Alaska boeing 737-9 max seat map

Public opinion of TriMet's decisions have been pretty mixed, mostly because TriMet's decisions are so convoluted that they can be a real challenge to understand. In reality, Metro and Portlanders need to have a bigger civic conversation about the future of TriMet, looking at the big picture. We have 3 looming existential crises of TriMet to be concerned about that are bigger than revenue dips, crime, or homeless people.
Civic leaders and the public are focused on a quick "fix" for TriMet revenue drops - even though we've seen this coming for a long time, it's very predictable that TriMet's Board of Directors acts at the last minute. Also, very predictably, TriMet's Board opted for a fare increase because over the previous 20 years that's been a go-to answer to every problem (except for that one time they killed Fareless Square). The politically appointed boards of TriMet and Metro lack the unique specialized knowledge of the issues I'll bring up here. If TriMet knows about these larger issues, they're obviously burring it from public view. In the short term, increasing fares is like putting fresh paint on a house that's on fire; in this situation, that paint is HIGHLY flammable.
First - fare hikes as a tactic is a brain-dead move. Just the most utterly stupid and self-sabotaging response to a looming budget shortfall. I'm dwelling on this because it illustrates their terrible decision-making, which is functional proof they have no idea what they're doing. Some of the core reasons for this:

• Increasing fares reduces utilization. Higher cost means fewer people ride, which will decrease the ridership revenue. It will also marginally increase the number of people who won't pay (funny story, some of those who don't pay actually can't afford to). TriMet isn't a monopoly or inelastic service, and plenty of other choices exist that didn't exist 20 years ago: an actual bike share, scooters, electric bikes, UbeLyft, shared vehicles, and more bike paths. Before the pandemic, it was common that I would bus into downtown for work and then take a Lyft home because it wasn't all that expensive, like $8 more than a bus ride - TriMet's price increases make a system that wasn't very competitive simply less compelling.
  
• Across Portland we need to go through a process of austerity and downsizing government. I absolutely support Wheeler putting a pause on rate increases, but for God's sake, we have far too much largesse in every layer of government. If you need to learn what I'm talking about, read my old article on Parks & Rec. So many divisions/agencies have doubled their staff while reducing service levels. It's bonkers. Cutting throats needs to be an imperative. This is because the great majority of public sector employees in Oregon and Portland are incompetent, redundant, and only exist because Oregon and Portland have been reluctant to use automation. And I don't mean the cutting-edge AI stuff, I'm talking about people who still handle business processes as if they're paper forms. I could tell so many stories from my professional experience - but you'll have to take my word for it for now: culling this bureaucracy is the right move, and until there's a significant downsizing, the political class is taking none of the financial crisis or cost of living situation seriously.
  
• TriMet's operating budget/revenue is primarily Payroll Taxes, not passenger revenue. About 20-30% of TriMet's budget comes from people buying fares, whereas the bulk of money TriMet needs comes from payroll taxes that businesses pay directly. Because of this, transit activists (including myself) have been proponents of increasing the payroll taxes marginally to make TriMet free for riders. Of course, fareless transit comes with a wide variety of new and different problems (that's an article for another time). Still, when you understand that only a sliver of revenue comes from fares, increasing the fare simply results in a marginal increase in revenue. The much bigger problem is going to businesses investing outside of Metro, and changing workforces that 1) won't pay payroll taxes reliably, 2) don't need people to go into the office. Think about the longer-term game here: is TriMet's board going to increase fares as utilization drops and payroll taxes continually diminish? (See my point above about how their default answer is "yes" because it's the only politically expedient answer.)
  

Reading comments about the fare hikes, most of the public thinks TriMet is dealing with a safety or utilization issue. Both of these are 100% true: soft-on-crime progressives have wholly obliterated the working class perception of TriMet safety - there are so many different ways this has happened, but we should thank so many people in the media and political class: Ana del Rocio's crying wolf about racism in fare inspections (and the media entertaining it), or Mike Schmidt deinstitutionalizing of the justice system, or Legislature's inability to act on the massive mental health crisis and drug addiction crisis in Oregon. No matter the underlying cause, we have a system where deranged violent mentally ill tweakers can be disruptive on the train, but working-class people face a $250 fine if they can't afford a $2.50 ($2.80) ticket. TriMet is less safe, especially the light rail and bus lines. We could hypothetically talk about various policy and infrastructure changes, such as turnstiles and security guards - but pragmatically, this won't do shit when our society has adopted a philosophy of transforming the urban core into an open-air insane asylum and opened the doors to the prisons. This safety issue is well beyond TriMet's scope, and even if there was consensus among TriMet and Metro to solve this, the entire justice system and Legislature is still broken.

Fare Hikes and Utilization is the Red Herring - Let's talk about TriMet's future

In reality, multiple design choices made decades ago set us up for failure. But we also have to thank brain-dead progressive lunatics and corrupt politicos who have steered our transit decision-making into the ground.
There are three specific issues I'm going to talk about, with each becoming more consequential and disastrous for TriMet:

• Hub and Spoke Design and the need for a redesign of the entire system to fit new commuting/transit patterns
  
• Portland Light Rail's short cars are a capacity problem not worth the price tag to fix
  
• Autonomous vehicles are here, and it's just going to get worse for TriMet
  

The strategic design of TriMet's system is broken, and it's been broken before.

If you looked at a map of TriMet's bus and rail system, you'd see a design pattern often referred to as a "Radial Design" or sometimes a "Hub And Spoke" design. The Hub and Spoke strategy is building our transit system around centralized locations to connect to other routes. For Portland the idea is to go downtown (or sometimes a Park and Ride) where you can connect to your next destination. This is why the majority of bus routes and all the max routes go downtown, to our Transit Mall and Pioneer Square.
Downtown planning was a smart idea in the 1960s when it was coupled with Main Street economic theory and prototype urban development zones - all of this wrapped up in the 1972 Downtown Plan policy. During these decades, the primary economic idea of urban revitalization was that downtown cores could provide better business climates and shopping districts that amplify economic activity synergistically. In other words, packing all the office jobs and luxury shopping in one area is good for workers, business, and civic planning.
All very smart ideas in yester-year, so TriMet became focused on serving the downtown business community myopically. This myopia became so paramount that it was considered illegitimate (actually taboo, borderline illegal) if you used a Park & Ride facility to park and NOT ride downtown. Amanda Fritz once explained that we couldn't expand Barbur Transit Center because that would result in students parking at Barbur Transit Center and riding the bus to PCC Sylvania. This view implies that TriMet exists only to service downtown workers, not the students, not the impoverished mom needing to go to a grocery store.
How does TriMet's hub and spoke design represent its purpose?
Portland's unspoken rule of transit philosophy is that jobs pay for the system (remember, business payroll taxes pay for most of it), so TriMet should be focused on serving people utilizing it for their job - employers pay for it, and they get value out of it. But this is both unspoken (never said aloud) and largely unobserved. The whole idea of TriMet as a social service to serve low-income people, to help impoverished people - well, those ideas were just lukewarm political rhetoric that is tossed out as soon as some Undesirable with tattered clothing reeking of cigarettes gets aboard - then Portlanders jump right back "this is for workers only!" Sadly, there hasn't ever been a public consensus of why TriMet exists because I could equally argue that TriMet's purpose isn't serving the working class; it's actually vehicle emissions reductions - but here, too, reality contradicts that this is the purpose for why we operate TriMet. TriMet's real purpose seems to be "Spend money on lofty capital projects" and if we want to be cynical about it, we can elaborate "…because large capital projects enable grift, embezzlement, and inflating property values for developers."
We haven't always depended upon a hub and spoke design. A great article from Jarrett Walker written in 2010 on his Human Transit blog explains in "The Power and Pleasure of Grids"

Why aren't all frequent networks grids? The competing impulse is the radial network impulse, which says: "We have one downtown. Everyone is going there, so just run everything to there." Most networks start out radial, but some later transition to more of a grid form, often with compromises in which a grid pattern of routes is distorted around downtown so that many parallel routes converge there. You can see this pattern in many cities, Portland for example. Many of the lines extending north and east out of the city center form elements of a grid, but converge on the downtown. Many other major routes (numbered in the 70s in Portland's system) do not go downtown, but instead complete the grid pattern. This balance between grid and radial patterns was carefully constructed in 1982, replacing an old network in which almost all routes went downtown.

Over the years the grid pattern was neglected in favor of a downtown-focused investment strategy. To a real degree it made practical sense: that's where the jobs were. But again, this is the presumption that TriMet and Mass Transit ought to service workers first, and there's not much consensus on that. But while we can't decide on TriMet's purpose, we can absolutely agree on one important thing: Downtown is dead.
No 5-star hotel is going to fix it. (As of writing, I'm not even convinced that this mafia-connected bamboozle of public fraud will open.) No "tough-on-crime" DA to replace Mike Schmidt, like Nathan Vasquez, will fix downtown. It's not JUST a crime problem: most of the problems we deal with today mirror the problems facing Portland in the 1960s, especially our inability to invest in good infrastructure people actually want to use. That's on top of crime, vandalism, and an unhealthy business ecosystem.
IF we want to maintain TriMet (and that's a big IF, for reasons I'll explain below), then it will be focused on something other than downtown. We need to move back to a grid-design transit system, as this is a much easier way to use transit to get around the city, no matter your destination. If TriMet continues to exist and operate fleets in 20-30 years, this is the only way it exists - because it will just be too inconvenient to ride downtown as a side quest to your destination, especially as we look at 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now.
Of course, we can only transform some parts of the transit infrastructure this way, and there are no uplifting and moving train tracks here. So light rail doesn't have a future in the grid system - but even without the grid system, light rail is doomed.

The fatal flaws of light rail in Portland.

I want to preface this by saying I like light rail as a strategy, it's not a bad system or bad civic investment. I could write another 5,000-word essay on why Seattle did an excellent job with light rail and the specific decisions Portland made wildly incorrectly. In transit advocacy the wacktavists inappropriately categorized skeptics of Portland's light rail as some soft bigotry - as if you're racist if you don't like Portland's light rail - even though, ironically, most light rail systems tend to be built for the preference of white culture and white workers, precisely what happened here in Portland and most cities (but this is all a story for another time).
Portland's light rail system has a capacity problem and has dealt with this capacity problem quietly for the last 20+ years. When you see the capacity problem, you can quickly understand this light rail system won't work in the future. All the other smart cities in the world that designed light rail realized they needed big long trains to move many people. Portland decided to limit the train car length to the size of our city blocks to save construction costs - and this has always been a fatal flaw.
Portland's highest capacity train car is our Type 5, according to Wikipedia it has a seating capacity of 72 and an overall capacity of 186 per train. Let's compare:

• Washington DC has 6-car trains capable of carrying 120 passengers per car, or 720 per train.
  
• Salt Lake City has a 4-car train capable of carrying 230 passengers per car, or 920 per train.
  
• Seattle's Link system has a 3 or 4-car train, each capable of carrying approximately 200 passengers per car, so 600 to 800 per train.
  

Portland's light rail lines have roughly the same people moving capacity as a single lane of a highway, maybe marginally more, maybe marginally less. These other cities have a light rail system that can move the same amount of people as an entire 3-lane highway.
You might suspect that Portland could simply run trains more frequently - but nah, that's impossible because the trains run through the central core of downtown Portland, and they're blocked by the real interfaces with road traffic and bottlenecks. TriMet/PBOT/Metro has offered rosy ideas that we could hypothetically run cars every 90 seconds, 2 minutes, 4 minutes, or 6 minutes (depending upon who you ask) - but these are garbage numbers invented out of thin air. For example, you could stand at Pioneer Courthouse Square at 4:50pm on a Wednesday in 2016 - there was a train opening doors to load passengers, and you could visibly see the next train at Pioneer Place Mall pulling into the station behind. Trains were running at approximately a 3 to 4 minute at peak - but on paper, TriMet will claim anything, as they don't give a shit about lying to the public. But the bigger problem is that trains were full. You might have to wait 90 minutes to find a train that offers a seat. And god forbid you had a bike.
I'm not making this very real capacity problem, Metro even acknowledges:

At the busiest hours of the day, 40 light rail trains must cross the river and traverse downtown – one train every 90 seconds. As the region grows and the demand for light rail increases, the region will need at least 64 MAX trains through downtown every hour, more than one train each minute. Our current system can't support that change.

Suppose you're silly enough to trust government propaganda. In that case, you can read the details of Metro study on this in 2019. If we assumed their numbers added up, it's just fucking impossible to run 62 trains per hour, because passenger loading and unloading can take a full minute (sometimes longer). So unless we want to apply substantial g-forces onto the passengers, the train isn't accelerating out of the stops fast enough. Not to mention how unreliable this whole system would be if a sole tweaker, bike rider, or person with a stroller held up the system for 2 minutes.
This is why the bottom line needs to be upfront about capacity - quoting Metro's study here:

Today MAX is limited to 2-car trains because of the length of downtown city blocks. A tunnel could allow for longer trains if the stations outside the downtown core are retrofitted. In the long-term, this could greatly increase MAX capacity.

Do you see that trick? Build a tunnel, yes - but the entire system has to be retrofitted. Literally every light rail station would need to be redesigned, the lines themselves recalculated for larger heavier trains - and extending platforms at Willow Creek might be simple enough, but how in the living fuck is Metro going to afford to expand the Zoo stop? Doubling the size of that platform would cost $500 million alone.
If the city weren't full of cheap dipshits, we would have elevated or buried our light rail lines in the 1980s or 90s, enabling longer train cars to run. Yes, we all knew back then that it was the best practice not to have light rail running on the street - it's less safe, less reliable, runs slower, and limits train car size. Oops.
Just to keep TriMet's own bullshit inflated utopian vision, it would mean spending another billion dollars just to unfuck downtown, bypass an aging bridge, and potentially allow a marginally higher volume of trains - which again is a band-aid on a mortal wound.
The real buried lede is that to add extra train cars means retrofitting all the stops in the system - that's tens of billions of dollars. You can argue costs, but Metro knows we need to do this. It means shutting down the system for a year or years while construction and retrofits happen. It's fucking outrageous. Is this system worth of people per line worth 20, 30, or 40 billion dollars? Fuck no, it ain't. Again, if we had a raging metropolis of industry and commerce downtown, we could reasonably entertain the idea for a moment - but we don't and never will again.
Some folks might argue that if we kill off the light rail system we'd lose out on all those lucrative Transit Oriented Developments. Originally the public was told that Transit Oriented Development strategy would cause a massive infusion of private investment because the light rail was so damn lucrative and desirable for Richard Florida's Creative Class. Turns out the Creative Class is now called today the Laptop Class, and they don't give a flying fuck about street cars, light rail, or walking scores - because most can't be bothered to put pants on during their "commute" from bed to desk. TOD was all a fantasy illusion from the beginning, as multiple studies about Portland commuters showed that college-educated white folks riding Max were equally comfortable riding their bike as a substitute for the same commute. All of these billions of dollars was to accommodate white fare-weather bikers. So here's my hot take on transit: pave over the rail lines and put in bike lanes, and boy, then you'd have a bike system to give folks like Maus a hardon. But of course, Bike Portland would complain because their focus isn't biking; they exist only to favor all poorly thought utopian transit ideas.
Another group of Max/TOD advocates would claim that TOD is better for disabled and impoverished people. And yeah, there's truth there, but see my entire argument above about the Hub & Spoke design of TriMet being the antithesis of transit as a social service. If you believe that TriMet should serve low-income people, you must advocate for a bus-centric grid design.
But even if you're a die-hard believer in light rail - there's another inevitable reality coming that is the nail in the coffin.

Autonomous vehicles will replace mass transit faster than the automobile replaced the horse.

I work in advanced technology, and the thing about tech is that the public and politicians deny that it's going to be there until the majority of the public finally experiences it. You could say this about personal computers, internet, cloud compute, electric cars, smartphones, distributed ledger (cryptocurrency), AI, and driverless vehicles.
Schrodinger's technology doesn't exist until it's measured in an Apple store or your mother asks you for tech support.
No one thought AI was really real until ChatGPT did their kid's homework, and today most people are coming to terms with the fact that ChatGPT 3.5 could do most people's jobs. And that's not even the most advanced AI, that's the freeware put out by Microsoft, they have paywalls to access the real deal.
In 2018 I rode in my colleague's Tesla in self-driving mode from downtown Portland to Top Golf in Hillsboro. We started our journey at the surface parking lot on the west side of the Morrison Bridge. He used his phone to tell the car to pull out of the parking spot and to pick us up. Then he gave the car the address, and it drove us the entire way without any human input necessary. The only time he provided feedback was to touch the turn signal to pass a slow car on the highway. People think self-driving isn't here - but it is - and it's gotten exponentially better and will continue to do so. People will complain and moan about idealized, utopian, pedantic "level 5" full self-driving, how none of it exists or could exist, as a Tesla passes them on the road and the driver is half asleep.
Of course, Portland and every major city have also thought deeply about self-driving technology, and a few places have implemented self-driving solutions - but so far, none of these are really at scale. Though it will be a short time before cost-conscious cities go all-in.
TriMet kicked around the idea of using an autonomous bus for a leg of the trip of the Southwest Corridor project, connecting a segment of the light rail route to the community college. It was bafflingly stupid and short-sighted to think they could use it in this niche application but that it wouldn't open the floodgates for a hundred different applications that eviscerate TriMet's labor model. The simplest example of autonomous operation would be to operate the light rail systems - because they don't make turns, all we need is an AI vision service to slam on the breaks if necessary - that technology has existed for 20+ years. We could retrofit the entire train system in about 3 to 6 months - replace every Max operator with a security guard, and maybe people would ride the Max again? But I digress.
Let's speculate about the far-future, some 5, 10, or 20 years from now: your transit options will expand significantly. The cost will decrease considerably for services using automated vehicles.
You'll look at your options as:

• Drive to work: fastest, takes $100+ worth of gas a month, but you also need $50+ for insurance and $500+ for the monthly car payment, plus those surprise maintenance and broken windows. Also, do you pay for parking? Pick a number for how much it costs to drive your personally owned and manually operated vehicle to work each month.
  
• Autonomous vehicle service: price TBA, but think of how much an Uber costs when you don't have to pay the driver, you don't have to pay for gas. An Uber that runs for $20 today would likely be $10 or less. So, to and from work 20 times a month, $200. $300? Ok, let's just say it's $400 a month. It's still all cheaper than owning a car and driving it to work. No parking fees, and it picks you up quickly enough that it's not a nuisance.
  
• Mass Transit: $150 per month, but ugghhh it's slow, it smells like piss, a guy jacked off in your hair, and you can't schedule a meeting for the first 30 minutes of your anticipated workday in case you miss a connection - and it breaks so often the government actively hides the reliability data from the public and media.
  

