Miscellaneous Videos
Death At Chuck E Cheese 70's Murder Files +18 Fsp19ut76yI
Five nights at freddys Are REAL! (it is real and true...) dZLuPFt7Egk
Does chuck e cheese know five nights at Freddy's z4Oe8oahJAs
THE TRUTH BEHIND Chuck E Cheese's and 5 Nights at Freddy's YLDwLWfzOUM
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S 2 FULL GAME! GO BUY IT! KubBchX6v6c
Spongebob The Purge v3949UehZBM
David Near
Shadow Freddy Voice (Five Nights At Freddy's 2) I7mYQEMh3PY Partially Found
Phantom Balloon Boy Voice FNAF 3 kK1sHrvFkhM
FNAF 2 "Withered" Foxy Voice jFI16pEGqcw
Nightmare FredbeaShadow Freddy Original Voice WtVyammM9Ow
FNAF "Drawkill Bonnie" Original Voice 5QT-jOFmmLE
CreepsMcPasta
"Smile :)"- NoctisNeverSleeps
"1999: [Update] - 06/21/15" Creepypasta
"I know her so well..." Feelspasta
MrCreepyPasta
- 1999 (part 1)
-"1999" (part 4) MrCreepyPasta's Storytime
- 1999 (Part 5)
- 1999 (Part 6) (END)
Mr. Nightmare
-"Home Alone" [CreepyPasta] - nklZy3IwmhU
-"The Shadows Between Houses" By StupidDialUp - g2Az5BGGobY
- The Portraits - Creepypasta - KtsIB3dvfdc
- Last Friday - Creepypasta - qjEOQ8bWAc4
- “Chicken Bones” - by Steven Shorter - 5jwbaqI2Xqw
- Nuclear Meltdown - ocjHdXjlzss
-A Grain of Sand - fUtjSW65AFM
-"Christmas Tree Decorations" - Unknown Author - 9V0eVqXZcY8
-What happened to "Mr. Nightmare"? FOUND
-100,000 Subscribers - Thank You! - FbYIjdFFgOA
-Little Pink Backpack - Creepypasta - 1AgXuziegHs
-24 Creepy Discoveries People Just Stumbled Into
- 10 Most Disturbing TV Commercials - _Ap6N94LT98
Jessica Meszaros/SpectrumDiamond
-Creepypasta - Ed, Edd n Eddy (Lost Episode) okZRbCKJJwk
-Creepypasta - Bully: Scholarship Edition (Removed Mission) Fw9dpxgEogo
Creepypasta - The Golden Girls (Lost Episode) Z8vLHhOXwrQ
Creepypasta - Scooby Doo (Lost Episode) JexJSqVVoew
Children's Song - Kagome, Kagome _33Lsbn-9G4
Dilantra Peebles/Wolf Killer
Five nights at freddys Are REAL! (it is real and true...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZLuPFt7Egk
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 song backup part 3 and 4 (for TJ animations)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGI3His5vv8
If they knew.... your pain.... (Bullies)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2q3EUepHjc
"If they knew" The grey cat's pain (request)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFhAZi73WfI
Happy birth Day Zack (Present)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2fKx0SZnlE
Gambling man (Thank you for 19,000+ SUUUBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHEPcwApojs
GOLDEN BONNIE WANTS HIS EAR BACK (funny vine)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5HQ1SpFxSs
Open Up animation *Really sad* FNAFS (THANK YOU FOR 20,000+ SUBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baGwKL2I49E
questions and answers (part 3) *best ending lol*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb9XtMGjBrY
Awoken oc Map Part 34 and 35 (MoonrisePaintpawz)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmvmCyWMioM
Awoken OC Map Part 25 (Ren jirra)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLkmLQm8ozo
Welcome To Freddy's Map Part 7 (TJ Animations)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwCj86U1Quc
Welcome To Freddy's Map Part 22 (TJ Animations)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlNX-LCKpAQ
Mangle The Stalker *she knows all, foxy* (THANK YOU FOR 21,000+ SUBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56sC0qYQniw
How foxy likes to run to the office (funny vine)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AdZfNJTyuU
Jar of Hearts Warriors Map Part 5 and 6 (LilypadLils)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN\_uE6r1hvg
We Are Family Fnafs 1 and 2 (speedpaint)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdVdjzureVQ
F-freddy.... fazbear? (Five nights at freddys!!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjJFBGV8Puw
Update (read the description)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJFwBgcgHiE
Just Gold Animation The madness (THANK YOU FOR 23,000+ SUBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kseBEnpwMY
HAPPY BIRTH DAY RENEE : D (best friend. Video, Monster)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIa9G-Ou9A0
Youth Oc Map Part 9 (kaybzjess)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30ydpsgpids
This Is For My People Who Lost Somebody (Your not alone)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUWz54xSc8o
*Collabs* Five nights at freddys 3 (THANK YOU FOR 24,000+ SUBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g9vHsc\_PxQ
All Men Are Pigs OC Map Part 2 (Makbrok mtizzle)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aGi1FsCoyQ
Contest OPEN (my Contest)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC4fxeConFY
ILL KNOCK YOU BACK INTO YOUR BABY HOOD, FOXY! (Funny vine)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nt3KRdEyic
Have a Snicker Foxy, your never yourself when your hungry (FNAFS 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG8wE4lvFgw
How Toy Chica Changes Her Mood At Certain Times (FNAFS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nPoXlF4EHs
livesteaming (Thank you for 25,000+ subs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szSagrq24vc
Reading Mean Comments (only 2, random video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDNDprMsP3A
Contest Winners (Top 10)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJOEzbnFXwM
Secrets *Animation* (THANK YOU FOR 26,000+ SUBS!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUyhznRwAe8
The Show Must Go On (Map part 6, HTF OC AMBER)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O-CpafYQ9s
Five Nights At Freddy's Song Map Part 3 (Pastel Cat)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IKYGHHZcwk
ooh whats this? (My Birth Day is Coming up)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYMyKY9HNdc
Lullabye-bye *collabs* (HTF OC AMBER, So he sang)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PILKKiUOkoI
Lullaby-bye Collab *Complete* (So he sang)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMX898twSpc
Thank you for 27000 subs!! (Purple guy is a murder)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEzwwuDthYg
i Am The Purple guy! Map Part 9 (Ring Ring)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ3q11GD3QU
i Am The Purple Guy! Map Part 22 and 23 (Ring ring)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29k5FwwwD1A
Do you care About me? (Depression)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2US6ENagoE
i Am The Purple Guy! Map part 25 (Ring ring)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzBCoNzeu2Y
I Am Purple Guy Map Part 27 (Ring Ring)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdI666C4dkc
PLEASE GO SUPPORT HER!! (my best friend)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WhgzEJM8oQ
How Do You Feel About That Cone On Your Head, Foxy? (THANK U FOR 28,000+ SUBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-cmCJnbkOo
The request of Finding Jeff the killer (ThumbNail)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQGpzfKTyBw
Its Time To Die Map Part 25 (insanedvo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M418ZrgyBvk
Happy Birth Day To Meee (yay)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTFb80Zzm\_0
Balloons Sad Animation *The good ending* FNAFS (THANK YOU FOR 29.000+ SUBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcHabDLQBDc
Toy bonnie (Random, creepy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91BQZ3l9Trw
Security guard comics (My comics) *FNAFS Security guards*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENZsn3SxC7c
Horn battle *Foxy VS Purple guy* (Funny vine, HAPPY EASTER)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXwnofOcXbw
The Bite of 87 *A sad tale* (THANK YOU FOR 30.000+ SUBS!!!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDqHFVZR7P4
Animation thief(s) (Please Read description)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM1H9caaU4M
Look At Me Now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKinOD7lAdQ
Am I The Only One Who Does This.... (THANK YOU FOR 31,000+ SUBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1oso\_BZvLU
Mangles Radio static (Happy birthday Mangle brinton)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynTT3KkYv14
Purple guy's Death (Animated *Realistic sound*)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcffIEx5d8U
eeeeeeey mario :D *SpringTrap and Marionette* (Thank you for 32,000+ SUBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oe-0\_oRnPM
Best Hater Ever.... (Really bad hater *Warning, mad wolf* )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy86\_\_nbcaI
More Hate (Responded badly XD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxrMOxPjgnU
Talk Foxy To Me (Five nights at freddys)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxJ4QYlD1DU
i'm leaving (haters)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztvjz7Ipra4
Guess Who's Back?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYH-ZexPo\_g
Five Nights At Freddys Harlem Shake (33,000+ specials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afiAExQ733c
Wolf's Intro (34,000+ specials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IRaGmLxqVk
Go Save Smilk *Need your support* (35,000 specials/ Update)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXRojk8peZ8
Little Things About you (36,000+ Specials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2TRVATqv40
Look How Wolf Died XD (Funny vine)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaBSHJdgzTE
Eeey Look how Chica Died XXD (Funny vine)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-8pQ067Gps
Flesh Five nights at freddys *Map Part 8 and 9* (makbrok mtizzle)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73cI\_Hq-Asc
When your home all alone and someone knocks at your door (38,000 specials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bex3PLIxMss
My Reaction To Roaches (Funny)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSsOmPhJBuo
Sausage *Map Part 10 and 11* (JordanTheBlueAnimatr­onicDevil)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXE9O3kZs2c
Sausage! OC Map *OPEN*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4SvedTPJrw
i Have A Deviant Art ya know? (Random)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_hnUB\_KfmWQ
Daddy Whats A Twerk? (39,000 Specials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4qGz4oNsPo
If You Want A Burger.... (40,000 Specials!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qdZrsYGak0
Omega Always Loves Arrow (Funny video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fi7VfDPcD8
Orphan Tears *Short* Cray AVM~ (41,000 Specials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v80JUT\_W7xQ
I Can Animate~ (Review)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erSsxrqnwcM
Throw Tha CHEESE (42,000 Specials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaHthKD9Mxs
Sad Suicide Song *animated* (Depression)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isXEscJwCtQ
1... 2. Crays is Coming For You (43,000 specials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=livek7MHOY8
Renees got a sick obsession (MEME)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uUwJpzbXYc
Die In A Fire *Animation* (48,000 specials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKyjx2a4B7M
KingSpook
*"The Sandman" (Creepypasta)
*"Be Careful Whose Messes You Clean Up" (Creepypasta)
*"Mrs. Willison's Homemade Jam" (Creepypasta)
*Recluse
*Corey's Wish
*The New Fish
*Why i was Released from Prison
*Mickey's House of Pain
*I Was a Freelance Exorcist
*The Contract
*Starving Dogs
*Living in Hell
*The Girl in the Crowd
*The Shredder Monkey
*Videohead
*"Broodmother" (Creepypasta) Ft. EerieCheshir
*The Other Internet
*"Black Number One" (Creepypasta)
*The Pit
*Slaying the Beast (something like that, about someone killing their dad)
*At Least You Tried
*Some story about a guy named Greg who's wife hired a psycho to kill him for cheating on him (don't remember the name)
*One More For the Orphan
*Some story about a haunted TV broadcast (don't recall the name, "The Ozark Cable Incident" it may have been)
*The Pleasure House
*The Quiet Room
*Pain Study (something like that)
*My Parents were Satanists (something like that)
*Mr. Banana
*The Dog Man
*Mayhem Mountain
*The Pancake Family
"The Yellow Wallpaper" (Creepypasta) M3vEPbJ9V2Q
"The Ozark Cable Incident" (Creepypasta) pclUTiUDVLc

SomeOrdinaryGamers

LOST EPISODES - "Plankton Got Served" zBhEQ9uU59s
"'Arther: Lost Episode' (SH*TPASTAS)"
"Red Moon"

Introduced a new map module: DCS: Sinai
Introduced a new campaign: UH-1H The Huey Last Show Campaign by SorelRo

DCS World

• Infantry no longer smoke when injured or killed
• ME. Weather widget: Broken alignment. Not enough space for strings - fixed
• Ships. Arleigh Burke aft launcher is missing the 'boom' sound when the SM-2 missile is fired - fixed
• ME. Mission Editor freezes when creating a new group - fixed
• AI Aircraft. AV-8B. Incorrect deck landing and takeoff in some cases - fixed
• AI Aircraft. AV-8B can't take off from FARP and sea shelf objects - fixed
• GUI Error when try to select track in some cases - fixed
• Ground units. In some situations, the collision of a bullet and a unit is not registered - fixed.
• MP. Server CTD if the client is destroyed due to a trigger and the client leaves the server - fixed.
• Historical mode. Egyptian list of units tuned.
• MP. There is no confirmation window when exiting the MP via the role selection menu - window added
• ME. ATC always shows AM radio modulation even if scene role set to FM - fixed
• AI Aircraft. MiG-31 will be able to simultaneously launch up to four R-33 missiles to four targets.
• Improved rendering of sea water surface in FLIR.
• ME. Aircraft payload view will stay open when "Additional Properties" tab is open.
• FLIR. South Atlantic Map IR render is adjusted.
• AI Aircraft. AI fighters will attack specialized interceptors like MiG-31 type if they are tasked with attacking fighters.
• MP. Server CTD on unit:destroy when player controlled - fixed
• Incorrect display of the horizon visibility boundary in TV mode of targeting pods - adjusted
• VR. Left eye has issues with lights on terrain and buildings - fixed lightmap applying in multi-viewport setup
• ME. MK-84 and some other bombs are missing in the Bomb in Zone Condition of trigger - fixed
• MP. Dedicated Server: slot spamming causes 100% CPU load and server unreachable - Fixed

DCS: F-16C Viper by Eagle Dynamics

• Added Velocity Search With Ranging (VSR) - Instruction video DCS: F-16C and F/A-18C Velocity Radar Modes Update (COMING SOON)
• Added MTR LO (71 knots) and HI (110 knots) function from CTRL (knots) page of FCR for radar AA modes
• Added Sinai IA Instant Action missions
• Fixed: Markpoint created from FCR GM has large offset from what is designated
• Fixed: Offset Aimpoint altitude is entered from DED with negative values
• Fixed: ASEC and DLZ persists in FCR after switching to NAV mode
• Fixed: TGP Mark point incorrect in weapon MAN mode
• Fixed: ACM 30x20 locking outside the HUD limits.
• Fixed: IAS incorrect on Marianas with very high head winds
• Fixed: Radar able to track targets that are terrain masked
• Updated BFM Instant Action Mission

DCS: F/A-18C Hornet by Eagle Dynamics

• Added Velocity Search (VS) - Instruction video DCS: F-16C and F/A-18C Velocity Radar Modes Update (COMING SOON)
• Added Sinai IA Missions
• Fixed: Enabling one-look raid removes target offboard information
• Fixed: Stuck B sweep on the edge of the DDI after locking on to the target
• Fixed: Slewing after Offset designation moves the WP symbol on the HSI
• Fixed: Extrapolated radar trackfiles continue to update the AIM-120 with the true position of the target
• Fixed: Precise coordinates discrepancy between F10 map and the cockpit
• Fixed: TWS won't show a trackfile until 6 raw hits (bricks) are detected
• Fixed: AZ/EL and RDR ATTK pages show info for jamming target
• Fixed: Offset symbol moves in SA page
• Fixed: SA page shows HAFUs ranked as 0, for trackfiles below rank 9
• Fixed: Stepping away from first track file takes two presses
• Fixed: Training mission carrier moves when it should be static
• Fixed: Airspeed in HUD on Marianas is doubled in very high head winds
• Fixed: Time on Target seems too fast when setting ground speed
• Fixed: Radar able to track targets that are terrain masked
• Updated Hornet BFM Instant Action missions

DCS: AH-64D by Eagle Dynamics

• Made it possible for AI to use IAT
• Added Sinai IA Instant Action missions
• Added Windshield wipers clear rain drops
• Added for AGM-114L new icon for ME
• Fixed: George manoeuvres are not predictable and almost deadly
• Fixed: LST switch in front cockpit moved to A in cold starts (auto-start and manual starts)
• Fixed: AGM-114L seem to fail to hit targets fired while aircraft is moving
• Fixed: APU desync between PLT and CPG
• Fixed: "George" will say "in range" when it is not
• Fixed: Player-CPG cannot launch AGM-114L after AGM-114K
• Fixed: George evaluate LT switch position when Player leaves CPG seat
• Fixed: Yaw limit after you don't launch AGM-114L at once
• Fixed: Constraint box fixed after last missile
• Fixed: George launched AGM-114L from 9km when in weapons free mode
• Fixed: AGM-114 typo in weapon label
• Fixed: FCR defaults to wrong mode in specific power on conditions

DCS: Mi-24P Hind by Eagle Dynamics

• Fixed: Radio desync in multicrew
• Fixed: R-863 radio does not turn on channel 11 on Pilot-Operator seat in multicrew
• Added: Quick Start missions for Sinai map

DCS: UH-1H Huey by Eagle Dynamics

• Fixed: Minigun animation is missing in MT
• Fixed: WIP Throttle control over FCU logic for new engine model. (Before helicopter would be able to takeoff on throttle idle)
• Fixed: WIP Fuel consumption tuning after new engine model implementation

DCS: Mi-8MTV2 Magnificent Eight by Eagle Dynamics

• Added: Quick Start missions for Sinai map
• Fixed: Crash caused by asymmetrical gunpods jettison

DCS: Supercarrier by Eagle Dynamics

• Fixed: MT - long range lineup light not visible
• Fixed: Deck markings not showing in mission editor MT

DCS: FW 190A-8 by Eagle Dynamics

• Pitot light indicator now works without ground power (pitot heating functions still have known issues)
• Fixed: Double bind for Start Switch

DCS: FW 190D-9 by Eagle Dynamics

• Fixed: Double bind for Start Switch

DCS AJS-37 Viggen by Heatblur Simulations

• NEW: Added over 100 user requested keybinds (with special thanks to Munkwolf et al.).
  • Does not affect existing keybinds.
• RB-05 Overhaul:
  • Fixed RB-05 only able to be steered with radar in A0.
  • Fixed launched RB-05s automatically setting radar to A0 (without moving the switch).
  • Fixed subsequent launches sending the first missile to Valhalla.
  • Fixed steering commands being sent to the missile beyond 30s.
• Included several BK-90 fixes:
  • Fixed STD switch erroneously affecting pattern setting.
  • Inhibited display of BK-90 HUD symbology above 500m.
  • Max distance release cue not showing correctly.
• Added U-22 Jammer Mode E (always transmits).
• Added non-tracer AKAN gunpod.
• Fixed Jammer warmup not being skipped during hotstart.
• Fixed U-22 (old) warning light not showing during warmup.
• Fixed X-TANK BRÄ light showing <50% RPM instead of <70%.
• Fixed airbrakes not auto-retracting with landing gear releasing.
• Added feature that allows airbrakes to be stopped in an intermediate position.
• Added “_(...)” to keybinds for l10n. Now keybinds are localizable.

DCS F-14 Tomcat by Heatblur Simulations

• NEW: Major Ground Handling and Suspension Overhaul Phase 2:
  • Significant suspension and ground handling qualities update.
  • Increased Brake Torque.
  • Adjusted kneel actuator rate.
  • Completely redone strut forces and dynamics.
  • Adjusted kneel spring energy.
• Fixed aircraft spawning kneeled on carrier hot starts.
• All hot starts now spawn with the parking brake engaged.
• Adjusted default takeoff trim for carrier spawns.
• Fixed incorrect delay in ejection sequence.
• EIG brightness adjusted with ambient illumination.

