustcloud around the wreck, and the blast pattern, indicates a high yield chemical explosive was utilised, we would need to get a scan from inside the wreckage to be certain, but I think I can confidently say this was caused by a c4 package commonly kept as part of ship inventories of that era. We carry a similar type of explosive even now, it has uses in a number of emergency protocols.”
The captain nodded. “I’m familiar with Human paranoia, ‘better to have and not need than need and not have’, which is why I learned to carry a backpack heavier than myself at the academy.” He smiled at the woman, who grinned back in that wolfish human fashion.
Commanding a Terran vessel as part of the Alliance Navy was a high honour for a non-Terran, and he’d earned it the hard way, he’d actually completed his officer training on Earth itself, heavy gravity, lethal flora, fauna, and practical jokes be damned, he’d always dreamed of command, and he had never planned to settle for anything less than the best ships of the fleet.
Somehow his determination to ‘make it’ had actually impressed his trainers and teachers, and earned him the interest of a senior Admiral, which explained his current command. And he was no ticket-puncher, his crew was, in his opinion, the best in the fleet, and if his ship was small, he was so proud of her, some days he could almost burst his hearts from it. She was his first, and with luck, not his last, and while scouting duty following pre-war exploration routes was far from glamorous, it was essential work for the Alliance, following up first contacts, reopening lost trade routes, and, now and then, coming across relics, and giving closure to the descendants of those vanished vessels.
“Alright. She looks cold, and her reactor is dead, but we don’t know what happened to her, she could have run afoul of pirates, or been captured and misused for decades, or been left boobytrapped, so pack up a SAR shuttle, and give them a leader drone, they don’t enter unless the drone clears the way in.”
“Aye aye Captain, I’ll get them on their way. Sidearms?”
“Yyy…esss. Yes. And overarmour. If someone’s left any surprises, it will help.”
Sasha turned and walked off, already tapping her communicator to summon the personnel she’d be sending.
He frowned again, looking into the depths of the hologram. Something was bothering him, the same sensation he’d felt while visiting a zoo on Earth. Humans around him grinning, nodding to one another, and the confirmation of his worry came as a boom of hundreds of pounds of apex feline carnivore crashing against the high density crystal he’d been standing with his back to…
Something was creeping up on them, he could feel it.
***
The shuttle launched from the brightly lit boatbay of the Mandrake, arcing smoothly through the glittering blackness towards the cruelly murdered starship. In front of it zipped the mote of the drone, its scanners and sensors slaved to the shuttle, giving the drone specialist on board an instant feed to all his senses, feeling, experiencing everything the drone saw.
It zipped around the gaping hole where the jumpdrive had once been housed, then around in a helical pattern, scanning every micron of the lost ships hull, mapping it in complete three dimensional perfection, then tracking towards the boatbay. Inside, two, much older, versions of the Mandrakes shuttle rested, crooked against their davits, the bay airlock doors lying open.
The drone slowly crept inside the dark corridor as the shuttle followed it in, nestling into an empty davit. Power hookups, identical after a century thanks to long ago agreed standardisation, marry up, pogo pins compressed and energized, drawing trickle power from the shuttle to latch securely.
The crew debark, except the probe operator who remained strapped in his jumpseat, guiding the drone deeper into the derelict.
Suited figures follow its path, jumping from the shuttle hatch to the airlock. They don’t bother trying to seal it, it had been lying open for a century, there was no air left within to preserve. The drone met a cross passage, and moved right, headed towards the bridge, following schematics downloaded from Mandrake’s computer. The scout crew followed, alert, and making note of damage to bulkheads, the carpets that once covered the floors looking torn, dark stains telling a worrying story.
The probe entered the bridge of the Nebula Star and paused. The LIDAR scanner illuminated the space in a slow pass of green laser light, left to right and back again. The chamber was empty, save the various consoles and chairs the crew would have used, and the lone figure of the Captain, in his central command chair.
To Captain Van’tu, observing the time delayed remote feed on his own bridge, it was remarkable just how similar the darkened derelict wreck was to his own vessel, down to the arrangement of bridge consoles and type of carpeting used. He’d read, in one of his intro to ship design classes, that Terran bridge layout owed much to speculative fiction of pre-spaceflight eras, and a lot of experimental wet-navy designs.
He'd brought it up once with his chief of engineering, who had responded with a ridiculous approximation of a Scottish accent, “Aye laddie, we Terrans owe an awfy lot tae an auld lass called the Enterprise!” and laughed, continuing his explanation in his more natural German accented standardised Terran. Van’tu had spent several informative evenings with his console, soaking up ancient Terran entertainment as a result.
