Great lakes grand trap shoot

Since chapter one, Luffy sort of has a clear idea of what his crew would be but now, since everyone is finally in place. I do not think we would see new recruits in the crew itself. Sure many will join the grand fleet but when we talk about commanders, Luffy said "I want 10 people" and now their roles are properly defined as well
The king of pirates (Luffy), the World's greatest swordsman (Zoro), The Cook who found All Blue (Sanji), The Navigator who mapped the sea (Nami), The God (Usopp), The Archeologist who revealed the truth (Robin), A Doctor who can cure any disease (Chopper), A Shipwright who made a ship that traveled the world (Franky), A musician who invented the Bone genre (Brook), A Helmsman who found redemption (Jinbei).
I admire Oda a great deal because of this. 10 nakama is what he said and we got it. This is one of the things about one piece. this is not about a single person, it's the journey of a wild group.
Any thoughts about this?

Preface
I did a detailed writeup on my very first concert experience last year which was seeing Dreamcatcher's Apocalypse: Save Us concert in Reading and I got a positive response so I wanted to do it again for this concert. Hopefully this will help future Insomnia going to their first Dreamcatcher concert that are anxious about what to expect. Writing all this down is also a nice way for me to look back on the experience in the future. This is gonna' be another long read, don't think I can just TL;DR it so feel free to skip around to specific sections if you like. If you want to check out my previous concert writeup you can find it here:
https://www.reddit.com/dreamcatchecomments/vpzmqo/20220701_santander_arena_concert_in_reading_pa_my/
Ticketmaster
FUCK TICKETMASTER, ALL MY HOMIES HATE TICKETMASTER
I don't think there is too much to say here, Ticketmaster is already garbage about scalping bots and they continue to show their incompetence with this fuck up. It caused myself a good amount of anxiety like everyone else. I decided to wait till the day of the concert to see if they'd send the extra email with my printable ticket. Well that never happened, so I was debating calling Ticketmaster or just risk trying to pick them up at Will Call. That's when I saw people suggesting to make a separate new Ticketmaster account to transfer my tickets to. Lo and behold, it worked! Seriously, shout out to those suggesting that and whoever figured it out, real life saver! The only silver lining was that my seating got bumped all the way up front (third row specifically) smack dab in the center. So I can't complain too much but it sucks to everyone that got bumped out to much worse seating.
Concert Prep
Since attending the last Dreamcatcher concert in July, which was my very first ever concert experience, I've since seen Kard in Atlanta and Pixy, AleXa, and Rolling Quartz at Otakon in D.C. Not a veteran by any means but I've got a bit more experience going now. I work night shifts during the week so my sleep schedule is usually trash trying to readjust to days over the weekend. I woke up on the day of the concert at 3am and began doing some prep work. Charging my lightstick and battery brick (for charging phones), getting my ticket sorted, checking where I want to park once I get there, etc. I bought some equipment to attach my phone to mongmonie so I can record parts of the concert while keeping another hand free if needed. My original plan was to use all my lightstick extensions and use it as a sort of monopod setup for recording the whole concert. A few things made me change my mind, the first was that I couldn't find a clear answer on if extensions would be allowed at the concert, then there was the fact that my seat got changed and I felt like I'd be blocking people's view with it (plus I'd have to break it down every time we had to sit). It would've been a more ideal setup in a PIT area in the corner where I wouldn't be blocking people. I had planned on using a completely separate phone to record the whole concert so I cleared up a bunch of memory on it, but in the process managed to brick my phone 😒. So I had to resort to using my primary phone. Anyway, I felt like I somehow spent 10hrs. doing concert prep, not sure how lol. It was time to finally head out. It's only an hour and a half drive for me, think I left the house around 2:30ish in the afternoon.
Arrival in Reading
I arrived in Reading around 4pm. Reading Parking Authority recently switched to gateless parking which I've never used before. I downloaded the ParkMobile app before I left. When I got there it only let me pay for a 30min. increment on the app, so I used that time to get a bite to eat since I hadn't eaten anything all morning. Once I got back to the parking garage I noticed the little kiosk where you can pay for the full day, so that's what I did. After that I walked down the street to the venue so I could grab my VVIP bracelet which only took less than 5 minutes since there wasn't a huge line for it at the time. I wanted to chill in the short line forming outside the venue and chat up some Insomnia but decided I should probably go back to my car and get some rest since I had been up since 3am (shoutout to the Insomnia with the same Seven Spirits hoodie that I had who said hi to me on the way back though). After getting a bit of rest I went to go line up at the venue, the weather was a really nice mild day (55℉/13℃) with thankfully no rain like last time! There were so many nice Insomnia handing out banners and freebies in line. One was handing photocards/polaroids and asked me my bias, said I couldn't choose so just give me a random one, when I opened it up it was a choccy milk Gahyeon polaroid! Even if it wasn't official I got so hyped seeing that, haha. Someone else was handing out some cute DC anime stickers, this time I specifically chose Dami since there were only two of those left (person behind me snatched the last one). I signed the Dreamcatcher Reason flag while in line, it's super unfortunate they couldn't end up giving it to the girls! The line started moving around 6pm and moved pretty quickly, I was in the doors past security by 6:15pm.
Santander Performing Arts Center Venue review
I grabbed a Blue Moon and waited in the merch line. This venue was pretty small so they only had one spot to setup the merch table. The line was super long and wrapped around the entire venue starting on the first floor and leading up to the merch table on the second floor. The line moved at a decent pace considering how much it zig-zag'd around the place, shout out to the staff that were straight up sprinting around the line making sure to keep it orderly and moving it around so people didn't have problems accessing the rest of the venue. I got my merch by 7pmish so I waited in line for maybe 40min. There isn't too much to say about the venue itself, you can pretty much see the whole lobby in that pic I posted while waiting in line. There were easy to find bathrooms on a level lower than the ground floor, there were big signs to point you in the direction of each seating section and staff were great about helping people find there correct seats. For some reason the staff here felt even more proactive with helping everyone than the Santander Arena (though everyone there was also very friendly and helpful). I got seated at 7:05pm and the first thing I noticed was how cramped the seating was. Sitting down my shoulders were touching the shoulders of the people sitting to both sides of me, I feel like plane seating didn't feel as cramped. Once I got seated, the Insomnia next to me noticed my camera setup to record the concert and we had a nice conversation about photography and the gear we each use. Also talked about the messed up ticket situation with the venue change. One of my goals was to talk to more Insomnia this time around so thank you to the dude that chatted me up as I'm terrible at starting conversations myself but once I'm in it I could talk forever, haha.
The Concert
Once again, I noticed everyone's fits being on point at the concert. So many people with cool outfits, custom clothes, some people were wearing outfits that matched certain Dreamcatcher stage outfits, etc. Shout out to the bunny costume guy hyping everyone up before the concert! One thing I might've messed up on was footwear, whenever standing and jumping I could feel my feet killing me. I'm used to standing all day at work in these shoes, so I think it was the jumping up and down that really did it for me, not as comfortable as the UltraBoosts I wore last concert. Anyway, it was easy enough to ignore since the concert was so awesome! I was practically front row, which I never thought I'd get a chance to do. I'm really short for a guy, so I always worried about not getting a good enough spot in the PIT to see over people. Most people in front of me were taller than me but it wasn't a huge issue for the most part. The members entered and the hype begun, seriously never thought I'd get to be this close to them! One of my slight complaints from the last concert was that I am a bit nearsighted and it was hard to make out the members faces from where I was seated (although I know them well enough to pick them out on their gait alone). Now it was like seeing them in glorious 8k, and they all looked gorgeous! The setlist was so good, finally #justiceforWHAT! Plus getting to see the 'YOU AND I' choreo complete with props and Dami's awesome staff spinning! Everyone sounded so good and I was surprised that the acoustics sounded really good in such a small place not really designed for the type of music being played. Even during the songs with choreo you could here each member through the backing track at least a few times here and there. Like last time, the members I noticed really punching through the backing track the most were Siyeon and Dami. You can tell Dami goes all in on her raps at these concerts, to the point of bending over like 70° in order to really belt them out with as much power as possible. Also, OH MY GOD 'Reason' went as hard as I hoped it would live. They are pushing their vocals so hard during that song and the "woah" chanting parts get everyone so hyped. It was a fantastic idea to have the encore be all three fan songs. Celebrating Dami's birthday was so fun! Sua announcing herself as Dami's B-day present and her just ignoring it was hilarious, also Sua giving Dami the rights to being the Queen™ of Dreamcatcher while celebrating her birthday had me dying. I don't remember what song it happened during but at one point I'm pretty sure Yoohyeon's timing was off in one of the choreos and she completely bumped into another member (think it might have been Gahyeon but I don't recall) it was really cute as she quickly brushed it off with a smile. I thought I had recorded this part but can't find it so now I'm gonna' have to check other fancams to make sure I'm not going crazy, lol. During the last goodbye talks, Gahyeon cried saying she wasn't feeling well and hoped that it didn't show in her performing (it didn't, she did great!) and other members were tearing up too. It honestly feels so heartwarming as a fan getting to see Dreamcatcher's sincerity in their faces and words up close and personal, I'm surprised I didn't cry myself. Jiu especially goes the extra mile with her genuine facial expressions that show gratitude on the deepest levels. Another thing I loved about Jiu was her crowd control abilities, especially when it came to getting everybody to wave their lightsticks in synchronicity. Speaking of the crowd, I was pretty disappointed by the shrieking banshees that yelled over the members when they were talking. It's honestly super rude and makes the fandom look bad, it sucks that there isn't much you can do about it but to try and tell people near you to be quiet. You could see Dami was visibly annoyed by it and continued to make a shushing gesture at the crowd while pointing at the member currently talking. It doesn't help that the members also enabled the behavior by responding to a few people yelling things to them so that lead to others trying to grab their attention, it seriously got out of hand. Other than that slightly souring the experience, I still had a wonderful time. I will end this section by mentioning the only member I have yet to talk about here and I will will simply leave it with this; Handong's orange hair omfg?! 👨🏼‍🍳💋
Meet & Greet, Hi-Touch + Group Photo
After the concert ended, everyone started to line up for the VIP and VVIP M&G event. They lined up the VIP first since they were just doing the hi-touch. The VVIP participants were all seated and wherever you sat was basically the order they were going to have you go in with each row of seats being a section for the group photos, this way anyone in groups that wanted to stick together for it could figure out their order beforehand. Staff was great at giving everyone instructions and getting everything in order as fast as possible. I was so exhausted after the concert with running on little sleep that I just about snoozed off while sitting and waiting my turn. A weird thing I noticed was that I was seated towards the back of the venue and the seating seemed to be spaced out a bit better than where I sat for the concert. Anyway, it was my sections turn for the hi-touch. I kind of knew it was going to go by too fast to even get out anything meaningful so I tried to to be anxious about what I was going to say. The line moved so fast that when I got to the members I barely got to say "hi [member's name]!" in fact I remember getting to Sua and I think Siyeon was right before her and I called her Shua by accident cuz' I was trying to nail saying She-yeon previously, I felt so stupid but it is what it is, I'm laughing at it now looking back on it 😂. I also remember Jiu was first in line and I realized I gave her a pretty hard high five and ended up toning it down with each member till I got to Dami last and barely touched her hand. It was over as fast as it started, it went exactly how I thought it would but still left me a little disappointed. That was made up for with the group photo. As I waited back in line for the group photo, and was slowly approaching the line seemed to stop for a bit longer than it was before. It seemed that there was a group way ahead that didn't want to be separated for the group photo so they were looking for a single person to fill in the last spot. I stepped up and volunteered so we could get the line moving again. The staff were appreciative since they were on a time crunch, the people in line were happy to not get separated, and I got to skip like 30 people so win-win for everyone. That wasn't the best part though. Since the members were also waiting for a minute or two they all had their direction focused on the last person waiting to come up the stairs and that was me! Jiu gave me a very warm and cheery "hi!" as she was closest and was who I was going to sit in front of, needless to say my heart melted and I gave her an equally ecstatic "hello!" right back. I was going to ask her to do like a heart or something with me but since they were waiting I didn't want to hold them up any longer and decided to just quickly get seated so they could take the photos. Photo only took a sec and they we got up to let the next group in. I was the last person in line so I kinda' got selfish and took my time saying a few things to the members as we left. I got to look each one in the eyes and tell them what a great performance they put on, how cool they are, etc. Also told Gahyeon to feel better, and Dami was last so I got to personally wish her a happy birthday as well! Honestly made the VVIP package super worth it. I grabbed my VVIP merch on the way out and left the venue feeling great. The temperature had dropped quite a bit but it honestly felt really nice having the cool air hit my face after being packed like sardines for over 2hrs. I don't remember what time everything ended exactly but I headed back to my car by around 10:30pm. The drive back was a bit stressful as I was exhausted and we had a freak blizzard come out of nowhere. I didn't see anything about snow on the weather forecast for the day so I was surprised, but it was manageable for me since I live in the area and drive an AWD Forester with winter tires.
Final Thoughts
I got so busy with work, then my router shit the bed, then the great Reddit outage happened, then was busy at work again. I've been meaning to post this much sooner, it's crazy that it's already been two weeks since the concert. I surprisingly didn't get the usual post-concert depression this time, I think it was because this concert felt waaaay shorter to me for some reason. I kind of equate it to the feeling you get after watching a movie for the second time, you know what to expect and what scenes are coming next so the movie feels much shorter on the second watch-through. Everything straight up just felt like a 5min. dream to me it went by so fast. So it's a little sad in that sense but I still felt a feeling of fulfillment overall. Also, I thankfully didn't catch COVID this time so pretty happy about that .I should mention that masks were encouraged but not required, even for hi-touch/group photos. I wore mine all concert and for the hi-touch, but took it off for the group photo so I could see my face in the pic. I talked about my seating position off to the side giving me this weird feeling of disconnect from the performances last time, and this time felt much better as I was front and center and got to make lots of eye contact with the members the whole concert. I have no real regrets this time around, but my goals for my next concert are to talk to even more people and I kind of want to do something to give back to the community like the kind Insomnia that hand out cool freebies at the concerts. Not sure what I'm going to come up with yet but can't wait to get the creative juices flowing. Also, since I talked about photography with the Insomnia sitting next to me, it got me thinking about getting a press pass to shoot a Dreamcatcher concert in the future. I don't know how difficult that would be as an amateur with no real professional portfolio to speak of but it would be amazing if possible! I have to head off to work now, I'll probably fix some formatting to make this more readable and add other tidbits I forgot to add once I get off work.
Thank you to Dreamcatcher, DCC staff, Santander Staff, and all the wonderful Insomnia for another great and memorable experience!!