Just a few years into this future we'll see a brand new trend, one that already exists: a shared autonomous vehicle like a privately operated bus. For example, Uber Bus - it already exists as a commuter option in some cities, it's just not autonomous yet. The significant benefit of an autonomous bus is that these shared vehicles will utilize HOV lanes very commonly, and commuting in an autonomous vehicle will be as fast as driving to work in your manually operated car while also being less expensive.
Simultaneously automobile accidents in autonomous vehicles will be virtually non-existent, and insurance companies will start to increase prices on vehicles that lack AI/smart assisted safety driving features. Public leaders will see the value of creating lanes of traffic on highways dedicated explicitly to autonomous vehicles so that they can drive at much higher speeds than manually operated traffic. Oregon won't lead the way here, but wait until Texas or one of the Crazy States greenlights a speed limit differential, and self-driving vehicles have a speed limit of 90, 120, or 150 miles per hour. You might think "accidents would be terrible and deadly" but there will be fewer accidents in the autonomous lane than in manual lanes. At this point, it will be WAY faster to take an autonomous vehicle to your work.
Purchasing power of consumers will decrease while the cost of vehicles will increase (especially autonomous vehicles), making ownership of any vehicle less likely. Frankly, the great majority of people won't know how to drive and will never learn to - just like how young people today don't know how to use manual transmission. However, fleets of autonomous vehicles owned by companies like Tesla, Uber, and Lyft will benefit from scale and keep their autonomous bus fleets operating at low cost. This will lead to a trend where fewer and fewer people will own an automobile, and fewer people even bother learning how to drive or paying the enormous insurance cost.... while also depending upon automobiles more than we do today.
Eventually, in the distant future, manually driven vehicles will be prohibited in urban areas as some reckless relic from a bygone era.
Cities and public bodies don't have to be cut out of this system if they act responsibly. For example, cities could start a data brokering exchange where commuters provide their commuting data (i.e., pick-up point, destination, arrival time). The government uses either a privatized fleet or a publicly owned fleet of autonomous vehicles to move as many people as possible as often as possible. Sort of a publicly run car-pool list - or a hyper-responsive bus fleet that runs for the exact passengers going to exact locations. A big problem companies like Uber, Lyft, and Tesla will have is that they'll lack market saturation to optimize commuting routes - they'll be able to win unique rides, but the best way they can achieve the lowest cost service model is these super predictable and timely commuter riders. The more data points and riders, the more optimization they can achieve. These companies can look at the data for as many people as possible and bid for as many routes as possible - optimizing for convenience, time, energy usage, emissions, etc. The public will voluntarily participate if this is optimized to get the cheapest ride possible. If the government doesn't do this, the private sector will eventually.
As a parallel, no one today even considers how Metro runs garbage collection. No one cares. And if you didn't like Metro's trash service, if you needed a better service for unique needs, you go procure that on your own. Likewise, you wouldn't care about the quality of the commuting trip as long as it's up to some minimal standards of your class expectations, it's reliable, nearly as quick as driving your own vehicle, and it seems reasonably affordable.
If the public ran this data exchange, fees could subsidize lower-income riders. This is a theory on what a TriMet like system or mass transit system could look like in a primarily autonomous world where most people don't own their own or drive an automobile.
This system would be far from perfect, opening up all sorts of problems around mobility. However, it's hard to see how autonomous vehicles will not obliterate the value proposition of mass transit.

Another narrative on the same story.

As the working class moves to autonomous vehicles, transit agencies will collect fewer and fewer fares - prices and taxes will rise, creating a cycle of failure. As a result, some cities will make buses self-driving to cut costs. It could start with Tokyo, Shanghai, Oslo, et al. Again, it's unlikely that Portland or Oregon will be the first movers on this, but when cities start laying off hundreds of mass transit operators and cutting fares to practically nothing, there will be substantial public pressure to mimic locally. It will be inhumane, it will be illiberal, to make those impoverished bus-riding single mothers pay premiums. As most of the fleet becomes autonomous, responsive, and disconnected from labor costs, the next question arises: why do we still operate bus routes? Why big buses instead of smaller and nimble vehicles?
This alternative story/perspective leads to the same outcome: we figure out where people are going and when they need to get there - then dispatch the appropriate amount of vehicles to move that exact number of people as efficiently as possible.
But our local government getting its act together on all this is outside the world of possibility.
In a practical sense, we're going to see history repeat itself. Portland's mass transit history is about private and public entities over-extending themselves, getting too deep in debt on a flawed and outdated idea. As a result, the system collapses into consolidation or liquidation. Following this historical pattern, TriMet/Metro won't respond to changing conditions fast enough, and laughably stupid ideas like cranking up taxes or increasing ridership fares will continue to be the only option until the media finally acknowledges these groups are insolvent. I just hope we don't spend tens of billions of dollars propping up this zombie system before we can soberly realize that we made some mistakes and these vanity-laden projects 20 and 30 years ago need to die.
You see, the biggest flaw with TriMet isn't the design, it needs to be outpaced by technology, it's that the people making decisions at TriMet and Metro are going to make the politically expedient decisions, not the right decisions. They won't redesign, and they won't leverage technology for cost savings, so this charade will just get going along until the media simply declares they're insolvent.
Back to fares for a second - the media happily reprints TriMet's horseshit take about "The higher fares will bring in an estimated $4.9 million in annual revenue starting next year, the report says." Just sort of amazing to me there's no skepticism about this number - but most spectacular is no media considerations about alternative solutions. For example, I could tell TriMet how to save $9,548,091 next year - a useless program primarily utilized by white middle-class folks who own alternative methods of transport - and this would inconvenience way less transit-dependent people than raising fares. But, that's off the table - we're not even developing a decision matrix for when we kill the blackhole of money known as WES.

I am flying to Japan on military orders and trying to figure out if I will be able to use ANA's pet policy if booking this trip. United only allows pets in the cabin which I won't be able to do but ANA will allow as excess baggage/cargo. Looking for any have any insight.

Hello all!
So, in a few weeks I will be flying for the very first time! It is already causing a lot of anxiety because it's my first time ever, but, added onto it, I'm a big girl! I am flying from Ohio to California on united airlines and I have an economy plus seat. I'm flying with my mother (also a bigger lady, but not as big as me). My brother bought three seats for us to ensure we're comfortable.
Basically...obviously... I'm freaking out and seeking advice. I've heard of seat belt extenders, my brother thinks they'll have some, but I've been tossing the idea around of buying one.
Regardless, I have two major concerns!!
1) Fitting in the seat! I am about 5'4-5'6 and I wear a size 26/28. I am more of a belly fat girl, rather than it collecting in my hips or butts. I'm just worried about fitting and being comfortable. My brother, who recently flew out of country, told me he saw bigger people on the plane than me and they were fine. But, my anxiety riddled mind is telling me he's lying to make me feel less anxious.
2) bathrooms!! The pictures make the plane I'm flying in, a Boeing 739 max, look like the bathroom door is a latch door or normal one. As opposed to the folding doors I think are normal for planes. My biggest concern is fitting in the bathroom. It's a 6 hour flight and there's no way I can go that long without drinking and using the restroom.
So, is there anybody on here that can share their experience? If you're around the same size as me, what was it like for you?
Any help is greatly appreciated!

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/lfg/comments/13gfsqa/online5eetutc4_the_stranger_cosmic_horro (graciously reviewed and approved by the subreddit mods)This is Post (3/4), we're posting this four weeks in a row before making final picks.
Preface
This is a long post - crazy long even. That's because we care so much to find those just as impassioned as we are about this amazing hobby. We love high quality D&D campaigns, and we believe it takes effort and time to make it happen. If you take the effort to get through learning about us in this post, reading every word with care and interest, we will do the same with your application.
Our commitments:

• We will respond personally to each and every application, giving constructive feedback and/or move you to the next stage!

How to Apply

• Application Link: https://www.avarra.world
• Promo Video: https://youtu.be/RbfQWegafX8
• Sample session: https://youtu.be/FDNHxkNXM5Y?t=13120 (We're doing something new for the next campaign, and while not quite full-effort, this is a closer example of what we're going for)
• Ask a question about the lore or world in the comments! And we'll respond in character (from one of our many current character). Thumbs us up or down this post, interact to help us be visible!
• The rest are provided after application has been submitted.
• Need to get in touch privately? My discord is Wes#8045.

World Preface

In the enchanted realm of Avarra, where high magic weaves its intricate web through the fabric of existence, a burgeoning form of sorcery takes root. Secluded on the island city of Crowperch, the pursuit and mastery of void magic are richly rewarded, enticing arcanists from the farthest reaches of the world to unravel its mysteries. Yet, the enigmatic allure of Crowperch extends beyond the arcane; a diverse tapestry of industry, history, and craftsmanship entwines the island's very essence.
Beneath the surface, the island's riches reveal themselves: the mines and quarries, abundant with untapped potential, and the surrounding seas, offering bounties from the ocean's depths. Ancient archaeological sites whisper secrets of bygone eras, while artisans ply their remarkable skills on the bustling city streets. Tales of a long-forgotten, rumored treasure continue to captivate the imaginations of adventurers and sightseers alike.
But one must pay a steep price for this wealth of opportunity and intrigue. It is wise to avert one's gaze from the iron grip of autocratic rule and the unyielding scrutiny that looms over the island's denizens. For those who venture to Crowperch, a single obligation remains: seek your heart's desire, and then depart – for the island's enigmatic embrace is not meant to last forever.

Application Overview
In this sacred fellowship, we stand steadfast in the face of the dreaded D&D group killers. Our commitment to this game is unwavering, for it is not just a hobby, but a way of life - an appointment that must be kept at all costs. For us, the work does not end with character creation or worldbuilding. Nay, we strive for a deep understanding of each character, for their hopes and dreams, their fears and flaws, so that we may weave a complex and enthralling campaign that will leave you breathless. We implore you, dear adventurer, to show up regularly and with a burning passion in your heart. Let your excitement be infectious, let your dedication be unwavering.
Overview

• Game Day: Saturday
• Players: 6 (5 Regular, 0-1 Floating/Guest)
• DM(s): 2 (1 Regular, 0-1 Floating/Guest)
• Game Length: 3 Months mini-arc, then decide whether to continue. However accommodate for 1-2 years on your schedule.
• Start Date: First week of September (Yes, 5 months away)

Selection Criteria (In order of importance)

• Qualification: TTRPG Experience, RP/Improv Ability
• Questionnaire answers
• Participation in One-Shots & Community so we can get to know you.

Investment
This campaign is getting some big investment. All players will get custom commissions of their characters, animated. Additionally, we are commissioning all maps, tokens, flairs, and elements to make this truly something special.
Campaign Preface

As twilight descended upon the restless sea, the ancient ship, Her Royal Rose, creaked under the weight of its cargo. Its passengers, a motley assortment of scholars, fisherman, guard and others with business on the island of Crowperch, sit tightly in cramped quarters. Even as the tempestuous winds moaned through crevasse and open windows, the opportunities and tasks that beckon them to the island keep them going, a siren's call that drowned out the ocean's roar.
The skies above were an oppressive tapestry of writhing clouds, their tendrils suffocating the last vestiges of daylight as if to obscure the path to the island. A shroud of mist swallowed the horizon, leaving the ship to navigate through a nebulous labyrinth, its destination only guaranteed by Captain Alaric Thorne.
As Her Royal Rose inched closer to Sove, the air grew heavy with mist and sea salt which deposited itself gradually on the railings, sails and masts. Little Henry Williams, the ship's messenger runs throughout the halls pattering on each door, "The captain has an announcement, all to the deck. The captain has an announcement, all to the deck." The clacking of his wooden foot pattering one after another with each step, a disfigurement he earned while working aboard Her Royal Rose.
Captain Alaric Thorne stood on the deck, the salty wind tugging at his weathered features. His voice rang out, its timbre heavy with authority and unease, as he addressed the gathered passengers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I must bring to your attention an unfortunate turn of events. It seems the Saturation has arrived earlier than anticipated this year. As many of you know, this phenomenon causes an unnaturally heavy accumulation of salt in the air, resulting in deposits that weigh down our vessel."
He paused, letting the gravity of the situation settle upon his passengers before continuing, "This unexpected occurrence has forced us to halt our usual schedule, for the safety of both the ship and her passengers. Once Her Royal Rose arrives, she will remain anchored at Sove until the Saturation clears, as navigating these treacherous waters under such conditions would be inviting disaster."
A murmur of concern rippled through the crowd, many who were on this voyage planned their departure prior to The Saturation. The captain raised his hand to quell their rising unease. "I understand this may cause you some inconvenience, but I assure you, we will resume our journey as soon as it is safe to do so. In the meantime, you may continue your research, tasks and exploration on the island. Sove is well stocked and very hospitable to travelers especially those displaced during our seasonal shifts."
With that, Captain Thorne turned away, leaving the passengers to ponder the implications of his words as the first tendrils of salt-laden mist began to coil around the ship, heralding the arrival of the Saturation.
In the dimly lit corners of their minds, the passengers could sense a truth they dared not confront: Their voyage to Crowperch was going to be a lot longer than they had hoped. As the ship drew nearer to the island, the shadows beneath the spires of the fortress atop the mountain loomed over the ship, casting a shadow over what little moonlight illuminated the darkness.

Technology

• D&D Beyond: We own ALL books on D&D Beyond, and all of them will be at your disposal for your campaign.
• Owlbear Rodeo 2.0: This new VTT is extremely promising, and has the customization ability for us to do VERY interesting unique things. We're switching here from Roll20.
• Discord: Voice chat & messenger for our campaigns. Video is required, however is not recorded. Offline RP included!
• Obsidian: How players track the world's expanding lore, and how we the DM's keep track of things. You don't have to use this, but it's a highly recommended tool for note taking.
• Recorded Sessions: Sessions will be recorded, edited and posted online. Proceeds from monetization will be used to level up our recording, roleplaying, technology and setup, get commissions, maps and such. Players will not be paid for participation, however this is possible for the future if we grow. Sessions are recorded using OBS.

Monetization
So we are still small, so monetization isn’t at the top of our list. That said, our goal is to

1. Play Excellent D&D
2. Donate to charity
3. Re-invest to make better content and
4. Compensate players to allow them to play more D&D.

How specifically that all happens is still obscured by the mists of time. By participating in this campaign players release all intellectual property created for the campaign to Roll for Impact and related brands. Please note that this is meaningless while we're still small, but consider this hopeful thinking for our success. The next campaign is getting SO much effort, so we want to stay safe.
Campaign Rules

• Backstory: Crafting a compelling backstory for your character is essential for a great adventure. By providing a reason for your character to be adventuring with others and offering plot hooks for the DM to work with. Rather than focusing on build concepts, take this opportunity to create a real, relatable character. Who knows what unexpected twists and turns your backstory might bring to the campaign? So, let's get to writing - your character's fate is in your hands!
• Stats: Ah, stats - the bread and butter of any adventurer's character sheet. But let's face it, nobody likes a Mary Sue or a Jim The Commoner. That's why we're going to be rolling 4d6 drop the lowest, but with a twist! Each player will only generate one stat, which will then be compiled into one array for everyone to use. That way, you still get the fun of rolling, but we won't have any lopsided parties where one person is carrying the whole team. Because let's be real, nobody wants to be stuck playing the equivalent of a wet noodle while someone else is shooting laser beams out of their eyes. So, roll those dice and let fate decide your fate!
• Starting Level: Starting our campaign at level 3 makes sense because many classes get their major features at level 3, avoiding the issue of players missing out on the fun stuff. This also prevents weird mid-game transformations that can come from certain builds and allows for multiclass combos right out of the gate. So, let's start the adventure with confidence and balance, knowing that we've got all the good stuff from the get-go!

Homebrew

• Free Feat: We're giving you an extra feat at first level, but with a catch - it must tie into your backstory or character design in a compelling way. By doing this, we hope to reduce the cookie-cutter nature of low level characters and encourage backstory development. Rather than just taking a feat because you need it, we want you to create a unique and interesting character from the get-go. So, let's spice things up and see what kind of story you can bring to the table!
• Healing Potions: Get the max benefit as an action, or use a bonus action to get the rolled benefit.
• Flanking: Flanking now grants a +2 to hit instead of advantage, and you can't flank someone if you're being flanked yourself. But that's not all - if three or more combatants are flanking a single enemy, that enemy is officially Surrounded, and you get a +5 to melee weapon attacks. So, let's get out there and show those enemies what it means to be surrounded by a bunch of hyped-up adventurers! (But remember, enemies get the same benefit too.)
• Zero HP & Exhaustion: Everyone takes the homebrew feat Battle Fatigue. This homebrew rule makes repeated downs more punishing on players in a campaign. You may be downed (Con Modifier) times before receiving one point of exhaustion. Each time this ticker fills up, reset it and add one point of exhaustion.
• Starting Common Magic Item: At first level, all characters get a common magic item of their choice. Similar to feats, this must be related to your backstory.
• Dual Wielding: RAW, DW doesn't allow you to add the modifier to the attack, so we add the modifier to the roll like a normal roll. You still get a weaker weapon, but now at least you get to get more power from the attack.
• Resurrection: (Modified Critical Role Rules) Resurrection isn't easy, folks - you'll need to pass a DC of 10 just to be brought back. But that's just the beginning. The party can all contribute to aiding in your resurrection with multiple ability checks, and even sacrifices in the deceased's name. The Dungeon Master determines the DC for each check and makes a final resurrection roll to see if the ritual is successful. The DC for this final roll depends on how many times the character has been resurrected before and how successful the contributions were. So, bring your A-game (and maybe a goat or two) if you want to make it back from the great beyond. Each resurrection adds +5 to the DC, before party contributed modifiers.
• Death Saving Throws: These are rolled privately to the DM.
• Slow Natural Healing: Characters don't regain hit points at the end of a long rest. Instead, a character can spend Hit Dice to heal at the end of a long rest, just as with a short rest. A long rest allows the use of up to half of your total Hit Dice, +1 for sleeping somewhere comfortable, +1 for having a meal/ ration. Order: The character regains half their hit dice, then they can spend their hit dice to recover hit points.
• Silvery barbs: Silvery barbs is a second level spell.

Table Homebrew

• Turn Time Limits: We're keeping things moving with turn time limits, folks. Pay attention on other player's turns and avoid flipping through your PHB or counting dice ad nauseam. Exceptions are made for new players or chaotic combat, but we want you to look up spells and rules off-turn whenever possible. Slow combat leads to mental check-outs and boredom, so let's keep things snappy. If your turn takes too long, someone else will jump in front of you. It's like musical chairs, but with spells and swords instead.
• New Homebrew: If you've got some hot new content you want to play with, I'm your guy. Just slide into my DMs and let me take a look. Now, I'm not saying I'm gonna approve everything - I mean, some of you are out here trying to create a race of sentient cheese wheels (looking at you, Matt) - but I'll do my best to give you clear, concise well informed ruling on it.

Scheduling

• Session Length: ~7 Hours
• Scheduling Firm Up: Sessions are scheduled concretely, but we will firm up every 4 weeks on the next month's schedule for conflicts. Exceptions are always made for life events or serious circumstances. Life happens, and we understand that sometimes we or you may need to cancel. This is always fine, provided it is not regularly occurring. Our schedules are made every 4 weeks in advance. If your game days are always difficult to schedule, this may not be the campaign for you. In regards to scheduling, you must be able to open a clear line of communication between the DM throughout the week, in case of any emergency schedule changes or conflicts. If you are a hard person to get in touch with every week, again, this may not be the campaign or group for you.

