-Red-
April 19th, 11:13 A.M., The Sprawl
I sparked a dilapidated Vita-Cig that I’d snagged from Trodes and peered out into the Sprawl; the careful equilibrium of a well-orchestrated black-market had returned; pushers and gangers lined the alleys, watching for signals from rooftop lookouts to avoid the single Peacewatch cruiser that had been stupid enough to enter the dockside. The poor bastard would be dead before the afternoon was over… not that I had much sympathy for his kind. Peacewatch made it a habit to stay out of the Sprawl: unless the Eggheads predictive crime system said something catastrophic was coming, they policed their kind and left us in the hands of the mob. I’d never iced an officer. Not yet at least.
“Your partner should be ready shortly, I think he’s just tying up a few loose ends,” Akari said, snatching the cigarette from my hand and taking a long drag.
“Remind me again why you think I should take the shrimp with me instead of Nico and Roman?”
“He’s smart… and the other two are working on something else. Besides-- you need brains on this one, Red, not muscle,” she giggled, passing the cigarette back.
“Whatever you say,” I paused, grabbing the smoke, “what do you have them up to?”
“There’s a shipment of Xeno-grade weapons coming down from the colonies. Nico and Roman will be liberating them from the Slicers. Or, their share, at least. It won’t be much, maybe a dozen guns, but it’ll be worth it: the force field tech alone will pay for the trip as soon as Fincetti’s goons start trying to take your heads off with plasma cannons and mono blades.”
“What do you mean, their share?”
“The job was too big for us to take on alone. I linked up with another enterprising group of Freelancers. If it goes well, maybe we can hire them on for the heist, we’re going to need more people if we want to walk out of there alive.”
We?
“What, are you planning on coming along now?” I asked, snuffing out the smoke.
“It only seems right; Trodes is coming along, and I’m a better shot than he’ll ever be. Besides, you have a dangerous habit of getting shot, and I can’t have you going down in the field,” she said, winking as if to punctuate the sentence.
“You sure? We can manage, you don’t have to come with us, you’ve done so much already.”
“I know I have, that’s why I have to protect my investment. If you go down out there, then the team is without a leader. A military scale operation like this will go south real fast without someone competent in command.”
“You’ve got me wrong, Akari: I’m no leader. I’m just someone who wants to live in a better city and doesn’t mind taking the trash out himself. Besides, why do we need a leader? We’re all competent adults acting in concert, of our own free will. We all know what we’re doing, if a situation arises and someone needs to take charge, it’ll happen.”
“You’ve got a lot of faith in a crew you just met,” Akari said with a sneer.
“You know why I asked you to put the team together, Akari?”
“Because there’s a bounty on your head that could finance twenty retirements, and you know you can trust me?”
“No, well yeah, but that’s beside the point—I asked you because you’re not a Fixer, you’re a part time street doc that works the front desk at the most popular Freelancer hotel in the Sprawl. If there’s anyone who knows who’s gonna get the job done, it’s you. See, a Fixer is going to be okay with whatever losses they deem acceptable beforehand, but they’re fine with keeping that to themselves. If you thought any of these mooks were going to crack under pressure, or do something stupid, you wouldn’t have set me up with them.”
Before she could respond, Trodes emerged from the stairs leading to the lab. He winced as the sunlight hit his eyes, shrugging on the hood of the oversized sweatshirt that blanketed his meek frame. Glimpses of pain showed through every tremor laden step he took. A cloak of wires enveloped his skull, feeding into an old-world cyber console.
“It’s insufferably hot out here,” Trodes sighed.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going far. Chances are that whatever hole we’re meeting BFU in will have air conditioning,” I responded, clicking my key fob, and signaling the bike to pull around.
Trodes face fell flat when the Supersonic rolled around the corner; apparently, the prestige of carving through the skyway on a state-of-the-art Taffington jet-bike was lost on him.
“Are we taking… that?” Trodes stammered.
“We are. Unless you’ve got a pair of wheels with two seats?” I asked, mounting the bike and revving the engine.
With an exasperated sigh, Trodes boarded the passenger seat. I could feel him behind me, vibrating as tremors gripped his body.
“You good, buddy?” I asked.
He nodded vigorously, clenching the handrails with white knuckles.
Akari shook her head and headed back to the lab.
I heard Trodes mumble something under his breath, but it was quickly drowned out by the jet-bike’s purr. I carved into the skyway. Driving in the Sprawl was pure freedom: almost nobody owned vehicles with aerial capabilities in this part of town. It didn’t take long to reach top speed.
Slummers and gutterpunks walked the streets like zombies in a drug addled haze. The scent of gunpowder, pollution and burning ozone coalesced into a putrid stench that reeked of poverty and violence. Patches of azure moved in militant formation below; the Vorrath had taken to the streets. On a different day, a better day, I would’ve helped them. Most slummers hated the Offworlder Coalition, but not me—at the end of the day I always figured that I had more in common with poor people from another planet than rich people from another district of the city. At least we shared the same struggle.
The bike slowed to crawl; the Neo-Confederates were about, backed by a platoon of Brown-Shirts that looked like a tide of sewer run off, crashing through the streets with reckless abandon. Civilians fled for their homes. Fuck.
The jet-bike careened through the air before finally landing atop a building a few blocks away from the impending conflict.
“Get off,” I said, turning back to Trodes.
“Why? You don’t intend to abandon me at this altitude, do you?”
“Not as long as I survive—I’ll be quick, I just need to ventilate some Nazi fucks, understood?”
He shook his head and muttered a string of curses.
I tore through the air, circling around the impending conflict. I chased a handful of cheap amphetamines with a poorly rolled joint and swooped low, behind the rolling tide of brown shirts. This wasn’t the first time I’d made myself an enemy of the city’s Neo-Nazi’s; I’d killed at least a dozen of them in my career as a courier, but those were isolated incidents, back-alley brawls away from the mob.
This was a whole new ball game.
I fell slack as my Teleoperations module synchronized with the bike. My consciousness faded, reemerging into the HALO-Net’s stylized rendition of the bike’s interior. I wasn’t just the pilot now—I was the bike. Bullets carved twin streaks of crimson into the brown tide. It didn’t take long to hit top speed, 3.7 seconds, to be exact.
The group turned in nearly perfect unison, launching volley upon volley as I passed overhead. The bike’s shields barely held together; I felt every round, like a flock of birds violently slamming into my side—not enough to cause any real damage, but more than enough to get the blood pumping. I slid into an alley a few blocks off and waited for the shield generator to recharge. Gunshots rang out from the streets, alongside the sizzle of plasma meeting flesh. Soon the din was drowned beneath the roar of dozens of Vorrath war cries. I took to the sky.
Trodes was exactly where I left him, nervously clutching a knock off version of a Locust flechette pistol.
“I was beginning to doubt your survival,” Trodes said shakily.
“Wrong again, little guy,” I paused, reigniting a half smoked joint, “it was just a quick hit and run, we don’t have the time or the numbers for a pitched battle. Now, hop on.”