Hello sleep this is Eli,
I get about 2 hours of sleep a night, for 18months now. I've been looking under every rock for a solution but have only gotten worse. I feel 100% fine during the day, I can do almost every stretch and exercise with no trouble or pain. But after about 30minutes of laying down, the discomfort begins.
The problem is different depending on how I try to sleep. For instance, if I sleep on my side, my arm starts to go numb and the veins in my forehead pop out until I turn just my head toward the ceiling. If I try to sleep that way, my shoulder compresses and the back deltoid area starts to ache (this all happens on both sides).
If I try to sleep on my back, my traps get sore and it feels like the right side of my back is propped up more than the left. Also, saliva builds up in the back of my throat forcing me to swallow or eventually choke.
Stomach sleeping I avoided but eventually got desperate. This doesn't work either, as it's very hard to breathe, even with no pillow.
Current sleep habits: -always go to bed at 10pm, "wake up" 6:30am -I dont drink alcohol, caffeine, drugs, smoking (I am on adderall but quitting for a week made no difference) -I dont eat/drink or exercise after 7pm, I dont nap ever -I made my room completely free of noise and light
Things I've tried: -4 different chiropractors -3 different physical therapists -5 different pillows (2 inch think firm for back sleeping, 4 inch medium for side aka the distance from my head to the end of my shoulder) -pillow under knees or body pillow between knees and under arm -3 different mattresses soft/medium and firm -cortisone injection in shoulders -multiple prescription sleeping pills -asking chatgpt every question I could think of -xray and mri of shoulders, neck & spine (found nothing but mild 8% scoliosis in lumbar and cervical) -every youtube stretch and exercise I could find, some for months -recording myself to make my spine as straight as possible -corrected desk posture= aka feet flat on ground, 90degree elbows, eyes straight ahead, lumbar cushion (I used to sit at desk for 8 hours a day, for a decade)
My latest theory is some sort of muscle imbalance but every physical therapist looks at me like a deer in the headlights when I mention it and have found very little info on how to fix this myself. Also, my self diagnosis has been highly unreliable so far, so take that with a grain of salt. When the aches wake me up, I still can't tell if it's originating from the muscle or bone.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

CW: weight mention
Hi guys! I’m new to Reddit and came on here to see if anyone can offer me some insight on getting diagnosed w/ endo. For background: I’m 23 years old and have had painful periods for as long as I can remember. When I was 17 I started taking the Vienva BC pill and had semi normal cycles. My cycles stopped completely on the Mirena IUD, which I got at 19 and had til I was 21. It took nearly 6 months to get my period back, and shortly after that I ended up in the ER w/ severe pelvic pain. I was diagnosed w/ PID and multiple endometriomas after several hours of doctors telling me I was fine, even with an absurdly high WBC. My periods now occur for 1-3 days each month, but are not “regular” per say. I experience severe pelvic pain and bloating/trapped gas each month even when I’m not menstruating. The GI issues have disrupted all aspects of my life greatly, to the point where I can’t eat regularly and have to use laxatives daily to have a bowel movement. I do have pain with intercourse as well. I have also had a lot of hormonal acne, hot flashes/sweating/body odor, and headaches. When I had the IUD, I gained a significant amount of weight in a short period of time (all of which I have since lost) however my prior OBGYN tried to tell me that these issues would go away with weight loss- clearly they haven’t. I am nearing the point of being underweight due to the GI issues. My mental state has also worsened as I have not been able to find any validation of these issues, as they are being brushed off as “normal”. - based on my symptoms, I believe it’s stage II-III endo and involves my bowel. I am also worried for my future fertility if no action is taken. My most recent pelvic ultrasound made the technicians jaw drop because of how large the cyst on my right ovary was. My next GYN appt is in mid-May, but I’m not sure if it needs to be moved up or if these symptoms warrant a diagnostic surgery as I am new to all this. Please help! Thanks!

CW: weight mention
Hi guys! I’m new to Reddit and came on here to see if anyone can offer me some insight on getting diagnosed w/ endo. For background: I’m 23 years old and have had painful periods for as long as I can remember. When I was 17 I started taking the Vienva BC pill and had semi normal cycles. My cycles stopped completely on the Mirena IUD, which I got at 19 and had til I was 21. It took nearly 6 months to get my period back, and shortly after that I ended up in the ER w/ severe pelvic pain. I was diagnosed w/ PID and multiple endometriomas after several hours of doctors telling me I was fine, even with an absurdly high WBC. My periods now occur for 1-3 days each month, but are not “regular” per say. I experience severe pelvic pain and bloating/trapped gas each month even when I’m not menstruating. The GI issues have disrupted all aspects of my life greatly, to the point where I can’t eat regularly and have to use laxatives daily to have a bowel movement. I do have pain with intercourse as well. I have also had a lot of hormonal acne, hot flashes/sweating/body odor, and headaches. When I had the IUD, I gained a significant amount of weight in a short period of time (all of which I have since lost) however my prior OBGYN tried to tell me that these issues would go away with weight loss- clearly they haven’t. I am nearing the point of being underweight due to the GI issues. My mental state has also worsened as I have not been able to find any validation of these issues, as they are being brushed off as “normal”, and my doctors keep shoving BC in my face as the only form of treatment- based on my symptoms, I believe it’s stage II-III endo and involves my bowel. I am also worried for my future fertility if no action is taken. My most recent pelvic ultrasound made the technicians jaw drop because of how large the cyst on my right ovary was. My next GYN appt is in mid-May, but I’m not sure if it needs to be moved up or if these symptoms warrant a diagnostic surgery as I am new to all this. Please help! Thanks!

In order to gear up for the Sweet 16, I have put together some profiles and matchup previews of Thursday's action. I will hopefully have the same for Friday's games at some point tomorrow! In the meantime, lets enjoy another day of women's hoops and NIT games tomorrow.
Game 1: (3)Kansas State vs (7)Michigan State
Team Profile: (3)Kansas State
KenPom: 21
T-Rank: 23
Major Contributors (usage on at least 24% of possessions): Markquis Nowell, Keyonte Johnson
Kansas State is one of the biggest surprises of the 22-23 CBB season. Their two-headed monster of Nowell and Johnson led Kansas State to 9 quad 1 regular season victories. K-State, despite being one of the shortest high major teams, brings the 17th ranked defense in the nation into this game. The Wildcats like to play an up-tempo style of offense and get their playmakers to the rim. They are a team that relies heavily on points in the paint and point at the line rather than a 3pt centric offense. Kansas State is also 7th in the country in assists per made field goal, making them one of the better passing teams in the country.
Team Profile: (7)Michigan State
KenPom: 25
T-Rank: 24
Major Contributors: AJ Hoggard
Michigan State is a team that has been on deep runs before, including a trip to the Final Four as a 7 seed once. AJ Hoggard has once again been one of the best guards in the Big 10 and the nation. Michigan State is a team that is lethal from three, though they attempt about 5% fewer threes per game than the national average. They play stout defense, but are really bad at forcing turnovers. Michigan State has the single hardest SOS of any team left in the field, this includes three non-conference games against tournament teams. MSU likes to slow the game down and run this offense through Hoggard in the halfcourt.
Game Profile:
Spread: MSU -2
These two teams are very different in their style of play. MSU likes to slow it down, play in the halfcourt, and create open jump shots. Kansas State likes to run and get quick buckets or free throws by driving towards the basket. Look for K-State to make constant runs at the hoop and try to force MSU into turnovers. The key to the game for Michigan State is to keep the ball safe and make their open three point shots. For K-State, they need to force turnovers and get some of these MSU bigs into foul trouble.
Game 2: (4)UConn vs (8)Arkansas
Team Profile: (4)UConn
KenPom: 4
T-Rank: 4
Major Contributors: Adam Sanogo, Donovan Clingan
The UConn Huskies are a lethal 4 seed to say the least. They possess the 3rd best offense in the country led by two behemoths in Sanogo and Clingan. Part of their success is the 2nd best offensive rebounding rate in the country. It provides them with a lot of opportunities for 2nd chance points. Look for UConn to try and play bully ball over their opponents, especially teams that lack size
Team Profile: (8)Arkansas
KenPom: 18
T-Rank: 18
Major Contributors: Nick Smith
While Smith has a lot of draw when healthy, he has been anything but in his freshman season for the Razorbacks. Arkansas’ bread and butter is their defense. They defend the arc incredibly well and utilize their athleticism to create turnovers. They shoot terribly from three, but have so many ways to attack the rim and create layup opportunities for their playmakers
Game Profile:
Spread: UConn -3.5
Arkansas is a tough matchup for anybody with their athleticism. I am looking for them to be aggressive in taking it hard to the rim. Mission number 1 should be to get Sanogo and Clingan in foul trouble. Arkansas also needs to be efficient making their shots and fight hard for defensive boards so rebounds don’t become a huge advantage for UConn. The Huskies meanwhile can spread the floor with two big athletes in the middle. Open threes are going to be hard to come by, so UConn is going to need to use their size to their advantage. Something they have been very good at when it counts. If this game features whistle happy refs, this will really give Arkansas the help they need.
Game 3: (4) Tennessee vs. (9) Florida Atlantic
Team Profile: (4)Tennessee
KenPom: 6
T-Rank: 5
Major Contributors: Olivier Nkamhuoa, Josiah-Jordan Jones
Tennessee has overcome a crushing injury to Zakai Zeigler to find themselves in the 2nd weekend. The Vols bring with them a ferocious defense that is currently ranked #1 in the country. Tennessee refuses to give up easy threes or really any easy buckets for that matter. Offensively, this team has been very up and down as they often rely on 2nd chance points. If Tennessee wants to continue this run, they are going to need Finnish stud, Nkamhuoa, to lead this offense.
Team Profile: (9) Florida Atlantic
KenPom: 22
T-Rank: 31
Major Contributors: Johnell Davis, Alijah Martin
FAU is a very well balanced team. It’s hard to find anything they don’t do well besides consistency in hitting their free throws. With so many ways to win, they have amassed 33 total wins compared to just 3 losses. That being said, they aren’t elite at any one thing either. FAU runs this offense through two outstanding guards in Davis and Martin, both of them are still just sophomores. FAU likes to score from beyond the arc, they have 4 guards that shoot between 37-40% from three. FAU is also one of the shortest teams in D1.
Game Profile:
Spread: Tenn -5
FAU is going to want to score the three ball, but that is extremely hard against a Tennessee team that can flat out dominate the three point line defensively. Tennessee is going to have to get creative to hang with FAU’s ability to score. FAU’s keys to winning this game are going to be maximizing scoring opportunities against a great defense. Meanwhile, Tennessee has to find a way to score enough to beat such a talented and well rounded team
Game 4: (2)UCLA vs (3)Gonzaga
Team Profile: (2) UCLA
KenPom: 3
T-Rank: 3
Major Contributors: Jaime Jaquez, Tyger Campbell
UCLA is an experienced and unbelievably talented team. Led by two seniors, the Bruins are one of the best teams in the nation on both sides of the ball. UCLA excels in turnover differential. They take good care of the ball while forcing the 11th most turnovers in the country. They shoot well from three, but prefer to generate offense inside the arc when possible.
Team Profile (3) Gonzaga
KenPom: 7
T-Rank: 8
Major Contributors: Drew Timme
Gonzaga brings the number 1 offense in the country to this game. They can score inside and out with veteran big man Drew Timme leading the team. Gonzaga plays quickly and has an uncanny ability to generate open looks and opportunities down low for Timme. The Zags have a lot of question marks on defense which despite a historically good offense has held them back from the elite status we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from them.
Game Preview:
Spread: UCLA -2
This very well could be the best game of the Sweet 16. Gonzaga is going to have a hard time defensively, but I’m very excited to see how this offense performs against a very good UCLA team. On the other hand, UCLA absolutely has to get the scoring going in this game or they are at serious risk of ending up down a lot of points. The Bruins do boast a terrific defense though which will need to step up to keep the Zags from lighting up the scoreboard.

I spend much of my morning watching Coda and my ratlings working on Rocky’s ring, though I do check in on Violet, too. I’m trying to not get impatient and rush her, especially after Rezlar saying I’ve been growing way faster than other dungeons.
 
She’s actually sending centipede expeditions to scout the area before she expands, being cautious. To be fair, I don’t know what will happen with the scythemaw eggs in the area when she expands. They scythemaws proper are delvers, so would they become Residents? Dwellers? Delvers? I think Tarl said the townsfolk would become Residents if I expanded… or did he say Dwellers? I’d think Dwellers, since Residents seem a bit more connected.
 
Violet doesn’t seem too concerned about them, though, and seems more like someone looking to buy a house, and wanting to make sure they don’t discover the pipes are garbage or something. Whatever the eggs do, I just have to be patient and not push her too hard. She’ll get there.
 
Around noon, I feel familiar feet, with an unfamiliar set joining them. I smile to myself as I see Freddie and Rhonda, along with Fiona and Lucas, as well as an elf who feels familiar, but I can’t quite place him. I don’t need to send Teemo to go say hi, as he’s already on his way.
 
The kids are looking eager to do some delving, while the new elf is looking a bit nervous, but doing his best to hide it as Rhonda points at the porch.
 
“And there’s the notice board and the quests from the aranea!”
 
“We should get a quest. It’ll be a good way to help him get used to how Thedeim works,” points out Freddie. Teemo walks out from under the porch and grins as he sees the new elf.
 
“You guys snagged a newbie, eh?”
 
The kids look a little confused at the term, and the elf blushes a bit in embarrassment, so Teemo continues. “Nothing wrong with it. Everyone has to start somewhere. And with these two, you’ll be just fine.”
 
“He’ll be a great help to us, too,” points out Freddie. “He’s a fencer. We’ve been missing a good damage dealer.”
 
“Could have fooled me and the Boss. You kids can pull out some serious hurt when you need to.”
 
Rhonda waves that off. “We have to do a team up attack to do most of that kind of stuff. I only beat Rocky that one time because I tripped him up and basically made him hit himself.”
 
The elf’s eyes widen at that, as does Teemo’s grin. “You think the new guy could go toe to toe with Rocky?”
 
Freddie and Rhonda exchange a look, before Freddie shrugs. “We haven’t really seen him in action yet. I think the three of us together could at least give him a proper challenge.”
 
Teemo is definitely enjoying the poor elf’s misery at that idea. “What’s your name, anyway? Sorry about talking about you like you’re not here. Freddie, Rhonda, Lucas and Fiona are friends of Thedeim, and any friend of theirs is a friend of his.”
 
He looks even more terrified at that thought, but Rhonda and Freddie smile and motion for him to introduce himself, so he tries to steel his courage. “I’m Re- er… Larrez. Uh… just Larrez,” he manages, tripping over his words a bit.
 
Teemo eases up on him a bit at that and nods. “I’m Teemo, Thedeim’s Voice. Just Teemo’s fine, heh. Anyway, you kids were looking for a quest?” he asks of the whole group, and everyone, even Larrez, nods. “There should be one to do something down in Violet. You kids could take that one and take the long way. You know, show him the ropes and what all the Boss has to offer, maybe introduce him to a few of the other scions.”
 
“Is Rocky available for a sparring match?” asks Freddie, clearly wanting to actually test if he’s right about how they’ll fare.
 
“Eh… kinda. The Boss is working on a new arena for him. The big lug won’t say no, of course, but he might be a bit distracted by the call of his new ring.”
 
Freddie looks interested at that, and Rhonda speaks up. “Maybe we’ll just stop by to say hello, then. I’d love to learn more magic from him, too, but I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”
 
Teemo shrugs. “I don’t think he’ll mind if you drop in. Anyway, I’ll let you get to it. It was nice to meet you for the first time, Larrez. Just take it slow and learn to work together, and you’ll all be fine.” Larrez pales at Teemo’s exit, which makes me certain I’ve seen him before, but I still can’t place him. Teemo chuckles as he heads down a shortcut, and I decide to keep watching the young party as they look over the quests.
 
As they peruse the hanging pieces of wood, Rhonda speaks up. “Oh, this reminds me!” She levels a finger at both Freddie and Larrez. “You two should get a gathering skill!” Larrez looks confused, while Freddie looks thoughtful.
 
“We probably should, yeah. I don’t think I’m interested in any crafting skills of my own, but gathering could be useful. What do you think, Larrez?”
 
The elf, still looking a bit uncomfortable after having talked with Teemo, slowly nods. “It… would probably be smart, yes. I do not know if I would be any good at a crafting skill, but gathering is a good way to supplement adventuring income.” He gets a little more confident as he speaks, and I can practically see him reading it out of some book or another on adventuring.
 
