Which chain has the best donuts? I’m near a hy-vee, cub, and Lunds.

A special thanks to u/bluefishcake for the wonderful original story and sandbox to play in.
A special thanks to my editors LordHenry7898, RandomTinkerer, and Swimming_Good_8507
And a big thanks to the authors and their stories that inspired me to tell my own in this universe. RandomTinkerer (City Slickers and Hayseeds), Punnynfunny (Denied Operations), CompassWithHat (Top Lasgun), CarCU131 (The Cook), and Rhion-618 (Just One Drop)
Hy’shq’e Ay Si’am (Thank you noble friends)
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Chapter 21: A Prince, and a Pauper
Andy sat awkwardly in the middle seat of the back bench between Kalai and Sitry. He’d taken off his hat and had readjusted his blanket to wrap completely around his shoulders and chest before he’d been politely ushered into the flying vehicle. He sat silently watching the three parents fuss over their children with a stab of jealousy. Andy could feel a tension building, as he was grateful to be mostly ignored as the shuttle rocketed up towards whatever destination it was headed towards. He hadn’t quite caught where the rather intimidating rabbit man had told their pilot to go, but it didn’t sound like anywhere he knew, and he didn’t want to have to try and figure out how to get home if it meant booking a flight that he couldn’t afford.
“I want to thank you for saving me back there, If you wouldn’t mind, I’d just as soon be out of your hair. If you could drop me off at the old Bellingham airport, that’s closest to my home,” Andy voiced his concern when a lull had fallen in the conversation about ‘poor Naranjo’s cuts and bruises’. It almost made Andy laugh seeing the parents fuss over Naranjo, while Sitry and Kalai by comparison were told, in a kind and loving way, to suck it up. It was a sentiment he’d grown accustomed to hearing from his own grandmother, ever since they’d been reunited.
The man turned around in his seat towards the front where he sat with his wives and his son. “Nonsense, Alfred-”
“It’s Andy,” Naranjo interjected, ”And dad, you heard the woman!” He gave a worried glance back at Andy. Andy could feel the two girls beside him suddenly tense and shift ever so slightly away from him, as though they were afraid.
“Andy…I’m terribly sorry. I’m Rhaxiid Vaida and I-” The man continued jovially before Naranjo again interrupted his father.
“He means to say Don-Conde-Professing-Practitioner Rhaxiid Vaida. Granmaestro of Ecological Sciences, your highness.” Naranjo switched into High Shil and it took a moment for Andy’s brain to make the switch. He’d not touched High Shil since his last stint in solitary when he completed the advanced literature course. “Allow me also to present Dona-Marquite’-Professing-Practitioner Sakalbi Vaida, Maestra of Oceanographic and Environmental Restoration and my birth mother. This is Dona-Marquite’-Professing-Practitioner Aftasia Vaida, Maestra of Climatology.”
“My birth mother, your highness. I want to apologize for our behavior when we met; it was inappropriate,” Sitry added after Naranjo finished introducing the family. All had inclined their heads, save for Rhaxiid, and it suddenly hit him why they were suddenly all on pins and needles.
“Ok, please stop!” Andy spoke deliberately in Vatikre, and he could feel himself flushing a bit from embarrassment. He tried to get control of himself but he couldn’t quite keep the nervous laughter out of his voice. “I am not actually royalty, I’m not even nobility in any sense of the word. Char’dania is repeating a racist joke that I’m not entirely sure she knows is racist.” Andy didn’t want to have to explain the whole Indian Princess stereotype and how quite a few of the women of the local garrison had taken to using it to describe Andy and some of his peers in the tribe.
“I have no titles except what I am, and I am Andrei Shelokset. If you want to be very formal, my ‘Indian name’ is Tsu’ti’tsi’uqw, which was my great grandmother’s name, and I am of the Bear Clan Salish of the North Straits Salish Band. Everyone just calls me Andy, and it is an honor to meet you all.” Andy let the silence that followed his speech hang for a moment before he spoke again, hoping to break the tension and change the subject. “I can’t stress enough how very grateful I am for you saving me from Char’dania and the rest of her goons. I raise my hands to you.”
Andy brought his hands up in the traditional sign of thanks and honor. The last thing he wanted was to give Si’catreese or any Interior Agent any more ammunition to arrest him by having anyone actually think he was trying to claim noble status.
“But the Lieutenant called you…and she was going to have the Interior….and they’re the only ones that can arrest nobles….” Naranjo sputtered worriedly, switching back into Vatikre and fixing his parents with a fearful glance.
Kalai jumped in, her voice soft and shy, “Everyone at the Smokehouse was listening to you. You were the one giving orders and-”
“I’m a tumulh and those were stommish! Those trigger-happy idiots listening to me was just a cultural thing, it has nothing to do with me personally!” Andy could feel himself getting a bit defensive and fought to reign in his rising frustration and embarrassment. He didn’t exactly like being the center of attention, and outside of his training as a Speaker in cultural events or in a crisis, he hated public speaking and being in crowds.
“Well, young man, from the way these three tell it, you stood alone against a veritable army of cutthroats and murderers to save their lives. You tended their wounds, gave them clothes, fed them, and saved them multiple times in a single night. This might be an impertinent question, but do you have children of your own?” Aftasia’s tone was gentle and her encouraging smile was soft, putting Andy a bit more at ease. He could see the similarity between Sitry and her mother in their smiles.
“Uh, no…no I don’t, I’m still a bit young for that.” Andy felt himself blush, and was thankful that he wasn’t the only one. Sitry and Kalai both flushed different colors while Aftasia gave a knowing nod and a small chuckle.
“Then you don’t know how much we owe you.”
“Indeed. We’ve been beside ourselves with worry ever since this little burr sent her guards back to Seattle and gave us a false address to find her at!” Naranjo’s pale, white haired and red eyed mother Sakalbi shot a glare at Kalai that could have burned a hole through the shuttle and Kalai wilted into her seat. “Though this little embellisher seems to be a bit overwrought.” She turned to look at her son who sat next to her and Naranjo flashed her a nervous smile. “Narny seems to think you were being shot at, which is just silly…isn’t it?” Her abrupt tone at the end and the hard and piercing stare was turned on Andy and he instinctively sucked in his breath. He felt in that moment like he was staring down an angry Kodiak Grizzly Bear who’d caught him with her cub.
“No, thankfully we weren’t being shot at, but some of my cousins were.” Andy’s response was quick, and he instantly regretted adding the second part. He’d meant to be reassuring but instead it seemed to ignite her barely contained rage even further.
“You mean to tell me that there really was a battle in the islands last night?” Her voice raised two octaves, causing her three adult children to flinch. Even Andy felt himself quail underneath the invisible assault.
“My rifle isn’t for decoration, and it was more of a skirmish.” Andy recovered slightly, trying to stand his ground. Remembering that he was still armed was a bit reassuring, even though the weapon was just out of reach on the floor of the shuttle behind his feet.
“What exactly were you doing out there in the first place?” Sakalbi’s tone turned icy and her eyes narrowed at Andy. “The island ecosystem is still imperiled and the shock of humans-”
“IT WAS CRAZY! There was dancing, and drums, and costumes like I’ve NEVER SEEN BEFORE! He said that it’s their environmental and ecological record dating back thousands of years!” Sitry’s excited outburst crashed like a wave on the shore, breaking the invisible hold the woman had on Andy. Sitry leaned in, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder as she physically moved herself in between Andy and her Kho-mother, taking her attention away from him.
“Well that can’t be true, can it? Human records in this area are only around one hundred and fifty of this planet’s years old, two hundred at the most. There was no written record prior to that.” Rhaxiid spoke tentatively, as if suddenly he wasn’t exactly sure of something that had been a fact up until that moment.
“That’s technically true, Don-Konday? Forgive me if I’m mispronouncing-” Andy spoke again, as Aftasia cleared her throat pointedly at Sakalbi, causing the irate woman to turn back around.
“Oh please, it’s Rhaxiid, sir. No need to stand on ceremony,” he responded jovially, waving a hand as though shooing something away from his face.
“Well, written language was only introduced to my people around two centuries ago, that part is true, but our traditions, sacred sites, and cultural practices have been passed down since time began.” Andy found himself again in the position of trying to explain his people’s history, but given how it seemed to have been misconstrued, he suddenly wasn’t as sure about talking to these aliens about it as he had been the night before.
“Humans have only had written language for two hundred years? How is that possible? You’ve gone from preliterate to an advanced industrial society in only-”
“My people, being the Salishians. The indigenous race of humans from these islands and the surrounding mainland,” Andy clarified. Rhaxiid smiled as he made an “oh” sound and nodded.
“Our studies indicate that humans were an invasive species to this continent. That your species originated from one of the larger continents on the other side of the planet.” Sakalbi spoke without turning around. There was something in the woman’s tone that rubbed Andy the wrong way. An undercurrent of resentment and superiority in how she spoke that reminded him of so many of his teachers. Andy fought hard not to let his hackles go up.
“You’ll find burial sites and remains of villages between twenty five and twelve thousand years old, and my people are as indigenous as Cedar trees, bears, salmon, and bald eagles. We’ve been living in this place long before the Imperium united under the Tasoos, and we’ll keep fighting to protect our ancestral homeland until the very last of us is no more.” Andy’s jaw tightened as he rattled off an old defense of his people’s rights and threw a shot back that he knew would get a rise out of any Imperial. Sakalbi simply scoffed in response.
