Been at it for an hour, I can’t get to sacrifice a skill on my menu bar and I can’t select the golem!!

His name would be so cool without the Tom
Character: Nai Khanom Tom
Nationality: Thailand
Door: a jail-cell that he rips the bar apart and jumps out
Intro: Now the next fighting for humanity.. Humans are know for many art forms one of which is Muay Thai, And now the father of this sacred art has came to battle to gods, I introduce to you all… NAI KHANOM TOOOMM
Appearance He is a tall Tan skinned man with black eyes and a headband along with a necklace he is very bulky and has multiple Bandages on his wrist he is usually shirtless and wears baggy green pants with a Belt and golden belt that covers his entire waist
Personality Nai is described as very honorable and disciplined while being very prideful in his abilities in the beginning of his fight with shiva he was not taking the fight seriously but the first time he got hit he began to actually get serious.
Growing up his family was very poor so he had to steal to get food and he was almost never caught until one day he was caught and sent to jail and was given a life sentence for the amount of stealing and battery he committed and then in his time in prison he made a makeshift punching bag out of his pillow to practice a fighting style he came up with called Muay Thai
Skills and abilities
Volund: Headband of flesh
This Volund appears as an orange headband that lets Nai stretch his body to extreme proportions all the way from one end to the other of the Vallaha stadium(Bro thinks he’s luffy)
Techniques
Krathung(Flash jab) Nai rushes towards his opponent then side steps to have unpredictable movement to land a quick jab at the opponent with not much power but great accuracy and speed
Rangkay(bodily Rupture) Nai uses his uncanny dodging skills to deliver a powerful punch after dodging
Weiyn(Revolving Beast) Nai stretches his arm around the arena to track the opponent and make an almost unavoidable punch
Weiyn: Phracca(revolving beast:God splitter) Nai uses stretches his arm around the arena to make a almost unavoidable punch and then he can do it with both arms to land a barrage of punches
Thalay maem (Ravaging Mammoth) Nai focuses his body and stretches his legs to the ground then launches himself forward to punch or kick an opponent then he does it again multiple times

When I try to start the game, it crashes on startup with a white rectangle in the top left, and the window is named "dx11 (cooked) (not responding)". Sometimes I get to the title screen but when the game receives any input, it crashes.
Here are my logs:
Log: Log file open, 04/06/2023 18:32:56
Log: GPsyonixBuildID 230413.76047.419576
Log: Command line: -AUTH_LOGIN=unused -AUTH_PASSWORD=CENSORED -AUTH_TYPE=exchangecode -epicapp=Sugar -epicenv=Prod -EpicPortal -epicusername="CENSORED" -epicuserid=CENSORED -epiclocale=de -epicsandboxid=CENSORED
Init: WinSock: version 1.1 (2.2), MaxSocks=32767, MaxUdp=65467
Log: ... running in INSTALLED mode
Init: Language extension: DEU
Init: Language extension: DEU
DevConfig: GConfig::LoadFile associated file: ..\..\TAGame\Config\TAUI.ini
Init: Version: 230413.76047.419576
Init: Compiled (64-bit): Apr 13 2023 21:41:21
Init: Command line: -AUTH_LOGIN=unused -AUTH_PASSWORD=CENSORED -AUTH_TYPE=exchangecode -epicapp=Sugar -epicenv=Prod -EpicPortal -epicusername="CENSORED" -epicuserid=CENSORE -epiclocale=de -epicsandboxid=CENSORED
Init: Base directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Epic Games\rocketleague\Binaries\Win64\
[0000.95] Log: Purging 7-day cache '..\..\TAGame\Logs\*.dmp'...
[0000.95] Log: Purging 3-day cache '..\..\TAGame\Logs\*.log'...
[0000.96] Init: Computer: win11-desktop
[0000.96] Init: User: user
[0000.96] Init: CPU Page size=4096, Processors=12
[0000.96] Init: High frequency timer resolution =14.318180 MHz
[0000.96] Init: Memory total: Physical=16.0GB (16GB approx) Pagefile=23.7GB Virtual=131072.0GB
[0000.96] Init: Presizing for 138000 objects not considered by GC, pre-allocating 0 bytes.
[0000.96] Init: Object subsystem initialized
[0001.07] Log: Using feature set PrimeUpdate42
[0001.18] Log: FOnlineSubsystemEOS: EOS version = 1.13.0-24551320
[0001.19] DevOnline: EOS Platform CacheDirectory=C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Rocket League\
[0001.97] Log: Found D3D11 adapter 0: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
[0001.97] Log: Adapter has 6044MB of dedicated video memory, 0MB of dedicated system memory, and 8168MB of shared system memory
[0002.01] Log: Found D3D11 adapter 1: Microsoft Basic Render Driver
[0002.01] Log: Adapter has 0MB of dedicated video memory, 0MB of dedicated system memory, and 8168MB of shared system memory
[0002.02] Log: Shader platform (RHI): PC-D3D-SM5
[0002.21] Breadcrumbs: Startup_PreInit: 2.212
[0002.26] Breadcrumbs: Startup_LoadGlobalShaders: 0.050
[0007.34] Log: ProductDatabase_TA::InitProductLabels 0.01 sec total.
[0007.42] Log: ProductDatabase_TA::UpdateAvailableProducts 0.08 sec total.
[0007.44] Breadcrumbs: Startup_LoadScriptPackages: 5.174
[0008.11] Breadcrumbs: Startup_LoadNonNativePackages: 0.678
[0008.12] Log: 139658 objects as part of root set at end of initial load.
[0008.12] Log: 0 out of 0 bytes used by permanent object pool.
[0008.12] Log: ShaderCache load stats: AccumLoadSeconds=(3.238) ShadersLoaded=(338008) Duplicates=(20093)
[0008.12] Log: Initializing Engine...
[0008.12] Log: BuildID: 1445111688 from GPsyonixBuildID
[0008.23] SystemSettings: Loading PC Settings
[0008.24] Breadcrumbs: Startup_BuildGuidCache: 0.130
[0008.28] Log: Running hardware survey...
[0008.28] Log: Wwise(R) SDK Version 2019.1.1 Build 6977. Copyright (c) 2006-2012 Audiokinetic Inc. / All Rights Reserved.
[0008.42] Log: OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (22000)
[0008.42] Breadcrumbs: Startup_ClientInit: 0.180
[0008.45] Log: WinSAT: 7.8 [9.2 CPU, 8.7 2D, 9.9 3D, 9.2 Mem, 7.8 Disk]
[0009.67] Log: Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor (AMD64 Family 23 Model 8 Stepping 2) 6 Cores, 12 Threads
[0009.67] Log: Memory: 8.00GB
[0009.67] Log: Memory: 8.00GB
[0009.67] Log: VideoController: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (31.0.15.3203)
[0009.67] Log: Network Adapter: Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller
[0009.67] Log: Network Adapter: VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter
[0009.67] Log: Disk C: 9.44GB free of 222.85GB
[0009.67] Log: Disk D: 79.27GB free of 714.25GB
[0009.67] Log: Disk F: 2788.40GB free of 2794.16GB
[0009.67] Log: Sound Device: USB Audio 2.0
[0009.67] Log: Sound Device: USB-Audiogerät
[0009.67] Log: Sound Device: NVIDIA High Definition Audio
[0009.67] Log: Sound Device: NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM)
[0009.67] Log: Sound Device: High Definition Audio-Gerät
[0009.67] Log: Sound Device: SteelSeries Sonar Virtual Audio Device
[0009.67] Log: Sound Device: Voicemod Virtual Audio Device (WDM)
[0009.67] Log: Hardware survey complete in 0.70 seconds.
[0009.67] Log: Detected 1 GPUs for rendering
[0009.73] Breadcrumbs: Startup_CreateViewport: 1.307
[0009.73] DevOnline: Created named interface (RecentPlayersList) of type (Engine.OnlineRecentPlayersList)
[0010.12] ScriptLog: PsyNet using environment DBE_Production Prod
[0010.13] PsyNet: PsyNetConnection_X_0 disabled OSCS_ServiceUnavailable
[0010.13] PsyNetStaticData: HandleCacheExpired
[0010.13] PsyNetStaticData: HandleGetURL URL=(https://config.psynet.gg/v2/Config/BattleCars/1445111688/Prod/Epic/DEU/)
[0010.13] PsyNetStaticData: Blocking sync start
[0010.14] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_0 SEND: https://config.psynet.gg/v2/Config/BattleCars/1445111688/Prod/Epic/DEU/
[0010.32] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_0 RECV: 304
[0010.32] PsyNetStaticData: Blocking sync complete. Elapsed=0.1893
[0010.32] PsyNetStaticData: HandleDataChanged
[0010.40] Log: ProductDatabase_TA::UpdateAvailableProducts 0.07 sec total.
[0012.40] Log: ProductDatabase_TA::InitProductLabels 0.01 sec total.
[0012.40] PsyNet: PsyNetConnection_X_0 enabled
[0012.42] PsyNetStaticData: UpdateCacheTimerEnabled CacheTimer.bEnabled=(True)
[0012.43] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 None Unknown00 SetAuthLoginError [Error Type=OSCS_NotConnected Code=-1 Message=]
[0012.43] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 None Unknown00 Logout
[0012.43] PsyNet: PsyNetConnection_X_1 disabled OSCS_NotConnected
[0012.43] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 LoggedOut Unknown00 HandlePsyNetConnectionChanged
[0012.43] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 LoggedOut Unknown00 UpdateLoginState
[0012.43] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 LoggedOut Unknown00 SetAuthLoginError [Error Type=OSCS_NotConnected Code=-1 Message=]
[0012.43] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 LoggedOut Unknown00 Logout
[0012.43] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 LoggedOut Unknown00 UpdateLoginState AuthLoginError=[Error Type=OSCS_NotConnected Code=-1 Message=]
[0012.43] ScriptLog: HandleBlockListStatusCreated Status=(PlatformBlockListStatus_0) ControllerId=(0)
[0012.43] SaveGame: Load Player.ControllerId=(0) SaveFileName=(..\..\TAGame\SaveDataEpic\DBE_Production\b0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b.save)
[0012.44] Breadcrumbs: Startup_InitOnlineSubsystem: 2.710
[0012.46] DevNet: Browse: MENU_Main_p
[0012.47] Log: LoadMap: MENU_Main_p
[0012.47] Exit: XAudio2 Device shut down.
[0012.50] Log: Fully load package: ..\..\TAGame\CookedPCConsole\GameInfo_GFxMenu_SF.upk
[0012.57] Log: Fully load package: ..\..\TAGame\CookedPCConsole\GFxSounds_MainMenu_SF.upk
[0012.58] Log: Fully load package: ..\..\TAGame\CookedPCConsole\GFX_StartMenu_SF.upk
[0012.66] Log: Fully load package: ..\..\TAGame\CookedPCConsole\GFX_MainMenu_SF.upk
[0012.72] Log: Game class is 'GameInfo_GFxMenu_TA'
[0012.79] Log: *** WARNING - PATHS MAY NOT BE VALID ***
[0012.79] Log: Bringing World menu_main_p.TheWorld up for play (0) at 2023.06.04-18.33.08
[0012.79] Log: Flushing async loaders.
[0013.02] Log: Flushed async loaders.
[0013.03] Log: Bringing up level for play took: 0.298115
[0013.53] Log: ########### Finished loading level: 1.061848 seconds
[0013.55] Breadcrumbs: Startup_Browse: 1.107
[0013.55] Log: Initializing Engine Completed
[0013.55] Breadcrumbs: Startup_Total: 13.550