“Anything stick out to you two?” asks Rhonda, excited her suggestion is getting followed through on. Freddie shrugs.
 
“I think the classic for a paladin would be mining or maybe lumberjacking. I even have an axe. But… neither really sounds that interesting to me. Larrez?”
 
“Um… I have always been intrigued by mining,” he admits, to the curious looks of his party. After a few moments, he continues. “It just seems… relaxing? Slow and methodical, nobody around to bother you while you work?”
 
Freddie nods at that. “You could even take up smelting to turn your ore into ingots. It’s not the most glamorous crafting job, but there’s no shortage of demand for metals.”
 
Larrez looks relieved for the support, and is even bold enough to ask his own question. “And you, Freddie? If not mining or lumberjacking, what gathering skill would you like to pursue?”
 
Freddie considers as his eyes wander the quests, before he picks one. “Field dressing is interesting. There’s a lot of magic in the herbs Rhonda gathers, but there’s also a lot of stuff in the things we fight, too. If nothing else, most skins and hides are worth something to a tanner. And… maybe cooking as a crafting skill.” He chuckles as he nods to himself, and smirks at Rhonda. “If we’re going to be a party, someone should learn to cook. Alchemy doesn’t count.”
 
She sticks her tongue out at him. “Alchemy soup totally counts,” she says with mock seriousness, before giggling and not arguing the point. She grabs a quest plaque to gather mushrooms in Violet, and Freddie shows his to skin three cave bunnies.
 
“How about you? Violet doesn’t have any mining nodes… I think, but Thedeim has ones all over in the tunnels and caverns,” says the goblin.
 
“I… do not have a pick,” admits the elf, but Rhonda doesn’t accept that excuse.
 
“We can get one from a ratling. Or, if they don’t want to let us have one, you can use your water affinity to erode the rock and get some ore, right?”
 
“...in theory?”
 
“Great! Then grab a mining quest, and we’ll give you the grand tour of Thedeim!”
 
He reaches out and takes a quest to mine some tin, then looks confused as he looks over at what the other two accepted. “Why do your quests say Violet?”
 
“Ah,” says Freddie, realizing they haven’t been explaining things very well, and motions for Larrez to follow him off the porch. “Violet is another dungeon, one pretty deep down. Thedeim found her and has taken her as his protege.”
 
His eyes widen in concern. “Another fast-developing dungeon!?”
 
Rhonda giggles and shakes her head. “Nah, she’s a lot more mild than Thedeim is, at least as far as Freddie and I can tell. Though she was kinda stuck behind the scythemaws for a while, so there wasn’t much expanding she could really do anyway.”
 
“But now the tunnel horrors are gone,” points out Larrez, still looking worried. Freddie smiles.
 
“Sure, but she’s still young, and Mr Tarl says she’s still acting like it. Thedeim is helping guide her and giving her advice, but if she was like him, she would have expanded as soon as the maws were gone. I’m pretty sure she still hasn’t.”
 
“She’s also looking like she’ll be a toybox,” points out Rhonda as they round the house and head for the simple herbalism nodes. Her quest might be for mushrooms in Violet, but the simple herbs seem to be a base for a lot of things, so might as well get some on the way.
 
“A deep toybox,” emphasizes Freddie. “Apparently, most deep dungeons are belligerent at best. If she keeps this up, the Dungeoneers will probably expand their guild here to ensure she’s safe and happy. The kind of resources she could provide could end up putting Fourdock on the map, even if Thedeim wasn’t here. With him here…”
 
Larrez sighs and I finally recognize him as he speaks. “With them both, the Mayor is going to have his hands full.”
 
 
< [Next>]
 
 
Cover art Want moar? Discord is a thing! I now have a Patreon for monthly donations, and I have a Ko-fi for one-off donations. Patreons can read up to three chapters ahead, and also get a few other special perks as well. Thank you again to everyone who is reading!