“You know Imperial history?” Aftasia asked, giving her Kho-wife a hard stare and a curt shake of her head.
“Courtesy of your empire’s fine residential school out in Nebraska. It’s where I learned to ‘speak good Shil,'” Andy responded, bitterness creeping into his voice.
“So you’re a graduate? Wonderful! Tell me, at what level did you achieve?” Rhaxiid replied brightly, and beside him he could feel Kalai and Sitry turn in surprise.
“I finished the Imperial Assimilation course in five Earth years, and graduated from junior academy in another two.”
“YOU WHAT?” The chorus from all six aliens at once was deafening.
“You graduated in only two human years?” Rhaxiid’s voice took on a tone of awe and respect, and Andy felt suddenly self conscious as the eyes of everyone were suddenly glued to him.
“Well it helps if you don’t get vacations…or weekends…or free time. Besides, there wasn’t much else to do in solitary for repeated escape attempts, so I just put my nose in the school omnipads and just banged the coursework out. The classes were pretty easy once I figured out the language and the math system, then it was all just spitting out the answer the teachers wanted.”
“Are you some kind of genius?” Sitry asked breathlessly, and the excited smile that lit up her face made Andy’s heart skip a beat. Whether it was fear or something else, Andy wasn’t sure. He turned to look at Kalai and saw the same look mirrored from the other side of him and Andy couldn’t help but pull into himself and blush. He looked down and began studying his feet and spoke in a bit of a self deprecating tone.
“No…no, I’m no genius. I was just motivated to not get hit anymore, and to keep from going crazy in the little oubliette they kept sticking me in and I-” Andy stopped as the mood in the shuttle drastically changed, and he at the looked up to see all the looks of admiration turned to looks of confusion and horror.
“I’m guessing you’re not too aware of what they did to us after they kicked us out of our homes, are you?” Andy ventured shyly, and he saw them all shake their heads almost in unison.
“I’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding a few things, you said ‘escape attempts?’ As in, prison? Were you convicted of a crime?” Sakalbi asked tentatively, her ears swiveling back defensively.
“No, unless you count ‘Being Indian in the Twenty First Century.' I hear you can get two years in Walla Walla for that.” Andy tried to turn the very painful memory of red garbed Interior thugs pulling him away from his screaming grandmother into a joke. He fought against the rising panic as the memory of those goons throwing him into an alien bus with about fifty other crying children before being carted away from the internment camp in Oklahoma washed over him.
“That can’t be…using a school as a prison…that’s horrific! I can’t even begin to fathom how you could…You poor dear.” Sakalbi’s voice was small for the first time, and full of pity.
“I’d rather not talk about it right now, if you don’t mind. To tell you the truth, I’ve been roughly on my own except for my grandma for the past five years. Before that, I spent just over seven in a residential school for human boys, courtesy of Governess Ta’naios and the Interior. They tried to make us good Shil’vati by any means necessary, and that’s all I’ll say about it.” Andy felt his hands start to shake and he clenched his fists. His mouth started to feel dry and his heartbeat started to quicken as he took short, shallow breaths. He thought about the half pack of Lucky Strikes he still had in his pocket, but decided against it for now. As soon as they dropped him off, he’d find a drink and kill the rest of the pack.
“So you’ve held a Junior Academy diploma since you were…?” Rhaxiid left the question hanging as Andy felt Kalai shift and hold out her hand to him. He looked down in the silence that hung for a moment and he tentatively placed his hand in Kalai’s, and she gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“Around nine in Shil years. Thirteen or fourteen in Earth years.” Andy shrugged. “The Empress ‘pardoned’ us, or something and then they just kicked us out with a bus ticket to anywhere we wanted to go. So I wrapped up the last of my classes and got my diploma online or whatever and I came home and found grandma trying to put the pieces back together. Since then, I’ve been running around trying to get those of us that were lost, found; and keep my people out of trouble. My grandmother runs our government in exile with what’s left of the Council-”
“I’m sorry, what? Government in exile? So…you ARE a prince.” Naranjo interrupted.
“No, it’s…she….” Andy’s train of thought was completely derailed at the sudden return of the topic.
“Your grandmother runs the government in exile, you said. That sounds like that makes you a prince-” Naranjo pressed while Sitry stifled a giggle.
“It’s NOT a hereditary position! She was the last elected Chairwoman of the Tribal Council and she’s been trying to get Ta’naios to recognize us ever since the Empress tore up our Treaties and exiled us from our homelands! The Chief of my clan is my grandfather who is…not here in this region. I’m not lying or being untruthful; there is nothing ‘princely’ about me!” Andy leaned forward and his blanket slipped down a bit, revealing his shoulders and chest. The sudden embarrassed squeaks from Sitry and Kalai, coupled with the hard stares from their parents as Andy pulled his covering back up as Sakalbi flicked Sitry’s ear and Aftasia fixed Kalai with a hard stare that made Kalai twist her whole body away from Andy.
“So then when your grandfather, the Chief, passes on, then your father… or mother takes over making you the…?” Aftasia asked, seemingly letting Kalai off the hook.
“Both are gone, so it would fall to my older brother who is also…not here in this region, and since there’s only the four of us in the Clan left, it’s a bit of an empty position, if it ever even was one to begin with.”
The adults traded inscrutable looks while Sitry’s wide and mischievous smile caught his eye. “I AM NOT A PRINCE!” Andy shouted, and pulled the blanket up to try and hide in.
Rhaxiid spoke earnestly and leaned towards him after another glance at his wife Aftasia. “Please forgive us for being obtuse, it’s just we haven’t had an opportunity to speak to very many humans, and we’ve never spoken to a Salishian before. Our ignorance of your people and your customs is not born of malice and we are genuinely curious. Please, sub-chief Andrei-”
“Please just call me Andy, or Mister Shelokset.”
“Alright, then Mister Shelokset, We’d like to insist that you allow us to host you for a day. I wasn’t being facetious when I said there’s a prospectus to write. We’ve been trying to study Hydras, or…Jellyfish…and all the other species in your people’s biome, and it has not been going well. Sitry says you’re immune to their venom, and that the antivenom is readily available to you?” Aftasia spoke quickly and leaned in beside her husband, her ears swiveling forward.
“Kalai was also very insistent that you are well versed in the unique ecology of this region, and that you know why we’ve been having trouble finding the natural equilibrium. As much as it pains me to say it, we don’t know why our efforts to restore the ecology are creating such mixed results. Would you mind if we asked you to speak with us about what you know and how we can improve?” Rhaxiid added with a nod, his floppy ears twitching as he adopted a similar posture to his wife.
Andy felt relieved at the change in the conversation, and emerged slightly from where he’d been trying to make himself as small as possible. “You mentioned invasive species. What others have you identified?”
“None, there are no extraplanetary creatures allowed on earth save for military service animals, and all those must have IUDs to prevent unauthorized breeding,” Sakalbi answered with pride, her own ears still pulled back as she gave Andy a side eye.
“We’re very proud of the fact that to date, there have been no reports of any problematic species transfers to Earth,” Aftasia added, happily. “Have you noticed any extraplanetary flora or fauna that may have escaped our quarantine procedures?”
“Well that explains a few things,” Andy huffed as he felt his confidence returning. “Let me ask you, as a litmus test if you will…can you tell me what the difference is between an Atlantic Salmon and a Pacific Salmon, and which one belongs here and which doesn’t?”
Andy noticed that Sitry, Kalai, and Naranjo looked at their parents’ general confusion as they quietly conferred with each other. The two looked to Sakalbi and she turned to look Andy in the eye. “They’re both trouts, aside from the name being dissimilar, there isn’t much else that is fundamentally different at all between the two species.”
Andy couldn’t help the sigh that escaped him and he nodded. “Yes they’re both ‘trout,' but Atlantic salmon are ‘salmon’…while ours are Yommich and Chinook for Kings, Suh’key for Sockeye, Huh’nun for Humpies, Kuh’ch’ks for Cohos, and Kwa’lukh for Dogs. You see, we have names for them, ancient names because our people have cultivated and harvested them for generations. We have no Salishian name for Atlantic salmon. It was introduced as a farmed fish less than one hundred years ago, and due to mismanagement by underregulated fisheries, they got out. They taste like hot garbage and they’re small as hell compared to the giants that are native to the waterways here.”
The look of surprise on the adults' faces was gratifying and Sakalbi looked like she was going to speak, but Andy continued. “Let me guess, you’ve been trying to farm the Atlantics but when you release them, their fry keep dying en masse and the adults you release just starve to death and cause all sorts of problems when they do, right?” Sakalbi’s mouth was open and she was blinking, as if she couldn't believe her ears. Rhaxiid was doing his best to suppress a smile but his eyes twinkled happily while Aftasia put a hand over her mouth and silently chuckled.
“Another example, and one I gave to Naranjo.” Andy leaned forward, finding it easier to talk now as he jerked a thumb at him. “Did you know there are two kinds of blackberries here? One is native, and the other is an invasive species. Do you know how to tell the difference?”