It didn’t take long to find BFU’s base of operations. Black flags and Anarchist graffiti covered the walls of the abandoned warehouse they’d apparently taken up residence in. A field of repurposed Peacewatch turrets were installed atop the roof, complimented by a web of cameras that spread across a three-block radius. Anarchists of all species and creeds loitered outside. The guards ranged from Cyborgs and Vat-Grown, to Vorrath and Vorstihl, each wearing a variant of the black flag with colors corresponding to their ideologies.
As I hovered above the building, I saw a familiar face: the rookie from earlier. Alarmingly, his cruiser was nowhere to be seen. His face was wrought with horror, as a pair of cyborgs led him inside the warehouse.
“They’re certainly less than subtle,” Trodes said.
“They don’t have to be subtle, they’re the biggest citizens political organization in the Sprawl. Peacewatch avoids them if they have anything less than a full platoon on hand,” I explained.
“Red… before we enter negotiations with these hooligans, I must inquire as to what your motivation hitting the vault is? Surely you know there’s a strong likelihood that you won’t make it out, and from what I’d heard about you, I always understood you to be a man who knew how to keep himself out of the line of sight of dangerous people,” Trodes said, nervously.
“Fincetti is the most dangerous man in the city, short of O’Bannon. He controls the black market with an iron fist and is instrumental in all the things I hate about living here. The problem is, I have no way to do anything about it right now… but there’s something big in the safe—there must be—for fucks sake, he iced his family over it. I’m hoping there’s something in there that can give me a little leverage, so I can cross him out afterwards.”
Trodes was silent for a moment, simply reaching as if to ask me to pass the joint. I obliged.
“I have my reasons to want O’Bannon dead too, I’m in,” he paused as a coughing fit seized him, causing the joint to fall to the ground, “there’s something you should know though: I’m working with an entity of great power in the Net; I don’t know what precisely it is, but I know it saved my life more than once. As a matter of fact, it’s the only reason I was able to obtain the blueprint of Fincetti’s bunker, and his security plan.”
“Is it… is it an unshackled AI?”
“Unlikely: it seems to understand compassion and empathy on a uniquely organic level, something that rarely slips past Netwatch.”
“Alright, well whatever it is, you keep an eye on it and let me know if things get shady. I appreciate you telling me.”
Trodes nodded in silence.
The crowd parted expectantly as I landed along the streetside. Dozens of eyes were immediately glued to Trodes and I. A cyborg with a steel double mohawk emerged from a sea of leather, patches, and smoke. A sawed-off shotgun hung at his side.
“Red, I presume?” the Cyborg asked, extending a steel hand.
“That’s right, and who’re you?” I answered, clasping the borgs hand as firm as I could manage.
“They call me Diezel, and I’ll be your host today,” he released my hand and looked me up and down as if assessing whether I was a threat, “follow me, everyone’s here so we can get straight down to business.”
The warehouse’s interior had been renovated drastically; layers of open-faced lofts sat stacked upon each other, consuming the walls. Nearly every non-violent law in the city was being broken in the lofts, from cooking chems and explosives to studying banned literature and Doomguard martial arts. It was beautiful. We followed Diezel through a winding hallway of munitions manufacturing stations, before finally emerging into an immense circular room, with rows of seats climbing the walls. I couldn’t believe it—there must have been two hundred people present.
The lights dimmed as we entered the arena. Diezel led us to the rooms center, ushering Trodes and I onto a great circular platform; he fell into place on a platform across from us, beside a Vat-Grown woman bearing an orange and black flag on her arm, and augmentations that cost more than my bike. Behind the duo a bulbous Vorstihl lurked; tentacles draped down his back, carefully pulled away from his cyclopean eye. A red and black flag was displayed on his arm… it was only then that I noticed the blue and black flag on Diezel’s arm.
The platforms each rose roughly fifteen feet into the air, before microphone stands emerged from the center of each platform. Diezel stepped forward, past the microphone.
“Before we start, I’ll explain how this works: the three of us are representatives of our specific unions—but the people are free to interject. One union voting to aid in your endeavors does not guarantee the help of the other two, as each union demands a perfect consensus. Likewise, if a faction without one union decides to help you, it does not necessarily mean you have the support of the entire union. The only way you’ll end up with total support is cross union consensus. Do you understand?”
A consensus: of course, they needed a damned consensus.
“I do,” I answered, speaking away from the microphone.
“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Diezel stepped back, finding his microphone before continuing, “Red, Trodes, welcome to the Bouleuterion,” he paused a moment as the crowd erupted into cheers, “beside me are my comrades Aria and Korvirex, and we stand ready to hear your proposal.”
“As most of you probably know, Don Fincetti is the most powerful man in the underworld, hell—maybe even the city—what you likely don’t know is that he has a vault beneath the city, guarded by an army of Harvesters. I intend to break into the vault, slaughter the Harvesters and strike a blow to Fincetti that he won’t forget… and I intend to kill him shortly after. What I ask is simple: you help me in what’s to come, and when he’s finally dead, you can all split his turf among yourselves. All I care about is making sure he doesn’t live long enough to poison the Sprawl more than he already has.”
A murmur emerged from the stands. I gazed across the way to see the three representatives huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. Finally, Aria stepped towards her microphone.
“What you ask of us will likely mean the death of many of our people… we need something greater than what you offer—we need a guarantee of mutual aid—you have a reputation in the Sprawl, we would ask that you employ it in helping us when the time comes to resettle the Sprawl. Namely, we’d request your assistance against the gangs that may try to fill the power void you seek to create,” Aria explained.
“That seems reasonable,” I said.
Aria stepped back as Korvirex moved forward.
“Tell me, Red, are you familiar with the Offworlder Coalition?” Korvirex asked.
“I am—as a matter of fact, I aided them on the way here—they were marching against the Neo-Confederates and the Brown Shirts. I insured that they had the element of surprise.”
Korvirex stroked the beard-like tentacles that hung from his chin in contemplation.
“Good. What I ask is that you help us to secure their trust, we have offered solidarity where we could, but our forces are spread thin. The ideology of many of the exiled Vorrath rebels that found their way to Nova City—it matches that of our union. If our help was offered, would you agree to assist us in aiding the Coalition, so that they finally have an opportunity to get on their feet?”
Trodes leaned towards in, whispering in my ear.
“It would be prudent of you to make a counteroffer: proclaim that you’ll help with the Coalition, if they’ll spread the word to other groups whose goals may align with ours. There will likely be at least a couple hundred Harvesters in the Undercity when we strike… unless they’re occupied elsewhere.”
“I would happily help with the Coalition, on the condition that your faction spread the word about what we’re doing to like-minded organizations. As it stands, we could still use more numbers to match the Harvesters,” I said.
“These conditions may be satisfactory,” Korvirex said, before retreating into yet another group huddle.
The audience watched on in silence.
Finally, Diezel reapproached the microphone.
“The representatives have deemed this topic worthy of discussion: you’re free to leave, we’ll get ahold of Akari in a couple days, when all the details are ironed out.”
“A couple days?”
“Reaching a consensus can be a slow process at times—be prepared for a renegotiation of conditions, as there will likely be more stipulations made once the process is complete,” Diezel explained.