•1•
Aniyah paused by a tree that was bigger than all the rest. It was obviously very old. The leaves of its branches were a pretty teal color and were shaped like the diamonds in a deck of playing cars. She couldn't say exactly why, but this tree gave her a slight sense of comfort. In these woods--especially with the black curtain hanging over the sky--comfort was a rare commodity. She found comfort in this tree, oddly enough, and also in her new weapon. Windchine; Blade of the Paragon. She supposed she was the Paragon of the Weaver now. Whatever that meant. She knew the words, because they kept echoing throughout her thoughts, but she had only a faint idea of their meaning. She wasn't totally clueless. She'd picked up on the fact that the Weaver was a God, or something close to it. She'd intuited that Paragon was some kind of title, bestowed by the Weaver. It meant she was sort of like a knight. Beyond these things however, she didn't have much to go on. She'd always just known things she had no way of knowing. Sometimes, she knew things she had no business knowing, as Momma would have said. She wasn't psychic. Far from it. She just got gut feelings about things, that usually turned out to be right. Like the ones underneath. She'd picked up on all of that, without any real reason to pick up on it.
She was picking up on something now. Something involving the others back at the clearing.
But she was still piecing all of that together. She didn't have enough to go on yet, to have any complete, fully formed thought.
That wouldn't come until a bit later...
What came in that moment, was the subtle soothing nature of the very old tree before her. Comfort really was a rare commodity here, but aside from the tree and the scimitar, there was one more source of comfort for her, currently. The weird little jellyfish thing. It was bobbing along in the air a few feet from the tree. It hadn't left her side since bringing her the weapon. Like the tree--like Windchime--it granted her a small degree of comfort. She didn't know where the jellyfish had got the weapon, but she had an idea that even the jellyfish didn't know where it had come from. Maybe the old man had something to do with it. The one who kept the Keys. The Custodian.
She bitterly wished she'd thought to grab Mr. Brownie when she took off running from the skinless man.
The skinless man...
Now there was something she hadn't got any gut feelings about. Except for fear, that was. She knew to be fearful of the man, but that was all. She'd dealt with monsters her whole life. They'd shown up out the blue, or she'd shown up to them. Like in that Long Room. Something about the skinless man was different though. Something about him wasn't like the other monsters. He wasn't one of her monsters, she knew that much at least. She could also tell he didn't have anything to do with the ones underneath, or the grasshopper people. He wasn't connected to The Jailer.
The only intuitive feeling Aniyah had concerning the skinless man, was that he was connected to something a whole lot worse. What that something might have a been however, she had no clue.
Aniyah didn't have a sheath, or swordbelt. The scimitar hadn't come with a scabbard. As a result, she was forced to hold the weapon in her hand, since she had nowhere to stow it. The blade was as long as her arm, and curved--almost like a banana--but was only sharp on one side. This allowed her to rest the blunt edge in the crook of her shoulder, carrying it the way she'd seen lumberjacks sometimes carry their axes in old movies; with her elbow bent, and the blade sticking out behind her as if it were a compass needle that only pointed in the opposite direction from where she was facing.
With Windchine in this position, she leaned sideways against the old tree--feeling its rough bark against her skin. A soft breeze gently blew against her face, bringing with it the scents of nature. The blackness of the sky didn't seem to match the pleasantness of the wind or the earthy smells of the woods around her. Nor did the stillness. There were a few insects buzzing someplace nearby, but mostly it was quiet. It was almost tranquil, in fact. She knew that somewhere in these same woods, chaos was happening. Hell on Earth (or, Hell on In-Between, she supposed). But all of that seemed so distant. So removed from her in that moment, in this private patch of wilderness.
Part of her wanted to go charging off toward the battle, so she could save Eddie the Gnome, and Prioress Qaya, and the others. Yet, at the same time, another part of her wanted to just lie down right here and take a nice long nap. Another part still--a deeper part--briefly broached the topic of Amy. She shattered this thought into a million little pieces and scattered them in the wind. She wouldn't... no... she couldn't deal with that right now. Not yet. Soon, she would have to. But not just yet.
These contradicting parts were really all the same part. The part that didn't want to admit she was hopelessly lost. She had no dang idea where to go.
Aniyah looked up at the weird little jellyfish thing. She whispered, "Wonder how far it is, to get back to Eddie Money and the others?"
The jellyfish couldn't understand her. Duh. It was a floating jellyfish. How could it?
Except... for a moment, Aniyah thought maybe the thing did understand. And after another few seconds, she knew for sure it did.
The jellyfish flashed a soft green color. Once, then twice. To Aniyah, it was almost like it was saying: "Beep-beep!"
"What does that mean, Jellybean?" she asked, laughing at how goofy she probably sounded.
The jellyfish strobed green again. Just once this time. Then, it slowly began to float away.
"Hold up a minute. Where you goin'?" She stopped leaning against the tree and stood up straight.
The jellyfished froze for a second, beeped green once more, then started off again.
"Ohhh, okay. I see. You leading the way? Well okay then." Aniyah smiled in spite of herself.
She followed behind the jellyfish. Together, they made their way through the darkened woods. Hopefully, to rejoin the others...
•2•
"I've never been in this part of the city before," Flower-Seed admitted. "I didn't even realize there was so much down here. I knew there were older parts of Locist Spire that were here before the Jikk, and that most of it was under the city, but I didn't expect there to be all of... this." He looked around, pausing briefly to admire the elaborate architecture around him. "I mean... Gods. There's actually streets down here. And structures. Not to mention these sculptures and platforms. It's breathtaking. It's almost like an entire settlement encased in a mausoleum. A sort of... civilization time capsule."
Quijj gave only a noncommittal grunt in response.
The two of them walked side-by-side along a wide street paved in stone. So much was stonework, or marble. The craftsmanship that went into all of it was something even modern Artisians likely couldn't replicate. Large sections of the old city were in ruins, but those that remained mostly intact made Flower-Seed feel as if he'd traveled back in time. If they'd had the sky overhead instead of a cavern roof, he could have easily imagined being in the center of a bustling metropolis.
They strode by a towering sculpture made to resemble some sort of animal Flower-Seed couldn't identify. It certainly wasn't any kind of insect, or Insectoid. It had four legs and a tail, plus a large round head. It was as intriguing as it was beautiful.
Cave crickets were softly singing in the nooks and crannies. The distant sound of dripping water played constant accompaniment to the hollow resonance of this subterranean wonderland.
They turned down what had once been a side street, with Flower-Seed leading the way. Up ahead, a cavern wall blocked their advance. There was a place where the wall had been broken, creating an opening just big enough for them to squeeze through.
On the other side, they came upon a ledge overlooking a sprawling cavern. There were more ledges--some, only narrow slabs of stone reminiscent of catwalks; others, much wider, holding half-ruined structures--high up along the cavern walls. And in the center, sitting like an island in the dark sea of darkness, was a sprawling marble platform. The platform was surrounded on all sides by crags and trenches so deep Flower-Seed couldn't see their bottom. There was a naturally formed staircase of stone leading from the platform to another opening. This was most likely the main entrance to this chamber. Flower-Seed realized now that he and Quijj had taken an alternate route to get here, than the others had.
Yes. There were others. A lot of them, from the looks of it.
On the marble platform below, rows of tents and even a makeshift gazebo had been set up. As Flower-Seed's eyes adjusted, he began to make out the robes of Advisors; the armor of Spire Knights and Spire Watch. There were excited, panicked voices echoing throughout the cave. Some sort of commotion was going on.
"I had no idea any of this was here," Flower-Seed whispered.
Quijj gave him a strange look.
"Don't ask how I knew where to go, or how to get here. I just... did."
Quijj nodded, but said nothing.
From the platform, someone yelled: "Arrest the traitor!"
"Ah, shit," Flower-Seed said. He was no longer bothering to keep his voice at a whisper. The figures gathered below had broken into something close to a frenzy. "They must be talking about the Councilor." He looked at Quijj with a serious expression. "We have to get her out of here. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of our government, but something really bad is going on down here. I got... visions. I saw Spire Knights with their minds corrupted by parasites. Whoever attacked the city... they've infected some of the officials. We have to do something. If we're ever going to rebuild... we need Jikk like Councilor Lemma. She's one of the good ones."
Quijj grunted in agreement. "Alright. Let's do it."
"What's the plan?" Flower-Seed asked, suddenly nervous. He felt a bit silly asking Quijj what the plan was, considering the elderly tavern keeper had just been following his lead up this point. Now that they were here, Flower-Seed didn't have the slightest idea what he was going to do. Or even what he could do. He couldn't fight a trained Spire Knight. Let alone an entire company of them. He'd only get himself killed!
Fortunately (and to Flower-Seed's great relief), Quijj said: "Just wait here. And get ready to run. Like you've never ran before."
"Alright. I think I can do that much, at least."
Quijj nodded. He drew his odd-looking weapon, and leapt down from the ledge; spreading his wings as he did this to glide over to the platform. Just as the old tavern keep came to a landing, Flower-Seed saw two armored Knights seize Councilor Lemma by the arms, and pull her to the ground. One of the Advisors screamed.
Shit! his mind cursed. Come on, Quijj. You gotta do something! And fast!
•3•
There was a particular knock at the hidden door to the Navigator's study. Three heavy raps, a pause, then two sets of four bangs; the coded knock he'd taught to the mercenary leader. The corners of Drokin the Navigator's mouth--little more than soft tissue on either side of his pointed beak--sagged slightly, in a parody of a frown. He shot a glance over to the wall-mounted clock above his desk. It was only Ef'tat-Half-Wane. The merc shouldn't have made it to this part of Barkstone Barony, for at least another three Shecks.
Drokin cast a suspicious eye toward the opposite end of the room. He reached beneath his desk, unfastening the blade he hid there. It was always good to have a backup weapon. The talon-like claws of his hand instinctively found the pommel of his rapier. "Enter!" he called to the door.
There was a hefty creaking sound as a considerable portion of the wall was pushed inward, revealing both the false rock of the door's opposite side, and the midday sunlight beyond the study. The light was much too bright for Drokin's eyes, after spending so much time inside the chamber under the Arcas Rune lamps. For a moment, he had to squint in order to get a decent view of his visitor. The moment Drokin saw the figure entering his study, his claws tightened on the handle of his weapon.
The one who appeared through the doorway was not the merc leader Rave the Ravager. Not by a long shot. The stranger was a Jagged Fields Nerthran, just as Rave was, but this was where their similarities ended. Rave was of slightly larger than average size for an adult male member of the mothfolk race. The Nerthran before Drokin was the antithesis of average (or "slightly" for that matter). He was enormous; much larger than seemed natural. If one of his crew mates had told Drokin about seeing a Nerthran the size of this one, Drokin would have labeled them an exaggerator at best, a boldfaced liar at worst. He certainly wouldn't have believed mothmen could grow this large, if he weren't seeing the proof of that very thing with his own two eyes.
"Where is Rave? Who are you?" Drokin demanded.
The giant mothman slowly stepped inside the study and creaked the door shut behind him. He did not answer.
"I asked you a question. Where is--"
In a baritone voice that was almost pleasing to the ear, the mothman said: "Would you Sky Pirates send your Captain on every minor mission, or simple errand? I am Master Rave's deliverer. I am called Nollo."
A peculiar name for such a hulking creature as this, the Navigator mused.
When Drokin didn't initially respond, 'Nollo' added: "I have the Relic you wanted." He held up a black rectangular case, almost like the kind a Bard might use for protecting a musical instrument.
Drokin thought this over a moment, studying the towering mothman carefully. He felt almost like he was looking up at a living statue. One of the great big ones that lined the streets of the grand cities of Roshuka, or populated the ruins of Jyyrvesk's Old Country. Even the hulk's features were oversized, as if they needed to compensate for the massive face to which they were attached. This 'Nollo' somewhat unsettled Drokin. The self-proclaimed "deliverer" had a long, slender mouth that didn't quite seem to want to close all the way. This gave the mothman an almost moronic appearance; a dimwitted face with the mouth of a drooling imbecile. Combined with his considerable size, it would have been easy to dismiss this Nerthran as a buffoon. Even the title "deliverer" played into this impression. And he seemed to have a permanent glazed over quality about his eyes. However, Drokin saw what lurked beneath the surface. When he looked beyond these things, the Navigator could detect a cold, calculating intelligence in the mothman's eyes. Upon closer inspection, the glazed over quality didn't strike the Navigator as entirely organic. It struck him as purposeful, practiced--part of a kind of disguise.
Nollo was a mothman with the soul of a spider...
As these things dawned on Drokin, the unsettled feeling he'd had since this mothman's appearance turned to something bordering on outright fear. The Navigator had been all across the Lesser and Greater Reaches. He'd seen some horrid things. Something about this stranger was different, however. There was something not quite Insectoid in his eyes; not quite Of This Pocket Realm, as the Captain was want to say. Drokin had never believed in the concept of evil. Not in the same way the Old Scrolls talked about it, as least. But now--here in his study, confronted by the figure before him--when he looked into those eyes, evil was all Drokin saw.
"You... have the Horn?" Drokin asked, trying to sound casual. His heart was beating at three times it's normal tempo. He slowly reached for the Link Orb. Calling out to Captain Heekan may have been the only chance he had left. "Let me get you the coin I promise then."
"Stop," said Nollo. "Put your hand down."
Drokin paused. The tips of his claws were just inches from the Orb. If he were quick about it, he could snatch the thing up in a microsecond. The Navigator was quick. He was a trained fighter, afterall. But... he knew intuitively he would not be quick enough.
"I beg your pardon?" Drokin said, trying and failing to keep some air of authority in his tone.
Nollo laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. "There was never going to be any coin, was there? You think Master Rave wouldn't sniff out such an obvious con? You really aren't familiar with the Stonewing Pillar Mercenaries are you? We are not some low-level ratcatchers."
Drokin said nothing for a moment. At last, he sighed. He allowed his training to replace his fear. It took quite a lot of effort, but he managed. When his heart had returned to something closer to a natural beat, he leveled his avian eyes at the mothman. He dropped his hand, but brought it down to his rapier. He drew the weapon, but made no move to strike.
Through the end of his closed beak, Drokin growled: "Alright, asshole. Just what are you after?"
Nollo laughed again. He flipped open the brass latches on the black case he held, opened it. Inside, wasn't any Relic. That had been a lie. The black velvet lined interior of the case held a single object: a large throwing knife. Nollo removed the blade and let the case fall to the floor. "I'll need every piece of coin you have here. And anything else of value."
Drokin raised his rapier. "All our treasures are on the ship." He sighed, deciding to fess up. "I don't have anything here. You were right. I planned on taking the Horn and not paying. But I am obviously not getting what I wanted. There is no coin here for you to get what you want. Why don't we just call this an impasse? We both walk away, no better off... but no worse for wear than we were before. What do you say?"
Nollo shook his massive head. It was like seeing a boulder pivot atop a living column. "You think you can plot to take out our leader, and live to tell the tale? You're even more stupid than you look."
Now, Drokin was getting angry. "Do you have any idea who you're fucking with? You can't stand against our entire crew. We're the Hawkblood Pirates. You think Captain Heekan will just sit by and let you--"
The knife was buried in Drokin's windpipe, before he ever saw the mothman throw it. For someone so massive, Rollo had a dexterity and speed that were virtually unrivaled. There was a soft clang as Drokin's rapier fell to the floor; a soft gurgling sound as he began to choke on his own blood. He gasped for air his lungs couldn't find; his hands clawing at his throat to pull free a blade that wouldn't budge.
Drokin the Navigator fell to the floor with a hollow thud, knocking his chair over in the process. The last thing his dying mind registered before he lost consciousness was the sight of Rollo the mothman standing over him, whispering: "You Sky Pirates never should have come to the Wilden Green."
Then, Drokin was fading. Fading, fading.
Fading.
Fading from the mortal world, and headed for that Great Beyond...
•4•
Eyes. So many eyes. Staring. Watching.
Abominations. Wretched perversions of nature. Black-tongued things. Slime things. Things with many, many eyes.
Many. Many. Eyes.
Vellnoth! It was awful!
Zoocher slipped through a whirlwind of swirling shadows. He sank into quicksand of blackness. His mind shattered, then reformed. Shattered, then reformed. The world became a pane of glass which broke into a million, billion, trillion little pieces. He reached out, desperately trying to pick the pieces up, to put them back together.
It was no use.
Horrors. Eyes. Looking. Looking at me. Through me. Seeing me. Seeing all.
SEEING.
Zoocher rocked himself back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. There was dirt and grass beneath him. He was curled up into a ball, hugging his knees against his chest. Yet, these things were just background details. This was just his surroundings, and his physical body. His mind was somewhere else--perhaps, in another patch of dirt, slowly turning to mud. No. Not mud. Quicksand.
Sinking. He was sinking. Sinking, and slipping away. Slipping off into that Forever Night.
White Staircase?
No. He saw no White Staircase. Perhaps, only the Black Steps awaited him after all the awful things he'd done in life.
Only... there were no Black Steps, either.
Because he wasn't dead. Not yet, at least.
He was alive, but he was not living. Not in the normal sense.
Eyes. Watching. Looking. Seeing. Viewing. Glimpsing.
STARING.
GODS. OH GODS. OH VELLNOTH PLEASE!
No mercy for him. No Gods coming to save him. Only horrors.
He'd been in that terrible place, in that terrible room for what had felt like centuries.
Now he was back in the woods. But not all of him. He'd left some essential part of himself back there, back in that terrible place.
And now, he'd never get that part back. It was lost to him. For good. Forever.
Zoocher leaned over and vomited yellow bile onto the grass. His head was swimming. He slowly stood up. As he stood, everything fell away. Everything. His entire being. His essence. His all. His whole.
Zoocher? No. There was no Zoocher anymore.
Maybe there never had been.
Certainly, there would never be a Zoocher again.
Shattered.
Zoocher was shattered and lost. Gone. Now, Zoocher was no more. Forever departed.
He felt something warm and wet run down his legs. He'd urinated on himself without realizing it. This did not bother him. This meant nothing. He took a step forward and vomited onto his vest. This too meant nothing.
He stripped off his armor, his undergarments, his weapons. He kicked off his boots. To one side of the pile he'd made with his belongings, there were a set of bootprints in the dirt. He turned in the opposite direction, and started walking. He didn't know where he was going. He only knew he needed to walk.
Visions winked in and out of his mind. He continued walking, muttering to himself all the while. He spoke of everything, of nothing. He asked questions without answer. He gave answers to questions no one had asked.
Those eyes. They were burned into his brain. No. His brain was a burn. A scorchmark, littered with eyes. Staring. Watching. Waiting?
He walked on. Walking through the woods, to nowhere. Walking. Muttering. Thinking of eyes and Slime things.
It was a long time before he stopped.
•5•
There were two astounding sights, which presented themselves consecutively before him. In over two decades serving as one of the Hawkblood's top Assault Commanders, he had never seen anything more incredible than the Black Pyramid. That was, right up until the moment he saw the entire Pyramid vanish right before his eyes. If anything could be even more incredible than seeing the Pyramid; suddenly not seeing the Pyramid would have to be it.
Commander Ramses blinked several times, as if he were unable to trust what his eyes were showing him. The airspace beyond the windshield of his Glider Pod now showed only a sea of nothing, save for the Sky Gods higher up in the atmosphere.
"What the fuck? Where did it go?" he muttered to the empty cockpit.
The Glider Pods were designed to resemble plump black ravens. Ramses's Glider was slightly larger than the others in the fleet, as his was the Pod that carried most of the Big Weapons. Currently, they were in a V formation like actual birds; twelve in Ramses's group, twelve more in Commander Paulo's group that would have been approaching the Pyramid from behind; another twelve coming in from the right, making up Commander Gichi's group. The Gyff had their own Gliders, fashioned from wooden planks and some unknown material Ramses had never seen before. The Gyff ships looked a lot like the Gyff themselves; like long slender walking sticks. Their ships cut through the air like wooden missiles, lined up in a near row.
Ramses slapped the control panel, activating the Com-Cube. "Am I seeing things? Have I lost my mind?"
"No." It was the voice of Commander Gichi. She sounded uncharacteristically shaken. "The damn thing went POOF. Just like that."
The Gyff leading the stickbug group (his name was Kloom, if Ramses's memory served him) chimed in. "What do we do now? Will it reappear, you think?"
Ramses smacked the controls again, this time out of frustration. He said, "Somebody better get the Captain on the--"
"Already here," said the voice of Captain Heekan.
"You been listening this whole time?" Gichi asked.
"No. I just came on. Now listen. Everyone. Listen very closely. The Pyramid isn't in the valley anymore, but all is not lost. We will track it down. I already know where they took it."
Ramses gaped at this. "What? Captain... how could you already know all of that? It just vanished, only a few ticks ago."
Gichi made a soft gasping sound. "Captain. No. Tell me you didn't use it."
"I had to," Captain Heekan said with remorse. "The Mirror is too valuable a tool for us not to utilize it. And if ever there were a time when we needed it, it would be now."
"How many years did it take off your life?" Gichi asked hesitantly.
After a pause, Heekan said, "It doesn't matter. We're getting sidetracked here. There is a lot more going on than we realized. There are agents of not one, but two of the 5 Pharoahs here in the Wilden Green Valley, as we speak."
"What?" it was Gichi and Kloom in unison.
Commander Paulo broke his silence. "Which other Pharoah are we talking about?"
Heekan said, "Aside from Camaria the Butcher who we already knew about (it was one of her Scarabs that took the Pyramid), there's some of the Necromancer's men here too."
"The Necromancer?" Ramses said in disbelief. "The right hand man of Dowlmad the Deathless?" Ramses felt a cold chill run up his spine. "You're not telling me he is here in this valley, are you?"
"The Necromancer himself? No. Just some of his underlings. The Skinless Men, they're called."
Gichi asked, "Are they really all after the Pyramid and the Artifacts? I can't imagine two of the 5 Pharoahs would expend resources just for the stuff we're after. Aside for the Black Pyramid. But even still... something seems off here."
"Well," said Heekan. "That's because something is off. There are bigger forces at work here than we ever realized. Sure, they were after the Pyramid and the Divine Battery. But those are more like... party favors, to them."
Ramsese shook his head. "I already don't like how this sounds." The open sky outside his Glider suddenly felt less like empty airspace, and more like an endless abyss. One glance at the Sky Gods floating higher in the heavens strengthened this feeling, causing the commander to shudder as another chill ran up his back.
Captain Heekan said, "Then you really won't like what I'm about to tell you."
As it turned out, the Captain was absolutely right. Ramses really didn't like it one bit. None of them did.
•••
And Commander Ramses was not the only one who was told things they didn't like. While he was listening to his Captain's words with growing unease, elsewhere in the Wilden Green Valley, a certain Ranger was receiving a rather ominous warning...
•••
•6•
Deep within the bowels of the Reverse Tower. In the Domain of the Being known as O'Faxx.
Ranger Lexington stood atop the large boulder, surrounded by a sea of sludge. The putrid aroma of this place once more assaulted his senses, while his boots sank into the slick, squicky growth coating the boulder. Lexington's dragonfly-like features hid his discomfort. Outwardly, he appeared as stoic--as unshakeable--as always. At least, until he spoiled the effect with a knowing smirk.
To the bubbling muck, he called out: "So, you decided to help out afterall?"
There was no response.
Lexington's smirk faded. He bowed his head slightly. "It's alright. You don't have to speak. I only wish your assistance had been enough. That way Burlap wouldn't have had to give his life the way he did."
O'Faxx did not emerge from the murky depths.
Lexington would have sighed had the air quality in here not been so abhorrent. "Anyway, I just wanted to thank you. I will find a way to reward you."
Although O'Faxx remained beneath the muck, his voice echoed inside the Ranger's mind. "My actions were not on your behalf. Your ignorance betrays you, Overseer."
Lexington cocked his head to one side. "If you say so." He shrugged. "Some guys just can't accept a thank you, I guess."
"You have yet to understand. I helped you, to destroy you. None of you know yet what you are unleashing. I did not see the truth before, but the truth has now presented itself to me. The Gods wish to assemble the 12 and bring about the White Clock Consortion. Fools. They don't yet realize with the advent of the White Clock, the Black Clock follows. Those numbers shall count down their destruction. I looked into the destiny of the mortals you have placed so much faith in. I saw what they will bring about. They are one of the Four Winds that will blow upon the Door of Doom. One of them is a Paige of the Necronomicon."
"What does that mean? Quit speaking in riddles."
"There's a storm coming, Overseer. A storm that will wash away the world. This one, and all others. I haven't helped you. I've only helped the first few raindrops, so they might better form within the dark clouds hanging over this Pocket Realm. And in the wake of that rain? The thunder shall soon roll."
A storm coming. Four Winds that will blow upon the Doors of Destruction. Thunder.
These things made no sense to the Ranger. One thing was clear however; whatever O'Faxx's words meant, Lexington didn't like the sound of any of it.
•7•
There's a particular way Advisors and nobleJikk cry out when something disrupts their normal routine. It's a breathy sort of shriek, like someone emptying their lungs before they faint. Many of the High Advisors were voicing this exact variety of shriek now, as High Knight Pyx ordered his Spire Knights to arrest Lemma.
Temporary Councilor E'Shesh (to her credit) tried to block the path of the Knights. She was shoved out of the way, hard enough to cause the poor she-Jikk to tumble over onto the hard marble surface of the platform.
Then, underneath the makeshift gazebo, pandemonium set in. The stress of the attack on the city had already pushed everyone toward the brink of panic. This new development made them all leap right over the edge, falling right into the place people (Jikk, or otherwise) always fall in times like this one.
Lemma didn't run. She stood her ground, glowering at Pyx and Councilor Tholke; glaring as if she could knock some sense into them with her gaze alone. Of course, this was a futile endeavor. The Knights were upon here a moment later. Strong arms seized her, throwing her to the ground. Then, oddly enough, even stronger arms were lifting her from the floor. She stared down the Knights arresting her, but the expressions they gave her in return were not those of hardened Knights doing their duty. They were the expressions of Jikk who'd been caught completely off guard.
As she was lifted even higher, Lemma finally realized it wasn't the Knights who currently held her. It was someone else.
"What... who... what's going on?" she cried weakly.
She was being carried away by... one of the local tavern keepers?
"What's happening? What are you doing?" she demanded.
"She's getting away!" someone shouted.
"After her!" a Spire Knight ordered.
All at once, the Knights were airborne, in pursuit. The air was alive with the sound of buzzing wings, the shuffling and frantic falls of boots, and so much shouting. Lemma dangled over seemingly bottomless trenches and crumbling remnants of the City That Once Was.
The tavern keeper, in all this time, had only explained himself with a single grunt. Now, he was using his free arm to aim some kind of weapon at the Knights.
"No," Lemma pleaded. "Don't kill them. They're only doing their duty."
"Stun-shot," said the elderly tavern keeper. The words came an instant before his weapon discharged and the air behind them exploded in brilliant blue electricity. There was a loud series of crackling sounds, as the small-scale controlled lightning tore through each of the Knights. As if an invisible net had ensnared them, the Knights all froze in midair a moment, before their wings slowed to a standstill. They began to plummet down to the darkness below.
The tavern keeper voiced a soft grunt of regret.
"You can say that again," Lemma scolded. "The shot may have stunned them, but the fall will surely do a whole lot more. What's the meaning of this? Are you kidnapping me?"
The tavern keeper shook his head. "Behind you," he said. They climbed higher, closing in on the stone wall of the spacious cavern.
Lemma craned her neck to look back at the platform. What she saw horrified her. Hight Knight Pyx and Councilor Tholke. Even from this far away, she could see that their eyes appeared to have ruptured. From the vacant holes where their eyes had been, large fat yellow worms as long as sword blades were spilling out onto the platform. Each worm slapped down onto the marble, then immediately began to grow in size. Within mere seconds, each one grew to the size of a Field Roamer pup. And they only continued getting bigger.
The Advsiors and officials broke into a stampede, making for the platform's only exit; the flight of stone steps leading up to the passageway before street level.
"Gods," Lemma whispered. "We have to seal off the exit. We can't let those... those things make it up to the city."
But based on the ever-increasing size of the worms, and their ever-growing numbers, she feared it might already be too late.
"Hurry! Come on!" someone shouted, just ahead.
Lemma turned toward the sound of the voice. She saw a Jikk standing atop a stone ledge, high up on the cavern wall. She didn't recognize him.
A second later, the tavern keeper brought her down to a gentle landing on the ledge beside the unfamiliar Jikk. She eyed them both suspiciously. "Just what is going on? And who is this?"
"My name is Flower-Seed. And we've got to get the fuck out of here, Councilor."
The tavern keeper asked, "How can we seal it off?"
Lemma thought for a moment. "You came through there?" She pointed to the large gap behind Flower-Seed.
"We did," said the tavern keeper.
"Then we might be able to beat the worms to the surface. There's a secret tunnel in the cave ceiling, a little further on. Come on. We have to get to the statue of Kylo the Great, up in the Cobbler's District. There's a hidden lever inside. I know the code to turn it. It will seal off the Old City. It's our only chance."
"Then let's get moving," said Flower-Seed.
The tavern keeper only grunted his agreement.
Together, the three of them took off at a sprint. There truly wasn't a single moment to spare...
•8•
Rave spotted the figures below, standing patiently beside a gnarled, leafless gatortree. He came to a landing, just a few yards from them. Eight pairs of cold, dark eyes peered out from eight fleshless humanoid faces, considering him with an alien species of indifference.
A long black case was tucked beneath Rave's right arm. In his left hand, he clutched his Rune Stone expectantly. Any moment now, Nollo would be giving him the word that the deed was done. Any moment now. Rave had an internal clock that kept near perfect timing when it came to things like murder.
Sure enough, the Rune Stone began to grow warmer to Rave's touch.
Nollo's voice came through the Stone. "Boss?"
Rave grinned with what remained of his ruined mouth. "It's done?"
"It's done," Nollo confirmed.
"Good. I'd expect nothing less. You know where I'll be?"
"Yes, sire. I'll see you there shorly."
Rave didn't bother giving a final response. He put the Stone away and took the black case into his hands. The Skinless Men only watched him patiently.
Rave approached the figures beneath the gnarled tree. This was a remote region of Jikkellia's borderlands, where the high grasses gave way to miles of mostly barren dirt and rock. The gatortree stood out, in that it was one of the few trees on the visible landscape here. Just over the horizon, was the large mountain where a certain group of outsiders were rumored to have crashed in a small rowing vessel recently.
Rave waited for one of the skinless men to speak first. When none did, he said: "A lot of people wanted this Horn. You just so happened to be the only ones offering more than coin." This was a half-truth. The Sky Pirates had spoken of coin, but had in reality, offered only betrayal. "I've kept up my end. Now, I expect you to keep yours."
Rave's mind calculated dozens of ways he could slaughter each of these figures, should they show any sign of aggression. It was just how his brain operated. He plotted ways to thwart threats that hadn't even been presented yet. In this line of business, you had to stay twelve moves ahead.
Right on time, Rave's reinforcements arrived. He'd been doing these kinds of deals for far too long to ever go by himself. Even if he did feel confident enough in his abilities that he wasn't weary of the figures before him. Even in a 1 v. 8 duel to the death, he was certain he'd have the upper hand.
Four mothmen mercs landed just behind Rave--keeping their distance but standing at the ready. Rave didn't so much as glance at them. He casually stepped away from his foot soldiers and moved closer to the Skinless Men. "So, how about it? You said you had a way to get us out of this valley. Is that still true?"
One of the figures (there was really no way for Rave to tell the apart, as they all looked like carbon copies of each other) nodded. "We represent Pharoah Dowlmad. Pharoah Dowlmad always keeps his word. Give us the Black Horn and we shall give you freedom from this place."
Rave said nothing a moment. At last, he nodded. "Alright. I'll take you at your word." He slowly held out the case, offering it to one of the figures. The skinless man eagerly accepted the Artifact. He lifted the lid and removed the item inside, handing it to one of the others.
The Black Horn of the Olde Music looked like the hollowed-out horn of some bovine creature, like those Rave had seen sketched in old tomes. Aside from the fact it was black as obsidian, of course. There was a silver mouthpiece banded around the narrow end. That was all there was to the object. All in all, it was rather unimpressive looking by Artifact standards.
The other man examined it for several seconds, before deciding he was satisfied. He nodded back to the first man who took the Horn and returned it to its case.
"So," Rave said, taking on a tone of casual conversation while feigning ignorance. "What does that thing do, anyhow?"
The Skinless Men only regarded him coldly.
Rave nodded, flashing a half grin. "Fair enough. Now... as for your part of the bargain?"
"Yes," said the man holding the case. "You want your entire company to leave this valley? Return to us when you are all together. Some of us will remain here in this spot. We will give you three sunrises after sundown today. If you aren't here by then, we cannot wait any longer."
"We'll return long before then," Rave said.
There didn't seem to be anything more to say. He turned and motioned to the other mercs. "Let's head out. We'll regroup with the others and get everything underway."