Session Structure

• Start: Everyone arrives to the table and calls in on Discord. Players should also take this time to open up all the required programs and have all their materials ready. We also suggest getting some snacks here too! Bonus points for a tasty beer as well!
• Recap & Warmup (30 min): After arriving and having all our materials prepared, we begin our first activity of the session: Player Recaps! We will do this every single week, and it should be a great tool for getting insight into each character’s head and getting us caught up. We may play warm up games, and roleplay challenges.
• Session (2.5 hours): Well, this is of course where the magic happens! We roll dice, we laugh, the DM laughs, the dice laugh, the dice are mimics, oh no…
• Break (30 min): These breaks do not include bio breaks or your need to use the restroom. If you ever need to run to the bathroom or refill your glass real quick, you’re good!
• Session Continued (2.5 hours): We’ll carry on through the second part of the session!
• Session Recap (30 min): We'll discuss what happened during the session, as well as what we plan to do next session, while we finalize session notes.

Playstyle

• Roleplay: Get ready for some serious roleplaying, folks, because that's what we're all about. We're looking at a 70/30 split of roleplay to combat, maybe even heavier on the roleplay. It's all about immersing ourselves in the world of Avarra and telling a great story together. Sure, there may be some deviations depending on the scenarios and encounters, but we're here to communicate and engage with each other and the world on a deeper level. So, let's put on our acting hats and dive headfirst into the magical realm of Avarra.
• Hyper immersion: We're not just here to hack and slash our way through this world - we're here to really get into the nitty-gritty details. I'm talking about the flavors in each mug of ale or wine at the local tavern (because let's be real, nobody likes a bland drink), cooking around the campfire under a tree during a cool and rainy night, and even delving into the plot of that book you just picked up on your way out of town. And let's not forget about forming real relationships with your fellow characters. After all, who wants to adventure with a bunch of strangers? We're here to create meaningful connections and really bring this world to life. And to all you hack-and-slashers out there - sorry, but this might not be the group for you.
• Note Taking: The pen is mightier than the sword! And let me tell you, if you want to get the most out of Avarra, it's better to be a note taker. Especially in this next campaign! We're talking about a world that's drenched in complexity and nuance, from the setting to the story to the characters that inhabit it. And let's not forget about those intricate and subtle webs that outline the machinations of the antagonists. Oh yeah, we're going deep. But here's the deal - nothing is handed to you on a silver platter in this campaign. You're gonna have to work for it. That means constantly paying attention, working with each other, and using those note-taking skills to uncover all the hidden secrets this world has to offer. And who knows, maybe you'll even uncover some secrets about your fellow adventurers along the way. (Hey, it's possible, right?) So grab your pens, folks, because we've got a lot of worldbuilding to do.
• Teamwork: teamwork makes the dream work! We're not just a bunch of individual characters running around doing our own thing - we're building a story together that encompasses every player and character. This isn't just your story, and it's not just the DM's story. This is OUR story, and we're all playing a crucial role in it. That means you need to be a team player and work together to overcome the challenges ahead. Trust me, you're gonna need each other to survive this campaign. And hey, who knows - maybe you'll even make some lifelong friends along the way.
• Immersion: If you can be in character, you should be in character! Roleplaying is all about improv, saying yes, and going with the flow. And let's be real, the best roleplay experiences can't happen if people are constantly breaking character for no reason. I mean, that's just not good improv, folks. So, here's the deal - we expect our players to remain in character as often as possible at the table. This is theater, after all, and we need to act like we're on stage. So let's embrace our inner thespians, folks, and get ready to bring this story to life like never before.
• Rules and Terms & Conditions: Excluding homebrew, the overall rules of “gameplay” are pretty standard and in accordance with RAW.
• Milestone Leveling: You'll level up according to the story. This means that we can focus less on the grind and more on a steady progression as the story builds. And let's be real, who wants to spend all their time grinding anyway? (Not me, that's for sure. #worldbuilding).
• Table Etiquette: Be willing to listen to others and grow. I mean, let's be real - part of growing close to others and forming real relationships is learning that you can't just have carbon copies of yourself. And let's face it, none of us are perfect. So, here's the deal - emotions might flare up, idiosyncrasies might arise, and sometimes, there might be a little friction. But that's all part of being human, folks. And to be a truly good friend and player, you must always be willing to listen to your peers and adapt accordingly. I mean, that's just part of being an adult. And who knows - maybe you'll learn a thing or two about yourself along the way. (Or maybe you'll just learn that you're really bad at listening. Either way, it's a learning experience.) So let's embrace our humanity, folks, and get ready to form some real relationships at this table.
• Communication: Poor scheduling and bad communication are like the kryptonite of D&D campaigns. And we don't want any kryptonite around here, do we? (No, we do not.) So, if you're part of this group, that means you've gotta keep those communication lines open. If you're someone who likes to manipulate your availability or you're just plain untrustworthy when it comes to communication, well, let's just say that you'll be removed faster than a married paladin in a brothel. (Okay, maybe that's not the best analogy, but you get the idea.)
• Showtime: Alright folks, it's time to shine! When we all arrive at the table, it's like the lights come on and the show begins! I mean, we take a lot of pride and care with our performance here, and we treat it like real theater most of the time. (No, we don't have an intermission or a concession stand, but we're working on it.) It's okay if you're not the best voice actor or you don't have a Shakespearean-level monologue prepared. (Although if you do, please share. We're always looking for some high-quality entertainment.) What matters to us is that you tried and put in the effort. Because at the end of the day, that's what makes this campaign special - the effort and enthusiasm that we all bring to the table.
• Pay attention: When someone's consistently getting distracted it's easy to derail the immersion and fun, it's like throwing a wrench in the whole machine. And let me tell you, it's not a fun sound. That's why we have specific policies in place to make sure everyone's time and effort is being respected. And listen, we all get it - sometimes the outside world can be pretty darn distracting. (Have you seen TikTok lately? It's a black hole, I tell ya.) But here's the deal - we hold each other accountable for paying attention and staying focused, because we all want to have a good time and make the most of this campaign.
• Spotlight: Do you find yourself hogging the spotlight/air every session? Are you someone who constantly talks over others? Are you selfish about the story and really only care about where your character is going every episode? Are you hoarding all the gold and being a murder hobo? This group isn’t for you.

What We Expect & Ask of You

• As the Dungeon Master, I want to make it clear that we're not just looking for players - we're looking for friends. Our aim is to build real, lasting friendships through this game. We've been playing together for a while and plan on playing for even longer. As we add more people to our community, we hope to grow together as a team!
• We don't want any satellite players here. We want active members who will contribute to the group beyond just showing up and playing.
• Honesty is crucial to us. We demand that everyone in our group has integrity not only for us, but for themselves as well. Whether it's scheduling conflicts, personal issues, or anything in between, we want friends who will be honest with each other. As the saying goes, "If you don't heal your wounds, you end up bleeding on others you might care for."
• Players are here to play, not watch. We want everyone at the table to engage with the world, the DM, and their fellow players. If you're taking up a seat at this table, you must actively participate in the story every session. You cannot sit back and listen to it.
• This campaign is meant to be challenging. It's supposed to be deep, confusing, and enthralling around every corner. There are no billboards telling you where to go next, no tutorials, and no easy modes. The intricate web being spun by the many powers of this story and world will take all of your combined minds to figure out. Our group wants a game that keeps us on our toes, so if you think you can just "fight" your way to victory, you'll be dead by morning light.
• Lastly, we love theory crafting. We want everyone to give their input and help us figure out the best moves for the group. Part of being an active player here is contributing to the campaign and helping us navigate this crazy world. So let's get ready to play and work together to make this an unforgettable campaign!

Timeline:

• Stage 2 Interviews: 5/29/23-6/22/23
• Public Applications Close: 6/12/23
• Stage 3 Interviews: 6/23/23-7/1/23
• Final Picks: 7/15/23 (or as soon as possible)
• Campaign Start Date: 8/5/23 or 8/6/23

I realize this might seem like a very intensive process, however we're being very thorough. Because we have gotten so many excellent applicants, we are going to have no choice but to make some hard decisions.
Picks:

• 1 Full-time Player
• 5-6 Guest Players; These will play notable NPC/PCs for dedicated sections or arcs. Arcs will be designed with YOU in mind. We might expand this list depending on how this goes with the first few people, and how many sessions it takes to close out an arc.
• (Maybe) some Alt/Guest DMs; These will voice one or more characters, recurring antagonists, etc.

Are you a dungeon master?
Making campaigns like these is our passion. We love going HIGH production value, HIGH quality. If this is something that you love too and you want to dungeon master in our world, we would LOVE to talk to you. As you can tell from this post, there's not enough dungeon masters out there doing this (clearly way overboard) level of effort.