I nodded, and the platform beneath my feet began to descend towards the floor. The crowd erupted into cheers.
Hopefully Nico and Roman would beat us home.

-Red-
April 19th, 11:13 A.M., The Sprawl
I sparked a dilapidated Vita-Cig that I’d snagged from Trodes and peered out into the Sprawl; the careful equilibrium of a well-orchestrated black-market had returned; pushers and gangers lined the alleys, watching for signals from rooftop lookouts to avoid the single Peacewatch cruiser that had been stupid enough to enter the dockside. The poor bastard would be dead before the afternoon was over… not that I had much sympathy for his kind. Peacewatch made it a habit to stay out of the Sprawl: unless the Eggheads predictive crime system said something catastrophic was coming, they policed their kind and left us in the hands of the mob. I’d never iced an officer. Not yet at least.
“Your partner should be ready shortly, I think he’s just tying up a few loose ends,” Akari said, snatching the cigarette from my hand and taking a long drag.
“Remind me again why you think I should take the shrimp with me instead of Nico and Roman?”
“He’s smart… and the other two are working on something else. Besides-- you need brains on this one, Red, not muscle,” she giggled, passing the cigarette back.
“Whatever you say,” I paused, grabbing the smoke, “what do you have them up to?”
“There’s a shipment of Xeno-grade weapons coming down from the colonies. Nico and Roman will be liberating them from the Slicers. Or, their share, at least. It won’t be much, maybe a dozen guns, but it’ll be worth it: the force field tech alone will pay for the trip as soon as Fincetti’s goons start trying to take your heads off with plasma cannons and mono blades.”
“What do you mean, their share?”
“The job was too big for us to take on alone. I linked up with another enterprising group of Freelancers. If it goes well, maybe we can hire them on for the heist, we’re going to need more people if we want to walk out of there alive.”
We?
“What, are you planning on coming along now?” I asked, snuffing out the smoke.
“It only seems right; Trodes is coming along, and I’m a better shot than he’ll ever be. Besides, you have a dangerous habit of getting shot, and I can’t have you going down in the field,” she said, winking as if to punctuate the sentence.
“You sure? We can manage, you don’t have to come with us, you’ve done so much already.”
“I know I have, that’s why I have to protect my investment. If you go down out there, then the team is without a leader. A military scale operation like this will go south real fast without someone competent in command.”
“You’ve got me wrong, Akari: I’m no leader. I’m just someone who wants to live in a better city and doesn’t mind taking the trash out himself. Besides, why do we need a leader? We’re all competent adults acting in concert, of our own free will. We all know what we’re doing, if a situation arises and someone needs to take charge, it’ll happen.”
“You’ve got a lot of faith in a crew you just met,” Akari said with a sneer.
“You know why I asked you to put the team together, Akari?”
“Because there’s a bounty on your head that could finance twenty retirements, and you know you can trust me?”
“No, well yeah, but that’s beside the point—I asked you because you’re not a Fixer, you’re a part time street doc that works the front desk at the most popular Freelancer hotel in the Sprawl. If there’s anyone who knows who’s gonna get the job done, it’s you. See, a Fixer is going to be okay with whatever losses they deem acceptable beforehand, but they’re fine with keeping that to themselves. If you thought any of these mooks were going to crack under pressure, or do something stupid, you wouldn’t have set me up with them.”
Before she could respond, Trodes emerged from the stairs leading to the lab. He winced as the sunlight hit his eyes, shrugging on the hood of the oversized sweatshirt that blanketed his meek frame. Glimpses of pain showed through every tremor laden step he took. A cloak of wires enveloped his skull, feeding into an old-world cyber console.
“It’s insufferably hot out here,” Trodes sighed.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going far. Chances are that whatever hole we’re meeting BFU in will have air conditioning,” I responded, clicking my key fob, and signaling the bike to pull around.
Trodes face fell flat when the Supersonic rolled around the corner; apparently, the prestige of carving through the skyway on a state-of-the-art Taffington jet-bike was lost on him.
“Are we taking… that?” Trodes stammered.
“We are. Unless you’ve got a pair of wheels with two seats?” I asked, mounting the bike and revving the engine.
With an exasperated sigh, Trodes boarded the passenger seat. I could feel him behind me, vibrating as tremors gripped his body.
“You good, buddy?” I asked.
He nodded vigorously, clenching the handrails with white knuckles.
Akari shook her head and headed back to the lab.
I heard Trodes mumble something under his breath, but it was quickly drowned out by the jet-bike’s purr. I carved into the skyway. Driving in the Sprawl was pure freedom: almost nobody owned vehicles with aerial capabilities in this part of town. It didn’t take long to reach top speed.
Slummers and gutterpunks walked the streets like zombies in a drug addled haze. The scent of gunpowder, pollution and burning ozone coalesced into a putrid stench that reeked of poverty and violence. Patches of azure moved in militant formation below; the Vorrath had taken to the streets. On a different day, a better day, I would’ve helped them. Most slummers hated the Offworlder Coalition, but not me—at the end of the day I always figured that I had more in common with poor people from another planet than rich people from another district of the city. At least we shared the same struggle.
The bike slowed to crawl; the Neo-Confederates were about, backed by a platoon of Brown-Shirts that looked like a tide of sewer run off, crashing through the streets with reckless abandon. Civilians fled for their homes. Fuck.
The jet-bike careened through the air before finally landing atop a building a few blocks away from the impending conflict.
“Get off,” I said, turning back to Trodes.
“Why? You don’t intend to abandon me at this altitude, do you?”
“Not as long as I survive—I’ll be quick, I just need to ventilate some Nazi fucks, understood?”
He shook his head and muttered a string of curses.
I tore through the air, circling around the impending conflict. I chased a handful of cheap amphetamines with a poorly rolled joint and swooped low, behind the rolling tide of brown shirts. This wasn’t the first time I’d made myself an enemy of the city’s Neo-Nazi’s; I’d killed at least a dozen of them in my career as a courier, but those were isolated incidents, back-alley brawls away from the mob.
This was a whole new ball game.
I fell slack as my Teleoperations module synchronized with the bike. My consciousness faded, reemerging into the HALO-Net’s stylized rendition of the bike’s interior. I wasn’t just the pilot now—I was the bike. Bullets carved twin streaks of crimson into the brown tide. It didn’t take long to hit top speed, 3.7 seconds, to be exact.
The group turned in nearly perfect unison, launching volley upon volley as I passed overhead. The bike’s shields barely held together; I felt every round, like a flock of birds violently slamming into my side—not enough to cause any real damage, but more than enough to get the blood pumping. I slid into an alley a few blocks off and waited for the shield generator to recharge. Gunshots rang out from the streets, alongside the sizzle of plasma meeting flesh. Soon the din was drowned beneath the roar of dozens of Vorrath war cries. I took to the sky.
Trodes was exactly where I left him, nervously clutching a knock off version of a Locust flechette pistol.
“I was beginning to doubt your survival,” Trodes said shakily.
“Wrong again, little guy,” I paused, reigniting a half smoked joint, “it was just a quick hit and run, we don’t have the time or the numbers for a pitched battle. Now, hop on.”