[0013.58] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_1 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/SpecialEvent/Images/rl_season-rush_event-screen_logo.png
[0013.58] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_2 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/SpecialEvent/Images/rl_season-rush_event-screen.jpg
[0013.59] SaveGame: HandleDataLoaded Result.Code=(BasicLoadResult_Success)
[0013.59] ScriptLog: NetworkSave_TA_0 ApplySettings ReplicationRate=60 NetSpeed=15000 InputRate=60
[0014.07] SaveData: Profile_TA_0 OnLoaded LocalID=(0)
[0014.07] ScriptLog: GetDLCProducts, UnlockedDLCList=
[0014.09] ScriptLog: GetDLCProducts, UnlockedDLCList=
[0014.09] SaveGame: LocalPlayer_TA_0 HandleSaveDataLoaded
[0014.21] Log: Flushing async loaders.
[0014.93] Log: Flushed async loaders.
[0015.23] Warning: Warning, Material boost_toonywater.Materials.Blank_MAT missing bUsedWithStaticLighting=True!
[0015.23] Warning: Warning, Material BlackMarketTest_Skin.MAT_BlackMarketTest missing bUsedWithStaticLighting=True!
[0015.83] DevOnline: EOSSDK-LogEOSAnalytics: EOS SDK Analytics disabled for route [1].
[0016.00] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_1 RECV: 304
[0016.01] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_2 RECV: 304
[0016.78] DevOnline: UOnlinePersistentAuthInterfaceEOS::LoginCallback ResultCode = EOS_Success
[0017.04] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_3 SEND: https://api.epicgames.dev/epic/id/v1/accounts?accountId=b0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b
[0017.04] PsyNet: PsyNetConnection_X_1 enabled
[0017.04] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 LoggedOut Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0 HandlePsyNetConnectionChanged
[0017.04] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 LoggedOut Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0 UpdateLoginState
[0017.04] ScriptLog: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 LoggedOut Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0 GotoAuthState RequestAuthCode
[0017.04] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 RequestAuthCode Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0 RequestAuthTicket Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0
[0017.04] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 RequestAuthCode Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0 HandleAuthTicket bSuccess=(True)
[0017.04] ScriptLog: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 RequestAuthCode Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0 GotoAuthState SendLoginRequest
[0017.04] Auth: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 SendLoginRequest Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0 HandleLoginStatusChanged LS_LoggedIn Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0
[0017.04] Party: HandleLocalPlayerLoginStatusChanged PlayerName=Der_Mustermann08 PlayerID=Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0 LoginStatus=LS_LoggedIn IsPrimary=True IsInParty=False
[0017.04] PsyNet: HTTP send ID=PsyNetMessage_X_0 Message=PsyNetMessage_X_0
[0017.04] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_4 SEND: https://api.rlpp.psynet.gg/rpc/Auth/AuthPlayev2
[0017.20] ScriptLog: GetDLCProducts, UnlockedDLCList=
[0017.55] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_4 RECV: 200
[0017.55] PsyNet: HTTP recv ID=PsyNetMessage_X_0 Message=PsyNetMessage_X_1
[0017.57] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_3 RECV: 200
[0017.57] ScriptLog: OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 SendLoginRequest Epicb0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b0 GotoAuthState LoggedIn
[0017.57] Auth: OnlinePlayer_TA_0 OnlinePlayerAuthentication_TA_0 HandleAuthLoginChange Auth.bLoggedIn=(True)
[0017.57] PsyNet: Enabling PerCon
[0017.57] PsyNet: PsyNetConnection_X_1 SetAuthorized bAuthorized=True
[0017.57] RankedReconnect: LocalPlayer_TA_0.CheckForRankedReconnect() bOpenedStartMenu=(False) IsMenuLevel=(True) bLoggedIn=(True) IsPrimaryPlayer=(True) RankedReconnectAvailable=(False) EpochTime=(0) EpochNow=(1685896454) TimeSince=(1685896454) ReconnectTimeoutSeconds=(900) Reservation=()
[0017.83] PsyNet: PsyNetMessengerWebSocket_X_0 Connected
[0017.83] PsyNet: PsyNetConnection_X_1 UpdateConnectionState bConnected=(True) bFreshConnection=(True)
[0017.83] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_5 SEND: https://api.kws.ol.epicgames.com/v1/epic-settings/public/users/b0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b/values?game=rl
[0017.83] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_6 SEND: https://api.epicgames.dev/epic/friends/v1/b0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b/blocklist
[0017.83] DevOnline: PlayerDataStorage_QueryFileList: Beginning to query files. User=(b0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b)
[0017.83] PsyNetBeaconDetail_X: PsyNetBeacon_X_0 SetPsyNetConnection InPsyNetConnection=(PsyNetConnection_X_1)
[0017.83] PsyNet: PsyNetConnection_X_1 UpdateConnectionState bPerConConnected=(True)
[0017.96] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_6 RECV: 200
[0017.97] ScriptLog: HandleStatusChanged PrimaryStatus.DownloadStatus=(EB_Success) ControllerId=(0)
[0018.07] ScriptLog: ListenForBlockListDownloaded PrimaryStatus=(PlatformBlockListStatus_0) PrimaryStatus.DownloadStatus=(EB_Success)
[0018.09] EOSVoice: HandleFriendsListChanged
[0018.17] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_5 RECV: 200
[0018.17] EOSPermissions: NS=chat SN=text PL=null EL=null DV=0 IV=0
[0018.17] EOSPermissions: NS=chat SN=voice PL=null EL=null DV=0 IV=0
[0018.17] EOSPermissions: NS=profile SN=p2p-trading PL=null EL=null DV=0 IV=0
[0018.17] EOSPermissions: NS=profile SN=require-pin-to-add-friend PL=False EL=null DV=False IV=False
[0018.17] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_7 SEND: https://api.epicgames.dev/epic/friends/v1/b0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b/outgoing
[0018.23] DevOnline: PlayerDataStorage_QueryFileList: Finished querying files. User=(b0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b) Success=(1)
[0018.23] DevOnline: PlayerDataStorage_ReadFile: Beginning to download file. User=(b0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b) FileName=(RLSaveData)
[0018.28] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_8 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeIcons/Challenge_Play.jpg
[0018.28] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_9 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeIcons/Challenge_Shot.jpg
[0018.28] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_10 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeIcons/Challenge_Save.jpg
[0018.28] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_11 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeIcons/Challenge_Center.jpg
[0018.28] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_12 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeIcons/Challenge_Win.jpg
[0018.28] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_13 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeIcons/Challenge_AerialGoal.jpg
[0018.28] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_14 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeIcons/Challenge_SAG.jpg
[0018.28] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_15 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeIcons/Challenge_Clear.jpg
[0018.28] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_16 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeIcons/Challenge_Goal.jpg
[0018.30] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_7 RECV: 200
[0018.31] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_17 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeBanners/NUX_Popup_Octane.png
[0018.31] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_18 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeBanners/Season_imagery_Reward.png
[0018.32] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_19 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/ChallengeBanners/rl_s10_challenge_dashboard.png
[0018.35] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_8 RECV: 304
[0018.35] ScriptLog: RegionPinger_X_0 PingRegions ("104.153.85.120:18297","63.33.189.62:8807","13.57.223.153:8461","34.126.172.1:2667","54.151.128.56:8493","34.85.38.127:2047","185.179.203.5:25559","117.120.11.163:3167","185.179.201.73:11284","15.229.127.180:8281","3.111.38.247:7807")
[0018.45] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_9 RECV: 304
[0018.45] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_10 RECV: 304
[0018.45] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_11 RECV: 304
[0018.45] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_14 RECV: 304
[0018.46] DevOnline: PlayerDataStorage_ReadFile: File download complete. User=(b0741f8dbb80490cb22519aed5b2da0b) FileName=(RLSaveData) Success=(1)
[0018.46] EOSSync: HandleFileReadComplete LocalSaveTick: 141
[0018.46] EOSSync: HandleFileReadComplete OnlineSaveTick: 141
[0018.46] EOSSync: HandleFileReadComplete Local Save is up to date, keeping this file
[0018.46] ScriptLog: NewProductIDs128:
[0018.46] ScriptLog: GetDLCProducts, UnlockedDLCList=
[0018.47] ScriptLog: GetDLCProducts, UnlockedDLCList=
[0018.47] ScriptLog: GetDLCProducts, UnlockedDLCList=
[0018.47] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_12 RECV: 304
[0018.47] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_13 RECV: 304
[0018.47] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_15 RECV: 304
[0018.47] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_16 RECV: 304
[0018.47] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_20 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/Legal/PC/EULA/DEU.txt
[0018.47] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_21 SEND: https://rl-cdn.psyonix.com/Legal/PC/PrivacyPolicy/DEU.txt
[0018.51] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_17 RECV: 304
[0018.51] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_18 RECV: 304
[0018.51] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_19 RECV: 304
[0018.51] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_21 RECV: 304
[0018.53] DevOnline: WebRequest_X_20 RECV: 304
[0019.58] Matchmaking: All Regions Pinged: USE (0.1129),EU (0.0

