I stumbled upon a fun idea for a post (at least I think so, lol) when I was about to write a post about something else. So I nixed that idea and instead wrote this!
In total, there have been 9 players who have played for the Dutch national team, without ever having played in the Eredivisie since it's inception in 1956. Additionally, there have been 6 players who had not played in the Eredivsie at the time of their debuts, but who would do so later in their careers. Who are these players and how did their careers pan out? Let's find out! I'll be going in chronological order, from the first player who made their Netherlands debut, to the latest, starting with the list of players who have never played in the Eredivisie.
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**Players who never played in the Eredivisie**

1. **Willi Lippens, debut in 1971** Lippens was born in Germany to a German mother and a Dutch father. He would spend the majority of his career playing in Germany, mainly for Rott-Weiss Essen, where he played from 1965-1976, and later again from 1980-1981. He scored 209 goals for this club in almost 400 matches spread over the Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga Nort and regional league games. Between 1976 and 1979 he played in the Bundesliga for Borussia Dortmund. Then he left to play for Dallas Tornado in the North American Soccer League. He would stay here for one year until returning to his first club. His debut for the Dutch national team ultimately proved to be his only appearance for the country. It came in a qualification match for the European Championships against Luxembourg, in which he scored the opening goal of a 6-0 win. It is said that he received various invitations to play for the German national team, but his father forbid him. He would have liked to play for the team, but out of respect for his father, and what his parents lived through during the war, he always declined.
   
2. **Wim Hofkens, debut in 1983** Wim Hofkens was first scouted by Feyenoord, but he would opt for Willem ll, who had just opened a football boarding school. He would rise through the youth academy and make his debut in 1974 at 16-years old. The team was playing in the second division at this time. He would grow out to become an important player for the club. In 1976 however he would move to Belgium, despite renewed interest from Feyenoord. The 18-year old joined KSK Beveren, from the top tier. Although he was mostly used to playing as a central defender at Willem ll, at the Belgian club he would mostly play as a defensive midfielder. In 1977/78 they won the Belgian cup in a 2-0 victory over Sporting Charleroi. This was their very first prize in the history of the club. This meant that next season they would play Europen football, for the first time in almost a decade. Beveren reached the semi final of the Europacup ll, Ultimately losing to FC Barcelona. in 1979 they won the domestic league for the first time. In 1980, Hofkens left for RSC Anderlecht. A new team meant another position change. In the first season he would mostly play on the left of midfield. In 1981 Anderlecht won the league. His multifunctionality proved very useful for the team, as for the next season he would mostly play on the right side, even as right back occasionally. In total he would play 5 seasons for the club, including a 1-year loan against Beerschot (he had suffered some injuries during the later stages of his time at Anderlecht), and it was during this spell where he made his debut for the Dutch national team. On April 27th 1983 he played the full game in a 0-3 loss against Sweden. He next joined KV Mechelen in 1986. In his first season they immediately won the Belgian cup, and in the subsequent season they even won the Europacup 1 by beating Ajax in the final. Mechelen would develop into the best team in the country, winning the league and eventually also the UEFA Super Cup against PSV. He would play 3 more matches for the Dutch national team as a player for KV Mechelen. Unfortunately the decline set in as succescoach Aad de Mos left for Anderlecht and Mechelen started to get into financial trouble. At 33-years old he made the transfer to KV Kortrijk. The team relegated to the second division and after one season Hofkens returned to the Netherlands, specifically AZ'67 (AZ Alkmaar), playing in the second tier. After a midtable finish Hofkens retired his playing career. He would have a very long career as a coach, mainly in Belgium
   
3. **Rob Reekers, debut in 1988** Rob Reekers was born in in Enschede, in 1966. At the age of 16, he joined the FC Twente youth academy. In the 3 years he spent there he would never make his debut for the first team. When he left FC Twente he initially moved to ASC Schöppingen from the Oberliga Westfalen, at the time the 3rd tier in Germany. With this team he became league champions, and the next season he moved to VfL Bochum. His previous team was an amateur team, while VfL Bochum was fully professional. In his time at the club he would become a regular member of the first team and an important player. So much so that during this time he garnered the attention of the national team. In total he would play 4 friendly matches for the Dutch team, with his debut coming in 1988 against Italy, which they unfortunately lost 1-0. The 3 other opponents were Israel (0-2 victory), Denmark (2-2 draw), and Brazil (0-1 loss), with starts coming against Italy and Brazil, while he was substituted into the game against the other 2 opponents. In 1994 Reekers was experiencing back problems, which ultimately saw him be released by Bochum. He would join FC Gütersloh, with which he won promotion to the 2. Bundesliga in his first season at the club. He would stay at the club until it folded in 2000. By this time, he has already received his coaching certificates. He went on to become assistant coach at Rott-Weiss Oberhausen, a 2. Bundesliga club. After 3 seasons he left to become head coach of the newly formed FC Gütersloh. After 2 seasons without promotion from the Oberliga Westfalen, his contract would not be renewed. In 2005 he would return to FC Twente to become the coach of a youth team. The next year he opened a football school, where he and partner Frank Eulderink gave courses in football technique to kids 7-12.
   
4. **Jordi Cruijff, debut in 1996** Jordi Cruijff was born on February 19th, 1974, while his father Johan was an FC Barcelona player. As a youth player, Jordi would join the Ajax academy in 1981. In 1988 the family moved to FC Barcelona, where his dad would become the head coach. Jordi made his professional debut for the Barcelona B team. He made his debut for the first team in the 1994-95 season. When Johan was fired at the end of the season in 1996, Jordi also left the Spanish club. He moved to Manchester United. 1996 was also the year in which he made his debut for the Dutch national team. In fact, all of his 9 matches for the national team came in the 1996 calendar year. In 4 years, during which he was loaned to Celta de Vigo for half a season, he came to 34 matches in Manchester. After his unsuccesful stint at Manchester United he went back to Spain, to join Deportive Alavés. At this club he would experience the most success, among which was the UEFA Cup final run, which they ultimately lost 5-4 to Liverpool after extra time. After Alavés relegated in 2003, he moved to Espanyol. During the season he suffered a number of quite serious injuries, which resulted in his contract not being renewed and him leaving. He was a free agent until 2006. At this point he joined Metalurh Donetsk. He arrived at this club after contact with Ángel Alonso, who was the coach of the Ukranian team and a former coach of the Catalan national team. A team which Cruijff also played for. He played here for 2 years and then left to become playeassistant coach for Valletta FC on Malta. A duo role he held for one season, at which point he ended his active playing career. He would coach in Israel, China, Equador, and China again. He would also hold executive positions in Cyprus and Israel. He is currently the sporting director of FC Barcelona.
   
5. **Jerrel Hasselbaink, debut in 1998** Jerrel "Jimmy Floyd" Hasselbaink was born in Suriname in 1972. He moved to the Netherlands when he was a child, and started his career in professional football in the youth academy of second tier SC Telstar. His debut season saw him playing a total of 4 matches. However, during this season he made a transfer to AZ Alkmaar, with which he ended 4th in the second tier. He would play 46 matches in Alkmaar and score a total of 5 goals. Initially, he was not able to find a home at another professional club, so he returned to Dutch amateur football for a while. In the 1995/96 season, he moved to Portugal to join Campomaiorense, playing in the top tier. This season he played 31 matches, scoring 12 goals. Unfortunately the club relegated to the second tier. Hasselbaink would not join them though, as he would make a transfer to Boavista FC. He scored 20 goals in 29 leage matches and he won the Portuguese cup. In June 1997 Leeds United bought him for 2 million pounds. Hasselbaink scored 16 goals in his first Premier League season, and the following season he would become joined top scorer with 18 goals (together with Dwight Yorke and Michael Owen). Leeds managed a 4th position Premier League finish. His performances for Leeds saw him getting called up for the national team. The striker made his debut in a 0-0 draw against Cameroon. In total he would play 23 games, scoring 9 goals. After 2 years he left Leeds United, after a disagreement about contract extension. He would join Atletico Madrid. 1999/2000 was Hasselbainks most productive season, scoring 32 goals in 41 matches across all competitions. Unfortunately Atletico would finish 19th and relegate to the second division. Chelsea meant his return to England, for a then club record fee of 24 million pounds. He immediately became topscorer of the Premier league with 23 goals. Equalling that tally the following season, his production slowed down over the following years. Although he did still become the club topscorer in 03/04. After 177 matches and 87 goals, Chelsea let him live on a free transfer, despite an ongoing contract. Next he joined Middelsbrough FC. In the 3 years he played there, the club would play, and lose a UEFA Cup final. In 2006 he signed for Charlton Athletic. This season he would only score 2 goals. This was the first time he scored less than 10 goals in a season since 1995. Charlton relegated and chose not to renew his contract. In 2007 he signed for Championshiop club Cardiff City. In september of 2008 he put an end to his playing career, after disagreements with th club management. He went on to become a coach, mainly in England.
   
6. **Nathan Aké, debut in 2017** Nathan Aké was born in Den Haag in 1995. His first professional club was ADO Den Haag. He joined their youth academy in 2003, and left for the Feyenoord youth academy in 2007. In 2011 he made a move to Chelsea, where he was immediately named most promising youth player of the season. He made his debut in London in December 2012 under Rafael Benitez. He replaced Juan Mata in the 91st minute of a game against Norwich City. His first start came in a February 27th FA Cup game versus Middlesbrough. He played 90 minutes and the team won 0-2. In the coming years his games were few and far between, and in 2015 he was loaned out to Reading FC. He only played 5 matches in the Championship. Next season he was loaned out to newly promoted Watford. As a first 11 player, he played 26 matches in the starting line up in the Premier League. In June of 2016 he was loaned out to Bournemouth. They would recall him in January after they were impressed by his performances. They would rarely play him for the rest of the season though. At the end of the season he would make the permanent move to Bournemouth. In 5 years he played 17 matches for Chelsea., who played a club record fee for him. In 3 seasons he played 109 matches. When the team relegated to the Championship, Manchester City bought him for 45 million pounds. Manchester City is his current club. Aké made his debut for the Netherlands in a friendly against Morocco in 2017. So far he has played 36 matches, scoring 5 goals.
   
7. **Timothy Fosu-Mensah, debut in 2017** Timothy Fosu-Mensah was born in Amsterdam, and joined the Ajax youth academy. After a good performance at the annual Future Cup, Manchester United expressed interest in the player. He joined the English club in the summer of 2014. He made his first team debut in 2016 against Arsenal, under coach Louis Van Gaal. In the 55th minute he replaced left back Marcos Rojo. In the next match against Watford he was given his starting debut. In 2017 United loaned him out to Crystal Palace for a season, and it was in this period where he made his debut for the Dutch national team. A World Cup qualification match against France was lost 4-0. The following season he was loaned to Fulham. In 2021 he made a transfer to Bayern Leverkusen. Throughout his career he has suffered multiple knee injuries. He has 3 caps on his name so far. 2 starting and one substitute appearance
   
8. **Mark Flekken, debut in 2022** Mark Flekken was born in Kerkrade in 1993. He joined the Roda JC Kerkrade youth academy, but left it in 2009 to join Alemannia Aachen. He has spent his entire professional career playing in Germany. In January 2013 he became the first choice goalkeeper for Alemannia Aachen, although in the summer he left the team for SpVgg Greuther Fürth. Here he was the 3rd goalkeeper for the first team. In 2016 he left for MSV Duisburg. For this team he actually scored a goal in an away game against VfL Osnabrück (1-1 end result). They promoted to the 2. Bundesliga in 2017. In 2018 he moved to Bundesliga club SC Freiburg, where he predominantly was the second choice goalkeeper, for the first two seasons. He was set to be the first choice for the 20/21 season, but a long term elbow injury prevented this. The following season he got to play, and he was so good that he was named the second best goalkeeper of the first half of the season by Kicker. These performances saw him called up for the Dutch national team twice, before ultimately making his debut in March 2022 in a friendly match against Denmark. He has played a handful of matches so far.
   

​
So, that's the main list! I hope some of you found it interesting, and that it was not *too* long. With that in mind thoug the second list is going to be a bit shorter so as to not keep you here all day
**Players who made their Eredivisie debut after their Dutch NT debut**

1. **Piet Lagarde, debut in 1962** Born in 1939, Piet Lagarde made his debut for the NT on April 1st 1962 against Belgium. His Eredivisie debut came on the 26th of August of the same year for SC Enschede in a losing effort against Feyenoord. He played 64 matches as a goalkeeper
   
2. **Jan Mulder, debut 1967** Jan Mulder is now mainly known as a pundit on both Dutch and Belgian TV. As a player he mainly played for RSC Anderlecht and Ajax. Mulder made his NT debut in 1967 against East-Germany, A losing effort in a European Championship qualification match. He moved to Ajax in 1972
   
3. **Jan Klijnjan, debut 1967** Klijnjan played 11 matches for the Netherlands national team, with his debut coming when he was playing in the second tier of Dutch football.
   
4. **Peter van Vossen, debut 1992** Peter van Vossen began his career in Belgium, and this is where he played himself into the Dutch national team. His debut came in a winning effort against Yugoslavia. Van Vossen played 31 matches, scoring 9 goals
   
5. **Jeffrey Bruma, debut 2010** Jeffrey Bruma traded the Feyenoord youth academy for Chelsea, and spent most of his career outside of the Netherlands, although he has since played for both PSV and SC Heerenveen. The now 31-year old made his Dutch national team debut in a friendly against Ukraine
   
6. **Tim Krul, debut 2011** Tim Krul started his professional career at Newcastle United, after they scouted him following a youth tournament. He made his Netherlands debut in 2011 against Brazil.
   

​
Thank you for reading, and have a nice rest of your day!