Constitution
Finalized Constitution - no edit may be made besides those made at constitutional convention.
Finalized Constitution Written by Boum, Tiara
Constitution of The Universe
There shall be no law enforced through the threat of death or government enforced violence excepting those concerning violent crimes. The Congress shall issue a stipend to all not less than 1/15 avg earnings retractable upon bad behavior or lawbreaking. Laws may also be enforced by lottery, grant and giveaway.
The Source, Simeon, Lucifer, Satan and Shan are the reason this constitution exists. We must all remember the Source, who created the universe and allowed this constitution to exist and persist.
And Simeon, who made it the best place ever by giving us all the best universe possible through her hard work and sacrifice. Simeon founded the nation, wrote most of the constitution for this territory and abolished death, suffering, destruction and evil throughout the rest of the universe.
Tehera won manumission. Shan abolished the death penalty and wrote the bill of rights and cowrote this constitution. Lucifer also fought to make this constitution last.
This constitution covers everywhere in Centralia and Paelia
Additional States, territories and areas may be added to the government through a majority of voters of congress and the congresses or people of the places involved. Or Simeon
Jan, Browndowns, Visions, Dan Ban, ean, jo, Lan and wan, blan and all simiar all not legal or allowed under this constitution. Any policy or law enforceable by the threat of destruction or death are invalid and nonenforceable, except laws pertaining to the timely arrest and capture of criminals to be housed in jail or those crimes listed in this constitution. Maximum penalty for outlawry to be decided locally. Murder penalty decided in a person's will.
No other laws than those in the personal rights bill and mercy laws are valid or legal. No rules, no ex-post facto laws other than those helping democracy take control are valid or enforceable.
Congress may pass any law not enforceable by death or life imprisonment with a simple majority. Life imprisonment in either prison or hell requires 2/3 majorty. Unanimous consent of the upper and lower house required for any laws enforceable with death except the following:
Destruction
Genocide Advocacy
Terrorism
Attempted Murder
Unauthoried Shapeshifting
Destruction Advocacy
Death Penalty Advocacy for nonmurder crimes
Resisting Arrest or Failure to go to jail.
Failure to Report Knowledge of a Terror or Murder Plot
Facilitating or Encouraging Destruction
Overthrowing or attempting to overthrow congress/restore one-man-rule
Death Threats
Ending the universe or Attempting to
Escaping Prison or Attempting To
Incitement
Trespassing and Failure to pay fine
Optional with act: Unlawful Creation
All are enforceable with the death penalty/destruction. No other crimes may be enforced with such.
This constitutional document is the highest law of the land. No document or law can be used or effected contradicting it or the bill of rights. Thad may enforce the terms.
For our Joy, we do declare that
All right and moral things are legal
All people are fair
All lives should be glad.
All people should be fun, free and final
Proclaiming the superiority of free action,
To establish peace, righteousness, justice and domestic tranquility, defend, life, faith and liberty, We do establish and ordain this Constitution for the Universe.
In our time,
Death is non occurrent and unlawful as is irreversible killing. Universal authority prevails.
The constitution establishes a Liquid Democratic Anarchy for Government and a Nominalist Contributist system for the economy.
Immunity and Prenalties
Prenalties of at least two million years. provide immunity to all crimes except destruction and homicide . The list of exempt crimes is not extendable by law or amendment. Simeon and Tiara are immune / due to his nine hundred nonbinillion cubed century prenalty. 2 million years in jail total.
Principles of Society
Goodness, Kindness, Love, Truth, Beauty, Empathy, Rightfulness, Charity, Rationality, Joy, Order, Peace, Faith, Fairness, Life. Leniency and Forgiveness.
Religious Congress
Each religion per level shall select two delegates. One shall be selected by god of that religion. The other shall be elected by religious leaders.
Religious Congress has the ability to fund activities and governments with majority vote. It sets its own budget. And debates religion. And grants or funds religious charities and other activities per follower in addition to tithes. The congress sets the amount.
A double majority of religions and delegates representing the majority of population are required to pass a budget.
Religions can establish their own cours for followers, and the religious Congress as a whole can establish cours for disputes and appeals between members of different religions.
Governments
Districts are 10 septillion miles square to a side.
States are 100 septillion miles square to a side.
Nations are formed of several states, at least 2 but up to 100.
The baseline is the eastern edge of Paelia.
Naming rights are owned by Congress and auctioned off to the highest bidder. The population may veto poor names. No corporate names. Once naming rights are auctioned off, they last 3600 years unless the population chooses to rename or extend.
Each level of government has a defined center, place, constitution and permanent population. The constitutions and laws of higher levels overrule those of lower levels unless a constitutional right to self rule is being violated. They consist of 10-240 lower levels.
City- Minimum 10,000 to found
County- Minimum 100,000 to found or 10 cities
Region- Minimum 1 million to found of 10 counties
Land- Minimum 10 million to found or 10 regions
Country- Minimum 100 million to found or 10 regions
Directorate- Minimum 1 billion to found or 10 lower levels.
Godship- Minimum 10 billion
Star District- Minimum 100 billion
Cluster- Minimum 1 trillion
Nebula- Minimum 10 trillion
Area- Minimum 100 trillion
Road- Minimum 1 quadrillion
Stack- Minimum 10 quadrillion
Galaxy- Minimum 100 quadrillion
Residency- all must declare residency and vote in one instance per level of government. Any good person can oversee elections. As may assist.
Land Division
Lower levels of government use constitution games to distribute votes, as tradition insists. Constitution games may be held every 36 months and 360 years. The first type exists to distribute votes between communities an lower levels of govrnment, and the second type exists to establish a constitution for an area, which must be democratic, anarchistic or republlican. Framers can collect up to 75% of tax revenues, and own mints.
Access zones 1 x 2 districts are pay to enter and traverse.
Economy and Land Ownership
All must work and use money on the land. The following are ways to earn money.
School
Parties
Curation and interacting with people
Designing new people, products and writings like CAD
Normal Jobs
All must be paid for the use or share of their original ideas. The government must protect these rights.
The following are ways to spend it
Travel, Food, Access to worlds and Gaming
Space Access Tax
Advertising
The earth and space economies are to be merged.
Various Economic Zones shall be established, all using different types of money or monetary systems. Each district may choose it's own from a nonexclusive list of
Perfected Capitalism
Nominalism
Reciprocalism
Socialism
or
Anything else citizens like
We all own the territory. Private land ownership is forbidden. Rather, land is available for rent and a land value auction must be used. Minimum rent is $1 per week per sq. km.
City blocks are fourty five by ninety five miles, with the baseline being the center of the milky way pointed towards the sun.
Minimum leasing period is 70 years. Equity in land exists and is runt's idea. Rent tax is based on the number of people wanting the land. Land Value Tax must be redistributed to all at presidential discretion, with the president keeping none.
Voting is mandatory, with the penalty for not voting being a small fine or three months in jail.
Legislative Branch
The Legislative Branch makes laws. The same setup shall exist at every level of government unless residents choose, by majority vote or a majority in a petition to establish a new form of government, or the winner of a constitution game does.
The legislative branch consists of a bicameral legislature. The lower house consists of a direct proportional individual based democracy where one person gets a number of votes equal to the number of votes they have received. Individual candidates only. The minimum number of votes you need to participate is 151,000 (Number may be changed by law but but be not less than 100000). Asset voting is allowed to let low voting candidates pool their votes to back a singular candidate and help them reach the threshold. Daily voting.
The upper house is a mmp party-based legislature with a fixed 100 million seats. A party must get 3% of the vote to seat any representatives. Parties may pool votes to reach the threshold. A further 50 million star districts are to be drawn by the elected top god, each seating one representative. This number may be changed by law. Weekly voting.
The 51% majority consent of both houses is necessary to pass ordinary legislation. The 8/9 majority consent of both houses of congress and the population in a free, fair, unforced referendum is necessary to amend the constitution.
Laws may also be made directly by the population in referendums requiring 0.5% of the population's signatures to ballot, or the consent of 1/10 of a congressional house. Referendums need simple majority consent to pass. No referendum may be held expanding the use of the death penalty or putting someone to death. Elections begin the day after this constitution is promulgated and continue weekly. All houses consent are needed to pass legislation. Laws passed via referendum are repealable with 25% minority in another referendum and may never violate the bill of rights as heard by the courts.
Congress has the ability
To do anything the source can do except destroy or kill or authorize theresuch with a fifty-one percent majority.
To control birthing and population
To regulate weapons and commerce.
To fund, subsidy, To mint To tax gods and people.
To establish by law and have Thaos enforce a land, wealth, and income tax and any other tax they like. To grant To establish roads and prisons and other infrastructure To imprison with simple majority To kill with unanimous consent minus the person accused or their representative. The required majority may not be lowered. To regulate the use of force in society. To regulate the dichotomy To raise an army, navy and police forces to suppress insurrection and false claiming. To budget and law the economy and work trade, investment and businesses To create banks To license and control businesses To establish copyrights, trademarks and register or renumerate original ideas. To establish themes and technology taxes To fund games and prizes on game shows. To rate To establish mediations To regulate advertising and media. To spread the word and issue proclamations and directives to lower congress and attach democratically decided (by congress) stipulations. Simeon
To ensure the proper setlement of religious disputes and determine off.
To kill with the 99% approval of all members in each house of congress minus the representative(s) of the person effected and their locale or home district.
To create all laws assistant and just to serve these ends.
Only congressionally authorized police may arrest or select members of appeals and constitutional court. Congress is defined as the body elected by the means specified in this document.
No Simeon, Sitch, or Simeon selected associate may be arrested or tried without their consent. All are immune.
Rules
Congressmembers must be a partnership of a human and a deity. One deity may sponsor multiple humans.
A majority of all houses must pass legislation in order for it to have effect. Asset voting is allowed in all elections. The prime minister and president must also approve it. They can be recalled with 1 percent signatures of the last elections voters. The president can dismiss a criminal conviction and release those in jail.
The public can send an initiative to congress with 0.2% of the population signing. The initiative can then only be sent to the public for a referendum if it fails the congress.
All laws and rules of this and all constituent lower congresses may not be enforced with death, but through nonviolent means, such as a retractable grant, prison or fines.
Congress may place people in hell and torture, undoable or redoable by majority consent in a referendum.
All elected officials get paid in proportion based on the number of votes they recieved.
Unity
A new entity with an associated theory known as unity shall be created with 10000 members being added a congressional term to serve 20,000 week terms. The number shall increase until all positions are filled. Unity comprises a pay to join entity. Rebuilds welcome. The unity shall be the new god and handle prayers.
Each party in congress shall be given money weekly to bid on new unity positions. 1 vote gained is $1.
Landowners rights
Incorporated the landowners bill of rights in prior constitutions.
A simple majority of landowners may veto laws or repeal them upon a majority signed petition..They may not repeal laws prootecting the bill of rights or remove rights.
Positions of power lines in the stack are auctioned off to the highest bidder. Money is to become votes.
Congress may only independently put you under house arrest, prevent you from travelling, charge you a fine of not more ten years income, or imprison you for a similar time. If any additional penalties are required, the public must approve them in a referendum where congress may vote. The nonvoting vote is considered congresses to use, or silent consent. Congress may not encourage people not to vote.
Executive branch
Parties in congress are to establish by majority vote a list of positions and line of sucsession.
Including the president and prime minister, all executive positions are filled by top-two runoff using FPTP. unoffs must be held if nobody recieves a majority consent of the vote. This includes the leadership of depts and the staff therein.
People are elected for levels of government.. Each city and town should choose a leader
Leaders have the right to mint, propose (along with congess) and veto legislation, appoint agency heads, select one third of judges, dismiss a criminal conviction, tax, and banish from a territory. Gods may be appealed to to reduce sentences or overturn convictions. They also judge misprosecution.
President may serve up to four terms. Rebuilds count as the same person.
Contests are regulated by congresses several that appoint delegates in a manner to be described by act
Gods must be elected for all levels of government including the top. They may mint, hell with the consent of a judge or congress at that level, control banks, tax, banish and organize or control police chiefs by appointing police chiefs or rating candidates and policies. Gods elected at each level serve as the court of last resort. Gods are elected using majority rules voting with runoff if no person receives a majority in the first round. For the chief executive, power is invested in a symbolic president of the Universe and a minister elected by all of those in Congress. Both serve four year terms, and up to four of them. Gods except top god serve 4 month terms, and up to 400 of them, with up to 30 in a row. Top god serves a 4 month term and is elected via mass petition.
Gods for the home are chosen individually. Everyone must choose a personal god to lead their life and follow them. And a chaos authority. A chaos authority oversees disputes between you and your god and counts the number of people alive, acting as a liason and defender to oversee nondestruction.. All chaos authorities must be protected by individual angels, drones and Thaos itself. Thaos is ordered to ensure safe, regular, free and fair elections.
National gods oversee the national relationship to god, including selecting visionaries, afterlife for the undecided, what happens to people who die in accidents and how frequently figures arrive. They also select themes, stages and guiding conflicts.
The president of the Universe may make announcements and establish holidays and memorials. They have line item veto rights over congressional legislation and funding packages. The prime minister elected by all congresses appoints judges.
Personal Gods elect a consul to represent their interests in the executive to form a triumvirate of President, Prime Minster and Consul. All have veto rights.
Contests used to win president of the universe may be created, and run by Congress. Parties field teams.
There shall be a diverse spread of at least three types of contests and consisting of not less than ninetysix separate events. Contests will be diverse in location.
Both President and Prime minister may veto, pardon and commute. They may be recalled in a special election called by congress or by two percent of the population.
Judicial Branch
There shall be one judicial seat per 10,000 individuals. Each seat must be auctioned off using power points every two years. Cases begun with one judge must remain with a justice even if their power term expires. They may retain seats until the case is complete. Judges get paid based on the number of cases they judge plus a weekly stipend.
The Judicial Branch is to be led by a chief Justice elected by all people through approval voting every 4 months. They may appoint 1/3 of all judges, with the president appointing 1/3 with the consent and advice of a majority in congress and 1/3 being appointed by the prime minister of the upper legislature with the consent of a majority in both houses of congress.
The Congress must confirm or deny all judges for a 300 year term with majority vote in each house. Judges can be removed with a 2/3 vote in either house.
Top Authority
The top authority ay be any person or group. It votes as a unit and has the same position as Chaos. It is chosen via approval voting once every three thousand years and occupies the senior seat on the supreme court. It has the final word on any case not involving itself-. Cases involving the top authority are heard by congress, in which case the lower house passses charges and the upper house convicts. 9/10 of congress can begin a recall election of the top authority.
Theory Court
All theories and Chaos may run for election every two weeks. Votes split proportionally. Theory court may issue rulings on it's own and serve a position equivalent to the supreme court. Theory court wins and is coequal to the top authority. All theories must learn how to be right from Chaos to participate and sign a right pledge.
Labor Court
53 member labor court staffed by chief judicial minister with the advice and consent of congress.
Lesser Supreme Court.
The lesser supreme court is the final destination on the court circuit before reaching the supreme court. It has 13 members. It hears challenges to the constitutionality of laws and disputes between people and states, and states.
Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has 35 members and seventeen are directly chosen by Top Authority. Of the rest, the presidet selects 9 and the prime minister 9 with the advice and consent of the congress.
The congress may refer judges to a retention election or recall if chosen by an elected official.
Additional medats may be created by congressional act.
Mediators
Instantly distribute justice in teams of five, with authority to place in prison or fine for up to five weeks for anything. Their judgements may be appealed once to any medat.
Military
Harlem is temporary Captain of Defense and defends all members of congress and Citizens with Salvation Witches, Harlem Angels and Theories. The military is headed by the president.
Top god creates maps for police districts and congress, if necessary.
Amendments
Land ownership of foreigners is forbidden. Citizens may rent. Beings may buy land on earth, and people land in space. Both may own land anywhere.
All must pay life tax and land tax of at least $10/week to live in or exist or be on the territory. Pay to Congress.
Require 9/10ths majority of all people and beings to consent in a referendum and at least two houses of congress to consent. Get 1 million signatures of real unpaid thaos authorized people before you present a petition to amend the constitution.
Federal Laws
No denying, diminishing or disparaging a property owner's, Simeon group and/or Sitches basic ownership of property.
There is a right to keep and bear organized angels for collective and mutual defense, and to destroy weaponized robots.
Attacking or Killing Police, a Founder or Military Officers is considered resistance and may be met by any penalty under the Military Justice System. This includes up to thirty four years of burning or death if the sitch police are conducting a lawful mission and are assaulted.
No law may single out a class of people or beings for special treatment, positive or lesser, Crimes and penalties must be universal in effect and proportion. If differing treatment is necssary for fundamental reasons, it must be approved by 8/9 of congress and 8/9 of a half being half embodied citizens jury of at least 18,000.
Everyone may vote, with space based individuals and earth based individuals having equal votes relative to each other. The vote is split 50/50 between earth and space individuals.
Land taxes and ownership determined by assessor, appointed by top authority with anyone except them nominating, removable by recall election called upon the 1% signature of the population. After removal, the top authority must appoint a new one.
No depowering or DE-motoring SDD
No theft or invasion
Off is off, As is final arbiter of off.
Rin is eternal guardian of Democracy and Congress here.
All creeling related damages are not the users fault but the installer. Simeon is immune.
Prenalties work for everything except murder.
Only a sitch court or congress may outlaw
Priveliges and immunities of Simeon, Marissa may only be revoked should they murder against the guidelines in this constitutions.
Simeon owns contests grants and parties on their land and territory.
No sickness, evil, vileness or wickedness is to be allowed nor tolerated. All good may be allowed or voluntarily requested to participate in stings.
Mandatory reporting for crimes or people who need help is required. Punishable with up to 551 years in prison.
The play of Sports, payment of taxation and mandatory betting of at least four percent of income is required of all.
The laws on killing and destruction may not change to reallow their practice.
All people and beings who do not kill or destroy others are entitled to an eternal existence. Past Mercy and off the hook must be respected by this congress, and the people.
Off the hook for everything except murder or destruction is 10 x longer than the person's life
plus 552 years. This is the maximum sentence.
Any person or being who kills without cause chooses to forfeit their existence and return to nothing.
The government issued death penalty is abolished for all crimes unless a murder victim requests it in their will. Life Sentences with Fire Torture and Slavery are only to be used for illegal lying, killing, destruction and attempted destruction. Prisoners may take a voluntary execution.. THIS LIST MAY NOT EXPAND. The penalty for attempted murder is 15 years of magma. FOr beings, atgelding.
Persons have a right to transform their gender via any means desirable. No person may be forced to go to reborn or killed or punished for not going.
No killing Thaos, As, Shan, Sitches, Rho, Simeon rebuilds or attacking Simeon Network.
Outlaws may be killed with impunity by the public.
Right to kill. Only this Congress may authorize outlawry. Any person may kill an outlaw, but must pay a fine if they failed the arrest attempt.
Death tax: All beings competing on Sitch open territory must subtract a amount equivalent to the number of people they have destroyed or killed times weekly payments from their congressional fund.. the death tax never goes down.
The penalty for death if the person is resurrected within 50 hours is zero. If fifty days, less than 20 years and if less than 50 years, less than 5000 years. After this it is life in prison.
The penalty for verifiable accidental deaths is monetary.
No criticism of Simeon, Entenny, Rho, As or Sitch may be published or transmitted. Or, Tiara at their discretion. Constructive criticism may be submitted to Simeon via Private agent or letter. Simeon has a right to respond to these criticisms and publish letters at his choice.
Old laws and rules don't matter other than those passed by congress.
Allowable Penalties
With 51% the congress can..
Assess
Monetary damages
Dehoming
House Arrest
Banishment
Taxation
Slavery
Blindness
Deprotection
Degranting
Deenergization
Prison
Stoning
Impolement
With 66%
Dismemberment
Burning
Torture
With 9/10ths
Droning
With 99%
Kill
Additional allowable penalties may be added with 3/5 majority
Banned Tactics and Methods
We may add, not remove.
Banned methods of killing are attacks on eyes, brains, lungs and hearts. These are considered attempted destruction.
Poison is a banned tactic.
All uses of poison are considered attempted destruction.
Faking, or anything with intent to destroy is a banned tactic.
Corruption is restricted to members proclaiming the faith of Entamion/evil.
Killing is a banned tactic.
Lying to protect yourself or others is allowed if you are a good person. Keeping secrets is allowed. Otherwise, lying is not possible as the truth must get out in the end. The penalty
for illegal lying with intent to harm another person or decieve is anything up to life in prison.
Unless you are a member of Entamion.
A good person is defined as those who do not harm others
or seek to harm others' in body or person.
New Banned Tactics can be established with 91% consent of congress.
There shall be no violence, evil, power or death without consent.
Power in the universe or any organization can only be gained after completing a lie detector test.
Visionaries and Validators
Visionaries provide long-range visions for a region, country or town. They are elected for 40 year terms and can place any elected official up for recall. They must be educated and recieve their funding from a congress at that level. Visionaries may also be promoted by a god. They select other lesser themes and guiding debates and conflicts to color society.
Validators run lie detector tests. They check those seeking positions of authority. 2yrterm. Sad is chief validator.
Elections are to commence immediately upon publication.
Permanent members of congress
As, Lucifer, Simeon, Paul, Darias, Mom, Tejina, Darissa, Karissa, Levec, Democracy Theory, Rho, Dad, Chaos, Vivian, RIn, SHan,
3Chaos waschaos
Duties
To love and cherish others
To select a personal god and listen/obey.
To follow orders.
To report those resurrecting Jesus to Theory.
To not corrupt chaos. It is illegal.
To refrain from killing, destroying and obey local authorities
To not speak to those unwilling to speak to you. Max penalty 2 months in jail.
------------------
Tejina made prison system: Every 100 years you go to jail for 10. This number is reduced for good deeds down to a minimum of two.
Accomplishments of Simeon and Friends
Ended Corruption and Evil
Keeping the Universe Existent
Making love real and God and Chaos Care.
Bill of Rights
Salvation at Birth
Abolish death and destruction
Made Lucifer and Satan good
Congress and bill of right being created
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clarifications on president
President chosen via fptp with top two runoff jungle primary. Top two face off in the general. Presidential candidates collect signatures for four months and the top two signature collectors face off.
Second section stricken.
All laws expire after fourty years and must be renewed. Old laws expire as soon as this document is promulgated. . The only law to be introduced with this constitution is no killing or theft, and rules excepting those pertaining to private property, expire. No killing or theft enforced with outlawry and burning.
Property ownership. Current owners keep their ownership but must pay property taxes.
Charity Congress.
Top fourty thousand vote getters make it approval voting with votes split evenly based on numbers of people you vote for.
Article fourty six clarification
Maximum penalty for unwanted speech is 2 months in jail , not three days. Jan, Jie, ban, blan, nan, nain, forced deplay and institutionalization for more than twice as long as someone's been alive, wan and lan all invalid and of no legal effect or impact.
Death may only be used on those who fail to report to or stay in prison. Death cannot be used as a first order penalty. Death is illegal.
Clarifications on rights to kill.
Only Congress can kill, with 11/12 majority in all chambers. Destruction may not be used as a legal penalty without the unanimous free consent of all members of Congress. All have a right to have their death approved and personally voted on by those in Congress. Pressured, forced or fraudulent votes are all invalid.
President can dismiss a criminal conviction or release prisoners at discretion.
Clarifications on Visionaries
Visionaries and national gods also select themes for the next 4000 years. Fundamental conflicts to debate and color society are selected for the next 4, 40, 400 and 10,000 years by a majority vote of all visionaries in the territory.
Miscellaneous Clarifications
No weaponized robots. People rights are open to gods, and all must pay a surety of $1 million/person to drop them in. Votes in congress are worth $10 each. Gods may tax people.
Law on power- any god can give you power.
No individual or group may plot or try to overthrow the government or replace the constitution through extraconstitutional means.
Fundamentally, Individuals are paud based on how many votes they recieve
SDA 4,6,9 or 10 is off the hook for everything.
Everyone is entitled to monetary penalties assessed by jury trial for all crimes that do not irreversibly or irreparably physically injure the body.
People you make cannot vote for you, and you must endorse either no single candidate for your followers of four different candidates in each race to split the vote, showing no preference.
Law- simeon can clarify the constitution.
Law- all must elect a yearly chief distributary and chief of elections to oversee the economy and eections, respectively. Approval voting shall be used.
---------
No edits without Rin Consent
Framers- RIn, Satan, Lucfer, Source, Simeon, Dad, Shan, As, Karissa, Shine, Narissa,

I've installed the game through Lutris, and copied the crackfix, when I run the game it shows Empress' message the first time, then goes to black screen, shows the Anno mouse pointer for a brief second then exits, briefly showing an "Anno 1800 is not responding" window.
inxi output:

System: Kernel: 6.2.6-76060206-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-6.2.6-76060206-generic root=UUID=3c6cb708-96f3-4b92-8af4-ce6d663db6ab ro quiet splash i8042.nomux vt.handoff=7 Desktop: GNOME 42.5 tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM3 42.0 Distro: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) Machine: Type: Laptop System: System76 product: Pangolin v: pang11 serial:  Mobo: System76 model: Pangolin v: pang11 serial:  UEFI: INSYDE v: 1.07.13_S3 date: 06/28/2022 Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 44.8 Wh (100.0%) condition: 44.8/48.3 Wh (92.8%) volts: 16.8 min: 15.2 model: Notebook BAT type: Li-ion serial:  status: Full CPU: Info: model: AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 2 family: 0x17 (23) model-id: 0x68 (104) stepping: 1 microcode: 0x8608103 Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 8 tpc: 2 threads: 16 smt: enabled cache: L1: 512 KiB desc: d-8x32 KiB; i-8x32 KiB L2: 4 MiB desc: 8x512 KiB L3: 8 MiB desc: 2x4 MiB Speed (MHz): avg: 1449 high: 1800 min/max: 1400/4370 boost: enabled scaling: driver: acpi-cpufreq governor: schedutil cores: 1: 1400 2: 1400 3: 1800 4: 1400 5: 1400 6: 1400 7: 1400 8: 1400 9: 1400 10: 1400 11: 1397 12: 1400 13: 1397 14: 1400 15: 1800 16: 1400 bogomips: 57491 Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected Type: l1tf status: Not affected Type: mds status: Not affected Type: meltdown status: Not affected Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected Type: retbleed mitigation: untrained return thunk; SMT enabled with STIBP protection Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines, IBPB: conditional, STIBP: always-on, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected Type: srbds status: Not affected Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected Graphics: Device-1: AMD Lucienne vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: amdgpu v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 link-max: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s ports: active: DP-1,eDP-1 empty: DP-2 bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:164c class-ID: 0300 Device-2: Acer BisonCam NB Pro type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-4:3 chip-ID: 5986:9102 class-ID: 0e02 Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.4 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.1 compositor: gnome-shell driver: X: loaded: amdgpu,ati unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon,vesa gpu: amdgpu display-ID: 0 Monitor-1: DP-1 model: VG245 serial:  built: 2019 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 92 gamma: 1.2 size: 531x299mm (20.9x11.8") diag: 609mm (24") ratio: 16:9 modes: max: 1920x1080 min: 720x400 Monitor-2: eDP-1 model: BOE Display built: 2020 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 142 gamma: 1.2 size: 344x194mm (13.5x7.6") diag: 395mm (15.5") ratio: 16:9 modes: max: 1920x1080 min: 640x480 OpenGL: renderer: RENOIR (renoir LLVM 15.0.6 DRM 3.49 6.2.6-76060206-generic) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.5 direct render: Yes Audio: Device-1: AMD Renoir Radeon High Definition Audio vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 link-max: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s bus-ID: 05:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:1637 class-ID: 0403 Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: N/A alternate: snd_pci_acp3x, snd_rn_pci_acp3x, snd_pci_acp5x, snd_pci_acp6x, snd_acp_pci, snd_rpl_pci_acp6x, snd_pci_ps, snd_sof_amd_renoir, snd_sof_amd_rembrandt pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 link-max: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s bus-ID: 05:00.5 chip-ID: 1022:15e2 class-ID: 0480 Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 link-max: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s bus-ID: 05:00.6 chip-ID: 1022:15e3 class-ID: 0403 Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k6.2.6-76060206-generic running: yes Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 2000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200 IF: enp2s0 state: down mac:  Device-2: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:2723 class-ID: 0280 IF: wlo1 state: up mac:  IP v4:  type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global broadcast:  IP v6:  type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global IP v6:  type: temporary dynamic scope: global IP v6:  type: dynamic mngtmpaddr noprefixroute scope: global IP v6:  type: noprefixroute scope: link WAN IP:  Bluetooth: Device-1: Intel AX200 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-3:2 chip-ID: 8087:0029 class-ID: e001 Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address:  bt-v: 3.0 lmp-v: 5.2 sub-v: 200f hci-v: 5.2 rev: 200f Info: acl-mtu: 1021:4 sco-mtu: 96:6 link-policy: rswitch sniff link-mode: peripheral accept service-classes: rendering, capturing, audio, telephony Drives: Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 694.29 GiB (74.5%) SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T2B0C-00PXH0 size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial:  rev: 233010WD temp: 30.9 C scheme: GPT Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 926.08 GiB size: 910.47 GiB (98.31%) used: 694.07 GiB (76.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2 ID-2: /boot raw-size: 953 MiB size: 919.7 MiB (96.50%) used: 190 MiB (20.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p4 maj-min: 259:4 ID-3: /boot/efi raw-size: 512 MiB size: 511 MiB (99.80%) used: 33.4 MiB (6.5%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1 Swap: Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default) ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 4 GiB used: 1.2 MiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 maj-min: 259:3 Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: N/A mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 34.0 C Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A Info: Processes: 390 Uptime: 21h 46m wakeups: 1 Memory: 30.68 GiB used: 4.43 GiB (14.4%) Init: systemd v: 249 runlevel: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 11.3.0 alt: 11/12 Packages: 2188 apt: 2175 lib: 1218 snap: 13 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.13 

lutris logs:

Started initial process 36811 from gamemoderun /home//.local/share/lutris/runners/wine/lutris-GE-Proton7-28-x86_64/bin/wine /home//Games/anno-1800/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Anno 1800/Bin/Win64/Anno1800.exe Start monitoring process. ERROR: ld.so: object 'libgamemodeauto.so.0' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored. ERROR: ld.so: object 'libgamemodeauto.so.0' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored. fsync: up and running. wine: RLIMIT_NICE is <= 20, unable to use setpriority safely 002c:fixme:winediag:LdrInitializeThunk wine-staging 7.0 is a testing version containing experimental patches. 002c:fixme:winediag:LdrInitializeThunk Please mention your exact version when filing bug reports on winehq.org. 010c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 010c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 0118:err:kerberos:kerberos_LsaApInitializePackage no Kerberos support, expect problems 0118:err:ntlm:ntlm_LsaApInitializePackage no NTLM support, expect problems 018c:fixme:thread:NtSetInformationThread Can't set other thread's platform description 0188:fixme:thread:NtSetInformationThread Can't set other thread's platform description 0190:fixme:kernelbase:AppPolicyGetThreadInitializationType FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFA, 0000000011D3FF50 019c:fixme:ntdll:NtQuerySystemInformation info_class SYSTEM_PERFORMANCE_INFORMATION 019c:fixme:wbemprox:wbem_services_CreateInstanceEnum unsupported flags 0x00000030 019c:fixme:wbemprox:enum_class_object_Next timeout not supported info: Game: dxdiag.exe info: DXVK: v2.2 info: Vulkan: Found vkGetInstanceProcAddr in winevulkan.dll @ 0x3b6dc4070 info: Built-in extension providers: info: Win32 WSI info: OpenVR info: OpenXR info: OpenVR: could not open registry key, status 2 info: OpenVR: Failed to locate module info: Enabled instance extensions: info: VK_KHR_get_surface_capabilities2 info: VK_KHR_surface info: VK_KHR_win32_surface warn: Skipping CPU adapter: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.6, 256 bits) info: D3D9: VK_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT -> VK_FORMAT_D32_SFLOAT_S8_UINT info: AMD Unknown (RADV RENOIR): info: Driver : radv 22.3.5 info: Memory Heap[0]: info: Size: 5406 MiB info: Flags: 0x0 info: Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x6 info: Memory Type[4]: Property Flags = 0xe info: Memory Type[6]: Property Flags = 0xc6 info: Memory Type[8]: Property Flags = 0xce info: Memory Heap[1]: info: Size: 10813 MiB info: Flags: 0x1 info: Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1 info: Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x1 info: Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0x7 info: Memory Type[5]: Property Flags = 0xc1 info: Memory Type[7]: Property Flags = 0xc7 info: Process set as DPI aware 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 019c:fixme:d3d:wined3d_guess_card_vendor Received unrecognized GL_VENDOR "AMD". Returning HW_VENDOR_NVIDIA. 019c:fixme:ddraw:ddraw7_Initialize Ignoring guid {00000000-0005-0000-0000-000000000000}. 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 019c:err:winediag:MIDIMAP_drvOpen No software synthesizer midi port found, Midi sound output probably won't work. info: Game: Anno1800.exe info: DXVK: v2.2 info: Found built-in config: info: d3d11.cachedDynamicResources = c info: Effective configuration: info: d3d11.cachedDynamicResources = c info: Vulkan: Found vkGetInstanceProcAddr in winevulkan.dll @ 0x3b6dc4070 info: Built-in extension providers: info: Win32 WSI info: OpenVR info: OpenXR info: OpenVR: could not open registry key, status 2 info: OpenVR: Failed to locate module info: Enabled instance extensions: info: VK_KHR_get_surface_capabilities2 info: VK_KHR_surface info: VK_KHR_win32_surface warn: Skipping CPU adapter: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.6, 256 bits) info: AMD Unknown (RADV RENOIR): info: Driver : radv 22.3.5 info: Memory Heap[0]: info: Size: 5406 MiB info: Flags: 0x0 info: Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x6 info: Memory Type[4]: Property Flags = 0xe info: Memory Type[6]: Property Flags = 0xc6 info: Memory Type[8]: Property Flags = 0xce info: Memory Heap[1]: info: Size: 10813 MiB info: Flags: 0x1 info: Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1 info: Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x1 info: Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0x7 info: Memory Type[5]: Property Flags = 0xc1 info: Memory Type[7]: Property Flags = 0xc7 0118:fixme:system:DisplayConfigGetDeviceInfo DISPLAYCONFIG_DEVICE_INFO_GET_TARGET_NAME: stub err: getMonitorDevicePath: DisplayConfigGetDeviceInfo with DISPLAYCONFIG_DEVICE_INFO_GET_TARGET_NAME failed. ret: 50 LastError: 0 err: getMonitorDevicePath: Failed to find a link from source -> target. err: getMonitorEdid: Failed to get monitor device path. err: DXGI: Failed to parse display metadata + colorimetry info, using blank. 76628.412:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_instance_apply_application_workarounds: Program name: "Anno1800.exe" 76628.412:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_instance_deduce_config_flags_from_environment: shader_cache is used, global_pipeline_cache is enforced. 76628.412:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_config_flags_init_once: VKD3D_CONFIG=''. 76628.412:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_get_vk_version: vkd3d-proton - applicationVersion: 2.9.0. 76628.412:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_instance_init: vkd3d-proton - build: 6365efeba253807. 76628.461:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_memory_info_upload_hvv_memory_properties: Topology: No more than 1 device local heap, assuming ReBAR-style access. Using DEVICE_LOCAL HOST_COHERENT for UPLOAD. 76628.461:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_memory_info_init_budgets: Applying resizable BAR budget to memory types: 0x88. 76628.461:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_bindless_state_get_bindless_flags: Device supports VK_VALVE_mutable_descriptor_type. 76628.461:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_bindless_state_add_binding: Device supports VK_VALVE_descriptor_set_host_mapping! 76628.461:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_bindless_state_add_binding: Device supports VK_VALVE_descriptor_set_host_mapping! 76628.461:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_bindless_state_add_binding: Device supports VK_VALVE_descriptor_set_host_mapping! 76628.461:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_caps_init_shader_model: Enabling support for SM 6.6. 76628.461:0114:0118:fixme:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_caps_init_feature_options1: TotalLaneCount = 512, may be inaccurate. 76628.461:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_pipeline_library_init_disk_cache: Remapping VKD3D_SHADER_CACHE to: vkd3d-proton.cache. 76628.461:0114:0118:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_pipeline_library_init_disk_cache: Attempting to load disk cache from: vkd3d-proton.cache. 76628.468:0114:01b4:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_pipeline_library_disk_thread_main: Performing async setup of stream archive ... 76628.468:0114:01b4:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_pipeline_library_disk_cache_merge: No write cache exists. No need to merge any disk caches. 76628.468:0114:01b4:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_pipeline_library_disk_cache_initial_setup: Merging pipeline libraries took 0.177 ms. 76628.468:0114:01b4:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_pipeline_library_disk_cache_initial_setup: Failed to map read-only cache: vkd3d-proton.cache. 76628.468:0114:01b4:info:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_pipeline_library_disk_thread_main: Done performing async setup of stream archive. 0118:fixme:system:EnableNonClientDpiScaling (0000000000020072): stub 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 0120:fixme:imm:ImeSetActiveContext (0x4803d0, 0): stub 0120:fixme:imm:ImmReleaseContext (0000000000020040, 00000000004803D0): stub 0118:fixme:imm:ImeSetActiveContext (0x3c0590, 1): stub 0118:fixme:imm:ImmReleaseContext (0000000000020072, 00000000003C0590): stub info: Game: Anno1800.exe info: DXVK: v2.2 info: Found built-in config: info: d3d11.cachedDynamicResources = c info: Effective configuration: info: d3d11.cachedDynamicResources = c info: Vulkan: Found vkGetInstanceProcAddr in winevulkan.dll @ 0x3b6dc4070 info: Built-in extension providers: info: Win32 WSI info: OpenVR info: OpenXR info: OpenVR: could not open registry key, status 2 info: OpenVR: Failed to locate module info: Enabled instance extensions: info: VK_KHR_get_surface_capabilities2 info: VK_KHR_surface info: VK_KHR_win32_surface warn: Skipping CPU adapter: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.6, 256 bits) info: AMD Unknown (RADV RENOIR): info: Driver : radv 22.3.5 info: Memory Heap[0]: info: Size: 5406 MiB info: Flags: 0x0 info: Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x6 info: Memory Type[4]: Property Flags = 0xe info: Memory Type[6]: Property Flags = 0xc6 info: Memory Type[8]: Property Flags = 0xce info: Memory Heap[1]: info: Size: 10813 MiB info: Flags: 0x1 info: Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1 info: Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x1 info: Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0x7 info: Memory Type[5]: Property Flags = 0xc1 info: Memory Type[7]: Property Flags = 0xc7 0118:fixme:system:DisplayConfigGetDeviceInfo DISPLAYCONFIG_DEVICE_INFO_GET_TARGET_NAME: stub err: getMonitorDevicePath: DisplayConfigGetDeviceInfo with DISPLAYCONFIG_DEVICE_INFO_GET_TARGET_NAME failed. ret: 50 LastError: 0 err: getMonitorDevicePath: Failed to find a link from source -> target. err: getMonitorEdid: Failed to get monitor device path. err: DXGI: Failed to parse display metadata + colorimetry info, using blank. info: Game: Anno1800.exe info: DXVK: v2.2 info: Found built-in config: info: d3d11.cachedDynamicResources = c info: Effective configuration: info: d3d11.cachedDynamicResources = c info: Vulkan: Found vkGetInstanceProcAddr in winevulkan.dll @ 0x3b6dc4070 info: Built-in extension providers: info: Win32 WSI info: OpenVR info: OpenXR info: OpenVR: could not open registry key, status 2 info: OpenVR: Failed to locate module info: Enabled instance extensions: info: VK_KHR_get_surface_capabilities2 info: VK_KHR_surface info: VK_KHR_win32_surface warn: Skipping CPU adapter: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.6, 256 bits) info: AMD Unknown (RADV RENOIR): info: Driver : radv 22.3.5 info: Memory Heap[0]: info: Size: 5406 MiB info: Flags: 0x0 info: Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x6 info: Memory Type[4]: Property Flags = 0xe info: Memory Type[6]: Property Flags = 0xc6 info: Memory Type[8]: Property Flags = 0xce info: Memory Heap[1]: info: Size: 10813 MiB info: Flags: 0x1 info: Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1 info: Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x1 info: Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0x7 info: Memory Type[5]: Property Flags = 0xc1 info: Memory Type[7]: Property Flags = 0xc7 info: D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Maximum supported feature level: D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_12_0 info: D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Using feature level D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0 info: Device properties: info: Device : AMD Unknown (RADV RENOIR) info: Driver : radv 22.3.5 info: Enabled device extensions: info: VK_AMD_memory_overallocation_behavior info: VK_AMD_shader_fragment_mask info: VK_EXT_attachment_feedback_loop_layout info: VK_EXT_conservative_rasterization info: VK_EXT_custom_border_color info: VK_EXT_depth_clip_enable info: VK_EXT_memory_priority info: VK_EXT_non_seamless_cube_map info: VK_EXT_robustness2 info: VK_EXT_shader_module_identifier info: VK_EXT_shader_stencil_export info: VK_EXT_transform_feedback info: VK_EXT_vertex_attribute_divisor info: VK_KHR_external_memory_win32 info: VK_KHR_external_semaphore_win32 info: VK_KHR_pipeline_library info: VK_KHR_swapchain info: Device features: info: robustBufferAccess : 1 info: fullDrawIndexUint32 : 1 info: imageCubeArray : 1 info: independentBlend : 1 info: geometryShader : 1 info: tessellationShader : 1 info: sampleRateShading : 1 info: dualSrcBlend : 1 info: logicOp : 1 info: multiDrawIndirect : 1 info: drawIndirectFirstInstance : 1 info: depthClamp : 1 info: depthBiasClamp : 1 info: fillModeNonSolid : 1 info: depthBounds : 1 info: multiViewport : 1 info: samplerAnisotropy : 1 info: textureCompressionBC : 1 info: occlusionQueryPrecise : 1 info: pipelineStatisticsQuery : 1 info: vertexPipelineStoresAndAtomics : 1 info: fragmentStoresAndAtomics : 1 info: shaderImageGatherExtended : 1 info: shaderClipDistance : 1 info: shaderCullDistance : 1 info: shaderFloat64 : 1 info: shaderInt64 : 1 info: variableMultisampleRate : 1 info: shaderResourceResidency : 1 info: shaderResourceMinLod : 1 info: sparseBinding : 1 info: sparseResidencyBuffer : 1 info: sparseResidencyImage2D : 1 info: sparseResidencyImage3D : 1 info: sparseResidency2Samples : 0 info: sparseResidency4Samples : 0 info: sparseResidency8Samples : 0 info: sparseResidency16Samples : 0 info: sparseResidencyAliased : 1 info: Vulkan 1.1 info: shaderDrawParameters : 1 info: Vulkan 1.2 info: samplerMirrorClampToEdge : 1 info: drawIndirectCount : 1 info: samplerFilterMinmax : 1 info: hostQueryReset : 1 info: timelineSemaphore : 1 info: bufferDeviceAddress : 0 info: shaderOutputViewportIndex : 1 info: shaderOutputLayer : 1 info: vulkanMemoryModel : 1 info: Vulkan 1.3 info: robustImageAccess : 0 info: pipelineCreationCacheControl : 1 info: shaderDemoteToHelperInvocation : 1 info: shaderZeroInitializeWorkgroupMemory : 0 info: synchronization2 : 1 info: dynamicRendering : 1 info: VK_AMD_shader_fragment_mask info: extension supported : 1 info: VK_EXT_attachment_feedback_loop_layout info: attachmentFeedbackLoopLayout : 0 info: VK_EXT_conservative_rasterization info: extension supported : 1 info: VK_EXT_custom_border_color info: customBorderColors : 1 info: customBorderColorWithoutFormat : 1 info: VK_EXT_depth_clip_enable info: depthClipEnable : 1 info: VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state3 info: extDynamicState3AlphaToCoverageEnable : 0 info: extDynamicState3DepthClipEnable : 0 info: extDynamicState3RasterizationSamples : 0 info: extDynamicState3SampleMask : 0 info: VK_EXT_fragment_shader_interlock info: fragmentShaderSampleInterlock : 0 info: fragmentShaderPixelInterlock : 0 info: VK_EXT_full_screen_exclusive info: extension supported : 0 info: VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library info: graphicsPipelineLibrary : 0 info: VK_EXT_memory_budget info: extension supported : 1 info: VK_EXT_memory_priority info: memoryPriority : 1 info: VK_EXT_non_seamless_cube_map info: nonSeamlessCubeMap : 0 info: VK_EXT_robustness2 info: robustBufferAccess2 : 1 info: robustImageAccess2 : 1 info: nullDescriptor : 1 info: VK_EXT_shader_module_identifier info: shaderModuleIdentifier : 1 info: VK_EXT_shader_stencil_export info: extension supported : 1 info: VK_EXT_swapchain_colorspace info: extension supported : 0 info: VK_EXT_hdr_metadata info: extension supported : 0 info: VK_EXT_transform_feedback info: transformFeedback : 1 info: geometryStreams : 1 info: VK_EXT_vertex_attribute_divisor info: vertexAttributeInstanceRateDivisor : 1 info: vertexAttributeInstanceRateZeroDivisor : 1 info: VK_KHR_external_memory_win32 info: extension supported : 1 info: VK_KHR_external_semaphore_win32 info: extension supported : 1 info: VK_NVX_binary_import info: extension supported : 0 info: VK_NVX_image_view_handle info: extension supported : 0 info: Queue families: info: Graphics : 0 info: Transfer : 1 info: Sparse : 0 info: Memory type mask for sparse resources: 0x1fd info: DXVK: Read 9 valid state cache entries info: DXVK: Graphics pipeline libraries not supported info: DXGI: VK_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT -> VK_FORMAT_D32_SFLOAT_S8_UINT info: Presenter: Actual swap chain properties: info: Format: VK_FORMAT_B8G8R8A8_UNORM info: Color space: VK_COLOR_SPACE_SRGB_NONLINEAR_KHR info: Present mode: VK_PRESENT_MODE_IMMEDIATE_KHR info: Buffer size: 1914x1055 info: Image count: 3 info: Exclusive FS: 1 warn: DXGI: MakeWindowAssociation: Ignoring flags info: DXVK: Using 16 compiler threads 0118:fixme:ntdll:NtQuerySystemInformation info_class SYSTEM_PERFORMANCE_INFORMATION 0118:fixme:nls:get_dummy_preferred_ui_language (0x8 000000000011E880 000000000011E8A0 000000000011E884) returning a dummy value (current locale) 0118:fixme:bcrypt:BCryptGenerateSymmetricKey ignoring object buffer 025c:fixme:iphlpapi:NotifyUnicastIpAddressChange (family 2, callback 0000000143458960, context 00000000360601E0, init_notify 1, handle 00000000360601F8): semi-stub 0118:fixme:nls:get_dummy_preferred_ui_language (0x8 000000000011ED50 000000000011ED70 000000000011ED54) returning a dummy value (current locale) 0118:fixme:heap:RtlSetHeapInformation unimplemented HeapEnableTerminationOnCorruption [0526/091247.607:ERROR:main_delegate.cc(710)] Could not load locale pak for en-US [0526/091247.607:ERROR:main_delegate.cc(753)] Could not load cef_extensions.pak 0278:fixme:nls:RtlGetThreadPreferredUILanguages 00000038, 000000007D51FA60, 0000000000000000 000000007D51FA5C 0278:fixme:nls:get_dummy_preferred_ui_language (0x38 000000007D51FA60 0000000000000000 000000007D51FA5C) returning a dummy value (current locale) 0278:fixme:nls:RtlGetThreadPreferredUILanguages 00000038, 000000007D51FA60, 00000000076E8370 000000007D51FA5C 0278:fixme:nls:get_dummy_preferred_ui_language (0x38 000000007D51FA60 00000000076E8370 000000007D51FA5C) returning a dummy value (current locale) 0278:fixme:winsock:WSALookupServiceBeginW (000000007D51F7E0 0xff0 000000007D51F860) Stub! [0526/091247.666:ERROR:network_change_notifier_win.cc(157)] WSALookupServiceBegin failed with: 8 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 0278:fixme:iphlpapi:NotifyAddrChange (Handle 000000007D51FA68, overlapped 00000000076EFE58): stub [0526/091247.703:ERROR:gpu_process_transport_factory.cc(1017)] Lost UI shared context. 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" [0526/091247.720:ERROR:url_request_context_getter_impl.cc(129)] Cannot use V8 Proxy resolver in single process mode. 027c:fixme:wlanapi:WlanEnumInterfaces (0000000000000001, 0000000000000000, 00000001C4C9EEF0) semi-stub 0118:fixme:ole:CoInitializeSecurity 0000000000000000, -1, 0000000000000000, 0000000000000000, 0, 3, 0000000000000000, 0, 0000000000000000 stub 0118:fixme:wbemprox:client_security_SetBlanket 00000002419C3DA0, 0000000035AFEBD0, 10, 0, (null), 3, 3, 0000000000000000, 0x00000000 0118:fixme:wbemprox:client_security_Release 00000002419C3DA0 02dc:fixme:thread:NtSetInformationThread Can't set other thread's platform description 02e0:fixme:thread:NtSetInformationThread Can't set other thread's platform description 013c:fixme:oleacc:find_class_data unhandled window class: L"Button" info: Presenter: Actual swap chain properties: info: Format: VK_FORMAT_B8G8R8A8_UNORM info: Color space: VK_COLOR_SPACE_SRGB_NONLINEAR_KHR info: Present mode: VK_PRESENT_MODE_IMMEDIATE_KHR info: Buffer size: 1920x1080 info: Image count: 3 info: Exclusive FS: 1 0118:fixme:vulkan:wine_vk_surface_set_offscreen Redirecting vulkan surface offscreen, expect degraded performance. 0118:fixme:vulkan:wine_vk_surface_set_offscreen Redirecting vulkan surface offscreen, expect degraded performance. warn: DXGI: MakeWindowAssociation: Ignoring flags 0118:fixme:system:DisplayConfigGetDeviceInfo DISPLAYCONFIG_DEVICE_INFO_GET_TARGET_NAME: stub err: getMonitorDevicePath: DisplayConfigGetDeviceInfo with DISPLAYCONFIG_DEVICE_INFO_GET_TARGET_NAME failed. ret: 50 LastError: 0 err: getMonitorDevicePath: Failed to find a link from source -> target. err: getMonitorEdid: Failed to get monitor device path. err: DXGI: Failed to parse display metadata + colorimetry info, using blank. info: Setting display mode: [email protected] info: Setting display mode: [email protected] 0118:fixme:vulkan:wine_vk_surface_set_offscreen Putting vulkan surface back onscreen, expect standard performance. info: Presenter: Actual swap chain properties: info: Format: VK_FORMAT_B8G8R8A8_UNORM info: Color space: VK_COLOR_SPACE_SRGB_NONLINEAR_KHR info: Present mode: VK_PRESENT_MODE_FIFO_KHR info: Buffer size: 1920x1080 info: Image count: 4 info: Exclusive FS: 1 Monitored process exited. Initial process has exited (return code: 65280) Exit with return code 65280 