DCS: JF-17 by Deka Ironwork Simulations

• Fixed: SMS supports for PL-12
• Added: Weapon Qualification missions

DCS: SA-342M Gazelle by Polychop Simulations

SA342 - Common to all

• Updated external textures to PBR standard
• Added raindrops on canopy
• Interior lighting and reflections updated
• Flight model
  • Entirely rewritten FM
  • Overhauled engine and rotor behaviours
  • Updated mass and payload mass parameters
  • Many new behaviours added or reworked (ground effect, flapback/blowback, retreating blade stall, density altitude, ETL…)
  • Engine surge effect from rapid collective movement added
• Force Feedback support added
• Removed ‘Easier Controls’ special option
• Removed ‘Rudder Trimmer’ special option (replaced with new trim options)
• New trim options for cyclic and pedal behaviour when using ‘Force Trim Interrupt’
  • None - has no effect
  • Instant - trim position instantly set to current cyclic/pedal position
  • Fade In/Fade Out - trim position will move to current cyclic/pedal position over short time period (<1sec) (also applies to ‘Trimmer Reset’)
  • Applied upon Recentering - trim position will apply instantly only when cyclic/pedal position is recentered
• Updated controls indicator
  • Red marker shows control position
  • Grey marker shows trim position
  • Autopilot markers removed for further consideration
• Updated/added network animations
• Implemented IFF panel (limited functionality)
• Updated autopilot system
  • Airspeed/Altitude hold mode removed for further consideration
  • “Auto-collective” removed for further consideration
  • Added light indicators for auto-hover (CSV) and heading-align (ALV) autopilot modes
  • Autopilot master switch will not engage/will disengage if pitch, roll or yaw SAS disabled
• Added smoke display system
  • Smoke launchers can be equipped in the rearm/refuel screen
  • Smoke launchers have a new input to toggle on/off
• Collective can be hidden by clicking on base of collective
• Added tablet navigation aid
  • Tablet can be disabled from mission editor
  • Tablet provides map, heading, airspeed and groundspeed GPS information
• Updated slip ball to be less erratic
• Fuel warning light now flickers if below 80L

SA342L

• Added new weapons:
  • 2x/4x Mistral
  • 2x/4x HOT3
  • HMP400 gunpods (100, 200, 400)
  • Selectable GIAT M621 20mm

Replaced Viviane screen with periscope sight

• Replaced Viviane control panel with periscope control board
  • Periscope provides two zoom levels
  • Toggleable gyro stabilisation
  • Selectable reticles for estimating distance
  • Connected to ‘VIS’ mode on Artificial Horizon same as Viviane
• Pilot sight can be hidden by clicking on mounting of pilot sight
• AI now able to fire HOT3 missiles
• Added ground crew option to remove doors
• Added option to shoot multiple pylons if the weapon is from the same type

SA342M

• Viviane camera code overhauled
• Viviane multicrew synchronisation improved
• AI now able to fire HOT3 missiles

SA342 Mistral

• Removed playable version (now replaced by SA342L)
• Removed Custom Cockpit options

SA342 Minigun

• Added special option to decouple minigun from head/camera view
• Added inputs for keyboard/joystick control of minigun
• Added inputs for mouse control of minigun
• Added clickables and inputs for minigun safety, sight powebrightness and IR laser

SA342 Known issues and work in progress

• Auto-hover (CVS and ALV modes) are work in progress and may not function reliably yet
• PBR overhaul is a work in progress. Most liveries will look too glossy until they have custom RoughMet textures applied. This will happen over the next few DCS World updates.
• Our in-house Mistral ATAM has been replaced by ED’s which is very susceptible to flares.
• Mistral ATAM tubes protective cap not yet animated

DCS Mirage F1 by Aerges

Short range IR missiles:

• Fixed AIM-9J lock-on audio not being heard.
• Sidewinder missile will not perform SEAM (scan pattern) anymore as this mode was not implemented in the real F1.
• 'Cannon 600/Identification P' throttle button will now uncage Sidewinder missiles (except AIM-9B). If no target was detected at this moment, the seeker head will drift randomly following the background IR heat. The seeker will return to the boresight once the 'Cannon 600/Identification P' button is released. I.e. if a target is tracked, the button must be held pressed to keep the seeker on the target.
• AIM-9JULI launch delay was reduced to 0.4 seconds (AIM-9B/P/J still have 0.8 seconds).
• Magic 1 and 2 scan now is a 5 degrees wide rectangular pattern.
• Fixed Magic missile scan pattern. Sometimes the scan pattern size was excessively increased.
• Updated Magic missiles instantaneous seeker FOV. It is now 3.4 degrees wide.
• Wingtip missile energization switch now always spawns in ON position.
• Wingtip missile cooling time increased.

Flight model and control system:

• Adjusted yaw damper response (both amplitude and frequency).
• Adjusted wake turbulence behaviour. Now the aircraft won’t be so much affected by turbulence in yaw.

Autopilot:

• Fixed control stick slow jitter in some situations when AP was connected.
• Fixed autopilot roll issues that caused disconnection in MP (and in SP after a longer time).

Gyroscope system fixes:

• Fixed bug that impeded full alignment of the gyros if the Gyro mode switch is moved out of stop before the aircraft has AC power.
• Gyro failure overhaul:
  • Added new gyroscope related failures.
  • Fixed general gyroscopic central failure (it now works as described in the manual’s failures section).
• Changed CAP (heading) failure light logic to no longer depend on the attitude gyroscope state.

Various systems changes:

• Fixed missing decimals in loaded radio presets.
• Increased alternator overheating time.
• BARAX lights test logic will be always working now, disregarding the system test status.
• INS overhaul (first step):
  • Improved alignment steps and precision in all modes.
  • Accelerating during alignment now generates a malfunction in the INS and requires full realignment.
  • Fixed ALCM mode.
• Corrected oxygen test logic to follow manual description. Now the needle moves from full to empty to full again until the test button is depressed.
• Fixed oxygen indication energization logic. Now, when pressing the OXY TEST button, the oxygen indicator will be energized by the emergency AC bus 1 instead of the main AC bus 2, thus allowing the oxygen level to be read with the engine off.
• Fixed Standby Horizon attitude reference symbol movement with keyboard inputs.
• Fixed initial position of the ejection seat clickspot before it is pressed for the first time.

3D model and textures:

• Fixed the size of white dots in the Autopilot control panel.
• Fixed circuit breaker label (C de GYRO circuit breaker was incorrectly called NAV).
• Improved BR-250 bomb texture.
• Fixed the spherical indicator, it now shows the correct pitch attitude.
• Fixed the standby horizon, it now shows the correct pitch attitude.

Miscellaneous:

• Updated the Flight Manual.
• Updated the startup training mission: Highlighted the NWS high sensitivity button. Specified that the "I" key on the keyboard sets the throttle to idle.
• Added PHIMAT chaff pod to versions CT, CR, ED, BD, EQ, BQ. (Only visual for now).
• Added Stick Hide/Unhide keybind.

DCS: C-101 Aviojet by AvioDev

• AIM-9M launch delay was reduced to 0.4 seconds.
• Magic 1 and 2 scan now is a 5 degrees wide rectangular pattern.
• Fixed Magic missile scan pattern. Sometimes the scan pattern size was excessively increased.
• Updated Magic missiles instantaneous seeker FOV. It is now 3.4 degrees wide.
• Fixed missing decimals in loaded radio presets.
• Fixed startup training mission (EN, ES and CN). The aileron control test trigger should now work.

DCS: Flaming Cliffs by Eagle Dynamics

• Double pylons with B-8 rockets don't work on Su-27/33 - fixed

DCS: Black Shark 3 by Eagle Dynamics

• ME. Incorrect mass of payloads - fixed
• MP. 2011 version instead of 2022 when looking at other clients - fixed
• Rotor gearbox sounds updated

DCS: Combined Arms by Eagle Dynamics

• Fixed - Player can't use HE shells in the second stage if in the first stage set 0 HE shells.
• Fixed - "Zero-sight" mask in iso-view IR or NVG on MBT Abrams.

DCS: Normandy 2.0 Map by Ugra Media

• Added scene of Spitfires factories in Hampshire
• Added scene with flags and warehouses from machinery at Heathrow Airfield
• Added the port of Le Treport
• Added two fishing boats
• Added fishing boat routes
• Added underground tunnels in Paris
• Added new tram routes in London
• Added wooden piers
• Improved radar tower scenes in England and France
• Improved port scenes for Portsmouth, Dunkirk, London
• Improved traffic of trains and cars
• Added earthworks at English airfields Kenley, Ford, Chailey, Needs Oar Point, West Malling, Gravesend
• Improved scenes of Orly, Saint-Andre-de-lEure, Amiens-Glisy, Carpiquet, Gravesend, Kenley airfields
• Improved tent and sandbag shelter scenes at Ford, Chailey, Gravesend, Kenley airfields
• Part of metal car bridges replaced by stone ones
• Improved range of visibility settings for city objects
• Improved life settings for objects
• Improved lighting of objects
• Destruction models are optimised
• Added steps on Tower Bridge, Mirabeau Bridge, Alexander III Bridge
• Fixed errors in the Chailey, Farnborough, Ford, Kenley, Beny-sur-Mer, Bazenville, Deux Jumeaux airfield scenes
• Fixed errors in taxiways and car parks at Chailey, Farnborough, Ford, Kenley, Lymington, Orly, Villacoublay, Saint-Andre-de-lEure, Creil, Cormeilles-en-Vexin, Carpiquet, Sainte-Laurent-sur-Mer
• Terrain errors on the French coast have been fixed
• Levelled terrain in the ports of Portsmouth, Dunkirk, London, Boulogne-sur-Mer
• Fixed errors in land textures near the Isle of Wight and on the coast of the landing zone
• Corrected collisions in Louvre Museum arches, military school in Paris, Luxembourg Palace, Tower, Victoria Station, Liverpool Street Station, Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace
• Fixed errors at Cumberland and Newhaven Forts
• Fixed the hands on the clocks at Victoria Station, Big Ben and model churches
• Increased texture resolution for minimum settings
• Improved cliffs on the coast of France
• Added large size flags

Campaigns

The Enemy Within 3.0 Campaign by Baltic Dragon:
General. Fixing typos, updates to briefings etc.

• Mission 01. Fixes to coordinates in subtitles. Removed unnecessary files from the mission.
• Mission 04. Added missing line for Pontiac. Updated on-screen messages so that player won't loose some of the comms.
• Mission 05. Removed duplicate briefing images. Updated flight plan (removed wrong WP1).
• Mission 06. Updated wrong kneeboard card with frequencies.
• Mission 07. Updated kneeboard and briefing images.
• Mission 09. Updated briefing images. Fixed issue with Overlord AI overstepping custom comms.
• Mission 11. Updated Player Group ID. Balancing of the difficulty for the infantry attack near the mosque.
• Mission 12. Fixed wrong VO for Lotus. Fixed overlapping comms for Raider.
• Mission 13. Fixed issue with missing debriefing. Minor typos fixed.
• Mission 15. Changed frequencies for some assets, so it is easier to manage the radios now.
• Mission 20. Updated mission date. Made some friendly units invisible so that they are not engaged by Russian SAMs.

DCS: F/A-18C Flaming Sunrise Campaign by Sandman Simulations

• Documentation – typos fixed
• All missions – typos fixed
• All missions – planning charts included in in-game kneeboard
• All missions – sidenumbers changed to be more realistic

DCS: F/A-18C Raven One: Dominant Fury Campaign by Baltic Dragon

• Horizontal Update. Updated and fixed skins for the campaign
• Mission 01. Fixed problem with AI flights not taking off and carrier turning constantly
• Mission 08. Fixed issue with Red orbiting around the carrier after takeoff
• Mission 12. Added safeguard for AI engaging the SAM sites

DCS: F/A-18C Inherent Resolve Campaign by Looking Glass

• Adjusted ALL mission start/wait times - users can start aircraft quickestart mission quicker
• Mission 5 - Barrel bombs - improved gameplay, added audio for fox calls player and wingman, improved AI, landings, sequencing
• Mission 11 - Chemical Alley - added immortal mode, improved gameplay, Enemy defences reduced, AAA FX improved, timings for tanker fixed
• Other bugs/errors corrected
• Mission End on mission fails has now been removed for ALL missions

Hello all! Looking for a queer-friendly nail salon near the NW side of OKC (he lives in The Village/Hefner area, but has no problem driving a bit to a location) for a friend who has recently come out. I live on the south side so I'm just not familiar with what's going on salon-wise that far north. Thanks for your help, and Happy Pride!!

Inspiration finally came back. Starting to get to the main story soon. Please leave feedback. I write more as a play outline, but I am hoping to be able to write normally
​
"Well, that went about as well as I could hope," Thomas mutters to himself as he crosses the marsh back to his broken building. Storming up the stairs, he does not bother taking off his muddy shoes. Seeing the pile of leaves and discarded skins he uses as a makeshift bed, he flops down face first.
"If I did the right thing, why do I feel like I am about to break down and throw up?!"
Mind racing, he plays back over what he said and did.
"Now that I am here, I have some saved dried food, I can gather water at the stream that feeds the marsh, I have many containers to carry water with so I won't have to go everyday. I should be able to hide here for a few days."
"What to do after that? I have burned the last bridge that I had, I am not important enough to hunt so I have that going for me, but now what?"
Looking up to the sky, he sees the stars, and with tears streaming down his face, begs the stars, "Why? ...Why?"
-----
"I never thought the runt had it in him to run away," the chief bellows.
"Don't talk about him like that!"
"Why son, it's true. Today was a day to celebrate you and the work you put into making that thing work. Sure it took a few weeks to build, but you managed to organize everyone to work on it. Calling out any specific person would make it seem like you are favouring them over any other."
"But without him, th-"
"No buts! You also managed to have him flee, and with the duel he lost, he can never return. In one day, you managed to do something I have been trying to do for years. That is worth celebrating!"
Ned stands up and storms out of the dome, rustling the plastic liner within the door on the way. He immediately runs into Katrina who is standing out there, seemingly waiting for him, and possibly eavesdropping.
"So am I to go after him and return with his ears? Or tongue?"
"Katrina! What are you saying?! Yes, he is as good as dead, but we don't need to kill him."
"This is why you will make a poor chief. No guts to follow through on promises"
"There was no promise. I did not even get to choose the combat!"
"Good thing, you probably would have allowed himself to defend what he said. Claiming all your work in setting up the pump and organizing the village"
"You really think I had the idea? I can barely sort people's problems and what the craftsworkers do might as well be magic! I know that I shouldn't touch the sharp bit or the hot thing, but that's it!"
"You don't have to know those things, you know how to delegate. So what if it was not your idea. It was still you who did the work to actually get it to happen"
Suddenly, one of the villagers runs in. "Master Ned, the pump's broke"
"What do you mean, 'the pump's broke'? It has only been a few hours since we started it, and it was tested for days before!"
"The handle turns, but no water comes up"
Ned storms off to the pump, followed by the villager and Katrina. He arrives at the pump, slips through the gathering crowd, and tries the handle. It is very loose, but the screw seems to spin.
"That does not make sense, it's loose, but I was here before the festival and it worked perfectly. I would even say it was stiff"
Katrina stands, and in a huff, exclaims "It must have been Thomas! I should have ended him when I had the chance!"
"No! Katrina! Come back here right now!"
"You're not the boss, and you're not my dad!!" Katrina shouts as she runs off into the forest, bow in hand and spear on back.
"Should we fix it?" "Can we fix it?" "I don't know", the crowd mumbles
Ned, thinking about what Katrina said before arriving at the pump, stands straight and shouts:
"All of you! We are going to fix this pump, not because it is easy, but because it is unknown. One of you snuck the plans to me, so one of you knows how it works. I want this info to be spread across all craftspeople and this pump deconstructed and repaired. Do I make myself clear?!"
"Yes!" Most of the crowd exclaims. Many of the younger craftsmen immediately start yanking the pump out of the creek bank to bring it back into the shop.
Ned, ready to head back, feels a hand on his shoulder, and sees that it is Nathaniel. The tall and lanky many with a wild eye stares at him. The rest of the crowd has eagerly wandered away. Nathaniel speaks, "Good for you to start looking to the past and future. I feel that my time is near, but may the sky guide you through the challenges ahead with the winds of change"
Ned, carefully brushing off the old man's hand, replies "...ok, sure... You've got a few more years left though."
-----
Early the next morning, Thomas awakes, confused and hungry. He quickly remembers what occured the day before. He quickly eats some of his stored pemmican and water he gathered. Now finding himself with a lot of spare time, and still needing to be incognito, he stays in the building and explores a few more of the rooms. Coming into one of the smaller rooms, he comes across another long rotted out pile of springs arranged in a rectangle, and another bookshelf. Seeing these books, his eyes light up and he quickly walks over to them, testing the floor on the way. Gently lifting one our of the case, he sees that they are damp, but in pretty good shape for being in an enclosed room with a rotted metal thing.
Leafing through, he sees that it is without pictures. Placing it gently on the floor, he opens another one, and in it,sees strange yet familar shapes of a spoon, archer and W. Studying them, he realizes this is a book of star pictures, 'constellations' as the book calls them. And is surprised to find that these stars are actually each a far away sun.
Hours pass, engrossed in the knowledge of space and distances of billions, he dozes off, surrounded by books, and sleeps calmly for the first time in years.
Several days later, he forces himself to eat some pemmican and now sick of it, decides to venture out into the marsh. Sneaking through the bushes on its edge to ensure no one sees him or hears him, he spies a small pile of food, and recognizes it as a standard lunch for the kids collecting nails. He checks his surroundings, and takes the bun, and some of the dried strawberries and hightails it back to the building.
Sitting down to enjoy his meal, he realizes that he stole from one of the kids he probably helped pull nails from the ground. Taking some of his pemmican, he brings it back to where the lunch is, and places it where he found the bun.
Seeing the amount of disturbed ground around the small pile of food, he quickly snaps a pine bough off and brushes over the footprints to hide his presence.
He returns to his house, nay his home, and reads, happy if a little guilty at the food gained, and more importantly, the knowledge of the stars that this book provides.