The drone circled the bridge, slowly, keeping its thruster exhaust well clear of the mummified body in the central chair, making its way to the science console. A small arm popped out and slotted into the consoles data port.
Several lights flickered on the antique panel, the probe powering up the cold circuits to read the datalogs, then around the room, dim red lights came to life, as more of the bridge woke up. Through the hull itself, a faint whine transmitted, the probes oversized fusion battery providing enough current to trigger the startup of a backup generator below the bridge.
The scouting party stepped in, peering around. One, her grey skinsuit marked with a red stripe down the arms, moves across to the captain, a medical scanner in her hand.
“I’m reading significant trauma throughout the corpse, but remarkable preservation as well. Life support must have been glitching badly for a long time after… Wait…” She smacked the side of the scanner, then passed it back across the corpse. “Scanner keeps picking up my own heartbeat, trying to tell me this guys still alive, fucking thing.” She put it away in the side pocket of her suit and pulled out a smaller device. “I kept my old one, should be good enough to… Fuck me sideways…”
“Maybe later Carol, what’s the script?” A green stripe on the party leader’s arm. He was looking around, feeling… itchy, between his shoulder blades. Something wasn’t right, and not just the dead ship. He’d been lead on two other derelict searches, and they never went like this. Accidents happened, people died, usually horribly, and you always found, well, bodies. Whole or otherwise. Yet, aside from the clearly traumatic bloodstains on the floors, soaked long before the artificial gravity had failed, this ship hadn’t shown them a single body, nothing, not even fragments.
Not only that but he could swear he’d seen movements. No-one else had, but he also knew that his reflexes tested significantly higher than average, he was seeing something the others were simply not noticing.
Carol stepped away from the corpse.
“My old scanner says this guy’s alive Mark. Heartbeat, brain activity, oxygenated blood. He’s not breathing and he’s a fucking corpse, but both my scanners say he’s gooey in the middle. And I’ll be honest I don’t want to be here, send probes back across on AI control and let them explore, this is too freaky. I know you’ve been seeing shit, well, I’ve been picking up weirdness all along, and this is too much. We should leave!”
Mark bit back a curse. He agreed, but he was also supposed to be a professional, and as the leader of the scout team who first boarded the derelict, he’d have been slated for command of the ‘prize crew’ to bring her home. At the same time, he was holding back a growing uneasiness, his other two team members were shuffling nervously, and Carol was on the edge of panic.
“Alright, we head back to the shuttle and leave the probe to grab the logs. Something’s weird here, might be the atmosphere on this thing, I admit it’s spooky, but we all know I see weird bugs and things other folk miss, and Carol, you’ve had that personal scanner since high school, if it’s saying something weird, something weird is going on. If Captain… Morrison, is still alive after a century in vacuum, he can keep a few more hours until the AI probes can collect him. We’re not equipped for medical evac anyway.”
They stepped back through the hatchway, leaving the probe to its work. Emergency lighting flickered into life, adding a lurid red glare to the tableaux, Mark, last to leave, sharply snapping his head back around as something… He was reminded of a time as a child, he’d turned over a log in his parents’ yard, and hundreds of inch-long centipedes had scurried in panicked circles to escape the sudden glare of sunlight.
Nothing moved, aside from the slow pulsing of rebooting computers.
He followed his people towards the shuttle.
One by one, they made the leap back to the shuttle davit, and boarded, cycling back aboard, and taking their seats. The drone pilot barely moved to acknowledge them, clearly lost in the datefeed from the old computers, and aside from a quick glance across readouts to ensure the data was flowing cleanly to the Mandrake, Mark didn’t disturb the man.
He hit the switch to release the davit clamps, and the popped free. The shuttle turned, and smoothly glided out, aligning with the mothership and headed home. He blinked and shook his head. That motion again, out the corner of his eye. He glanced over, seeing the drone pilot’s faceplate swarming with legs for a fraction of a second.
“Uhh, Josh, you alright there?” He hated breaking into drone pilot concentration, but this wasn’t right, and Carol was gesturing desperately at him from her chair. He reached across, and nudged Josh’s shoulder, the skinsuit collapsing under his fingers and the skull clacking loosely against the faceplate.
***
Captain Van’tu listened to the soft report coming from Sasha, the scout crew had found the captain of the derelict but were returning early due to some unsettling information they’d found. He didn’t like it, but he also respected human instincts. If skilled officers felt there was a reason to withdraw before mission completion, he knew better than to override the human-on-the-spot.