About me
Hello there, my name is Coach Chesster(Yes, an obvious Chess reference, which is, by far, my favorite game). I've been playing League of Legends since season one, I've experienced everything from full AP Yi one-shotting my entire team to Tryndamere mains spinning around with a needlessly large rod instead of a sword. You could say I've been there during all the important historical moments of the game. I've been at the top of the ladder in Season 6 (Going between high Diamond and Challenger, based on how much time I've had to invest). I've competed in various tournaments, even being able to win a number of them, before I decided to get myself into coaching.
Coaching
I started the entire coaching thing during season 7 when one of my friends asked if I wanted to help him get out of that Diamond 4 hell. Ever since then, I was having a consistent number of sessions on a weekly basis, with my network of people slowly increasing(One of them actually gave me the idea to advertise on Reddit, which I did eventually accept!) I've coached more than 700 individuals ever since I started and I can proudly say I've had more than 500 sessions this year alone! So, if you are looking for someone who is around for more than 5 days actually add me.
Some of my personal coaching achievements include
Getting a player from Silver 1 to Platinum in just 5 weeks
Getting D2 to Masters in 2 weeks
Bronze 1 to Diamond, yes, this one happened as well, though it took slightly more time
Helping Duo players on NA reach Gold(They were actually stuck in Bronze 2 prior!)
Creating a coach from hard-stuck D2 after he got GM
Contact
You can add me on discord Chesster#7323, and also join our community down below!
Community
In addition to my services, I am proud to present to you our Educational community, which is steadily growing on a daily basis. Aside from Coaching, it is an amazing place to connect with other people, find friends and talk about the game all of us love and enjoy. Various events are held on a weekly basis, from 1v1 tournaments to Team Contests, with nice rewards being given out! Hint, you might win a free session!
All of our coaches have been vetted and verified, being certain all of you guys get the best service available! Every single one has peaked at least Grandmaster, with a minimum of 250 Coaching Hours to their name.
Discord Community: CLICK HERE
- Upon joining, message me in order to have a Role assigned!
Prices?
Prices for my sessions are negotiable and I can guarantee, they fall onto the affordable part of the specter!
My coaching sessions are oriented and tailored to each student's specific needs, and they do cover everything from theory to live coaching, in-game mentality, etc.

Thursday, March 23 - Wednesday, March 29

Top videos

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446	36 comments	Pezzetta
440	80 comments	Mike Hoffman via Instagram Stories
259	16 comments	RHP HAT TRICK BABY
253	29 comments	Nick has a gift for Slaf's birthday
247	43 comments	Lane Hutson opens the scoring, overtaking Brian Leetch record of 47 points
244	11 comments	Captain Nick receiving a gift from a fan
238	31 comments	Post game fun
188	20 comments	Nick Suzuki has his first 4 point game
167	12 comments	Happy Épinard
165	11 comments	Pezzetta Sensational

 

Top Remaining Posts

score	comments	title & link
545	30 comments	[Meme] Petition to have this profile picture for this sub for a day.
482	38 comments	Squad
397	128 comments	[Prospects] The Canadiens have agreed to terms on a three-year, entry-level contract (2022-23 to 2024-25) with forward Sean Farrell. #GoHabsGo
369	149 comments	[Meme] If we get both I think we can call the rebuild a wrap
347	26 comments	During the pandemic, Rafael Harvey-Pinard worked for his family-owned restaurant in his hometown of Jonquière, QC by delivering pizza 🍕
339	64 comments	The Habs warm-up jerseys for Indigenous Celebration Night
297	6 comments	Pezz dispensing snipes
287	70 comments	[Basu] We asked Jordan Harris earlier this week on some players refusing to take part in Pride night warmups, as Ilya Lyubushkin will do tonight in Buffalo. Here’s what he said, from this week’s Basu and Godin notebook.
245	21 comments	“I’m proud of him because nothing was given to him. He arrived here with young prospects that we drafted who were ahead of him on the depth chart but he solified his spot. He blocked off all the outside noise & stuck to his objective.” - Coach Marty on Johnathan Kovacevic
240	55 comments	“Start speaking to some players around the league, I guarantee you there are a lot of them who are paying attention to what’s happening with Marty St. Louis & the development staff of the Montreal Canadiens.“ - Eric Engels today on the Jeff Marek Show.

 

About Me
Hey there, my name is Shelbion and I've been an avid League of Legends player for over a decade. In Season 4, I reached Challenger for the first time and even considered pursuing a professional career. However, after much reflection, I decided to pursue other challenges within the game itself.
Some of my notable achievements as a player include:

• Reaching Challenger on multiple positions.
• Participating and winning in numerous SR and 1v1 tournaments.
• Playing for various teams(Amateur and Semi-Professional).

Community
In addition to my experience as a Player, I am also the Founder of Noxus Coaching - a rapidly growing, educational community on Discord. Our community is a great place to find new friends to play with, have a good time, and most importantly, improve your skills.
We hold various events on a weekly basis, including 1v1 & 5v5 tournaments, meme contests, and more. There are plenty of rewards to be won, including free coaching sessions with me. To join our community, visit https://discord.gg/TuTZAeRbx5 and message me upon joining to receive your role.
Coaching
As a coach with over 6.500 hours of experience, I have a passion for helping others improve and reach their goals. By studying the techniques of renowned coaches such as LS and MagiFelix, I have developed my own unique coaching approach that has helped countless individuals and over 20 teams advance their competitive play across 5 different continents, including members of various College and University E-Sports Teams.
Some of my notable achievements include:

• Assisting a Diamond 2 player reach Challenger in just five weeks.
• Helping a Silver 2 player climb to Platinum in three weeks.
• Guiding a Diamond 3 player to Grandmaster in six weeks.

I am dedicated to continuously honing my skills and providing the best coaching experience possible to all of my clients, regardless of their rank or location.
How Does it Work?
We will schedule an initial Interview during which we can discuss your goals and I can provide a more detailed explanation of my coaching services. This interview will typically last for 3-5 minutes.
The First Session is designed to assess your current level of gameplay and identify areas for improvement. After conducting an analysis, I will create a Personalized Coaching Plan tailored to your specific needs. This plan will outline a series of sessions designed to maximize your improvement.
The Coaching Plan may include various session types, such as:

• Theory sessions: These sessions will cover key concepts such as wave management, vision, decision making, and more.
• Practical sessions: These sessions will either be VOD reviews or live games, and will be used to put theoretical knowledge into practice and analyze gameplay.
• Reviews: These sessions will occur periodically and will be used as checkpoints to track your progress and identify any additional areas for improvement.

All sessions will be personalized and created specifically for each student's needs. By following this plan, you can feel confident that you are taking the most effective steps to achieve your goals.
Personalized Support (Available 24/7)
In addition to the structured coaching sessions, I offer personalized support to my clients on a 24/7 basis. Whether you have a specific question or just want to debrief after a tough game, I am always available to help. Simply message me and I will respond as quickly as possible.
AvailabilityPricesPayments
I am able to cover any server and any timezone! Rates for both Private and Team coaching are negotiable. We will easily get the sessions to fit your budget and your needs. Payments are usually done through PayPal, however other forms of Payment such as Direct Transfer can be discussed.
Contact?
Main form of contact is Discord on which you can find me at Shelbion#8832
Feel free to message me either on Discord or through a Direct Message on Reddit and I will come back to you as quickly as possible.

Im I the only one that thinks the real reason and ONLY, explanation the Warriors have a bad road games record is because of their ‘championship hangover’, bored/uninterested of the regular season games and thus leading them to not put any effort at all? Yes they are totally different team at home, but I feel its coz they don’t have choice but to perform well at home for the cheering fans….who give them a boost to put more effort and perform the way they do unlike on road games.
And given how bad the West has been this season—personally, I don’t even think the players care much about the seeding, coz they think—no, they know—they can beat whoever they are matched up against in the playoffs. And that all they care about is avoiding the play-in tournament, coz any thing can happen (ala vs Grizzlies two years ago).
This Draymond Green quote after loss to Grizzlies recently says it all:

"Anybody can win in March. What that mean? I have a hard time getting out of my bed in March. What's a game in March mean?"

Although not the same —record-wise as last season, but Warriors have been written off a lot my sports analyst and fans (justifiably so) this season and I feel like they are about to go on a tear in the post season—leaving many folks eating their own words like Steph and co made them do last season.
Of course the players/coach are not gonna admit it for professional reasons but, this is theory is the only thing that makes sense to me.
All it takes is for them to ‘flip the switch’ just to prove the haters wrong! There’s nothing sweeter than this to them!

Greetings, Programs! If I’m here, and I am (or am i) then it must mean it’s time for another trip session of Reddit History. I may need a good theme song at this rate.
Anyway, it seems a good time of year to look back on all the fun Reddit has had in April (and sometimes beyond) for many years. While last year had a fancy video about our April Fools’ past, this year let’s wax a bit more textual. So come with me, again, won’t you? Join me in the Reddit Wayback Machine, and we shall trip through time.
2006-2008: The Early Days of Reddit’s April Foolery
The first few April Fools’ Days on Reddit were… well, they were “traditional.” You know how a company will send out a ridiculous press release about a wild product update and we all get excited/bewildered/insert your favorite emotion until we remember what day it is? That was very de rigueur for our early years. Longtime redditors may remember the surprise merger of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft in 2006 in order to purchase Reddit for $1 trillion, that time when Reddit went doubleplusgood in 2007, or even when you could buy karma in 2008.
2009: Reddit Redesigned as Digg
After these small pranks, we evolved to much larger ones, like when we added a “skin” that made Reddit look like Digg in 2009. While potentially… somewhat prophetic, in the end, folks were fairly amused before everything went back to normal the next day.
2010: Admin For A Day
Then came April Fools’ Day 2010, where everyone on Reddit got admin status for 24 hours. People could seemingly ban one another, modify upvotes, and delete comments (but it only appeared so – hence the whole April Fools’ thing). Much like the year before, however, chaos only reigned for about 24 hours before things went back to what passes for normal on Reddit.
2011: Reddit Mold
The first big shot at something more was Reddit Mold, which launched in 2011. While Reddit Gold – which launched the year before – gave users access to fancy things, Reddit Mold took away access to not-at-all fancy things… like individual letters of the alphabet. Over 270,000 redditors got hit with a mold spore, and our poor u/reddit got hit 69 times. As with many April Fools pranks, some loved it, and some didn’t. This proved, though, that by and large Redditors like to have a good bit of fun with their internet friends, and thus we all eagerly awaited April Fools’ to come.
2012: Timereddits
We got a bit audacious with 2012’s Timereddits. We broke through the “present-centric bias” of today, and ensured that all time periods were reflected on Reddit: past, present, future, super duper past, way distant future, and everything in between. You could check out what Reddit was like in the 1960s, the Big Bang, or the Heat Death of the Universe. The front page was also altered to ensure that everyone got a fair and balanced view of all through history. We especially invited those who were indeed experienced time-travelers to enhance our presence ensure that the timereddits were accurate.
2013: Grand Battle of Orangered vs. Periwinkle
The year that really blew the door off was when the entire Reddit community was split in two and pitted against each other in the grand battle of Orangered vs. Periwinkle. What started out looking like a more “traditional” prank with a pair of fake news releases stating that Reddit had bought the game Team Fortress 2 (or TF2) quickly took on a new flavor when redditors discovered the Field of Karmic Glory, and took up weapons… and hats. The battle waged for a mighty eight hours before Reddit servers threw up the white flag and battles ceased. Team Orangered was declared the victor, and members of the winning team were gifted Snoo hats in TF2.
2014: Headdit
We got bolder in 2014 with Headdit (who among us was awarded gold for balancing something on our heads?). For those unfamiliar with this one, accepting a prompt would activate webcam-based motion tracking, and head movements like nodding or shaking your head would upvote or downvote posts. And as an added bonus, it detected cats, but not dogs.
2015: The Button
For the next year, we decided to go back to our roots a bit, and instead of letting users mess with each other… we would mess a little more with our users, albeit in a more backhanded way. We presented everyone with a simple game: a button with a 60 second timer that was counting down. You had one choice: either to press the button or to not press it. That’s it. You could only press it once, and once you’d pressed it, there was nothing else left to do. Pushing the button reset the timer, but what happened when the timer hit zero? No one knew. Thus, the next great Reddit War began.
For weeks, Redditors found themselves dividing into factions, and subfactions, depending on how much time was on the timer when they pressed the button. There was even a whole group of proud Non-Pressers who fought against temptation. By the end (which didn’t come until June, yes Redditors kept pushing the button that long), there were over 1 million presses of the button, and when the timer hit zero for the last time… nothing happened. But Reddit was forever changed, and some groups are still active to this day, ferreting out the secrets of Reddit (we see you, AprilKnights).
2016: Robin
After this, there was no stopping us. 2016 brought us Robin, where random Redditors were paired up in chat rooms and given three choices: Stay in the room they were in, Combine with another room, or Abandon this room entirely and thus get paired with someone new. While it was not the first room to hit the highest tier, at the end of the game it was the room called ccKufi that ended up winning the prize for the largest room with over 5500 users. Unfortunately, the room got so large it started to cause problems with our servers, and so Robin was closed.
2018: Circle of Trust
We brought trust and betrayal to Reddit with 2018’s Circle of Trust, as users were given a circle where they could set a password, and then decide who they would let into that inner circle to join, but that person could also betray and break the circle as well. You only got one circle and once it was broken, you were out of the game. Redditors quickly learned who they could trust and who they couldn’t… and that included our own servers which struggled mightily with the crush of traffic, and also potentially Reddit itself as the project didn’t go live until April 2nd. Lessons were learned that day, and the sanctity of April Fools has been preserved ever since.
2019: Sequence
Sequence was the game of 2019, where we challenged everyone to get their gif game on and create a movie made of nothing but gifs. While the finished product would not be winning any awards come Oscar time, the ending movie certainly embodied the spirit of Reddit. Just as a peek behind the curtain, while we have general ideas of how long we’ll run these various projects, Sequence was the first one that had a truly defined stopping point. We knew when the last act was going to open, and approximately how long it would run before closing it off and compiling the final movie, unlike other projects where we have a vague idea and may close it off earlier or later depending on how everyone is engaging with it… or how badly our servers are crying out for help. This year, though, the servers kept up with your mighty gif-ing.
2020: Imposter
Moving into the 2020s, we’ve been tasking your brains a little more. 2020 definitely presented us with a bit of a quandary. The COVID-19 pandemic was only a few months old, and we were all still adjusting to our new reality. Would it be appropriate to introduce some frivolity at a time when so many people were struggling? In the end, we decided that yes, we all needed a little fun, so in perhaps another bit of future predicting, we asked you to determine who was human and who was an AI in the game of Imposter. Not only did you get to put your mind to the test in trying to figure out which of five statements was made by an AI, but we also invited you to create your own phrases that sounded like an AI to try and fool your fellow Redditors.
2021: Second
For the next year, we stayed on the theme of mind puzzles, and we presented everyone with a question. From three images, can you choose what might be the second most popular image, without turning it into the most popular thing, but still be right in picking the second most popular thing? Whew. And of course, the winner was the person who came in second proving that second is the new first.
And that about wraps it up, right? I didn’t miss anything, I’m pretty sure. I’ve listed all the things, and looked in every place I could think of…
Oh. Right. Place.
2017 & 2022: Place
We can’t end off without talking about the project everyone loved the most, and we loved so much that we’ve pulled it out twice now. We challenged you, telling you that working alone you can only do so much, but by working together you can do so much more. And you did, in both 2017 (here’s a cool timelapse) and in 2022, you came together to place millions of pixels and create hundreds upon hundreds of graphics on a white canvas. You amazed all of us, and probably yourselves as well, with your creativity and collaboration. Not only did you do all this on the canvas, but you also did so off the canvas as well, creating atlases of the final image, and even recreating last year’s canvas in cross stitch (I cannot WAIT to see the final product!). You’ve definitely proven that Place Was (indeed) Better than a lot of what has come since that time.
So that does it for our trip down Aprils’ past… please bring your chairs to their full, upright, and locked positions, and make sure those tray tables are stowed. We hope you’ve enjoyed this recap of all the fun we’ve had together in April, and we can’t wait to make more memories with you. Did you participate in any of these projects? Please share your memories in the comments below.
Until next time… Reddit History Class is dismissed.