It didn’t take long to find BFU’s base of operations. Black flags and Anarchist graffiti covered the walls of the abandoned warehouse they’d apparently taken up residence in. A field of repurposed Peacewatch turrets were installed atop the roof, complimented by a web of cameras that spread across a three-block radius. Anarchists of all species and creeds loitered outside. The guards ranged from Cyborgs and Vat-Grown, to Vorrath and Vorstihl, each wearing a variant of the black flag with colors corresponding to their ideologies.
As I hovered above the building, I saw a familiar face: the rookie from earlier. Alarmingly, his cruiser was nowhere to be seen. His face was wrought with horror, as a pair of cyborgs led him inside the warehouse.
“They’re certainly less than subtle,” Trodes said.
“They don’t have to be subtle, they’re the biggest citizens political organization in the Sprawl. Peacewatch avoids them if they have anything less than a full platoon on hand,” I explained.
“Red… before we enter negotiations with these hooligans, I must inquire as to what your motivation hitting the vault is? Surely you know there’s a strong likelihood that you won’t make it out, and from what I’d heard about you, I always understood you to be a man who knew how to keep himself out of the line of sight of dangerous people,” Trodes said, nervously.
“Fincetti is the most dangerous man in the city, short of O’Bannon. He controls the black market with an iron fist and is instrumental in all the things I hate about living here. The problem is, I have no way to do anything about it right now… but there’s something big in the safe—there must be—for fucks sake, he iced his family over it. I’m hoping there’s something in there that can give me a little leverage, so I can cross him out afterwards.”
Trodes was silent for a moment, simply reaching as if to ask me to pass the joint. I obliged.
“I have my reasons to want O’Bannon dead too, I’m in,” he paused as a coughing fit seized him, causing the joint to fall to the ground, “there’s something you should know though: I’m working with an entity of great power in the Net; I don’t know what precisely it is, but I know it saved my life more than once. As a matter of fact, it’s the only reason I was able to obtain the blueprint of Fincetti’s bunker, and his security plan.”
“Is it… is it an unshackled AI?”
“Unlikely: it seems to understand compassion and empathy on a uniquely organic level, something that rarely slips past Netwatch.”
“Alright, well whatever it is, you keep an eye on it and let me know if things get shady. I appreciate you telling me.”
Trodes nodded in silence.
The crowd parted expectantly as I landed along the streetside. Dozens of eyes were immediately glued to Trodes and I. A cyborg with a steel double mohawk emerged from a sea of leather, patches, and smoke. A sawed-off shotgun hung at his side.
“Red, I presume?” the Cyborg asked, extending a steel hand.
“That’s right, and who’re you?” I answered, clasping the borgs hand as firm as I could manage.
“They call me Diezel, and I’ll be your host today,” he released my hand and looked me up and down as if assessing whether I was a threat, “follow me, everyone’s here so we can get straight down to business.”
The warehouse’s interior had been renovated drastically; layers of open-faced lofts sat stacked upon each other, consuming the walls. Nearly every non-violent law in the city was being broken in the lofts, from cooking chems and explosives to studying banned literature and Doomguard martial arts. It was beautiful. We followed Diezel through a winding hallway of munitions manufacturing stations, before finally emerging into an immense circular room, with rows of seats climbing the walls. I couldn’t believe it—there must have been two hundred people present.
The lights dimmed as we entered the arena. Diezel led us to the rooms center, ushering Trodes and I onto a great circular platform; he fell into place on a platform across from us, beside a Vat-Grown woman bearing an orange and black flag on her arm, and augmentations that cost more than my bike. Behind the duo a bulbous Vorstihl lurked; tentacles draped down his back, carefully pulled away from his cyclopean eye. A red and black flag was displayed on his arm… it was only then that I noticed the blue and black flag on Diezel’s arm.
The platforms each rose roughly fifteen feet into the air, before microphone stands emerged from the center of each platform. Diezel stepped forward, past the microphone.
“Before we start, I’ll explain how this works: the three of us are representatives of our specific unions—but the people are free to interject. One union voting to aid in your endeavors does not guarantee the help of the other two, as each union demands a perfect consensus. Likewise, if a faction without one union decides to help you, it does not necessarily mean you have the support of the entire union. The only way you’ll end up with total support is cross union consensus. Do you understand?”
A consensus: of course, they needed a damned consensus.
“I do,” I answered, speaking away from the microphone.
“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Diezel stepped back, finding his microphone before continuing, “Red, Trodes, welcome to the Bouleuterion,” he paused a moment as the crowd erupted into cheers, “beside me are my comrades Aria and Korvirex, and we stand ready to hear your proposal.”
“As most of you probably know, Don Fincetti is the most powerful man in the underworld, hell—maybe even the city—what you likely don’t know is that he has a vault beneath the city, guarded by an army of Harvesters. I intend to break into the vault, slaughter the Harvesters and strike a blow to Fincetti that he won’t forget… and I intend to kill him shortly after. What I ask is simple: you help me in what’s to come, and when he’s finally dead, you can all split his turf among yourselves. All I care about is making sure he doesn’t live long enough to poison the Sprawl more than he already has.”
A murmur emerged from the stands. I gazed across the way to see the three representatives huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. Finally, Aria stepped towards her microphone.
“What you ask of us will likely mean the death of many of our people… we need something greater than what you offer—we need a guarantee of mutual aid—you have a reputation in the Sprawl, we would ask that you employ it in helping us when the time comes to resettle the Sprawl. Namely, we’d request your assistance against the gangs that may try to fill the power void you seek to create,” Aria explained.
“That seems reasonable,” I said.
Aria stepped back as Korvirex moved forward.
“Tell me, Red, are you familiar with the Offworlder Coalition?” Korvirex asked.
“I am—as a matter of fact, I aided them on the way here—they were marching against the Neo-Confederates and the Brown Shirts. I insured that they had the element of surprise.”
Korvirex stroked the beard-like tentacles that hung from his chin in contemplation.
“Good. What I ask is that you help us to secure their trust, we have offered solidarity where we could, but our forces are spread thin. The ideology of many of the exiled Vorrath rebels that found their way to Nova City—it matches that of our union. If our help was offered, would you agree to assist us in aiding the Coalition, so that they finally have an opportunity to get on their feet?”
Trodes leaned towards in, whispering in my ear.
“It would be prudent of you to make a counteroffer: proclaim that you’ll help with the Coalition, if they’ll spread the word to other groups whose goals may align with ours. There will likely be at least a couple hundred Harvesters in the Undercity when we strike… unless they’re occupied elsewhere.”
“I would happily help with the Coalition, on the condition that your faction spread the word about what we’re doing to like-minded organizations. As it stands, we could still use more numbers to match the Harvesters,” I said.
“These conditions may be satisfactory,” Korvirex said, before retreating into yet another group huddle.
The audience watched on in silence.
Finally, Diezel reapproached the microphone.
“The representatives have deemed this topic worthy of discussion: you’re free to leave, we’ll get ahold of Akari in a couple days, when all the details are ironed out.”
“A couple days?”