Just a disclaimer, I am a 15 year old female with dark hair and bright eyes which is what most people would consider "The Supermodel Look". I am also quote tall (over 5'8 I'm just not sure lol). Now before I begin this story, I just want to say that I believe that kindness takes you far and I don't like being rude at all, I would never fight a girl over a guy. Even if I'm in a bad mood I always try to be nice and seem like an approachable person even when it may be tough to do so. I just try to be a nice person and I think everyone should aswell. Anyways there are a few stories in this so buckle up.
Yesterday, I was out shopping with my Father like a FatheDaughter day out. I decided to wear shorts and a white tank top as we are currently at the time of this story in June. Now, the shorts I was wearing were not short. Quite strange to hear from a girl my age as some of us could go out shopping in a tiny bikini and say its suitable lol. But they really weren't, they were about 2 inches above my knee and the tank top went all the way down to the waistband of the shorts. If you have an image in your head you would understand its not in anyway sexually revealing, plus I'm 15 and I can't really show off my body, and I don't want to. So, we were walking through the mall and a man and his wife were walking by, (I know it was his wife because they were holding hands and they both had rings on) and we were walking towards eachother for a good 8 seconds and the whole time the man was just staring at me. I of course stared back because this has happened over 7000 times in the past so now I feel like doing it back. We held eye contact for a bit before he got embarrassed and looked ahead and so did I. But then I looked back at him and there he was staring at my chest whilst his wife was there. I scoffed loudly while looking him up and down making sure he heard and saw me. He quickly looked ahead. This infuriated me as my heart went out to his wife. I know if I had a husband and he was not only looking at other girls chest, but a minors chest?? I would be absolutely furious with him. Absolutely disgusting. I kept walking alongside my father and I just shook my head. He asked me what was wrong and I didn't even want to begin because I was so used to it by then.
Story 2.
So about a week prior to the previous story a friend and I were walking outside beside a big road. We were both wearing denim shorts and jackets. I was wearing a crop top but she was wearing a T-Shirt. Suddenly a car comes speeding up the road. It just so happened to be clear with nobody else out walking and not too many cars on the road. Again, it was a man in the car by himself. He quickly comes to a halt and stops his car on the curb. He does a full 90 degree turn and just stares at us while checking us out. The man was over the age of 45 and I genuinely felt sick to my stomach. I gave him the middle finger and he sped away. Me and my friend were laughing about it awkwardly but I think we both knew how uncomfortable we were. Again, Absolutely disgusting.
Story 3.
The same friend and I were in the city center just walking around, shopping etc. We were stopped at a crosswalk waiting for the signal to turn green. Infront of us were two rough looking men. And when I say that, they were dirty, missing teeth, dirty finger nails, but they were wearing 'designer' so I think you know what I'm trying to say and it's not 'homeless'. One of them turns around of just starts staring at us. Particularly my friend. He nudged the other guy and he begins staring at me. Not even trying to hide it, just straight up, full body turned staring at us and they were both doing a nasty looking smile at us while staring at everything but our faces. They both look at eachother and both nod in approval. These men were like mid 30s atleast. Once again, DISGUSTING.
Story 4.
This time I was walking past a bar with my mom. This was only about 3 weeks ago and it was pretty hot so there were tables and chairs outside for people to sit on. So, as I was walking past there were a group of men, mid 40s. They were all talking until my mother and I walked past. One of the men completely stops talking to watch us walk past which obviously instigated the other men to turn around. Just. Staring. The. Whole. Time. D.I.S.G.U.S.T.I.N.G. Oh and yes they were staring at my butt the whole time.
Story 5.
I was in the airport with my parents as we were going to visit family on the other side of the US. I live in California and they live in Florida. So we were sitting down waiting to board the plane. There was a man. Probably late 30s with his family. He had 3 young children with him. One in a stroller and the two were probably 7 or 8 sitting next to us. I wasn't using my phone, I was just sitting there because I didn't want to use the battery on my phone or any other device so I was just glancing around. So the Father had the phone very close to his face. And sort of aimed towards me because he clearly didn't want his wife or kids to see what he was looking at. He was on Instagram, and you know when you go to search something on Instagram a bunch of pics come up beneath it that are based from your search. Well yeah, there were a bunch of girls in bikinis. They definitely weren't minors thank god but it was a bunch of Instagram models filled with filters and surgeries. I wanted to take the phone and throw it across the airport. This man is sitting beside his wife and family of young children and is sitting there, staring at these unrealistic images of half naked women. Please control yourself. It made me sick.
I could go on for hours, days, weeks and even years with stories of men being absolute perverts or just being so careless of their families because they want to look at half naked women online but I don't wanna waste anyone's time.
Now, i just want to say I'm not one of those girls who take part in the 'kill all men' horse crap and im certainly not a girl who hates men for no reason. I am friends with some boys who are genuine sweethearts and I hold out for them to go far in life and have loving families etc. But the way men act nowadays has a huge influence on young boys to act just as perverted and creepy as they are and it will create a chain of absolute pedophiles throughout the coming decades. It has to stop. Some parents have to be aware of how their children speak about others, particularly women because if you've ever heard how they speak about their wives or girlfriends you will genuinely never want to go near a man again.
And another thing, if some men want to know why some women have such high standards its because they have went through the creepiness and perverted behavior by men they don't even know as a young girl so many times, they naturally think all men are like that. So maybe if certain boys and men change how they speak, act and present themselves the standards will lower. But until that changes, more and more women and girls will continue to rise their standards.
Now, I will not sit behind a screen and absolutely slander men because its not all men and don't even lie, we both know its not all men. But it is enough men for women and girls to be afraid of going near them. And from my point of view, my friends are constantly chasing boys and not to sound like a pick me, but I don't. I genuinely don't bother chasing boys because most of them act the same. The way they speak about girls etc. I personally have high standards because of what kind of behaviour I've seen from so many men at a young age.
I think it's important to spread awareness about this. And please nobody say 'it's just what men do'. No. I firmly refuse to believe its just what they do and if there were a set of words to describe what they do they would be "Utterly Desperate". If you feel the need to stare at other girls while you have a girlfriend?? Its ungrateful and desperate. Ungrateful because you don't realise what you have, and forgive me for saying this, but some boys have a set standard for what they look for in girls during their teenage years and they usually are skinny, 4'11, size D chest, no waist, no belly fat, no stretch marks and a huge butt so 9 times out of 10 that's what their girlfriend will be. So yeah, they don't appreciate their girlfriend enough and it's desperate because what makes you feel like staring at other girls?? To see if she's pretty? Most likely. Are you that desperate to see other pretty girls. It also works the same if he looks at girls on Instagram etc. If he's looking at these unrealistic Instagram models, it's desperate.
I also don't understand how some girls let their boyfriends watch porn. It really dosent compute in my head. It's not realistic. It litterally sets unrealistic standards for how you should look, act etc during the devils tango. I hope one day people realise how bad it is for you. Realise that's not what the female body looks like, nothing in it is realistic, and the actors are so dramatic. Some of them are litterally screaming?. Once again not realistic. Society needs to change how they view women. Its disgusting.
Also for the boys reading this, feel free to comment about your experiences with strange women in public. I think people forget this happens to boys too.
I ask you to not attack me. I just want people to listen to me and become aware of these situations. Stay safe out there and have a lovely day.

“Rule #1: Guns don’t do jack.”
All the others vary, but this is always the #1 rule at every park in the country.
Personally, I would have added precisely four extra letters to it, but upper brass insists we need to uphold at least some modicum of professional decorum. Still, there are no words to describe just how frustrated it makes me every single time I see some jagoff standing there gormlessly unloading his magazine into some unfathomable nightmare creature who obviously isn’t going to feel a thing. Once I even saw someone run empty and then try to reload, instead of just, I don’t know, running away. I was almost glad to see him get exsanguinated.
Many folks have attempted to get creative with it. You name it, they’ve tried it. Silver bullets, 50 caliber high explosive incendiary ammunition, shotgun slugs cased in gold carved out from the Ark of the Covenant and pumped full of aglaophotis and blessed by the pope himself… and nothing. Nada. Zilch. As far as I know, throughout the entire history of the NPS, not a single bullet we’ve fired has even lightly tickled any of God’s half-finished rejects that stalk the wilderness.
I guess we just have trouble coping with the fact that our generation’s favorite hammer doesn’t work on this particular nail. In all fairness, though, there’s a psychological benefit to holding a gun, even knowing this foremost rule. It’s a lot more bearable to weave through trees in the pitch black wood miles from civilization when you have ol’ Remington’s gift to humanity gripped in your shaking hands. Venturing out with just your bare fists feels like you may as well give up, drop trou, bend over, and hope the thing with forty thousand eyes is feeling romantic.
I have to admit, even I keep my trusty old 1911 on my hip, even knowing it’d be absolutely useless for anything but putting a round through my own brain stem in case I get cornered by any of the things you really don’t want capturing you alive.
“Rule 2: Handheld UV lights are required when bushwhacking after midnight so fluorescent spider silk may be seen and avoided. If caught by a strand, or if you feel the earth beginning to part beneath you, throw down a circle of salt, recite the Gayatri Mantra, and clap exactly thrice.”
I’m sure you’ve wondered how we even come up with the really elaborate and specific rules like this one. The answer’s simple: a little bit of occult research, and a hell of a lot of deadly trial and error.
Sure, sometimes we get lucky and somebody else does our homework for us. For example, up at Isle Royale, an Ojibwe elder was kind enough to provide us with a few rules that help greatly when dealing with… well, you-know-what. Sorry, but never referring to them by name was one of the rules. In general, though, if you see a rule emphasizing that you have to clap exactly thrice, you can bet it’s because some poor bastard tried clapping two times or four times and ended up paying the ultimate price for it.
In this case, it was Annemary, or ‘Crazy Anne’. I worked by her side for twenty years, at least. She was a hell of a woman, the kind who made everyone hush into a terrified silence whenever she walked into a room. Still, even she wasn’t as scary as that spider-thing that kept her alive for a week in his web while he extra-orally digested her. He was a right bastard, and for a while I worried we’d have to write off Shenandoah as a lost cause… but since this rule was put into place, the evil cunt has been more or less left to starve. I consider it my magnum opus.
We only pulled it off because of you, Anne, you crazy diamond. Once you’ve conquered Hell, save a spot for me beside your throne, okay?
“Rule 3: If approached by a man with the head of a deer, offer to make him tea. He likes it strong with milk and two sugars. Sit with him as he drinks, and respond to him with absolute politeness and good manners at all times. Never ask him his name.”
You’ll be pleased to know that not every strange thing that lurks in these parks is the sort that yearns to tear your intestines out through your arsehole while you cry for mommy. Just like real wild animals, a vast majority of them just want us humans to leave ‘em alone… and a few even like us.
We’ve got a swell arrangement worked out with this peculiar deer-man who manifests in front of rangers on graveyard shift every once in a while. That 10 foot tall sonuvabitch has got the body of a man but the head of a stag with a rack any hunter would drool over, the digitigrade legs of a wolf, and he wears these flowing robes which look to be made of the night sky, glimmering stars and all. He talks all cryptic and posh, but all he asks us for is some tea time. In return, he opens that third eye on his forehead and glimpses into the future, giving us a few hints as to what sort of trouble might be brewing in the next few weeks. From our encounters, he seems like a nice enough fellow.
We only tell you not to ask his name because it’s beyond pronunciation and will just leave your ears bleeding. You know how it is.
“Rule #4: If you hear the wailing of an infant in the woods steadily drawing closer to the park office, open the red lockbox with code 0681. There is a living fetus inside on a bed of satin; pierce its heart with one of the provided golden pin needles until the noises cease.”
Another complicated mess of a rule we had to bring in a Goetic daemonologist to help cook up. I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, sure, if we knew more about these things, we could probably pare these rules down some more, come up with something simpler, easier. But the point is that the rules we have now have weathered the test of time and have been proven to keep us safe consistently. Once we’ve achieved that consistency, a rule pretty much never changes, since any propositions to study alternatives are always shut down by the question of “what happens if your hypothesis doesn’t work?”
Oh yeah, by the way. You recall how I mentioned there are certain entities out here you really don’t want to get taken alive by? This is definitely one of those. Cutting up that fetus is never very pleasant, but trust me, it’s worth the trouble.
But if you want to trail blaze and stake your life testing out some theory you cooked up… be my guest.
“Rule #5: When staying at the old barracks, always cover every mirror in a room before turning out the lights, and never remove or break-“
“Wait. Slow down a second.”
I had not even made it through five rules before the rookie sitting across from me at the cabin rudely interrupted. He was a young man who’d look more at home in Hollywood or Los Angeles than out here in the woods, his immaculately groomed jet black hair slicked to the side like all the posh celebs are doing it. I didn’t have a very good first impression of him, but hell, I always hated when I had to babysit a newbie through a night. Patience was never my strong suit.
“Can I ask why these are all so… infuriatingly vague?” He continued. “Like, what do I do if forgot to cover a mirror? What happens if I don’t clap three times or whatever?”
“Because there’s fifteen rules even just here in Shenandoah. That might not sound like a lot, but when you’re fighting fer your life ‘gainst something with more mouths than you have teeth, it’s a hell of a lot to remember. Got to keep details sparse, y’see. Make sure to drill in the important bits. And it wouldn’t help you none to know what happens if you break a rule - it’d only scare ya,” I explained. “Now shut your yapper while I finish reminding you of ‘em all.”
He groaned. “I’ve already heard them far too many times. At least a thousand today.”
I stared daggers through him. “There’s no such thing as ‘too many’ in this case, boy. People died to write these rules, and they’ll save your life.”
“With all due respect: how, exactly, are these supposed to protect me? Like… how is clapping and throwing salt around supposed to ward off anything? It’s complete nonsense!”
We got a lot of these types of guys: the “rational skeptics” who don’t believe in your silly rules. It’s either that or the fools with more muscle than brains who think they can kill a creature who can make your heart pop with a single thought. Usually, they get filtered out and fired quick. Usually. I made a mental note to beat the ass of whoever decided that this smarmy, cocksure rookie was ready for the graveyard shift. But it was too late to send him home; he wouldn’t make it out of the park alive, if he tried to traipse off through the woods at this hour.
“It doesn’t have to make sense. These things don’t work by our logic.” But I knew I couldn’t convince these types with words alone, so I stood. “C’mere, boy. Let me show you something.”
I led him to the huge window pane on the cabin’s wall, overlooking the forest down below, and checked my watch - only 20 minutes til the show started. It was a pain convincing him to shut up and wait, but that big mouth of his snapped closed the instant he realized something was emerging from the bushes down there.
It was a raccoon - not an unusual sight out here, if not for the fact that it was walking upright. And not the clumsy waddling on hind legs you expect from animals, but it seemed to stroll bipedally with all the grace of a man, as if its body had been unnaturally twisted and deformed to befit a style of movement that was never meant for it. It moved with purpose, crab walking across a mossy field with its upper body rigid as a statue’s would be, one ‘arm’ pointing towards the sky and the other to the ground below. It plodded along its set route for a minute before disappearing back into the shrubbery without ceremony.
He was baffled, slack-jawed. “What the hell was that?”
“Exactly what it looked like,” I told him. “If you’re lookin’ for a logical explanation, there ain’t any. Some places on earth, they aren’t run by our logic. They’ve got a different basis for their rules entirely.”
“And what’s that?”
“Symbolism,” I replied, as if it were obvious. “In our world, everything’s got to follow the laws of cause-and-effect. For what you’ve seen to have happened, two raccoons must’ve fucked at some point to birth the one we saw. Then somebody, probably me, would’ve had to surgically or genetically mutilate it in ways beyond current medical science, tame and train the wretched thing, and set it up to perform this exact routine at this exact time… and all for what? To mildly confuse a rookie ranger? Explaining it would require so much contrivance, so much pulling assumptions out your ass, that it would laugh in the face of Occam’s razor. For our logic, it is unexplainable. Impossible.”
“But symbolically, it made perfect sense. That creature don’t need a backstory or a cause - it prolly just came into existence a few minutes ago, and will pop out of existence once it’s sent its message. Its gesture was the hermetic mantra ‘as above, so below’ - reminding us that everything that everything that happens on the surface world is mirrored in the underworld. It happens every morning at 1:33 AM because that’s the exact time the Witch of Woodbridge killed ‘erself to become the intermediary between the two here in Shenandoah. And it’s a raccoon because...” I paused. “Well, actually, I haven’t really figured that part out yet.”
My words failed to comfort him. In fact, the more I spoke, the more horrified he seemed, eyes widening in confusion and horror as if I’d just sat down and told him that the voices in my head command me to lick the dandruff off of camels. “Oh my God. You’re crazy. You’re actually insane.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Tell ya what. Think of, for an example you’d be familiar with, a voodoo doll. You use a strand of their hair or a toenail or something so that the doll comes to symbolize their physical vessel. By hurting the doll, you’re symbolically hurting their actual body, so the damage happens to both. That’s how the supernatural works.”
He blinked. “Voodoo dolls work?”
“In places like this, they do.” I raised a brow. “Does that surprise you?”
Suddenly, he stood and threw up his hands, as if realizing he’d been made the victim of some sick prank. “You know what? Screw this. I don’t know if this is some kind of hazing thing or what, but I feel like continuing this line of conversation would just leave me as batty as you are.”
My heart lurched with terror as he stomped to the front door and began undoing the numerous slide locks and dead bolts. “Wait! Hell are you thinkin’, boy?”
He’d only barely opened the door a crack before I’d wrapped him in a chokehold, but it’d been enough. He let out a startled yelp as I started violently pulling him across the cabin, practically clobbering him just to keep him from wrestling out of my grip. I was no spring chicken, and the younger man probably could have bested me, but I had the element of surprise on my side, plus a blow to the head that had left him drowsy.
I tossed him headlong through a hatch, down into a crawlspace under the cabin where sage burners and dried tobacco and protective talismans were waiting. I slammed the hatch shut behind him, restraining the squirming rookie with my weight and clapping a hand over his mouth to silence his protests. His face was twisted by confusion and rage, and he was just about to throw me off of him, but then he froze… eyes widening, as we both heard the unmistakable sound of… something walking in through the ajar cabin door.
We’d made it into the crawlspace just in the nick of time.
There was the heavy click-clack of hooves against the wood floor above us, interspersed with quieter thuds. It took him a moment, but I could tell when he’d figured it out. With one pair of legs, the creature walked with normal hooves… with the other, it walked on the knuckles of human hands. And as it stalked the house, knocking over plates and bookshelves, it growled and hissed and groaned not out of one maw, but three: one sounding high and avian, one low and reptilian, and another letting out the soft bleating of a sheep, all in unison like some unholy choir.
Just when it seemed like it couldn’t get any worse, a fourth maw must’ve opened up, for a new sound filled the room “Daddy?” Came a little boy’s voice, desperate and whimpered, sniffling in a way that made me feel sorry for it even despite knowing better. “Why did you leave me out in the woods, daddy? It was so dark… and I was so scared. Please, daddy. I thought you loved me. Where are you?” The child’s voice devolved slowly but pitiful begging to outright sobbing and inconsolable weeping, downright screaming itself hoarse as the clock neared 2 and the creature’s searching grew frantic.
But the very instant the clock struck 2 o’clock, all the sounds ceased, all at once. We waited there for a moment, in that deafening silence… until I smacked the rookie across the back of the head. “Rule 11, you smug prick. You never open the door at this hour of the night. That… thing takes it as an invitation.” My voice made it obvious I was desperately holding back my simmering fury. I’ve beaten folks half to death before, and I’m not afraid to do it again. “If you want to get yourself killed tonight, have at it. But I am not letting you take me down with you.”
Once the nightmare had left, his brain had an opportunity to register what had just happened… which quickly escalated into a full-bore panic attack. “Fuck this, man. What in the hell was that!? Oh God, oh God, oh God, I can’t take this man, no, no, no, I’m not cut out for this, I need to go home, I need to, I can’t-“
I watched nervously as he jumped up and started frantically pacing the cabin. He was acting erratically, sloppily. This couldn’t end well. “Snap out of it, boy! No sense in braving the woods this late at night. Ya won’t be able to see more than a foot in front of your face. Just wait here until sun-“
He swung at me when I tried to restrain him again, almost breaking my nose. “No, man! I can’t take an entire night of this! I need to go! Jesus, let me go, you crazy bastard!”
I didn’t want to admit it, but this one was looking like a lost cause. There was no way I’d be able to overpower him again once he inevitably did something else stupid. Call me selfish, but at this point, my only concern was making sure he didn’t get me killed.
“Alright! God, fine! If it’s really so important to ya… you can go. Your shift’s officially over, rookie. But I ain’t goin’ out there with ya. You’ll have to brave it on yer own. As long as you follow the rules, you should be able to make it back to your car in one piece. You hear me? The rules!”
He pouted like a child being lectured by an overbearing father. “Yeah, yeah, Christ, old man, I get it! I’ll follow the damn rules!”
In my defense, I did furnish him with every single thing he’d need to survive out there. UV flashlights, salt boxes, obsidian talismans, volcanic ash, the dried and shrunken head of a lamb, and more… not that he appreciated any of it. He was just whining at me to hurry up, ignoring all my attempts to remind him of the rules, like he was in a rush to get out there and die horribly. Eventually, I just gave up, shrugged, and let him hike off into that pitch blackness.
To his credit, he made it farther than I’d expected. Twenty minutes of silence passed, and I started to wonder if he’d actually pulled it off after all.
That was about when the screaming started.
I’d heard it too many times before: the distinctive wailing of a man realizing everything he’d done and accomplished in his life had all just been leading up to this moment when a shambling abomination saw fit to deliver him to the afterlife kicking and screaming and missing a few body parts. It didn’t surprise me in the slightest, really, but it was still unpleasant to listen to.
Judging from what little of it was intelligible, he was crying about something pulling out his eyes. Must’ve broken rule 13. Poor, stupid bastard. That one’s so easy, you’d almost have to be breaking it on purpose.
I remember the first time somebody broke a rule and got themselves killed under my watch. It almost broke me. I blamed it all on myself, then. Sent me into a depression for months. But now, after all these decades… I’m just numb.
After all, my only job is to write the rules.
If they don’t want to follow them, well… it’s their funeral.