GENERAL GUIDE TO LEARN ANY LANGUAGE (and basically anything else, in my opinion)
TAKE A TEST. Better if online and better to do more than one, but try to figure out what level you are at, to scale the problem and to give you a hand. The goal in a language is NEVER perfection, that is unattainable, and everyone has different goals. Maybe you want to know two sentences, have a few conversations, or be able to pass a native speaker exam, but until you get an idea of your level you will always think you are not good enough.
SERIES, MOVIES, BOOKS The world is full of tools, the Internet in particular, so use them! Maybe there's a show you've seen twenty times, why not watch it again in the language you're studying? Maybe even without subtitles. And don't be scared off by the lack of subtitles, at this stage the important thing is to cover yourself with information, better if it is understood, but not necessarily. A lot of content is dubbed and subbed in many languages, so try it out for yourself! Books are also very useful, but I realize they can be more difficult to deal with.
MUSIC Songs occupy a special section of the brain, a melody always helps to remember, of course it is better if you consider it appreciable, but it is impossible not to find any, even when learning the most obscure language out there.
RadioGarden is perfect, though perhaps not most suitable for the latest generations.
ADDITIONAL LESSONS You may not have the budget or the time, but consider an investment in this area and you will not regret it, even if only online. Some apps help but only if you have an average level in the language, like HelloTalk, but having private lessons is an incredible boost in self-esteem and motivation.
MORE - YouTube channels - The entirety of Reddit - Learning apps, such as Duolinguo, Pimsleur, Babbel, Anki, or others of a different kind such as RadioGarden, and many others (the first and second-to-last are free) - VPN
A BUNCH OF KEYWORDS: - Immersion: drown in the language, submerge yourself in continuous stimuli, even if you don't fully understand them. Chew the language, repeat the same things, change the language of your electronic devices to English, in short, increase the input of information.
- Fun: especially if you are learning a language because you have to and not because you want to, why not make it interesting? Of course not everything can be, but it doesn't hurt to try, what have you got to lose?
- Routine: decide on a time of day or amount of time and stick to it, better five minutes a day for six months than six hours a day for two weeks. Don't shoot too high or too low; find what works best for you.
- Customize: no one method fits all, so look for others', create your own, or both. Adapt the material to your needs, modify, experiment. While it is true that no tool is perfect, you can create one that is perfect for you.
- Usage: The Internet is an infinite resource, use it as much as possible. Research, discover, get interested, tour corners you had never been to, and maybe you might find something genuinely fascinating. You also have at your disposal some of the most powerful tools ever invented by mankind, so manipulate them in your favor. Strive to get the algorithms of each social to recommend more and more things in that language, and in no time they will figure out what you want to do, coordinating.
- Kindness: Treat yourself well, learning a language, even a relatively simple one like English, is not an easy task, it is very normal to take time. And don't get down on yourself if someone is a hundred times better than you, surely you're better at other things, you haven't tried hard enough, or they're bragging in vain. You are not learning a language for them, but for you. Apart from the certainty that you have other qualities (which they may not have, and maybe who knows already they envy you), it is absolutely not true that "you suck at learning languages," the great thing is that there is nothing against you but yourself! What's more, how do you know if you are good if you don't even try ? Maybe if you put your mind to it you would learn Indonesian in a day, but with German you just can't. What do you have to lose? A few more days of useful information? It's a project for you by yourself, it's only you that's stopping you! So get a move on!
- Help: Ask other people, they will be happy to help you, no matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, especially native speakers, if you are lucky enough to know any. Put yourself in their shoes, wouldn't you like to teach your language or one of your languages to friends/relatives if they didn't know it?
- Distinguish: Make your difficulties clear and deal with them, but above all, don't bang your head against the wall if you see it doesn't help, take shortcuts rather, go around it, jump over it, find a way to solve it. Another thing to keep in mind is to absorb things appropriate to your level, after a certain point the absorption phase ends and the practice phase begins, although it may take months.
- Addiction: As scary as the term may be, why not try to make it something that keeps you glued? This is very personal and may be a bit extreme, but it undoubtedly works. I am of course talking about finding something very exciting, so that you are constantly drawn to the language.
- Brain change: Nothing is more satisfying than realizing after some time that you know what something means, and at some point you start thinking, dreaming and swapping languages in your mind. It is proven that learning a new language radically changes the brain and opens up new perspectives and opportunities, in addition to the job opportunities it already opens up.
- Comprehension: What does it mean to be able to speak make normal conversation? Just asking for directions? Being able to give an international lecture? Knowing 15 words to impress someone? These are all levels of the same thing; explore further and fully understand where you want to go from here.
CONCLUSIONS AND EXTRAS - You definitely know more about that language than you think, words you've heard twice in ten years, similar sections to other languages, easy grammar, in short, you have no reason not to learn a new language!
- Don't get down on yourself if you need a break, but remember why you are doing this and relax so you can get off to a good start.
- You can't expect to study two hours a day for six months and not feel a little burned out or a little unmotivated, the important thing is to realize that, and not feel guilty about it! "I didn't do anything today," but what about yesterday? What about the day before? It takes so little to bring yourself down, but if you hang in there, it's worth it.
-Combat embarrassment, while you might make mistakes, one thing is certain, you can't get worse. So jump in, not necessarily with words.
- There are no universal methods.
- The best thing is to set a roughly fixed schedule, and you will see that after only a few days your brain will start working for you.
- Instead of looking for tutorials in your own language to learn another one (fluffing necessary here), look for tutorials on how to learn your language in the one you are learning! Not only will you find it interesting, but they will be topics you already know something about, and seeing it from a foreigner's perspective will be truly fascinating, I promise.
- There are many ways to work, but the best way is to get started.
- If you don't know what to look for on the Internet or feel silly looking for something like "top 5 apps for learning..." then start with what you prefer. What are your personal interests? Your already ingrained passions? What do you search for most often online and off? Those are the topics you want to look up in other languages as well, it's like giving your brain candy of the same flavor but with a different packaging, you'll love it, even though you may not quite understand what you're eating.
- Don't be frightened by the vastness of a language, all its ramifications, dialects, things you may have learned wrong, things you could have done better, known earlier, enjoy the journey instead of thinking about the destination.
- Small goals, path in stages. You are not able to sustain a task like "rewrite the Iliad by hand on stone." You panic, do something else, and then feel guilty. Instead, if you think, "Today I'm writing the first page of the Iliad, but not on rock, on paper. In fact, the first paragraph." Easier and less terrifying, right?
I hope this was helpful to you kind stranger, though I doubt you've put up with me this far.
Please remember all of these are my opinion on how to learn a language and that I didn't discover them first, let me know if you would like me to translate this into other languages (my first language is actually Italian), and remember to not put too much stress on your shoulders, you can do it!