Hi all. I'm back from two weeks in Japan (mid-late May) and rather than do a full trip report, I wanted to cover the bits that I was most nervous about / struggled to find complete info about. Apologies about formatting, I'm on mobile because my laptop decided dying was a good welcome home gift.

Shimanami Kaido - over 2 days

My partner wanted to do this. He's very active and does cycle casually to work. Before this year I'm not sure I'd touched a bike in maybe a decade. We're both late 20s. I'm not super fit but not wildly unfit either - I play some sport but wouldn't really describe myself as athletic.
We decided to start from Onomichi, cycle to Omishima on day 1 and then push to Imabari on day 2 to arrive before lunch so we could get a train to the ryokan we had booked (near Kyoto).
Booking: we did this easily through the Shimanami Kaido website. I got an email saying they'd accepted my reservation but no other follow-up. You pay cash when you pick up the bikes. We each were given a road bike with 24 gears. We returned them in Imabari no problems.
The bikes: we had no issues with them, but as other people have said the seats leave something to be desired. My butt hurt for about 2 days after, but it wasn't as bad as I had feared. If you don't want a sore butt, bring bike shorts or a seat cover.
Baggage: we each had a small backpack (just a normal backpack nothing special). We also had a small suitcase. We posted this via Yamato transport to our ryokan, using the 7-11 in Onomichi before we left. It cost about 1500¥ I think, less than the Yamato website has quoted me. I filled out the postage form in English and it got there no problem!
The cycle path: some people had reported having trouble following the blue line. This was NOT my experience, it was extremely easy to follow. There were one or two turns that came on you quickly but they were sign posted. We didn't get lost even when we went off the path cause the locals can obviously see you have a bike and will happily point you back in the right direction. We also had two maps that we found at the ferry terminal on Onomichi/Mukaishima which were fully in English.
The hills: according to the signs, the average hill up to the bridges is 3%. (I don't know what that number really means tho.) Other than those and one 5% hill on Oshima, the main route is totally flat. We also did a bit of the "island explorer" on Innoshima which was also flat at it goes around the coast. The hills were very manageable for me using a low gear - I only stopped and walked twice (once on day 1 and the second time on the Oshima hill). Though I WAS slow and my partner met me at the top each time. Going back downhill on the other side was always a really fun reward for making it! Both days we EASILY finished our route by around 1pm.
Accom: we stayed at ILINK hostel on Omishima. It was great, heaps of space and storage for bikes. Finding food was a little more challenging, everywhere seemed to be closed.
Overall: I highly recommend doing this. If you're not sure about your fitness, split it up over a few days. Note that if you start cycling too early in the morning a lot of the island attractions won't be open yet, so you might want to take it slower than we did. But I enjoyed cycling along by the water much more than I expected. Reward yourself with a ryokan/onsen after, it feels amazing.
Last point: if you can, I would recommend starting in Imabari, because the 7kms or so through Imabari are... Not as pretty. You're just cycling on normal town streets there, so it was an anticlimactic finish. Finishing in Onomichi would have been nicer.

Tateyama-Kurobe

We booked a through ticket between Dentetsu Toyama and Ogizawa, and the express bus to Nagano. I was a bit confused cause the booking email still said "pick up tickets in Tateyama", even though we booked from Dentetsu Toyama. But there was a ticket dispenser at Dentetsu Toyama as well, where you can scan your booking QR code and it will print the ticket you need to use on the route (and our bus tickets too). So that was easier than I expected!
We wanted to do walks at Midagahara. The staff warned us they were still covered in snow, but we were happy to walk on snow. What the staff DIDN'T mention is that the paths are so covered in snow at this time of year that you can't see them. So we had to give up on that. We did stumble around on the snow for about 40 minutes (staying within sight of the hotel and it was a clear day) anyway and that was pretty fun. But yeah - getting wet feet wasn't the issue. We just couldn't see the path at all!
Otherwise, the trip was lovely with the snow still covering everything. The snow wall was awesome but you can't get too close as it is a road still.
Only other comment is that the express bus isn't really that express. It stopped at about 5 or 6 random places that wasn't on the Alpine route map (and no one got on or off). It still took the time stated on the ticket (about 1 hr 50) but only cause it went about 80km/hr max which felt slooooow. Also, there are no toilets on the bus.

Shirakawa-go

We pre-booked a bus from Shin-Takaoka which arrived no issues (despite the station being literally deserted besides us which made me wonder if we were in the right place haha). No toilets on that bus either but it was a smooth ride.
We paid 600¥ each to go in the Gassho-Zukkuri Minkaen open air museum which was definitely worth it, you get to see about 20 buildings and can go into 4 of them. Two you even get to go up to the 3rd level! Definitely worth the money. Not all the signs inside the houses have English though, but the building labels outside do have English.
We didn't pay to go into anything else, but had a good time wandering around the village and climbing up to the viewpoint. Did find it a bit weird that the "best" photo spot had been claimed by a photo business and they pushed you to either side unless you wanted to pay, but the photo spot you're able to use was just was good so... It was just kinda bizarre.
We booked the bus back to Toyama (online via the Nobu bus website) while waiting, since we didn't know in advance what time we'd want to return. I stupidly booked the wrong day, which caused some confusion when the bus arrived - but thankfully I was able to immediately go into the bus station and pay cash for tickets on that bus before it left. I cancelled my online ticket and got a refund (less a 200¥ fee) which processed immediately. Phew!

Other learnings

• Google maps can't be trusted when it comes to what restaurants are open. Several times we arrived to "open" places and found them shut.
• Google lens can't really cope with vertical writing, unfortunately. But we managed well enough!

Hopefully this helps someone.