There was a slow shaking of heads from the adults, and Andy smiled. “The native species is a crawler. It stays low to the ground and sends out tendrils. Its thorns are small and relatively soft, and the berries are small as well. The invasive one, the Himalayan Blackberry, is a menace to the forest. It forms thickets six to even eight feet high of brambles and their thorns can gouge flesh! These damn things will choke out all the native groundcover and restrict movement of the bigger animals. It’ll even cut off the smaller animals from their old habitats and it will outcompete a lot of indigenous animals’ food sources. I know you’ve been having problems with animals that usually stay out in the forests, because they’re wandering around in the open and causing problems in town," Andy continued excitedly.
“I’m also guessing you’re having problems accessing those areas that are getting taken over by the brambles and you’re losing a whole lot of plants to them, right?” Andy looked at Kalai and Sitry, both of whom were looking from him to their parents while Rhaxiid and Aftasia stared pointedly at Sakalbi, who had folded her arms and pursed her lips angrily.
“And you and your people know all this because of your language…” Rhaxiid made it a statement as he looked over at Aftasia and raised an eyebrow, quirking a half smile at her.
“We have the stories, ancient and modern, that record the memory of our homeland and how we survived as a part of the whole system. How we managed it and cultivated it,” Andy finished proudly. Here, finally, was a person who seemed to be listening, and he felt the last vestiges of his fear and nervousness melt away.
“Stewards and caretakers, from the Song of the First People," Kalai volunteered, and Andy felt his heart glow and he gave her a look of thanks.
Aftasia flashed her eyes at Sakalbi and gave her husband a small nod. Rhaxiid turned and fixed Andy with an appraising look before speaking. “Andy, would you…” he paused as though considering his words. “I would like to formally offer you a role as a contractor with the Vaida Warren and the Ministry of Sciences, to advise us and to tell us more about your homeland and your people’s stories.”
“Sugar, you CAN’T be serious!” Sakalbi squawked, looking at her husband in surprise.
“I’ve never been more serious in my life! The ancient Erbians recorded ecological management and transference in the same manner!” Rhaxiid spoke with conviction, silencing his white-haired wife. “Please, Mr. Shelokset. No human in this area will work with us, and our Warren’s fortunes and reputation are on the line. We’ve been working for close to twelve of your years. While we’ve been making great strides with repairing the climate damage globally from fossil fuels, our restorative efforts with the biomes are becoming…fraught with failures. Help us, help you. Come work for us as an ecological advisor. Help us identify these invasives that don’t belong in your biome, and we can use our expertise to remove them ‘leaf, stem, and root’! How does a thousand credits a week, plus benefits sound?”
Andy couldn’t believe his ears. His mind spun around at the offer that the dark haired rabbit man had just made him, but a dark cloud appeared in his mind. “I’m not sure, I’ll not be some token Indian to be used as a prop to sell out my people and my homeland, will I?”
“Of course not! No, I’m offering a true advisory position, not a mouthpiece. Young man, the Empress charged our Warren with the restoration and safeguarding of this world’s environments. With you to advise us, I’m sure we could put it back to the way it was, and restore it to its former beauty and diversity.”
“I…I’d need to discuss this with…with my grandmother.”
“Of course, we’ll draw up a contract, and you can discuss it with your quee…er…grandmother. I don’t suppose you have an omnipad stashed away in your…blanket?”
“Uh, no. I don’t have one…at all.” Andy felt the embarrassment return in force.
“Why not? Everyone has one! I mean they’re not that expen…oh.” Naranjo spoke hastily as Aftasia rounded on him and he found both his ears flicked at the same time by his kho-mother and his father.
“You can…send me a message on the datanet. I’ll get it, eventually. I’ve a buddy or two with an old smartphone, and I’ve a head for remembering things like phone numbers. If you give me your omnipad for a sec, I’ll add my old email.” Andy held his hand out and quirked a half-smile. The looks of pity he got from Sitry and Kalai immediately got under his skin. “Look, I may be poor, but I’ve never gone hungry and I do just fine, thank you. I don’t need your pity.” Andy felt suddenly defensive and his tone was challenging.
“Of course you don’t, Mr. Shelokset. You have our respect, and our thanks for coming to our childrens’ rescue.” Rhaxiid was conciliatory, and he emphasized the word as he shot his icy glare at Kalai and Sitry. “All of our contractors are issued an omnipad. One of the many perks of working with the Vaida Warren, we spare no expense when it comes to planetary restoration and shilforming. We take very good care of our people and we only use the best equipment.”
“Our Warren’s the best in the empire-” Sitry started in but Andy held his hand up to stop her.
“Whoa, wait, hold on a second. I’m not exactly clear what a Warren is, in this context?” Andy looked back and forth between the aliens. “What is it, a company?”
“Not quite,” Aftasia jumped in, “It’s more like the whole of our family network. In terms of people, it’s all of our blood relations and their spouses. It’s their businesses and their contacts, resources, educational expertise, job experience…everything. It’s the sum total of our family, our wealth, and our connections.”
“You sound more like a nation, not a company,” Andy observed. Kalai’s description of who his hosts were was suddenly becoming a bit more real to him.
“You’re not entirely wrong. Before our people were annexed by the Shil’vati, Warrens were essentially nations. The Vaida Warren, our Warren, is one of six that are formally recognized by Her Imperial Majesty. Our Warren is known for its expertise in planetary engineering. Almost every colony world founded and colonized in the last five centuries had Vaida engineers and scientists managing the shilforming processes at various levels. The few that weren’t, were taught by us.” Sakalbi deigned to speak then, fixing him with a superior stare.
“If you’re so good, why do you need my help?” Andy answered her back, raising an eyebrow at her.
“I appreciate your candor,” Rhaxiid jumped in as his wife huffed and looked away. “The truth is, almost every colony world has to be engineered from below the ground up. We are experts in creating a system from scratch, and we’ve turned it into an artform. Earth’s challenge is that it has multiple complex ecosystems, in various states of ecological health, interacting with an industrialized nuclear powered civilization that we don’t quite…understand yet.”
“Climatewise, your world had a run-of-the-mill fossil fuel based greenhouse effect throwing off the natural warming and cooling cycle, topped off by a ruptured ozone layer and some residual radiation contamination in areas around nuclear waste disposal failures. In planetary engineering terms, it’s a relatively easy fix," Aftasia bragged for the first time, smiling proudly. “Where we struggle is with the xenobiology and xeno-ecology of Earth. Up until about ten minutes ago, we’d assumed certain things about the global spread of certain species. We'd also made assumptions about the management and extent of the ecological transference of various species. In just what you’ve told us, and based on what Narny, Sitry, and Kalai have said of your evening, certain observations of ours are making much more sense.” Aftasia smiled brightly as she weighed in, and Rhaxiid nodded at her assessment.
“And that’s why you want to hire me?”
Rhaxiid canted his head to the side. “Yes. The fact that you stood up to your own people to save these three’s lives tells me that you would at least be open to the possibility of working with us. The fact that you were able to navigate the islands at night with no instruments tells me you know this area quite well and would be an excellent guide to areas we may not know about. The fact that you were able to silence my wife…” Rhaxiid looked over and gave Sakalbi a loving wink, “...tells me that your expertise may be able to fill in the gaps that we know we’ve been missing.”
Andy could still hardly believe what he was hearing. All he could do was blink. If grandma signs off on this? The money alone is…it would be worth it, even if I’m just their token Indian! That kind of cash could really help! But…working with the Purps….or rabbits…this Warren? We need this, though! We could finally move forward with our plans!
Andy spoke slowly and deliberately, looking to either side of him to see an encouragingly nodding Kalai and an excited Sitry who was gently vibrating in her seat. “I think it might be best, then, if I were to speak with my grandmother sooner rather than later. I appreciate that you’d like to host me, but the last any of my people saw was the four of us sailing out of a…sticky situation…and I was headed towards an Imperial military base after having broken several laws and ordinances.”
“Ah…oh I see, yes. I agree that perhaps our return home to Victoria can take a small detour in the interest of building a working relationship with your family and your people.” Rhaxiid wrung his hands as a look of dawning comprehension crossed his face.
“I know I wouldn’t wish the last twenty four hours we’ve had on even our worst enemy. We’d be happy to take you directly to your home in order to make it as easy as possible for you to let your grandmother know you’re safe,” Aftasia stated firmly.
Andy nodded and smiled. “Bellingham Airport…well, the Militia base at ‘Fort Bellingham’ now, would be the smartest. From there I can get a vehicle that doesn’t make me look like an Imperial lackey or a hostage and we’ll have a better shot at receiving her blessing.”
“That might be for the best, sugar. We need to get Kalai to a hospital soon. She’s already missed one dose, a second missed might be fatal.” Sakalbi added, looking over at Kalai.
“PILOT! Change of plans! Land at Fort Bellingham and then take us to St. Joseph’s Hospital!” Rhaxiid banged on the wall separating the cab from the cockpit, and the shuttle began a slow bank back towards the mainland.
​
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Next:
To be posted 4/2/23