GENERAL GUIDE TO LEARN ANY LANGUAGE (and basically anything else, in my opinion)
TAKE A TEST. Better if online and better to do more than one, but try to figure out what level you are at, to scale the problem and to give you a hand. The goal in a language is NEVER perfection, that is unattainable, and everyone has different goals. Maybe you want to know two sentences, have a few conversations, or be able to pass a native speaker exam, but until you get an idea of your level you will always think you are not good enough.
SERIES, MOVIES, BOOKS The world is full of tools, the Internet in particular, so use them! Maybe there's a show you've seen twenty times, why not watch it again in the language you're studying? Maybe even without subtitles. And don't be scared off by the lack of subtitles, at this stage the important thing is to cover yourself with information, better if it is understood, but not necessarily. A lot of content is dubbed and subbed in many languages, so try it out for yourself! Books are also very useful, but I realize they can be more difficult to deal with.
MUSIC Songs occupy a special section of the brain, a melody always helps to remember, of course it is better if you consider it appreciable, but it is impossible not to find any, even when learning the most obscure language out there.
RadioGarden is perfect, though perhaps not most suitable for the latest generations.
ADDITIONAL LESSONS You may not have the budget or the time, but consider an investment in this area and you will not regret it, even if only online. Some apps help but only if you have an average level in the language, like HelloTalk, but having private lessons is an incredible boost in self-esteem and motivation.
MORE - YouTube channels - The entirety of Reddit - Learning apps, such as Duolinguo, Pimsleur, Babbel, Anki, or others of a different kind such as RadioGarden, and many others (the first and second-to-last are free) - VPN
A BUNCH OF KEYWORDS: - Immersion: drown in the language, submerge yourself in continuous stimuli, even if you don't fully understand them. Chew the language, repeat the same things, change the language of your electronic devices to English, in short, increase the input of information.
- Fun: especially if you are learning a language because you have to and not because you want to, why not make it interesting? Of course not everything can be, but it doesn't hurt to try, what have you got to lose?
- Routine: decide on a time of day or amount of time and stick to it, better five minutes a day for six months than six hours a day for two weeks. Don't shoot too high or too low; find what works best for you.
- Customize: no one method fits all, so look for others', create your own, or both. Adapt the material to your needs, modify, experiment. While it is true that no tool is perfect, you can create one that is perfect for you.
- Usage: The Internet is an infinite resource, use it as much as possible. Research, discover, get interested, tour corners you had never been to, and maybe you might find something genuinely fascinating. You also have at your disposal some of the most powerful tools ever invented by mankind, so manipulate them in your favor. Strive to get the algorithms of each social to recommend more and more things in that language, and in no time they will figure out what you want to do, coordinating.
- Kindness: Treat yourself well, learning a language, even a relatively simple one like English, is not an easy task, it is very normal to take time. And don't get down on yourself if someone is a hundred times better than you, surely you're better at other things, you haven't tried hard enough, or they're bragging in vain. You are not learning a language for them, but for you. Apart from the certainty that you have other qualities (which they may not have, and maybe who knows already they envy you), it is absolutely not true that "you suck at learning languages," the great thing is that there is nothing against you but yourself! What's more, how do you know if you are good if you don't even try ? Maybe if you put your mind to it you would learn Indonesian in a day, but with German you just can't. What do you have to lose? A few more days of useful information? It's a project for you by yourself, it's only you that's stopping you! So get a move on!
- Help: Ask other people, they will be happy to help you, no matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, especially native speakers, if you are lucky enough to know any. Put yourself in their shoes, wouldn't you like to teach your language or one of your languages to friends/relatives if they didn't know it?
- Distinguish: Make your difficulties clear and deal with them, but above all, don't bang your head against the wall if you see it doesn't help, take shortcuts rather, go around it, jump over it, find a way to solve it. Another thing to keep in mind is to absorb things appropriate to your level, after a certain point the absorption phase ends and the practice phase begins, although it may take months.
- Addiction: As scary as the term may be, why not try to make it something that keeps you glued? This is very personal and may be a bit extreme, but it undoubtedly works. I am of course talking about finding something very exciting, so that you are constantly drawn to the language.
- Brain change: Nothing is more satisfying than realizing after some time that you know what something means, and at some point you start thinking, dreaming and swapping languages in your mind. It is proven that learning a new language radically changes the brain and opens up new perspectives and opportunities, in addition to the job opportunities it already opens up.
- Comprehension: What does it mean to be able to speak make normal conversation? Just asking for directions? Being able to give an international lecture? Knowing 15 words to impress someone? These are all levels of the same thing; explore further and fully understand where you want to go from here.
CONCLUSIONS AND EXTRAS - You definitely know more about that language than you think, words you've heard twice in ten years, similar sections to other languages, easy grammar, in short, you have no reason not to learn a new language!
- Don't get down on yourself if you need a break, but remember why you are doing this and relax so you can get off to a good start.
- You can't expect to study two hours a day for six months and not feel a little burned out or a little unmotivated, the important thing is to realize that, and not feel guilty about it! "I didn't do anything today," but what about yesterday? What about the day before? It takes so little to bring yourself down, but if you hang in there, it's worth it.
-Combat embarrassment, while you might make mistakes, one thing is certain, you can't get worse. So jump in, not necessarily with words.
- There are no universal methods.
- The best thing is to set a roughly fixed schedule, and you will see that after only a few days your brain will start working for you.
- Instead of looking for tutorials in your own language to learn another one (fluffing necessary here), look for tutorials on how to learn your language in the one you are learning! Not only will you find it interesting, but they will be topics you already know something about, and seeing it from a foreigner's perspective will be truly fascinating, I promise.
- There are many ways to work, but the best way is to get started.
- If you don't know what to look for on the Internet or feel silly looking for something like "top 5 apps for learning..." then start with what you prefer. What are your personal interests? Your already ingrained passions? What do you search for most often online and off? Those are the topics you want to look up in other languages as well, it's like giving your brain candy of the same flavor but with a different packaging, you'll love it, even though you may not quite understand what you're eating.
- Don't be frightened by the vastness of a language, all its ramifications, dialects, things you may have learned wrong, things you could have done better, known earlier, enjoy the journey instead of thinking about the destination.
- Small goals, path in stages. You are not able to sustain a task like "rewrite the Iliad by hand on stone." You panic, do something else, and then feel guilty. Instead, if you think, "Today I'm writing the first page of the Iliad, but not on rock, on paper. In fact, the first paragraph." Easier and less terrifying, right?
I hope this was helpful to you kind stranger, though I doubt you've put up with me this far.
Please remember all of these are my opinion on how to learn a language and that I didn't discover them first, let me know if you would like me to translate this into other languages (my first language is actually Italian), and remember to not put too much stress on your shoulders, you can do it!

Hello there :)
Name's Ann, and I'm from Bulgaria! It'll be awesome if we're in similar time zones, but not really a requirement.
I'm a competitive skier and shooter, training for biathlons. Other hobbies are swimming (been on few national championships, close, but not good enough) and some photography, but I'm just starting with that one, I don't have great photos to show...
And play acoustic guitar for a few years now.
Also books! Recommend me a decent sci Fi and I can
talk for days! Don't be afraid to shoot me a DM, even if we don't have
much in common.
Thanks for reading all of this

now before we get into this, im not saying its true, they can do what they wants with the story and i can come up with ways to get rid of dragons ect aswell using the same theory.
This comes from something that bothered me in gw1 and now its a little more odd in gw2. and it particallly has to do with colors in guild wars in general. namely purple. i get you can have simular colors as example, nature and necromancy being greenish.
This has to do with abbadon and his story giving power to the worthy and trying to destroy tyria. he was imprisoned after handing out power to humans. who else gives power to humans? now you could say all gods and yes but it seems most of the gods have negitive traits which are highlighted in some of their stories found in game. Now dwayna game the emperor of cantha power for the ritual in gw1 seemingly, canthas culture is the most impacted by dragons in the early games. but who else gives power to people she deems worthy? who also tests humans and kills humans a bit more randomly in the game? who in her stories tests but also consumes all the food ect from people she then controlled to fight and die. Lyssa. The twin god, perhaps split personalities, god of illlussion and i raise you lyssa is loki. got a possible jar jar binks going on.
now this comes with colors from gw1 videos with shiro exploding, it has blue green and purple. you can say perhaps dwayna is blue as he absorbed the emperors soul but my thing is in gw1 we saw most of the relms of the gods, in gw2 you saw part of malandrues world, now you could say as you found the dragon he started in a area of the mists that was purple. maybe we saw some of lyssas world but i doubt it. and we know dwayna brought humans to find peace even if we havnt seen her plane.
now we are told we saw abbadons plane in gw1, madness and torrment... but in gw2 we talk and see the water dragons. we know most of the gods are simular to the dragons. perhaps the dragons feast on the energies that power the gods worlds. we know most of no all the gods worlds have confllict with shadow forces if not the void. Abbadon is the god of water.... blue.... madness and torment are mesmer sounding traits. he was imprisoned .... who was watching the prison? your telling me the gods didnt ever check their big boy threat in jail? what god likes punishing people.. lyssa. what god like manipulating peoples thoughts to do her will, lyssa, have we seen lyssas world? no. The gods came to tyria at different times. melandru is kind of neutral to natural things, dwayna is more on humans side than most. balthazar is a bit reckless and grenth is dwaynas son and the only god left that is able to see through lies.
i raise you that if the game wants us to kill or fight the gods right now is the time. kormir is the god of truth but she was bllind in gw1. she might not be able too see through lyssa. if the gods get power from their worlds, kormir gave up the title of water to who? lyssa, assuming lyssa might be able to enter abbadons relm and find knowledge maybe she is still around tyria. she is the main god that walks around tyria the most. testing people. now this leads to gw2 if domains give power lyssa now controls 2 which threatens balthazar. now balthazar has been collecting valiant soldiers to fight for him for a long time so even with him fallen his troops might be able to hold his domain for a while, opening the possibility of a fissure of woe expansion line. balthazar needed power to fight lyssa but now he is gone. leaving his world open to claim, we know abbadono was the strongest god and lyssa now controls water, which means its likely she is on par if not stronger than the other gods currently. and in this story grenth is the only god left that could see through her lies, meaning next target. leaving then dwayna and melandru left, and meandru would be neutral and grenths death might affect dwayna into action.
now in gw1 shiro was affected by a old woman fortune teller, we now lyssa has controled people before and turned into old women before. when shiro explodes there is a line of purple and he affects the reallity of the world with the jade wind. im a bit rusty on lore but maybe this was to awaken the dragons. we know lyssa deems peoplle worthy.
This suggests we have seen lyssas world or at least her effects on a world. Madness and torment. yes thats right. lyssa could have been the watcher over abbadon and to second this when shiro dies again he is sent to the relm of torrment for punishment. Abbadon was imprisioned... why would he have the power to decide were shiro went. yes its possible but lyssa coulld have been torchering abbadon and put shiro in there for her plans and perhaps abbadon loosing his sanity which is something we see in the dragons started to call apon the void.
now in gw2 balthazar was imprisoned and the only reason rytlock released him was hee didnt know it was balthazar, why is this? his form was changed by who? lyssa. lyssa helped imprison balthazar and then planned his escape so he would be forced to do her bidding aswell as give up his world.
i coulld go into mesmers in gw1 and the charr ect but its probably not important. but we have seen that charr get access to powerful balthazar artifacts in gw2? where did they get them? balthazar fought the charr with the humans in the past. if balthazar was trapped who would have access to his things .... lyssa.
now why would this be a thing. well lets compare the gods to something like dragons watch. you betrayal and one death. currently in the gods world you could say abbadon died and ballthazar betrayed the gods or , balthazar died and llyssa betrayed the gods, or both who knows.
we know dwayna brought the humans. we know grenth is dwaynas kid and melandru is kind of neutral and the oldest god. thats leaves, abbadon ,lyssa, and balthazar fighting over humans perhaps. lyssa may not even have a world if its void. abbadon was giving power to people lyssa didnt deem worthy, becoming her first target. the other gods can be simular in her eyes. and she has a kind of arrogance about her she may not like dwayna who knows. we dont really get much sense of unity between gods more like a mutual respect of power which is why they have to all decide to do something together and would give power to kormir after abbadons fall.
now they say the gods left to find new land but each relm we have seen had a dark force attacking it. the shadow army and the demons in grenths world in gw1. if that is affects simular to the dragons that means the gods might of been forced to return to their relms to protect their power and couldnt fight the dragons. also opens up storyline for us in the future.
mainly this more of less is based on purple. madness torment, torment weapons ect all purple. purple mesmer, illlusion, the skillls used by evil creatures in the games using mesmer effects ect. videos with purple energy effects.
lastly i want to throw one more thing in here. the new class, revenant. you involk legends... now you can say shiro is evil and he probably is but before his manipulation he was a hero of a sort, and most of the other legends are heroes. now in the new expansion you have lux and kurz heroes. what doesnt fit here...??
myllax- you have one demon evil creature among all the heroes.... lets look into this.
The Margonite Mallyx is a book about Mallyx the Unyielding, found in the Durmand Priory's Special Collections during the Hidden Arcana chapter of the Echoes of the Past.
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No one knows who wrote this, but it is an ancient letter to the High Priest Zhellix, a Forgotten who led a historic assault on the Margonites (demon followers of Abaddon).📷 Read on.To be noted: breaching the Ebony Citadel will likely kill you. Mallyx the Unyielding rules the four Lords of Anguish, and they will shred you.📷 Read on.If they don't get you, Mallyx will. If you do succeed, Mallyx will embark on a mission of vengeance from which you are unlikely to escape.📷 Read on.If you insist, do not use standard tactics against this demon. They will not work. Good luck. I hope I see you again."📷 Put it back.
if you attack then it seeks vengence... and its smart.
Those who followed the Dark God thrive in hidden places where the light of truth does not shine. Chief among these followers is Mallyx the Unyielding, a great and terrible Margonite leader who tamed hordes of demons in his dark lord's service. Mallyx has now fallen back to his Ebony Citadel within the Domain of Anguish, where he plots to usurp the powers of the gods and sit upon his dark master's throne.
Mallyx has rallied the last remnants of the Margonite army along with their greatest surviving leaders. In addition, vast hordes of demons, titans, and other vile creatures have all flocked to his unholy banner. Only the bravest of heroes may halt Mallyx's rebellion. If you are worthy, then scour the Domain of Anguish and cast down this would-be usurper.
Meet me at the Gates of Anguish and I shall tell you more of what lies ahead, and show you how the last shreds of the Dark God's power may yet be crushed.
would be usurper, rebellling against the gods, if you attack it comes back with revenge. lyssa does test people to see if they can look past the looks of others . they say abbadon wanted to destroy the world but myllax is trying to attack the gods. he serves abbadons purpose and what happened to abbbadon, betrayal, attacked by the gods. why have a revenant summon heroes for combat and then have a leader of a ancient god destroying the world to join the party? when we learn more about abbadon perhaps we will hear or see a new side to abbadon. maybe these creatures are demons but demons created out of desperation from Abaddon calling apon dark powers for freedom.
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anycase this is just a fun idea in the back of my head and its very possiblle the story wont ever go this route but if we ever want to fight on the gods worlds or kill more gods. we got open doors.

GENERAL GUIDE TO LEARN ANY LANGUAGE (and basically anything else, in my opinion)
TAKE A TEST. Better if online and better to do more than one, but try to figure out what level you are at, to scale the problem and to give you a hand. The goal in a language is NEVER perfection, that is unattainable, and everyone has different goals. Maybe you want to know two sentences, have a few conversations, or be able to pass a native speaker exam, but until you get an idea of your level you will always think you are not good enough.
SERIES, MOVIES, BOOKS The world is full of tools, the Internet in particular, so use them! Maybe there's a show you've seen twenty times, why not watch it again in the language you're studying? Maybe even without subtitles. And don't be scared off by the lack of subtitles, at this stage the important thing is to cover yourself with information, better if it is understood, but not necessarily. A lot of content is dubbed and subbed in many languages, so try it out for yourself! Books are also very useful, but I realize they can be more difficult to deal with.
MUSIC Songs occupy a special section of the brain, a melody always helps to remember, of course it is better if you consider it appreciable, but it is impossible not to find any, even when learning the most obscure language out there.
RadioGarden is perfect, though perhaps not most suitable for the latest generations.
ADDITIONAL LESSONS You may not have the budget or the time, but consider an investment in this area and you will not regret it, even if only online. Some apps help but only if you have an average level in the language, like HelloTalk, but having private lessons is an incredible boost in self-esteem and motivation.
MORE - YouTube channels - The entirety of Reddit - Learning apps, such as Duolinguo, Pimsleur, Babbel, Anki, or others of a different kind such as RadioGarden, and many others (the first and second-to-last are free) - VPN
A BUNCH OF KEYWORDS: - Immersion: drown in the language, submerge yourself in continuous stimuli, even if you don't fully understand them. Chew the language, repeat the same things, change the language of your electronic devices to English, in short, increase the input of information.
- Fun: especially if you are learning a language because you have to and not because you want to, why not make it interesting? Of course not everything can be, but it doesn't hurt to try, what have you got to lose?
- Routine: decide on a time of day or amount of time and stick to it, better five minutes a day for six months than six hours a day for two weeks. Don't shoot too high or too low; find what works best for you.
- Customize: no one method fits all, so look for others', create your own, or both. Adapt the material to your needs, modify, experiment. While it is true that no tool is perfect, you can create one that is perfect for you.
- Usage: The Internet is an infinite resource, use it as much as possible. Research, discover, get interested, tour corners you had never been to, and maybe you might find something genuinely fascinating. You also have at your disposal some of the most powerful tools ever invented by mankind, so manipulate them in your favor. Strive to get the algorithms of each social to recommend more and more things in that language, and in no time they will figure out what you want to do, coordinating.
- Kindness: Treat yourself well, learning a language, even a relatively simple one like English, is not an easy task, it is very normal to take time. And don't get down on yourself if someone is a hundred times better than you, surely you're better at other things, you haven't tried hard enough, or they're bragging in vain. You are not learning a language for them, but for you. Apart from the certainty that you have other qualities (which they may not have, and maybe who knows already they envy you), it is absolutely not true that "you suck at learning languages," the great thing is that there is nothing against you but yourself! What's more, how do you know if you are good if you don't even try ? Maybe if you put your mind to it you would learn Indonesian in a day, but with German you just can't. What do you have to lose? A few more days of useful information? It's a project for you by yourself, it's only you that's stopping you! So get a move on!
- Help: Ask other people, they will be happy to help you, no matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, especially native speakers, if you are lucky enough to know any. Put yourself in their shoes, wouldn't you like to teach your language or one of your languages to friends/relatives if they didn't know it?
- Distinguish: Make your difficulties clear and deal with them, but above all, don't bang your head against the wall if you see it doesn't help, take shortcuts rather, go around it, jump over it, find a way to solve it. Another thing to keep in mind is to absorb things appropriate to your level, after a certain point the absorption phase ends and the practice phase begins, although it may take months.
- Addiction: As scary as the term may be, why not try to make it something that keeps you glued? This is very personal and may be a bit extreme, but it undoubtedly works. I am of course talking about finding something very exciting, so that you are constantly drawn to the language.
- Brain change: Nothing is more satisfying than realizing after some time that you know what something means, and at some point you start thinking, dreaming and swapping languages in your mind. It is proven that learning a new language radically changes the brain and opens up new perspectives and opportunities, in addition to the job opportunities it already opens up.
- Comprehension: What does it mean to be able to speak make normal conversation? Just asking for directions? Being able to give an international lecture? Knowing 15 words to impress someone? These are all levels of the same thing; explore further and fully understand where you want to go from here.
CONCLUSIONS AND EXTRAS - You definitely know more about that language than you think, words you've heard twice in ten years, similar sections to other languages, easy grammar, in short, you have no reason not to learn a new language!
- Don't get down on yourself if you need a break, but remember why you are doing this and relax so you can get off to a good start.
- You can't expect to study two hours a day for six months and not feel a little burned out or a little unmotivated, the important thing is to realize that, and not feel guilty about it! "I didn't do anything today," but what about yesterday? What about the day before? It takes so little to bring yourself down, but if you hang in there, it's worth it.
-Combat embarrassment, while you might make mistakes, one thing is certain, you can't get worse. So jump in, not necessarily with words.
- There are no universal methods.
- The best thing is to set a roughly fixed schedule, and you will see that after only a few days your brain will start working for you.
- Instead of looking for tutorials in your own language to learn another one (fluffing necessary here), look for tutorials on how to learn your language in the one you are learning! Not only will you find it interesting, but they will be topics you already know something about, and seeing it from a foreigner's perspective will be truly fascinating, I promise.
- There are many ways to work, but the best way is to get started.
- If you don't know what to look for on the Internet or feel silly looking for something like "top 5 apps for learning..." then start with what you prefer. What are your personal interests? Your already ingrained passions? What do you search for most often online and off? Those are the topics you want to look up in other languages as well, it's like giving your brain candy of the same flavor but with a different packaging, you'll love it, even though you may not quite understand what you're eating.
- Don't be frightened by the vastness of a language, all its ramifications, dialects, things you may have learned wrong, things you could have done better, known earlier, enjoy the journey instead of thinking about the destination.
- Small goals, path in stages. You are not able to sustain a task like "rewrite the Iliad by hand on stone." You panic, do something else, and then feel guilty. Instead, if you think, "Today I'm writing the first page of the Iliad, but not on rock, on paper. In fact, the first paragraph." Easier and less terrifying, right?
I hope this was helpful to you kind stranger, though I doubt you've put up with me this far.
Please remember all of these are my opinion on how to learn a language and that I didn't discover them first, let me know if you would like me to translate this into other languages (my first language is actually Italian), and remember to not put too much stress on your shoulders, you can do it!