“Hey Raz, I got one!” Raz’s voice was cut by static as he called back, “Great! …at quarry …die.” Well, that wasn’t ominous at all, I thought to myself as I adjusted the rear-view mirror to check on the operator I had just blown past. They were doubled over coughing, their gas mask swayed side to side on the ground next to their feet. I don’t know what compelled me to not flatten what I had thought to be an AQ soldier, but I’m glad I didn’t.
I slammed my hummer in reverse, coming to a stop next to the helpless operator. “Hop in bud, we can get you to final exfill yet.” He slowly hauled himself into the bed of my hummer, landing with a dull thud and a groan as he fell onto his back. We cleared the gas, and I was immediately put on edge as my passenger started to gain consciousness. If he was planning anything nefarious, there wasn’t much I could do about it now. “You good back there? Normally I’d stop to send an invite but given the situation that might have just caused more problems.” He leaned through the non-existent rear window, “Nah, I understand man. When we get further from the gas we can stop and squad up. Don’t need to risk lighting each other up if things get hot at the exfill.” I couldn’t help but chuckle, “I don’t think that would be much of an issue regardless. Hey, we didn’t leave any of your friends back there, did we? I know we peeled out pretty quick.” I saw him shake his head and point to our left in the rear-view mirror. “We got split up, but they were running for a car, so I wasn’t too worried.” I followed his finger, a white hatchback cruised along parallel to us, swerving through buildings trying not to eat too many AQ bullets. “Hey boys, Dutch here is gonna roll with us to final. We’ll squad up when we get there.” I was barely able to make out one of his squad mates call out “Tight!” over his earpiece.
“Hey, listen, I’ve got friend I’m rolling with. His name’s Raz, he’s gonna meet us at final. If you see a red, white, and blue LTV, don’t shoot alright.” Raz chimed in, his radio finally clear of the static, “That’s very kind of you to tell them not to shoot me Dutch.” Before I could respond, a black turreted LTV slid out of Said City ahead of us. “Is that your boy Dutch?” I wanted to give my passenger the benefit of the doubt, it is windy in the box after all, he might not have heard me. “Nah man, wrong colour, and he didn’t have a turreted LTV last I saw.” The black LTV continued North along the main road as we cut away into the quarry proper. “Raz, company is headed your way. Looks like it’s just a solo in that truck but you can never be too careful.” “Thanks for the heads up Dutch.”
I rolled to a stop at the base of the helicopter ramp, gently flattening a couple of AQ who were getting a little to close to the bird for comfort, just shy of the battery running dry. The other two operators in the hatchback slid to a stop just down the hill from us. I got out of the hummer, a tad worried that my good fortune was about to come to an end at the hands of these fellas. As they ran up the hill, the notification finally popped. I accepted and ran down the hill to grab the hatchback, breathing a sigh of relief. “Wait, where you goin’ Dutch?” One of my clients called out. “Raz and I will run interference while we wait for the chopper to take off. Any AQ or unfriendly operators are gonna have to go through us.” “You keep talking about this Raz guy, but I’ve yet to see anyone other than that black LTV.” Almost on queue, a black LTV flew up the hill narrowly missing my hatchback. My clients went into a frenzy. “Operators pushing us! Take ‘em down!” The LTV spun in the sand in front of me, a glorious and perfectly oiled moustache glinting in the Al Mazrah sun. “Hold your fire! It’s Raz!” I called from below my clients. I sent an invite to him which he had hopped out and accepted faster than any of these guys could pull the trigger. “You see the operator that was in that earlier?” Raz shook his head, “No, I pulled up on it and they were gone. Must be out on foot somewhere.”
With 5 seconds left on the clock, there wasn’t enough time to go find them, our clients now panicking as they realized we weren’t on the bird. “What are you two doing?!” They shouted from the air as we waved goodbye. “Al Mazrah is our home gentlemen. That bird was never meant for us.” I gave Raz a pat on the shoulder as the gas rapidly approached, another successful day had come to a close.
The clack of a Kastov charging handle was almost unmistakable. We both turned to see the operator from the LTV standing there, rifle honed on us. “Well shit.” Their rifle dropped towards the dirt as they looked back over their shoulder at the nearly out of sight exfill chopper. They pushed through us, wandering towards the North side of the quarry. Raz and I locked eyes, shrugging in unison. That was one of those moments where we really wouldn’t have blamed them for their decision, whatever it might have been. “We better get back to HQ, Compton said I.T dropped off something for you.” Raz said as the gas engulfed us.
“I’m going back to the island boss.” My hands were shaking as I gripped the file folder that I.T had left for me. “Twitch.” “He’s back, it took him a bit, but he’s managed to re-take the castle and hunker down since we last saw him. And if he’s back then we might finally be able to get some proper intel on those blue tracers, direct from the source.” I handed the folder to Raz. He took it, turning to no doubt address the rest of the crew. I grabbed his shoulder, stopping him before he could speak. “Not everybody, not this time. They’ve doubled the defences; we’d be walking into a slaughterhouse.” “Well, you can’t go in there alone, we look out for our own Dutch, you know that.” Raz’s brow tightened, I could tell he was already trying to figure out what my plan was. “I’m bringing Maze and Alex. They’ll provide sniper cover while I infiltrate the castle. I still have my old uniform. As long as they haven’t drastically changed up their callsigns, I should be able to get in undetected.” I could tell Raz wasn’t convinced. “Dutch, like you said, you’d be walking into a slaughterhouse. How does you going in solo make that any better.” “After what happened in the complex…I’m not putting anyone else at risk, I can’t. The Bomb Maker…Twitch, I’ve gotta face him myself. Look him in the eyes so he knows I crawled out of Hell to drag him back down there.” “Alright, I couldn’t really stop you if I wanted to, could I?” Raz shrugged. “No, not unless you shot me, and honestly, I’d take those odds.” I punched his shoulder and started heading for the breakroom to grab Maze and Alex. “You keep that up I’ll be moving you back out to that sea can of yours.” Raz smirked.
The locks took a bit of fighting to get open. While this footlocker had only been on Ashika Island for a few months, the constant spray of salt water had worn away what little integrity it once had. The black uniform, emblazoned with the Rook and Spade of Shadow Company, was still in excellent condition, save for a bullet hole just under where the plate carrier would sit. I paused for a moment, holding it up in the air, memories of the past flooding in. “Not a lot of fond memories in that uniform I take it.” Maze called out from the catwalk in our home away from home. “I think part of the problem is that there are good memories. It’s a little concerning that such fond memories can hide out amongst so much evil.” “We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of. Some of us just did things other people also wouldn’t be proud of either.” Alex chuckled to himself as he cleaned his rifle on the cot next to me. I grimaced, mostly because he was right. I slipped into the old black fatigues and strapped on my old plate carrier. My weapons were all still intact too, I pulled my Taq-56 out of the footlocker, running my fingers over the engraving in the side, ROOK-XLIV. I cycled the charging handle a few times before loading in a fresh magazine and setting it on the cot next to me. I pulled out a pistol belt, two pearl handled revolvers, one with an ebony Rook on the grip, the other, an ebony Spade. Umbra Catavae engraved along each barrel. Maze had come down from the rafters now, a look of mixed intrigue and concern on her face, “I take it those don’t invoke fond memories.” I had done a poor job of hiding my look of disgust. “No, unfortunately they do.” I felt a wave of guilt wash over me. “Each of these was given to me for completing outstanding performance in the field. I did things I’m not proud of, and I was rewarded for it, handsomely. Holding these in my hands, I feel the same pride I had felt when they were first handed to me. It makes me sick.” I strapped the belt around my waist. The pearl handles shining against my all black silhouette. Alex piped up again, “Hey, at least you are trying to make amends for your sins, not many can say the same.” I let out a long sigh, “I suppose you’re right. You both remember the plan?” “Get to the radio towers and start lighting the place up when shit inevitably hits the fan.” Maze grinned. “Close enough.” I pulled my balaclava up and headed for the door.
The guard at the gate didn’t immediately shoot me which gave me some spark of hope that this might work. “In position!” Alex and Maze called out almost simultaneously. “Jinx, you owe me a beer!” Maze rejoiced. “What? Why would I give you a beer for that?” Alex sounded genuinely confused. “Hey, cut the chatter you two, don’t need to give them any reason to not let me in alright.” The guard held up his hand. “I don’t recognize you, let’s see your I.D.” I held up my old I.D card. “Well I’ll be damned, look who crawled out if his grave.” He pulled my mask down to confirm. “You look pretty good for a corpse, though your I.D card is out of regulation. You might want to stop by the I.T guy to get a new one made.” “Thanks, I’ll head right over.” The first thought that came to my mind was Bob. There’s no way he still worked for these assholes, is there.
“You used your old I.D?! You mad man!” Maze cackled over the radio. “Ok, I’ll admit, this wasn’t my greatest plan. I honestly thought they’d just capture me after seeing who I was.” Alex cut me off, “Go with the flow I suppose.” “Spade-499 up one-two.” The local radio channel began to drown out my squad’s comms. “Rook-3468 down one-one” “This is some odd radio traffic Dutch.” Alex quipped. I watched as a Shadow Company mercenary approached a stairwell, each step primed and ready to pop a leg off whichever unfortunate soul chose to ascend. “Spade-5454 up one-two.” “It’s how they know to deactivate the traps.” I whispered into our secure line. I approached the same stairwell. “Rook-44 up one-two.” I could hear the traps audibly click off. The guard at the to put his hand out as I reached the top step. “Sorry, no ghosts allowed on the second floor.” “Ghost? What…” He bent over laughing. “I’m just messing with you man. They said you died holding off the ULF while Bob and Twitch escaped, going out in a blaze of glory. Clearly, they didn’t have their facts straight. Glad to have you back.” I’m glad I had the balaclava on because I was struggling to hide my confusion. Last I checked I was the scape goat for the largest backstab in Shadow Company history, not a hero. I was never a hero when I worked for them. “I take it you are going to see the boss, call up two-zero, we don’t want people to be just guess on the fly, just in case someone tries to sneak in.” If only he knew.
“We don’t have eyes up there Dutch. Whatever happens, you’re on your own.” I could hear a tinge of worry in Alex’s voice. “Just make sure whoever is in here doesn’t get reinforcements.” “You got it!” Alex and Maze both called out in unison. “Jinx, you owe me another beer.” “There’s free beer at headquarters, why would I owe you a beer for that.” Alex called back clearly still confused. “Radio silence please. I’ve got a rat to kill.” I took a deep breath, pulling my Bryson from its sheath, the chrome exterior brushed over with a dull grey to blend in. “Rook-44 up two-zero.”
“Well, well, well. I was wondering when I’d see you again after our last encounter. Urzikstan and Al Mazrah clearly hadn’t kicked your ass enough so you decided to come crawling back to me for another round.” The traps clicked off. “Come on up, I’ve been looking forward to this.” I slowly ascended, keeping my Bryson trained at the top of the stairs, my eyes scanning each stair for an actual trap. As I crested the stairwell, my eyes were immediately drawn to him. His back turned to me, Trophy Systems whirring and clicking around him. “I missed you Dutch. Well, the old you. The one that would shoot through a hostage just to prove a point, the one that would dangle captives from buildings by their collar until they squawked like a bird, and then still dropped them anyways. I miss the Dutch that smoked Keller because his gas mask worked and yours didn’t when we those crazy Russian’s tried to hit us with mustard gas. I still get a little nauseous when I think about you peeling his face out of there.” “I’ve changed Twitch, I’ve moved past all that. I found a calling that doesn’t require me to be a conniving bastard.” Twitch laughed as he turned around, his hands empty. I kept my Bryson trained on him. “That’s what you think I am huh? I prefer shrewd businessman, but if that’s what helps you sleep at night.” He walked to one of the barred windows. “You really think what you and those taxi driving hooligans are doing matters?” “Clearly it does, or you and the Chemist wouldn’t be working so hard to sabotage us.” I took a few steps towards him. “Well, I suppose it matters to one of us. The Chemist and Raz go way back, but you know that. What I care about is the money, and I get a lot of money for helping that crazy bastard try to wipe out your little band of Merry Men.” “And Women. This guy just loves the sound of his own voice. Can I remove his head already? He’s looking right at me, practically begging me to pull the trigger.” I could hear the contempt in Maze’s voice. Twitch always did love a monologue. “You can still fix your mistakes Twitch. Gives us what info you have on those tracers of yours and I might consider not killing you.” I snarled. “When you went soft Dutch, you lost any respect I might have had for you. We are long past the point where you can intimidate me. Besides, any info I did have, is with the Chemist. He paid a handsome sum to get the formula, and really, it was becoming a logistical nightmare to ship enough of those little blue gems across the sea. Better for everyone to have it made close to the front lines.”
“Spade-101 up two-zero.” Bob’s voice cut through the tension. “Well I’ll be, it looks like we are gonna have a little family reunion.” Bob’s head poked up the stairs, “Hey boss, another server bank has shorted out from the sea air, I told you we should invest in better waterproofing the housings but if you still…” He trailed off as I dropped my Bryson, the sling catching it just before it hit the ground, and drawing my two revolvers. “Oh, hey Dutch. Nice to see you too.” Bob stammered. I cocked the hammer on each one, keeping one trained on each of my old squad mates. “Really Bob? Really! I understand you sticking around the day of the heist. But now? After everything that Shadow Company has done to these countries. To its own people.” Before he could respond, a siren blared over the intercom system. “Defensive positions! Hostile operators have breached the perimeter.” “Dutch you’ve got six operators approaching the castle, I think it’s time to bounce.” Maze was drowned out by her own gun fire, her Signal .50 raining death into the courtyard. “Looks like our time is up here Dutch. Since you clearly don’t have los cojones to pull the trigger, you might as well see yourself out, and let me and my men handle this.”
“Fuck it.” The hammer of the first revolver slammed down, dropping Bob instantly. I turned to face Twitch, his face a mix of surprise and pride. “Maybe I was wrong, the old Dutch still lives.” I charged forward, tackling him through the window and off the roof. Both of us lay on the ground, groaning as the chorus of gunfire roared around us. He dove for one of my pistols, but unfortunately for him, I had managed to hold on to the other, putting a round through his arm just before he could grab the gun. He rolled out of the way of the second round, bringing his one working hand up to the radio on his chest. The explosion from the castle threw both of us across the courtyard, debris raining down around us. I felt like I was reliving one of the worst days of my life all over again. I hauled myself to my feet, Shadow Company mercenaries and operators wandered aimlessly through the ashes. Everyone seemed too disoriented to fight. “I think it’s time to leave Dutch.” “I second that.” Maze and Alex were barely audible over the ringing in my ears. “Regroup at the boat. If I’m not there in 5, go without me.” I never heard a response, even if they tried, they wouldn’t have convinced me to leave, not with him still breathing.
I combed through the smoke and fire, carefully checking every nook and cranny I came across but the slippery rat was nowhere to be seen. “Looks like you 3 aren’t thick as thieves after all, eh Dutch. Poor Alex here was left all alone on the beach, no boat to be seen.” Twitch was sucking in air between words, no doubt kept standing by adrenaline. “You lay a finger on him, and I’ll make you wish you had died in that explosion.” I spat into my mic. “Don’t make me wait too long.”
I limped over a hill towards the beach where we were supposed to regroup. “Alex! Where’s Maze?” I called out as I stumbled down the sand bank. Alex didn’t respond, his head held in a tight headlock by Twitch, my second pistol against his temple. “She abandoned you both, and now I get the pleasure of killing you both after yet another betrayal. When will you learn Dutch. This world is a cruel place. Only the strong survive, clearly Maze knew that.” Twitch cut me off before I could retort. “Save the fight me with honour B.S that I know you are gonna spew.” I’m gonna kill you and your buddy and salvage what little I can of this operation. Then maybe retire to Cuba. I do love a good cigar.” “Adios, pendejo!” Alex brought his arm down, the knife concealed in his hand connecting with Twitch’s thigh. Twitch let out a high-pitched yelp, letting loose a round from the revolver which narrowly grazed Alex’s hair. Alex dove into the sand right as Twitch’s shoulder exploded in a pink mist followed shortly by the unmistakable crack of Maze’s Signal .50. I squinted trying to see where the shot came from, all I caught was the glint from her scope in the sun, the boat hardly visible in the rolling surf.
I limped forward, Bryson in hand, chrome starting to show through the worn grey paint. I kicked the revolver away from Twitch, placing a boot on his chest and the barrel of my Bryson against his forehead. He began to mumble and cry, hardly able to string together an understandable sentence. “Save it, you’re gonna need your energy for what comes next.” Our boat slammed into the shore, Maze hopping off, rifle raised and ready. “Oh shit I actually hit that!” “I’m not gonna lie, I thought you’d actually just bailed.” I laughed as she helped Alex to his feet. “You still go those claymores?” I asked Maze as Twitch continued to writhe in panic under my boot. “You wanted the old Dutch, eh Twitch. Ask and you shall receive.” Maze handed me the claymores, while Alex kept sidearm pointed at Twitch. I planted 4 around him, just far enough away that they wouldn’t go off unless he moved. I drew one of my revolvers, popping the cylinder out and emptying all but one round. I gave the cylinder a spin before flicking it closed. I tossed the revolver at Twitch. “Don’t waste that on me. You’ll only regret it in about an hour.” I took my other revolver, and hurled it towards the sea, the pearl grip glinting in the sun as it spun through the air, disappearing into the crashing waves. “Good riddance.” I sighed, that chapter of my life finally ended. Twitch was silent, his whimpering now just deep, laboured breathing. I turned back before I stepped onto the boat, watching as his hand slowly moved to the pistol in the sand next to him. “Well played Dutch, well played.”