I love Coco Moon, and it may just be that it is newly released, but it is my favorite album by him currently (I will find out in a few weeks). While it is still fresh in my mind, I wanted to at least start analyzing his songs. I won't be analyzing how nostalgic, or how realistic, or how "Owl City" it sounded, but I will instead try to analyze them based off of themes --both obvious and hidden-- that they contain, and how they are really cool companions to other Owl City songs and/or other Adam Young projects. I really only want to do a few (two or three) at a time so I can dive deeper into the songs as a whole.
Adam, Check Please: This song is the near lyrical opposite of Fiji Water. While Fiji Water talked about Young wishing he did his contract differently (if at all), Adam, Check Please (ACP) is about how Young was content with his job at Hy-Vees. This song is obviously about doing the best you can at a job, no matter how small. It is also a song about chasing your passion, "not your paycheck". In this case, Young is not describing a job that pays (such as a doctor or farmer) but also other jobs, such as a father, mother, friend, sibling, ect. Passions don't need to be a hobby or job, but instead something intangible.
ACP also discusses the value of mentorship, a theme throughout Not All Heroes Wear Capes. Although mentorship isn't near as mentioned here, the references to Casey Conner shows that Young respects Conner in a way that is more than just an employee/employer relationship, but instead about a man who injected the value of hard work into Young. Young remembers his first real boss and the amazing lessons that Conner taught him, and Young wants to immortalize this amazing man.
Under the Circus Lights: This song seems to be a song along the lines of The Saltwater Room or Cloud Nine. Although on the surface it is no more than a song about a one-night, unrequited love, it also has a lesson that many forget, and Young knows in the fiber of his being. This song (UtCL) is about the woes of the life of fame. The girl on the flying trapeze represents a famous figure. Her life seems to be perfect, but in realty it is not.
The girl of the flying trapeze shows how being famous often results in always putting on a show, always on the move, and being lonely. With quotes such as "with a heavy heart", "homesick angel", "blink back a tear with the greatest of ease", Young implies the heartbreaking life of a performer.
Young also shows another problem with fame --celebrity crushes. Young uses the example of a boy who goes to the circus and falls in one-sided love with the girl. You can view this as a literal crush and how celebrity crushes almost always results in heartbreak or devastation. You could also view this as a figurative crush with being famous, with the boy wanting to become famous because it looks "cool" without learning more about the profession. Either way, the implications of this song is sadder than just unrequited love, instead about the fickleness of fame.
What are your thoughts? Did you like my analyzing? Did I miss anything that you would like to add? I would totally love to hear your thoughts!