Welcome back, it's Wednesday and I'll just come out and say it - that Seiko is ugly... Change my mind.

What's new

1/
Seiko Adds Four Completely New Chronographs To The Prospex Collection And Four Limited Editions To The Presage Craftsmanship Series
In 1999 Seiko launched a limited edition they called the Sportura Kinetic Chronograph. It was a funky watch that used four subdials to display the time and chronograph functions. Just looking at it and you feel the angst of the end of the millennium and the cheesy futurism (not to be confused with neo futurism in architecture led by Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and Santiago Calatrava) that permeated industrial design of the time - from Oakley glasses to Jnco jeans. There’s no easy way to say this, but it’s an ugly watch. I can appreciate the experiment. But come on.
However, Seiko believes that the four dial layout of the Kinetic was pleasing to the eye. That’s why they decided to recreate it in four new solar chronographs that they are adding to the Prospex collection, marking the company’s association with the World Athletics Championships to be held in Budapest, Hungary, in August. Officially called the Seiko Prospex Speedtimer Solar Chronograph, all four watches sport a new movement with the Seiko Caliber 8A50, a 1/100-second chronograph with a +/- 15-seconds per month precision rating.
The Seiko Prospex Speedtimer Solar Chronograph watch is 42mm-wide, 12.9mm-thick, and its lug-to-lug distance is 48.3mm. All four watches have the same case and bracelet design but in different executions and ever-so-slightly different prices and naming schemes. I could go on into detail about the dials and colors, but it’s all just a bit confusing. You can hop on over here if you would like to know more.
Two of the models will be limited edition of 4,000 each and two will be regular production models. The Seiko Prospex Speedtimer Solar Chronograph watch prices range from 890 Euros to 970 Euros, and all four versions will be available from July 2023. Regular readers of the newsletter will know I keep things very chipper here and don’t pass judgement. But these new Seiko’s are just baffling to me. They look like those Diesel watches you buy at the mall. Am I wrong?
Thankfully, Seiko has another announcement for today. While they have shown these watches previously, they are now starting to sell these stunning Presage Craftsmanship Series watches. Marking the 110th anniversary of its first wristwatch, the Laurel, Seiko is putting out two pairs of these limited edition pieces, with each featuring a dial made by a dedicated artisan or craft workshop through a traditional Japanese decorative technique — enamel, urushi lacquer, Arita porcelain, and shippō enamel. All four models boast a new case shape, a fresh dial aesthetic, and an in-house automatic movement. And they are now hitting the market.
And despite Seiko’s price increases for recent releases, these new editions seem to align with their predecessors. The white enamel SPB393 retails for €1,650, the brown urushi SPB395 for €2,000, the ivory Arita porcelain SPB397 for €2,000, and the blue shippō enamel SPB399 for €2,250.
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Breguet Gives Us Two Redesigned Variations Of The Classic Chronograph With The Type XX And Type 20
Just the other day I linked to a great article on Type 20, the references issued by the French military in the 1950s. There were many brands who stepped up to produce these Type 20 watches, but the reference has stuck around to be synonymous with one brand in particular - Breguet. They have been making the Type 20 for years now, with occasional updates, but now Breguet is unveiling the new Type XX and Type 20 – a civilian and military-inspired take on the classic design - which is the biggest change to the line.
Despite at first glance looking like it’s two of the same watches with different dials, the Type 20 and Type XX are actually different watches. Both watches come in the same steel case that measures 42mm wide and 14.1mm thick with bidirectional steel bezels and matching lume pips. But this is pretty much where the similarities stop. The Type 20 has a military inspired dial with mint green lume and syringe hands, while the Type XX is a civilian version with a creamy yellow lume and alpha hands.
The Type 20 and Type XX both have a new self-winding movement, the Calibre 728 for the civilian version and Calibre 7281 for the military version. Each movement has a column wheel, vertical clutch, 5Hz frequency, and flyback functionality with 60 hours of power reserve, plus an inverted in-line lever escapement with a flat silicon balance spring for increased durability, longevity, and magnetic resistance.
Why two different calibers? The difference lies in dial layout and how useful it would be in military or civilian applications. On the military version, you only have two registers, with a 30-minute totalizer at three o'clock, now larger than the 60-second totalizer at nine o'clock. Meanwhile, the civilian version has a 15-minute totalizer at three o'clock, a 12-hour totalizer at six o'clock, and running seconds at nine o'clock.
This is not a cheap watch. It will run you $18,000. But it might just be one of the best vintage revivals we have seen in a year full of vintage revivals.
3/
French Watchmaker Yema Teams Up With Alpine French Racing Team To Mark The Most French Race With Five New Watches
One of the most legendary races in the world starts on Saturday and ends on Sunday. Yes, it’s the 24 hours of Le Mans. The race is, of course, one of the most recognisable french things, alongside the croissant and hating tourists. You know what else is very french? Alpine, the legendary car manufacturer that gained it’s fame with the quirky A110 and is currently doing really well (under Renault ownership) with its successor, also called the A110. Alpine will be present at the 24h of Le Mans With their Endurance Team. If only there was a watchmaker that could join in, making it a French hat trick. There is. It’s Yema. Yema has made five new watches to mark Alpine’s stint at Le Mans - the Yema Rallygraf A470 Limited Edition and four Rallygraf Alpine Endurance Team Automatic models of which one is mechanical while the other three are powered by the Seiko VK64 meca-quartz movement.
The Yema Rallygraf A470 Limited Edition takes all the right cues from 70s racing chronographs. The stainless steel case is 39mm wide and 12mm thick without the double-domed sapphire crystal. The solid caseback shows the Alpine Endurance Team logo and the limitation of the watch. The dial is finished in a gradient-blue colour, Alpine’s signature color, with a vintage dashboard-inspired bicompax layout and Alpine’s logo on the chronograph seconds hand. Inside the watch is the Valjoux 7753 and the watch comes on an appropriate black leather rally strap with a steel pin buckle. This watch will be limited to 470 pieces and can be pre-ordered for a price of USD 2,190 with delivery expected in September 2023.
This runs at a frequency of 28,800vph and delivers 48 hours of power reserve. The watch comes on a black leather rally strap with a steel pin buckle. Limited to 470 pieces, tying in with the car, it can be pre-ordered for a price of EUR 2,190 with delivery expected in September 2023.
Then there’s the meca-quartz variants. They take the same case as the Rallygraf and give it three variations - white dial with a blue outside minute track, a cream dial with a black outside minute track or a black dial with a cream outside minute track. All of these are also available for preorder now for EUR 399 and will be delivered in September 2023.
Yema also announced a second mechanical watch made in collaboration with Alpine, the Rallygraf Alpine Endurance Team Automatic. This will officially be unveiled this coming Saturday at the Circuit de la Sarthe, during the racing weekend of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Although we don’t know all the details at this moment, we can see it’s made of stainless steel, comes on a multi-link bracelet or black leather strap and has a black dial. The bidirectional rotating bezel can be used to calculate speeds, in combination with the inner ‘Temps Ecoule’ flange in white and blue. It is powered by the in-house Calibre YEMA2000 and will cost USD 990.
4/
The Dan Henry 1970 44mm is back with new colours and the same, affordable price
You might know Dan Hendy as the microbrand that has been pumping out vintage inspired watches since 2016. What you might not know is that they made their name with the Dan Henry 1970 44mm Automatic Diver, the first of their watches to feature an automatic movement. While it might not seem like a big deal, it was for Dan Hanry and the shoppers in the sub $500 range. While Dan Henry serviced it’s customers by providing good value for money with quartz movements, the 1970 44mm Automatic Diver was the first time they offered a mechanical movement at such an affordable price. It sold out instantly and now, four years later, they are back with a limited edition of 1970 pieces.
It’s a very big watch. Very big. The heavy stainless steel super compressor style case measures 44mm in diameter and is 14.8mm thick with a 50.5mm lug-to-lug length. Despite these large dimensions, and with all other manufacturers fighting to go smaller, people still love this watch. They love it enough for it to go for over retail on the secondary market, which is not common for a watch in this pricepoint. Both of the crowns, one for rotating the inner-bezel and one for adjusting the time, screw into the case, giving it 200m water resistance.
The dials get a contrasting pop of color on the outskirts. There’s the black and orange, as well as the black and off-white with a black case and blue with white color combinations. Each version comes with its own colour-matching FKM rubber tropic strap. To keep the price low, the watches are powered by the Seiko NH35. Not the best movement in the world, but it gets the job done for an exceptionally low price.
The new Dan Henry 1970 44mm Automatic Diver is limited to 1,970 pieces, available from Dan Henry and costs $310.
5/
Bamford Teams Up With Land Rover For The LR002 Limited Edition
Somehere near the end of last year, Land Rover designed their first watch. They called it the LR001 and they turned to Bamford to put the watch into production. It was a great looking field watch made of titanium and all in shades of grey, with a decent price and limited to 100 pieces so they all sold out very fast. Now, Bamford London and Land Rover are bringing it back with an updated, equally limited, version in all black called the LR002.
The LR002 is pretty much the same watch as the LR001, except for the color. While not a fan of black watches, this isn’t a bad thing, as it gives you a chance to buy the sold out Land Rover watch. What is bad is the price, but more on that later. The case measures 40mm wide and 13.25mm thick, and is made out of DLC coated titanium. It has a shape that resembles a field watch but much more modern and has fixed bars. From photos, due to the thick case and fixed bars, this watch looks to wear much larger than it actually is.
The dial seems to be much more interesting than the case. It has a sandwich construction with the top part having a matte black surface and the underside being filled with white lume. And by alternating circular and oblong cutouts, there’s a dynamic look to the dial. Inside the watch is the same movement as in the LR001, the Selita SW200-1B, and it’s delivered on a leather NATO-style bracelet.
The LR002 will have a run of just 100 pieces that are exclusively sold through Hodinkee. At the time of writing there are still pieces available for sale at a price of $1,700. And that’s the biggest issue. The LR001 sold for about $1,300 and the only difference between the two watches is the DLC coating. Is it worth the price difference?
6/
The Casio A120 Is The Best Pairing For Stranger Things, But Do We Need It?
The immense popularity of Stranger Thing undoubtedly lies in it’s 80s nostalgia that reminded us all of our childhoods. While playing to our good memories, it also roped in new generations by picking the best the decade had to offer and presenting it as something cool. That’s why you have a bunch of kids out there listening to Kate Bush and Metallica, while wearing Casio watches and buying VHS tapes. So it only makes perfect sense that Casio would team up with Stranger Things for a limited edition watch, and what better reference to do it with then the A120. This is the Casio x Stranger Things A120WEST-1A.
The watch is a classic Casio A120, with a 33.5mm x 40.7mm rectangle case and since it’s plastic it weighs only 25 grams. It’s not filled with a bunch of functions, but it does have a chronograph, alarm and calendar and you get three years of battery life. There’s a number of Stranger Things references on the watch - there’s a silhouette of the series’ demogorgon monster beneath the digital display and the LED backlight flickers and rapidly blinks just like the surfacing of a demogorgon in the show. Once lit, you can see the watermark of an upside down Stranger Things logo.
Casio has not announced when the watch will be available or how much it will cost, but you can keep an eye out on it here. Is this a nice homage to a good TV show, or just another example of over-consumerism and corporate media properties slapping their name everywhere, without actually making a meaningfully authentic version of the watch?
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On hand - a selection of reviews

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A review of Monta’s current flagship dress watch, the Noble
2/
Hands on with the 39mm and 42mm versions of the Hanhart 414 ES Flyback
3/
A week with the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore limited edition in pink gold and titanium
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Watch Worthy - A look at an offbeat, less known watch you might actually like

Dryden is a go-everywhere-do-anything watch with plenty of options
Great dials are always appreciated, but no matter how good the dial is, it doesn’t matter if the watch isn’t wearable. The excellent design choices found on the dial of the Heartlander follow through to the case. Crafted from stainless steel the 38mm-wide case has a lovely 46mm lug-to-lug distance and is only 11.2mm-thick from solid steel caseback to domed sapphire crystal. These dimensions are in the Goldilocks region for an everyday watch for me and my ~6.5-inch wrist. The cases are predominantly brushed except for a thin highly polished bevel that flanks each side of the lugs.
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People loved the Seiko Alpinist giveaway! That's why I'm doing a new one. This time, we're giving away four Hamilton Khaki Field Automatics in a color of your choice. Head on over to the newsletter if you would like to enter.
If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related and want to get this news overview in your inbox.

https://fortune.com/2023/06/05/alt-right-economy-is-failing-real-performance-of-anti-woke-entrepreneurs-business-politics-sonnenfeld/
In commenting on Bob Iger’s defense of Disney’s values and brand in the face of threats from Florida Governor DeSantis, Nike CEO John Donahoe said, “I think Bob’s doing a great job at this. If it’s core to who you are and your values, then you stand up for your values.”
That spirit has been rewarded by the free market. Across many fronts, we have shown in quantitative analysis of business performance that doing good for society is not at the expense of doing well for shareholders, with clear examples ranging from Russian business exits to public engagement on voting rights.
Yet still, grandstanding political ideologues are using opportunistic attacks on iconic U.S. enterprises to showcase their own nascent anti-ESG businesses, and reportedly build a “parallel economy” catering to conservative constituencies. But far from flourishing, an objective review of the facts suggests these anti-wokester jokesters are financially foundering.
One little-known index fund provider, the American Conservative Values ETF (ACVF), recently received a flurry of media attention for boycotting Target over what they described as its “pandering to the woke agenda,” confidently declaring that their boycott of Target will ensure “Target stock’s long-term performance will suffer.”
Target stock is down, but in reality, the fund’s total holdings of Target amount to just $100,000–equivalent to the revenue that Target nets every 20 seconds. In fact, ACVF’s total assets under management are a rather measly $40 million–and many of their other “boycotted” companies–including iconic All-American enterprises such as Apple, Microsoft, Delta Airlines, American Airlines, Disney, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and JPMorgan–have performed quite well since being targeted by ACVF. Delta is up 10% this year, American is up 15% this year, Microsoft and Apple are both up over 40% this year and Salesforce is up 60%. Thanks in part to missing out on these top-performing stocks, ACVF is underperforming the S&P 500 by over 2% this year through June 1. No wonder even politically conservative investors stay away from these anti-woke ETFs.
ACVF’s struggles rather pale in comparison to those of its much larger and better-known rival, presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s Strive Asset Management. We have contacted both firms about our findings by phone and email, but their representatives directed us to figures published on their respective websites, which we checked–and double-checked.
The business models of both Strive and ACVF are similar: They construct exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, for mom-and-pop retail investors to passively track a basket of stocks, matching rather than trying to beat the broader market. Unlike hedge funds, these ETF providers do not care if the stocks go up, down, or sideways–rather, they get their money from fees charged on anyone who has their money in a Strive ETF. Most ETFs are very low-fee products–but the anti-woke ETFs come at a premium. BlackRock ETFs, for example, usually charge around 0.03% fees. Strive’s fees are comparatively higher at up to 0.41%–but nothing compared to ACVF’s 0.75% fee.
To survive over the long run, these nascent ETF providers need to continually attract new money from mom-and-pop investors. And that is exactly what it appears they are struggling to do. All the evidence, out in the open, shows that Strive has had a hard time attracting additional investor inflows beyond its original anchor investors after the launch of its ETFs last year. Its assets under management appear to have stagnated despite Ramaswamy’s loud media presence.
For example, its largest flagship ETF, the Strive US Energy ETF (DRLL), has almost exactly the same amount of assets under management (AUM) as of June 1, $320 million, that it did when it was launched in August/September 2022, and its AUM is down nearly 25% from the start of this year.
Fully half of Strive’s eight current ETF products–including the Strive 1000 Growth ETF, the Strive 1000 Value ETF, the Strive 1000 Dividend Growth ETF, and the Strive Small-Cap ETF–have less than $12 million assets under management each, which is microscopic relative to the industry standard–and less than the average compensation of a single major CEO at most companies.
Thus it is hardly surprising that some of the most admired CEOs are flippantly swatting away Strive’s attempts at “activism.” Ramaswamy has become the court jester of corporate governance. The mere mention of his name brings anything from smirks to outright gales of laughter amongst some corporate audiences.
One hopes that Strive is not on a path to fail as badly as some of Ramaswamy’s previous ventures, such as Axovant, a Ramaswamy-founded company whose stock price plunged from $200 to 40 cents, or Campus Venture Networks, Ramaswamy’s much-hyped undergraduate startup which, despite his self-aggrandizement, he apparently sold for just a few thousand dollars, if his tax returns are correct. Even one of Strive’s biggest financial backers, Bill Ackman, is apparently embarrassed and rushing to disavow Ramaswamy. Meanwhile, Strive is reduced to seeking “consulting contract” handouts from friendly politicos. Perhaps this helps explain why Ramaswamy is running his longshot Presidential campaign: Nothing turns around sagging business fortunes quite like a new burst of free publicity!
It is not only in high finance that these “parallel economy” startups are flailing. Attempts to build a new alt-right media ecosystem are similarly landing with a thud.
Perhaps most infamously, Donald Trump’s much-hyped Truth Social alt-platform has imploded in value, with its SPAC packaging (ticker DWAC) shares falling from $95 to $13 even as the former president flails away on this otherwise quiet platform. Alt-right social media rivals such as Gab and GabPay are struggling to gain traction, begging for donations through crowdsourced funding, while provocateur Alex Jones and his Infowars declared bankruptcy after a record $1 billion verdict for the Sandy Hook families. More prominently, One America News has now been dropped by every major cable operator, partially driven by low audiences, while its behemoth rival Fox’s struggles are just beginning after the record $787.5 million Dominion settlement–with its board reportedly becoming weary of deviating too far from the mainstream.
Efforts to expand the alt-right parallel economy across digital services and even physical goods are running straight into the ground as well. Virtually all major retailers from Bed Bath & Beyond to Walmart to Kohl’s to Costco have cut ties with Mike Lindell’s MyPillow, which just months ago closed its last in-person retail mall store while losing $100 million, according to Lindell himself. Former Trump personnel director Johnny McEntee’s project–an alt-right dating site, “The Right Stuff”–has been lambasted even by its core constituency, with its mostly men frustrated by the lack of women users, and its seed funding from Peter Thiel is reportedly scheduled to run out in the next few months.
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail; and the exertions of some anti-woke activists in extrapolating politicized rhetoric into the economy can stretch into caricature. Strangely, the struggles of the nation’s regional banks, such as SVB, Signature, and First Republic, were superstitiously blamed on “wokeism” and the facts–that these less diversified banks were unprepared for the Fed’s interest rate hikes and that larger, equally “woke” banks were better insulated from these interest rate swings–were ignored. This month, even the conservative New York Post was bewildered by the sudden ire this month of anti-wokesters targeting the privately owned, very spiritual, Christian values-guided restaurant chain Chick-fil-A because, years ago, they promoted a longstanding internal HR executive to oversee diversity and equal opportunity.
Despite positioning themselves as reverent guardians of free markets against government and social overreach, many anti-wokester jokesters seem to have forgotten the most basic requirement of capitalism: to make a profit. Ironically, the free market delivers the most condemning verdict of all. The favorite “woke” targets of anti-ESG activists continue to soar to record economic heights, effortlessly shrugging off anti-woke attacks.
Clearly, despite all the hype and drama, there is little financial threat to mainstream business posed by the anti-woke economy. It’s not a genuine parallel economy–these are scattered cases of ideological grifters and struggling entrepreneurs. Their real talent seems to lie in fast-talking media platforms into giving them an undeserved platform to unfairly target iconic pillars of U.S. enterprise. But as these anti-wokester jokesters struggle to gain financial traction, the numbers will continue to disprove their claims.