Since it seems to be a popular format, let me chime in with my own ideas for potential reworks, new features etc.

Part 1: space combat

space combat is just not very fun right now, there's mainly 2 issues.
first, getting breached in a full health ship doesn not feel fair at all, taking any large ship into raid is just begging for trouble as half the map will try to breach into your ship, completely nullifying their utility.
the second issue i have with the current state of space combat is how unrewarding it feels in most cases.
i will not talk about ship and weapon balance as i'm sure the devs have heard everything there is to be said and balancing is forever a WIP.
​
breaching:
there's been a lot of ideas to "fix" breaching on this sub, the most talked about one is to make it impossible to breach ships until they are damaged enough. a similar but more flexible approach IMO would be to make breaching take time based on the amout of hull left in the ship and it's tier. the players inside the ship would hear a loud drilling sound at the breach spot giving them enough time to prepare an ambush. it might take 20s-30s to breach a full health heavy frigate, or 2s to breach a 15% hp rustbucket. this would achieve the following:

• yoloing around the map and breaching a full health ship becomes all but a death sentence.
• The magnitude of a dogfight's victory now matters, if you win without taking much damage, you are pretty much safe from the losers podding into you immediately , however, if you barely win you're still in danger.
• It opens the possibility to add different types of breachpods to different ships, or ship customization if it comes back such as pods that drill faster, pods that drill silently, pods that drop a flash or a nade seconds before breaching etc...
• as a mainly solo player i often leave the periscope just after getting breached, wich means i have zero sound info on breach location, while my opponent knows exactly where i am, this reverses that.
• synchronized breaching from a team remains a threat, but a diminished one.
• zero impact on breaching disabled ships.
• it gives solos a chance to fight against the disgusting strat of 1 breacher, 1 shooter by hopefully giving us time to deal with the ship before the breacher makes it in.

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unrewarding dogfights:
winning a dogfights usually results in the ship still standing pelting the downed ship until the players in it pod out, there's really 4 options here:

• they pod out and breach you (see above)
• they pod out and leave (x fewer players to worry about)
• they pod out and you kill them (best case scenario atm)
• they stay in. this is the part that currently feels really wrong.

​
after shooting their ship for an appropriate amount of time, you have to:

• leave commands
• run to the pods, sit through the animation
• find their ship, get there, breach it
• optionnaly die because they were wearing heavy pilot armor, went through a whole pharmacy and ambushed you at the breach point
• otherwise, run around until you find their bodies
• loot what you can, usually ship gear, occasionally good gear you can't really carry
• run to the pods, sit through the animation
• find your ship if it's still here and intact, get there, breach it
• run back to the commands

overall this takes forever, is incredibly dangerous, and you might only get a luger and some 9mm for it. the xp for disabling ships is very low as well.
​
my solution:
Allow us to destroy downed ships. After depleting "hull integrity", give us a second health bar of "system integrity", when it reaches 0, a horn blares in the ship before it blows up killing everyone inside. this achieves the following:

• it is no longer possible to wait forever inside a burning destroyed ship to ambush the winner of a dogfight.
• you can get your spoils much faster and safer by simply salvaging the ship
• you can add some material rewards to space combat by adding to the salvage crates some materials based on the destroyed ship craft cost.

​
​

part 2: QOL

obviously the game is very buggy and fixes are a priority, but i'm not going to get into that here.
vertical audio pls x)
zero to hero need some adjusting in places but since every second thread is "sas captain where?" i guess the devs are aware of that.
lots of small ergonomics changes to inventory management are needed. filling a large containers with meds takes way longer than it should. i made some suggestions here.
more post raid info would be really nice.
stacking meds. seriously, please allow us to stack meds. so much space is taken by meds, i can hardly loot anything :'(
prestige cost rebalance, 10 prestiges worth of Ps for a 6th hangar bay, is this a joke?
zero to hero probably shouldn't reset on prestige.
​
​

part 3: base upgrades, "kits" and supergear

this part is 100% imaginary features, i'm just spitballing ideas here.
​
​
Kits:
Kits are packages that may contain any combination and amount of any kind of gear. the default kit is the classic "p08 pouch rig box of 9mm", more kits can be unlocked through questing, fulfilling trade requests, crafting base upgrades, achievements, prestige unlocks, whatever...
In the play screen, under the ship card and above the crew box, add a box for kit selection, with the default kit selected by default every raid.
Every kit outside of the default one costs money.
In raid, on the shelf where you would normally find free gear, you have a box instead that contains your selected kit.
most likely, kits would only be available to the crew's host.
there would be essentially 3 tiers of kits:
low tiers would contain cheap gear, maybe better than the current ship gear, might include sack bags, cheap helmets and a couple bandages, innefective weapons such as the sten, m1a1, various sidearms etc, these would be most useful for early prestige, noobs and broke players with some money in the bank, they would cost between 50-80% of their combined price.
mid tier would contain the better weapons and armors available for sale by the various traders, maybe some modded guns such as the m50, tommy, svt, ppsh, uzis etc, there are more useful for established players who want the convenience, they would cost 150-200% of their combined price.
high tier would contain endgame loadouts for VERY HIGH prices, these would act amongst other things as a cash sink for players currently accumulating millions with nothing to spend it on. is a kit containing a 12-12rig, radio full of meds and a modded bar slightly broken? yes, but what if it cost $750k?
​
​
base upgrades:
these would act as a ressource sink and long term goal to work toward.
have a bunch of stations and upgrades be craftable and upgradable, with low tiers beeing various degrees of very cheap, and high tiers beeing various degrees of extremely expensive.
workbench would gate the crafting of most weapons/armors/bags
chem lab for explosives and meds
ammo dump, med cabinet, gun racks, armor racks, hangar bays, crafting chest... would add new tabs in the gear menu, between player inventory and stash inventory, leading to unique stashes designed to store large amount of specific items.
for instance, the ammo dump would, at tier 1 be able to store 600 of every large ammo and 1200 of small ones. double that at tier 2, double again at tier 3.
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​
treasures, treasure mats and supergear:
this is my problem: nothing in this game feels all that rare or valuable, gold bullions, meh, nukes, meh, supply crates, meh... the vaults are kinda worthless, the supply depots are full of crafting mats but i'm not excited about anything craftable.
this is my solution: treasures.
add a new tool, the breaching charge, used to get inside a secure chest found in every vault. that tool however is uncraftable and reasonably rare. (single use obv)
in this chest, have a decent chance to spawn 1-2 items from the trasure lootlist, amongst other high tier gear.
these treasures would include valuables worth A LOT, collectibles that might lead to achievments/quests/insert other features, and most importantly treasure mats.
treasure mats would be combined with a ton of regular materials to craft extremely high end gear that would outperform regular stuff, with the caveat that they would be NON REPAIRABLE.
for instance, say you open a secure chest and find a superpanzer rig blueprint, combine it with 12 reinforced metal, 15 fabric and 20 synthetic scrap to get a 15 armor rig with 3 2*2 pockets and 150-200 durability.
this might sound completely op but it really gets you from 5 bodyshots with an stg to 6 and it does fuck all for you if you get shot in the face or legs.
this achieves the following:

• makes high loot area high loot again
• killing that one superchad makes you feel like a kid at christmas
• ressource sink due to very high crafting cost
• get back those "i HAVE to make it out alive" moments
• possibility to add true gg gear without it ending up everywhere immediately due to high crafting cost and high rarity of the treasure mats

​
anyway, that's all for now, thanks for reading and let me know what you think.

Giant apartment with lots of sunlight, modern kitchen w/ electric stove and oven, washer and dryer in unit, and spacious living room. Master has a private bathroom, and there is another shared bathroom as well. We also have a large shared storage closet.
ISO friendly roommates preferably 30+. If you're creative that's also a plus! Pet friendly, couples welcomed. If interested please message with your name and brief summary about yourself.
Master bedroom $1395 This room gets beautiful natural light all day. Two big windows. SO spacious- easily fits a queen or king sized mattress, and enough space for a desk as well. Private bathroom with a window, gets nice sunlight in the afternoon. Two closets in the bedroom and usb outlets. Perfect for a couple. THIS ROOM IS AVAILABLE AS SOON AS JUNE 20, FLEXIBLE MOVE IN UNTIL AUGUST 1.
Middle Room $1280 This room is suitable for a couple or single. Smaller than the master but still very roomy. Two large windows and two closets. THIS ROOM HAS A FLEXIBLE MOVE IN UNTIL JULY 1.
Some additional selling points... - one block from the A/C train. super easy commute - a park right around the corner with soccehandball/basketball courts and a beautiful field - walking trails and various parks within walking distance - tons of bars and restaurants in this neighborhood

In the past two weeks I went to lake Austin Blvd and the Burnet location and inquired about the secret spice level and was told:
Lake Austin: server “not confidently” told me that they turned the secret spice level in to the stupid hot to simplify the menu. I ordered stupid hot and it was 6/10 on the heat level so I apparently was lucky to get a poorly mixed batch as well :(
Burnet: Ate at bar and lady inquired with someone in the back and instead of directly answering regarding the spice level she stated that they have some comp/challenge (that may not be year round) and that may be the relevant heat level im thinking of. This order of stupid hot was like…8/10 which is a happy place to be :)
Anyways..still love T22.

Welcome to the Recruitment thread!
Alliances, post your advertisement for what you're looking for, including if you're recruiting permanent players or mercenaries.
Players, post your advertisement for your wants, needs, and commitments you're willing to make. Please include if you're a mercenary or if you're looking for a permanent home.
Please keep all responses recruitment related.
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Most of my friend group is big on drinking. Not raucous drinking all the time, but we tend to binge heavy. They stop. I don’t. And I drink more alone at home than not. They’ve been supportive of me not drinking in the past—I’ve had stints of not drinking. But I have to stop due to Thai constant stomach ache (any remedies??) and I’m not sure what the next move is aside from telling them I’m not sure I can hang with them on weekends or at bars, etc. problem is loneliness is my biggest trigger. Any advice would be great.

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 44%. (I'm a bot)

BANGKOK, June 4 - The frontrunner to be Thailand's next prime minister joined a Pride parade in Bangkok on Sunday, promising to pass a law that would allow same-sex marriage and gender identity rights if he becomes premier.
Thousands of LGBTQ+ people, their allies and political leaders marched through central Bangkok, marking Pride month and promoting gender equality in the second official Pride parade to be held in the country.
Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt said that over 50,000 people joined this year's Pride parade, more than double the attendance of last year's event.
"Once the government is formed we will support Marriage Equality, Gender Identity and several others, including welfare," Limjaroenrat told reporters at the parade.
"These few things will make the celebration of diversity in Pride Month into pride always," he said.
The coalition, which consisted of eight political parties, has made a joint pledge to pass laws, including the Marriage Equality Act, to ensure equal rights for all couples regardless of gender, after the passage of the draft law and related legislations were stalled in parliament under the previous government.

Summary Source FAQ Feedback Top keywords: Pride^#1 parade^#2 gender^#3 BANGKOK^#4 law^#5
Post found in /worldnews and /neoliberal.
NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.