He’d have a word with Mark later, in private, if necessary, but the man had never been wrong before.
Across the communicator, there was a sudden eruption of yelling, the shuttle on the holo spiralling wildly. Sasha was demanding a clear response from the screaming communicator.
Mark came over the channel. “Abort mission, contamination, alien threat…” His words ended in a gurgling scream, the kind that began high and ended, eventually, in a growling snarl of mortal agony. The line remained open, however, and the entire bridge crew turned to stare, mouths agape, as into the silence the faint sounds of gnawing began to echo.
Sasha shut off the feed with a shaky finger. “Captain, I…”
“I know. Arm several probes, get them to the shuttle, find out what happened and…”
Once more, attention fell to the holo display, as on it, the icon of the shuttle winked red. Sasha motioned, and the focus zoomed in. Where the shuttle had been, a spreading scatter of debris remained.
She pulled up the sidebars again.
“Right before Mark, uh, died, his authorisation codes were used to trigger an overload on the shuttle reactor. We didn’t pick up the feed in real time, they were returning after all, but all of them suffered catastrophic biological distress immediately before their lifesigns cut out. Mark was the last one alive, and severely injured when he triggered the reactor.”
Captain Van’tu shook out his lower hands with a stress-shedding gesture. “The shuttle reactor is in a sealed compartment. He had to get from his chair to the access panel and enter his code, while suffering life threatening injuries which had already killed the rest of his crew?”
“Yes, Captain. I’m sorry, I missed it, my team is still processing the data, but it looks as if the drone pilot ceased responding several minutes before the shuttle departed the wreck. At five minutes into the flight, the three junior officers began exhibiting distress, but gave no verbal alerts. Mark seems to have reacted to something that triggered a fight or flight response, but within a few seconds was exhibiting the same injury markers as the others. At the six-minute mark, he sent his warning, while moving. It appears as if the cessation of his vocalisations was not the end of his life, almost thirty seconds later his code was entered into the shuttle reactor, and it detonated.”
Captain Van’tu moved to his command chair, and sat down, lower hands grasping the armrests, upper hands folding under his chin. “Helm, chart course back to the nearest Alliance outpost, and warm up the jumpcore. Tactical, bring shields to standby and start charging the grasers, I don’t like what’s happening, and I do not want to be caught with our backs turned.”
His crew moved into action, tactical alerts bringing various stations to readiness.
“Sir! We’re receiving a communications request, uh, from the Nebula Star.”
He stared at his communications officer, who looked equally shocked.
“Please, Jen, put them through to the main holo.”
The hovering image of the wreckage that had once been a shuttle vanished, replaced by the familiastrange image of the old bridge, and its captain.
The man was a corpse, there was no debate. The papery skin had pulled back from his eyes and teeth, his nose collapsed inwards, decades of icy coldness and baking heat as the derelict tumbled slowly from shade to sunlight had freeze dried the body, yet, it moved. The jaw flapped open, and the sticklike arms gestured against the command chair arms, clawed fingertips clicking uselessly.
“Gree. Tings. Un. Known. Vess. Sell. I. Am. Cap. Tan. Morr. Iss. Son. We. Come. In. Peace.”
The corpse in the holo quivered and twitched in some horrible mockery of life, the bared grey teeth clicking as the jaw spasmed open and closed, not, Van’tu noted, in time with the words being spoken. Inside the jaws, he also noticed, something black and shiny and segmented.
“I highly doubt you come with any sort of peace in mind, what are you really, and what did you do to the crew of the shuttle who boarded the ship you are on.”
The body twitched, a trickle of black ooze popping free from the corner of the sunken eye socket. Under the dried up eyelid, something squirmed around, curling with segmented motion, a few pointed claws poking briefly free before vanishing once more.
“I. Am. Cap. Tan. Morr. Iss. Son. We. Come. In. Peace. We. Rek. Wire. Ass. Iss. Tan. Sse. Let. Uss. Board.”
An alert flashed from Sashas direction. A gesture diminished Captain Morrison to a corner of the holo and expanded the view of the derelict. Two shuttles of archaic design had just launched from it and begun making their way towards the Mandrake. He muted his pickup and turned to his tactical officer.
“Jeff? They do not get close enough to board.”
“Aye aye sir, tracking has them locked and my grazers are charged.”
“Very good.”
He returned to the holo and reopened the grisly view of the dead man being puppeted on his display.
“You will not be permitted to board my ship. I demand to know who you are, what you represent, and why you are trying to impersonate Captain Morrison.”