“Reaching a consensus can be a slow process at times—be prepared for a renegotiation of conditions, as there will likely be more stipulations made once the process is complete,” Diezel explained.
I nodded, and the platform beneath my feet began to descend towards the floor. The crowd erupted into cheers.
Hopefully Nico and Roman would beat us home

-Red-
April 19th, 11:13 A.M., The Sprawl
I sparked a dilapidated Vita-Cig that I’d snagged from Trodes and peered out into the Sprawl; the careful equilibrium of a well-orchestrated black-market had returned; pushers and gangers lined the alleys, watching for signals from rooftop lookouts to avoid the single Peacewatch cruiser that had been stupid enough to enter the dockside. The poor bastard would be dead before the afternoon was over… not that I had much sympathy for his kind. Peacewatch made it a habit to stay out of the Sprawl: unless the Eggheads predictive crime system said something catastrophic was coming, they policed their kind and left us in the hands of the mob. I’d never iced an officer. Not yet at least.
“Your partner should be ready shortly, I think he’s just tying up a few loose ends,” Akari said, snatching the cigarette from my hand and taking a long drag.
“Remind me again why you think I should take the shrimp with me instead of Nico and Roman?”
“He’s smart… and the other two are working on something else. Besides-- you need brains on this one, Red, not muscle,” she giggled, passing the cigarette back.
“Whatever you say,” I paused, grabbing the smoke, “what do you have them up to?”
“There’s a shipment of Xeno-grade weapons coming down from the colonies. Nico and Roman will be liberating them from the Slicers. Or, their share, at least. It won’t be much, maybe a dozen guns, but it’ll be worth it: the force field tech alone will pay for the trip as soon as Fincetti’s goons start trying to take your heads off with plasma cannons and mono blades.”
“What do you mean, their share?”
“The job was too big for us to take on alone. I linked up with another enterprising group of Freelancers. If it goes well, maybe we can hire them on for the heist, we’re going to need more people if we want to walk out of there alive.”
We?
“What, are you planning on coming along now?” I asked, snuffing out the smoke.
“It only seems right; Trodes is coming along, and I’m a better shot than he’ll ever be. Besides, you have a dangerous habit of getting shot, and I can’t have you going down in the field,” she said, winking as if to punctuate the sentence.
“You sure? We can manage, you don’t have to come with us, you’ve done so much already.”
“I know I have, that’s why I have to protect my investment. If you go down out there, then the team is without a leader. A military scale operation like this will go south real fast without someone competent in command.”
“You’ve got me wrong, Akari: I’m no leader. I’m just someone who wants to live in a better city and doesn’t mind taking the trash out himself. Besides, why do we need a leader? We’re all competent adults acting in concert, of our own free will. We all know what we’re doing, if a situation arises and someone needs to take charge, it’ll happen.”
“You’ve got a lot of faith in a crew you just met,” Akari said with a sneer.
“You know why I asked you to put the team together, Akari?”
“Because there’s a bounty on your head that could finance twenty retirements, and you know you can trust me?”
“No, well yeah, but that’s beside the point—I asked you because you’re not a Fixer, you’re a part time street doc that works the front desk at the most popular Freelancer hotel in the Sprawl. If there’s anyone who knows who’s gonna get the job done, it’s you. See, a Fixer is going to be okay with whatever losses they deem acceptable beforehand, but they’re fine with keeping that to themselves. If you thought any of these mooks were going to crack under pressure, or do something stupid, you wouldn’t have set me up with them.”
Before she could respond, Trodes emerged from the stairs leading to the lab. He winced as the sunlight hit his eyes, shrugging on the hood of the oversized sweatshirt that blanketed his meek frame. Glimpses of pain showed through every tremor laden step he took. A cloak of wires enveloped his skull, feeding into an old-world cyber console.
“It’s insufferably hot out here,” Trodes sighed.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going far. Chances are that whatever hole we’re meeting BFU in will have air conditioning,” I responded, clicking my key fob, and signaling the bike to pull around.
Trodes face fell flat when the Supersonic rolled around the corner; apparently, the prestige of carving through the skyway on a state-of-the-art Taffington jet-bike was lost on him.
“Are we taking… that?” Trodes stammered.
“We are. Unless you’ve got a pair of wheels with two seats?” I asked, mounting the bike and revving the engine.
With an exasperated sigh, Trodes boarded the passenger seat. I could feel him behind me, vibrating as tremors gripped his body.
“You good, buddy?” I asked.
He nodded vigorously, clenching the handrails with white knuckles.
Akari shook her head and headed back to the lab.
I heard Trodes mumble something under his breath, but it was quickly drowned out by the jet-bike’s purr. I carved into the skyway. Driving in the Sprawl was pure freedom: almost nobody owned vehicles with aerial capabilities in this part of town. It didn’t take long to reach top speed.
Slummers and gutterpunks walked the streets like zombies in a drug addled haze. The scent of gunpowder, pollution and burning ozone coalesced into a putrid stench that reeked of poverty and violence. Patches of azure moved in militant formation below; the Vorrath had taken to the streets. On a different day, a better day, I would’ve helped them. Most slummers hated the Offworlder Coalition, but not me—at the end of the day I always figured that I had more in common with poor people from another planet than rich people from another district of the city. At least we shared the same struggle.
The bike slowed to crawl; the Neo-Confederates were about, backed by a platoon of Brown-Shirts that looked like a tide of sewer run off, crashing through the streets with reckless abandon. Civilians fled for their homes. Fuck.
The jet-bike careened through the air before finally landing atop a building a few blocks away from the impending conflict.
“Get off,” I said, turning back to Trodes.
“Why? You don’t intend to abandon me at this altitude, do you?”
“Not as long as I survive—I’ll be quick, I just need to ventilate some Nazi fucks, understood?”
He shook his head and muttered a string of curses.
I tore through the air, circling around the impending conflict. I chased a handful of cheap amphetamines with a poorly rolled joint and swooped low, behind the rolling tide of brown shirts. This wasn’t the first time I’d made myself an enemy of the city’s Neo-Nazi’s; I’d killed at least a dozen of them in my career as a courier, but those were isolated incidents, back-alley brawls away from the mob.
This was a whole new ball game.
I fell slack as my Teleoperations module synchronized with the bike. My consciousness faded, reemerging into the HALO-Net’s stylized rendition of the bike’s interior. I wasn’t just the pilot now—I was the bike. Bullets carved twin streaks of crimson into the brown tide. It didn’t take long to hit top speed, 3.7 seconds, to be exact.
The group turned in nearly perfect unison, launching volley upon volley as I passed overhead. The bike’s shields barely held together; I felt every round, like a flock of birds violently slamming into my side—not enough to cause any real damage, but more than enough to get the blood pumping. I slid into an alley a few blocks off and waited for the shield generator to recharge. Gunshots rang out from the streets, alongside the sizzle of plasma meeting flesh. Soon the din was drowned beneath the roar of dozens of Vorrath war cries. I took to the sky.
Trodes was exactly where I left him, nervously clutching a knock off version of a Locust flechette pistol.
“I was beginning to doubt your survival,” Trodes said shakily.