1. Gangs : the best feature so far in any GTA game. control territories, sell drugs, smuggle weapons, all within your territory and look to expand to others. to add to it, partner up with other gangs as a "truce" to either ensure peaceful operation or to take down other gangs together. In the online feature, partner up with players worldwide and form your own gang.
2. Functional Airports : derived from the train systems in RDR2. Unlike GTA 5 where the only time you fly using an airport is during the "Bury The Hatchet " mission. GTA 6 is rumored to have 3 cities : 1 main, large city and two smaller sub-cities. It'd be great if Rockstar added one large airport to the main city and two smaller airports and allowed players to fly in between them, just like RDR2 does with stations. These functionable airports would also allow for smuggling missions. A player could either fly as a passenger or complete flight school missions to become a pilot and fly jets. These airports also have hangars, which can be purchased and allows players to store Jets, and carry out smuggling operations or rent their jet out for charters.
3. Karma System : This should be a must feature and we've seen it work pretty well in RDR2. In GTA 6, a player who commits too many crimes gets randomly followed by the police, or FBI, is denied access to certain weapons, and has police spawn faster the next time he commits a crime. Also, certain properties are outrightly made unavailable for purchase to the player, or are made more expensive. The only way a player can "increase" their karma is by either doing community service, which will serve as a side mission similar to "Strangers and Freaks" in GTA 5, serve prison time, or risk trying to bribe their way out.
4. Dating and Relationships : prominent in San Andreas and GTA 4. Player must be able to ask women out for dates, and their success of scoring one depends on the player health, fitness, crime record and money. These dates would again be similar to all three protagonists hanging out post epilogue (Option C) and would involve playing tennis, going for a drink, etc etc.
5. Player Health and Stamina : It was annoying how in GTA 5 players could not eat or exercise and have stamina and health remain pretty much the same. In GTA 6, a player must sleep from time to time, eat regularly, and has a stat bar in the menu show if the player is underweight, healthy or overweight, depending on food intake and sleep and exercise. A player must have an option to join a gym and workout, which would subsequently affect the players appearance (becomes shredded, buffed, or slim depending on the type of exercise). These exercises and the body type the player choses must in some way affect some missions which involve scuba diving, running, parkour, hand to hand combat, etc. Mind you, RDR2 portrays these features very well (Health Stamina, sleep and weight) so Rockstar should not have an issue replicating it.
6. Haircuts : Yea GTA 5 took a massive L with regards to this feature. Heavily inspired from RDR2, a players must be able to grow hair organically and get haircuts accordingly. The lazy GTA 5 logic where a bald haircut could transform into an afro shouldn't exist in GTA 6. same applies to beards.
7. Cars running out of fuel : makes the game actually realistic. Must include at least one mission in which you're in the midst of a police chase and you run out of fuel. Also, assuming we have robbery missions in GTA 6, the more cut your getaway driver takes, the more fuel is made available to you for your escape.
8. Stock Market : The stock market system in GTA 5 was good enough but one thing that was bothersome was that you couldn't affect the stock market in ways, except for the missions Lester had for you. For example if you blew up the planes of an airline, the stock market would remain unaffected. I feel GTA 6 should introduce more ways to affect the stock market. Rob stores to see a slight fall in the selling price of the franchises value. Crash your car into a cab to see their value drop as well. You get the idea.
9. Festivals : not sure if any Rockstar game has had this feature. But It'd be nice if GTA 6 had a calendar system that let's you tracks days and months and along the way, the people of Vice City celebrate major festivals like Easter, Halloween, and Christmas. Bonus Easter egg where you see Santa Claus flying across the sky at 3 am on Christmas eve.
10. Multiple Choice Dialogue System : it's pretty boring where in GTA cutscenes all we've done so far is sit and watch. It'd add to the immersive experience of the game if you were to be provided with multiple dialogue choices, and they affected the story or the mission in a very minor way.

That was all I've got for now. What are your thoughts?

So i have a theory in my head, its probably bullshit and wont happen but it would be cool. So V1 reaches the end of act 3 we see Gabriel, weakened, the light of the Creator leaving him by the minute, then he sees V1, gets up and does one final speech to the Machine that had taken so much from him and gets ready to battle it one last time and he takes off his helm, then boom, switch perspectives we are seeing V1 from Gabriel's POV and then a life bar appears ontop of the screen "V1, man-made devil" and not its our task to defeat the monster we created throughout the whole game, using all the tricks we learned beating all those husks, demons and prime souls for one last time to defeat the monster of own creation.

Am I being out of line here ?
I have always lived alone. I absolutely love my own space and my own company. Recently my friend of around 10 years asked me if she could move in with me as her parents were selling the house. I said yes, but I probably should’ve thought things through a little better.
She isn’t the worst roommate in the world- she’s just always there. I can’t enjoy a Saturday watching the tv because she’s constantly just right there next to me playing her tik toks out loud and laughing obnoxiously. I work from home and she is supposed to be going in to the office three times a week, but many times she just stays home with me.
Anyway- this isn’t the main issue. A couple of weeks ago, we went out to a local bar for some drinks. She was a nightmare all evening. Picking fights with people and just being a general nuisance. She is one of those drunk people that just causes arguments and cries at any given moment and just makes the entire evening un enjoyable for everybody. Fast forward to the morning after, I was eating my breakfast. She bursts into the kitchen screaming crying and starts chugging straight vodka Infront of me. I obviously ask her what’s wrong and she proceeds to tell me to F off. I ignore her. She then starts being sick onto my kitchen floor, zero effort to get to the bathroom. She throws up everywhere and hardly even cleans it up. Aside from this, the things she said to me, I am finding it hard to get over. I have had many abusive relationships in my life and it really triggered me. I don’t want to completely cut ties with her as she does have some good qualities and we have been friends for a while now. But I just do not want her around me 24/7 anymore. Am I an asshole if I ask her to move out? Should I be honest or just tell her I’m moving back home also and just not leave? Idk what to do. She is very emotionally unstable so I presume that anything I say will be world war three.
This whole fiasco happened a few months ago now so it may seem out of the blue if I told her my reasons, but I can’t get over it.
Thanks guys

Hello! I need help and so far I haven't been able to find it on the internet (or I may be searching it wrong).
I would want to know if Avalonia can display on a second screen. For context, I'm currently doing a project on food ordering (it's for our small restaurant) and we kind of want to make a not-quite-POS (It's not really a government-approved POS, it's more of a way to make our restaurant efficient, especially with regards to the orders and kitchen). The goal of my project is whenever an order is made, that order will be sent to the second screen.
I'm currently doing this in my Visual Studio 2022, and will be deploying this on my Raspberry Pi 400 - Raspberry Pi OS 64 bit.
I already made the code for the ordering and menu items. My only problem now is displaying a second screen. This wouldn't work:

 public MainWindow() { InitializeComponent(); var kitchenDisplay = new KitchenDisplay(SharedOrders); var screen = this.Screens.AllScreens.Count > 1 ? this.Screens.AllScreens[1] : this.Screens.Primary; kitchenDisplay.Position = new Avalonia.Point(screen.Bounds.X, screen.Bounds.Y); //kitchenDisplay.Left = bounds.Left; //kitchenDisplay.Top = bounds.Top; kitchenDisplay.Show(); } 

I may be doing this wrong as I'm really not that familiar yet with Avalonia. If anyone can help me or at least give me the insight to display the second screen. It would help me out a lot. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

My wife and I both have 15.6" IdeaPads and we use Google WiFi with one router and 2 access points.
The router puck is in the basement centrally located under the stairs, the first floor puck/extender mesh unit is in the kitchen (slightly offset to one side of the house) and the second floor puck/extender mesh unit is in my daughter's bedroom (sometimes in the hall which is more centrally located but prone to being knocked around).
I've run tests, everything is working very well according to google home, great wifi strength/coverage, yada yada.
but whenever my laptop (win10) wakes up from a sleep state, it is nearly always disconnected from wifi and it doesn't seem to want to reconnect. Yesterday the problem was so bad I actually rebooted the router from the google home app. I've never had to do that before. Yesterday, my wife (win11) reported similar issues where the laptop just wouldn't connect to wifi regardless of what she did. On my laptop, the globe icon appears in the task bar and when I click on it, it says that I'm connected to wifi but not getting internet.
I'm usually pretty good trouble shooting issues like this but I have not been able to figure this one out.
I'm reasonably certain this is a laptop issue as we don't have issues with our iPhones but I'm struggling with it.

This was my first Disney trip since I was a kid in the early 2000s! And it was also our Honeymoon!
Fly-In day (5/30): We stayed at the WL throughout our time there. It was honestly one of the most beautiful hotels I've ever seen! That lobby is massive and gorgeous! We had some quick service food when we arrived at Roaring Fork. They had some decent dishes. The campfire cupcake was delicious. Today was a pool day, and I had a drink at Geyser Point. If you get a chance to eat or drink there, do it! It's a great lakeside bar! For dinner, we ate at Storybook Dining. My wife LOVED getting to meet the Snow White characters, and I'd say Dopey was our favorite interaction. He was so sweet. The Evil Queen saw our happily ever after buttons and said "Hmph, Happily Ever After indeed" xD The prime rib was great and I loved the dessert options. I need to find that mushroom bisque recipe....
MK Day (5/31): MK was as great as I remembered it. We were going to rope drop Space Mountain, but it was down when we got there (it was actually down for a lot of the day, more on that later). Instead, we improvised and our first ride was Buzz Lightyear. Almost got to 999,999 D; We next rode Jungle Cruise, and our skipper was absolutely HILARIOUS! xD We next got some breakfast at Sleepy Hollow. I had the waffle sandwich with nutella and fruit, and omg it was so good! We next rode PotC and saw the Tiki Room. Next was BTMRR and we had a blast. Next we saw some characters (Tiana and Rapunzel). Rapunzel is my wife's favorite Disney princess (she had a full Rapunzel outfit on), and she was beyond happy to meet her. We had lunch at Crystal Palace. It was great meeting Winnie the Pooh characters (Eeyore is our favorite!), and our server was hilarious (I sadly forgot his name, but he's from Australia and said my wife was smarter than the average koala lol) We then saw the Festival of Fantasy parade. Next we were going to ride Space Mountain, but it was down AGAIN. So we rode the People Mover and got to see Space Mountain with the lights on! Next we rode Space Mountain which was back up, and this is where our trip took a bad turn. My wife has a autoimmune disease, and after Space Mountain she was in excruciating pain. We did go to see Buzz and then rode HM. Since she had trouble walking at this point, I got her a wheelchair. For the rest of the trip, she was either in a scooter or wheelchair since she was in a lot of pain. We had dinner at Columbia Harborhouse. I loved the Haunted Mansion milkshake! I rode Tron solo next (that launch is insane O.o), and then got in the handicap area for fireworks. HEA made us both tear up xD We finished the night with lantern photos at the Rapunzel bathrooms, IaSW, and the Little Mermaid ride. Let me just say that WDW is so great for people with disabilities and in wheelchairs/ECVs. You can literally roll up to the ride vehicle and don't have to walk through the queue. On many rides you can STAY in the wheelchair or scooter on a modified ride vehicle! Disney gets major points in my book for all that. Definitely better that Universal in that regard. We ended the night with a boat ride back to WL.
Favorite ride: Either Jungle Cruise or Tron (though HM was my favorite as a kid!)
HS Day (6/1): We rope dropped MMRR (such a cute ride!) and then rode Star Tours. Next we met with Darth Vader and Sulley and had JackJack Num Num cookies. We rode Slinky Dog (a surprisingly thrilling ride! So much fun!) and bought some Star Wars merch. We saw the drum corp in TS Land (they were AWESOME!) We next rode RotR. We sadly got B-mode Kylo Ren, but the ride was still fun! The Kylo Ren animatronic looks meh anyway in ride POVs (though that's probably me just coping xD). The first order CMs honestly make the ride as great as it is, and our interactions were hilarious xD. We next got some GE refreshments with some blue milk. Was very refreshing on a hot day! Next was probably one of my favorite ride experiences of the day, MF: SR. Since my wife was in a wheelchair on our honeymoon, the CMs sprinkled some pixie dust and we got OUR OWN COCKPIT AS PILOT AND COPILOT! It was great with us shouting banter at each other and holding hands while making the jumps to lightspeed. We got two containers of coaxium, did a bit of damage to the cockpit lol (she made a mistake in the tunnel section by riding the ceiling of the tunnel xD), and we got the bonus asteroid field sequence! We had lunch at Sci-Fi Drive-In next, and our burgers were great! We next watched Indiana Jones (so much fun), and then did some shopping. I rode ToT solo (my wife wanted to save her hip), and I also rode TS Mania solo (she was done with rides at this point). As a thank you for letting me ride solo, I bought her a Woody doll (she loves Woody). We next built a lightsaber and droid (I did the saber, she did the droid). We had dinner at Docking Bay 7 with some ronto wraps and I did some shopping in Dok Ondar's to get some different color kyber crystals for by lightsaber. At this point my wife was just too tired to keep going, so we took a Minnie Van back to WL.
Favorite ride: either Slinky Dog or MF: SR (mainly for OUR OWN COCKPIT!). B-mode Kylo lowered my enjoyment of RotR which saddens me a bit :( that ride is just a maintenance nightmare, but it's a cool ride. Just not my favorite at HS. Maybe the Kylo animatronic could've made it better (but that's honestly just a 10 second part of an almost 15-20 minute experience).
Disney Springs day (6/2): we did a LOT of shopping today with some lunch at the Rainforest Cafe (one of my favorite restaurants as a kid). The June cookie of the month at Gideon' (the Sea Turtle) only lasted two minutes as I DEVOURED it. It was soooooo good! We had dinner at the Edison (my mahi was delicious and so was her steak). We were giving out thank you coins to amazing CMs and servers (not in lieu of regular tips ofc) so we gave our server one. In exchange, he gave us a High Roller coin! Idk if I'll be able to collect 4 for the free drink, but it's a great souvenir! We ended the night with Drawn to Life and it was absolutely INCREDIBLE! THE BEST SHOW AT DISNEY! SEE IT! We rode the bus back to WL after our little date night.
EPCOT day (6/3): we started the day with Spaceship Earth. Still an amazing ride! Next we got on Frozen Ever After, and it was honestly one of my favorite rides in WDW! Next we met with Pluto and then rode Journey into Imagination (such a cute ride!). We then rode GotG: CR and IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! We got "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" as our song! We next met Joy, Venellope, and Mickey. After that, we rode Nemo and saw some fish! Then we had lunch at Via Napoli with a wine flight and some amazing pizza! We did some world showcase exploring and Flower Garden booth sampling (Italy was our favorite pavilion) and my wife got an Italian mask and a kimono at the Japan pavilion (we are thinking of going to Japan at some point and we also would love to go to a Japanese garden where she can wear it! It's a really pretty kimono!). We next rode Soarin' (BEST RIDE AT EPCOT!) and Living with the Land. It was downpouring at this time and thankfully these two rides gave us a chance to stay dry. We next rode Remy (funny thing happened here. We got stuck in the room with the rat uncorking the wine bottle. He was stuck in the uncorking animation for what felt like at least a full minute. It scared the crap out of us when the cork finally popped and we got sprayed xD). We ended the night with food and drinks from festival pavilions. We got a TON of topiary pictures throughout the day, saw the butterfly garden, and ate some delicious food. My favorites were the eggs benedict with lox and the fruit loop shake at brunchcot! Sadly I was tipsy, hot, and tired so I can't remember the drinks I had xD we ended the night by relaxing in the hot tub with sore feet and she was sore all over.
Favorite rides: GotG: CR and Soarin' (probably one of our favorite rides at WDW. It is so immersive!).
Fly-out day (4/4): And now I'm sitting waiting for our flight. Overall we had a great trip even though my wife was suffering a lot from her autoimmune disease flare-up throughout. The CMs were incredible and helped us out so much. They made the trip so much more enjoyable in what could've been a disaster at other places like Universal. Definitely go to Disney Parks if you have a disability!