About Me
Hey there, my name is Shelbion and I've been an avid League of Legends player for over a decade. In Season 4, I reached Challenger for the first time and even considered pursuing a professional career. However, after much reflection, I decided to pursue other challenges within the game itself.
Some of my notable achievements as a player include:

• Reaching Challenger on multiple positions.
• Participating and winning in numerous SR and 1v1 tournaments.
• Playing for various teams(Amateur and Semi-Professional).

Community
In addition to my experience as a Player, I am also the Founder of Noxus Coaching - a rapidly growing, educational community on Discord. Our community is a great place to find new friends to play with, have a good time, and most importantly, improve your skills.
We hold various events on a weekly basis, including 1v1 & 5v5 tournaments, meme contests, and more. There are plenty of rewards to be won, including free coaching sessions with me. To join our community, visit https://discord.gg/TuTZAeRbx5 and message me upon joining to receive your role.
Coaching
As a coach with over 6.500 hours of experience, I have a passion for helping others improve and reach their goals. By studying the techniques of renowned coaches such as LS and MagiFelix, I have developed my own unique coaching approach that has helped countless individuals and over 20 teams advance their competitive play across 5 different continents, including members of various College and University E-Sports Teams.
Some of my notable achievements include:

• Assisting a Diamond 2 player reach Challenger in just five weeks.
• Helping a Silver 2 player climb to Platinum in three weeks.
• Guiding a Diamond 3 player to Grandmaster in six weeks.

I am dedicated to continuously honing my skills and providing the best coaching experience possible to all of my clients, regardless of their rank or location.
How Does it Work?
We will schedule an initial Interview during which we can discuss your goals and I can provide a more detailed explanation of my coaching services. This interview will typically last for 3-5 minutes.
The First Session is designed to assess your current level of gameplay and identify areas for improvement. After conducting an analysis, I will create a Personalized Coaching Plan tailored to your specific needs. This plan will outline a series of sessions designed to maximize your improvement.
The Coaching Plan may include various session types, such as:

• Theory sessions: These sessions will cover key concepts such as wave management, vision, decision making, and more.
• Practical sessions: These sessions will either be VOD reviews or live games, and will be used to put theoretical knowledge into practice and analyze gameplay.
• Reviews: These sessions will occur periodically and will be used as checkpoints to track your progress and identify any additional areas for improvement.

All sessions will be personalized and created specifically for each student's needs. By following this plan, you can feel confident that you are taking the most effective steps to achieve your goals.
Personalized Support (Available 24/7)
In addition to the structured coaching sessions, I offer personalized support to my clients on a 24/7 basis. Whether you have a specific question or just want to debrief after a tough game, I am always available to help. Simply message me and I will respond as quickly as possible.
AvailabilityPricesPayments
I am able to cover any server and any timezone! Rates for both Private and Team coaching are negotiable. We will easily get the sessions to fit your budget and your needs. Payments are usually done through PayPal, however other forms of Payment such as Direct Transfer can be discussed.
Contact?
Main form of contact is Discord on which you can find me at Shelbion#8832
Feel free to message me either on Discord or through a Direct Message on Reddit and I will come back to you as quickly as possible.

Im I the only one that thinks the real reason and ONLY, explanation the Warriors have a bad road games record is because of their ‘championship hangover’, bored/uninterested of the regular season games and thus leading them to not put any effort at all? Yes they are totally different team at home, but I feel its coz they don’t have choice but to perform well at home for the cheering fans….who give them a boost to put more effort and perform the way they do unlike on road games.
And given how bad the West has been this season—personally, I don’t even think the players care much about the seeding, coz they think—no, they know—they can beat whoever they are matched up against in the playoffs. And that all they care about is avoiding the play-in tournament, coz any thing can happen (ala vs Grizzlies two years ago).
This Draymond Green quote after loss to Grizzlies recently says it all:

"Anybody can win in March. What that mean? I have a hard time getting out of my bed in March. What's a game in March mean?"

Although not the same —record-wise as last season, but Warriors have been written off a lot my sports analyst and fans (justifiably so) this season and I feel like they are about to go on a tear in the post season—leaving many folks eating their own words like Steph and co made them do last season.
Of course the players/coach are not gonna admit it for professional reasons but, this is theory is the only thing that makes sense to me.
All it takes is for them to ‘flip the switch’ just to prove the haters wrong! There’s nothing sweeter than this to them!

Hi guy's, I guess this is what is going on with me.

1. Psychotic break that got me diagnosed with Schizotypal, PTSD, and bipolar.-13 day stay at the good ol mental hospital.
2. I wrote a story trying to explain how my psychotic break started. It is unfinished bc it brings me back. So at this point in time I have left it alone.
3. At this point I believe I am being given messages by god in an attempt to save my soul from the devil. I understand this could be delusional ideas of reference and I understand I have a long way to go before I can identify what is real and what is not.
4. You are not suffering alone, there is a light at the end of our tunnel for sure. I think if one person here can find a way then we all can. Happiness is attainable and I will relentlessly pursue it.
5. I know how wild the below story is. But as you know it was real af to me.

​
I realized I was beaten when my mom gave me my 2nd dose of drugged food.
​
*Note*-Last chapter-The man behind the curtain is revealed. It is me. (alternate story and endings for each Cartel, Illuminati(west coast and east coast)-One side is evil, the other good(wutang)., CIA, Then the best one imo-The church
vs the devil.
​
​

What a way to start the new year lol. It was on Jan 1st that all of this spiraled out of control. It all started when I was working at amazon in clay NY. I woke up one day and saw a shit ton of cops. I was growing at the time, an illegal amount of cannabis that would have landed me a felony. So knowing this I shit my pants and ran down the stairs to see what was happening. Am I getting raided or is it just some regular molly whopping bullshit going on outside? We installed a large number of security cameras due to the molly whopper problem. Anything that wasn't tied down would come up missing, not after the cameras lol. I get my coffee as two cops knock on my door. I answer and 

they let me know that a crime was committed by some kids and that they would like the videos if my camera caught it. I thought to myself, some kids.....no big deal at all. SURE I said as I ran upstairs to get my laptop while trying to keep my tents out of view. I return and both I and the two cops sit in the kitchen until I can get the videos emailed to them. They leave and I think that is the end of that. WROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
​

(insert the fact that you bought weapons, signs and didn't sleep hardly at all) 

I go to amazon about a week later and find out that the people that committed the crime in front of my house work with me. Aren't I the lucky one? Malachi(one of the assailants) was kind enough to come to the conveyor belt and leaned over and let me know that it was him and his friends. And that both he and his friends that committed the crime will be coming back to get my grow(how the hell do they know about my grow I think?). I mean mugged him and we both continued about our day. Due to me having headphones in it took me a while to put together exactly what he said. But when I did put it together, I immediately started taking all the necessary precautions to prevent a home invasion,. Such as securing all entrances and placing weapons all around the house. Identifying all routes in and out and covering them with cameras and traps if needed. Not my first rodeo(ptsd like a mfa from the first). This time was different though due to me at the time living with my sick parents. I planned on defense only and coached them on what to do in the worse case.
(RAW DATA ELABORATE on the amazon story-For example all of the people you identified and all of the tatoos that they shared. A large orginazation was identified but at the time I did not know they were after me. Later I found out they
were using the night staff at amazon warehouses to distribute their products around the globe. In 30 mins or less lol.)
​

With my home secured my mind was at ease. On my next scheduled day at amazon, I learned that my manager Caroline was working with/for Malachi. I learned this by her repeatedly placing me next to Malachi and Mike(Malachi's friend). This continued for about two weeks and I saw exactly who was playing for the Malachi's team. It turned out to be a large number of people. I identified they were a group by the matching tattoos they displayed. They had people working as janitors, and in every station and position in amazon. I am talking all the way from janitors to the managers. At least a good 10+ at amazon working to make my life hell there. One time while next to Malachi and Mike at the beginning of this. I lost my temper, pretty badly. I have a mental health issue with my anger(just learned), which caused me to say a bunch of stuff in retaliation to Malachi. This caused Malachi 

to make a phone call while shaking his head in sadness. That phone call was to someone important. Because ever since Malachi made that call my life changed for the worse. Like way worse.
​

After both myself and Malachi were done talking shit to each other. He(malachi) let me know how much power he could get on short notice. I woke up to smoke my normal morning joint and saw Angel(from amazon), Mike, and Malachi walking around my house(in the street). Later that day I would say about ten to 15 cars made an appearance to let me know they meant business. I just sat there and smoked my joints and cataloged all of his personnel. I knew at that point I was in over my head and made a mistake in feeding into Malachi's anger. I called everyone I knew, which was two whole people(lol) and told them to stand down and not do anything to Malachi if they saw him. I also tried my best to de-escalate to the best of my ability while working at amazon. That however just seemed to make them madder. One night Caroline came up to me and asked me to go work next to people who were trying to kill me, which at that point was normal. Once I realized this I had a realization that this was wrong and should be addressed. I was experiencing retaliation for reporting a crime and it was being perpetuated by my employer(I was thinking in my head Lawsuit lol). Then Angel started going ham on me. I let my management know that they needed to do something(they did nothing). Then I let Angel know the only reason they were mad was the video I gave to the cops, and that I was not a threat to him. I also reiterated to him that he had to touch me for me to be able to defend myself. I left that 

day and made a report to the amazon ethics board on what had happened there. I quit and called the cop I gave the video to for advice and to let him know I was prepared if it goes further. I let him know I would fight to the death for the safety of my mother and father. Which was now in danger due to Malachi and the organization he is with. He agreed with me and told me to protect my family.
​

I was out of work for a couple of weeks and everything seemed to simmer down. All the cars and people that were patrolling daily seemed to stop. During my off time I was able to do a bunch of research on Malachi, Angel and Mike and I learned that they were tied to a local car dealership in fulton. I researched the car dealership and found out that they were from the Bronx and were affiliated with the Cartel. I found this out through facebook and instagram. Malachi was kind enough to throw up gang signs in his instagram posts that I was able to check on google. I battened down the hatched as much as I could. But I knew that my family was now in grave danger due to me losing my temper. They are good people and I had no intention of letting them pay the cost for my action. So I came up with an Idea. I would enter into the legal weed business by going to a multistate operator for a job. Through different research I learned that heavy cartel money has flowed into these multistate cannabis businesses. I was hopeful that I could find an ear from the cartel by applying for a job at my local out of state cannabis company called Acerage holdings. It didn't take me that much time and I landed a job for a company called acerage holdings which grows medical weed. On my first week there a co-worker named Isaiah was talking about my ethics report that I made to amazon to another employee. Lucky me, I believe I found the ear I was looking for. It turned out that he was part of Malachi's group. I worked with a small number of people at acerage holdings and I am positive that most people working there were very aware of who I was and who Malachi was. And that I was not well-liked at all, meaning malachi's influence reached there as well.I stayed to myself to the highest extent possible and just soaked up the comments like a sponge with no responses from me at all. My intent was to gather as much intel as I possibly could and identify an opportunity for a line of communication with the leadership of the Cartel. This would be hard to do. The business that I was working for was designed as part of their legal operations(It didn’t take much google to figure that out). 