In 2019 my store started doing all day breakfast . That quickly went away because nobody on night shift was trained how to cook breakfast and people complained about the quality of food. It was a disaster. Breakfast is something that can be very good depending on who makes it . And the night crew was at the time mostly high schoolers who couldn't cook and egg if their life depended on it

I've been getting my drugs through Hy-Vee and I'm headed up there this morning because yet again they have my stuff for pickup instead of having delivered it. I've gone over this with them like 4 or 5 times, and I'm sick of it. Can anyone suggest an alternative?

Does anyone know where in the area you might find Banana Bread Beer? I’ve checked Hy Vee and Meijer to no avail.

Today's newsletter is by Jared Blikre, a reporter focused on the markets on Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @SPYJared. Read this and more market news on the go with Yahoo Finance App.
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Stocks partially clawed back Wednesday's post-Fed losses on Thurday, with the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) notching a gain of of 1.0%, while the Russell 2000 (^RUT) settled in the red, down 0.4%.
On the one hand, investors are weighing Powell's hawkish, inflation-fighting comments. On the other, they're weighing signs that the Fed is de facto entering wait-and-see mode — believing its work is nearly done.
While Powell said the Fed may still have to raise rates further, he came clear saying the Committee was inches away from a no-hike decision on Wednesday.
"[W]e did consider [a pause] in the days running up to the meeting," he said. This is the closest yet the Fed has come to a change in its uber-hawkish tone since it began its breakneck pace of rate hikes one year ago.
But don't call it a "pivot," and don't sound the all-clear for investors just yet.
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The major U.S. indices have been in rally mode since the Fed created a new liquidity facility a week ago last Monday to backstop regional banks. Tech stocks have been the biggest beneficiary, with the Nasdaq 100 (^NDX) up 7.6%.
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Long-term rates crashed over these nine trading sessions, which fueled rallies in megacaps like Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Tesla (TSLA), Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), and Meta (META) — which all rallied double-digits. Chipmakers Nvidia (NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) led the way — up 19% and 23%, respectively.
Yet the rally was not broad-based. Not surprisingly, financials suffered additional damage from the bank panic. The S&P 500 Select Financial SPDR Fund (XLF) erased the last of its pandemic gains Thursday. Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P Regional Bank ETF (KRE) sank to a new crisis low — the lowest level since November 2020.
Putting the narrow breadth of the latest rally aside for a minute, even the technicals on the tech trade are showing some cracks.
Zooming out on the Nasdaq 100 reveals it has been stuck in a giant trading range over the last year — roughly 10,500 to 13,000. And it is once again testing that upper bound, having failed there as recently as early February. The catalyst of lower rates and a weaker dollar are also approaching some big levels, with the U.S. 10-year Treasury-note (^TNX) hugging the 3.4% level by the 2023 lows.
Even the greatest bellwether stock of all, Apple, is up against some tough technicals that suggest its rally may need a "pause" before rallying materially above $165.
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Without a fresh catalyst and narrative, investors chasing momentum and breakouts are more likely to be punished than rewarded.
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In the meantime, Kenneth Rogoff, Maurits C. Boas chair of International Economics at Harvard University, has a message for investors who are betting on the banking crisis abating.
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"If we're looking at the world as a whole, I believe we're just experiencing the first wave of this, and there are more to come," said Rogoff on Yahoo Finance Live Thursday.

I was at a gas station this morning and the 12 packs were over 10 dollars with tax. I thought that was so outrageous so I paid attention later on when I was in HyVee but even there they were close to 9 dollars with tax. When did this happen?

The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one… my problem is that I can’t stop buying the “seasonal iced cutout sugar cookies” from the HyVee bakery. I have tried at least four recipes in an attempt to duplicate them at home, but I can’t crack it. They never turn out as good. I think my problem might be in the icing??? If anyone can clue me in on a recipe, I’d appreciate it. My wallet is having a hard time coming to terms with spending $7 per box of cookies, and yet I can’t make myself stop buying them. TIA <3

On March 23, U.S. stock index futures rose, with Dow futures up 0.13%, S&P 500 up 0.42% and Nasdaq futures up 0.82%. Pre-market news
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Bloomberg reports: Apple will spend $1 billion a year on entering the movie industry.
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Hindenburg says it is shorting Block, saying it grossly exaggerates the true number of users and underestimates customer acquisition costs.
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State Press and Publication Administration: 86 games approved in March, with Tencent and NetEase's games listed.
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Ford expects electric vehicle losses to expand to $3 billion in 2023.
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Boeing confirmed Japanese airline JAL's order for 21 fuel-efficient 737-8s, which JAL plans to introduce into its fleet starting in 2026.
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According to Electrek: Tesla expects to lose the full $7,500 tax credit for its cheapest electric car models (Model 3 and Model Y).
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Market news: Credit Suisse agreed to repurchase $571.4 million of notes due 2023-2025.
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TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzhi will appear at a U.S. congressional hearing today to be "grilled" by U.S. lawmakers. If the U.S. blocks TikTok, it will benefit Meta, Alphabet and Snap.
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The SEC formally charged Sun Yuchen with illegally issuing tokens such as Tronix and BitTorrent, and manipulating the relevant markets to falsely create stability and liquidity for these tokens.
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TSMC's 5/4nm chip sales increased by NT$100 billion this year, sources said.
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Musk slams Fed rate hike: The Fed announced a 25 basis point rate hike, and Musk later responded to Dogcoin co-founder Billy Markus.Markus said, "The main driver of saver flight is that people are moving money from low-interest savings accounts to high-interest money market (Treasury) accounts. This foolish interest rate hike will worsen the saver flight phenomenon. Musk also topped this tweet. Pre-market sentiment
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Coinbase fell more than 12% premarket after the company received an informal alert from the SEC that it may have violated U.S. securities laws and may face charges.
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Manchester United fell more than 3% premarket after it was reported that Qatari royalty and British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe sought to extend their bid for Manchester United.
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U.S. regional bank stocks were stronger in pre-market, with First Republic Bank up more than 9% and Alerance West Bank and Pacific West Hopewell Bank (PACW.O) up more than 5%.
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Tesla rose more than 2% in pre-market, Tesla car sales in Europe in February rose sharply.
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Virgin Orbit rose more than 5% in pre-market as the company is close to securing $200 million in investment.
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Popular Chinese stocks are stronger, Beili Beili rose over 6%, Alibaba, Jingdong, Netease, Xiaopeng Auto rose over 4%, Poundland and Azera rose over 3%.
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Nvidia rose more than 2% before the market, becoming the world's fifth largest market capitalization companies. Bank of America analysts said the company's shares are expected to rise sharply in the future based on the chip giant Nvidia's growing leadership in artificial intelligence and large language models (LLM). According to Bank of America, with NVIDIA's scale and vision, it is likely to accelerate its drive to bring Large Language Models (LLM) to virtually every end market; and the scope and ambition of Jen-Hsun Huang's keynote "reinforces NVIDIA's dominance in the generative AI as well as LLM markets, which could reshape the existing tech industry and usher in disruptive startups. "
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Maverick Electric rose over 5% pre-market and expects sales growth of over 25% this year.
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Sanofi Aventis rose over 6% premarket, with its Dupixent expected to be the first biologic drug approved to treat lung disease.
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Accenture rose more than 4% before the market, Q2 profit and revenue both exceeded expectations.
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European markets
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Major European stock indices fell collectively, with Germany's DAX30 down 0.55% and France's CAC40 down 0.42% at press time. Crude Oil
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International oil prices fell, with U.S. oil at $70.45/barrel, down 0.65% intraday; and BOP now at $76.30/barrel, down 0.52% intraday.
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Although the Fed dovish rate hike, the dollar weakened sharply to provide support for oil prices, but U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen told lawmakers on Wednesday that she had not considered or discussed providing "comprehensive insurance" to U.S. bank deposits without congressional approval, market concerns about the banking sector led to a significant drop in New York stocks, also a drag on oil prices. In addition, EIA data showed that U.S. crude oil inventories increased by 1.1 million barrels last week, reaching the highest level in 22 months. Investors need to beware of the possibility of oil prices returning to a downward trend.
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Gold
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Spot gold was up 1.58% during the day at $1,980.70 per ounce.
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The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points as expected, but in light of the recent turmoil in the financial sector, hinted at an imminent pause in further rate hikes, and the dollar index fell to a new low of nearly a month and a half, giving gold prices upward momentum. In addition, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen's speech also gave gold prices to provide safe-haven support.
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The views expressed in this article represent the personal opinions of the author and do not constitute investment advice from this platform. The platform does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of the information in this article, nor does it assume any liability for any loss arising from the use of or reliance on the information in this article.

I didn't do this intentionally (I'm a good little delivery boy), but I now no longer receive Hy-Vee grocery offers.
I went to deliver an order to an apartment complex for "Seniors Over 50." The order was from someone other than the the receiver at the address (I assume someone's daughter who orders groceries for her mother). It was a "Hand it to me" order.
When I got to the door of the building, it was locked. There was no other entrance, no call button, and no receptionist or security guard. There was no one around, so I clicked "Cannot hand order to customer." While waiting, I contacted the customer by phone AND text. No answer. So after waiting 5 minutes, I was instructed to return the order back to the store, with return pay.
After I got back to the store, I explained what happened, and they said they'd tell their manager. I gave them the groceries back, and left. Next thing I know, the customer decides to blow up my phone, after it's all said and done. Of course I wasn't going to answer and get yelled at, so I ended my Dash.
Haven't received a grocery delivery since... It's now been months.
And I'm happier than a pig in shit about it!