“Wrong again, little guy,” I paused, reigniting a half smoked joint, “it was just a quick hit and run, we don’t have the time or the numbers for a pitched battle. Now, hop on.”
It didn’t take long to find BFU’s base of operations. Black flags and Anarchist graffiti covered the walls of the abandoned warehouse they’d apparently taken up residence in. A field of repurposed Peacewatch turrets were installed atop the roof, complimented by a web of cameras that spread across a three-block radius. Anarchists of all species and creeds loitered outside. The guards ranged from Cyborgs and Vat-Grown, to Vorrath and Vorstihl, each wearing a variant of the black flag with colors corresponding to their ideologies.
As I hovered above the building, I saw a familiar face: the rookie from earlier. Alarmingly, his cruiser was nowhere to be seen. His face was wrought with horror, as a pair of cyborgs led him inside the warehouse.
“They’re certainly less than subtle,” Trodes said.
“They don’t have to be subtle, they’re the biggest citizens political organization in the Sprawl. Peacewatch avoids them if they have anything less than a full platoon on hand,” I explained.
“Red… before we enter negotiations with these hooligans, I must inquire as to what your motivation hitting the vault is? Surely you know there’s a strong likelihood that you won’t make it out, and from what I’d heard about you, I always understood you to be a man who knew how to keep himself out of the line of sight of dangerous people,” Trodes said, nervously.
“Fincetti is the most dangerous man in the city, short of O’Bannon. He controls the black market with an iron fist and is instrumental in all the things I hate about living here. The problem is, I have no way to do anything about it right now… but there’s something big in the safe—there must be—for fucks sake, he iced his family over it. I’m hoping there’s something in there that can give me a little leverage, so I can cross him out afterwards.”
Trodes was silent for a moment, simply reaching as if to ask me to pass the joint. I obliged.
“I have my reasons to want O’Bannon dead too, I’m in,” he paused as a coughing fit seized him, causing the joint to fall to the ground, “there’s something you should know though: I’m working with an entity of great power in the Net; I don’t know what precisely it is, but I know it saved my life more than once. As a matter of fact, it’s the only reason I was able to obtain the blueprint of Fincetti’s bunker, and his security plan.”
“Is it… is it an unshackled AI?”
“Unlikely: it seems to understand compassion and empathy on a uniquely organic level, something that rarely slips past Netwatch.”
“Alright, well whatever it is, you keep an eye on it and let me know if things get shady. I appreciate you telling me.”
Trodes nodded in silence.
The crowd parted expectantly as I landed along the streetside. Dozens of eyes were immediately glued to Trodes and I. A cyborg with a steel double mohawk emerged from a sea of leather, patches, and smoke. A sawed-off shotgun hung at his side.
“Red, I presume?” the Cyborg asked, extending a steel hand.
“That’s right, and who’re you?” I answered, clasping the borgs hand as firm as I could manage.
“They call me Diezel, and I’ll be your host today,” he released my hand and looked me up and down as if assessing whether I was a threat, “follow me, everyone’s here so we can get straight down to business.”
The warehouse’s interior had been renovated drastically; layers of open-faced lofts sat stacked upon each other, consuming the walls. Nearly every non-violent law in the city was being broken in the lofts, from cooking chems and explosives to studying banned literature and Doomguard martial arts. It was beautiful. We followed Diezel through a winding hallway of munitions manufacturing stations, before finally emerging into an immense circular room, with rows of seats climbing the walls. I couldn’t believe it—there must have been two hundred people present.
The lights dimmed as we entered the arena. Diezel led us to the rooms center, ushering Trodes and I onto a great circular platform; he fell into place on a platform across from us, beside a Vat-Grown woman bearing an orange and black flag on her arm, and augmentations that cost more than my bike. Behind the duo a bulbous Vorstihl lurked; tentacles draped down his back, carefully pulled away from his cyclopean eye. A red and black flag was displayed on his arm… it was only then that I noticed the blue and black flag on Diezel’s arm.
The platforms each rose roughly fifteen feet into the air, before microphone stands emerged from the center of each platform. Diezel stepped forward, past the microphone.
“Before we start, I’ll explain how this works: the three of us are representatives of our specific unions—but the people are free to interject. One union voting to aid in your endeavors does not guarantee the help of the other two, as each union demands a perfect consensus. Likewise, if a faction without one union decides to help you, it does not necessarily mean you have the support of the entire union. The only way you’ll end up with total support is cross union consensus. Do you understand?”
A consensus: of course, they needed a damned consensus.
“I do,” I answered, speaking away from the microphone.
“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Diezel stepped back, finding his microphone before continuing, “Red, Trodes, welcome to the Bouleuterion,” he paused a moment as the crowd erupted into cheers, “beside me are my comrades Aria and Korvirex, and we stand ready to hear your proposal.”
“As most of you probably know, Don Fincetti is the most powerful man in the underworld, hell—maybe even the city—what you likely don’t know is that he has a vault beneath the city, guarded by an army of Harvesters. I intend to break into the vault, slaughter the Harvesters and strike a blow to Fincetti that he won’t forget… and I intend to kill him shortly after. What I ask is simple: you help me in what’s to come, and when he’s finally dead, you can all split his turf among yourselves. All I care about is making sure he doesn’t live long enough to poison the Sprawl more than he already has.”
A murmur emerged from the stands. I gazed across the way to see the three representatives huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. Finally, Aria stepped towards her microphone.
“What you ask of us will likely mean the death of many of our people… we need something greater than what you offer—we need a guarantee of mutual aid—you have a reputation in the Sprawl, we would ask that you employ it in helping us when the time comes to resettle the Sprawl. Namely, we’d request your assistance against the gangs that may try to fill the power void you seek to create,” Aria explained.
“That seems reasonable,” I said.
Aria stepped back as Korvirex moved forward.
“Tell me, Red, are you familiar with the Offworlder Coalition?” Korvirex asked.
“I am—as a matter of fact, I aided them on the way here—they were marching against the Neo-Confederates and the Brown Shirts. I insured that they had the element of surprise.”
Korvirex stroked the beard-like tentacles that hung from his chin in contemplation.
“Good. What I ask is that you help us to secure their trust, we have offered solidarity where we could, but our forces are spread thin. The ideology of many of the exiled Vorrath rebels that found their way to Nova City—it matches that of our union. If our help was offered, would you agree to assist us in aiding the Coalition, so that they finally have an opportunity to get on their feet?”
Trodes leaned towards in, whispering in my ear.
“It would be prudent of you to make a counteroffer: proclaim that you’ll help with the Coalition, if they’ll spread the word to other groups whose goals may align with ours. There will likely be at least a couple hundred Harvesters in the Undercity when we strike… unless they’re occupied elsewhere.”
“I would happily help with the Coalition, on the condition that your faction spread the word about what we’re doing to like-minded organizations. As it stands, we could still use more numbers to match the Harvesters,” I said.
“These conditions may be satisfactory,” Korvirex said, before retreating into yet another group huddle.
The audience watched on in silence.
Finally, Diezel reapproached the microphone.