​
I would go into work everyday at Acerage and people would be openly talking about my situation. One guy was joking around while we were harvesting some weed that I should put in the wood chipper. I saw he had a bunch of tattoos so I figured what are the chances he has a similar tatoo. I moved over to work with him and to my surprise he has the same tattoo as Angel. I engage in conversation and maintain my cover to gather data and identify a line of communication so I could plead my case. A worker named Tony came into our area that day and he was loose enough to say don’t trust the security because they are the cartel. I think to myself, welp that guy ain't a cartel but security seems to be my point of access to the top. Later that day I was oddly issued my badge which seemed rather thick. Me being my paranoid self began to read all of the literature that i was given when I first got the job. In fine print I read that the company has the right but not the duty to monitor your phone or other device to make sure intellectual property is not stolen. That day I immediately started talking about how the FBI got a guy at my last job for the same thing. And that I planned on using their practices for a business that I wanted to start. Needless to say I believe they would be listening on my phone for more crumbs to try to start a case.
​
I woke the next day and began to plead my case while in my truck alone. I apologized and claimed responsibility for my actions. And that I would accept any punishment as long as it was me and only me. I clocked into work that morning and oddly enough my coworkers that I had befriended seemed very sad. Almost like something was going to happen to me. I armed myself with trim scissors and was ready for the worst knowing that my message had most likely reached its mark. I was scared and happy at the same time. I was afraid because I thought I was about to die but I was happy because I thought I had brokered the safety of my family successfully. Stressfully I finished my day and luckily nothing happened. So I went home.
​
To relieve stress I started to work on some different hobbies. One of those hobbies was music. I got to the point where I had two songs written (rough copies), and I was sampling tracks and beats to put my lyrics to. While doing this, I realized that I got hacked. There were two recurring options that kept popping up on my youtube. Two live streams with people rapping, one was the west coast rap channel and one was the east coast rap channel. I had my headset with a mic and I was putting
my lyrics to their beats when they answered me and started conversing with me. They told me they wanted my music and that I had to make a choice. I told them I was not ready to make a choice and I kept switching between the two while listening to their music and then them listening to my music(it was dope af-they were freestyling a lot-me not so much but what I did do was dope af). Then I garnered attention from both sides with a proposal. I explained how darkness and corruption have taken over and now evil sits atop the societal pyramid controlling everything and everyone. I explained how words have power, especially through music to change negative energy to positive. A good example of this is
waking up in a horrible mood and then putting on a good song and magically your mood changes from negative to positive. I proposed to use that to address issues that plague communities across the U.S. My proposal was to use 300 artists,150 from one side and 150 from the other. My song would be used as the prime example(leaders lead by example). 1 person comes up with lyrics and each of the 300 make those lyrics their own(own beats/cadence) and release a song on the same day. So with one song 300 versions will be thrown out in the local dialect to address the issue simultaneously all across the U.S. Long story short it would have a great chance of changing the current negative state of the world into a positive one. By delivering a hot beef injection of positivity into this negative landscape we have found ourselves in. Everyone agreed with me and I ended the night by DJing a few songs and then calling it a night. Before I go people from both sides start making me offers to join their side and that they would pay me and this and that. I thought this was a dream but here these dudes were offering me whatever I wanted to hop on their side. I told them no offense but That I had to think about it. I understood I was a great talent and that I did not want to make a bad deal. I thought I would sleep it over and then let everyone know my choice after work the following day. So I called it a night.
​
The next day I went to work and it was a holiday so we would only be working until 11am that
day.My boss Shmalex(name changed to protect identity lol). Told me to come talk to him after we were done with work that day. I immediately put it together that not only did I gain the attention of the Cartel but I was under close watch from the FBI due to me recently buying weapons and talking about my hustling openly. I told him ok and continued with my coworker Rob to complete our task that day which consisted of picking leaves off plants. While On break I was talking with Rob after my cigarette and he was showing me his fishing gear and trying to plan a fishing trip later on. I agreed that it would be fun and then we went back into work. About an hour after we got back into work Rob dipped out to make a call. He came back in and then about ten mins later Cody came in and told us we were done for the day and that we could leave. While I was cleaning up, the robber walked up behind me and whispered I’m sorry. I didn’t even say anything because I thought he was joking. Spoiler alert he was not joking.
​
I left work that day and I was super pumped knowing that I would soon be able to solve all my money problems by choosing which side to sign with. On the ride home I kept thinking how I got in the situation that I did and why I started making music. And then it hit me, Malachi, the same person who had put me in this dangerous situation was the reason why I was about to be successful and safe most of all. I thought that both sides had my back and were upset with the Cartel coming into the U.S. and just claiming territory like that. So I was no longer concerned for either My or my family's safety anymore, which was like ten tons being lifted off of my shoulders. On the ride home I started rapping and loudly yelling that I loved this shit and would take care of everyone with money. Especially Malachi and his family as a token of friendship and a hope for forgiveness.
​
​
I get home and I see that my parents have bought pizza. I think dope af and grab some and head upstairs. So I finally made my choice to join West coast records to be in the nice weather. I let both sides know that I planned to go to the west coast and told each that I would only go if I could collaborate with both sides. Notbe limited. I told them to show up at 8 am the next morning with two million in a bag. I was communicating with them verbally through the computer and with notes written on notebooks that I was showing my mirror. They told me they had me on watch from that location, and confirmed it by giving me details that only a camera in the mirror would capture. I went to bed that night with the idea that I was going to change the world. I was able to talk to both sides and luckily they were with me in changing things for the better. I went to bed oddly knowing that I just made a work-together truce between the crips and bloods. Good night's rest would be an understatement. I slept like a fucking baby. However, I woke up mad af boy lol.
​

8 am comes and goes and no one shows up lol. At this point I am unsure if I got hacked by Malachi, actually am about to start the 300, or am being trolled by the govt.... so many possibilities at this point lmao. So I don't go to the computer until the afternoon. Then things kinda get pretty crazy, but not as crazy as it will get..... I hop on the computer and hop on the west coast live stream. They start rapping about how they are going to torture me and kill my family and friends(someone on there said they were in jail and mad af at me). I see an Eminem video pop up on the screen and click on it. It is Eminem and he is rapping live about me and he kept giving me the shhhhh with the finger thing when I went to talk. He was saying that he was going to lock me up and not let me out and a whole bunch of shit. I closed my computer and just went and laid down and thought about the situation that I found myself in. I knew they had cameras on me in my house and in my truck(they told me how much gas I had!). I just laid there and thought about the situation, 1. Am I crazy...no 2. Am I hacked....yes 3. How do I save my family? idk yet 4. Am I beat beyond belief? yes. The criminal organization that Malachi was with(some cartel) was using amazon prime to deliver their product across the U.S., they knew I knew this and I know they wanted me dead so that is the opponent I was planning against it. Now looking back it could have been the FBI(I am loose so could have been watched), Cartel-the most likely, West or east coast rappers... so fucked lol. So I planned to wait it out to protect my family and engage if needed. This meant I always had to have weapons on to carry that plan out(pain in the ass(prison pocket)). 

​

I hopped up from my bed and went downstairs to eat a fish dinner that my mom had picked up. They were hurting for money and I was helping them out financially for months before that. Suddenly it clicked. The night before they bought 4 pizzas. Then tonight they bought fish dinners,.....WAIT. Where did they get the money to order out twice in a week, so so out of the ordinary? I recognized this and went upstairs with the fish dinner trying to think why they would order out two days in a row. I hop on my computer and start to eat dinner. I start listening to a 90s hip-hop live track and the dude who said he was in jail starts talking. Lets me know it cost 100k to get my mom on his side and that the food I was eating was drugged, and when I go downstairs my mom will make a fake police report on me to get me to jail. I stop eating the fish and go downstairs and just try talking to my mom to disprove what I just heard. 

She looked at me and immediately started to make a scene. She told me to "calm down and go to sleep or she'll have to call someone". I deescalate, throw out the dinner and then head upstairs. My brain starts working overtime in attempting to solve the situation. My playlists keep changing on my laptop so I start clicking on the top choice every time it changes. I finally realized that another party was communicating with me that was different from the previous ones(Anonymous). They altered songs in the top choices to deliver a subliminal message. I can’t describe how the words would jump out at me but I was able to gather the message after playing about 5 songs. They wanted me to go to a mental facility for safety for both me and my family. I didn’t know why, but I had no options at that point so I had to trust them.

 It was my job to decode that message in the limited amount of time that I had. I spent about an hour listening and grabbing applicable information from the slightly changed songs. I felt myself at a loss trying to find the subliminal path laid out. A gospel live stream popped up on my laptop and there was a different group that wanted me to sing with them(The church). The song was hallelujah. About halfway through the song I had a religious epiphany. I blacked out for a couple of seconds, and came to singing the song hallelujah while holding my arms out toward my mirror in a hugging motion. The people in the gospel livestream were rejoicing loudly and I heard someone say it's him. I immediately knew they thought I was the second coming and I dropped to my knees to denounce that. 

​
I took my notebook and started writing in my notebook a message. It said me for my family. I looked at the shotgun on my floor for a brief moment. But that was not an option due to my upbringing and marine background. The path became clear when I mentally snapped. They had accepted my deal, me for my family. I briefly looked at my shotgun and then headed downstairs to tell
My parents that Ineeded to go to a mental hospital to meet anonymous. I went outside to wait and my mom went and made a phone call that took about ten minutes. I don't know who she was talking to but when she came out I knew we were good because the cops didn't show up. And then off we went, I played the part quite well on the ride I remember. I told my parents I loved them and then after listening to faded with a stranger one last time, I went in to accept my fate. I asked for one last cigarette and my dad gave me a half a one that tasted quite odd.
​

A lady came in once I was laying in the hospital bed to "take blood" and give me something to sleep. I thought this was the end but it was not. I woke up the next day and could have sworn my mom said the doctor wanted to see me. I told her I was still tired and rolled over and went back to bed. Then when I woke up they brought me into a room with a security guard posted up right near me. My mom told me they were going to move me to come after I eat. Then they moved me to omh. I checked in and now this is where things get crazy. However, the memories are still very blurry 

​

I was given a mask, and I swear it felt like I had my memory wiped about 5 minutes after putting it on. I enjoyed it quite a lot. I was under the impression that I would die (I was very surprised I woke up). I went into the mental hospital and I went through the check-in process for entering into inpatient(explain in detail the process of checking in). It was pretty demeaning to say the least. I thought I would make contact with the resistance or whoever gave me the subliminal messages to go to the mental hospital. But that did not happen. I thought to myself, Why would the security guard drug me if I am in a safe place? I immediately knew I was in grave danger and that I had to be on guard at all times. I was shown my room and I introduced myself to my roommate bob. (I would later come to find out that bob was a former marine). My head was really really messed up from the medication that they had given me. I chilled in my room for a while and finally went out to walk up and down the hallways to attempt to identify any possible way out. I needed that information later to break out if needed. I identified a weak link in the armor. It consisted of one door that would get me access to one side and a fence that once jumped would lead me to the running part. I started walking up and down the halls and I noticed a woman that was also doing the same thing. I couldn't help but overhear what she was saying. And to my surprise, she referenced the situation that I had found myself in. She sat down and I sat down next to her. She leaned in and told me that they were going to kill me and skin 

me alive. And she just started maniacally laughing. I knew I was in a facility run by the organization after me. I sat there and then it came to me. Don't feed into it gather as much intel as possible and plot your next chess move carefully. So I fucking laughed with her and we began to laugh together. I made small talk and then I went into the cafeteria to grab some water(which I usually drank a ton of). I grabbed a glass and I shit you not it was like it had corn syrup in it. It was water but THICK. I had no choice so I drank the liquid. It was my only source of water and at this point in my information gathering, I dared not bring up any intel that I was finding out about.
​

I saw a couple of people in the cafeteria and decided to make small talk. I met a female named Angel and another female named Haley. They seemed nice enough but I couldn't get it out of my head that something just seemed very very off about this place and the people that I was meeting. They told me about the groups they offer as therapy and told me I should make an appearance. I tried my best to remember but I could not for the life of me and ended up missing it and just roaming the halls. Nighttime was fast approaching so I ducked into a place that they had labeled the quiet room and I was lucky enough to meet a man named Scooba Steve. He introduced himself and made it a point to tell 

me that he was a man of god. I noted this and we continued to make some small talk which consisted of religion. I asked him to say some prayers for me that night and I left him there to read his bible. I later found out he was very devoted to and any bit of free time he had was devoted to reading the bible. They called for nighttime meds so I went to the counter to get mine. They gave me a sleeping pill and an antipsychotic and then to my surprise they gave me a nicotine lozenge. I was extremely happy about this due to fiending for some good ol' nicotine. I planned on staying up all night which I did. I needed to see exactly how many staff they had and if they were involved in this or if they were legit(spoiler alert, they were not).
​

In the hallways there were nooks where you could sit down and admire the artwork. I posted up in one of those nooks near my room and just kept an eye on everyone that night. Nothing happened, but i did notice that the security guard makes one pass a night. If I needed to get out I could easily use him as a plan b so I noted that in my playbook and in my spare time fashioned me a toothbrush shank. 

Hi, As the title suggests - I am looking for a list of movies with great sounds and picture quality that I could watch on my Home theatre (in one of my post) while justifying all the gadgets that I threw on it :). I bought Dune yesterday, so looking forward. I got a Panasonic 4k Bluray Player if that matters :).
Any ideas?