TL;DR: A Singaporean’s comparison and experience of living in Bangkok, AMA.
Recently seen a lot of posts about moving from Singapore to another country and thought I would share my own experiences about moving from Singapore to Bangkok and some pros and cons of each location.
Please kindly take note that this is all from my personal experience and knowledge and may not apply to everyone.
​
Background:
I (30M) first experienced living and working in Bangkok due to an internship. The internship was mandatory but the location was not specified. I chose Bangkok having never lived there before and ended up liking it so decided to do another internship in Bangkok the following year. After completion, I managed to land a full time job in Bangkok and have been living in Bangkok for 7.5 years now. I am in the hospitality industry.
​
Visa:
In order to stay legally in Thailand, you’ll need to be on the proper visa. You could come in on visa exemption and then do visa runs, but in the long run, it is not a viable option especially since immigration is cracking down on visa runs.
I have listed essentially the easiest visa’s to obtain to live in Thailand legally.
- Non-Immigrant B: Get hired by a company in Thailand, where they will issue you with a work permit and you are allowed to legally work in the role that is written in the work permit. The visa will be valid so long as you are employed.
- Non-Immigrant ED: Enroll into a language school to learn Thai or join a Muay Thai gym. Typically the visa lasts for a year. Working on this visa is illegal.
- Non-Immigrant O-A & O-X: Retirement visa, you need to be 50 years and above. Working on this visa is illegal.
- Non-Immigrant O (Thai Spouse): Get married to a Thai national. The visa is valid as long as you are legally married. Working on this visa is legal.
- Elite Visa: Essentially a paid visa that allows you to stay legally from 5 years up to 20 years. The price starts at THB 600K (one-time fee) up to THB 2M. Working on this visa is illegal.
​
Work Opportunities:
From the above mentioned visas, I only have experience with the Non-Immigrant B visa as I am employed in Bangkok. I may decide to change to the Non-Immigrant O (Thai Spouse) visa when I get married to my Thai partner next year.
Getting employed in Thailand is a route that a lot of people choose when first deciding to move to Thailand. There are essentially 2 options that someone could choose:
- Employee: Get hired by a Thai company. There are a list of prohibited jobs for foreigners in Thailand such as hairdresser, Thai massage, tour guide, legal services (you can be a consultant though). Legally there is also a minimum salary for foreigners to earn. For Singaporeans, the minimum salary / month is THB 45K however there are also loopholes in order for employees to avoid paying this much. This minimum salary does not apply to teaching. Some of the most popular jobs for foreigners are in education (teacher), tech, marketing, consulate / embassy, diving instructor, hospitality and work for an MNC.
- Business Owner: Opening your own business is another way to work in Thailand. The most popular registration choice for foreigners is to open a limited company. You will only have ownership of 49% of the company, and the remaining 51% needs to be owned by a Thai person. Many foreigners will put the 51% in their Thai spouse’s name. It is also possible to have 2 Thai’s own the 51% (25.5% each) so that the foreigner still has majority ownership. You can also then apply for a work permit however need to have four Thai workers per foreigner employed and THB 2 M in capital.
​
Salary & Income:
In general, the salary in Thailand is significantly lower than in Singapore, however the cost of living is also more expensive. My first salary in Bangkok was gross THB 45K / month, take home pay was around THB 38K. That is roughly S$1,500. I lived a mostly Thai lifestyle, with little to no savings each month. Thankfully I am now on a salary higher than if I was in the same position in Singapore. I would advise that a salary of THB 50K / month is the minimum that any Singaporean should be willing to take in order to move to Bangkok. Anything THB 100K / month and you’ll be able to live comfortably on a mixed of local + foreigner lifestyle so long as you have no kids or don’t intend to send them to international school.
The best is if you end up on an expat contract and you will have your basic salary (usually paid in USD) + housing allowance + yearly flight tickets back home + international school fees for your kids paid for. Obviously this is subject to the company but I have heard of people also getting transport allowance, grocery shopping allowance, company car and driver, live-in maid, etc.
​
Working Life:
Tasks in Singapore get done. And they get done fast. Singapore is efficient and as much as Singaporeans love queuing (for food), they also don’t like waiting. However, working in Singapore can be very competitive. The so called ‘rat race’ starts the moment you enter working life. Depending on the industry, overtime is often expected. The “kiasu” mentality in Singaporeans often causes the over-competitiveness at the workplace.
Working life in Thailand is quite the opposite of Singapore. Thai employees generally take things slower. Decisions that can be made in 1 day in Singapore, can take 1 month in Thailand. Many Thai workers just want to do their 8-10 hours a day, grab a beer after work, go home to sleep and then repeat the next day. Thai employees are also generally less competitive compared to Singaporeans, thus as a Singaporean working in Bangkok, I am able to stand out amongst my Thai colleagues and was able to progress much faster in my career compared to if I was working in the competitive Singaporean environment. In Thailand, “saving face” is very important especially at the management level. The practice of “saving face” is not something that many westerners understand and are used to, thus is often a disadvantage to them.
​
Condo, Apartments & Houses:
To be honest, I cannot speak about the Singapore property market and prices because I have no firsthand experience. I have never bought or rented any property in Singapore before. I can only share the prices in Bangkok for you guys to compare.
In Bangkok, a typical 1 bedroom condo (30 SQM to 35 SQM) can be found for THB 10K (S$388) to THB 15K (S$582) per month. These condos are typically within a 10 – 20 minute BTS/MRT ride into the city center. The further out you go, the cheaper condos are. Alternatively, the closer you are to the city center, the more expensive the condo’s get.
Local apartments are even cheaper and can be rented under THB10K per month. Some apartments even have rooms for rent that are THB 3000 (S$116) per month, however the room is usually quite small (20 SQM), has no kitchen, sometimes no hot water, sometimes no AC, and is in a very local area of Bangkok. It is literally a room with a bed and a bathroom inside.
There are also houses for rent in Bangkok. There are 2 major types of houses: the first are standalone houses and the second are called townhouses (essentially a house in a gated community). These can range from THB 25K (S$970) to more than THB 100K (S$3880) per month depending on the size, location, age, etc.
Alternatively, if you decide to, foreigners can also legally purchase condos under certain regulations. Every condo has a foreigner quota which essentially every condo need to be 51% majority owned by a Thai national. So if a condo has 100 units, minimum 51 units need to be owned by a Thai national. If the current condo only has 50 units owned by a Thai, then a foreigner is unable to purchase a unit in that condo project until 1 more unit is owned by a Thai. Condos can be bought starting from THB 1M (S$38.8K) to THB 100M (S$3.8M) depending on the size and location.
Owning land in Thailand by foreigners is not allowed. There are some ways and loopholes of getting around it such as setting up a business in Thailand. Lots of foreigners who marry a Thai national end up putting the land under their partners name and by getting a usufruct / right of superficies, it protects the foreigners in the sense that their partner would be unable to sell the land without the permission of the foreigner. It is honestly quite complicated and I personally went through this route.
The townhouse that I purchased cost around THB 12.5M (S$485K) and is roughly 250 SQM (2690 SQFT), with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, with a decent sized garden and garage large enough for 2 cars. It is in a good location (not in the city center) with a 20 minute drive into the city center. With S$485K, I am not sure if you could even buy a 2 or 3 bedroom HDB in a not so desired district in Singapore.
​
Food:
Singapore has hawker centers while Bangkok has street food. Street food in Bangkok is cheap, usually starting from THB 40. Singapore hawker centers are relatively affordable although there have been a significant increase in prices over the past couple of years. There are also a wide variety of eateries from food courts to Michelin Starred restaurants, with lots of different types of cuisines in both cities. Prices in both cities can range from cheap to crazy expensive, so it really depends on what kind of budget and lifestyle you have.
​
Cost Of Living:
It is well known that Singapore has an expensive cost of living, while the cost of living in Bangkok is cheaper. It is not S$1 for a one beer kind of cheap, but it’s definitely cheaper than Singapore. I have not lived in Singapore for the past 9 years so I am not in touch with the current prices in Singapore. So I will just share the prices in Bangkok.
Gym memberships in Bangkok are usually around THB 1000 (S$38) to THB 1500 (S$58) a month. A foot / Thai massage cost THB 250 (S$10) to THB 350 (S$13) per hour, a ticket in the cinema is about THB 250 (S$10). A drink in a bar is around THB 150 (S$6) to THB 250 (S$10) depending on the type of establishment. I could go on and on but in generally most things are cheaper in Bangkok than in Singapore.
​
Transport:
- Public Transport: Public transport in Singapore is reliable. Living in Singapore, it is generally convenient to take the bus and MRT for transport.
In Bangkok, if you live in the city center you will have no issue using only the BTS & MRT to get around. Buses are not reliable due to the sheer amount of traffic. Alternatively, using motorcycle taxis are also a viable option for short to medium distances. If you lived in the suburbs or even other provinces such as Chiang Mai & Phuket, you’ll either have to buy / rent a car or motorcycle, use Grab or a songthaew (shared pickup truck).
- Motorcycle Ownership: Purchasing your own motorcycle is also a popular option. A new Honda Click 150 can be bought for around THB 61K (S$2.3k).
- Car Ownership: The cheapest first hand car in Singapore is roughly around S$80,000 to S$90,000 (THB 2M to THB 2.3M). On top of that, Singapore’s COE in May (1st bidding) for CAT A closed at S$101,001 (THB 2.5M).
In Thailand, cars start around THB 500K. An entry level Mercedes Benz A-Class will cost around THB 1.9 M (S$74,000). Cheaper cars in Thailand do come with a price and that is the traffic in Bangkok. During peak period, expect your 15 minute car ride to extend to 1 hour or even more depending on your location within the city. Traffic in other provinces is generally much better compared to Bangkok.
​
Social Circle:
In Singapore, you generally already have a group of friends that you met since high school / university / army (for guys).
Unless you have family or friends already living in Thailand, you’ll need to start from scratch. The easiest way to make friends is usually from your workplace. Another popular option is to use apps such as Meetup.com and Tinder for dating. Some may find it hard at first to make friends with Thai people due to the language barrier if you do not speak Thai and they do not speak much English.
​
Language:
In Singapore, English is widely spoken. Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and Malay are also used. It is easy to communicate with 99% of the population.
In Thailand, English is not widely used by everyone especially in the areas where there are no/less tourists. Signs (food, road, etc) can often be only written in Thai.
​
Domestic Travel:
Unless you consider taking the MRT to Sentosa domestic travelling, Singapore does not offer much domestic travel. In Thailand, a 1.5 hour plane ride can take you to Chiang Mai, Phuket, Koh Samui, Khon Kaen, etc. While a 2 hour car drive can take you to Pattaya, Hua Hin, Kanchanaburi, Ayutthaya, etc for quick weekend getaways. Singapore however, is a major hub in Asia and many international flights use Changi Airport as a hub. I also personally prefer Singapore Airlines to Thai Airways.
​
Safety & Crime:
Singapore is generally extremely safe. Chances of you getting robbed by knife are slim to none. In Thailand, it is also generally safe. Be smart and do not put yourself into dangerous situations and you’ll generally be fine. I have never gotten pickpocketed or robbed or scammed or anything of similarity over my years of living here.
​
Government:
This is the topic that I prefer not to talk about. In short:
- The Singapore government is stable.
- I have no comment regarding the Thai government, except let’s see what happens in the next couple of months.
​
TL;DR: A Singaporean’s comparison and experience of living in Bangkok, AMA.
​
And that’s pretty much it. I do apologize for this being so long. I tried my best to share as much as possible without overdoing it. This post got taken down in askSingapore , so hopefully it doesn't break any rules of this subreddit.
If anyone has any further questions, please feel free to AMA.