“You. Are. Food. You. Have. Use. Full. Tech. Nol. Ogy. We. Will. Take. It. We. Will. Use. You. We. Will. Mul. Tip. Lie. This. Vess. Hell. Came. To. Us. In. Peace. We. Took. It. We. Came. For. Ter. Rah. We. Became. Trapped. We Became. Lethargic. We have waited. Now you have brought us. A new vessel to carry us. To Terra.”
Captain Van’tu shook his head. If these things were familiar with humans, they’d recognise the gesture. For the sake of understanding he’d long ago learned to at least emulate some human body language.
“You will not be allowed to go any further. I have a duty to safeguard the people under my command, and to the people of… Terra.” Whatever this species was, it was not something he wanted anywhere near a colony or, worse, defenceless homeworld, of any of the Allied or friendly species he knew lay between here and Terra herself. Best for all they only had Terra in mind.
“Sir! The incoming shuttles are not going for docking, they’re on a ramming approach! Firing solution lost on bogey one!” The Mandrakes grazers were firing, gunnery crews managing their weapons as they tracked automatically and fired, spearing one of the wildly corkscrewing shuttles with lances of gravitationally focused gamma radiation. The second shuttle however spun, and fell downwards, smashing into the still warming shields, and through, impacting the Mandrakes hull with tremendous speed.
The scouting vessel shuddered. The shuttle had breached through the outer hull and spilled into a mess area.
Thanks to the alert condition, all crew had been in skinsuits, not that this helped the two cooks who had been finishing off the lockdown of the mess kitchen.
Fresh alerts sounded, the sound of which sent crewpeople to arms lockers. Mandrake had been boarded.
Captain Van’tu pointed to his tactical officer. “Destroy that wreck! vaporise it!”
“Sir! Weapons are offline, on-mount crews are reporting power losses.”
Across the bridge, the communications officer looked up. “Reports coming in, boarders are breaking out of mess two!”
The captain snarled. Ancient Garaboosians had warded off predators with that sound, and his teeth bared in an animalistic threat display. He slammed a finger into the appropriate button on his armrest.
“All hands, all hands, defence stations, repel boarders!”
His head snapped around. “Sasha, do we still have telemetry from the drone on the Nebula? If so, I want it to shut that shitheap down, or overload its reactors!”
His science officer acknowledged with an “Aye captain!” and turned to her console.
He returned to his holo. Removed the mute. “You have attacked an Alliance of Free Stars vessel, while using a Terran Alliance vessel reported lost to causes unknown. I am hereby declaring you to be pirates, and you will be treated accordingly. Surrender now and you will be returned to your government or homeworld after serving a prison term to be determined by Admiralty courts.”
He did not expect the thing pretending to be Captain Morrison to surrender.
“There will be no surrender. We will take all you have and all you are. You will be ours to consume and use.”
His tactical alert flashed, somehow, the older ship was charging its weapons systems. He flicked a gesture, and the old vessels appeared, with sidebars. The weapons were underpowered, and normally not really a threat to a modern vessel, but the Mandrake had just been rammed by a shuttle, cutting power to her own weapons, and disrupting her shields, it would take several more minutes to regenerate them.
He glared at the grinning visage of the corpse which was still mimicking life. The left arm was still quivering against the rest, fingertips drumming against a keypad almost identical to his own. From the bottom of the sunken belly of the dead man, a slowly undulating shape crawled, a thick-pincered head, followed by a segmented body flowing with sharp-tipped clawlike legs. It moved upwards and climbed back in through Morrisons throat.
“Captain, boarders have been destroyed. Sir, they were humans, but they were dead. Like mummies. They had some kinds of bugs inside, we had to go in with plasma to clear them out.”
“I see. Ensure all the bulkhead seals around the messhall compartment are still green, and pull everyone back, full medical scans on exit. Once everyone is clear, blow the compartment.”
“Uh, yes, sir, understood. Engineering teams are saying they’ll have full weapons restored in eight minutes.”
“Good. We can’t allow any of these things to get back to inhabited space. I want that wreck vaporised. Mess compartment too.”
He continued to watch the dead mans fingers rattle against the old command chair. And nodded.
“Captain Morrison, it has been an honour. Captain Van’Tu, out.”
In the holo, the corpse finally went still. The creatures which had inhabited him began to swarm, black blood and ichor bursting from his skull as the mother of the monsters which had ridden his body and his ship since they had tricked their way aboard a century before, burst free from her manipulating, feeding grasp in his skull.