"We're a bunch of silly gooses out here." -Danny Massa
Well, I really liked the first 90 of this episode, but I'm really annoyed that Tika didn't have to go to Tribal Council. They lost the Immunity Challenge and Matthew's quit had nothing to do with them. I'm bummed for Matthew. He was a fun character and it's tough to see him go out this way, but I'm more annoyed that we didn't get what could have been an awesome Tribal Council. Whether I'm annoyed or not, we still have to figure out who played well and who sucked.
Who Played Well:
Let's start over on Ratu. I really liked seeing the nerdy bond formed between Carson and Kane. Carson handled this tribe swap very well and used the opportunity to build relationships and Kane's position in his tribe is questionable at best. He definitely needs Carson as an ally.
Over on Tika, going into this episode, Yam Yam seemed to be the obvious next boot. He managed to change things around and take advantage of situations to the point where it seemed like he wasn't in trouble at all. I love how he bonded with Josh over being gay and the strategy that formed out of that. He also figured out that Josh's Idol is fake due to him using the beads from tree mail and that it was falling apart in his hands.
Finally, I do respect Josh's efforts in this episode. He was in a very bad spot, so he bonded and strategized with Yam Yam and built the fake Idol. It's clear that he's a very bad liar and was probably going to get voted out next, but I will give him credit for putting the effort in. In the end, Danny did more damage to Josh's game than Josh did.
Who Sucked:
Speaking of Danny, he and Brandon were terrible on their journey with Carolyn. They bromanced way too hard and excluded Carolyn and seemed to nearly cost Josh his game. And they did it enough that the editors were able to give us a supercut over a single lunch. It's just terrible. I would be money that Carolyn will be gunning for these two when the merge begins and I think she's going to win.
Carolyn didn't have a great episode either. Once she got back to camp, she all but said she would be gunning for Josh and once Tribal Council was called off, she actually did say she wanted Josh out to his face. With all the time Josh and Yam Yam had to bond, I wouldn't have been shocked had she been the one to be voted out. She's now burned both of these guys. I don't blame her at all for being pissed at Danny and Brandon, but she took it out on Josh and most likely burned a bridge in the process.
Finally, we have Matt. When Jaime tried to talk strategy with him, he was pretty meh about the whole situation, which made Jaime not trust him. Had Soka gone to Tribal Council, I would bet that Jaime would want Matt out of the game and since she has an Idol, that's a very likely possibility. When you get new people on your tribe, you have to at least pretend to scheme and plot with them, otherwise they're going to target you.
We really didn't get enough from Frannie, Heidi, Jaime, or Lauren for me to have an opinion on them.
As for Matthew, he seemed like a promising player. He just lacked the common sense to not go rock climbing on Survivor.
Verdict:
Best Player of the Episode goes to Yam Yam Arocho for bonding and strategizing with Josh and for figuring out that Josh's Idol was fake.
Worst Player of the Episode goes to Carolyn Wiger for being so vocal about wanting to take out Josh and burning that bridge.
The merge is next! And I'm very excited to see how this plays out. Everyone left has holes in their game, so it should be a hot mess and I'm here for it.

Link to the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EX_h8sM_vo
​

• Garrett was apparently very upset with Vertucci for using clickbait thumbnail about him being "banned" on HCL.
• Vertucci says Garrett is technically not "banned" on HCL, but he is no longer welcome on HCL. (so basically he's banned lol)
• Garrett did not work with Vertucci or Ryan during the J4 Robbie situation. Garrett did not give them any heads up, but went and did an article with LA Times, made a post on 2+2 forum, and implicated a lot of things about HCL without proof. Vertucci and Ryan were not happy about this.
• Garrett had asked Vertucci and Ryan to put out a tweet supporting him to come back on HCL. Garrett even wrote the text himself for them to post. Vertucci didn't want to do it, considering how Garrett threw them under the bus.
• Vertucci says Garrett always tries to make himself look good, he tries to look like the one who saved the show.
• Vertucci and Garrett are no longer friends.
• Garrett said a lot of things that were not true on Doug's show.
• Ryan Feldman says Garrett did control the lineups to a point. Garrett had thoughts and opinions on every single player and pressured Ryan.
• Ryan says he always felt pressured and leveraged by Garrett and was forced to walk on eggshells.
• Ryan says his job is 10x easier and less stressful now that Garrett is gone.
• Ryan says there was always an undertone of leverage that if certain things didn't happen according to how Garrett wanted, Garrett threatened to go to the Live At The Bike.
• There would often be times where in a friday game there would only be 6 or 7 players. It's because Garrett wouldn't let Ryan fill the seats. Ryan would ask Garrett if he could make the game 7 or 8 handed or even 9 handed, and Garrett would say either no or wouldn't play.
• If they were going to fill the seats with another player, Garrett would demand that his friend John Cohen would play. There are rumors that John Cohen was being staked by Garrett.
• Airball also says he heard about Garrett having pieces of John Cohen and Chris Brewer in games.
• Vertucci says Ryan would often come to him and vent about Garrett.
• Vertucci and Airball both confirm that players on HCL don't want to play with Garrett because he's a bully.
• Vertucci says the game only works if the players feel protected and feel respected. Garrett did not respect players.
• Vertucci says Garett is so greedy. Garrett made players feel uncomfortable by forcing straddles. The players did not want to do it but they were too embarrassed to say it on stream. Straddles put people's stacks always at risk and would make the game bigger than it was. Players like Sashimi and I-Ron would come to Vertucci off-stream and complain about Garrett.
• Garrett forced straddles so he can take people's money faster. Garrett's behavior was overall bad for the game. Many players stopped coming because of him.
• Airball also admits he used to force straddles because he thought it would make the stream more fun, but now he realizes how it's bad for the game because it makes other players feel pressured and uncomfortable. Eventually these people will get upset and stop coming to play.
• Vertucci says he and Ryan had many hours-long conversations with Garrett about the straddle situation, but Garrett refused to change his ways. Garrett said he's going to do what's best for him which is playing bigger, straddling, and playing deep.
• Vertucci says he became resentful of Garrett because he is so selfish.
• Another player who complained about the straddles was George who played on fridays. But because he idolized Garrett, he went along with Garrett's straddles. Eventually George busted out and got tired of it and stopped playing on HCL.
• After how Garrett handled the J4 Robbi situation, many players on HCL told Vertucci they will never play with Garrett ever again.
• After Garrett left, the game became better and the players became more comfortable and said they enjoy fridays a lot more now. Both Vertucci and Airball confirms this.
• Vertucci and Airball confirms the time chips were Garrett's idea. Ryan did not want time chips but Garrett forced it. But after the time chips were gone, the game became much better because the recreational players did not feel pressured. Vertucci also says he used to favor time chips but now he is against it because it disadvantages recreational players.
• Garrett also angled the blinds by forcing people to post after they came back from the bathroom. Now that Garrett is gone, people can go to the bathroom for free.
• Airball says Garrett doesn't have the right to be upset at people who are upset at his actions. If you always act selfishly for your own interests all the time, then it's only natural people will be bothered by it and don't want to play with him.
• Now that Garrett's gone, Ryan can build the lineups as he truly wants and make the players happy and enjoy the game.
• Vertucci explains why Hustlers Casino Live used to have beef with the Live At The Bike. Basically when HCL started, Wayne and JJ the original owners LATB told about 10-15 players not to go to HCL because they are going to collude and cheat them.
• Vertucci didn't like how Garrett put out a tweet saying he questioned HCL's security. Vertucci thinks that's bullshit because Garrett was given a full walk-through of HCL and he was satisfied and felt secure.
• Vertucci thinks it's horseshit that Garrett calls Robbi a cheater without proof. Quote: "I think it's horseshit that you call somebody a cheater without proof. If she's a cheater, fucking prove it."
• Vertucci says Garrett's 2+2 post was no proof.
• Airball claims Garrett was the one who attacked his personal character first.
• Airball says many players standing up for him speaks for itself - Ben, Mars, Henry, etc.
• Airball believes if you want to be in poker and on livestream, you should do things the right way and it's not always about the bottom line and gobbling up every dollar in every spot. He believes the stuff that might be -EV in a vacuum is actually super +EV in the big picture. He believes Garrett doesn't realize this.
• Airball talks about a story where one recreational player told him that he doesn't want to play with Garrett. Airball screenshotted the text and sent it to Ryan. Then Garrett heard about this and accused Airball of trying to block him from the games. When the day of the game comes, Garrett is still in the lineup and the recreational player doesn't come back to the game for 3 weeks.
• Vertucci says he's saddened he and Garrett are no longer friends. He misses when they used to be good friends.