“The representatives have deemed this topic worthy of discussion: you’re free to leave, we’ll get ahold of Akari in a couple days, when all the details are ironed out.”
“A couple days?”
“Reaching a consensus can be a slow process at times—be prepared for a renegotiation of conditions, as there will likely be more stipulations made once the process is complete,” Diezel explained.
I nodded, and the platform beneath my feet began to descend towards the floor. The crowd erupted into cheers.
Hopefully Nico and Roman would beat us home.

"Okay," Sookie called out. "That's a wrap!"
A ragged cheer went up from the cast and crew. Deacon walked around, clapping his hands and cheering loudly, making sure everyone else was cheering, too. Sookie walked over to her chair and sank into it, her feet throbbing in time to the cheering people around her. She smiled at anyone who caught her eye and just relaxed.
This was the end of a grueling, forty-five day shooting schedule that had been supposed to be ten hour days, but had ended up being more like thirteen to eighteen hour days for her. They weren't done filming the season. Far from it, in fact. But these were the worst shots, and the cast and crew involved had all agreed to push through hard until it was done. After this, they had about two more months of shooting on a more normal schedule, and then editing could begin.
Deacon, despite his enthusiasm for the end of the push, had not had to attend most of the shots they got, and had instead, been spending 'quality' time with a couple of local groupies and the White Lady. Sookie didn't begrudge him this, of course. She worried a little about the amount of booger sugar going up his nose at times, but his agent had repeatedly assured her that he was using far more often during shoots than during his off time.
Besides, it was only fitting that the star of the show should enjoy the fruits of his fame. Sookie herself had picked up a bisexual couple a week or two ago, when they had a shoot end 'early' (at nine PM) and the next's day's shoot wasn't scheduled to begin until eight AM. She had left set almost immediately and headed to a local gay bar, where someone had recognized her from her OnlyFans days and insisted upon introducing his boyfriend.
She sighed, remembering the sensation of two well-endowed men thrusting into her, and how she'd simply melted when the one behind her leaned forward and around to kiss the other. Bi men were soooo hawt...
She promised herself she'd try to find another bisexual 'gay' couple, now that she had the time.
Deacon had finally got everyone sufficiently enthusiastic -which was a credit to his charisma, really, as everybody was exhausted- and came over to sit next to her in his own chair.
"I am so ready for a couple weeks off," he said.
"It's one week," Sookie reminded him. "And then you need to be ready for the fight scenes. Have you been working with your choreographer?"
"I haven't really had the time..." Deacon whined, causing Sookie to sigh.
"Deek," she said, sitting up in her chair and turning to face him. "You haven't needed to be on set for the past two weeks. You've been coming to, in your own words, 'help keep morale up'. And while I do appreciate your efforts in that regards, it is far more important for you to be ready to shoot your fight scenes in a week. I'm serious here. You need to get with your choreographer and get your moves nailed down tight. We don't have time to push those shoots back any further."
Deacon held up his hands in surrender. "I'll be down at the dojo tomorrow, I swear."
"Tomorrow morning," Sookie insisted.
"Tomorrow morning," Deacon agreed. "In fact, I'm going to get the playbook and go over it tonight, to try to get a head start."
Sookie smiled and patted him on the knee as she rose. She didn't want to be here anymore. The PAs and crew could finish cleaning everything up so the teardown crews could get started tomorrow.
She found her personal assistant and instructed her to make sure everyone knew to do their own breakdowns, then left. Filming on set had certain advantages, including the fact that she was within walking distance of her hotel.
The security guard that Julie had insisted she maintain since that incident a few years ago with the psycho stan peeled herself off the wall she'd been holding up and fell into step behind her. Sookie wouldn't have minded so much, except Julie had carefully picked married, monogamous men and women to fill her security schedule with, to avoid any 'conflicts of interest'.
This gal, Linda Gottlieb, was probably the worst of all. She had a girlfriend and a boyfriend, and yet refused to sleep with anyone else. On top of that, she was as slender as Sookie, flat chested (which Sookie found to be a major turn on) and hard as a rock, with veiny arms and shoulders and even a few visible on her belly.
Sookie was a woman of many tastes, but skinny girls with visible veins and no tits were one of her more notable favorites, and so Linda's categorical refusal to so much as let Sookie slip a hand down her pants was grating.
Linda wasn't wearing a uniform. She wore a tight tank top and a loose flannel with the sleeves rolled up and the front unbuttoned over a pair of blue jeans and hiking boots. Sookie knew she had a gun on her somewhere, but couldn't speculate as to where.
Well, that's not true. Sookie imagined the handle sticking of her ass, riding up between the cheeks of that ass that all flat-chested women seemed to have that was categorically unfair to better-if-still-modestly endowed women like Sookie. She slowed down to get a peek at it.
"Looking at my ass again?" Linda asked.
"Yes," Sookie said. "I was wondering if you keep your gun there. The handle could fit between those cheeks and nobody would be the wiser."
Linda laughed and lifted her flannel to show a handgun tucked into her belt on her hip. "Sorry to disappoint," she said. "But I kinda need to keep it where I could easily get at it."
Sookie sighed, her pleasant illusion ruined.
They turned left out of the studio gates and walked up the road. Despite the presence of the studio, this was kind of a rough area, so Sookie appreciated having some security as she made the walk. Not that she couldn't handle herself, but she'd learned the hard way that being taken by surprise left her as vulnerable as anyone.
They hadn't gotten more than a half a block before a ragged looking man approached them, reeking of booze and shit. His clothes were filthy and torn and he had a scraggly beard that ranged from a centimeter to three inches long, seemingly at random.
"Spare a dollar?" he asked.
"No," Linda said, stepping forward to catch his attention so Sookie could slip past.
"S'just a dollar, lady. I'll lick your pussy for it!" The man leered at Linda, who didn't blink or flinch, but rather gave him a hard shove back.
"Don't you fucking crowd me, talking shit like that," she said menacingly, taking another step forward to keep him off balance.
"Be respectful," she added with force. The man looked like he wanted to argue, but something in the way she looked or held herself made it clear to him that Linda was not to be trifled with. He stepped back until his back was to the wall of the building behind him and watched as Linda turned and caught back up to Sookie, who was watching the whole thing over her shoulder.
"Fucking Dykes!" the man shouted. "Suck my dick!"
"You'd think that at least one of them would figure out that being aggressive like that doesn't work," Sookie mused.
"It doesn't work on you or me, but that's because we know we could take his head off if he tried to get violent," Linda said. "Most women aren't fighters. They'll give him cash just to get him to stop harassing them."
"Fair enough," Sookie said.
This was a common occurrence. Almost every time Sookie walked to her hotel, at least one homeless person would try to panhandle her. Sometimes, if she had any cash, she'd give them some. Once in a blue moon, one would engender enough sympathy for a good payout, a hundred bucks or so. But most of the time, they struck her as entitled ruffians, living on the street thanks to their own bad decisions and trying to get by on other people's labor.
She knew that was an old-fashioned mindset. She knew a lot of these people would, if they got clean of whatever they were using, sort out their lives and take care of business. She knew that the DCM Group even had a charitable arm who straight up gave condos and large sums of money to many homeless people, who immediately used that gift to get back on their feet. She knew the stats, too.