Had a Door Dash driver only get $4 of a $9 tip, who took the other $5, Hy-Vee or Door Dash? I made an assumption the driver got the whole tip. Also assuming this is standard procedure, at least when Door Dash is delivering. Screws over the driver as I’m guessing other folks thought, as I did, the driver was getting the whole amount that they added on their order. Emailed, but haven’t heard back from Hy-Vee.
3/22/2023 Got hold of a live DoorDash person and was told the Dasher should have received the $9 and the Dasher needs to call their support to straighten it out. So, essentially a driver needs to know what the customer actually tipped in order to, assuming, jump through hoops to get what is owed them. Is this normal practice for DoorDash? How can this be legal if it is normal practice and if it’s a “glitch” why isn’t it fixed? The person I spoke with acted very matter of fact and not surprised leading me to believe this is par for the course. Side note - gave her no info on who I was or what I was calling about other than a tip question and she had the delivery and all my information without missing a beat in the conversation. If they can do that, they can get drivers tips straight.

So, Rank Match is coming to EN (in less than 12 hours as I’m writing this!). Maybe you’ve seen a few posts crop up on your twitter TL or randomly on this subreddit bringing up fear of cheaters. Maybe you haven’t and have only seen the ones saying “I’m no good, I’ll probably only languish in bronze” or something like that. But all the same, I think we need to treat with the topic.
Let’s talk about cheating. It’s rampant, and it needs to be recognized. It’s worth addressing. It’s worth keeping EN’s integrity as a server.
A little context, before I do: I'm a user from the community Sekai server (henceforth referred to as Sekaicord) linked on the sidebar. By habit, I am not a reddit user, and I apologize if this comes off too strong as a consequence. I understand this is a contentious topic, and I recognize that I might have perception bias if the only posts I see from here showcase the "worst" posts and not the actual "average" opinion on this — but, my impression is that, in general, this subreddit has a terrible track record when it comes to identifying cheaters, and an equally awful slate of defenses for their behavior. I'm writing this post not just to address some of these defenses, but also to open the conversation. The less we know about it, the less we can push the devs to take action on it. And likewise, the more we’re aware…
Some context for my viewpoints / experiences on the matter:
- I'm a Day 1 JP player, with 240+ Master FCs. I played EN from day 1 up until around Scramble, when the amount of external tiering drama got too much for me (and, if my handle on what happened during White Day is right, it hasn't gotten better). Level-wise, I’d be about Lv31-32 for FC skill and 26-28 AP-wise. Ask me for a handcam if you want. On Sekaicord I frequently talk to much better players — yes, even ones who can FC/AP 33+ songs (which are probably the most likely to get doubted). I asked a player with Lv34+ FCs (AMARA, 16bit, Intense Voice, Disappearance/END) to review this huge treatise before I wrote it out. I'm pretty confident as to their legitimacy and generally see some patterns that emerge as to why they are. I'll explain some of these here.
- I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to APs up to around Lv32 in the wild, but a lot of Lv33+ FCs tend to be more suspect for any number of reasons you can see from the co-op results screen.
- The atmosphere in Sekaicord around cheating is, as you can probably infer from my tone, highly distrusting. Cheaters are banned on sight once proof is established beyond doubt – so in fact, it surprises me that technically speaking, the rules on the subreddit’s sidebar don’t concretely penalize cheating!
But like many communities, it didn't start out like that. The dedicated gameplay channel was VERY happy to celebrate players' accomplishments (we used to have every 33+ FC pinned) and generally didn't ask for much proof — until Rank Match came on JP, and a player who we all thought was just insanely good got exposed (because JP caught and banned him). Here's the thing — he was a good player in his own right (i.e., Lv. 32+, but not good enough for the results he cheated), and the way he hid his results was much less blatant than some of the people later banned from the server for cheating, who… well, put in about as much effort as some of the cheaters that have been linked to me from here. This is how it goes for pretty much any community: break the established trust, and obviously nothing's the same afterward.
I will try to write this in such a way that it gives cheaters as few hints as possible on how to make their plays look more "legit"; I simply want to point out some of the common patterns that emerge when a cheater really is afoot (and which are never an issue for a legitimate player), and refute some of the more common defenses.
Another thing: yes, not everyone condescends to the level of some of these defenses I’ve written out. However, I’ve seen them appear enough in more or less these exact forms, unchallenged, that it’s worth quoting them in exactly the same way to give you an idea of what’s wrong with these viewpoints. This is not meant as a personal attack (moreso if you may have said something to these effects in the past); it’s simply an attack on the logic behind them.

DEFENSES:

(1) "Has it ever occurred to you that someone might just be that good? / Or maybe they're just that good?"
Statements like these are, to put it bluntly, passive-aggressive and condescending towards people who might have genuine grounds for suspicion. People weren't born yesterday; we're fully aware that people on the level of HPS, MaengZombie, nanoflower, REN, STK, SkisK… exist. (I've specifically excluded jack just because he's the low-hanging fruit and also to point out that if one’s only knowledge of a "good player" is jack, well… there’s a whole world out there).
But the reason people don't cast doubt on those players is because they have put in the effort to be deserving of that trust. Every one of the players I've mentioned has videographic evidence — YouTube, Twitter clips, the list goes on. They frequently compete to get world-first on APs, and they're well aware that if you do not have a video that shows your hands, your play means nothing. For example, tweets purporting to show world-firsts on Six Trillion Years and Overnight Story were, pretty much without exception, disregarded by JP players when the user was silent on the question of handcams.
(The first recognized AP of Six Trillion Years is from SkisK , at 1d 1h 19m after release.)
(A little aside: JP players can be pretty ruthless about cheaters. From the official JP Discord, I passed by this message of someone posting a Yaminabe AP tweet with no proof on release day and was (not) surprised to see a slew of X-to-doubt reactions -- and, as with the tweet above which I had to resort to Wayback Machine to show you, it was later deleted presumably after getting called out.)
I also want to be clear on this: this also means that a player you don't expect CAN come out of nowhere and stake their claim on an achievement, as long as they have the proof to back their claim up. Here's a good example: the maxed score on Arcaea's hardest chart, Testify BYD, was achieved by a player (005saikou) who otherwise wasn't known for any other world-firsts! And — you guessed it — he had an annotated video to back up his claim, commenting on which parts he thought was hardest, and other peculiarities of the chart.
There's a common counterargument to (1) that goes something like
(2) "Well, maybe some people just don't want to show their hands / dox themselves / don't know how to record / etc."
Let's do this point-by-point.
2a) "...don't know how to record / not everyone has a second phone or camera to record handcams with..."
The trial-and-error process required to reach the level of play we're talking about 99% demands the ability to record, review, and rewatch your play. Even if you're not going to post it, you almost certainly will have tried it at some point on the road to 33+ just for your own "where did I go wrong?" purposes.
This argument is also an insult to the intelligence of a player; recording ISN'T EVEN HARD. Recording is built-in on iOS. Recording on Android is as simple as typing "screen recorder app" into Google Play Store (or its equivalent, for Xiaomi and other no-Google builds) and downloading the first free option that doesn't have ads every 0.1 seconds. While screen recordings are less trustworthy than handcams because, well, you can’t see what the player is doing in order to get that result, they’re trustworthy enough in conjunction with players who, besides a recording, can talk about what, why, and how they do what they’re doing (more on this below).
As for handcams, please don't be intimidated by the fact that most well-known YouTubers have professional-looking, crisp 1080p setups: even a grainy 480p view is enough as long as it's clear you're not pretending to mash away while a bot automatically PERFECTs the 200BPM portions of Intense Voice. Google "handcam setups", or DIY one by cutting a slit at the top of a cardboard box and pointing a camera lens down while you play from the bottom (my preferred solution). I have seen players who record themselves using cheap $20 webcams not even clipped to anywhere stable, players who ask to borrow a family member’s phone or camera for a paltry five minutes… anything to be honest! For as many cheaters I’ve seen accused, I’ve also seen nearly as many people who put in the effort to be honest, which deserves a good mention.
Just about every case I know of someone who wasn't a cheater was willing to provide a handcam of some sort. It doesn't matter if they took 30 minutes, five hours, or three days — they came back and defended themselves. I've even seen it on the EN discord! The first instinct of a cheater, by contrast, is to either stay completely silent and let other people do the defending for them, or to get extremely defensive and use some of the many arguments here.
Incidentally, there are legitimate examples I know of of completely unknown players who pop up one day in Sekaicord with some godlike play, and the reason they were believed on the spot? Handcam.
2b) "...don't want to show their hands / dox themselves..."
I suppose nothing can be done about that, but on this point I'd like to point out that Sekai is hardly the first (and will not be the last) rhythm game community to have doubters. This is frankly small-time compared to osu! players doing this like it's a JOB. And that comes down to a fundamental truth about rhythm games: difficult skill-based achievements have always had value because people SHOW they can be done. Consequently, if there is no proof, there is no value; if you're willing to make an outrageous claim; you best be prepared to show some outrageous play, or risk it not being worth anything at all.
There are other ways to show you clearly did what you're claiming to that don't involve a handcam, mind you — but they involve knowing what you're talking about, describing the chart / your strategies in detail, and, well, generally a certain level of passion about the intricacies of the game that most cheaters don't really seem to have, because they're only really here for the one fleeting shot at attention (mentioned this above already; skip to “spotting cheaters” below if you’re curious enough to know how).
Moving on…
(3) "But they posted a recording of…"
Let me be clear on this point: I personally (and many others) are not wondering if they photoshopped a rainbow clear diamond on a song; anyone can do that in three minutes. I am also not wondering (and do not care) if someone has a recording of themselves scrolling through a list of songs with a shiny line of rainbow diamonds, because that doesn't really mean anything if they cannot demonstrate the ability to repeat it (and that a bot didn't do it for them). On this point, most players aren't so letter-of-the-law obsessed as to demand a recording of a re-AP (understandable: players like Mita Kousuke take months even to get a singular AP on What's up? Pop! and there's no guarantee the perfect moment will be caught on camera for most players) — I (and many others) just want to see a level of play that reasonably LOOKS like they can do what they’re claiming to have done. Put simply, I really just want to see someone’s fingers dancing where the notes are landing, not their hands flailing miserably against the glass screen while a bot does the actual playing.
What would "reasonable" look like? Take a look at the Mita video as an example. While he lists some of his current personal bests at the top, you'll find that the majority of these streams are him failing, sometimes incredibly early, sometimes amazingly -- but the overall level of play is high. Players who've just finished with a feat from the night before / day before / two hours / 30 minutes before don't "rust over". A few hours' rest (if necessary) for exhausted hands is almost always enough to show something approaching legitimate if the player in question is legitimate -- again, no one's asking for a second AP.
(4) "You're just jealous!"
And? So what if I am? Since when was emotion a valid reason to stop reading and avoid the possibility that even people driven by emotion can make valid points? But part of why this argument is unusually effective is because most aren't aware of the common patterns that drive cheaters, and so valid arguments are often dismissed as being down to jealousy if you're not aware of why some of these defenses for cheaters just don't stick.
Part of why I shared the context of where I come from with this was partly to dispel this argument. I've long since accepted that there are people much better than me, and I want to explain why people (who don't necessarily have that chance) react the way they do towards cheaters without resorting to ad hominems like this.
But never mind me. If me potentially being jealous is enough to discount it at my sub-33 skill level, then would you believe the distaste for EN cheating if it came from the world-first AP on Kusaregedou to Chocolate? Incidentally, I assure you he's got nothing to be jealous of: after all, he's going to Tokyo for Spring CS and rubbing shoulders with HPS and the rest of the Sekai gods.
(5) "It's just a game, why would anyone cheat on Sekai?"
If you've ever heard a variation of the common schoolyard boast (or jokes about it) "my dad works at Nintendo / Game Freak / Activision / [insert AAA video game company here]", the answer is: it’s for exactly the same reason immature people have lied since the dawn of society — attention and self-esteem. Of course they gain nothing from this, it is just a game, after all — but kids literally lie just to win arguments as petty and easily-forgotten as those in a schoolyard. Why would Sekai be the first skill-based game (of many, many rhythm games out there) immune to this?
(6) "It's just a game, calm down lol"
I genuinely struggled to write an answer to this without getting a bit irritated; I’ve seen this so many times in so many places for so many wrong reasons. But what’s wrong with being passionate about a game? What’s wrong with wanting the pastime you settle into after a stressful day of work or school to be a fair playing ground? Why shouldn’t a game be taken seriously when competitive PvP games fuel multi-billion industries, have university scholarships, and round-the-clock teams and sport scientists analyzing them, and ignite the passions of people just as intensely as any “traditional” sport?
“Because that’s esports, and this is just Sekai”? Here, tell me you can’t feel the room shake when Mita APs Brand New Day live on stream.
What’s wrong with being passionate about something in the same way others, you included, are passionate about things besides Sekai – enough to be offended if someone said this exact same thing to you? What’s wrong with wanting fairness for one thing and not another?
(7) "Trust the cheat detection!"
I hate to have to say this, I really do, but automated cheat detection for EN is TERRIBLE. It might not even exist. As evidence I'd like to point towards some of the more infamous cheaters: the T2 for Mesmerized by Mermaids in EN. There are some pretty damning threads from long-time tierers that have explained the point in much more detail than I could eloquently say. Now, this exact cheater was defended by someone using the exact same argument I'm about to reply to, and it's just as fallacious now as it was then.
Allow me to explain exactly why "trust the cheat detection" doesn't fly.
- T2, as the threads I've linked demonstrate, was clearly botting, and did so for the entire week the event ran. So why didn't the supposed "cheat detection" pick this up? Why was T2 allowed to play all the way until the EVENT ENDED? Why was the event title AWARDED to T2, denying the T4 (nara) the T3 as a result?
- The appeal to authority argument particularly disgusts me because of one thing: JP has had its own issues with cheaters of a different nature: those who share accounts so that they can tier 24/7 with no downtime. The example I know of is from Unnamed Harmony: not only did they outright admit to account sharing (and insinuated that the t2 who lost was probably also cheating), they weren't banned. I use JP as an example for this reason: JP, which actually, proactively bans botters in Rank Match, still has cheaters that are left completely alone. How then, can you expect EN to have better scrutiny when even botters need a public outcry and a LOT of angry support desk mails just to get one T2 banned? (oh, and come back, and get that account banned too, and admit to committing about 7k euros worth of chargeback fraud…) No offense, but EN can't even herd its official discord channels together; how am I supposed to believe they have time for botters?
T2 Mermaids is hardly the only example there is — only the most notorious one. But if even the cases of people high enough to be in the ranking spotlight take so much effort to call out (no thanks to people spouting uneducated defenses and convincing enough people), how much more botters who just roam the wilds with all perfects that show with 0 notes hit?
Put another way: why use a tiering cheater as an example for skill-based cheating when tiering skill boils down to whoever has the stamina to slap Envy for the longest time? Answer: they use the same tools. The person running around with an EmpErroR AP in public rooms may be doing it to show off, while a tiering cheater may be doing it so they doesn’t lose sleep or struggle the same way their competitors do, but the means are (almost) always the same: a machine does the work for them. And if the game isn’t banning one of them… how can you be confident they’re banning the other?
“Well, that was months ago! They’re better now, I hope!”
The proof is in the pudding. If you’re right, then I’d be happier than anyone else.