ULTRAKILL is a fast-paced ultraviolent old school first-person shooter developed by Arsi "Hakita" Patala and published by New Blood Interactive. You play as V1, a combat machine fueled by blood who has ventured into the depths of Hell after the extinction of humanity. Hell abounds with demons and tormented souls, sources of blood that you must rend apart in order to refuel yourself and survive. ULTRAKILL's gameplay combines features from classic shooters like Quake, modern shooters like Doom (2016) and character action games like Devil May Cry. The game places emphasis on movement, dodging attacks, and efficient gunplay in its arena-style levels. Upon completing a level, the game measures how quickly the player finish the level, whether he killed enough enemies and how much style did player accumulate. Style is gained by regularly switching between weapons and combining their features to maximize the damage output. These stats are measured via letters, with D being the worst and S being the best, however, if the player has managed to get S on time, kills and style without dying once he receives a P-rank, which is theorized to stand for "Perfect" and nothing else. In addition, the player's health can only be restored by showering in the blood of enemies, requiring the player to adopt an aggressive playstyle that regularly places them in close combat with their opponents.
The game is divided into three Acts, as well as a Prelude, which is considered to be a part of Act 1. As of now, only 2 Acts are completed, with Act 2 being finished just a few months ago. At the end of each Act is a door that can only be opened if the player got a P-rank on every level of the respective Act and upon entering player will have a secret level to beat, a Prime Sanctum. In this essay I will be describing how to complete the first of these Prime Sanctums — P-1.
But first let's look what V1 has at... his? It's? Their? disposal in Act 1:
In terms of movement, V1 can dash and slide: dash makes the player quickly travel to the direction he's moving in, additionally rendering him invincible for 0,2 seconds. V1 holds a maximum of 3 dashes and one dash recovers in 2 seconds. Dashing interrupts any momentum the player previously had. Holding the slide button shortens V1's hitbox and makes him continuously travel with a speed twice as higher than V1's walking speed in the direction he last moved in until the player releases the slide button or the slide is interrupted by other means. While holding the slide button the player can't change the direction of the slide and the dash stamina doesn't recover. And while in the air, the player can press the sliding button to quickly travel to the ground and perform a ground slam, which will deal some damage to the enemy that was right under V1's feet and will knock up all the light-weighted enemies into the air, thus paralyzing them for a short time in which the player can deal damage to them. But that's not all — to quickly gain momentum player can press dash and then immediately press space to perform a dashjump which will launch the player far in the direction of his movement, but it will also consume 2 stamina bars so it's best to use that wisely. And jumping immediately after sliding resluts in a slidejump. Though doesn't pack such momentum as dashjump, but it can be done continuously without consuming any stamina, so increase it's speed the player can first dashjump and then continue slidejumling.
As for the weapons, there are a lot of them: Every weapon slot has multiple weapon variants to switch between with only the 4th weapon slot having 3 variants to choose from and the rest having only 2, blue and green, so far. Weapon variants, which reside in their respective weapon slots can be switched between by a press of a button that switches them and weapon slots can be easily switched by scrolling a mouse wheel or pressing buttons that these weapons are assigned to. Additionally, the player can switch between 2 fists at V1's disposal: The blue "feedbacker" which itself deals low damage but can parry enemy projectiles and attacks have a yellow flash before being done and the red "knuckleblaster" which, though cannot parry, deals heavy damage on hit and, if the player holds the punch button, it deals light damage in a large area with a shockwave, which can deflect all projectiles within it's range. Parrying an enemy projectile restores all of V1's health and dash stamina, but simply deflecting them with the knuckleblaster doesn't.
Now onto the weapons. The first weapon slot is reserved for revolvers. The revolvers can shoot once every 0,5 seconds and deal little damage on their own and start to differ when you look what the can do with either clicking or holding and releasing the right mouse button. Upon holding and releasing the right mouse button, the blue "piercer" shoots a beam which can pierce three enemies and deals slightly more damage and upon clicking the right mouse button while holding the green "marksman" V1 throws a coin into the air, where it can be shot and which will make any hitscan weapon's fire, be it a bullet or a beam, ricochet into the targets weak point, dealing more damage. Additionally, for a brief moment after being thrown the coin flashes and if the player is to shoot the coin at that exact moment with a standard marksman the shot will split in two and hit 2 targets. These splitshots quite useful when you need to hit 2 targets at once. The piercer can shoot a charged shot every 3 seconds, and the marksman produces 1 coin in 4 seconds and can hold a maximum of 4 coins at max. Near the end of Limbo, Hell's first layer, player can unlock alternate revolvers — they can shoot once every 2 seconds but deal twice the damage. While alternate marksman's coins are the same as the regular one's, the alt. fire for the alternate piercer, also known as the slab revolver, shoots a piercing shot with even greater damage and a cool-down twice as long. Note that weapon variants and alternate variants are two different things: you can switch between weapon variants on the fly whenever you want to with a click of a button, while alternate weapons can only be equipped manually with a terminal at the beginning of each level. It is heavily advised to equip the regular marksman amd the slab revolver: regular marksman allow the player to rapidly shoot coins and the slab revolver deals more damage than it's regular counterpart and also allows the player to shoot a regular or a charged shot once and then focus on other weapons while it recharges. Throwing all 4 coins into the air and them shooting them with a charged slab shot before they fall to the ground can deal massive damage to the enemy unlucky enough to be it's target. The second weapon slot is reserved for the blue and green shotguns. Shotguns' left-click produces many pellets with pitiful damage when shot at long range and high damage when shot within close proximity to the enemy. The blue "core eject" reloads in 1,25 seconds and it's alt. fire makes the shotgun eject it's explosive core, dealing substantial damage, however makes the shotgun reload for 2,3 seconds. The core will fly further, depending on how long the player held the right mouse button and shooting the core while it's in the air will detonate it and the explosion will deal more damage depending on what hitscan weapon the player hit the core with. The green "pump charge" shotgun, though deals slightly less damage, has a reload lasting less than a second and it's alt. fire pumps the shotgun, thus loading more pellets in it, which in turn will deal more damage on the next shot. Pumping the shotgun once doubles it's original damage, pumping it twice, triples it and pumping it thrice overloads it and upon next shot it will result in an explosion around the player, dealing quintupled damage. The damage from the explosion can be avoided by immediately dashing away after shooting the overpumped shotgun. There are 2 very interesting techniques with shotguns that can be combined together: quick swapping and projectile boosting: quickly swapping between the blue and green variants right after shooting, ignores the need for shotguns to reload and thus maximizes their damage output and, because of how the shotgun pellets work, making a punch with the blue "feedbacker" arm immediately after making shot boosts the pellet in the center and upon reaching either an enemy or a surface the pellets will explode. Thus shooting, immediately punching the pellets exiting out of the shotgun and switching to a different variant to repeat the process allows the player to rapidly shoot explosions. Though only 3 in a row — the feedbacker can make only 3 consecutive punches before it has a cool-down. Next are nailguns, again, blue and green. The blue "attractor" nailgun is the only weapon in the game that has limited ammo - only 100 nails, even though they're being restored over time. It has 3 magnets at its disposal, which can be deployed onto a surface or onto an enemy to attract and hold a certain amount of nails for a limited time before the magnet explodes and returns to the nailgun. The green "overheat" nailgun has 2 heatsink charges, each refills 8 seconds after being used, and a meter, which can be charged by shooting for some time and pessing alt fire when the overheat meter has charge will spit out fiery nails in a rapid-fire burst, using up one of the nailgun's charges. The player can make a temporary "nail bomb" by putting down all 3 magnets and shooting all of his nails and heatsink charges onto them, so that the enemy will receive massive amounts of damage when he'll walk over the trap. But be careful: the more nails there are on the magnet, the sooner it will expire. And the last weapon the player unlocks in Act 1 is the railgun, blue, green, but this time also red! The blue "electric" railgun shoots a powerful, infinitely piercing energy beam which deals massive damage, but the recharge takes whole 16 seconds, so just like with the slab revolver the player is encouraged to shoot it once and focus on other weapons before it recharges, though the railgun deals more damage, shoots not upon holding and releasing, but simply clicking and takes forever to recharge. Since the railgun's beam is hit-scan, shooting it at a coin reflects the beam and if the coin is behind the target, the beam travels back into the target to damage it again — that's a railcoin. Moreover, since the coin inherits the player's velocity and moves in the same direction the player does, by throwing a coin when walking into the enemy, then throwing another one while walking away and then shooting the first coin with a railgun the beam can piece the enemy 3 times, dealing insane amounts of damage. The green "screwdriver" railgun shoots a drill that, upon hitting an enemy, continually deals damage for 7,5 seconds and drop huge amounts of blood and thus healing the player if he is with close proximity to the enemy at whom the drill has been shot at. This is a weapon especially useful to those who struggle to stay alive in certain situations, for example bossfights one might find rather difficult. The red "malicious" railgun immitates an attack of The Malicious Face, one of ULTRAKILL's enemies — a beam that produces an explosion upon reaching a surface. The explosion's radius and damage can be increased exponentially by shooting the the core ejected from the blue shotgun while it's in the air — this will result in the biggest explosion possible in the game called "nuke". Nuking can be very useful to near instantaneously deal damage to a large area and this aspect can be essential to clearing P-1.
Speaking of, let's finally discuss what the first Prime Sanctum has in store for the player! As soon as the player steps out of the elevator shaft, he is greeted by a torch standing on a pedestal and a long spinal staircase descending into the pitch-black darkness. V1 picks up the torch and begins to descent. An eery music starts coming out of nowhere and slowly distorts as V1 marches further down into unknown, until finally a mouth-like hatch opens and there's no other way to go than inside it. Reaching it's bottom and walking a little further there's a door and another pedestal before it. Offering the torch to the pedestal opens the door and in the arena inside lies a horrifying attrocious spinning octahedron suspended in the air by two tendrils on the ground and ceiling with eyes and a mouth on it's sides. Flesh Prison has 3 attacks, each is signaled with a colorful flash of light. When it flashes cyan it starts spinning and producing several rounds of homing projectiles around itself which can either be parried back back to it, dealing quite a chunk of damage, or avioded entirely by either moving really fast around Flesh Prison by dashjumping and slidejumping or simply getting really close to it because the projectiles won't fly into the hellish octahedron so as to not damage it, however this option is made harder by the other 2 attacks. When Flesh Prison flashes purple it emits a black hole that will slowly chase V1 around the arena and if it hits him it will leave the player with only 1 health and make him unable to heal at all for some time. This means that as soon as the black hole spawns in, the player can't afford to be too close to Flesh Prison lest they become incredible vounerable. And when the octahedron flashes white it creates a large stationary circle right under the player and after a few seconds a damaging white beam of light will appears in it's place for 3 seconds. Then another circle will appear, but this time the heavenly beam will try to predict where the player will be next and fire there after the same amount of time as the last one. Then a third one does the same.
But all of these tricks up Flesh Prison's metaphorical sleeve pale in comparison to it's most devilish mechanic — healing. A few seconds after appearing before the player Flesh Prison spawns a dozen or so floating eyeballs that periodically shoot tiny beams at the player. After about 30 seconds they stop moving, Flesh Prison starts to receive much less damage and glows green. 5 seconds later it consumes all eyeballs and for each eyeball consumed it heals 10% of it's health. Then it spawns another batch of eyeballs to consume later. Outrageous, isn't it? But that's not all, for each eyeball present on the battlefield, the damage Flesh Prison receives lowers the amount off time till the next heal, so it is in player's interest to get rid of all eyeballs to properly deal damage to the octahedron without the fear of having done all that for naught. The easiest way to do it is perform splitshots with a standard marksman, since all eyes have only 1 health point. A more effective, though harder to pull off is nuking — shooting the blue shotgun's ejected core while it's in the air with the malicious railgun will produce an explosion large enough to kill all eyeballs, though even if a few have somehow evaded the explosion they can easily be taken care of with the aforementioned splitshots. It's a cake walk after that — the player must simply run around Flesh Prison to avoid it's attacks and use any weapons at their disposal to deal damage. If done right and quick, there will be no need to worry about the second batch of eyeballs coming in to heal Flesh Prison.
After it is defeated, it's guts violently explode and the only thing left is a soul. A prime soul. Prime souls are souls so powerful they don't require a husk to manifest a physical form, only immense willpower. Such a soul is formed when a person who is strongly remembered by many and with a mighty will dies. One such person was Minos the Judge of Hell. When God suddenly disappeared, Heaven went in chaos and no power watched over Hell, Minos felt that an eternal punishment was a punishment too harsh for those who simply wanted to love. And so the king began reforming the Lust layer, leading to much prosperity, as Minos lead his subjects to built a new civilization together. But one day the Council brought stability to Heaven with an iron fist and after they saw how Minos went against God's will they deemed it heresy, and so they ordered Gabriel, Heaven's brightest angel to kill the renegade. To no avail the king tried to reason with Father's righteous hand — he had struck him down. Since Minos' will was strong enough to stand up to Heaven's will, the angels feared his soul could become a prime one and so they imprisoned it deep inside king's husk and ordered the it to destroy all he and his people worked so hard on. Suffice to say, from inside his prison Minos vowed to take revenge and V1 just gave him an opportunity to do so. However, before that, it must pay for the crimes machines have committed against humankind.
Minos Prime has 8 attacks and almost each he signals verbally. After a windup animation with an orange glow and a hissing sound, Minos launches a homing serpent-like projectile that the player can parry. Minos can teleport to the player and attempt an Uppercut, sending the player into the air, after which Minos will teleport above the player and perform an Overhead, sending the player right under him, then he will shout "Crush!" and slam the ground with incredible force and send a shockwave throughout the entire arena. If the player doesn't dodge any of these he will most definitely die. Best avoided by sliding away from an aircut or dashing away from any of these. Sometimes if the Uppercut is dodged, and V1 is still close to the ground, Minos may teleport to him and make an Overhead there, followed by the same "Crush!" if not dodged. Other times if the Uppercut is dodged and Minos is airborne, he may shout "Die!" and slam towards the player, creating a shockwave just like he makes with a "Crush!". Best avoided by either jumping into the air when Minos shouts "Die!", then dashing away to avoid Minos' groui slam and then ground slamming when the shockwave is behind or by dashing once to avoid the slam and then quickly dashing back to dash through the shockwave. "Prepare thyself!" is a three-kick combo with the serpent projectile being launched on a third kick. Each hit can send V1 into the air and if one of them connects, Minos interrupts his combo and instead goes for the aforementioned Uppercut combo. Best avoided by either sliding away or simply walking "Thy end is now!" is similar to "Prepare thyself!" with the exception that Minos performs 4 kicks that can send V1 into the air and the last kick is parryable. After the fourth kick Minos is stationary for 2 seconds, which is an excellent time to deal some damage.1,5 seconds after shouting "Judgement!" Minos will teleport to the player and perform an explosive dropkick. After teleport Minos is still airborne, so sometimes he can follow it up with an Overhead or a "Die!". Best avoided by parrying Minos as soon as he teleports in for the dropkick and then immediately dashing away. After Minos reaches 50% health he shouts "WEAK" and changes some of his attack patterns. For example, he can now summon serpent projectiles after leaping into the air to perform a "Die!" or a "Crush!" or an Overhead. Before the fight starts, the king makes a speech where he warns Gabriel that his reckoning dawns, which is an excellent time to set up a nail trap. Additionally, if the player presses the escape button to skip the cutscene, all of his ammo is restored to the point where it would have after the end of the speech, so if the player were to throw all 4 coins into the air after setting up a nail trap, then switching to a slab revolvet and holding the right click, then pressing the escape button and shooting the airborne coins the player still has 4 coins and all heatsink charges.
This should be more or less enough information on how to beat P-1, I must now attend the recently released P-2, where lies the prime soul of the warrior-king Sisyphus.