“Captain, the drone has fully copied the Nebula Stars database, but is unable to access any critical systems. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay Sasha. When we have weapons available, we’ll finish whatever is left.”
“Sir? I don’t understand what…”
The holo tank cut her off. The Nebula Star had fired its engines, angling towards an intercept with the Mandrake, it needed to be much closer to engage with its much more primitive weapons. As the engines flared to life, fire blossomed across the aft hull. Multiple explosions rippled through it, billowing outwards from within, as the reawakened fusion reactors, initially stirred to life by the probes batteries, then by crawling undead crew hidden in the ships dead spaces, all overloaded, and detonated in a final orgy of self-annihilation.
There was a shudder again, as the Mandrakes crew activated the emergency charges that blew an entire section of the ship into space, carrying with it the bodies of dozens of the Nebula Stars crew, hundreds of incinerated and still crawling parasitic alien monsters, and the corpses of two unfortunate cooks.
“Begin sweeping everything in range with fire, maximum power and aperture, everything must burn. I want medical and bio survey teams going around the clock scanning for any trace of those things that might have breached containment. For the record, I will be recommending the Mandrake be scuttled once all crew are cleared and disembarked. Needless to say, we will not be making any landfall or station docks before then.”
He sat down in his command chair. He couldn’t remember standing up. He stared down at his armrest, and the keypad on it. With the fingers of his bottom left hand, he began typing, sending the results to the main holo where Sasha watched, curious.
ENMY HMWRLD r41429.135 i334451 b-1.791 KILL BURN QURTN
The rest of the sequence was the override code that would trigger the Nebula Star to overload its powerplants and blow itself to pieces before it could be used against its creators.
“Captain? How did you get that message? The log entries are still being processed, but it doesn’t look like anything coherent survived, there’s no co-ordinates in them.” Sasha was confused, and Captain Van’Tu smiled.
“Humans, you’re all the same when it comes down to the wire. Mark blew his shuttle rather than let it dock with those things on board. Even while they ate him alive, he crawled through his command, to do his duty to his species, and to the galaxy. Captain Morrison held off death, kept those things guessing, somehow, as they tried to use him, his ship, to reach Earth, made them keep him in some sort of horrific half-life, until they were distracted enough that he could get back control of his hand. His chair Sasha, same as mine. Probably came out of the same factory, a century apart, and he was typing, while they tried to speak to us, while they tried to board us, shoot us, while we distracted them, he set them up to give us the knowledge he knew we would need to ensure they would never threaten anyone again.”
Fire was still blossoming across the larger area of the holo display, graser weapons detonating fragments of hull with nuclear fire.
“Once we’ve cleared the skies here, we head to an outpost, and start warning the Admiralty. Jobs not over until these things are completely contained.”
***
103 Years, 4 months, 5 days before.
Jack staggered, his leg still bleeding from where a crewman had slashed at him with fingers broken into sharp bone claws. He’d stamped the mans head until the skull popped, rupturing the centipede thing curled inside. He was close. The familiar, once comforting hallways of the Nebula Star had become nightmarish, red lighting and blotches of gore, streaks of blood on the pristine walls, he was living in a horror game, but he had a job to finish.
He pushed off the wall he’d leant against. Behind him, he could hear screaming, and begging. He didn’t stop. It was a trick. They found the noises amusing, and mimicked them, discovering that it could draw in ‘helpers’ they could ambush.
Aft section, frame fourteen, jumpcore bay. He slapped the button, and fell through the door as it slid open. Inside, the bay was immaculate, no-one had been in here since this had started. How they had gotten aboard, he didn’t know.
Inside the skull of a landing team member, he could guess.
He knelt beside the humming machinery. His vision was going grey around the edges, he could feel dripping around his knees, he was kneeling in a pool of his own blood after only a few seconds, he didn’t have long.
He pushed his burden against the drive casing, the chem-catalyst agent on the back bonding it to the drive with a molecular weld.
He pressed the keypad of the emergency c4 cannister, the detonator arming with a beep, and a green telltale.
He typed in a code, short, sweet, he’d forgotten it by the time he reached the end, it didn’t matter. The disarm code was only for when you wanted to be able to stop the countdown. Ten seconds.
They reached him, before it finished counting. Inside his brain, they couldn’t find the code to stop the bomb.
The Nebula Star would not reach Terra, he made sure of that.
As the jumpcore failed, blowing a ragged hole out of the sleek hull, a single shuttle spun away from the boatbay, damaged, lifeless, cold and drifting outwards into the depths of space, the mutilated human corpse within stirring once with scurrying life, then going still.