SPOTTING CHEATERS:

Besides the whole "they get really defensive" / [insert argument above] things listed above, there are a few more tells that really go a long way towards sniffing out a cheater, and I'd like to go over some of them here (since they didn't really fit naturally into the counterarguments presented above). I'll skip over directly critiquing their results in the case that a prospective cheater reads this and takes notes on how to avoid getting caught.
Now, a little disclaimer, for fairness: most of the posts I’m aware of don’t actually involve the cheaters themselves risking getting caught on here, and so the uses for such red flags may not be easily applicable. But all the same, they go hand-in-hand with the (fallacious) defenses for cheaters, and it’s important to know what you’re looking for when someone inevitably comes here asking why they got banned (for “no reason”) assuming EN is any trustworthy when Rank Match hits.
Keep in mind: each of these ALONE does not mean someone is a cheater — it's when red flags like these, ALONG with refusing to provide videographic proof, come together, that someone becomes more and more suspicious.
(1) Unrealistic timeframes for improvement
Let's not mince words here: the highest levels of Sekai are HARD. As in, it competes with "pure" rhythm games like Arcaea, Lanota, Phigros, Cytus, Dynamix, CHUNITHM, maimai, ONGEKI… levels of hard. Sekai itself is unusually hard for a popular rhythm game (sorry Tokyo 7th Sisters, no one knows you) with funny PNGs you roll and pay for, in a market where the closest competition (and therefore most people's previous frames of reference for existing difficulty) is Bandori or Enstars. And, well, no offense… but Bandori doesn't have six Hell or Hell SPs (and it took THIS long to release the 33+ specials…) and a release schedule that promises more every three months, like we're getting with Yaminabe and Jinsei. As for Enstars? Two years to release Awakening Myth and Seishun Emergency SP (and they’re only roughly as hard as ~32lv. Sekai charts).
What this results in are cheaters who grossly underestimate the time needed to get to Sekai's highest level. You might hear things like "i was up all night / week / month getting this omg my fingers are so tired". To use an example from sekaicord / experience: most players who commit to the improvement grind tend to find that they'll improve really quickly from 26 to 30 — and then hit a major wall at Lv31, where the difficulty then spikes exponentially. The average time it takes legitimate players to go from Lv31 to 32? Six months or more. 32 to 33? You'll be lucky or just insanely good if it takes you six months.
Anyone claiming to be the exception to this pattern, put simply, needs the proof. People are willing to believe someone’s good if they can see someone play good.
(2) Not recognizing patterns when questioned
An actual story about a banned cheater from sekaicord: they claimed to have AP'd Don't Fight the Music on Master, and immediately fell through when people started asking them about patterns from other charts, including Hibana and KING. The issue? They were told that those patterns were from Don't Fight the Music. This is pretty much self-explanatory: you'd at least be expected to know the charts you're claiming to have beaten!
But besides that, people who have pulled off such feats (hell, pretty much anyone) always has a devil of their own. Everyone has That One Pattern they find, and which they hate. And if you're a devilish enough little Pattern (hello Greenlights / Bitter Choco Decoration), you'll be so absolutely evil that everyone will know you, not the other way around. Someone who picks out a pattern that is pretty obviously free to someone actually at that skill level OR doesn't have a least favorite pattern at all tends to stink from a mile away.
(3) Low-quality / vague explanations and/or misuse/lack of terminology/jargon
A common trope in TV shows, video games, and so on is a smart character (usually a scientist) who launches into a convoluted explanation with a LOT of jargon you're not supposed to understand, before a character stops them and says you're making my brain hurt. While silly, this trope has some basis in the fact that people who are good at something tend to be really passionate about it, and often won't hesitate to explain in a lot of detail exactly how they pull off what they do. The same almost always goes for rhythm game players — it's common for people who have just conquered a chart in sekaicord to follow up their FC / AP screenshot with a long-ass postmortem of the parts they hated the most, the strategy that finally got them through it, and pretty much everything in between.
As a cheater, it would be pretty difficult to emulate this. There's no adrenaline rush as you get through the part that you've been struggling on for weeks, possibly months, no sitting down staring at a chart viewer cursing the disgustingly hard part, no detailed "L-R-L-R(index)-R(middle)" big brain strategy just to pass something extremely cursed. There is nothing to explain. Most often, you will get "i was just shaking throughout it's all so hard", "uhhh i just mashed as hard as i possibly could" “go watch a video instead of bothering me” without reference to a specific pattern, and almost no way to describe their solution in terms any reasonably practiced regular would be familiar with. Did you jack this part here? Two fingers or multiple? Is there a BPM divisor that helps you get the rhythm down on this?
Let's go back to the 005saikou Arcaea example I mentioned earlier. Pretty much anyone at that level will have thoughts about their own achievements, and which parts they found hardest to conquer; look at the pinned comment (translation of the CCs) on his Testify video and see just how detailed they can get. I'm not saying everyone has to get to that level of detail, but someone with practically nothing to say about their achievements AND no video either is a serious red flag.

A brief conclusion

Why I took the time to write all of this is pretty simple: I would very much like if people were more aware of the players they're defending who don't deserve to be defended. Not only are there legitimate players out there much more deserving of your attention, but there's also a glut of illegitimate ones out there cruising along with the potential to make Ranked Match completely unplayable if we're just going to sit here and pretend it's not a problem. Perhaps you’re thinking it’s not going to be a problem for you if you only stay in Bronze / Silver / Gold / Plat. Good for you, but then that leaves Diamond and Mastery completely unplayable wastelands fit only for people who jump onto sites-that-shall-not-be-named for modded apps. Pretty much every time I talk to a JP player about EN and the prospect of ranked match, I universally hear back the words “cheating” and smell the implication that there’s no point to even touching it. There’s already so few legitimately skilled players on EN (let alone those who aren’t simply imported / previously JP players) and the last thing EN needs is to drive those players away.
Genuine question: If the playerbase is capable of raising enough of a stink to get an entire event memory-holed out of existence (I have not forgotten RMD), please tell me why it's not possible to push the devs to take action on people who will undermine the legitimacy of an entire game mode? It's easy enough to ignore if you're just running around co-op getting event points and can forget about someone who's not playing the game, but in a game mode whose basis is a fair and even competition between two players, surely there's some reason to get them to do something.
Call me jealous, salty, misguided, whatever you want, but if at the end of the day this post has you thinking a bit more critically about why people can be so suspicious of others (and why it's more legitimate than just jealousy), then writing it will have been worth something. Please, don’t throw these words by the wayside, and keep a more critical eye out for the people you meet, be it in ordinary rooms, on social media, or, well… on Ranked Match. If you could do something about RMD, you can do something about cheaters.
If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for your attention and time.

• card would be used to pay for international travel then use the SUB to pay for another international travel trip early next year.

Current credit cards you are the primary account holder of: * CFU - $8900 limit open since 2015 * US Bank Kroger rewards card $3700 limit - open 2016 * Amazon store card - $2700 limit - open in 2016 * Apple card - $5500 limit - January open 2022 * CFF - $10900 limit - open July 2021 * Chase Sapphire Preferred (Upgraded to Reserve) - $10,000 - January 2021 * World of Hyatt - July 2022 - $5000 * WF BILT card - February 2023 - $15000 limit * * FICO Scores with source (see note on FICO score sources below): 753 Transunion, 760 Equifax * * Oldest credit card account age with you as the primary name on the account: CFU 8 years * * Number of personal credit cards approved for in the past 6 months: 2 (world of hyatt, WF BILT) * * Number of personal credit cards approved for in the past 12 months: (BILT, World of Hyatt, apple card) * * Number of personal credit cards approved for in the past 24 months: (BILT, World of Hyatt, apple card, CSR, CFF) * * Annual income $: ~63k / year myself
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