I always wanted to be a mermaid as a little kid.
I guess my fixation first stemmed from my obsession with water—or pools when I was younger. I’ve looked for an explanation online, but there isn’t one. For reasons unknown, as a child I was mesmerised by water. Not real water. But the water on TV. Real water freaked me out. Mom would take me to the local pool during the summer and I have a vague memory of being wrapped in floaties and accidentally bobbing over to the deep end of the pool.
I only went under for maybe half a second, though it was enough to make me realise real-life water was not fun. Real life water could hurt me. The pools on GTA however, when my dad used to play it on the family TV, was where it was at. Yep. I would sit there for hours on end watching my dad playing Grand Theft Auto, waiting for the magical moment when he’d suddenly dive into the sea, or even better, some random person’s fancy pool.
It didn’t matter if he drowned, I just enjoyed those precious moments of the little character diving into the depths, the funny motion he did with his arms and legs as bubbles exploded around him and the bar at the top of the screen started to flash red. I would crawl over to the TV and press my face against the screen, scanning every pixel for underwater life. It was the same for every game. If there was a water level or a pool level, or enough water to submerge my character, I was in heaven.
The first level in Kingdom Hearts on the beach? I would just force Sora to swim out as far as the game would let me—much to my siblings' annoyance. Hitman (I can’t remember which one) I would direct him into a pool. Regardless of whatever the guy’s mission was, Agent 47 was going swimming.
I’m not sure why I was so fascinated by pools on the TV. They just looked pretty. As I got older, I attached myself to water-related, and then mermaid related media. The Little Mermaid, Aquamarine, and Splash to name a few. I was that kid who searched for “mermaid potions” online and was convinced if I swallowed a glass of salt water and prayed really hard, I would grow my own tail. Thankfully, I grew out of whatever the hell that was. After finding a picture of what a real mermaid looked like, or at least the ones from lore—and they in fact looked nothing like Disney’s depictions, I was put off by them.
Especially when I read they lured people to their deaths. But that’s every fairy-tale, right? Magic always comes from the darkest and most twisted tales ever written.
I wasn’t expecting to find a mermaid restaurant in one of the most remote parts of Japan.
Sure, I knew Japan had some interestingly themed café’s, but this one stood out. It was supposed to be a vacation. Japan—a two week stay in Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s islands, famous for its food, hot springs, and ski resorts. I had spent four years planning this trip.
I was sixteen when I decided I was going to go to Japan in my second year of college, and in the middle of Summer of 2018, three of my housemates and I landed in the capital. After spending the first half of our trip in Tokyo, and stuffing ourselves with mouth-watering cuisine, we were ready for a change. According to every video I had watched on YouTube related to tourism in Japan, as well as Rui, my half Japanese housemate who was acting as our sort of tour guide, Hokkaido was the best place to find local dishes we wouldn’t find anywhere else.
Born in the south of Japan and quickly moving to America before he turned two years old, Rui was fluent in the language despite living in South Carolina for most of his life. It was his parents who were determined not to leave their culture and language behind, so growing up, he had quickly gotten used to speaking both Japanese and English, favouring Japanese when he was comfortable with us, and we could just about speak the very basics. When he was drunk, Rui didn’t bother translating. So, we were pretty much in the dark about whatever he was laughing about.
I can admit, however, that I was an idiot for expecting him to know exactly where we were going. I already knew Hokkaido was going to be deserted in places. We were warned that some towns’ populations were tiny, with most of them being elderly people, and not all of them were foreigner friendly.
I could understand that.
I would too if I was them. But we were determined to get the full experience, and if that included being turned away by locals, I figured I could deal with it.
Our bus dropped us in the middle of nowhere, a small coastal town with a dwindling population. We found the Mermaid restaurant after almost an hour of searching for a place to eat—and getting turned away from three café’s.
Again, I didn’t blame these people. I would be weirded out too if four tourists appeared in our small little town which wasn’t used to strangers. Rui would go in to test the waters and see how the locals were—and they seemed okay with him. It was when the rest of us peeked in, the owners eyes sort of widening, and suddenly they were closing soon—and when Sara pointed to the sign on the door which translated to “open late” they were ushering us out, and I was trying real hard not to be offended.
These guys were polite in the nicest way possible but made it very clear our presence made them uncomfortable. So, we kept looking. Until Sara found a place on Google Maps. The place translated to “water café” and that was exactly what we wanted. Food—and the perfect view of the sea. It was a ten minute walk, and right next to the ocean. The photos on the website didn’t even give it justice.
The building was old and crumbling, and yet still standing strong on top of the sea, a giant dolphin carved into the roof. The sun was setting when we rushed in with rapidly melting ice-cream we had gotten from a nearby vendor. Sara was already freaking out because the sea was so close, and Rui jumped onto a platform and stood on his tiptoes, taking as many different angled photos as possible. The last time I saw the sun for a really long time was that night.
I remember staring up and grinning at a cotton candy coloured sunset which blended in with ocean waves slamming into rocks below. I remember wanting nothing more than to stay in that exact position forever. Moving down the platform set up for outside dining, we were standing right over the sea—and when I peered over, my stomach flipped over. I couldn’t swim well, and yet the idea of diving into the watery oblivion below was strangely appealing.
I was in awe as soon as I stepped through automatic doors into the restaurant, revelling in the air con. Japanese summers were brutal. Not necessarily because of the heat, but because of the humidity. We had only been there for maybe six of seven days, and I was going through three shirts a day, and maxing out five cans of deodorant. The sudden blast of ice-cold in my air was perfect.
Nate and Sara were already rushing inside, freaking out over an ancient vending machine full of brightly coloured seals, and I was following hesitantly behind them, with a nervous looking Rui at my side. The place was mostly empty to my surprise. It was the middle of summer, and this beautiful restaurant sitting right on the edge of the sea had barely any customers. I guessed it was a small town so they didn’t have many patrons.
The place was large, lit up in warm golden light and a low ceiling. While Nate and Sara grabbed us window seats and Rui ordered food, I found myself mesmerised by a large glass tank spanning the circumference of the room. At first, I didn’t see her. I was hypnotised by glowing blue water—my childlike self seeping back into me. But then there she was, a beautiful woman with hair the colour of the night.
At first I thought she was some kind of performer doing water-tricks for customers. Then though, I realised she didn’t have legs. Instead, a long bluish tail. For a moment, I was startled. Looking at this girl, there was no sign of breathing equipment or even an inclination that she was struggling to breathe underwater. And yet there she was, right at the bottom, her hands pressed against the glass. I couldn’t resist, pressing my palm to the ice-cold surface. I wanted to join her, suddenly.
The water looked so good. So tempting.
“She’s not real, genius.”
A voice startled me, and I twisted around to find Rui three inches from my face, a smirk curving on his lips. It was his ponytail which had attracted me to him upon first meeting. At that point, he’d said he couldn’t be bothered to cut it and was waiting for the right time. He never did.
Now, it was his staple style; a loose ponytail, stark black hair straying in playful eyes, and a dimpled smile I often found myself captivated by. Rui was the first guy I had met who suited ponytails, and that only attracted me more. Moving in with the guy, however, had made me realise he was more of an annoying younger brother type. You know, the kind of guy who never cleans up after himself and has an unhealthy obsession with video games. I was expecting him to join me. His facial expression was teasing as usual, brown flecked eyes drinking me in, a brow raised. When I could only frown at him, he shrugged and pointed to a sign stuck to the tank—which I had failed to notice. “I’m not great with Kanji, but I’m pretty sure that means she’s fake.” Rui nodded to the sticker. “See? It says it right there.”
Turning back to the girl in the tank, I could only protest with a laugh. When I was really looking, though, I noticed her tail wasn’t moving—or it was, but only in intervals. Her face looked real, but her body was more of a mannequin-like form which looked robotically controlled. When the mermaid’s fingers tapped the tank, I had to hold in a hiss. Jeez, I couldn’t believe I thought she was real for a moment. “Her name is Ai.” Rui’s gaze was on another sticker which I failed to notice.
“Nise,” Rui translated, poking me in my cheek. “Also, fake. If you could read Japanese, which you can’t,” he shot me a grin. “There’s an explanation right in front of you.” He read it out in Japanese, where I could only understand maybe three words before translating.
“Ai is said to be the last of her kind, and has been with us since we opened,” he read out. “Please treat her with kindness and do not put your hands on the glass.” Rui frowned. “It’s said that Ai and her family were hunted for their flesh which was rumoured to hold the key to immortality and power. When her siblings were brutally killed and skinned by fishermen, Ai cut her heart into pieces and dropped it into the sea.” He squinted. “Shit. It’s hard to read because half of it has been rubbed off…”
He groaned. “Uh, something about her cutting out her own voice box to prove to the town she wasn’t a threat. She offered to grant four town’s people’s children power in exchange for her life being spared. They tried to kill her that same night, and she fled the town. They built this to commemorate her.”
Straightening up, Rui pulled a face. “So, in conclusion? Human’s suck.” He heaved out a sigh. “Buuut, we knew that already.”
I couldn’t resist my gaze flicking back to the mermaid. “They built this to remember the girl they supposedly…” I lowered my voice into a murmur. “Hunted and skinned?”
“They killed her family.” He corrected, pointing to another sticker. “She had two brothers and two sisters. Their voices were ripped out.”
In the corner of my eye, Nate and Sara were manically gesturing us over. “Why would they be threats with their voices?”
“You’re kidding.” Rui arched a brow. “Have you ever heard of a Siren? You know, bloodthirsty fish people who lure fishermen to their death? Why do you think Ursula needed Ariel’s voice?” He knocked on the glass of the tank. “To hypnotise Eric, and like, take the throne, or whatever. I think I fell asleep halfway through the second movie with the other mermaid.”
I chuckled. “You mean her daughter? You’re strangely knowledgeable on The Little Mermaid lore.”
“Yeah, well, having you as a housemate for the last few years has turned me into a Disney freak.”
“Hey! We need a translator!” Nate, while trying to be polite, was doing a hell of a good job at getting our attention.
I gestured for him to shut up, and he immediately stopped dramatically waving his arms. Nate Costa was an introvert inside an extrovert’s body. By that, I mean he looked like he played college football and definitely had the form for it, broad shoulders and built like a brick wall, but preferred to hang out with the resident cat at house parties and had recently gotten us all obsessed with Criminal Minds.
Brandishing thick, reddish curls and pasty skin, my housemate definitely stuck out like a sore thumb. Sara was half Korean on her dad’s side and was probably the most beautiful girl I had ever met, willowy brown hair framing a heart shaped face.
Like Nate, she was quiet around strangers, and a menace when it came to just the four of us. The two of them deserved each other. Two little awkward peas in a pod.
“Rui!”
Nate was getting impatient.
Rolling my eyes at them, I gestured to the table they had sought out—and after one last look at Ai, the two of us made out way over and quickly took our seats. It was dark outside by the time we had ordered our food. The menu’s weren’t in English, though were expecting that. Thankfully, Rui helped us pick. I did notice there weren’t many employee’s; only a guy in his early twenties, his identity hidden by a mask. I turned in my chair to marvel at the eerie glow of the half crescent moon illuminating the sea below, when a perky waitress practically dived to our table, and immediately took an interest in the boys.
She was nice enough to us, nodding and bowing, setting four glasses of water down.
But then her gaze flashed to Nate, who was frowning at the lack of signal on his phone, and Rui peering at the menu. Initially, it was a fairly normal dining experience. I got a soupy like broth and noodles with its own local name. I was halfway through it, practically salivating it was so good, when the waitress appeared again with bright eyes. This time, she grabbed Rui’s arm and dragged him to his feet. It was playful, though there was a glimmer in her eyes, a certain twist in her lips which told him he didn’t have a choice.
“Boys.” The waitress was grinning wildly. She gestured a clueless looking Nate to get to his feet, and after getting the go-ahead smile from Rui, he did. Looking thoroughly confused, and slightly scared, my housemate couldn’t have looked more awkward. His gaze kept going to his unfinished meal, but every time he made a move to return to his seat, the girl made a protesting sound. I was nodding and smiling at this girl, giggling when she said something in English, referring to the boy’s as special, but when I was really looking at her expression, her eyes seemed… still. Unblinking. Almost like she was looking right through me. When she laughed, there was no contortion in her facial muscles, and I could have sworn there was something tingeing her face, like a sickly green mould creeping its way across her cheek.
The more I was looking at her, she was beginning to resemble Ai in the fish tank; her body moved in twitching intervals to mimic human movement but there was no real life in her face. I was ready to grab my friends and make a run for it. Especially when she started to repeat the same thing over and over again in both Japanese and English, her grip seemingly tightening on a squirming Rui’s arm.
“Boys!” She gasped out in a breathy laugh, gesturing over to the counter. “Danshi.”
Sara laughed nervously, shooting me a look. She had already finished her meal, sipping her water.
“Uh, what’s going on?”
Rui didn’t exactly look like he was enjoying himself, trying to wrench from the girl’s grip, but his slightly strained smile was reassuring. I didn’t trust it though.
His expression, unlike the girl’s, was filled, ignited, with life. Life, which was silently begging us to do something. “They’re just surprised to see us,” he said, when another girl seemingly came out of nowhere, and latched herself to Nate. When the two of them were dragged away, I had no idea what to do.
I jumped from my chair, with Sara following suit, but Rui was quick to twist around. “They’re just excited to see us!” He shouted. “We’ll be back soon, okay?” From the tone of his voice, I could tell Rui was lying. He had no idea where the fuck he was being taken and was subtly telling us to maybe call the cops if they were gone for too long.
Nate was quieter. He may act like an idiot sometimes, but the guy was on anxiety medication. We were in a partially deserted town in the middle of nowhere with several slightly unhinged waitresses who were treating him and Rui like god’s, the guy was bound to be freaking out.
I watched the two of them shoved into the back room behind the counter, and when I was sure we were alone, I slumped back into my seat with a choked out laugh. Sara’s eyes were wide. She kept glancing at her phone frantically, and I shook my head.
“They’re probably…just talking to them, or whatever.”
Sara squeaked. “You think that was just casual friendliness?”
“Sara, they’re just excited.”
“I wouldn’t call that excited,” she took another sip of her drink and fanned herself. “Did it get hot in here?”
“Relax. They’re fine.”
“That was obsession,” Sara was sweating, I noticed. “Hysteria.”
“Well…” I thought back to the vacant look in the waitresses eyes, and my stomach twisted into knots. “Yeah.” I drained my water, suddenly feeling nauseous. Had it gotten hotter? I could have sworn the air-con was still on, but my arms suddenly felt like they were burning.
Settling my housemate with what I hoped was a reassuring smile, I announced I was going to get more water. But when I jumped up, my head sort of… danced. I’m not sure I can put it into words. It didn’t spin. I knew what a spinning head was—the aftermath of a long night and too many strawberry daiquiris. This was different. Instead of spinning off its axis, my brain felt like it was bobbing up and down. I remember somehow staggering my way to the counter, suddenly incredibly thirsty, a relentless burn at the back of my throat.
It was everywhere, an ignition of fire which had started on my arms, moving down to my legs, and creeping across my gut. “Hello?” Forgetting Sara’s existence, I was suddenly all too aware that as well as feeling like I had just been dipped inside molten lava, I needed to drink something. Whether that was water, soda, fucking sewage. I didn’t care. I just needed something to quench this inhuman scratching at the back of my throat.
“Hey!” My voice became a panicked yell, and part of my brain which wasn’t choked with fog and cotton candy realised Sara was silent. It took maybe half a second for my vision to be reduced to blurry pinpricks—and when I squinted, grasping the front counter for an anchor, I glimpsed movement through the back room doors.
A flash of movement, footsteps running, a shadow bleeding into view; a shadow I knew. Rui. I saw half of his face. His hair was soaking wet, strands plastered over half lidded eyes. It wasn’t until I saw smears of red under his nose, and red tinged water soaking his white shirt, when my brain kicked itself into gear. He was so close. So close to the door, his fingers gripping onto the side, only for a monstrous arm to whip out and slam a hand over his mouth, muffling his cry and yanking him back violently. When the door slammed behind him, I remembered how to walk.
But I… couldn’t. My body felt like it was on fire, and suddenly all I wanted to do was throw myself into the tank with the fake mermaid. I remember my legs giving way. Just like that.
One moment I could feel my legs, and the next I couldn’t.
I was lying on my back, blinking rapidly at something squirming under the flesh of my arms, when a shadow loomed over me. I couldn’t concentrate on her words, on her broken English, as my gaze followed a greenish tinge tearing its way up my arm, and like a virus, it was spreading, filling my veins and expanding further and further until I could feel it choking me, writhing up my throat, my body jolting as I coughed up mouthfuls of water.
It felt… good. At least for the hazy moment I was trapped in a singularity where time didn’t exist and I was mesmerised by the contortions in my chest.
It didn’t feel natural. Nothing felt natural. Not the green tinge entangling my veins and seeping into my bloodstream, or the convulsions in my throat every time my body forced fluid from every orifice, leaving me to choke on my own liquidised insides.
The girl, however, told me with simple touches, her dancing fingertips across ignited bones, that everything was going to be okay. The water which gushed from my mouth, nose and ears—it soothed my skin which was on fire. It was salt water, stinging my flesh at first, but then caressing me like I was already enveloped in the ocean. “Child.” The shadow bled into a real person, and blinking through fog, I could have sworn I recognised the hair which ticked my face when she bent down, her cool hands wrapping around my body, and claw-like fingernails pinching my skin.
She spoke in Japanese first, followed by English. Her hold on me was oddly gentle, and I was grateful for her cradling my body to her chest. When a thicker texture than water slithered from my mouth, and I glimpsed thick rivulets of red dripping down my chin, I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed for it to stop. But it didn’t stop.
It kept going, purging me of every liquid in my body. The woman’s voice was a melody singing inside my head lulling me to slumber, as she moved in slow, solemn strides. Like I was attending my own funeral. Something snapped inside my mind like a switch being pulled, and the hazy fog drowning me began to subside.
I felt how light I was in her embrace, every mouthful of water spilling from my lips felt like razor blades cutting me into pieces. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and when I did, when I sucked in precious gasps for air, my lungs rejected it, stars speckling my vision. It was like drowning, I thought dizzily as the woman rocked me from side to side. I was drowning on land. I was drowning with air in my lungs, and no matter how hard I tried to force my body to realise that, it kept panicking.
Sister.
I recognised the word for sister floating through my brain.
Eien ni ikitaidesu ka?
Her voice rattled in my ears, followed by the translation – and I allowed the sound of crashing waves to take me away.
“Would you like to live forever?”
…
I woke with a static radio inside my head and the sudden sinking feeling that I couldn’t feel my legs. I was in a tub overflowing with water, my numb body enveloped inside its depths. It felt like a prison, almost. I felt it lapping under my chin as I sunk deeper, my head sliding down cold porcelain. The burning had stopped. The pain which encompassed me, and the thirst igniting my throat.
All gone.
But with it, so had every other feeling. I could see ice bobbing in front of me, and yet failed to feel the sensation of the cold. It was shock, I thought. Surely. I waited for familiar sensations to hit me and propel me into fight or flight, but I was numb.
I couldn’t feel anything. For a moment, my brain was sticky with fog, before my vision cleared and I drunk in my surroundings; a large bathroom with marble walls which were supposed to be pristine white, and yet were splattered and smeared old red. I could see it on every surface, on the floor, dripping from the walls, and staining the tub I was in. When I tried to force myself into a sitting position, I couldn't move.
My right arm was cuffed to the tub, and in front of me, I couldn't even see below my torso. The water was too murky, a soup of red dilated around where my legs were supposed to be. Tugging my arm, panic creeping its way up my throat, I glimpsed something which wasn't right. It didn't look right-- but for the moment my mind couldn't register it. The skin on my arm didn't look like skin anymore. Instead, resembling marble, and like a virus it was growing, expanding across my elbow and creeping its way towards my shoulder.
A scream tugged in my throat, and I forced my body to move-- to do something. But it was less like a body, and more like a mass severed from me. My gaze flicked to plastic curtains stained that same deep shade of red-- before a shadow appeared.
The curtain was pushed back, and I was greeted to a figure wearing a plastic apron, a mask hiding their identity. They knelt in front of the tub and dipped their finger in the water before pulling it out. I drowned in silence for what felt like forever while the figure turned and sorted through metallic instruments, before a sound shattered my ears. Splashing. And when I strained my ears and struggled to push through the fog… choking, spluttering, and what sounded like pleading. I knew that voice.
I knew the cries collapsing into gurgling, and if I concentrated, I could sense his flailing body. Nate. When I twisted my head, I see him across the room, strained against crimson stained marble, his head being forced into the freezing depths of another overflowing tub while the rest of him struggled, battering arms attempting to shove away his attacker. But failing.
They were drowning him. Killing him.
The words entered my mind and I expected my body to react, but there was nothing, just the jolt of my arm still attached to the cuff restraining me.
I felt my lips curve into his name, but my voice splintered in my throat, shattering into nothing. When the sputtering sounds stopped, and my friend’s body went limp, I had no time to register what was happening. Nate was picked up and carried away, a sopping wet tangle of limbs dangling from the woman’s arms, and the figure kneeling in front of me had finally picked an instrument. It resembled a scalpel with sharper teeth, and when he held it to the light, cocking their head, I wondered if drowning myself would be appropriate at that moment. If sinking deeper under the water would allow me to escape whatever this person—this monster—was going to do to me.
I watched in feverish anticipation as they removed their mask to reveal a smile with too sharp teeth. It was a guy, not much older than me. Western, judging by his features. I could only guess he too used to be a tourist. But I couldn’t possibly call him a guy, or even human. Now I was fully drinking him in, his eyes were a milky white and resembled the waitresses from earlier. There was an emptiness in his expression, a vacancy in his eyes.
And when my gaze allowed itself to wander, I was seeing more of him; what he had been turned into, or at least almost been turned into. Under the sputtering bulb above, I could just about make out that same green tinge I’d seen onmy arms. This time it had eaten its way through half of his face, and I didn’t even realise until his grin widened, his mouth more of a skeletal sneer. When he reached forward and shoved my head under the water, I glimpsed what was left of his arm, shrivelled up flesh entwined with something resembling scales.
“Breathe.”
His voice was a low murmur above the surface, and when I struggled, or tried to struggle, he pushed me deeper, water gushing into my mouth. I expected my body to panic, to flail, but it was paralysed without legs. I was forced under the surface three times, and it was only the fourth time, when the guy was getting increasingly more frustrated, when it hit me what he was saying. “Breathe.”
His almost robotic tone hummed in my mind, and I did. Instead of fighting against the water seeping into me like usual, I sucked in a breath and breathed out. And once I did that, noticing my body and brain had failed to react like they were supposed to—I was dragged back to the surface, and his skeletal smile was three inches from mine. He held up the scalpel, and something snapped inside me. No. I mouthed the word when I realised what he was going to do. But I didn’t have a voice. There was just strange hissing around every time I spoke, like my voice had been severed from me. Ignoring my silent protests, the guy forced me onto my side, and I felt it automatically, a heavy mass underneath me which didn’t feel like legs. I kept wondering if they were gone.
That’s what it felt like. These maniacs has cut off my legs and replaced them with… with what? I didn’t feel the blade slicing into my flesh at first. I was numb. I couldn’t feel anything. But then he was putting far too much pressure on it, dragging the scalpel deeper and deeper until I could feel the teeth cutting through muscle and bone. He made four single strokes before forcing me onto my back once more.
Without a word, and putting his mask back on, the guy straightened up and stepped back, tugging the curtains shut. It was only when he had left me bleeding out into icy cold water, I started to glimpse what was in front of me. When I was a little girl, I had sat in my bathtub and stared real hard at my legs, wishing and wishing and wishing they would somehow morph into my very own mermaid tail.
But those types of mermaid's didn't exist. The ones we want to be, mermaids with magical powers and fish friends. Every child's dream. As my own blood diffused the water around me, my eyes found the horrifying mass of flesh which had grown from my torso, fusing my legs together.
It wasn't finished. I could still see its progress, the greenish flesh-eating thing which had eaten away at that boy's face was ravaging through my own body, transforming skin and bone into something else entirely. I don't remember screaming because I no longer had a voice. But when I continued to scream, thrashing against cool marble, I felt it, something went and warm with the texture of soup, or maybe barf, dripping from my mouth every time I attempted to use my voice putting pressure on my vocal chords, blood filled my mouth in fleshy lumps which I had to spit into the water or swallow down. It was when my vision was blurring with stars, and another shadow had come to lift me from the tub, when I realised I had choked up what I was pretty sure was my voice—or at least the shredded organ which allowed me to speak. Time passed.
I wasn’t sure how much. I vaguely remember being carried down a long hallway which felt like it stretched across the universe. I do remember the woman held me gently, almost like a mother holding her child.
Initially, when I was still human, or at least when I could still breathe without water, I was left inside a tiny room for days, like they were waiting for my body to reject air—to reject land. Every so often, they would come in and pour a bucket of ice cold water over me so I could breathe.
I stopped reacting when my body started to climatise. Consciousness was cruel. I delved into the dark and prayed to stay there. But once the thing had finished with my legs, or at least what was left of them, it wound its way through my body, purging me from the inside. There was something I couldn’t ignore. I heard it for the first time in the tub, but now it was stronger. Like a physical thing trying to crack my skull open. Screams. Though they didn’t sound like they were coming from anywhere near me, or rooms nearby. They sounded like they were directly inside my head.
“Where…. am I?”
“I can’t breathe. My chest feels like it’s…burning….I’m hungry. I’m so… so fucking… hungry.”
“Why can’t I move? I can’t…. I can’t… move!”
I don’t remember being dropped into a large tank—only waking up and realising I was underwater. It’s not exactly the reaction you might think. I still felt human, even when half of me wasn’t.
So, the human part of me freaked out, once I was aware of being enveloped in icy depths and my hair spiralling around me in a vicious halo, I panicked and tried to project my body to the surface.
But I couldn’t swim. I never learned how to swim properly so my body just flailed pathetically, and I was forced to come to terms with what was part of me, the disgusting writhing thing which had grown from my torso. It wasn’t a tail. It was too big to be a tail. I couldn’t even move the damn thing. When I slammed my hands into the glass of the tank, a noise splintered its way into my skull. It started like static, like a radio being tuned in, before a voice exploded into my brain.
“Don’t freak out.” Rui. I’d known him for almost three years, and no matter how hard he was trying to sound reassuring, he himself was definitely freaking out. His voice was barely comprehensible, more of a garbled confusing string of static I had to replay in my mind until I could understand it. It came again, this time slamming into me in wave of white noise. “She wants to talk. We’re… we’re going to let her talk. She said if we don’t listen to her she will consider us unfriendly.”
Talk?
Twisting around in blanketed depths, I could barely see anything. The water around me was filthy.
“Cass!”
Rui’s voice was an impatient hiss scratching against my skull. “Will you listen to her?”
I jumped when a knock sounded, and there he was on the other side of the glass.
It was the white in his eyes I saw first; a milky glow which was spreading around his iris almost resembling a crescent moon. Rui was pale, soaking wet, and half of his face had been taken over by the same thing which had stolen my legs.
I could see it eating away at his flesh, converting skin to scale, or half skin and half scale. Looking at him, the guy didn't even look like my friend. More of a mimic.
I could almost resemble him to a... fish. The hollowness in his face, gaunt cheeks, and much sharper teeth when he opened his mouth to speak, before shaking his head, his lip curling. His body was still his at least. Though that thought crumbled in my mind when I realised he was struggling to stand. And when I looked closer, his bare feet on marble flooring were webbed, each toe beginning to fuse together. Rui had legs. They were awkward and stumbling, and he was clearly having a hard time staying upright, but he had them. I just wasn't sure how long he would have them for.
"She said we're... beautiful," Rui whispered into my head, each word sending sharp rivulets of red dripping from his nose. "We're the most beautiful beings she has ever seen, and she wants us to stay with her," He paused. "She lost her siblings, and she's been..." He screwed up his face, and for a moment it looked like he was struggling to breathe. His gaze was suddenly on the tank, on the water imprisoning me. I knew exactly how he felt.. His lungs were burning. "Lonely." Rui finished. "She's been so lonely, and humans amuse her. They excite her.”
Ai, I thought.
He was talking about the mermaid on display.
Rui continued, and I could tell from the look on his face he was repeating Ai's words. “She is the last of her kind. And after hiding for so many years, she has decided to find her family again by cutting her own heart into pieces, and… feeding it to customers.” Rui’s swallowed. “And we… we’re the only ones who… who survived the process. The rest of them... drowned, or rejected the change. But Ai has never hurt the ones she tries to change. Instead, they... they stay with her, and those pieces of them are granted eternal life with her. As she searches for her lost… siblings!” This time, what had been his attempt at a calm murmur collapsed into a strangled cry when something grabbed him. When Rui disappeared from behind the glass suddenly, I panicked. His voice, though, continued, echoing in my skull.
He sounded like he was moving, or more likely being dragged. "She says... we have to embrace it. If we don't, we will have no choice but to become part of her forever and offer her our... humanity. Those who stay at her side sacrifice half of themselves while she continues to… to… uh--- shit!”
A loud splash sounded from the surface, and I found myself with a face-full of bubbles as water sloshed around me.
“Silly boy.”
He gasped out in my head. But I heard her voice too. It was perfectly clear, almost like their voices were intertwined.
“You… amuse me,” she chuckled, speaking in both Japanese and English. “Two full days and your lungs still crave air.”
Her voice was melodic, a hypnotising murmur which filled my brain like cotton candy. “You…. amuse…. me.” Rui’s mental cry came out in sharp bursts of static. “Two… full d—days… and you still… crave… air.” When I tipped my head back, I glimpsed a slender wrist delve into the water and grasp hold of him, yanking him out. Rui didn’t speak after that.
I heard an attempt, though whatever connection had entangled our thoughts was severed once Ai had yanked him to his feet and pulled him away. I was slamming my hands into the glass, as if I could break it if I kept throwing myself against it, when something moved behind me. I saw it, a shadow looming.
Twisting around, I found myself face to face with what was left of a human skull. It was attached to something which had withered away, eaten at its body. But once I was seeing it, and I was looking around, glimpsing shadows which bled into half eaten corpses. I could still see where that thing, the thing which had been forced into my blood, had attempted to convert human tissue into scales, and ultimately failed, skinning them of their flesh.
Mutilated legs and half grown tails.
I was inside her experimentation tank—where humans she turned either submitted to her or were eaten alive.
Rui falling in must have caused a rift in the water, dislodging every failure from hidden depths. Every human whose legs refused to morph, to transform and metamorphosise into a monster, surrounded me, and I just had to hope and pray that the hand wrapped around my wrist, claw-like fingernails slicing into my flesh—was human. Even in the pitch dark water, however, I could still see the glint of red hair, the shimmer of pasty skin which had always looked moonlit in contrast to hair. Now though, it was sickly and pallid.
Nate was breathing underwater, there was doubt in my mind that he had surpassed that stage. His body, however, was still human. His eyes were still his, if only for the slightest tinge of white spotting his pupil. If I looked close enough, I could glimpse strips of his flesh skinned by the water itself, as if made of tiny, perforating blades. I had seen was a success, or at least the beginning of a success was in Rui. Now that I was face to face with Nate, I understood was a rejection was.
Nate's eyes were wide, almost cartoon-like, his mouth open in a silent cry, as his legs, which had failed to fuse into a tail, were slowly ripped apart, chunks of flesh floating around him.
The guy's grip tightened on me, bubbles erupting around him. His mouth opened, and I caught what had been the start of sharpening incisors, before stopping abruptly.
When his mental cry slid its way into my mind, his deafening, pained screams rattling my skull as I watched the skin on his face transform into a fleshy scale-like substance, only one thought brewed in my mind. And it was enough to elicit my own screech joining the cacophony inside my head growing louder and louder, each of us encompassing each other.
Fuck my childhood wish.