Would u guys like to see a new game mode added down the line after the main PvP game mode is mostly done?
in the vain of 'orcs must die' and 'Fortnite STW'? with how free the building is in this game with 360+X&Y making death tunnels for npc's mobs trying to get to the main gen room could be really fun imo, and different from other horde/tower defense-like games that came before. u can just have some recolored guardians waves try to get into our base and steal the genmat from it instead of players and if u survive a wave u get some more points to build more traps before the next wave while u zoom around the base and shoot the mobs as they pass by your traps and etc..
the game even has mobs AI with pathing in it and everything already, i don't think it will be very hard for the devs to implement such a mode using the base game existing assets. and it could draw in a lot more casual players to the game that only like PvE games generally but might make them want to try the main PvP mode too, and maybe also buy skins that will make the whole game life span and players rotation last longer.
just a pipe dream from me, what u guys think? Could a mode like this fit the rest of the game down the line? i think that a game which is built like this one is just asking for a mode like that to be added into it..

GENERAL GUIDE TO LEARN ANY LANGUAGE (and basically anything else, in my opinion)
TAKE A TEST. Better if online and better to do more than one, but try to figure out what level you are at, to scale the problem and to give you a hand. The goal in a language is NEVER perfection, that is unattainable, and everyone has different goals. Maybe you want to know two sentences, have a few conversations, or be able to pass a native speaker exam, but until you get an idea of your level you will always think you are not good enough.
SERIES, MOVIES, BOOKS The world is full of tools, the Internet in particular, so use them! Maybe there's a show you've seen twenty times, why not watch it again in the language you're studying? Maybe even without subtitles. And don't be scared off by the lack of subtitles, at this stage the important thing is to cover yourself with information, better if it is understood, but not necessarily. A lot of content is dubbed and subbed in many languages, so try it out for yourself! Books are also very useful, but I realize they can be more difficult to deal with.
MUSIC Songs occupy a special section of the brain, a melody always helps to remember, of course it is better if you consider it appreciable, but it is impossible not to find any, even when learning the most obscure language out there.
RadioGarden is perfect, though perhaps not most suitable for the latest generations.
ADDITIONAL LESSONS You may not have the budget or the time, but consider an investment in this area and you will not regret it, even if only online. Some apps help but only if you have an average level in the language, like HelloTalk, but having private lessons is an incredible boost in self-esteem and motivation.
MORE - YouTube channels - The entirety of Reddit - Learning apps, such as Duolinguo, Pimsleur, Babbel, Anki, or others of a different kind such as RadioGarden, and many others (the first and second-to-last are free) - VPN
A BUNCH OF KEYWORDS: - Immersion: drown in the language, submerge yourself in continuous stimuli, even if you don't fully understand them. Chew the language, repeat the same things, change the language of your electronic devices to English, in short, increase the input of information.
- Fun: especially if you are learning a language because you have to and not because you want to, why not make it interesting? Of course not everything can be, but it doesn't hurt to try, what have you got to lose?
- Routine: decide on a time of day or amount of time and stick to it, better five minutes a day for six months than six hours a day for two weeks. Don't shoot too high or too low; find what works best for you.
- Customize: no one method fits all, so look for others', create your own, or both. Adapt the material to your needs, modify, experiment. While it is true that no tool is perfect, you can create one that is perfect for you.
- Usage: The Internet is an infinite resource, use it as much as possible. Research, discover, get interested, tour corners you had never been to, and maybe you might find something genuinely fascinating. You also have at your disposal some of the most powerful tools ever invented by mankind, so manipulate them in your favor. Strive to get the algorithms of each social to recommend more and more things in that language, and in no time they will figure out what you want to do, coordinating.
- Kindness: Treat yourself well, learning a language, even a relatively simple one like English, is not an easy task, it is very normal to take time. And don't get down on yourself if someone is a hundred times better than you, surely you're better at other things, you haven't tried hard enough, or they're bragging in vain. You are not learning a language for them, but for you. Apart from the certainty that you have other qualities (which they may not have, and maybe who knows already they envy you), it is absolutely not true that "you suck at learning languages," the great thing is that there is nothing against you but yourself! What's more, how do you know if you are good if you don't even try ? Maybe if you put your mind to it you would learn Indonesian in a day, but with German you just can't. What do you have to lose? A few more days of useful information? It's a project for you by yourself, it's only you that's stopping you! So get a move on!
- Help: Ask other people, they will be happy to help you, no matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, especially native speakers, if you are lucky enough to know any. Put yourself in their shoes, wouldn't you like to teach your language or one of your languages to friends/relatives if they didn't know it?
- Distinguish: Make your difficulties clear and deal with them, but above all, don't bang your head against the wall if you see it doesn't help, take shortcuts rather, go around it, jump over it, find a way to solve it. Another thing to keep in mind is to absorb things appropriate to your level, after a certain point the absorption phase ends and the practice phase begins, although it may take months.
- Addiction: As scary as the term may be, why not try to make it something that keeps you glued? This is very personal and may be a bit extreme, but it undoubtedly works. I am of course talking about finding something very exciting, so that you are constantly drawn to the language.
- Brain change: Nothing is more satisfying than realizing after some time that you know what something means, and at some point you start thinking, dreaming and swapping languages in your mind. It is proven that learning a new language radically changes the brain and opens up new perspectives and opportunities, in addition to the job opportunities it already opens up.
- Comprehension: What does it mean to be able to speak make normal conversation? Just asking for directions? Being able to give an international lecture? Knowing 15 words to impress someone? These are all levels of the same thing; explore further and fully understand where you want to go from here.
CONCLUSIONS AND EXTRAS - You definitely know more about that language than you think, words you've heard twice in ten years, similar sections to other languages, easy grammar, in short, you have no reason not to learn a new language!
- Don't get down on yourself if you need a break, but remember why you are doing this and relax so you can get off to a good start.
- You can't expect to study two hours a day for six months and not feel a little burned out or a little unmotivated, the important thing is to realize that, and not feel guilty about it! "I didn't do anything today," but what about yesterday? What about the day before? It takes so little to bring yourself down, but if you hang in there, it's worth it.
-Combat embarrassment, while you might make mistakes, one thing is certain, you can't get worse. So jump in, not necessarily with words.
- There are no universal methods.
- The best thing is to set a roughly fixed schedule, and you will see that after only a few days your brain will start working for you.
- Instead of looking for tutorials in your own language to learn another one (fluffing necessary here), look for tutorials on how to learn your language in the one you are learning! Not only will you find it interesting, but they will be topics you already know something about, and seeing it from a foreigner's perspective will be truly fascinating, I promise.
- There are many ways to work, but the best way is to get started.
- If you don't know what to look for on the Internet or feel silly looking for something like "top 5 apps for learning..." then start with what you prefer. What are your personal interests? Your already ingrained passions? What do you search for most often online and off? Those are the topics you want to look up in other languages as well, it's like giving your brain candy of the same flavor but with a different packaging, you'll love it, even though you may not quite understand what you're eating.
- Don't be frightened by the vastness of a language, all its ramifications, dialects, things you may have learned wrong, things you could have done better, known earlier, enjoy the journey instead of thinking about the destination.
- Small goals, path in stages. You are not able to sustain a task like "rewrite the Iliad by hand on stone." You panic, do something else, and then feel guilty. Instead, if you think, "Today I'm writing the first page of the Iliad, but not on rock, on paper. In fact, the first paragraph." Easier and less terrifying, right?
I hope this was helpful to you kind stranger, though I doubt you've put up with me this far.
Please remember all of these are my opinion on how to learn a language and that I didn't discover them first, let me know if you would like me to translate this into other languages (my first language is actually Italian), and remember to not put too much stress on your shoulders, you can do it!

Since Covid began I have been working as a freelance video editor. All my work has been remote, however that is going to change over the next few days since I have been hired by a local company to create social media content.
I have previous experience with filming, however it was limited to a single camera. I would be extremely grateful if someone could give me advice on what camera/equipment I should buy for my videography/photography needs.
Budget: $1000 (maybe more if necessary)
Types of content I will be filming:

1. Product Showcases - Products include chairs and purses.
   
2. Outdoor content - I will be outside fairly frequently, they have asked me to include the natural beauty of our state in some of the content.
   
3. Talking Head videos
   

Fortunately the company hiring me knows I'm newer to the filming aspect, so I have a grace period to figure this out. I don't want to let them down so I'd love some help so I can begin shooting content the right way!
I'm also trying to build a set for them, I know I'll need good lighting, diffusers, audio equipment, tripods, etc.
Any advice would be great! I'm hungry to learn.

So through out a lot of AD's tenure on the Lakers, specifically this year, I feel like the team has done a pretty poor job of running the offense through AD and I decided to try and break down some recent film to look more into it. He makes plenty of mistakes so this post isn't attempting to absolve blame, but more just give constructive criticism to how he's being used offensively. Because of this I'm gonna focus on taking somewhat rare examples of the Lakers making smart decisions around AD to point out what they should do more often rather than just posting low lights
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Very curious for other's thoughts on what I'm suggesting they do more of, if you think the analysis is fair, or if you think you have even better ideas on how the team should be utilizing Davis
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PS This is my first time doing this so I'm very open to constructive criticism as there's at least a chance I'll try and do more stuff like this in the future
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Lets start with some examples of lack of off ball movement:
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In this clip you see the entire defense focused on him. Rui cuts to the middle of the paint but he cuts to a place where there's no open passing lane, but there's no meaningful movement on offense and it leads to a lazy iso jumper.
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In this one you see something somewhat similar with vando cutting to the middle, AD being doubled with every player looking at him. He misses the shot but the lack off off ball movement just makes it incredibly easy for the defense to focus on him while cutting off passing lanes.
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Now if you watch the Lakers you've seen a ton of plays like this, especially since the raptors spent most of the game selling out to stop AD recently. The rest of the team stepped up in that game and punished the raptors for their scheme but as teams replicate the strategy its made the holes in the rest of the lakers offense much more clear. I'm not gonna spam a bunch more clips like the two before, but just wanted to give you examples of how the lakers offense running through AD is often just getting AD in iso and hoping he can beat a double/triple (which is obviously a terrible way to run an offense).
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Dibble hand off (aka DHO) potential:
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Here you see a DHO between AD and Reaves where ADs defender drops, reaves defender picks him up giving reaves a solid look. Not only this but Brown Jr's defender slides to reaves creating a wide open 3 on top of everything else
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Plays like that open up opportunities like this where you can get Davis in single coverage once again because the defense has to respect his teammates on some level
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Now after you've established the threat of that it leads to plays where teams have to respect it, once again giving the best player on the team easy looks
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Off Ball cuts:
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AD isn't jokic but there are 100% ways you can set him up for easy passes to help create shots for others like this.
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Cutting more even when AD isnt the focal point of the play can open up shots for him as well. He can be very effective off ball, and the more you can do stuff like this the harder it is for a coach to solely rely on swarming him
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Guard Screen potential:
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Here you have Beasley screen for Davis setting him up to take a midrange jumper. As we all know this isnt the exact spot you want AD shooting, but its so much better than what you see far too often -- him being swarmed with no one working to get open, often resulting in far worse jumpers
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He misses this and once again its not ideal but seeing them try something like this is still an improvement over a lot of their stagnant possessions
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Id love to see them explore using guards as screeners off ball too when AD has the ball to create open shots for shooters while AD is posted up with the ball. Opening up a couple good shots for him to easily pass out to could really force teams to focus more time, energy and attention on the perimeter. This isn't a perfect example of that but its at least them using motion off ball to actually take advantage of the gravity AD creates so regularly
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Pick n Rolls (aka PnRs):
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This is an obvious one because AD is obviously a great lob threat, but I still feel as if the team doesn't try and use PnRs to their advantage as much as they should (LeBron coming back could help this a lot tbf)
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The play doesn't even have to be trying to force AD the ball, you can use it to open up passes to other players, which can in turn get enough of the defenses attention to get him open looks if the defense respects the other players just a bit
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A similar example to the last
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A play like this requires the defense respecting the guard on the roll, but this is the sort of pay off we can also see as we punish teams more from doubling AD. This is very achievable with LeBron, was a staple of the 2020 run, and yet its just severely under utilized even when he's playing
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Another example of an imperfect jumper that's still much better than a ton of their offensive possessions
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TLDR: Darvin Ham is bastard man and I probably spent too much time on this lol