The most significant moving object in your house, the garage door, is utilized daily throughout the year and at all hours. You must invest time in routine preventive maintenance and care if you want your garage door to run well for many years. You can appoint a licensed garage door service for the best repair. Below mentioned are the tips for maintaining your garage door:
Test the Garage Door Balance:
Your lift Master Garage Door Opener will have to work more and function less efficiently if it is not balanced correctly. The door should then be manually raised about halfway once the opener has been turned off by pulling the release lever, which is typically a red cord. The spring counterweight system is out of balance if it doesn't stay in place. Leave the adjustment of garage door springs to the experts.
Clear Tracks and Tighten Hardware:
Clear the tracks on the garage door's two sides of any rust and debris. Examine the brackets anchoring the ways to the wall and ceiling and the bolts holding the garage door opener device in place to tighten any loose bolts caused by door vibration.
Replace Weather Stripping:
The rubber weather stripping prevents the passage of trash, water, and cold. It can be purchased from big-box and hardware home improvement stores. The weather stripping on Roll-up Garage Doors is often fastened with nails. Replace this weather stripping on the bottom if it is ripped. If there is any loose weather stripping around the sides of the door, reattach it or replace it if it is very worn or damaged.
Partial words:
Remember that your garage door accounts for nearly one-third of the outside of your home, so maintain it neat. Call a garage door expert to schedule a tune-up service call if you don't have time to perform this check-up.
Website - https://garagedoorrepairvip.com/

Are you tired of rushing to the salon every time you need a haircut, manicure, or massage? Do you wish you could experience professional beauty treatments without leaving the comfort of your home? Look no further! In this article, we will explore the concept of home salon and how they can revolutionize your beauty routine. From finding the right home salon near you to tips for a successful experience, we have you covered. So sit back, relax, and let the pampering come to you!
Benefits of Home Salon

1. Convenience and Comfort Home salons offer the ultimate convenience by eliminating the need to travel to a physical salon. Instead, professional beauticians come to your doorstep, saving you time and effort. Imagine getting a relaxing massage or a rejuvenating facial in the cozy ambiance of your own home. With a home salon, you can bid farewell to traffic jams and waiting rooms.
2. Personalized Experience When you visit a home salon, you receive undivided attention from the beautician. Unlike busy salons, where multiple clients are being served simultaneously, a home salon allows the beautician to focus solely on you. This personalized experience ensures that your specific needs and preferences are met, resulting in a truly tailor-made service.
3. Time-saving Time is a precious commodity, and home salons help you save plenty of it. By eliminating the need to commute and wait in queues, you can allocate that time for other important activities. Whether it's spending quality time with your loved ones or pursuing a hobby, home salons give you the luxury of time.
4. Cost-effective Contrary to popular belief, home salons can be cost-effective compared to traditional salons. Since home salons have lower overhead costs, they often offer competitive prices without compromising on quality. Additionally, you save money on transportation expenses, parking fees, and the temptation of impulse purchases at salons.

Finding a Home Salon Near You
Now that you're excited about the idea of a home salon, you might be wondering how to find one near you. Here are some effective methods to locate the perfect home salon in your area:

1. Online Directories and Platforms Online directories and platforms specializing in home services are a great resource for finding home salons. These platforms provide comprehensive listings of home salons along with customer reviews and ratings. You can filter the search results based on your location, services required, and budget.
2. Social Media Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are not just for sharing pictures and connecting with friends; they are also valuable tools for finding home salons. Many home salon professionals create business pages where they showcase their work, share client testimonials, and provide contact information. You can explore these pages, read reviews, and even message the professionals directly to inquire about their services.
3. Word-of-Mouth Recommendations One of the most reliable ways to find a reputable home salon is through word-of-mouth recommendations. Ask your friends, family, and colleagues if they have had any positive experiences with home salons in your area. Personal recommendations can provide valuable insights and help you make an informed decision.

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Home Salon
Choosing the right home salon is crucial to ensuring a satisfying experience. Here are some factors to consider before making your decision:

1. Qualifications and Expertise Verify the qualifications and expertise of the beauticians working at the home salon. Check if they have the necessary certifications and licenses to offer the services they provide. Experience and specialized training in specific treatments are also important factors to consider.
2. Hygiene and Sanitation Since the salon will be set up in your home, it is essential to prioritize hygiene and sanitation. Inquire about the salon's practices for sterilizing equipment, disposing of waste, and maintaining cleanliness. A reputable home salon will follow strict hygiene protocols to ensure your safety.
3. Range of Services Offered Assess the range of services offered by the home salon and ensure they align with your beauty needs. From haircuts and styling to facials, massages, and nail treatments, the salon should provide a comprehensive menu of services. This ensures that you can fulfill all your beauty requirements conveniently.
4. Pricing and Packages Compare the pricing and packages offered by different home salons. While cost should not be the sole determining factor, it is important to find a salon that offers reasonable prices for the services provided. Look for any special offers, discounts, or loyalty programs that can help you save further.
5. Customer Reviews and Testimonials Read customer reviews and testimonials about the home salon you are considering. Online platforms, social media pages, and the salon's website often feature reviews from previous clients. Pay attention to both positive and negative feedback to get a balanced perspective and make an informed decision.

Tips for a Successful Home Salon Experience
To make the most of your home salon experience, follow these tips:

1. Communication and Consultation Clearly communicate your expectations and preferences to the beautician before the session begins. Discuss any specific concerns, allergies, or sensitivities you may have. This ensures that the beautician can customize the treatment according to your needs.
2. Preparing the Space Before the beautician arrives, ensure that the space where the salon will be set up is clean, clutter-free, and well-lit. Provide a comfortable seating arrangement and a clean surface for the beautician to work on. This preparation sets the stage for a relaxing experience.
3. Setting Expectations Have a clear understanding of the services included in the package and the expected duration of the session. Clarify any doubts or queries you may have beforehand. By aligning expectations, you can avoid misunderstandings and ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience.
4. Feedback and Reviews After the session, provide feedback to the beautician about your experience. If you were satisfied with the service, leave a positive review on relevant platforms. Similarly, if you have any constructive feedback, share it directly with the beautician. Your feedback can help improve their services and benefit future clients.

Conclusion

Embracing the convenience of a home salon can transform your beauty routine into a pampering experience. With the benefits of personalized services, time-saving convenience, and cost-effectiveness, home salons offer a refreshing alternative to traditional salons. By utilizing online directories, social media platforms, and word-of-mouth recommendations, you can easily find a home salon near you. When choosing a home salon, consider factors such as qualifications, hygiene, range of services, pricing, and customer reviews. Follow the tips provided to ensure a successful home salon experience that leaves you feeling rejuvenated and pampered.

FAQs

1. Are home salon services as professional as those offered at traditional salons?

Yes, home salon services can be just as professional or even more so than those offered at traditional salons. Many home salon professionals have extensive experience and qualifications in their respective fields. Additionally, the personalized attention and comfort of being in your own space contribute to a high-quality experience.

1. How far in advance should I book a home salon appointment?

It's advisable to book a home salon appointment at least a few days in advance to secure your preferred time slot. Popular home salons may have a busy schedule, so early booking ensures availability. However, it's always worth checking for last-minute openings or cancellations if you need immediate services.

1. Can I trust the hygiene and sanitation standards of a home salon?

Reputable home salons prioritize hygiene and sanitation. They follow strict protocols for sterilizing equipment, using disposable tools where necessary, and maintaining cleanliness. Before booking an appointment, feel free to ask about their hygiene practices to ensure your safety and well-being.

1. What if I need to cancel or reschedule my home salon appointment?

Most home salons have cancellation and rescheduling policies similar to traditional salons. Make sure to check the salon's terms and conditions regarding cancellations, rescheduling, and any associated fees. It's courteous to provide ample notice if you need to make changes to your appointment.

1. Are home salon services suitable for special occasions or events?

Absolutely! Home salon services can add a touch of luxury and convenience to special occasions and events. Whether it's preparing for a wedding, hosting a spa day with friends, or simply indulging in self-care, home salons can cater to your specific needs and create a memorable experience.

I had a relaxing, guilt free spa day today. I left my 11mo at home with my husband, drove to the salon, and got a spa pedicure and a manicure with a full set of sparkly acrylics. They took me straight back even though I was a walk-in. I was alone for 3 whole hours getting pampered and only got one message from my husband (just an ad on Marketplace for a used car), I spent my own money so I didn't feel guilty about getting whatever I wanted and how much it cost, and my nails are done for the first time in nearly 2 years. It was a salon I had never been to and it was so fancy. The tech who did my manicure looked at a picture I found for inspiration and she DELIVERED! They're sparkly, purple, and the design she did with the rhinestones is soooo pretty. I picked up Mexican food on the way home and the baby was up from her nap when I got home. We snuggled and she was fascinated by my nails. What a great day! I think this was the only real break I've had in 11 months.
Edit: Grammar. Oops

Read Chapter 1 Here
Previous Chapter Here
My other SSB story, Writing on the Wall, Here
I was sitting here in the dark, pantsless and writing (as you do), and I decided to check how far my progress was going on a few things. Turns out I was way past my "release a new chapter" threshold!
Enjoy the continued adventures of our favorite fuckups.
*****
“...about those sculptures. I know we told the Aboriginal Art Institute of Karnif that they could hold onto them for another two months, but apparently they are part of some shrine and the Governess of the South Pacific is getting on my case about returning them before a holy day.” Jem’si looked to his right, where his wife Torel was walking alongside him. She was his partner in more than just his marriage, and he was a little surprised to see that she didn’t have a pad out to take notes. “Are you paying attention?”
“Not really,” Torel replied. She had been strangely subdued, quiet all morning. On his left, his wife Keller tried to match pace. She was so much bigger than both of them that it was difficult, but she had a lot of practice and the halls of House Chel’xa’s ancestral home were a familiar place.
“Now.” Keller’s word was punctuated by her left arm shooting across her body to grab Jem’si by the upper arm. It was a firmer grip than Jem’si had ever felt from his wives, and for it to come from gentle Keller was doubly surprising. Before he could comment, Torel grabbed his other arm. The pair lifted and Jem’si found himself being dragged along, feet barely touching the floor.
“Put me down!” He tried to wiggle out of their grip, but neither woman seemed to be in the mood to play nice. “If you wanted to have some fun this morning you could have just asked!” Neither Torel or Keller said anything in reply, just continued to drag him along as his commands to be let go turned into pleading whines. They wouldn’t even look at him.
Jem’si wasn’t scared, not really. Just confused. He trusted his family utterly, and even as they maneuvered him out of the corridor, down a hall, and into an empty dining room he felt confusion more than fear. The room was dark, curtains drawn, and Jem’si let out a small “oof” as he found himself practically flung into a chair. The door clacked shut and he was plunged into nearly complete blackness.
After a few moments of sitting in the dark, trying to figure whatever sort of madness seemed to be running in his wives, Jem’si had enough. He raised his voice, put in every bit of commanding tone he had learned through years of Noble intrigue and business with Humans, and called out to the darkness.
“Well?!”
Light flared suddenly from the chandelier, dazzling his eyes. Fear froze his heart as he realized he and his wives weren’t actually alone. It began to thaw right back up as he saw who sat across from him.
“Why were you all sitting in the dark?” Jem’si tried to keep his voice casual.
“For the emotional impact,” Samuel Forsythe-Painter replied.
“Obviously,” Sammi Painter-Forsythe added.
Flanking the pair of tiny humans sat Elera Heleum and Marin Elbruk. Elera reached into her lap and leaned forward, placing something down on the table. It settled on the ancient wood with a dull thunk.
“The same reason I brought this,” she added helpfully.
Jem’si vaguely recognized the pistol. It was a massive hunk of silver steel with a barrel so wide he could stick a finger into it. The same gun that played so prominently in the story of that whole adventure in the frozen north. He hadn’t realized it had survived the rocket attack at the hotel, or that it had been brought to Shil.
Now thoroughly spooked, Jem’si glanced up at Keller where she stood next to him. She had brought him here, but surely she would protect him from these lunatics.
Keller looked down at him sadly, dark eyes showing little more than disappointment. “Sorry, Jem, you’re on your own.”
Torel was no better. She wouldn’t even look at him. When he glanced to the other side of the table, Marin nodded at Elera. The spikey haired Marine leaned her bulk forward and steepled her fingers together, the spindly shadows from her hands falling across the gun on the table.
“Lieutenant Colonel Marin and I had an interesting visitor yesterday. We’ve both been promoted, retired from active service, and given an Imperial Writ to deal with. It’s a great deal, really; we have been ordered by the Empress Herself to protect our little Human friends here.” With that, Elera reached out and gave Sammi what was likely intended to be a friendly pat on the back but nearly knocked the much smaller Human clear of their chair. “And, if things don’t go well, we’ve been ordered to kill them both.”
“I don’t really care much for that part,” Samuel said quietly.
“Samesies,” added Sammi.
“We’ve also been ordered to ensure that nobody learns about the OTHER project. You know the one.” Marin punctuated her statement by placing her own pistol on the table. This one was much smaller, more modern, but at least as deadly. She looked down at it, then glanced at Elera’s. “These are a really poor representation of our orders. Orbital strikes were mentioned.”
Jem’si grasped in his mind for the swordfighter’s calm he had cultivated the last few years, but it wouldn’t come. He had his ass planted in an oversized chair, was surrounded by people who meant him harm, and even his wives had abandoned him. The best control he could manage was to pull in a deep breath, swallow, and try to hold down the sour, sick feeling twisting through his guts.
“I really didn’t know what to do.” Elera put her hands flat on the table, and Jem’si, hyper-focused now on potential dangers, watched as the fingers on her right hand twitched. “So I figured I’d call the only person I knew who might have experience dealing with this sort of thing. Someone who might know why we were suddenly getting orders from the Empress after working so hard to keep this whole thing quiet.”
Keller’s huge hand landed on Jem’si’s shoulder, causing him to jerk. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to.
“The orders make sense, but they leave something very important out. So I’m going to ask you, Jem’si. I’m going to ask you as a holder of an Imperial Writ, ordered by the Empress Herself to ensure the security of the Painter Research Institute and the Lone Caribou Survival Company.” Elera’s hands were fists now and the light from the chandelier reflected in the tears forming in her eyes.
“What did you tell them? What happened to Stace? Is he even alive out there?” The questions seemed to hang in the air, and Jem’si wondered if the wrong answer would kill him. He had never doubted Keller’s loyalty before, but if the Empress said he had to die, would she stop it? He hoped so, but she had been a Deathshead Commando long before she became his wife.
In the end, he only had one response he could give. He swallowed again, cleared his throat, and hoped that the truth would keep him alive.
“I don’t know what’s happening on Nix. I reached out through Iria Stolsk, who often acts as a scientific policy advisor to the Empress, and I gave her everything I had. Much of it was technical documents from the PRI’s research, but not much more than what was used for the investor’s meeting.”
Jem’si cleared his throat again, then jerked in panic as a loud thunk sounded next to him. If Keller’s hand wasn’t keeping him in place, he might have bolted. Instead, he nodded his thanks to Torel and picked up the glass of water she had found for him. A couple of sips did little to steady his nerves; he would have killed for some of that flavored bourbon Stace made.
“As for the… other project. When Stace started making preparations, I gave him access to a highly encrypted data archive. It contains all of the notes Demir Chel’xa made during her time on Nix, all her observations of the people there. Every bit of video we had, audio clips of their language, topographical and seismic scans of the planet… House Chel’xa kept everything, and I gave all of it to him.
“When he started working on his own plans to save Nix, he was linked to that server. I don’t know if it was intentional or just Stace not knowing how he set up his accounts, but all of his notes were backed up to the same archive. I gave the Empress all of it.”
“But you don’t know what She decided. If Stace is being left alone or if he’s in a blacksite prison.” Elera closed her eyes and a single tear slipped free. “If he’s even alive.”
“No. I don’t know, but if the Empress meant to silence this whole enterprise, you wouldn’t have a Writ. You’d have a smoking hole in your skull.”
Elera nodded. “And so would you. We all would.”
“Why don’t we?” Sammi’s voice was so innocent, so free of the pain and fear everyone else seemed to be wrapped up in, that it seemed to shatter the tension in the room. Shoulders slumped, hands unclenched, and Jem’si had the sudden hope that, just maybe, he’d finish this meeting without throwing up in his lap.
Samuel spoke next. “It’s obvious that the Empress, if she hasn’t exactly given us permission for the Nix project, is at least willing to look the other way. I don’t know what’s going on out there, but I think we can count on Stace doing his thing.” He tapped his fingers on the table in a quick rat-tat-tat, blue-painted nails clicking on the wood. “The real question is why she would let us do it at all. Tons of risk with no real reward for the Empire, which is why we agreed to keep all this quiet in the first place.”
“My husband is a businessman.” Torel’s voice was surprisingly affectionate given the circumstances, and when her hand came up to ruffle Jem’si’s hair he relished the contact. It didn’t matter if his coiffure was ruined. “Even if he’s not the brains of the operation, he occasionally makes a deal.”
“The research you two have been doing; is it real?” Jem’si nodded at the two Humans at the table. “Can you really do that incredible line of turox shit you sold to the investors?”
Sammi let out a very undignified snort. “You have no idea. What the investors are getting is real, but it’s babytown frolics compared to what we could really do with it. We’re keeping the good stuff; I wanna see if I can turn a star inside out.”
“That’s… horrifying.” Jem’si felt on firmer ground now; the crisis had passed and he was going to live through this. “Well, I may have passed the word that the technological superiority you’re providing would put us decades, perhaps centuries ahead of the Consortium and the Alliance.”
He let the moment settle with a performer’s ease before dropping the punchline.
“And if we aren’t allowed to fix Nix it would turn out that you two didn’t actually know what you were doing. It would have destroyed House Chel’xa along with the two of you, but it would turn out we were huxsters all along.”
Samuel laughed bitterly. “And to think, if you actually told us your plan we probably would have agreed to it. Instead, we now have to deal with having two members of our family who have signed and sealed orders from the Empress of the Shil’vati to kill the rest of us. Not exactly something that makes it easy to maintain a relationship.”
Elera pulled herself to her feet before picking up the heavy Human handgun. She carefully checked it, then put it in her pocket. Marin followed her example and did the same with her own pistol, and the two Humans hopped down off their chairs.
“I am sorry.” Jem’si firmed up his voice, felt the old confidence start to pool in his chest. “For not telling you, I mean. I don’t regret what I did.”
“Of course you don’t,” Samuel said sadly as the group headed towards the door. “You’re Shil’vati. We’re leaving, by the way. Going home. It doesn’t feel right to be living off your charity. I’d tell you not to follow us, but we can’t realistically stop you since you own a third of the company.”
“Just know that you won’t be welcome,” Sammi added before slamming the door behind them.
Jem’si let out a sigh as he sank into his chair, feeling suddenly boneless. Keller and Torel moved around him, pulling up chairs of their own.
“That went better than it could have,” Keller said casually. She barely seemed bothered by the whole thing.
“Oh, really?” Jem’si really couldn’t see the bright side.
“We could all be dead,” Torel clarified. “According to the scope of their Writ, either one of those two would have been perfectly within their rights to have the entire Chel’xa compound incinerated.”
“....what.”
“Knowledge of Nix is to be limited to the PRI and Lone Caribou. House Chel’xa clearly knows about it, or this whole thing wouldn’t have gotten started.” Keller sounded too matter of fact, too calm. “You may be the one who got this whole thing going, but the Humans wouldn’t have even known about it if you hadn’t told them. You’re clearly a security risk.”
“You could make the argument that Jem’si is in the clear, as part owner of PRI. I do a lot of the clerical work, so I’m safe too.” Torel smirked over at Keller. “Sounds like you’re the odd one out.”
“Yep. It would have been perfectly reasonable, from a legal standpoint at least, if Elera had shot me in the face as soon as we sat down.” Keller smirked. “Not that she would. I think she kinda has a thing for me.”
“And what, you’d have let her do it?” The panic was back, bile sour and acidic in Jem’si’s throat.
“I’m not bulletproof, Jem. Couldn’t have done a whole lot about it.”
Jem’si pressed his hands to the table, slowly pulling himself to his feet. “I think…” He swallowed. It didn’t help. “I think I’m going to throw up. Then I’m going to talk to Iria and see if I can talk to the Empress in person. I need to get a handle on this before someone ends up dead.”
“Someone else, you mean.” Torel gave Jem’si a very unflattering glare. “On top of all the other deaths we’ve had so far.”
Jem’si bit down a retort as he turned away, walking towards the door. Oh yes. Couldn’t forget those.
–
When it came down to it, Lewis could admit that this was at least partially his fault.
He had left the grocery store with plastic bags in his hands and a spring in his step. The rusty minivan parked next to Lewis's SUV completely failed to get his attention, which was likely the whole reason it was chosen for the job. He had just finished putting the bags in the backseat when the van’s side door opened behind him, a bag slipped over his head, and Lewis was bodily pulled into the vehicle. He barely even had time to squeak out a panicked yelp.
Even with his head covered, Lewis knew at once who his captors were. The large hands, the ease with which they were manhandling him, and the sheer brazenness of the kidnapping left no doubt in his mind that he was in the hands of the Shil'vati. They pulled his hands behind his back and cuffed them together before he was plopped down in the middle seat. Meaty fingers stayed firmly grasped around his biceps as the van rumbled to life. They were on the move.
"So..." Lewis tried to keep his voice even. He wasn't a fighter, and if he started throwing elbows he would still end up at his destination. Just with a broken jaw. "If you're sex traffickers, you probably could do better than me."
There was no reply but silence.
As they bounced along, Lewis was surprised to find that he wasn't as frightened as he expected. After nearly a decade fighting the invaders in his own way, the idea of eventually being captured or killed had percolated through his mind for long enough that it was comfortable. In a way, it was a relief; wherever he was going, whatever was going to happen to him, Lewis was done with the fight. He could hang up his spurs, at least until the gallows called.
Instead of dwelling on the situation, he tried to follow where the van was going. It only took a few turns for Lewis to become hopelessly lost. His lack of a sense of direction was legendary among his friends, and thanks to the ubiquitous ease of GPS and smartphones he never really had to pick up the skill. He regretted his reliance on technology now, not that it would really change anything. The van rumbled on, its old and tired suspension creaking with every bump, and Lewis waited to die.
The van pulled to a stop with a lurch and Lewis jerked awake. He had been half-dozing, a fact that he took in with a bit of surprise. After the first hour or so, the anxiety of being captured had faded into a dull shock, which had turned into a stupor. Now he had completely lost track of time. The door to his right slid open and Lewis was pulled out with a sudden jerk. He tried to catch himself on half-numb legs, stumbled, was caught, and found himself being half carried and half marched on the rough gravel underfoot.
Even with the hood obscuring his vision, Lewis could still hear perfectly fine. He could still smell, too, and the rumble of a large diesel engine was accompanied by the smell of rancid exhaust. The gravel under his feet became a metal ramp and he stumbled again, letting his Shil'vati captors drag him up by his biceps. There would be some nasty bruises later, but for now the pain helped him regain focus.
The ramp leveled out and the metal clang was replaced by the dull thud of thin wood under his feet. Lewis was only dragged a few more steps before a quick shove threw him into a chair. It didn't move at all, evidently attached to the floor, and before he could really process the situation further a loud clatter behind him made evident that Lewis was now trapped. The smell of exhaust was even worse here, sour on his throat. Fear was finally beginning to settle in his guts as he tried to prepare himself for the inevitable torture.
"Ashley Lewis. Age twenty-six standard, degrees in psychology and philosophy, currently employed in an administrative capacity for a phone and 'net based therapy service. Being able to telework has made it easy for you to travel for your other job, working as a data courier and soft asset for the terrorist organization colloquially known as The Numbers.
"A few months ago, you were involved in an attack on a man named Eustace Grant that left him nearly dead and eventually led to a region-wide shakeup of law enforcement and the public execution of the Regional Governess." Lewis's head jerked forward as the hood was pulled off in a single sharp tug.
Black eyes with irises like gold rings floating in pools of ink stared at him from a face of purple skin. In the moment, the Shil'vati looked exactly as alien as she was, and the familiarization he had spent years building flashed away as if they were never there. The alien smiled, drawing attention to her tusks, then nodded once. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."
Lewis took in his captor. She was average height for a female Shil, though not as massively built as the majority of marines he had seen. Her hair was stark white and pulled back into a ponytail, and she wore a long coat of heavy black. Around him, all he could see was dirty wood and aluminum paneling. The rumbling of an engine continued, as did the stink of fumes. He was in the back of a small box truck.
And in front of him stood Investigator Jel’si Chel'xa.
*****
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This is a fanfic that takes place in the “Between Worlds” universe (aka Sexy Space Babes), created and owned by u/BlueFishcake. No ownership of the settings or core concepts is expressed or implied by myself.
This is for fun. Can’t you just have fun?