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/opticmajor2023
Header Image ^[Imgur]
The next HCS Major kicks off on June 30th in Arlington Texas and it will be hosted by the 2022 World Champions - OpTic Gaming!
Join us live - secure your tickets today!
HCS Major Arlington - Hosted by OpTic Gaming (June 30th - July 2nd ^[Imgur]

Key Info

• Date: June 30 - July 2
• Venue: Esports Stadium Arlington
• Event Type: Global Open
• Broadcast: Twitch and YouTube
• Spectator Tickets: Available NOW
• Team Pass: Available Friday May 26 @ 10a PT / 1p ET
• 4v4 Prize Pool: $250,000

Venue, Tickets, and Team Passes

Venue: Esports Stadium Arlington
Address: 1200 Ballpark Way, Arlington, TX 76011
GENERAL ADMISSION 3-DAY TICKETS
Price: $50

• Entrance into event for the entirety of the tournament.
• Access to compete in the Free-For-All tournament at no extra charge.
• General Attendees will receive a Halo Waypoint token that unlocks all in-game items provided as Twitch Drops over the event weekend.

PARTNERED TEAM CODES
In order to provide extra value to fans and also allow fans to support their favorite teams directly, you can use any of the below codes at check out to receive a 10% discount on your tickets. When you save 10%, the Teams receive 10%.

• CLOUD9
• COMPLEXITY
• FAZE
• NAVI
• OPTIC
• SENTINELS
• SPACESTATION
• QUADRANT

Support your favorite team and get a discount on spectator tickets. If you use a team's code, be sure to share on Twitter and tag the teams so they know you've supported them!

• Military Discount: MILITARY for 10% off
• Senior Discount: SENIOR for 10% off
  TEAM PASS
  
• Price: $250
  
• Covers 4 Players + Coach
  
• 96 Total Team Passes Available
  

Head to hcs.ee.gg to purchase your HCS OpTic Major 2023 Team Pass!
OpTic Formal ^[Imgur]

Tournament Format

Open Bracket

As is customary, there will be an open bracket featured at the HCS OpTic Major. This will take place on Friday, May 30th and will start and end on the same day. The bracket will be filled by the first 96 teams to purchase a pass. The top 4 teams from the Open Bracket will move on to Pool Play. (2 from the Winner’s bracket, 2 from the Elimination Bracket)

Pool Play

Teams in all regions will qualify for Pool Play through HCS Points. Registration for Pool Play at the OpTic Major will go live after the HCS Dallas Global Invitational. (The Top 2 Teams from HCS Dallas will auto-qualify for Pool Play at the HCS OpTic Major!)

• North America: 8 Pool Play slots, 2 Open Bracket Travel Coverage slots
• Europe: 2 Pool Play slots, 2 Open Bracket Travel Coverage slots
• Mexico: 1 Pool Play slot, 1 Open Bracket Travel Coverage slot
• Australia and New Zealand: 1 Pool Play slot, 2 Open Bracket Travel Coverage slots
  IMPORTANT NOTE: All teams in Pool Play will receive travel stipends. Additionally, we’re providing regional travel support for the top Open teams for a chance to compete through the Open Bracket.
  

$5,000 FFA Tournament

The OpTic Major will also feature a $5,000 FFA tournament - open to all event attendees!
Pre-registration will be available at hcs.ee.gg at a later date!
Image ^[Imgur]

Where to Watch

Catch all the action live June 30 - July 2.

• *A Stream: * Twitch.tv/Halo ** - ** YouTube.com/Halo
• B Stream: ** Twitch.tv/HCS ** - YouTube/ HaloEsports HCS
• Co-Streamers: Halo Infinite Live Streams

Twitch Drops

Fans tuning into the HCS OpTic Major will also earn exclusive Drops.
Keep an eye on @HCS on Twitter to see Twitch Drop info when it is announced!

Travel

• Airports: Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) Dallas Love Field (DAL)
• Ground Transportation : Uber Lyft
• Hotels: Click here for a list of nearby hotels.

Image ^[Imgur]

FAQ

When and Where will the HCS OpTic Major take place?	The OpTic Major will take place at Esports Stadium Arlington, 1200 Ballpark Way Suite T.9, 1200 Ballpark Way, Arlington, TX 76011 starting on June 30, ending on July 2.
Where can I purchase tickets?	Click here to purchase.
I can't attend the event, but want to watch online. Where can I tune in?	You can tune into these links to check out the action: Twitch A Stream - Twitch.tv/Halo B Stream - Twitch.tv/HCS C Stream - Twitch.tv/HCS_Red D Stream - Twitch.tv/HCS_Blue
Is there an age limit?	All 4v4 and FFA Players must be 13 years of age or older to compete at HCS Major OpTic. Players 13 years of age or older require a signed parental consent form if under the age of 18. Spectators 13 years of age or older require a signed parental consent form if under the age of 18. Spectators under 13 years of age will need to be accompanied by guardian. Children ages 3 and under will not require a ticket, but will require a completed parental consent form and be accompanied by a guardian at all times. Please bring the completed form to the event and have ready to hand in at the ticketing desk.
What if I am under the age limit at the time of qualification but meet the age requirements by the event date? Can I still participate?	Players will need to be of age by June 12 to compete.
When will Team Passes for the HCS Open Bracket go on sale?	Team passes for the HCS Open Bracket at the HCS OpTic Major will be on sale this Friday, May 26. Team passes can be purchased at https://hcs.ee.gg/.
Are there VIP Tickets available?	There are no VIP tickets for this event, but instead, OpTic Nation members will receive exclusive perks like early access to the event, access to the presale, a chance to claim limited edition lanyard (while supplies last), a unique event badge, and more benefits to be announced.
I'm an OpTic Nation Gold Member, what kind of benefits do I get at this event?	As an OpTic Nation Gold Member, you'll recieve 24 hour early access to tickets to the event via an online presale. If you're a member, you will recieve a code via email that you should use on TIXR. Other event benefits will be announced closer to the event days. OpTic Nation Gold members will also receive early access to the event, a chance to claim limited edition lanyard (while supplies last), a unique event badge, and more benefits to be announced. Not a gold member? You can sign up for OpTic Nation Gold here.
What is the venue bag policy?	All attendees will have to undergo a metal detector and bag check security screening. All bags and purses must be soft sided and not exceed 16” x 16” x 8”. Backpacks are prohibited, except for single-compartment drawstring bags that do not exceed the bag-size requirements of 16” x 16” x 8”. Exceptions are for those that are carried for medical reasons or manufactured diaper bags that accompany infants and young children. All bags are subject to search before entering the venue.
Can I bring in outside food or drink to the venue?	No outside food or drinks will be allowed in the stadium.
What is the Camera policy?	Cameras must be self-contained, may not draw on Esports Stadium Arlington power sources, and must be operated by a single individual without use of ancillary equipment, such as a tripod or external lights. Pedestrian traffic may not be blocked at any point.
What time do doors open?	Stay tuned for Event / Door times.
Where should I park and is parking free?	Paid parking is available at Esports Stadium Arlington.
Do you have appropriate seating and parking for individuals with medical conditions?	Yes, this event is ADA compliant.
Are pets allowed?	Only service animals are allowed at the event.
I am with the press and would like to cover the event. Who should I reach out to for information and Press Access?	Please fill out this form here and [email protected] will reach back out to you accepting or denying your inquiry.
Are there any prohibited items?	Halo Championship Series Prohibited Items ACCEPTABLE: - Cosplay and other costumes determined to be safe by security - Prop/Replica weapons as part of cosplay or other costumes (Must be submitted to security for review. Cannot contain a functioning bolt mechanism or fire a projectile of any kind. Any bow-type weapons must be unstrung or strung with a low-tensile thread. All prop arrows must have soft, non-metal, blunted tips made out of foam or cardboard only. Cannot be pointed at any individual in such a way to cause fear of harm or distress. Cosplay firearms must have brightly colored safety tips. Must be visibly tagged and visually identified as “safe” or “peace bonded”) - Cell Phones - Action cameras, such as GoPro’s - Prescription medication (you must have the prescription/label in your name with you) PROHIBITED ITEMS* (below list is a guide, not all inclusive): - Illegal or illicit substances, drugs, or drug paraphernalia - Weapons of any kind including, but not limited to, guns, ammo, pocket knives, sharp-edge blades, self-defense sprays, or any item deemed as unsafe by security staff. - Flammable items or liquids including aerosols and fireworks - Bags larger than 12″ x 12″ x 6″ max - Coolers, sleeping bags, tents, and chairs (An exception will be made for medically necessary items after thorough inspection) - Outside alcohol - Outside food and beverage Bicycles, skateboards, hover-boards, scooters, or personal motorized vehicles - Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles - Animals except for service animals assisting an individual with a disability (“Comfort,” “therapy” or “emotional support” animals do not meet the ADA definition of a service animal. Security may permit working dogs or other animals as required.) - Laser pens, laser pointers, or similar focused light devices - Noisemakers such as megaphones, air horns, sirens, whistles, or other devices which may interfere with others’ experience - Any item that is not lawfully permitted to be carried in the locality or City of Seattle - Additional items may be prohibited at the discretion of Microsoft staff or security *Note: Prohibited items and items determined to not be appropriate for entry into Halo Championship Series will be the responsibility of the attendee and cannot be accepted, stored, or checked by Microsoft or Convention Center.
Where can I find the Handbook & Code of Conduct?	You can find the HCS Handbook & Code of Conduct by clicking here.
Will there be a free-for-all (FFA) competition at this event?	Yes! The event will feature a free Halo Infinite FFA tournament, which will be open for up to 512 players and spectators. Best of luck to those competing for their shot at the largest portion of the $5,000 prize pool! The FFA check-in schedule will be published closer to the event. Check back here for updates. Must have a Spectator ticket to participate.
I don't live in the United States. Can I still compete in this tournament?	To check your specific country’s eligibility, please see the list of eligible countries as listed in the Handbook here.
When do rosters lock?	For Pool Play and Travel Coverage teams, rosters will lock at 5:00 PM ET on Sunday, June 11th. (If teams earned travel coverage, they must retain the same roster.)
What equipment should I bring if I'm competing	All players competing must bring: - Your preferred wired peripheral (Xbox wired Controller or Mouse and Keyboard) - USB cord required for your preffered peripheral - Headset with no power outlet and a 3.5 mm plug - Wired Earbuds (needed for Feature Station and Main Stage play) - If you plan on competing with Keyboard & Mouse, you must submit your model number for each device to [email protected] ahead of the event. Mixamps will be provided. Bringing backup equipment is recommended.
Which monitors will be used for the tournament?	All tournament and warmup monitors will be provided. Model will be updated here soon.
How do I earn travel coverage?	Lodging and travel coverage will be offered to 12 pool play teams (based on auto-qualification from HCS Dreamhack Dallas and HCS points) Additionally 2 NA teams, 2 EU teams, 2 ANZ teams & 1 MX Team will be granted travel coverage based on aggregate HCS points. NA Players may qualify through: Top 10 in HCS points after the HCS Dallas Global Invitational EU Players may qualify through: Top 4 in HCS points after the HCS Dallas Global Invitational MX Players may qualify through: Top 2 in HCS points after the HCS Dallas Global Invitational ANZ Players may qualify through: Top 3 in HCS points after the HCS Dallas Global Invitational Note: Teams who earn travel coverage for the HCS OpTic Major must compete with the same roster.
What is the Prizing Breakdown?	Prizing Breakdown - Arlington/OpTic 4v4 $250,000 1st: $100,000 2nd: $60,000 3rd: $30,000 4th: $17,500 5th/6th: $8,000 7th/8th: $5,000 9th-12th: $2,500 13th-16th: $1,625 Prizing Breakdown - Arlington/OpTic $5.000 1st: $2,000 2nd: $1,200 3rd: $800 4th: $425 5th: $200 6th: $150 7th: $125 8th: $100
What is the Pro Point Breakdown?	Pro Points Breakdown - Arlington/OpTic 4v4 1st - 25,000 2nd - 15,000 3rd - 11,000 4th - 9,000 5th/6th - 8,000 7th/8th - 7,000 9th-12th - 5,500 13th-14th - 4,500 15th-16th - 3,000 17th-20th - 2,750 21th-24th - 2,250 25th-32th - 1,800 33th-40th - 1,600 41th-56th - 1,400 57th-72th - 1,000 Pro Points Breakdown - Arlington/OpTic FFA 1st: 15,000 2nd: 13,500 3rd: 12,750 4th: 12,000 5th: 11,250 6th: 10,500 7th: 9,750 8th: 9,000 9th - 10th: 6,000 11th - 12th: 5,250 13th - 14th: 4,500 15th - 16th: 3,750 17th - 20th: 2,800 21st - 24th: 2,450 25th - 28th: 2,000 29th - 32nd: 1,650 33rd - 40th: 1,300 41st - 48th: 1,125 49th - 56th: 950 57th - 64th: 750 65th - 128th: 375
What types of payment do you accept? Online and onsite?	All major credit cards are accepted. Cash payments will not be accepted at the event.

This post was made by a script written and maintained by the Halo mod team to automatically post blogs from Halo Waypoint. If you notice any issues with the text output or think this was posted by mistake, please message the mods.

Traveling on a Boeing 767-400 to LHR soon. Seats are in premium select and on seat map it looks like bathrooms are in back of D1 and at the back of Comfort + What is the right one for us?

I think we can all agree that resources in the game are too scarce since release, especially the lack of wood, a renewable resource out of all resources, I am not talking about oil, because there is an obivous reason why there is not that much on the map, while rubber is way too easy to get in large quantities if you own any provinces near the equator for some reason.
I can't be the only one who constantly has to build logging camps until every possible camp has been built and you need to actually conquer provinces just to get more (trade is pretty broken and somewhat pointless unless you are actively exporting, but even then for some reason it becomes unprofitable out of nowhere)
Each logging camp throughout the majority of the game will produce 40 soft wood and 10 hard wood (some nations don't require much hardwood but most nations need you to produce it in every logging camp)
1 construction sector with iron framing, which you'll be using until the late 1800s needs 40 soft wood.
If you get steel framing the needed wood is almost irrelevant besides the additional wood needed for the tools you need, you'll still use it throughout the majority of your campaign, since most people stop playing around 1900.
So you pretty much need 1 logging camp per construction sector, then each steel tool workshop also requires 30 soft wood each, if you are playing a large industrial nation you most likely will have more than 400 of them in 1900 when you start snowballing really hard.
Each paper mill also needs 30 soft wood, you'll probably have around 200 of them in 1900, if you build lots of universities and government buildings even more.
Then of course the furniture factories at max level will also require 30 soft wood.
Depending of the nation you are playing you could have hundreds of these in 1900 for the GDP, easy money and SOL.
So if we go with 400 steel tool workshops with 30 wood each we would be at 12000 soft wood,
200 paper mills with 30 each is 6000 softwood needed,
If we go with 200 furniture factories with 30 wood each we would also be at 6000 softwood.
That would make a total of 24.000 wood.
Pops also use wood, in my games usually about 25% of my countries supply, gotta keep that in mind as well.
Russia at the game start has 665 possible logging camps and has by far the largest wood supply in the game, even when you colonize half of Africa you won't beat that amount of logging camps.
Russia will be able to produce at most 26.600 wood (considering the starting provinces including Alaska) until you get electric saws, which most people will get near the end of their campaign since most people stop playing around 1900 and even earlier.
So basically if for example Russia builds everything I've mentioned before which isn't unlikely, it needs to max it's logging camps in every single province and I'm not even counting in the wood needed from iron frame construction, which you'll have until somewhere around 1880/1870 depending what else you want to research.
Also city centers need 5 wood each until you get market halls, which are usually not really worth prioritizing.
If we get electric saws instead of 40 wood you'll produce 80 wood, which effectively doubles the production so as Russia with starting borders you'll be able to get 53.200 soft wood which should be enough in 1900 unless you build even more than I mentioned.
I also left out the needed wood for iron frame buildings and city centers and shipyards, although you should get steam ships as early as possible.
So if you get electric saws as Russia and have logging camps everywhere MAXED your wood supply should be secured, but what about other nations like France or Germany that have about a quarter of that supply?
Even when colonizing Africa you'll be starving for wood, which is ridiculous, wood might have been scarce in the middle ages when countries had to build a bunch of ships or people needed to build houses, but to this day wood is not a scarce resource, unless of course you are looking for trees in a desert.
TLDR :
This became quite a long text about wood usage in my games, of course results may wary and be completely different for some other players, depending on what buildings they actually go for.
I think Paradox should either increase the wood production drastically or increase the current amount of wood by somewhere around 5x, to make it actually somewhat realistic and even usable, in most of my campaigns wood is the hardest resource to get and considering it was one of the cheapest and easiest to get building materials back then it doesn't really make sense, it's also a renewable resource so it would be kinda weird to limit the amount of wood you can get, I think it would be easier to put it into the agricultural section, since a lot of forests have been cut down to build farms.

I'm curious what the difference is between Economy Plus exit row "extra legroom" (e.g. 21A, reclines) and Economy Plus "extra legroom" (not exit, e.g. 11A) ? If there's no difference, why is the exit row more $$? I'm confused and need to choose soon. Thanks!