This is fun little short story that I've been thinking about for a while. I hope that it is entertaining for everyone and do feel free to leave a comment down below with your thoughts. I like hearing from you, and any bit of feedback can help me improve. Enjoy!
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Ask anyone in the academy and they will tell you that deep space explorer is the job everyone dreams about, but anyone who does get the job will tell you just how bad it is. Endless cycles of flying, scanning and then flying some more, all while being locked inside of a ship the size of a small apartment building. To say cabin fever sets in quickly would be an understatement.
Still, the young and naïve will shoot for the position. Some might say that it is simply human nature to want to explore and find something that no one else has ever laid eyes upon. Whatever the reason was, it was this naïve hope of finding something new that landed Lisa in this pickle.
She was a healthy twenty-five-year-old fresh out of the academy, proud graduate of the class of 2247. Her skin was fair, her hair was fiery red, and she possessed a well-toned body as a result of all the training she went through. For the last several years she had been training to be a deep space explorer, and now that she had got her wish, she just wanted to be anywhere else.
That wasn’t to say that she didn’t occasionally enjoy her job, particularly when she is able to record the discovery of a new planet or asteroid cluster, but those long periods of time between these places were killer on her psyche. The only thing that was able to keep her even remotely sane was also a necessary part of being an explorer. Her partner.
Ships always went out with people working in pairs or trios. Daniel was great. They got along well even in their academy days, having a similar sense of humor and shared some hobbies with one another. They both put in to be partners with each other because you had to be able to get along when you are locked in a metal box for months with someone.
Lisa was sitting in the pilot seat of their ship, checking the different status screens to make sure that nothing was going wrong while they were in transit. The door to the cockpit opened and Lisa glanced over her shoulder to see Daniel stagger in and flop down into the co-pilot seat with a yawn. His black hair was rather messy right now, and he had definitely gotten a lot paler since they started this journey due to the lack of direct sunlight they received.
“Morning sleeping beauty, looks like you enjoyed your little nap.” Lisa said with a slightly teasing voice.
“Yeah, well after that double shift I had to pull when the plumbing line cracked, I’ve been whipped. I appreciate you taking over my shift at the helm.”
“No big deal, basically just watching a bunch of blinking lights. Honestly might have fallen asleep myself a few times. Promise not to rat me out?”
He chuckled a bit. “Sure, so long as my unscheduled nap doesn’t make it into the logs.”
“Deal.”
With that bit of lighthearted banter, they both went back to their jobs, which for now was directing the last stages of exiting from slip space. When they exited traveling speed and coasted to a much more reasonable pace, the first of the scans for the new system they entered were sent out. Lots of stray gasses and rocks. There was a small moon sized celestial body that was high in metal content though.
“Well, that might make a good mark for a mining colony to set up around for a few years. I think that’s worth a bonus at least.” Lisa commented.
“Yeah, not the most interesting system we’ve ever been to, but it has potential. Making note of it in the log.”
Everything seemed to be going rather by the book. Lisa was interested in the possibility of the small moon growing into something else, maybe a gas planet given another few tens of thousands of years. Still, nothing much left to do here, so she... A light started blinking on the console, one that shouldn’t have been blinking this far out in the middle of nowhere.
“Huh.” She idly sounded out while reaching out to change the screen’s projection.
“What’s up?” Daniel asked.
“Oh, I'm not sure yet. The sensors are picking up a signal, but it's probably just stray background radiation tricking the system. Let me clear it up.”
Daniel nodded and let her do just that while he focused on taking a detailed recording of the moon for those back home. Meanwhile, Lisa was still trying to find the cause of the signal and filter it out. The only problem with that she found that the signal was locally generated, not just a strong interstellar pulse.
Her brow dropped in clear confusion as she started to set the scanner to track the source of the signal. It pinged several times and it came back that it was moving. “Hey, Daniel.”
“What’s up?”
“Do you know if there are any deep space probes in the area?”
“Uhm, let me check. Why?”
“That signal that we found, it is locally generated, and it’s moving.”
“Oh, damn, are we trespassing on a corporate claimed system?”
“That’s what I want to find out. Pull up the probe list for this area.”
“Already on it. Let’s see...” He scanned through the list that appeared on the screen in front for a minute, reading over various probe identifiers and posting notices. “Hmmm, this might be a problem. There are no active probes in the area, at least none that are registered. Illegal operations?”
“It’s possible. We should snap a few pictures and then report this.”
“Alright. I’ll keep an eye out for additional signals. If this turns out to be pirates, we need to gun it out of here.”
“Diverting power to engines, adjusting heading, and here we go.” With a few simple commands she pushed the ship into motion towards the mysterious signal. It was about thirty minutes of sub-slip flight to reach the general area. The tension was building in the cockpit as the two continued to be on the edge of their seats just in case this turned out to be a trap.
They entered the zone of the signal’s source, and it was projected to be within twenty miles of their current position and closing fast. “Can we get a visual on this thing yet?” Lisa asked.
“Hold on, locking in on the source, external cameras are active and searching.” It was a few minutes later that a ping sounded from his console. “Got it, putting it on the main screen.”
They both looked over to see that the source of the signal was a ship, although it wasn’t of any design or make that they were familiar with. “Daniel, any ideas of what to do? They seem to have power, but are they stranded?”
“I’m not picking up an SOS, it just seems like they are transmitting a stream of data somewhere. Should we try hailing them?”
Lisa contemplated that for a moment. “We should, just in case they need help. I’ve got the engines hot and ready to go if things get pear shaped.”
“Opening up a channel now.” Daniel flipped a few switches, and the mic was hot. “Unidentified vessel, this is the Chariot of Helios. We were passing through the area when we picked up your data stream. Are you in need of assistance?” There was a minute where nothing came back on the radio. “Unidentified vessel, please respond.” A second later Daniel’s eyebrows went up. “Uhm...”
The way he sounded had Lisa worried. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Their signal stopped.” He replied tersely, keeping his focus on the panel in front of him.
“Good or bad?”
“Don’t know. There are a lot of things this could mean. They might be doing something illegal, in which case they think we busted them, the stop of the signal could be a signal for someone, in which case this is a trap, or they are just trying to redirect their focus onto us.”
“Here’s hoping it’s the last one. I’m ready to blow this joint at a moment’s notice”
“Hold on, they’re sending something back. I’ll put in on speaker.” What came through was a series of clicking, screeching, and whistling sounds that made the two of them flinch.
“The hell was that?” Lisa asked.
“Maybe they are having some technical problems? Let me try again.” He started to transmit again. “Unidentified vessel, please repeat your last message, we did not understand you.”
This time there was a long pause in the back and forth that lasted several minutes before the ship started to send them something. “They’re sending us a data package.” Daniel said as the information came in through the screening process.
“What’s on it?”
“Hold on, it’s a pretty big file size.” There was a pause for a moment before he quirked his brow questioningly. “This is... is this a lexicon?”
“What? Let me see that.” She leaned over to get a view of the stream of symbols and occasional accompanying pictures. It had a similar layout to the lexicons that they were familiar with and were taught about in the academy but there were some minor differences that made it unique. “Daniel, do you recognize any of this?”
“The format, sort of, but not the characters or the language used here. Lisa, I'm thinking we might be involved in something big here.”
“Wait, you don’t mean that this is...”
He nodded. “Yeah, this might be a first contact.”
That was hard to grasp for the two of them. In over fifty years of human deep space travel there hadn’t been a single sign of alien life. To think that they would be the ones to discover another civilization was difficult to process. Still, there were procedures in place for such a happening if ever it did occur.
“Uhm, okay, so, erm.” She fumbled around the console a little bit while trying desperately to remember the steps as her mind was thrown into chaotic panic. “Fuck! I mean... Aliens!”
“I know, I know, just... try to keep calm and let's give them our own lexicon. We have it around here... somewhere.” He might have not have been as visibly panicked as she was, but he was still floundering a bit with the ship controls.
“Okay, alright, I’m calm, I’m good. I’ll just, uhm, put their lexicon through the learning program.” The simple VI program could parse an insane amount of data and find common patterns that it would use to devise a logical conclusion. In this case, it would decipher their language, at least in written form.
“You do that, I just found our lexicon file and am now sending the packet to them. Oh damn, almost forgot, we need to record all of this, so we have it on file.”
“Really? Shit, as if I wasn’t already under enough pressure. Can’t we send out a request for help?”
“Take a deep breath, we’re months out into wild space and any message will take weeks to travel. I'm going to start the recording.”
While Lisa watched the learning program slowly decipher the alien lexicon, Daniel started the recording with a brief description of their names, the name of their ship, and the situation that they had found themselves in. Once the basics were covered it was now just a waiting game. Either they would figure out the alien language first, or the aliens would decipher theirs. Whatever the outcome, the tension from waiting was terrible.
It felt like the progress bar on the translations was taking forever, and eventually Lisa just got up to go and prepare something to eat so she had something to distract herself with. While cooking on the shuttle was rather limited given the nature of their job, there was a certain art in preparing the dehydrated foods in a way that would make them palatable. The process of making their favorite combination of dried foods was simple, but required focus. That was able to distract her for a while, and the meal helped return the mood around the ship to at least a relative normal.
Hours ended up passing. The progress that the learning program made on the lexicon was significant. It was almost a full day of waiting and they had just reached the three-fourths mark on the program before the console pinged with an incoming message. Both of them were dozing in the cockpit when the console came alive again, and they jumped in their seats while scrambling to their stations again.
“What just came in.” Lisa asked with a slightly frantic tone.
“Hold on, checking now. We appear to be receiving a message, text only. It just says, ‘Hello’.”
“They sent that? Does that mean they figured out our language?” She sounded a bit more excited. The first successful communication between different species.
“That’s what it seems like. I guess their programs were more advanced than ours. I wonder what else they have that might be better?” Daniel contemplated all the possibilities before shaking his head. “Let’s save the speculations for later. We should return a message.”
She shot him a grin. “Will it be the stereotypical message that we always see?”
He gave a grin himself. “What better message is there? I’ve always wanted to say this.” He began typing out the message they would send to the aliens in reply, and Lisa watched as the words appeared on the screen.
‘Greetings from humanity, we come in peace and wish for cooperation.’
The cockpit went still for a few minutes, and you could barely even hear the two breathe as they waited for the reply.
‘Hello humanity, we of the Ursul Collective are gladdened to hear of your peaceful intentions.’
“Yes!” Lisa shouted out and threw her hands into the air. “Aliens! Peaceful aliens! Fuck yeah! I wonder what kind of music they have. Maybe they’re fuzzy.” She gasped at the realization. “Oh my god, if they’re furry little guys I'm going to lose it.”
“Please do not scare away the aliens before we have a chance to establish diplomatic relations.”
“That depends on them and how cute they are.”
“I will kick you out of this cockpit if you do anything crazy.”
She huffed. “Fine, I'll try to contain myself.”
“Good.” With that he got back to the conversation with the aliens known as the Ursul.
‘We are very far from our home on a scouting mission, but we hope that you would be willing to set up a meeting between our leaders.’
After a pause for apparent deliberation was had, they replied. ‘We do not have much authority as we are similar to you in occupation. However, news of meeting people from the stars will be heeded by all, so we need to return to our world to establish such a meeting. We invite you to follow but would need access to your computers to relay navigation data to avoid stellar obstacles.’
“That might be a problem.” Lisa idly states. “The security on the navigation controls wouldn’t recognize any of their computers and lock them out. They would need to give them to us in person, which means they would have to come aboard, and we don’t yet know if our atmospheres are compatible.”
“Well, we can ask them about that at the very least.” He gets to work typing again.
‘We are honored that you would invite us to your home, but our ship lacks the means of receiving that data unless it’s in person. If you would tell us the composition of your atmosphere and the weight of your gravity it would help us figure out if it is possible for a visit between our ships to take place.’
There was another brief pause before the reply. ‘Our atmosphere is mostly a nitrogen oxygen composite of seventy-five and twenty-three percent respectively with gravity set at nine point five three meters a second.’
‘Okay, that is relatively comparable to our own conditions. It should be safe for you to come aboard for the transfer, at least for a little while until further tests can be made. If you are willing to come aboard, we would be happy to host you for as long as you need’
‘We are very excited for the prospect of being the first to meet with a new species face to face. How would we connect our ships?’
‘Our dock has a flexible tube attachment that can seal around a variety of ports. You will have to make a short jump through zero gravity, but you can make it across safely. Do you have any concerns about this?’
‘We do not. Two of us will make the trip across. You may approach us slowly, our port is extended and waiting for your umbilical.’
With the permission received, they began their cautious approach as to not spook the aliens or cause an accident. The strange oblong vehicle they piloted had a flat bottom, was gunmetal grey, and currently had a tube extended from its port side. Lisa and Daniel piloted their ship to match the speed of the alien vessel was drifting at. Once they were synchronized, the umbilical tube was extended out from their ship and carefully wrapped around the extended port where it was vacuum sealed and then atmospherically pressurized.
‘The umbilical is secure; you may cross when ready.’
‘Acknowledged, we will begin the boarding process for your ship’
Lisa jumped out of her seat and rushed to the airlock, practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. She couldn’t even stand still as she rocked on the balls of her feet while waiting. Daniel was much more reserved but still held a fixed grin that showed he was eager to see the aliens as well.
Soon the sound of the outer airlock closing was heard inside the ship, and the two humans straightened themselves out as much as possible. Lisa bit her lip in anticipation, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself to a respectable level. The inner door started to open, and Lisa stepped forward to speak first only to freeze in place at the sight of the beings standing in the entrance.
Standing in the entrance to the airlock were two aliens over six feet tall that looked like upright arthropods. Their black shells were reminiscent of ancient earth trilobites, eight limbs consisting of four legs and four arms, with heads similar to that of vespids, clacking mandibles and antennae included.
Lisa went stiff as a board and pale as a ghost, frozen in abject horror. The two alien arthropods also stopped all bodily movement at the sight of the humans before the one on the left let out a screech and charge at Lisa.
HolyfuckingshitthisishowIdie! Was the only thought that went through her head before her arms were seized by the alien with two of its graspers holding her by the elbows and the other two by the shoulders. Its mandibles clacked rapidly as it let out a series of whistling, humming, and trilling sounds while prodding along her head with its antennae.
Lisa was so paralyzed that she couldn’t even find it in her to scream. Her heart was racing so fast in her chest that she thought it might explode as she was on the verge of tears. In a single act of desperation, she managed to look towards where Daniel was, hoping that he would come to her rescue, but only seeing him backing away from the other alien that was moving towards him as well.
“Hey! I’m warning you dude, stay away from me, I'll rock you upside the head!” He threatened the alien that paid no mind as it still slowly closed distance with him.
“D-D-D-Daniel! Help!” She managed to stammer out.
He looked over at his partner in the grasp of the large alien and then back at the one trying to corner him. With a curse on his lips, he swung a haymaker and struck the alien approaching him on the side of its head. Immediately pain shot up through him as it felt like he had just punched a rock, but the alien was sent staggering from the blow.
Wasting no time, he rushed to the aid of his partner, and learning his lesson, he opted to grab her while shoving as hard as he could against her captor. The alien’s grip wasn’t all that strong, and she slid out of its grasp while it stumbled backwards. Immediately he pulled Lisa behind him and started to back away from them towards the cockpit.
The aliens had recovered from the blows, though still appeared to be somewhat disoriented. The one that Daniel had pushed had moved to assist the staggering alien that was punched before trying to approach the two humans again with raised graspers. Daniel put up his fists for a fight, but the punch-drunk alien reached out and grabbed its comrade, stopping them from approaching.
This alien took the lead over its comrade, approaching extremely slowly in a half-bowed manner. Daniel did not drop his guard, but he took notice as the alien reached towards one of its arms which had a device attached to it. Their nimble four fingered hands started to tap away at the device for a moment.
After they stopped fiddling with the device, the console in the cockpit pinged with a notification for a received message. Daniel cast a quick glance in that direction before returning an iron clad gaze onto the aliens who were standing completely still.
“Lisa, go check what that message says. I’ll watch them.”
She was more than okay with that as it gave her an excuse to get as far away from the freaky aliens as possible. Now in the other room she felt significantly better and was able to focus a little more. Checking the screen, she found the message somewhat odd, and yelled out at Daniel what it said.
“The message says: ‘I am sorry, we appear to have breached some sort of social barrier and apologize. We hope that we have not damaged our chances at relations.’”
Daniel’s brow dropped in contemplation. Was this just a misunderstanding? He started to feel a little bad for punching the one alien.
“Lisa, can you link my tablet to the ship systems and bring it to me?”
“Yeah, right, one second.” She was a little bit unsure about going back into that room, but so long as she kept Daniel between herself and the aliens, she could manage. After syncing the devices, she returned to Daniel and handed him the tablet, not so subtly hiding behind him as just looking at the two aliens made her break out in a cold sweat.
Daniel started to type out a question to help clarify the situation. ‘Why did you grab my partner like that?’
After reading the message, the alien frantically started typing on their device. ‘I apologize profusely for any offense that this might have cause. My own partner was simply overcome with surprise and failed to control themselves. There was no harm intended.’
‘And what was intended? You still haven’t said why you reacted that way or laid hands on my partner.’ Daniel fixed them with a glare, and despite them being significantly more terrifying than him, they seemed to shrink a little under his gaze. When they started typing again, it was with some hesitance before they sent it.
‘We do not wish to offend you, but you are very appealing to our senses, especially the smaller human with the bright fur. My companion simply could not resist touching and I apologize for his and my own actions.’
Daniel and Lucy were shocked when they read that, and it took them a solid minute to fully process it. ‘So... You’re saying that you find us cute?’
‘Yes.’
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Hi, All!
Because there are so many new ACNH players posting similar questions each day, I thought I'd put together this "Tips" post as sort of a "go-to" guide.
Ways to maximize getting Bells:

• Find the glowing spot, dig it up, and bury 10,000 bells in the hole EVERY day. Soon you'll have 4 trees in various stages of growth that will give you 30,000 bells every day.
• Pop as many balloons as you can each day. Some will give you ores, some will give furniture or decor items, and some (mainly the yellow ones) will give bells. One yellow balloon will cross your island each day that has 30,000 bells. Sell whatever furniture/decor and ore items you don't want.
• Hit your money rock every day. Will net you 16,100 bells.
• Get your hands on a wet suit as quickly as you can and go diving every day. You can earn a lot of bells catching and selling sea creatures ... and you won't break tools doing it. :)
• Take full advantage of shark season. Not only are the sharks worth a lot of bells, but the bugs that also spawn during shark season are worth the most bells.
• Dig up fossils every day. Donate them to the museum and sell the duplicates. The faster you complete the fossil section of your museum, the faster you'll be able to sell all of the fossils that spawn on your island each day, which can net you up to 24,000 bells a day.
• Gather all of the fruits (apple, cherry, coconut, orange, peach, pear) and vegetables (carrots, pumpkins, sugar cane, tomatoes, wheat) and plant them. Once they mature, you can harvest them every few days and sell the crops. Don't forget to water them each day after harvesting to maximize crop production! You'll also need the crops for food recipes.
• Craft the "hot item" each day and sell it. If you're lucky, the hot item will be the donation box. If you craft it and fill it will bells, you'll double your money for the cost of a few pieces of wood!
• Shake your trees! Not only will you be able to catch 5 wasps and collect their nests each day (another 15,000 bells!), 10 trees will drop 100 bells, and one will drop a furniture item that can be sold if you don't want it. Also, during the fall and winter seasons, the trees will drop acorns, pine cones, and ornaments that can be sold if not needed for crafting.
• Play the stalk market. Not only can you generate a very sizeable profit each week, you'll be working toward completing the "Cornering the Stalk Market" NMT task.

Daily tasks:

• Earn as many NMTs as you can each day by completing the Nook Miles + tasks. Save those NMTs! They're probably one of the most valuable items in the game. You'll need NMTs to find the villagers you want as well as to acquire certain items and recipes obtained through the kiosk in Resident Services.
• You can earn up to 10,000 NMTs every day if you have the DLC pack and the bells to design and re-design your villagers homes each day. Simply changing one design feature in the interior or exterior of a villager's home is enough to earn 1,000 NMTs. It costs 9,000 bells to design a villager's home each time, but if you need NMTs more than Bells, it's a quick way to generate a lot of them.
• Hit all of your rocks every day. Save any gold nuggets the rocks throw out. You'll need as many as you can get your hands on for crafting a number of items. Stockpile at least 120 of each ore. You'll be glad you did later on. :D
• Catch fish/bugs and donate them to the museum. Hold on to what you don't donate and sell them to CJ or Flick when they visit to make more Bells that what you would by selling them to Nooks. Also, Nook Miles + tasks include catching fish/bugs and selling 5,000 Bells worth of items ... sometimes more than once per day ... so you can earn NMTs, work at completing your museum, and earn Bells at the same time by simply catching bugs/fish and donating/selling them! Win-win!!
• Talk to your villagers! Not only will it help improve your friendship with them (which helps those who may be trying to get rid of a specific villager), it increases the chances they'll give you a gift each day, which you can sell.