I wasn't going to do a trip write up at all, but I'm planning a return trip in the Fall and I realized some of the things I learned on my first trip might be useful for other people, so here we go! I don't often see post write ups from people who are specifically into rhythm games/ arcades/ anime stuff
 
Dates: March 8 - 24, 2023 Background: Planned this trip mostly for myself but one of my friends decided to tag along fairly last minute. I had planned to spend the whole trip in Tokyo but the one thing she wanted to do was Kyoto, so we added a side trip + a very pleasant day at a Ryokan. I used Wanderlog to plan (HIGHLY recommend, this site is amazing), and my basic daily itinerary was morning shrine > pick an area to explore and have 1-2 major things per day. The person I was travelling with ended up taking a long ass time to get ready each day, so most of my morning stuff got cut or rearranged. Costs: I will fully admit I did not budget for food/ shopping, 100% vibes. I simply do not acknowledge what I spent

• Flight: $1,500 (Delta from MSP > SEA > Haneda. Direct from MSP had not resumed yet)
• Hotels: ¥314,000 (Roughly $2,300 USD for all 3 hotels total) [¥205,000 (Tokyu Stay Tsukiji, 15 nights) + ¥30,000 (Tokyu Stay Kyoto, 2 nights) + ¥79,000 (Kyokoyado Muromachi Yutone Kyoto, 1 night)]
• Shinkansen: ¥42,000 for 2 round trip tickets from Tokyo/Kyoto and back. Roughly $300 USD, machine did not take foreign CC only cash

Highlights

• The Kingdom Hearts concert, I maxed out my luck on this trip and we were able to see this on it's last night in Tokyo. Absolutely incredible!!
• Sushi Yuu, Roppongi (omakase sushi for about ¥20,000 per person, we paid more with drinks)
• ShibuyaSky, the open air viewing makes the experience so much better, plus there's a bunch of different spots to hang out up on the observation deck
• Fushimi Inari, the whole shrine blew me out of the water, absolutely must experience in person
• TeamLabs Planets, so few things live up to the hype and this is one of them
• Golden Gai, the bars were so much fun, got the full experience of a salaryman pissing on the side of the konbini

Lowlights

• Caffeine- if you are addicted to non carbonated caffeine like I am be prepared to be disappointed. The monsters are only 40mg compared to America's 150mg+. I'm glad I brought caffeine pills
• Tsukiji market is really not worth going out of your way for, it's nice if you're near it but it's really just a fish market + insane lines for most of the food
• I'm still mad about how bad the food was at the Square Enix cafe is, at least we got coasters + placemats out of the deal. This was genuinely my only bad experience in Japan
• Everything on this subreddit told me that people in Tokyo don't really care about tattoos, however they do really seem to care about colored hair. I have very long, bright ombre hair and I was a bit of a sideshow attraction, including people taking photos of me in public multiple times. Probably the most frustrating part of the trip was being stared at constantly
• Japanese thrift stores love old American clothes, I was definitely let down by the majority of these

Goals:

• Buy anime stuff
• Play rhythm games
• Go thrift shopping
• See cherry blossoms
• Collect shrine stamps (goshuin)

Advice:

• TAX FREE SHOPPING: This has to be first because no one mentions it?? There are 2 types of tax free, discount and rebate. Everywhere has a minimum for tax free. Don Quijote you have to go to the separate tax free counter, and they will seal the bags shut. You're not supposed to use the tax free items in the country - I didn't know this and did it anyways? There seems to be no repercussions unless they open your bag and count every individual KitKat. I had to open the bags to repack everything anyways. The places that do rebates are generally malls, you bring your receipt + passport and they'll give you the 10% back in cash (minus a fee). When you get to the airport, you scan your passport after you drop your luggage, indicating you made tax free purchases. You do not need to keep your receipts anymore
• Don Quijote does sell luggage but Ginza Karen is cheaper
• Besides the standard things that every single trip report has (get a suica, you'll walk a lot, etc etc), the biggest thing I learned is not to go to an area without at least 1-2 specific goals in mind. For example, I had given us like a half day to go around Shibuya/ Harajuku, but because we didn't look into what malls or stores we might like to go to, we ended up wandering pretty aimlessly and not really enjoying the area. This happened a few different areas we went to, so I decided that in the future I would pin some stores on Google Maps and try to make it to those specific stores
• Install LINE and set up an account. It's crazy how much connects to LINE. For me the biggest thing was 1) making Sushiro reservations and not having to sit in the store for an hour plus waiting for our table and 2) being able to grab a chargeSPOT to charge my phone. I brought a battery pack but at this point it must be like a decade old, it took the entire night to recharge and died on me during the day a few times. I have a Pixel 6 Pro and was literally constantly charging my phone
• If you're coming from the Americas, don't try to do something on your first night. Get your Konbini dinner and go the fuck to sleep
• Getting from place to place can take longer than expected, you'll have to navigate the stations, find the entrances (sometimes hidden in malls) and exits (sometimes closed), don't make plans too tight together
• Navigating Kyoto was so much more confusing. At first our Suica cards didn't work because we apparently didn't tap out at a station in Tokyo, so we were buying day passes and paying in cash on the bus. Some of the buses have 0 English and 100% Kanji (navigation difficulty: extreme). Suica cards DO work in Kyoto so if you're having issues go to a gate with an attendant and they can help
• It can be weirdly hard to find bathrooms, most konbini have them but you're supposed to ask the cashier if you can use them. I speak very basic Japanese but hammed up the gaijin card here and would just ask to use the toilet in English, no one ever told me no Weeb specific advice:
• If you want to do pop ups (like the Jujutusu Kaisen Animation exhibit), a Japanese e-sim will be a lifesaver. You need a Japanese phone number to do SO much, they really make it extremely frustrating to make reservations without it. I did manage to make reservations for the Square Enix cafe though, the write-up is on my profile. (Was it worth it? Absolutely not, worst food all trip, -3/10)
• Prices are all over the place for figures, especially prize figures. There's a solid chance you might buy something and see it cheaper at the next shop, however going back/forth between shops in Akihabara can be a huge pain in the ass. I'd recommend 1) making a list of things you want the most and 2) setting a per item budget and a total budget. A lot of the anime stuff was cheaper in Kyoto as well
• You can find a ton of gachapon stuff at Surugaya, so you can just buy what you want and don't have to gamble. Surugaya bins are organized by series
• Use collabo-cafe.com to find cafes and pop up events you might be interested. Plan ahead because reservations can be hard to come by

 
Now on to the super detailed trip report! Here's the big album if you don't want to look through photos separated by day. Warning for flashing video
 
Day 1 (travel)

• Landed in Haneda around 3pm. Immigration + customs took about an hour (we did the visit Japan web ahead of time and had both QR codes ready). There was virtually no lines anywhere
• It took about an hour to navigate to the hotel. I chose to stay at the Tokyu Stay Tsukiji because 1) it was really cheap, 2) it was close to the Ginza line, and 3) it had a washer in the room. Although the location was slightly inconvenient for late nights, I'd say it was totally worth it for the ability to grab food in Tsukiji market, and the room was pretty large compared to some other areas of Tokyo. In fact, the room was so cheap that when we went to Kyoto, we opted to not check out of the Tsukiji room and just leave the majority of our possessions there. This didn't cause any issues and made travelling on the Shinkansen way easier
• I thought we were built different and could do some stuff this evening. We ended up walking to the Donki and being assaulted by sound in every direction. 7/10 didn't discover the 2nd floor until days later. At this point exhaustion kicked in and we got a Lawsons dinner and crashed

Day 2 (Akihabara, photos)

• Going to Akihabara on our first day in Japan sure was a choice. Thankfully neither of us suffered jetlag on the way in. Checked out like 10 different game centers and a ton of anime shops. Managed to find the only Monster Rehab of the whole trip here
• Konbini lunch + strong zero! That flavor was terrible :')
• Dinner at the Monster Hunter cafe (no reservations required). Expectations were low but my travel partner is a huge MH fan. The food wasn't bad but the drinks were awful. The ambiance is nice and there were definitely some regulars there playing MH on the consoles they had set up
• The new Namco game center had like 12 brand new Taiko cabs and all of them had phone mounts so you could film yourself playing! I was really intimidated by everyone there being extremely good so we didn't play any games here

Day 3 (Shibuya & Harajuku, photos)

• Breakfast at Tsukiji outer market since we were already there
• Went to Shibuya Loft for the Bravely Default pop up shop
• Checked out Tower Records
• Ate lunch at Japanese McDonalds
• Went to Takeshita Street. TBH this felt like in-person AliExpress, I'm sure the charm of the early 2000s is long gone
• Visited Hachiko
• Shibuya Sky Observatory

Day 4 (Asakusa, photos)

• Started at Kaminarimon Gate & went down Nakamise shopping street. It was very crowded on a Sunday but I enjoyed it immensely, you just need some patience to get where you want to go. I liked trying all the food, most of the food stalls here were cash only
• Senso-ji temple, bought Goshuincho to collect stamps
• Ate lunch and dinner in the area, there's a ton of food options
• We ended going all the way over to Yoyogi park as well but nothing was in bloom. Because it was overcast the park looked really sad

Day 5 (Shinjuku & Kabukicho, photos)

• Now is the time to come clean, I'm a huge Yakuza/ RGG fan. In the morning I had my Majima birthday cake delivered by PRIROLL. I pre-ordered it and chose the delivery day where we didn't have morning plans. It comes frozen and needs to defrost in the fridge. While we left Majima to chill, we made the pilgrimage to Kabukicho to see the iconic gate. It was raining in the morning so we hit up some arcades then went shopping
• There's a really cool mall that seems anime-centric (I believe it's called Shinjuku Marui Anex). It had a Godzilla store, Cinnamoroll Cafe, a JJK pop up, and best of all... A Surugaya. These stores have bins where everything is ¥100-300 and we ended up buying way too much in every one we came across
• Went back to Kabukicho and explored a bit, went to Golden Gai and drank at a handful of bars. Almost missed the last train because I drunkenly insisted on a final game of MaiMai. 10/10 staying in Kabukicho next time

Day 6 (Ikebukero & Rippongi, photos)

• The plan today was to check out Ikebukero and Roppongi, but we ended up spending so much time at the first mall that we didn't really do anything in Roppongi besides get dinner. Went to the Pokemon Mega Center and the cafe. The main cafe was closed so it was just take out, all the food was really cute but the waffles were kind of terrible
• Gashapon no Depato Ikebukuro was super overwhelming. A lot of the smaller gashapon stores are somewhat organized by what is in the machines, this one just felt chaotic, and it went on forever
• Sushi Yuu was incredible, I didn't take photos of every single course but I was so full that couldn't finish my dessert at the very end. The owner speaks some English and I made our reservations by messaging him on Facebook

Day 7 (Yokohama, photos)

• We didn't get to Yokohama as early as I would have liked - I took us out way into the suburbs to try to find this Yakuza plushie from the claw machines. I looked up the locations on the Sega website, unfortunately this machine was extra rigged and I couldn't win it >:[ On the bright side all the rhythm games had no one else playing them
• Took the cable car over and went to the Cup Noodle museum. Unfortunately we didn't have a reservation so we had to come back later. Found some cafes in the area and had a late breakfast
• The museum was really small, the main draw is making your own Cup Noodles. Entrance costs 500 yen and this is an additional 500. We had some trouble navigating this part because no one spoke any English
• Had dinner at a pie restaurant that was 10/10
• Explored a bit of Yamashita park (Yakuza 7, anyone?) I was kind of disappointed I wasn't able to see this during the day
• Walked around Yokohama Chinatown & visited the local Round 1 ;)

Day 8 (Kyoto, photos)