TWBS Previous Next First
-
---Esme’s perspective---
---Saturday, 11th of November, 2682 Terran Calendar---
---Southern England---
Fucking Sussex!
‘Can you send me to the Forth Valley?’
‘Oh, we can try… On an unrelated note, how’s your standard English? No problems in communicating?’
I should’ve just said ‘No, I have great difficulty in communicating in anything but Lallans Scots!’ instead of putting on my poshest English speech register to say ‘Marjorie dearest, would you be a lamb and pass another buttered scone… hold the raspberry jam, it’s far too spicy for me!’ which she told me she’d take as a ‘Yes.’
“This is an English language barracks. If you have been directed here in error, please make yourself known to barracks staff for reassignment.” plays a loud, prerecorded Welsh language announcement, over speakers.
They’re fucking rubbing it in!
“This is an English language barracks. If you have been directed here in error, please make yourself known to barracks staff for reassignment.” it repeats in Scots Gaelic.
“Ceci est une caserne Anglophone. Si vous avez été assigné ici par erreur, veuillez vous faire connaître auprès du personnel de la caserne pour une réaffectation.” it says in what I’m 90% sure is a French version of the same announcement (I can’t be certain, though, as that’s not one of my languages).
Looking at the crowds queuing to get in makes me regret asserting that I didn’t need transport here.
‘You shouldn’t be sending someone to War that you don’t trust to navigate themself from Galloway to Sussex!’ were my exact words.
I brushed off the recruitment officer saying that I’d be processed faster if I arrived on Military organised transport.
Well, standing here’s not gonna get me to the front of the queue now, is it!
I walk forward to join the massive throng of people, almost all of which look to be about my age.
It’s astonishing how short you feel, being an average height girl in a crowd of people!
178cm really isn’t all that much when you’ve got a not insignificant number of +2m guys here!
Even guys who are the average 188cm can make a girl feel short when their packed too close…
I see a few Neanderthal hunks… perhaps conscription won’t be all bad(!)
When I make it to the front of the line, the guy just stares expectantly at me like I’m supposed to already know what to do.
“Y’awright?… Err… mah nam’s Esme Reid…?” I say, hesitantly, in perfectly comprehensible speech.
“I’m sorry, would you repeat that?” he answers, looking at me like I just spoke to him in fucking Chinese!
“Greetings, gracious sir! You may kindly refer to me by the name ‘Esme Reid’!” I say, affecting my supercilious Southern English gentlewoman accent.
“Alright, Ms Reid. Please present your draft papers and identification.”
The balls they have to ask me to prove who I am when they’re the ones asking me to go off and fucking die for them!
I think about quipping that I should ask him to show me some proof that this is a legitimate Military installation sanctioned by the government of Sol… but think better of it…
Instead, I pull out my draft papers and my holopad, quickly getting up my identification app.
The man scans the code with his own holo and spends a few seconds glancing from his screen to my face and back.
Seeming satisfied that I’m not attempting to enlist under a false identity (for whatever strange reason a person might want to do that) he glances at my papers, says “Everything seems to be in order.” and waves a hand in front of a machine which whirs for half a second before spitting out a simple chain necklace with two little metal rectangles hanging off of it.
He hands it to me and says “This is your identification tag. Please check that the information on it is correct and, if it is, put it on and never take it off.”
I check the tag.
“You’ve got my name and birthday right…” I say, making a conscious effort to keep my speech register in that that a standard English speaker would consider acceptable “…don’t know about the regiment and serial number.”
“Those will be correct.” he says with a ‘move along’ tone.
I shrug, raise the dogtag over my head and drop it around my neck.
I walk on and he’s serving the girl behind me before I’ve even rounded the counter.
I’m ushered through the barracks, herded by the staff, until I reach a building labelled ‘Billet House 279’.
It doesn’t really look like I expected soldiers’ digs to look.
Definitely prefabbed but sort of has more the look of a uni hall than anything else… though I think it’s probably a bit much to expect that I’ll get a room to myself(!)
I follow the throng of draftees through to a wide open room, on the ground floor, that looks like it’s normally a cafeteria.
The camp attendants (who I’m guessing were in the same boat as us, not too long ago) direct us to stand along the left, right and nearside walls, keeping the back wall and centre of the room clear.
Everyone in place, there follows a few minutes of silence broken only by people whispering to one another.
Then, she enters the room.
Dark skinned and clad in green camo clothing, her scalp is easily visible between her cornrows with nary a hair out of place.
Her expression looks absolutely indifferent with just the slightest hint of a curled lip.
From the broadness and flatness of her facial features as well as her single mauve eye, she is clearly half Tshwane… though, you’d never guess that from her stature!
Female Tshwane average nearly 2m… the men are more like 2.2m!
She’s shorter than me!
She’s also built like a Sapiens, not the willowy thinness typical of Tshwane
I guess genetics interact in funny ways sometimes…
Based on her age, her Tshwane parent would probably have to have been one of the very first to be cloned back!
The other eye seems to have been ripped out at some point because in its place is a bionic and there’s a patch of hypopigmented scar tissue, forming a tear shape, at the right corner.
“Recruits… Welcome to the United Terran Coalition Infantry Trainin’ Camp, Graffham… My name is Warrant Officer Simone Sands… and I’ll be your drill instructor…” says the woman, cooly, speaking in a rough sounding, London accent.
The surname ‘Sands’ probably means her dad was the Tshwane (though not necessarily… she might have been given her mum’s surname… or it might be a coincidental English surname).
“…You all know why you’re here… Most of you’ve prob’ly already lost loved ones to this War… You are here to defend our right to exist… and I can’t think of a more worthy reason to fight than that…”
I’ve decided I like this woman… She may be English but I’ll try not to hold that against her(!)
“The first thing I need to tell all of you is that, by the end of your trainin’, you will NOT like me…” she says, as if reading my mind “…that’s OK. My job ain’t to be liked, my job ain’t to make friends… my job is to make soldiers!”
She casts her biological and bionic eyes around the room, letting her words hang in the air.
“Note… that I said ‘soldiers’… This ain’t Full Metal Jacket. This ain’t the 20th Century. There’ll be no Pvt Piles here!… I ain’t aimin’ to destroy your minds or your individuality. I ain’t goin’ to physic’ly and psychologic’ly abuse you into becomin’ robots or killers… I am makin’ you into soldiers… Regardless… this process will not be easy! In fact, it may well be the hardest thing you ever do!… As the face of this process, you will come to hate and resent me for it!… I hope for it! The more you hate me the more-DO YOU HAVE SOMETHIN’ TO SAY, PRIVATE?!”
Everyone in the room is startled by the authoritative woman breaking herself off to shout angrily at someone on the other side of the room.
“STEP FORWARD AND SPEAK SO EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU!”
The boy that steps forward is tall, bulky and muscular with a handsome, half Neanderthal face… just my type!
Then he has to go and ruin it by opening his mouth.
“I was just saying… that I find it somewhat difficult to take you seriously as a commanding officer… You just seem a little bit… little.” says the boy in the poshest, smarmiest English drawl I’ve ever heard!
The woman does not shout, she does not scream, she doesn’t snarl or even purse her lips!
She just nods, as if considering his words, then asks “What’s your name, Soldier?”
“Rupert Forest.” responds the boy, proudly.
“And, how tall are you, Pvt Forest?” responds the woman, unimpressed
“195cm.” he answers.
“And, what’s your mass?” she asks.
“110kg.”
“I see, I see… So, by your logic… you’d make a better drill sergeant than me, would you? You’re 25cm taller and 35kg heavier, afterall!”
He smirks “I wouldn’t presume to say so, Ma’am…” in a way that definitely suggests that he thinks he would.
She seems to consider that for some moments before answering “Alright then, fight me for it!”
“I’m sorry…?” responds the poshboy.
“You heard me… Clearly, you got no respect for skill and experience but it seems like you must respect power… so fight me for it! You win, you get to train this lot, I win, you never question my authority again!”
Is this woman mad!?
She may be a soldier but this boy she just challenged is a half Neanderthal giant!
She’s gonna lose!
I do not want to be drilled by some snotty, privileged English brat who got here at the same time as I did and just couldn’t keep his fucking mouth shut!
Then again, I don’t really want to be drilled by a woman so delusional that she felt the best way to squash insubordination was to challenge a man she has no hope of beating, either!
The guy is clearly salivating over the power that’s just been slapped on the table in front of him as he answers “I accept your terms, Ms Sands…” with faux magnanimity.
There’s no way they’d let a Private run drills, is there? When he wins, someone just needs to go and complain and they’ll give us another (less stupid) drill sergeant… right?
He strips off his jacket to reveal a pair of thick, muscular arms that (in spite of his repulsive personality) are a thrilling sight.
He has to go and ruin it by flexing and posing, clearly revelling in the room’s worth of gasps he got when he revealed his arms… He obviously likes being the centre of attention.
“Done?” asks Sands, drily.
“If you still want to do this…” he says, smugly “…you could just concede defeat and I’m sure no one would hold it against you!”
Her lip curls as she answers “But… if I did that, no one would learn nothin’, now would they…”
He shrugs before launching himself at her without waiting for her to give the word to begin.
She whirls out of the way and he snatches at her, unsuccessfully, as his momentum carries him past.
“Lesson 1:…” she shouts while snapping into the space behind him and kicking out his knee “…size does not determine victory, strength does not determine victory…” levelling another powerful kick between his shoulderblades to bring him to the ground.
She backs off, allowing him to scramble to his feet and turn to face her, hunched in readiness and scowling.
“…Pvt Forest here looked at me with contempt on account of my small size and, though he didn’t say so, I’d guess that my rough accent, my lack of a graduate epithet and my lack of a penis also played a roll in his judgin’ me as less than!… He thought he could beat me, he probably still DOES, and, ’causa that, he didn’t respect my ability to lead…!”
Forest makes another lunge for the smaller woman, misses and is punished for it by being knocked back to the floor.
I’m agog as I watch this little woman… there’s no other word but toy with the giant man!
“…but victory does not care how big you are, how strong you are, how classy or educated you are or what**’**s in your pants or panties…!”
She dodges around his arm and pins his chest to the floor with her knee.
“Discipline and trainin’ determine victory!… Things that I have and Pvt Forest LACKS!… Things that ALL of you will acquire, over the next 8 months!!!” she turns her head down to the mountain of man she’s pinning to the floor “Concede, Private!”
The man shakes his head, trying in vain to leverage himself up.
“Alright then… Lesson 2: When faced with a resistant individual, compliance can be effectively enforced by the expedient of lockin’ their joints to induce PAIN!!!”
She grabs his thick arms by the wrists and pulls them backwards in a way they are not meant to bend!
He screams in agony!
“CONCEDE!!!… Don’t make me send you to the Medical Officer! It’d be inconvenient for BOTH of us if your pride makes you miss your first week of trainin’ while your arms heal!!!”
He holds out for two more seconds before screaming “I concede! I CONCEDE!!!”
She releases him and stands back up.
“On your feet, Soldier…” she growls down at him.
He stands back up, his face beet red.
“Are you ever goin’ to question my fitness to instruct again, Private?” she glares up at the humiliated giant.
“No.” he answers, gracelessly.
“No…?” she says as if waiting for something else.
Forest looks as confused as I am about what she’s expecting.
“No, Ma’am!” she snarls.
“No, Ma’am.”
“Good, we’ll work on your attitude, movin’ forward. Now, get back in line!”
The humiliated man picks up his civvy jacket and returns to the place he was called out from.