Designing your island:

• Don't fret over designing and decorating your island.
• Take your time and develop a plan, then work on creating it on your island a little bit at a time.
• When deciding what you want for your island theme, consider what your "happy place(s)" is ... where do you go physically or in your head when you're stressed and needing to "escape" the real world for a little bit of relief? Designing areas on your island that mimic your happy place irl can help make playing a bit more enjoyable than trying to create something out of thin air that you're not familiar with.
• There's no getting around the grind of collecting diy crafting recipes and shopping to acquire the furniture/decor items for decorating your home and island. Just embrace the suck and use it to maximize earning NMTs (crafting, customizing, or buying when it's in your Nook Miles + task list to complete DIY projects, customize items, or spend 5,000 Bells).
• Use terraforming to create cliffs and waterfalls for a vertical background design element along with trees. Use water (rivers/ponds) for side and foreground horizontal design elements.
• Make use of shrubs and flowers as filler.
• Short fences and shrubs can be used to define the front and sides of a small area, while taller fences and trees can be used to define the background of a small area.
• Unless you're going to have a "rainbow" island, pick 2 or 3 colors for your primary palette to use throughout your island. White, black, and brown are considered "neutrals," so "colors" would be pink, blue, purple, orange, yellow, and red. An exception could be the green mums being considered a "neutral."
• If you are going to be successful in completing the fishing tourneys and bug-offs, consider that you'll need quick access to rivers, ponds, oceans, and wide open spaces from your Resident Services for those events. In other words, when terraforming and placing furniture, make sure you don't create obstacles that prevent you from getting to your rivepond/beach and a wide open area quickly (within a couple of seconds).
• Don't forget that music can set the tone of an area on your island. The shell and wood music boxes can be incorporated into an area's design and used to play soft music (so you don't have to listen to the island's background music). There are other music player options if you want more volume.
• If you have the DLC pak, design the exterior of your villagers' homes to fit in with your island theme (i.e., if your theme is "forest core", give your villagers log cabin home exteriors, etc.)
• Choose custom paths that fit with your island theme.
• Cohesiveness is the key to having a truly good looking island ... from paths to fencing to villager home exteriors to furniture/decor.

Other tidbits:

• You can run faster if you press the B button. You can also trample your flowers when you run fast through them! But, they do re-bloom.
• You can swim faster if you press the A button.
• It's better to sneak up on fast moving sea creatures by using your left stick to slowly move in the direction the creature is moving.
• You can do a flip off your dock and flat beach rocks by running (pressing the B button), then pressing the A button just as you reach the end of the dock/rock.
• You can avoid getting stung by wasps by running into a building or a gazebo or opening your airport gates before shaking trees.
• You can have coffee at Brewster's with players visiting your island.
• You can slide by running fast (B button) then changing direction quickly.
• Villager toe beans are the cutest! <3
• When you fly somewhere or another player visits you, look up in the sky after landing and you'll see a white streak across the sky left by the airplane's exhaust.
• There's a 15 day period between the time a new villager moves in and another villager can ask to move out. Also, the last villager who asks to leave can't ask again until another villager has asked to leave.
• Fastest way to get a villager to leave is to: 1) talk to them/give them gifts to increase your friendship with them; 2) time travel one month into the future; 3) look for the villager near their home and resident services and see if they have a thought bubble; 4) if so, talk to them to see if they ask to leave; 5) if not, time travel one day into the future and check again; 6) if the villager still doesn't have a thought bubble, travel back to the current day and repeat steps 1-5.

And, most importantly, HAVE FUN playing!

• Play at your own speed and don't fret if your island doesn't look as "complete" as other players' islands. Keep in mind, it takes time to acquire enough items and resources to decorate an entire island. Many players have been playing since the game's initial release and have put in the time to acquire items and resources. Just know that, if you continue to play each day, you will reach that point as well.
• Take breaks if you're feeling overwhelmed or beginning to feel burned out.
• This game is designed to be played for the long-haul. Even after obtaining all diy recipes, crafting/cataloging every item, having all of the villagers you want move to your island, growing all of the hybrid flowers, and terraforming your island the way you want it, the game is still meant to be enjoyed via daily interaction with your villagers and other NPCs.
• There's lots to be said about enjoying the game with other players. There are a lot of nice people on the acnh sub-reddit who are willing to help others with their game play ... and with whom you could become good friends and share island play.