• I bought the Shinkansen tickets to Kyoto the evening before, so we weren't able to get great seats. The machines are also a huge pain in the ass and don't take American CCs, so plan ahead here
• It took us longer than expected to figure out how to use the tickets and read the signage, so we weren't able to get food before and I had to have one of the train bentos. I knew it was going to suck and it was worse than expected :(
• You can bring a full sized suitcase and just put it in front of you, seeing other people do this was unexpected
• My travel partner was destroyed at this point so she rested in the room. I went to the National Garden and Imperial Palace alone. The sakura were just starting to bloom and the weather was great, loved it. The National Garden is SO huge that I only ended up walking up the west side before I tapped out
• Checked out Heian-jingu shrine + the giant torii, I went to another smaller shrine with a great view but I can't remember the name
• We did photoshoots at ESPERANTO Kyoto. There's basically no reviews from foreigners about this place but it was fantastic!! Their online booking form didn't work for me, so I emailed asking for a reservation. I emailed in Japanese and English and they replied in English. They gave me time options and I replied with what package and room each of us wanted (the website says they require a deposit but they told me they didn't need one). When we got there they did our hair and makeup, and then you pick your kimonos out. The photographer spoke pretty decent English and we didn't have trouble communicating with anyone else here. They had our photos edited and printed about 30 minutes after we picked which ones we wanted. The whole thing took about 3 hours (it was longer because we used the same set room). I don't want to include my photos but I did add a video of my hairstyle because she knocked it out of the park
• Ended the day with okonomiyaki, one of my favorite Japanese foods

Day 9 (Kyoto, photos)

• Fushimi Inari day! I ended up walking this alone, I did not realize how long it was going to take or the fact it was actually like 10,000 stairs. My knees were very upset on the way down
• It was not as busy as expected, I went at roughly noon on a Friday. Most people tap out before the actual mountain climb
• The Goshuin at Fushimi Inari are on paper, you can paste them into your books later. Even if you don't have a Goshuincho I'd recommend buying them because they are very cute!
• Shrine cats!!!! You can buy photos of them to help pay for their food
• After Fushimi Inari I somehow managed to walk to Tofukuji Temple (I did the garden but not the bridge) and Daigo-ji Gojunoto pagoda and garden. I wanted to cut my legs off after today

Day 10 (Kyoto, photos)

• I started my day at the Kyoto Round 1, I had visited it on day 8 as well. This one is ace because it was literally always empty 10/10
• Decided to explore Gion a bit, ended up at the Machiya Starbucks and had the best thing I ate all trip (a custard dorayaka, I regret not going back for another)
• Ended up at Kiyomizu-dera Temple totally on accident. It wasn't super impressive in early spring but the view was still fantastic
• Ended the day at the Ryokan (Kyokoyado Muromachi Yutone). Ended up picking one without an onsen because we are both covered in tattoos, and I didn't want to deal with finding a private one. The cypress tub was a great trade off, and the food was incredible

Day 11 (Tokyo - Concert, photos)

• Today we travelled back to Tokyo and went to the Kingdom Hearts concert. I ended up trying for the lottery for tickets back in like December 2022. Winners were announced the first weekend in January and you only had a few days to buy tickets. I have a friend of a friend living in Japan who did me the biggest solid ever and bought our tickets. I met up with her during the trip for the hand off. The seats are randomly assigned and we had AMAZING seats near the front. This was also the performance Nomura was at!
• We weren't supposed to take photos during the performance so I just have some before. Also, I made Organization XIII beads that attach onto my dress with magnets and I am very proud of it, so please excuse the bathroom selfie :D
• The concert was about 3 hours long and after all the travelling we were beat. We ate dinner, played our nightly games of Ongeki, and passed out
• Bonus video of the music box that plays Dearly Beloved

Day 12 (Ginza & Sumida, photos)

• We were really starting to tucker out at this point. We managed to drag ourselves to the Ginza art Aquarium in the AM and the Tokyo SkyTree in the afternoon. Today was the Equinox so everything was crazy busy, the line to buy tickets for the SkyTree was literally like 2 ish hours long so we bought them online and went shopping in the mall
• The Art Aquarium was really cool, but a lot of the fish were in really small tanks. I didn't include photos of those :(
• The SkyTree just let people up as fast as they could so it was extremely crowded at the top, and not super enjoyable imo
• I spent the evening at the arcades in Akihabara :D

Day 13 (Tokyo - JJK Exhibit, photos - flashing video warning)

• Today I went off in the am to see if I could buy a ticket to the Jujutsu Kaisen animation exhibit in person. The online site wouldn't let me buy a ticket because I didn't have a Japanese phone number. UNFORTUNATELY you couldn't buy tickets in person. I got super lucky again and 2 foreign exchange students from Europe were trying to do the same thing, however they did have a Japanese phone number and the site allowed you to get 3 tickets at a time. They were able to grab them for all 3 of us for that evening
• Putzed off to Hie Shrine, anyone that tells you it's a mini Fushimi Inari is lying
• Went back to Akihabara, found a Miku racing pop up!
• Went back to... Ginza? for the JJK animation exhibit, it took about an hour to go through. I included a ton of photos so just skip today if you're not interested in that show

Day 14 (Tokyo - TeamLabs Planets & SquareEnix Cafe, photos)

• TeamLabs was so cool! I didn't include many photos since it's 95% selfies. Make sure you explore a bit as the string light room had a couple of different areas that are easy to miss, and it's possible to accidentally skip the hanging garden, which was beautiful! TeamLabs took us about 2.5 hours but we were 100% those bitches taking forever to get a million photos
• Since we were staying in Tsukiji we ended up just slowly walking back to the room for a much needed nap
• Back to Akihabara yet again! More rhythm games, some awful food at SE

Day 15 (Shinjuku, photos)

• This was our last full day in Japan, we honestly didn't want to do anything but we managed to drag our asses to Shinjuku National Garden for the cherry blossoms. Unfortunately it was sprinkling a bit, at least it kept the crowds away
• Managed to check out Meiji Jingu, but at this point my travel partner was sick of walking and tapped out
• I went back to Kabukicho, walked around a bit and ended up back at an arcade (bless Ongeki for having stools)

Final thoughts (Misc, photos)

• We were literally so annihilated by the trip that we took a taxi to the airport, it was about ¥8,000 from Tsukiji ($60 USD ish)
• I ended up buying a 24" suitcase from Ginza Karen for ¥6,000. It was 100% full of stuff I purchased. We also used one or those giant ¥500 bags from Donki as a carry on
• My Goshuincho was my favorite souvenir, I'm so proud of all the stamps I collected (I did get doubles at some shrines). I plan to bring this back late 2023 to try to finish it
• I have the old school GoogleFi plan and don't have to do anything extra to have international data. Lots of places & stations have free WiFi but you'll need to put your email in
• I don't really sleep that much and my schedule in the US is already busted, but it took me about 2 full weeks to get back on normal human hours. I'm tired again just writing this up and looking through all my photos
• My main regret is not trying more food, we ended up waiting until we were dying of starvation and ate at the konbini a lot (typical)

 
Edits for formatting

In just under two weeks, ARMYs will descend upon Singapore to see SUGA!. Help an ARMY out and let them know about safety, how to get around, where to eat, tourist attractions, BTS-related things to do, or anything else that you think someone should know when they visit! (Special thanks to the mods for your input and feedback for this guide!)

BTS' Past Visits

Red Bullet Tour (2014 BTS Live Trilogy Episode II) at the The Star Performing Arts Centre (13 Dec 2014)

• Fancam
• Official photos by Hallyu Singapore
• Official photos of Hi-Five session by Hallyu Singapore. Session was for all Cat 1 VVIP ticket holders ($268), who got a Hi-Five Pass and Concert Poster. The first 100 VVIP ticket holders also got to go up on stage to get a "Dark & Wild" album autographed by BTS.

Music Bank performance (4 Aug 2017) at the Suntec Convention Centre

• Fancam
• Quiz game video
• Outing at the Merlion statue and Singapore flyer: Photos Set 1 Photos Set 2.

Love Yourself World Tour (19 Jan 2019) at the National Stadium
This made history as the first time a K-pop group held a concert at the venue (largest concert venue in the country) and tickets sold out in about 3.5 hours! (45,000 audience)

• Concert review
• Witty notice from the Singapore Police Force abt avoiding ticket scams (it uses the BTS song titles!)
• Bonus: Jimin picked Marina Bay Sands as his special spot in the BTS x Street Galleries collaboration with Google revealed on ARMY Day (July 9) 2022

Concert Venue

Do note that it’s currently the June school holidays too (26 May-26 Jun), so the Sports Hub and surrounding areas may be crowded with many other visitors besides the concert-goers. Please be mindful!

• Singapore Indoor Stadium, right next to the National Stadium (both are part of the Singapore Sports Hub) where BTS performed at their last concert here in 2019. In fact, the Indoor Stadium was then used as the waiting zone for the standing zone ticket-holders.
• Concert guidelines been posted yet (will update here when they are), but here are the general guidelines for events there (links opens a pdf)
• The nearest MRT station is the Stadium station, on the Circle line - here is a train map (with Stadium MRT circled out in light purple). You’ll know when you’ve arrived as the station design is quite unique! Go up the elevator and follow the signage - the path is sheltered.
• You can find Kallang Wave Mall right next to the venue, for a spot of shopping and dining before the concert (opening hrs:10am-10pm daily). There is another smaller mall Leisure Park Kallang located next to the carpark, which houses an ice skating rink, bowling alley and cinema alongside more food options. The open space in front of the MRT station and the two malls is where ARMYs are likely to gather to exchange fan support and stuff (latest info is that for recent concerts, fans have been prevented from gathering for fan support activities at the usual area, so many have moved to another open space nearby, the Stadium Riverside Walk, circled in this image).
• The nearest hawker centre (i.e the affordable street food) is Old Airport Road Food Centre, one of the oldest and largest hawker centres in the country. It is about 20 mins walk away from the stadium, or you can simply alight at the Mountbatten/Dakota MRT stations (one or two stops away from Stadium MRT station respectively); both are about a 5 mins’ walk away from the food centre. Here is a list of recommendations (unfortunately, not a lot of Halal food stalls here. Let me know if you need those).
• There is also a McDonalds’ & KFC near Mountbatten MRT if you want something more familiar, or potentially try whatever new promo is currently going on at these places.

Sightseeing/Activities

Non-exhaustive list (all prices are in SGD)

• National Gallery Singapore. There is a special Namjooning Tour as part of the Gallery Wellness Festival. Slots are fully booked for the guided tours on 25 & 30 June. You could try the self-guided tours instead, which start on 17 July. Gallery passes for general admission to the permanent galleries (needed to access the tour) cost $20 for non-Singaporeans aged 13-59. Closes early (by 3pm) on some weekends in June and July (see dates on website).
• National Museum Singapore. Has very interactive and engaging exhibits. Highly recommended (I used to be a volunteer docent there for abt a year). Tickets cost from $15 (for access to permanent galleries only)
• Singapore Zoo & adjacent parks (Bird Paradise, River Wonders, Night Safari). We have one of the best zoos in the world! Single park tickets cost $50. Multi-park options also available. .
• Gardens by the Bay. Pretty gardens with outdoor sections and 2 indoor air-conditioned conservatories - you may have heard of the supertrees that have been featured in the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" and K-drama "Little Women". Provides a welcome respite from the heat. It’s free to visit the outdoor areas, but it’s really worth it to pay for entry to the conservatories. There are various pricing packages, so best to check out the website yourself.
• Singapore Botanical Gardens is our first UNESCO World Heritage site, the first and only tropical botanic garden on the list. Admission is free.
• The Merlion and the Marina Bay area. I personally recommend going at night to see the famed cityscape of Singapore all lit up (the temperature’s cooler too!). Marina Bay Sands Mall has a light and water show every night. There is also the iLight Festival going on now until 25 June with artistic light installations (mix of free and paid attractions). Bonus: Yoongi wore a Merlion Singapore t-shirt in a travel-themed Lotte Xylitol ad!
• You can also ride the Singapore Flyer for an aerial view of our city like the boys did! Admission costs $40.
• Visit our ethnic enclaves, Chinatown, Little India, Kampung Glam and Geylang Serai to see old shophouses, shop for souvenirs and try ethnic food
• One of the fanbases here, BangtanSG, has teased an ARMY event from 11-13 June. Will update when more details are released.
• Sentosa & Universal Studios Singapore theme park - you can access the island via various modes of transport with varying admission fees. Transport within the island is free.
• If you don’t want to think too hard, the best airport in the world for 12 years running is also an attraction in itself! See the airport section below for more information.
• Singapore is also located in the centre of Southeast Asia - if you’ve never been in this oft-forgotten region of the world, take the chance to check out our neighbouring countries as well! Malaysia can easily be reached via bus, and Indonesia via ferry.

(Note: You may want to check out Klook for discount tickets/passes)

Dining

Singapore is a food paradise with various cuisines from the local ethnic groups, as well as international ones. For Muslims, there are a lot of Muslim-owned or Halal-certified options around (look for this certificate, or the label “Muslim-owned”), including most of the fast food chains like McDonald’s/KFC/Burger King/Subway.
Carrying some cash with you (~$10 per pax) is a good idea, especially if you’re venturing out to hawker centres; while many places now have an electronic payment system in place, cash is still king in terms of versatility, and anecdotally most hawker stalls prefer cash or will charge a credit-card payment surcharge.

Where to eat?

• Most of the malls have a good selection of dining options, ranging from the (relatively affordable) multi-stall foodcourts to fast-food restaurants, cafes, and more upmarket restaurants.
  • It can get crowded during lunchtime (12-2pm) as office workers come out for their break, so try to avoid those hours if possible, or make advance reservations.
  • If you are staying/shopping in Orchard Road, Far East Plaza (level 4 & 5) and Lucky Plaza (multiple levels) have relatively more affordable food options for the area..
  • There’s a myriad of other malls in the suburban areas outside of Orchard to be explored.
• Hawker centres: A “hawker” in Singapore refers to a street food vendor, and in Singapore they’ve been centralised into food centres to create an iconic Singapore dining institution. These places are generally not air-conditioned, but they are the most affordable dining option. If you see an item on a table even if it’s something innocuous like a tissue paper packet or name-card, it means the seat's been reserved (“chop-ed” in the local slang) by people who are off queuing for their food.
  • Look for stalls with the longest lines (the most popular stalls will have long queues all day long), but most stalls should have decent food.
  • Newton Hawker Centre (near Newton MRT station) and Lau Pa Sat (near Telok AyeDowntown/Raffles Place Stations) are probably the most well-known to tourists, but beware of touts and over-charging, especially at Newton.
  • Taking the MRT out to slightly less central areas like Ang Mo Kio, Toa Payoh, Kallang, etc. should bring you to other hawker centres that cater to locals.
• Order in: GrabFood and Foodpanda are the two most popular food delivery apps with extensive coverage all around Singapore. Deliveroo is also available. Just be prepared to pay upwards of $5 delivery fee during peak periods, and the listed online prices are usually higher than in-store. The apps also have pick-up available if you’d simply like to order in advance.
• The ethnic enclaves like Kampung Glam (Malay/Muslim), Chinatown and Little India have a higher concentration of the respective ethnic cuisines, but most places in Singapore have a good mix of different local and international cuisines

What to eat?

Breakfast (These are generally very affordable options that should cost you below $10 per person, particularly if you go to food courts/hawker centres)

• Tea/coffee with kaya toast and half-boiled eggs. Available at most hawker centres (usually at the drink stalls), and chains like Ya Kun Kaya Toast and Killiney Kopitiam in malls. Order tea/coffee like a local by referring to this guide.
• Among the fast-food chains, KFC offers the more local option of chicken porridge (congee)
• Roti prata, a south-Indian flatbread (also known as paratha in India, or roti canai in Malaysia), available at most hawker centres and Indian coffee-shops
• Nasi lemak, coconut milk-flavoured rice with a variety of side dishes (usual ones: omelette, fried chicken wing/fried fish, fried anchovies).
• Beehoon, rice vermicelli with a range of toppings like fish cake, luncheon meat (spam), chicken wings, veggies etc.
• Chai Tow Kway (“carrot cake” - it’s actually radish cake), Tau Huey (soya bean curd pudding) + Youtiao (chinese fried dough)
• Mee Rebus, a Malay noodle dish with thick & spicy potato-based gravy topped with hard-boiled egg, bean sprouts, fried shallots, tau kwa (fried beancurd) and spring onions

Lunch & dinner

• Chilli crab: I don’t have any personal recommendations, and it could be costly because the crabs are usually charged by weight, which may vary daily. The link gives a run-down of some popular places
• Hainanese chicken rice: Again, no personal recommendations, but you can find this in most foodcourts and hawker centres. You should be able to find one of these for $5 or less.
• Murtabak/Briyani: My favourite is ZamZam Restaurant (est, 1908) at North Bridge Road in the Muslim enclave of Kampung Glam, but there is a whole row of Singapore-Indian restaurants serving a similar menu there
• Everything under the sun :) Google maps & data coverage generally works well in most parts of Singapore, so search & explore! Some sites you can start at include Chope & Burpple.

Snacks

• A must try, it’s sold by any ice cream man you see roaming around with a popup like this
• We have a ton of bubble tea (boba) stores if you’re craving it, you’d probably find a bubble tea store or two within 20mins of walking anywhere. Koi/Gongcha/LiHo are quite standard options, and then there’s others like Playmade/Chichasansen with their own unique points. Here’s a list with 61 of them...
• There’re plenty of 7-11s and convenience stores around, as well as “mama shops” around public residential housing.

Getting Around

Singapore has a great public transport system. It’s really easy & cheap to get around on the MRT (mass rapid transit trains) and buses. Use Google Maps or the City Mapper app to navigate yourself and get route recommendations (the latter also has transport arrival timings and fare estimates. It also works in many cities globally, so is very useful for tourists). Various transport passes are available for tourists, but you can also use your contactless credit cards (Visa and Mastercard) to pay for the fares (no registration required).
In general, using the Circle Line (yellow) or Downtown Line (blue) should get you to most tourist attractions. Orchard Road (main shopping belt) can be accessed via the North South Line (red), between Orchard and Somerset MRT stations. Map for reference, with links to versions in Chinese/Malay/Tamil available for download.
Taxis and ride-hailing cars:

• We have Grab and Gojek in place of Uber.
• The largest local taxi fleet - the blue Comfort Cabs - also have their own ride-hailing app to compete, although they can also operate via the traditional meter & can be booked via phone call/flagged down as usual. Fares can be paid via cash post-ride or credit card for all these private car options.
• Ride-hailing tends to be very expensive. At peak periods, ride-hailing services could be even more expensive than taxis, but at least you know the price beforehand. All malls have a taxi stand where you can stand in queue and hop on the next available cab. Queues can be long at morning and evening peak periods, so avoid taking cabs then if you can.

General navigation
All signs are in English, and the locals - esp the younger generation - are able to speak English fluently. If you’re really lost, feel free to approach others to ask for help! People are generally friendly and helpful despite initial appearances :)
As a side note: in general, if Google Maps is asking you to circle around a building to get somewhere - don’t. You can cut through most places on the ground floor quite easily, even the residential buildings (unless they’re private properties like condominiums/landed housing). MRT stations are connected to a good number of places via sheltered corridors if they’re nearby enough. Enjoy the aircon & shade instead of walking outside in the heat if you can.