“Now, I don’t think I need to prattle on anymore about how you’re gonna hate me by the end of our time together, do I?… I think Pvt Forest helped me prove that point quite well, so I’ll move on… You will sleep in this buildin’, six to a room. Your rooms will be gender segregated. If you wish for a place to be… intimate with people of the opposite gender, you may request use of one of the conjugal rooms… I suggest you do the same if you want to be intimate with a same gender partner but that’s between you and your roommates! You will eat in this room at 0700hrs, 1200hrs and 1800hrs. Diet’ry requirements will be accommodated but, bare in mind, this ain’t your mummies’ and daddies’ kitchen! ‘This food is forbidden by my religion/personal ethics’ is a diet’ry requirement. ‘I am allergic to this food’ is a diet’ry requirement! ‘I don’t like how this food tastes’ is not(!)… In the mornin’s, you will be receivin’ lessons in lecture theatres, workshops and the like…”
“Oh great… just what I wanted after leaving school(!) More classrooms(!)” I mutter to myself.
Her head instantly wheels to me with unnerving precision.
“Someone else with somethin’ they’d like to say!?” she says, locking eyes with me, terrifyingly.
“No, Ms Sands!” I answer, instantly.
“Miss?! I’m not your bloody schoolteacher girl!!!”
Everyone laughs. Even Pvt Forest, like he wasn’t just humiliated himself, 2 minutes ago!
“Ma’am… err… Ma’am, no, Ma’am!!!” I say, doing my best to emulate the tone I’ve seen soldiers use in films.
She rolls her eye (it’s difficult to tell if the bionic rolls too) and says “Better… What’s your name, Private?”
“Ma’am, the Private’s name is Esme Reid, Ma’am!!!”
“Do you remember me tellin’ you this ain’t Full Metal Jacket?… You don’t need to scream when you talk to me, you don’t need to refer to yourself in third person and one ‘Ma’am’, when you’re done speakin’, is enough, Reid!”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She points to her single, mauve eye, then to me and says “I’ll have my eye on you, Reid!”
Somehow, her tone sends a chill up my spine but I do my best not to show it.
She turns away and I release a silent sigh of relief.
“As I was sayin’… In your lectures you will learn the ins and outs of military theory; tactics, strategies, logistics etc. You will learn as much as we can tell you about the nature of the species we are fightin’; their capabilities, tendencies, political organisations and known weaknesses… bear in mind that First Contact weren’t much more than 4 years ago and we’ve been at War for almost all the intervenin’ time, so a lot of what we teach you will be little more than guesswork and hearsay from prisoners we’ve interrogated… The mornin’s’ll also be where you learn the particulars of the equipment you’ll be expected to be proficient with in the field. This includes firearms, plasmaweaponry and durasteel armour, as well as the tech you’ll likely encounter from the opposite side; kinetic pulse weapons, laser weapons, field emitters etc… I strongly suggest that no one allows word to get back to me that they’re not takin’ these classes seriously!… A stupid soldier is a dead soldier!”
She glares around the room, her eyes resting on me four a quarter of a second.
“…In the afternoons and evenin’s, you’ll be doing PT… that’s ‘Physical Trainin’’… soon to be every one of your two least favourite words in the English Language(!) “
I notice a wry smirk twist the mouths of a few of the camp attendants.
“In PT you will be drilled in agility, endurance, close quarters combat and coordinated marching… Five times over the comin’ 8 months, you and your trainin’ partner will be dropped into a remote bit of wilderness, somewhere on Earth, for five day practical survival experience. You will be given a beacon, to summon retrieval, but these are only to be used in cases of actual threat to life or bodily integrity… not because you’re feelin’ miserable!”
She takes a second to pause for breath.
“You get an allowance of 12 days off, over your time here… that’s two a month… These are subject to my approval and I may deny them for any reason, including no reason… so don’t piss me off!… You may not take more than 2 consecutive days leave at a time! Certain classes are mandatory and leave will not be approved on days they occur. If your allowance is spent, no more leave will be approved, barring a real emergency!… Now, for today, you are going to line up to have your maps and room keys downloaded onto your holos when your name is called, then you are going to have your bodies scanned for your armour measurements… at that point everyone with no uterus has the rest of the day free to settle in… If you have a uterus, you’ll need to report to medical to get your cycle paused! This is, I’m afraid, nonoptional… You are not prohibited from engaging in relations with your fellow recruits but you cannot be a soldier while you’re able to get pregnant. Attempts to circumvent this requirement in any way will land you in the Stockade!… After your cycle pause has been given, you’ll also have the rest of the day to settle in… Enjoy it! It’ll be the most downtime you get for a while!… Finally… I believe we have a 17 year old with us here… Pvt Taylor?”
A few people put their hands up, most looking confused.
“Pvt Oskar Taylor! The 17 year old?” she says, exasperated.
All but one of those with their hands up put them down.
The one remaining Pvt Taylor with his hand in the air has pale skin, black hair, brown eyes and a sharp featured face wearing a dour expression.
He stands even taller than Forest… Nearly 2m tall!
Though he’s not quite as heavily built, he’s certainly a good looking piece of boycandy!
“Pvt Taylor…” says Sands, her mouth breaking into a smile for the first time I’ve seen “…couldn’t wait to go off to War, could you(?)”
He mutters something but, while I can hear the power and deepness of his voice, I can’t make out a word he says.
“You’ll have to speak up, Taylor! Nobody’ll be able to hear you if you mumble.” points out Sands.
“I said I had some personal circumstances that made this the most sensible course of action for me, Ma’am.” says the tall, dark haired man, looking over her head rather than down at her and speaking in a grim monotone. He definitely loses boycandy points for the poshness of his accent, unfortunately…
“I see… I won’t pry into that but… you didn’t think of Officer Training? That’s the route that most people take when volunteering ahead of their conscription.”
He shakes his head “I thought of it and decided against it, Ma’am.”
“Oh? Why’s that, Pvt Taylor?”
“I didn’t believe I would make a good officer, Ma’am.” he answers simply.
She laughs “I wish every soldier could be as introspective, Taylor! I like you!… Unfortunately, bein’ a minor does mean that you can’t be put in a room with others… Sooo, that means you get a room to yourself… for the moment. Might sound cushy but before anyone else gets too jealous, bare in mind that privacy is the only advantage! His room will be a sixth the size of yours so its basic’ly a broomcupboard… the disadvantage will be severely reduced opportunity to socialise!… If that doesn’t sound doable, you can leave and come back when you turn 18, Taylor.”
“It’s acceptable, Ma’am.” he says without hesitating.
Yeah… it’s official… I don’t like him…
---later---
I rub the spot on my arm where the serum was thunked into me about 15 minutes ago.
Like with everything else about conscription, I get it… I understand the point…
But seeing the sense doesn’t mean I have to like it!
It’s not like I want to get pregnant (getting a nine month reprieve from service would be a fairly shitty reason for me to bring a child into the world) but it does feel like one last slap in the face to my personal autonomy that I’ve just had a cycle pause fucking mandated upon my body by the government!
As I draw near, door 1512 detects the key downloaded on my holo and unlocks
I open it and am greeted by a blonde girl, smiling broadly and instantly identifiable as brimming with ADHD energy.
“Hey there! My name’s Charlotte, it’s lovely to meet you!” says the girl, wrapping me in a hug without asking if I’m OK with that.
Her accent makes me wonder if everyone I meet here is going to be a posh toff!
She makes three of three of my fellow draftees!
“A pleasure, Charlotte… the name’s Esme…” I say, speaking Scottish accented standard English and gingerly patting her back.
“Oh, you’re Scottish…?” she says pulling herself off me with an expression that suggests meeting a Scottish person is just the most wonderful thing she could have imagined “…My great grandmother was from Edinburgh, where are you from?”
“Stranraer.” I answer.
She frowns “I don’t know it, I’m sorry!”
“I won’t hold it against you… Southwestern tip of Scotland? Where it nearly touches Ireland and the Man Peninsula?… ’Bout two and a half million people?”
“Oh, wooow! I don’t think I’ve ever met someone from a village before!” she says, seeming entirely oblivious to how that might be taken as an insult.
“Yeah… I guess it’s not that big.”
“Well…” she wraps me back in the hug and continues “…we’re the first ones to the room and that has to mean we’re going to be best friends!”
“I’m afraid my best friend’s name is Tamsin… the position is not open.” I say, firmly setting a boundary.
“I meant best bootcamp friends, silly!” she says, as if that should have gone without saying.
“Alright… I guess that positions open… but you’ve not got the job yet(!)” I quip, warming up a little to the ball of posh English energy.
She pulls back and beams at me “Alright then, for my first act as best bootcamp friend candidate, let me show you the view!… That should earn me some points!”
She says, leading me into the room that’s so small it makes me doubt that that goody-two-shoes 17 year old can possibly have one a sixth this size!
She leads me to the window and spends a few moments making sure I’m positioned just right before she draws back the curtain.
The view is quite breathtaking… rolling hills of snow blanketed mammoth steppe, lit by evening sun, with barely any of the sprawling military camp visible.
Though, you can see one of the tallest structures ever built by Humanity… the Sussex Space elevator… several times the Earth’s own diameter, the ‘top’, if you can even call it that, is a fifth of the way from here to Luna! …And… in 8 months, I’m going to be riding it, all the way up, to get on a troop transport.
“Look! See! There’s a herd of aurochs over on that hill! You know this place used to be a national park, before even Unification or the Reset! It’s called the South Downs! My mum told me we had family from here… obviously I never met any of them because they would have left hundreds of years ago!…”
The bubbly girl talks and talks and… just keeps talking… but I don’t particularly mind.
---
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When I posted my Google review of Anthology Whiskey Room a couple weeks ago, I made mention Oku Roji. One redditor commented: "Wait, Warsaw has an izakaya? This entire post boggles my mind. I thought Warsaw only had Penguin Point and 2 churches for every family."
The following is my Google review of Oku Roji, which I think is quite unique for small town Midwest culture...
Oku Roji is a subterranean izakaya in downtown Warsaw IN. With access through Anthology Whiskey Room at 105 E. Center Street, this sunken escape offers Japanese fare, such as a gyūdon, tonkotsu ramen, chirashi and sashimi — along with a long list of Japanese spirits, via Anthology.
For dinner, I had the gyoza (dumplings) and salmon chirashi bowl. The gyoza was strongly recommended to me a few weeks prior, after a conversation with one of Oku Roji's staff. I chose the chirashi bowl due to my affinity for donburri.
GYOZA pork dumplings, lemongrass, leek, scallion, ginger, chili oil, sesame
SALMON CHIRASHI raw salmon, soy, avocado, scallion, furikake, tobiko, seaweed butter, black sesame, sesame chili cucumbers, toasted nori
With good company, I had the opportunity to sample Oku's chicken wings that I first heard about months ago:
TEBASAKI spicy wings, lime mayo, pakuchi, togarashi, fried garlic, chili oil While dining, everything coming out of the kitchen was distracting — because it looked so good. I'm curious to try Oku's gyūdon or ramen with my next visit.
I didn't have anything to drink beyond water, but I did take a look at their Japanese selection of spirits upstairs in Anthology Whiskey Room. On display and in a cellar, Oku Roji's offerings include Japanese distillers, such as Matsui, Akkeshi, Akashi, Kamiki, Hibiki, Nikka, Shibui, Mars Shinshu and more.
With the appreciation aesthetics and a dialed-in dining menu, Oku Roji is an underground getaway worth a visit. Walk-ins are welcome — I was a walk-in — but reservations are recommended.
Instagram and Facebook: okuroji

Playing on pc. Before my attack on Cerberus after the cutscene with whoever I’m romancing I am stuck in a black screen… I the game puts me in front of the war terminal as I can hit space bar and pull that up and see it, as well save my main menu. I have tried saving and loading right away, but I can stuck in a loading screen then.
Any advice?? Mod wise the only one that I can think of that might be in the way is the poly romance mod. Traynor is set to true love on it though. I do have happy ending mod on also. Those are the only to that I can think of that would have an effect at this point in the game.

I gotta bitch quick and i appreciate your opinions. What would you do in this situation?
Small town cafe. I cook breakfast solo every shift and it sucks. Now i have to do a buffet AND cook off the menu this morning. Having my only smoke now..
Its bullshit. Nobody here has done it because they just got a new owner. Just because its 'easy food' doesn't make it any easier. I dont want to serve shit food but how can i not??
Almost 90 degrees outside and the kitchen is not climate controlled.
Solo. Cooking off menu and buffet for 5 hours. I make the same as the other cooks. Who have help on their busy shifts. Quitting isn't an option. wwyd