First/Previous
“Woah!” Jack yelled out as he fell out of bed Luckily he hadn’t been foolish enough to have set Dante up right next to him just in case of any accidents like this.
What stood in front of him holding a tray looked like a collection of rocks, pebbles and dirt vaguely moulded into a humanoid-ish form. Staring at it wide-eyed he levelled his gun at the thing as it slowly motioned to the tea it.had, and began to pour Jack a cup.
“Good morning Jack!” Zayle perked up as they walked in after the hulking thing. “No no no! Please don’t shoot him! He’s really nice and still owes me favours!”
Jack just stared back at the Squa’Kaar with the biggest ‘WTF’ expression on his face, not saying anything as the pile of rubble held out the mug for him to take, which he eventually did after he got the feeling it was staring at him.
“Zayle…” Jack began. “What’s going on?”
“Are you okay halveer?” Zayle asked. “My watcher spirit alerted me that you were starting to awaken so I thought I would make you a hot drink to wake you up! I sent my earth spirit to take it to you while I helped tidy up downstairs with my air spirit!”
“What time is it?” Jack asked with a groan as he got up, taking the mug from the earth spirit and taking a sip and taking care not to flinch from the taste. It was strong and bitter, and it seemed like Zayle had tried to counter that by putting way too much sweetener in it, but there was no way Jack was going to tell them after they were kind enough to go through the effort of making it and bringing it to him.
“It is early morning, I didn’t expect you of all people to awaken for a while yet!” Zayle commented. “Chiyo told me you and Nika probably would be up though. Are you feeling better?”
“Yeah.” Jack lied.
“Oh good!” Zayle perked up. “I hope everyone else does too! Uh…would you like me to get you some clothes to wear?”
“Shit!” Jack cursed as he got to his feet, quickly downing the rest of the drink and putting the mug back on the tray as he quickly went to the pile of clothes on the floor and threw on a thin undershirt and shorts.
“No need to be embarrassed.” Zayle shrugged nonchalantly. “Earth spirits don’t really understand that kind of concept.”
“Uh…” Jack began, staring at the gecko, who scoffed.
“What? I can grow a penis whenever I like, why would I be bothered?” Zayle smiled at Jack with a shrug.
Immediately, Jack spat out the drink still in his mouth in shock, spraying the earth spirit with the milky liquid. If the spirit seemed upset, it didn’t show it.
“What the shit!? Okay, time out.” Jack spoke up after he finished spluttering. “I don’t even know if you’re joking or if you’re serious. That was too much!”
“Sorry!” Zayle covered their mouth to stifle their laugh. “It is true though! My species evolved to do it to deal with population issues but it doesn’t really matter these days. At least it helps with the stupid school uniform policy! Have you ever tried wearing a skirt in a breezy winter? It’s not good!”
“Can’t say I have.” Jack replied with the first genuine chuckle he had in a while. “Is it really that terrible?”
“It’s really bad! My people grew up in warm swamps, but not baking hot like the summers here! That’s when you get horrible chafing with dangly parts! It takes a few months to fully change but usually Rayle and I time it well to match the seasons!”
“Too much information!” Jack snorted with a laugh. “Maybe we can change the topic to where we’ll be heading to pick your stuff up?”
“Sure, but I think Nika might need some help.” Zayle looked to the side, seemingly at nothing. “My watcher spirit is telling me she’s having trouble getting to her feet.”
“Alright, let's not wake anyone up.” Jack decided, looking at Dante with concern. Despite everything that had happened, the ‘dog’ hadn’t woken up from their slumber, and Jack quickly rearranged the blankets so they were better covered, but in a way that allowed everyone to check up on him without disturbing him.
The two headed downstairs, followed awkwardly by the earth spirit with pebbles tapping the wood as it trundled along.
“Morning.” Nika groaned as she stumbled her way to the living room clad in just her sports bra and shorts, her lower half surrounded by some kind of faint smoke that snaked around her legs and tail until she was able to grab a blanket and wrap it around herself. “Thanks for the assist, Zayle.” she sighed as the smoke coalesced and formed a small humanoid shape that stood at attention next to her.
“How are you feeling?” Jack asked the Kizun as Zayle quickly saw another opportunity to be proactively useful in making tea while her spirits awkwardly just stood there.
“Still sore, still stiff.” Nika sighed. “But healing naturally. I won’t let Alora give me a jump start when there could be lives at stake back at the Clan Bharzum compound. We have many friends in medical comas or being put back together for resurrection, and I’ll be damned if I take magical healing over them.”
Jack nodded as he sat on the sofa next to her. “No morning workout for us then?”
Nika rolled her eyes at him. “Careful, I might try a lap around the district even if I have to crawl! I’ve been hurt before but I never get used to just sitting down on the sofa and not doing anything productive. I know many of our friends like to do that and I’m not one to judge but I hate being forced to do nothing else without any choice in the matter.”
“We could find something practical.” Jack considered. “I don’t want to think too hard about homework but the Industrial Vocation bot we were working on was fun!”
“The one with the eight legs you thought up?” Nika grinned. “Yeah we can do that here while the others are still sleeping.”
“I can start making breakfast if you want?” Zayle asked as her earth and air spirits lingered behind her, having not been given tasks to do. “Or if it’s too early I can summon my water spirit to clean the pipes?”
“You should take a break instead and calm down.” Jack smiled. “You’ve done more than enough already and none of us even asked you to! Maybe you can sit down and rest while you tell us about your soon-to-be-ex-landlord instead?”
“The Laird?” Zayle asked. “Paranoid, crazy and power hungry, though nothing like the horrible and powerful enemies I’ve heard you’ve encountered. He wasn’t too terrible in the past but I think ever since his position started to get tenuous he’s been making a bunch of terrible decisions. Originally the security was alright and it was an environment Rayle and I were comfortable with so we stayed there because it was something we could afford while we attended school, but for a while now the dues have kept going up and we get less for it. He’s been bringing in extra thugs that like to try and fine people or intimidate residents into not leaving. That’s why I was hoping to get our things and get out before things get worse!”
“What was your original plan?” Nika asked curiously. “You mentioned before how you and Rayle had it all planned out. Where would you have moved to?”
“We were tempted to sign up to the Red Legion as aspirants. They provide free lodgings and military training after school and we have friends that have already signed up. The benefits are really good if you have magical capabilities, though it does mean we’d be tied to their operations on the Ring. Alternatively Kritch mentioned to Rayle that his family might be in a position soon to accept some tenants! Rayle was really keen on that idea for some reason…”
“Right.” Jack smiled, suspecting some ulterior motive on the part of their Lizta friend. “What kind of security has this Laird got? You mentioned thugs.”
“Security before was a local militia before there were arguments about pay and a bunch of them left. The Laird brought in anyone that could shoot a gun irrespective of their background. Bandits in all but name! Some of the neighbours have reported being mugged or robbed by them, so that’s mainly why I asked you for your kind assistance in the matter. Rayle and I can usually move around and go to the shops without really attracting any attention but moving out certainly would.”
“I get it.” Jack nodded. “A capable group wouldn’t be a tempting target for the bandits so your hope is for them not to harass you to stay.”
“Yes.” Zayle nodded. “I don’t like violence or confrontation but I hate being unsafe or robbed even more! If it is possible to get to the vault where the Laird is keeping the things he takes that his thugs aren’t skimming off then it may be possible to return sentimental items to my former neighbours if they’re able to get out themselves. They’d probably reward us too if we were to do it, and I’d feel more confident making the attempt with you than if it was just myself and Rayle.”
“I can’t guarantee we’ll go for that but it’s something to consider if the opportunity presents itself.” Jack pointed out seriously. “How were you able to pay your way before if you’re a full-time student?”
“My spirits are very utilitarian and Rayle is quite skilled with druidic magic.” Zayle shrugged. “Mainly odd jobs. We’ve volunteered with the Greenwardens before and sometimes we are able to sell byproducts of what we are able to produce which keeps us afloat. We are even able to grow GrainCoin and other AstralCurrencies sometimes which helps keep us in the black, and we’ve learned a bit about trading in the process.”
“Might be a good idea to repeat that to Alora.” Nika pointed out after stretching herself out more on the sofa. “We have a lot of very fertile garden space and an enthusiastic Eladrie that’ll be all over you, and Rayle too once they recover.”
“Yes…” Zayle’s expression drooped at being reminded of Rayle’s condition. If Jack had to guess, the reason for Zayle throwing themselves into chores and jobs was as a coping mechanism to try and forget. It probably wasn’t healthy, but then again, who was he to criticise?
“What’s the district like?” Jack added. “Please don’t leave anything out. If we’re helping you we need to make sure we do so in the right way so we don’t run into any problems.”
“There’s a lot of abandoned and ruined properties. It should be easy to hide and lay low if needed.” Zayle thought. “Oh yeah, lots of boat travel where bridges have been busted. I usually use my spirits but with more people I suppose that might be a problem.”
“Boat travel?” Jack asked in confusion. “What kind of place is this?”
“It’s swamp land suited for my species?” Zayle asked, sounding confused. “Why wouldn’t you need a boat for a place like that? Many islands of buildings amidst the canals, and the best humid environment we can afford to keep us moisturised. It is a large district spread between several factions that may turn into a horrible war, probably the next time the fog builds up.”
“Hmm.” Jack pondered. “Sounds almost like Venice. I went there once but it was packed with other tourists. A bunch of islands connected by even more bridges with the buildings constantly sinking into the ground. It has a lot of history but it’s basically just a tourist trap now.”
“Huh?” Zayle asked, now even more confused. “I have never heard of this…Ven-iss. But yes, several of the buildings sink into the ground by design to create an underground space in certain places. I am pretty sure the vault area has multiple access points with tunnels dug underneath so loot can quickly be taken there and possibly smuggled out. I’ve had watcher spirits follow some of the goons to confirm it.”
“How long does it take for you to normally get to your place when you enter the territory?” Nika asked, trying to get the gecko back on track.
“Just less than half an hour normally, but that is when I utilise my spirits to travel with Rayle, who also helps with their druidic powers.”
“So likely longer.” Jack nodded. “Do you at least have a map?”
Uhh…” Zayle fidgeted around for their commlink, reaching into one of the pockets of their newly-liberated dressing gown from the collection of clothes Jack and Sephy had robbed before bringing it up. “I have the sections of it I frequently use?”
“That’ll be useful.” Nika nodded. “Best wait for Sephy to wake up before we check it out and map a route.”
“Sometimes the thugs gather or patrol in places but I just take an alternative path.” Zayle added. “Even easier if you find or take a boat but there is usually the occasional sentry you need to watch out for, though maybe they’ll be more focused on where the other gangs will be coming from.”
“Something to bear in mind.” Jack noted. “I’ve seen how quiet Sephy’s drones can be, maybe if she has a few hovering overhead we can avoid any trouble outright. However from what you’ve described the militia have a habit of harassing innocent civilians. I’ll tell you now, I won’t stand by and let that happen if they try something like that around me. How strong are they if things go to shit?”
“There were several infrequent patrols between two to five guards last time I was there.” Zayle recalled as she filled another teapot and offered everyone drinks, which both Jack and Nika happily took. “Though many times they were drunk or high on something and didn’t really do much.”
“Maybe just keeping up appearances.” Nika reasoned. “Or just taking an easy job for easy pay before their employer either dies or cuts and runs with what they have. If they don’t live in the community they don’t have any motivation to act like proper guards.”
“They may also get the idea to take it for themselves if they’re able to and the Laird isn’t able to rein them in.” Jack speculated. “He seems like a poor leader, though I can’t tell if it’s from malice or just plain stupidity. How did he claim the territory in the first place?”
“Both malice and stupidity I think.” Zayle shrugged. “And he was next in the chain of command when the previous Laird and her chosen successor both apparently died to a Zorn raid. I think he was a clerk or a tax collector or something.”
“Makes sense why he’s not the best overall leader then.” Jack replied. “Okay. It sounds like a stealthy approach to your place will work as long as we detect and react to potential encounters quickly to avoid them, which will be very doable if we at the very least have Sephy and Chiyo along for the ride. Based on what you’ve told me we may be able to go today depending on how the others are feeling. It’s a risk but the situation over there could be played to our advantage if the militia is looking a certain way and we can sneak in and out right under their noses.”
“I agree.” Nika nodded with a grin. “You have a good mind for tactics.”
“Yeah.” Jack nodded in thought. “My main concern however is for your neighbours who haven’t left yet who may be caught in the storm. Some might be able to get out but there may also be those that are vulnerable and can’t leave unaided. The vault is optional, and I imagine Sephy would agree with you Zayle that we should try and hit it, but that might be a risk too far. We can entertain that idea when we get there, only if things go well.
“That’s fair.” Zayle conceded. “We can only do what we can, but we must be realistic about what we can do. We cannot save everyone over there.”
“We can only do our best.” Jack agreed. “Also I think I’m ready for breakfast now…”
Zayle quickly got to their feet, eager to throw herself into another task but Jack shook his head.
“No Zayle, you’ve already done a lot so sit down. I’m cooking, you need to take a chill pill. Nika, what do we have in stock?”
Jack admittedly had a limited number of recipes he could cook, but his father had decided he should know basic cooking skills at his age, and had Jack helping him with a few weekend family breakfasts they’d do to give his mother a break. Fortunately he confirmed that Zayle and Vanya were able to eat the simple meal he had planned as he counted several eggs, some prepared bacon-like equivalent they had that was suitable for nearly every species and the basic staples to make pancakes. He had no idea if it was officially called a Canadian or American breakfast or not and it didn’t really bother him. All Jack knew was that it was an easy dish to do for multiple people and he didn’t know many other recipes he could do. It would be the second morning in a row he would be making pancakes, so he resolved to try and find other simple recipes he would be able to learn. He knew he had a cooking class at school next week with Chiyo, so maybe he’d pick something up there or add a cookery book to the house shopping list?
As the smells of the hearty food wafted throughout the house, the others slowly appeared. Chiyo was first, having already been awake and meditating in the basement, lazily floating upwards and plonking herself on the sofa without too many words, except that the others that were able to were waking up, she was hungry and she couldn’t wait to eat what was cooking!
Sephy and Alora eventually joined them, with Nika and Zayle clueing them in on what their likely plans would be for recovering Rayle and Zayle’s belongings.
“I could come along, but....” Alora began, though Nika shook her head and countered. “We’ve already discussed it. You know Clan Bharzum will need medics and I know how serious you are about your healer’s oath. I think a smaller group would be best for remaining undetected anyway, and even if things do get bad the opposition isn’t going to be anything near the Pallid Pit or the Klown attacks, which Sephy, Jack and Chiyo can handle. As much as I hate to say it I can’t come myself, but I can help coordinate from here via comms and keep an eye on Dante and Vanya at the same time.”
“Alright.” Alora nodded and finally agreed. “Shoot me a message when you head out. How long do you expect to be?”
“It’s a few hours travel from here to my place.” Zayle noted. “Though I calculate that by my usual route, I expect it to take longer to get there safely and silently. Plus we need to get my stuff but I know what I will do for that.”
“So let’s just say a few hours, assuming all goes well.” Jack shrugged. “How do you plan on getting the stuff out then?”
“Rayle and I managed to bind a powerful earth spirit that is currently residing there as part of our current Lodge, along with a few other more powerful ones.” Zayle grinned, looking proud. “It’ll be able to handle getting the stuff out of the district, and I’ll have the other spirits accompanying me until I can use them for something or need to dismiss them once I dispel the Lodge for good, since those ones are too powerful to bind to my astral field. I’ll need to recover as many of the reagents we used in the original construction as possible in order to more quickly rebuild here once we find a suitable space.”
Sephy, how many drones do you have available? Chiyo asked the Skritta, who shrugged.
“I can bring a few more than I did for the Oracle Run but I don’t want to take my whole stack. I was thinking of having a few camouflage observer drones hovering above nearby so we can see any danger before it sees us.” Sephy reasoned. “I don’t have any capable of shifting stuff but if you say your earth spirit at your home can do it, that’s on you.”
And Chiyo, you should be able to detect others lying in wait?” Jack asked.
Yes, unless they purposefully shield themselves as Svaartal did on our way back from the Oracle. However since we’re not expected, it’s extremely unlikely we’ll run into that problem.
“Alright, then I guess I won’t need to be too worried if I offer my healing to Clan Bharzum.” Alora sighed. “I’ll head off as soon as I can then but I would like it if you kept me updated. I’ve got to say I’m surprised you’re taking being sidelined as well as you are Nika, it really isn’t like you.”
“That’s because I’m confident they can pull it off and Jack will keep everyone safe.” The Kizun shrugged. “Just don’t be too tempted to go for the vault if it’s too great a risk.”
“We’ll at least take a look and make sure we have a plan.” Jack shrugged. “From the sounds of it the Laird’s position is tenuous at best so if we don’t make the attempt others probably will, but if we do it we make sure we sort out anything else. If not, there’s apparently abandoned properties around that you can satisfy your kleptomania with Sephy.”
“I take offence to being called that!” Sephy replied in mock horror. “I am merely an entrepreneur seeking opportunities!”
“Don’t be in a rush to go though.” Alora warned. “I don’t want Vanya waking up and finding barely anyone here before we’ve explained what we’re planning for today.”
She’ll probably be another hour before she wakes. Chiyo informed her, and Alora simply nodded at that information in acknowledgement.
“We’re not in a rush.” Jack confirmed. “I think most of us are still tired so we’ll go once we’ve eaten and woken up a bit more. Maybe we can get there when it starts to get dark since I know Sephy’s drones will still be able to see anyway?”
“Good plan.” Nika nodded. “Although…Zayle, how does militia activity differ from day to night?”
“Uh…” Zayle thought. “The Laird wants more guards patrolling at night but in practice it doesn’t differ that much. It might actually be better since Rayle and I have seen guards goofing off when they think nobody is watching.”
“Alright, sounds good.” Jack nodded. “We’ll rest up and make our move in a few hours. Get ready.”
*****
First/Previous
Another day, another mission! (Got to go for a side quest at some point!)
If you're impatient for the next chapter, why not check out my previous series?
Some pictures have been added to The Galactic High Info Sheet! If you have any fanart or any pictures you think might fit one of the entries, please let us know on the discord!
Don't forget! You all have the ability to leave comments and notes to the entries, which I encourage you to do!
As always I love to see the comments on what you guys think!
Don't forget to join the discussion with us on Discord, and consider checking me out on Youtube if you haven't already! Until next week, it's goodbye for now!

I never tracked my baseball bets. I would bet based on tendencies I am a home favorite and an under total player. But we will see. This might be a brutal eye opening experience. Hopefully I have the discipline to post everything. No matter how hot or cold. First bet for the season is:SFG/NYY over 6.5 -115. Risking $172.50 to win $150.

Will have more throughout the day. Trying to only have one active bet at a time but obviously that isn't always going to work. BOL to all today!

Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most profitable entertainment franchises in the history of games. It came along as a return to form after what many fans would argue was a misstep with the more gritty and realistic GTA 4. Originally released back in 2013 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3—yes, it spans three console generations—developer Rockstar has supported the game's online mode with continual updates adding new content, new areas, and even all-new mechanics.
GTA V was such a runaway success—and GTA The Trilogy: Definitive Edition was such a dumpster fire—that Rockstar gave up working on a Red Dead Redemption 2 DLC, and has now reportedly abandoned plans to remaster more of its beloved older titles to instead focus on both further GTA Online content as well as the development of GTA 6.
gtaonline fukaru
Naturally, expectations for GTA 6 are incredibly high, and given the advanced age of GTA V, fans are chomping at the bit for any bit of news. That's why there's so much buzz around a report at Bloomberg that focuses on Rockstar's new corporate culture. Company co-founder Dan Houser left Rockstar in 2020, and ever since then the development house has been trying to reshape a corporate culture that the report refers to as being "like a frat house".
Given the nature and tone of the humor in the Grand Theft Auto series, it's really not surprising to hear that the atmosphere inside Rockstar was juvenile and chauvinistic. The report remarks that the workplace culture at Rockstar was "full of drinking, brawling, and excursions to strip clubs." That may sound like a good time to some, but it's admittedly not very professional.
gta1 katie Katie from the OG Grand Theft Auto (1997) on PC (left) and Game Boy Color (right).
As part of the report, author Jason Schreier casually reveals that GTA 6 will have at least two playable protagonists, and that one of them will be a Latina woman. This technically isn't the first playable woman nor even the first playable Hispanic woman in the GTA series; the very first GTA game featured a Latina named "Katie" as one of its eight playable characters.
Still, very few of the series' modern fans even remember the old DOS-based Grand Theft Auto, so we can forgive everyone for forgetting about poor Katie. Regardless, the new girl will apparently be part of a Bonnie-and-Clyde-like crime duo, calling to mind the partnership between Claude and Catalina in the beginning of Grand Theft Auto III. Hopefully the partnership between the new player characters in GTA 6 doesn't end the same way that one did.
Comments1Comments Support Independent Tech Journalism, Become A Patron! Tags: Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar Games, GTA V, GTA, gta 6 exp-player-logo
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KOwen 29 July, 2022
Release the PC version at the same time as the consoles please!
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Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6) is an elusive beast that has eluded [official] detection for years. The current “big dog” Grand Theft Auto V was first released way back in September 2013, and has been available across two console generations (Xbox 360/PS3 and Xbox One/PS4). It will even be available natively on next-generation Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles, which is quite unprecedented in the gaming realm. So, while Rockstar seems reticent to just letting us wait in agony for any news on GTA 6, it is at least giving us some new updates on its two current hot properties: GTA Online and Red Dead Online.
In the case of the incredibly popular (and highly lucrative) GTA Online, Rockstar says that a big “summer update” is coming for gamers with a “fun mix of diverse” content to partake in. Even more interesting is the fact that the developers indicate that its “biggest update ever” is coming before the end of 2020. That update will include new Heists that will take place in a completely new location, which has definitely piqued our interests.
red dead online As for Red Dead Online, its next big update is actually arriving next week; on July 28th to be exact. Red Dead Online hasn’t exactly been teaming with new content, as the last big update for the online component of Red Dead Redemption 2 dropped way back in December 2019. However, Rockstar is promising a new Frontier Pursuit mode with a focus on “naturalism” and a new battle pass-type component, which is conveniently named Outlaw Pass. Finally, Rockstar says that it has addressed tons of bugs with the game and has taken community feedback to heart with this release, which is definitely appreciated.
In addition to the game updates on the way, Rockstar also took the time to address the well-being of its online communities. “We are also committed to ensuring that our games are fun for everyone and as safe as possible from modders, cheaters, hackers, and those who seek to harass other players,” said the company in its blog post.
“So far this year, we have taken action on hundreds of thousands of players caught violating community rules across both games. Please help us keep our communities safe and fun by reporting any sort of cheating either directly in-game or via our dedicated web reporting tools for both Red Dead Online and GTA Online.”
It's good to see that Rockstar is cracking down on those looking to spoil the fun for everyone, and its methods for “taking out” such offenders is among the best in the industry.