Shopping

• K-pop merch, CDs and DVDs: There is House of Kpop, multiple locations, the most central being at Singapore Post Centre, next to Paya Lebar MRT station (one MRT stop away fm the concert location), and Beadsofbullets at Level 2, Orchard Gateway. Popular Bookstore has a BT21 corner in some of their stores. The flagship store at Bras Basah Complex (near Bugist MRT) would likely hv the biggest selection (though really not that big). Kinokuniya Bookstore at Takashimaya Mall, Orchard Road, also has some albums, DVD sets and maybe even magazines (not sure if any BTS-member covers are available at that time). You can call ahead to ask if they hv stocks.
  
• Orchard Road is our main shopping belt, running from Orchard to Somerset MRT stations. You can find many shopping malls there, with collections ranging from upmarket to fast fashion. Check out Design Orchard, a retail space for fashion and lifestyle items by Singapore designers.
  
• For an old-style emporium experience drop by Mustafa Centre. It used to be open 24 hours but this was disrupted by COVID19 and now it is only open until 2am (best place for late night shopping!). It's not a glitzy mall, but has crowded aisles chock full of all manners of things, including snacks and souvenirs (avoid going on Sundays when it gets super crowded with migrant workers on their day off).
  
• Already mentioned above are the ethnic enclaves Chinatown, Little India, Kampung Glam and Geylang Serai with smaller standalone shops. Special mention for Haji Lane in the Kampung Glam area, a small street with cute boutiques.
  
• The many, many other malls scattered across the country - a brief list. For example, Paya Lebar alone (just another station up from Dakota!) is connected to several malls like Paya Lebar Quarter (PLQ), PLQ 2, PL Square, Singpost centre, and a couple more within a 5-mins’ walk (Tanjong Katong Complex, City Plaza, KINEX etc.).
  

Weathewhat to wear

The weather is especially hot these days (max temp of up to 35 degrees celsius, or 95 Fahrenheit), with possible spurts of heavy rain at certain times of day, so dress light and carry an umbrella (most places do have sheltered walkways between buildings and bus-stops/MRT stations though, so don’t worry too much about getting around in the rain). Mall air-conditioning can be cold, so hv another layer (e.g. cardigan/wrap/scarf) on hand. Remember to hydrate frequently & avoid staying outdoors for too long!

Airport

• Singapore Changi Airport is often voted by travellers as the best airport in the world, with lots of shopping, dining and leisure options in the various terminals. BTS (except Jin who took a different flight) stopped over at Changi Airport on the way to New Zealand for Bon Voyage 4 (airport lounge scenes shown in Episode 1)! While you may not have access to the business class lounge like them, there are various other options to rest and hangout, like the many gardens (some even accessible from the public areas) and even a free 24h cinema (Terminal 3 transit area).
• Jewel Changi Airport which is attached to Terminal 1 is an attraction in itself. It's worth arriving 2-3 hours earlier than your flight check-in time to grab a meal and have a look around Jewel. A particular highlight is to take the skytrain between Terminals 2 and 3, cutting across the centre of Jewel, to get a spectacular view of the indoor waterfall. There is also shopping aplenty (Tip: Fairprice Finest supermarket at B2 Jewel has a nice selection of food and non-food souvenirs which are pretty affordable).
• There are various transport options for getting to the city from the airport. Public transport like MRT is convenient if you are travelling light, else there is a shuttle service to selected downtown hotels. Taxis and ride-hire cars can be expensive, especially with the airport surcharge.
• Sort of related, Yoongi gave a shout out to our national airlines (Singapore Airlines) for its great seat and amenities in business class in BV4! (He said: let's always fly Singapore Airlines in the future!). The airlines must have taken notice, because they recently announced that they would be adding BTS content like songs, MVs, LY New York concert, and Break The Silence docu in their in-flight entertainment system to commemorate BTS' 10th anniversary. An ARMY also spotted a write-up abt BTS in their in-flight magazine.

We’ve tried to achieve a balance between being succinct and informative, but certainly the above info is not exhaustive. So do feel free to ask in the comments below if the info you need is not here! Fellow SG ARMY, or those familiar with Singapore, feel free to chime in!

This case has already been covered, but I felt the write-up was a bit bareboned and could’ve gone further in depth. That write-up was around 500 words, my one has over 1800 words. I have linked their original reddit post, and I recommend you check it out, as they covered this case first.
https://www.reddit.com/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/dipz9h/karen_louise_wilson_missing_from_albany_ny_since/
Karen Louise Wilson was born on February 10th, 1963, to Taylor and Jennie Wilson. She was a popular student in high school and a cheer leader. She was then a full-time senior political science major at the State University of New York and an unpaid, full-time intern for state Assemblyman Samuel Coleman. She aspired to have a career in the foreign service.
On Wednesday the 27th of March 1985, the 22 year old vanished without a trace.
THE TIMELINE:
On the 27th, Karen went to the Colonie Center and bought a red t-shirt and a blue t-shirt to take with her on an upcoming spring break trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She may have also gotten a tan at the Tanning Hut; she had booked an appointment that day but no one at the tanning salon could remember seeing her.
She was last seen in the 1600 block of Central Avenue in Colonie, New York at approximately 7:20 pm. She also called her roommate around this time, and said she was on her way home for dinner.
It was initially believed that Karen got on a bus near the Butcher Block restaurant on Central Avenue and took it to Fuller Avenue, but it was later determined that she couldn’t have gotten on the bus and probably walked instead. 3 credible witnesses would later tell authorities that they had seen her on Fuller Avenue shortly afterwards.
THE LAST 3 SIGHTINGS:
SIGHTING 1: The first witness told authorities that she saw Karen traveling southbound on Fuller Rd after she turned from Central Ave at 8:15pm.
She stated that as she approached a gas station on her left (believed to be the Workingman’s Friend Gas Station), she passed a very slow-moving vehicle, also traveling southbound. She could not recall any specifics of the vehicle's description, except that the driver was a white male in his forties with an intent look on his face. The male had a beard, brown hair with a reddish tint, and a long nose and face.
The witness then saw a female believed to be Karen, walking near a guide rail along the west side of Fuller Road near Sysco Food. By the time the witness reached Fuller Rd at Railroad Ave, she had already driven past the female.
SIGHTING 2: The second witness saw someone they believed to be Karen on the west side of Fuller Road. This was between 8:10pm - 8:15pm.
She stated that the female was walking south of the entrance of Six Mile Waterworks (also known as Rensselaer Lake) near the construction road leading west off Fuller Road. This area is located just north of the I-90 underpass. The female was walking on the grassy portion of the sidewalk, with her head down.
A smaller person of unknown sex was walking along the female’s right side "almost shoulder to shoulder" seemingly urging her up an embankment or incline into the Six Mile area. The smaller person was described as between 5'5 - 5'8 (165-172cm), and between 120-140lbs (54-64kg). When the female turned her head to the left, the witness thought she appeared nervous.
The witness also described a white male following 50 to 100 feet behind the two subjects. He was walking at a steady pace, not seeming to be gaining on the two. He was described as about 5'11 (180cm) with a slim build, in his early 20's, wearing dark pants and a waist length jacket which may have been beige. He had light colored hair (gold to red), and a beard or some other type of facial hair. The couple then returned to the sidewalk and began walking in a normal manner southbound on Fuller Road.
After the witness stopped at the red light at the I-90 ramp, and then continued southbound, she saw the couple past the dirt construction road on the right, just out from the I90 underpass.
She also stated that she saw a stopped or disabled small unoccupied black vehicle at Fuller Rd at Washington Ave Ext. The vehicle had a New York plate bearing partial plate 239 with unknown letters. The car was sedan style and believed to be about five years old. The driver's window was down about 6" and the passenger window was down about 2". She thought this was odd because it looked like it was about to rain. Also noted on the driver's side window was a hole about ¼" in diameter with cracks radiating from it. She thought that it looked like a bullet hole.
SIGHTING 3: The last sighting of Karen was by a third witness at approximately 8:20pm as he left work at the SUNY Albany Campus, and was waiting at the traffic light on Washington Ave and Fuller Rd.
He was waiting for traffic to clear so that he could turn right, proceed north on Fuller Rd and access the I-90 entrance ramp across from the Six Mile entrance. The female was reportedly seen standing on the northwest corner of Fuller Road for about 10 seconds while the witness was waiting for the traffic to clear. He believed that the female appeared to be waiting for the traffic light to change.
When he made the right turn onto Fuller Rd, the witness saw a male crossing Fuller Rd from the west side to the east side, just south of the I-90 underpass. He took a few steps up the driveway where the construction trailers were on the east side of Fuller but seemed to change his mind. He then walked south on the east side of Fuller Rd. The male subject did not appear to be looking towards Karen.
He was described as a white male with "sandy or light brown, messy or curly" hair, with a couple of days growth of facial hair. He was of average height, about 18 - 25 years old, and was wearing a jean (denim?) or aviator type jacket, jeans, a flannel shirt, and high tan construction boots.
As the witness turned right onto the I-90 ramp, he saw a lime green Volkswagen Rabbit (estimated to be a 1981 or 1982) parked along the road. There was no one around the vehicle. This appears to have been the last sighting of her, and she hasn’t been heard from since.
Due to these witness accounts, authorities believe Karen likely walked south on Fuller Avenue towards State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany. They concluded she was likely abducted somewhere near Six-mile Waterworks, the entrance ramp to Interstate 90 westbound and the Northway. The night was not well lit, and the road was not heavily traveled, making it possible for someone to pull her into a vehicle within a matter of seconds without leaving witnesses.
DESCRIPTIONS & BELONGINGS:
Karen was a Caucasian female listed at 5’3 (160cm) and 114lbs (51kg) with brown hair and brown eyes.
Investigators were unable to locate the personal belongings she had with her when she disappeared. These included: A gray cloth notebook, a blue nylon wallet with a Velcro closure, a green and white plastic bag from Ups N Down, and possibly a blue knapsack containing a yellow dress.
She was wearing a Cream-colored raincoat, a light blue short-sleeve pullover, faded blue Levi jeans and white sneakers. She also had a 14k gold ring, size 5 ½, with a turquoise zircon in raised setting along with 1/5 carat diamond on each side, a Seiko watch with a black face and gold numerals and white plastic earrings. The ring was approximately 40-50 years old.
Her dental records are available.
SUSPECTS:
1. A strange man was seen in the area around the time Karen vanished. He has never been identified and authorities have sought him for questioning, at least as a witness or possibly even a suspect.
2. Authorities announced that another suspect in the case was killed in an accidental house fire in 2013. He was never able to be conclusively linked to the case, and it’s thought he couldn’t be the perpetrator as he had reported to work at 4:00am, just a few hours after Karen vanished.
(On a personal note, this conclusion makes little sense to me. Karen’s last confirmed sighting was at around 7:20 pm, leaving nearly 9 hours in between her last known sighting and the time he clocked in to work. The last witness reported seeing her at 8:20pm which still leaves slightly under 8 hours.)
3. Authorities investigated the possibility that convicted murderer and suspected child-serial killer Lewis Lent Jr may have been involved in Karen's disappearance, but determined it was unlikely since Lent's previous victims were all children. He has not been ruled out.
THEORIES:
1. Police did investigate the possibility that Karen traveled to Florida after her disappearance as she had planned but found no evidence that she had ever left New York.
2. Her case has possible links to Suzanne Lyall’s abduction. Both were young, dark haired SUNY students abducted in the same manner. Authorities have investigated a possible link between the two. Both cases are unsolved.
The general consensus is that Karen was abducted and murdered.
PERSONAL THEORIES:
1. Due to Unresolved Mysteries not letting me add photos to this write-up I am unable to provide a sketch of the strange man seen in the area at the time. However, he has an uncanny resemblance to convicted serial killer John Bittrolff. It might be possible he is linked to the case, but this is simply an observation.
2. 2 young women were found murdered and floating in the river close to where Karen disappeared at the same time she vanished. It might be possible that the cases were linked.
CONCLUSION:
During the first year after her disappearance, Karen's family, who now live out-of-state, mailed thousands of letters pleading for information and advertising their $10,000 reward for new details about her disappearance. They have now given up hope of their daughter coming back alive, and simply want to find her body, so they can give her a proper burial and finally know what happened to their daughter.
I don’t have much hope of a conclusion for this case any time soon. It seems clear she was abducted and murdered, and without a body there is no evidence that could lead to anything. Unless her body is found, or someone comes forward, I see this case being unsolved for years to come.
Karen Louise Wilson has been missing for 38 years. If she is still alive, she would be 60 years old.
If you have any information about Karen's disappearance, please contact New York State Police at 518-783-3212.
SOURCES:
https://oag.ca.gov/missing/person/karen-l-wilson
https://www.pressrepublican.com/news/local_news/family-pleads-for-details-in-1985-disappearance-of-their-daughtearticle_36801912-fb94-5152-894d-fd9de58c0502.html
https://www.timesunion.com/7dayarchive/article/Cold-Case-UAlbany-student-still-missing-after-32-11820083.php
https://troopers.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2021/03/karen-wilson.pdf
https://troopers.ny.gov/missing-wilson-karen-louise
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/5695/details
https://charleyproject.org/case/karen-louise-wilson
https://int-missing.fandom.com/wiki/Karen_Wilson

Location: 6/10
It's basically as close as you can get to campus, which is nice. Safeway, HMart and a few other grocery stores are only a few blocks walk or a bus ride away. Close to the LRT too, which has its upsides, and (spoiler alert) its downsides. However, the HUB itself is a complete shitshow when it comes to food and the stores there either have a really limited selection, are super overpriced, or both.
Kitchen: 3/10
The appliances and cabinetry are all definitely nice and pretty high quality, however there are some MAJOR flaws to the layout. Firstly, there isn't enough counter space to have a microwave unless you don't use a drying rack or otherwise leave the drying rack in the sink which means you have no room to use it. Second, to even open the fridge you need to stand in the bathroom, which isn't a dealbreaker, but still pretty odd and resulted in my bathroom mat collecting a lot of dirt over time. Thirdly, there also just isn't enough counter space for anything at all, beyond even a microwave. You're forced to use the stovetop to have room for your cuttingboard/etc. or otherwise take it into the bedroom and use the tiny table.
The oven is small and has a heating coil on both the top and the bottom. I have had two Pyrex dishes explode on me in the oven, and my assumption is this is due to the fact that it's basically not possible to get far enough away from the heating coil to not explode. Also, basically every time I use the oven it sets off my smoke detector at least 30 times. These have compounded in me never using an oven, on top of not having a microwave. So I just use my stovetop, which still sets off the smoke detector every couple uses for no discernable reason.
TL;DR these units were not really designed with any kind of even remotely serious cooking in mind.
Bed/Bedroom: 4/10
Calling it a bed is pretty generous. It's basically a glorified gymnastics mat sitting on top of a metal cot. Twin/single bed sheets fit extremely loose, FYI. In terms of firmness I would say the mattress was on the firm side, but closer to the middle. Bed is squeaky, and there's also no real headboard so I had to line my bed up with a wall or else my pillow would slide off the bed 9,082,335 times every night.
There is only one light in the bedroom, and I unfortunately (spoiler alert) wasn't ever able to open my curtains. I will also say that most of the furniture in general is pretty low quality, aside from the armchair. I would genuinely consider the University's portrayal (https://www.ualberta.ca/residence/media-library/images/hub-floorplan-studio.jpg) one of the greatest catfishes of all time, and am honestly convinced that this has to be in violation of some kind of false advertising law.
Bathroom: 1/10
There isn't a fan in the bathroom and it is genuinely the stupidest idea I have ever seen executed. When I take a shower my entire kitchen gets covered in a light coating of condensation. It causes a lot of the metal in the bathroom (shower curtain, appliance covers) to rust very quickly. Not to mention, there are no drawers in the bathroom, only a cupboard under the sink. But why would you want to even put anything in the bathroom with how humid it gets there after a shower?
Cleanliness: 2/10
Dust collected in my unit at an insanely fast rate. I think it was because the heaters haven't been cleaned in a long time. I admittedly have OCD and am a bit of a neat freak but I basically had to sweep every day or every-other day. And I would sweep up a sizeable amount of dust, too. Enough to fill maybe 1/4 of a dustpan.
It was dirty enough that I threw out a lot of stuff (doormat, bath mat, etc.) when moving out because there was no way I could get it clean again.
Climate Control: 1/10
Virtually nonexistent. Through the winter my unit got below 15 C very regularly and now that Spring has hit I have been burning up to the point that I bought a box fan. I'm also on the bottom floor and can't open my window often for (spoiler alert) reasons, so that was also fun. I should also mention that apparently studio units don't even get ceiling fans?
Mailbox: 2/10
UPS, FedEx, and Amazon will deliver packages to your stairwell door and it will be stolen in less than 15 minutes. Canada Post can deliver to the boxes however I have had maybe 1 of every 4 Canada Post packages ordered get lost for no discernable reason. I had to pay $30/mo for a UPS PO Box and use the Amazon Locker to survive.
Food deliveries like DoorDash, etc. are very hit or miss because the delivery drivers do not like to deliver onto campus because they don't understand the layout. Be prepared to have to deal with really angry and confused drivers calling or texting you. Or your food delivered to the wrong unit. And lots of late deliveries.
Laundry: 4/10
Not enough machines for the sheer number of people living in the HUB. Be prepared to go at really inconvenient times if you want to do your laundry without having to wait an excessive amount of time. It's also pretty exhausting to have to carry laundry up three flights of stairs and all the way to the laundry room, as someone who lived pretty far from it.
The laundry room in general is pretty dirty. People will open your dryer or washer on accident and not restart the machine, pretty regularly. Lots of people leave their stuff in the machines for hours. It's also (spoiler alert) not 100% safe.
Privacy: 6/10\*
Pretty decent, though I have heard people living in the HUB say otherwise very adamantly. I didn't have a neighbor above or next to me so probably take this with a grain of salt. My biggest complaint is that I hear tons of people in my stairwell very late at night who are just walking through it and talking very loudly. There seems to be virtually no sound insulation whatsoever on the side of the room that has the stairwell.
Pests: 8/10\*
Outside of a few dozen fruit flies over my 6 months of living in the HUB, I didn't have to deal with any. Expect that this may not be the case for you, but pray that it is. My understanding is if you live under or even near a restaurant you are going to have mice and ants pretty badly. However, I will also note that I absolutely have seen cockroaches, ants, etc. just chilling out on the mall-level.
Safety: 1/10
OK so yeah, it's awful. I can't open my window because homeless people will come up to the window and ask me for food or money. Someone let a homeless man into the laundry room while I was alone in there and he came after me and I had to physically leave the room while leaving my stuff there for my own safety. I was approached by a human trafficker who tried stalking me for a week or two afterwards. 2-3 times I have heard people screaming (presumably on drugs or having some kind of episode) run into my stairwell to pull the fire alarm. There have been times I've been unable to enter or leave my apartment because people are literally just tripping out in the middle of the stairwell or in front of the door, etc. I've been followed home late at night from the bus stop/LRT station by people who were literally talking about mugging me.
Price: 1/10
Completely unjustified and unaffordable. The unit and the experience of living here is generously worth about 2/3 of the current price, if that. They have manipulated studios into being a monthly lease in order to squeeze every single penny out of you for rent. Not to mention I had to pay $30/mo for a mailbox from UPS to be able to get packages, so it's even more expensive.
Overall Rating: 3/10
\ = I am acknowledging that these rankings are very far outside of the norm of things I have heard about the HUB from other current and former residents.*