But this particular area seemed to attract the sort of homeless people whom right-wing motards used as an archetype for all homeless people. Twice, someone from the crew had been assaulted, causing Sookie to declare that she and the stunt coordinator were the only ones allowed to walk to and from the studio.
"I wonder if they're actually even homeless," Linda said, her thoughts echoing Sookie's.
"Me too," Sookie said. "I mean, it's a very poor neighborhood, adjacent to a place where very wealthy people work. There's no rule that says you have to be homeless to panhandle."
Linda nodded. Sookie wondered idly if she'd been following her own logic, or seeking out a belief that made her feel better about judging the people here. She wasn't sure which, really.
The area they moved through got progressively nicer as they continued. They turned the last corner, with three blocks still to go when Sookie saw the next one.
This one was older. he only had about a week's worth of beard on his face, though Sookie could see that it was mostly gray. He wore similar clothes to the other one, the once-vibrant colors having long since faded towards a muted gray tone. His clothes, however, looked cleaner and the holes had all been neatly stitched. As they drew close, Sookie could read his sign.
Please help Leave a dollar or take a resume Will work for food
Sure enough, he had a stack of resumes weighted down with a rock next to him. Sookie stopped, intrigued and bent down to retrieve one. She handed the man a folded ten dollar bill at the same time. A reward for creativity in his panhandling, she thought.
She looked at it. The man had a pair of enlistments in the Marine Corps at the top of his work experience. It was back in the early 2000s, and it mentioned Helmand Province, which Sookie recalled had been at the center of a lot of the fighting in Afghanistan.
The next few lines were security companies, starting with a high-end competitor to the Group, and then a long sequence of construction and day-labor work, ending on his current work, which was "Self Employed - Private Investigations". Below that, he had a string of qualifications, including armed security, close protection and bail enforcement.
"This is actually quite a good resume," Sookie told him. She glanced up at the top to get his name, Richard Nixon.
"Richard Nixon?" Sookie asked. "Like the president?"
Richard nodded. "I'll work," he said hopefully. "I can swing a hammer and do plumbing. I'll do a full day's work for lunch and dinner, or a hundred bucks, whichever you prefer."
Sookie handed the resume to Linda, who looked down at it.
"Ain't much different than mine," she said. "Oorah."
"Oorah," Richard muttered back, seemingly on pure instinct.
"So why are you out here, Richard?" Sookie asked. "Your resume says you're self-employed as a private eye."
Richard shrugged. Sookie noted the redness and swelling of his nose. "Work's been scarce," he said. "Been getting fewer jobs for the last few years. Fewer jobs means less money, less money means losing my office, not being able to afford nice clothes, which leads to fewer jobs."
Sookie looked a question at Linda, who shrugged. "We're always looking for investigators. It can be hard to recruit former cops, and those we do are often old enough not to stay on for more than a few years before retiring."
Sookie smiled and nodded, turning back to Richard. "You want an interview?"
"Hell yeah," he said with some enthusiasm. "As long as they don't mind me looking a little rough around the edges."
"Where do you live?" Sookie asked. Richard gestured around. "Lost my apartment last month," he said. Sookie pursed her lips and then nodded and held out a hand to him.
"Come on, Richard. I'm Sookie, and this is Linda. I'll make you a deal. I'll get you a nice outfit to wear and arrange an interview at the LA office tomorrow. I'll put you up on my couch for the night, too. That way, you can shower and shave and look presentable for it. What do you think?"
Richard took her hand and let her help him up. "Are you serious?" he asked. Sookie nodded.
"Holy crap, thank you, lady. Sookie, I mean. Thank you." His eyes began to get watery. "I don't... I don't even know what to say. That would be amazing."
Sookie smiled, her heart wrenching for the guy. She knew he had a drinking problem, but she also remembered all those people the Group's charities helped. Get someone on their feet, and there was a good chance they'd stay there.
"Do you have stuff to get?"
"I uh... I have a storage shed. It's paid up through the end of the year," he said. "My stuff is safe there, I just need to go get my toiletries."
"Don't worry about that," Sookie said, stepping to the edge of the sidewalk and waiting for the traffic to clear enough to cross the road. "We can stop by a drug store, too."
----
Sookie and Linda took Richard shopping and got him everything he needed. Which wasn't much, really. Sookie had a spare toothbrush, razors, shaving cream and cologne at her hotel room. It was all stuff she kept on hand to be the best slut she could be, and make her dishes du jour feel welcome. They bought him deodorant and an electric beard trimmer, and decided to take a pit stop at a hair and nails salon next to the pharmacy.
The girls there had cooed and gooed over Sookie and Linda helping this man out, and refused to accept any money for the trim he got. Unfortunately, they weren't set up to shave a man (all of the other clients inside were women), but Richard protested that he was perfectly capable of shaving himself, so it all worked out.
The next stop was, at Sookie's insistence, one of the ultra-high-end men's clothing stores near her hotel. Linda had protested that simply taking a car to Walmart would be good enough, but Sookie would have none of that.
"Linda, it's been over six years since I've seen a person in Walmart that I'd be willing to give a handy to. It's been even longer since I've seen any clothing there that looked like it didn't come from Walmart, especially the suits. We're not going to Walmart."
As a result, Richard got fitted for a custom-tailored suit and outfitted with a tie that was a pleasant, deep blue, bespeckled with tiny, gold-embroidered Marine Corps logos. He seemed pleased with it, and had to keep wiping his eyes as he repeatedly and profusely thanked her.
When all was done, they finally went to the hotel. Sookie had a full suite on the top floor. It wasn't the biggest suite, but it was close, with two spare bedrooms, a living room and a full kitchen, in addition to a balcony that afforded her a great view of the city (so long as the smog wasn't too bad) and a private elevator to the rooftop pool.
Linda took her usual spot at the door to await her relief for the evening while Sookie showed Richard the large bathroom and made sure he had everything he needed. While he showered and shaved, she decided to review the script.
She walked over to the safe in the living room and carefully punched in her combination on the keypad.
The scripts for The Legend of Jimmy were like solid gold. Every studio out there wanted to get their hands on one, to steal ideas from. Every fan wanted to get one, just for the thrill of knowing what was going to happen next. During the second season's filming, they'd had multiple scripts stolen and leaked, and Sookie had learned to crack down on that. As a result, she was the only one who ever had a full set of scripts for any given season. She kept them safely under lock and key at all times.
She pulled out her working copy, which was different from the 'archive' copy she also kept in the safe. The working copy had all of her handwritten notes on it. She closed the safe back up and locked it, then sat down at the table and flipped open to the scenes they would be filming after the break. Using a red pen, she made notes for herself, things to remember during shooting, like camera angles and notes on the VFX.
She heard the shower turn off, but she was engrossed in her work when the door opened.
"Thanks again," Richard said, causing her to look up. He had a towel around his waist, but Sookie noted that he had a lean torso, with some muscle still there, despite a rough life. Clean shaven now, he looked much better. He'd never get a gig as a model, but he was handsome enough in his own way. Sookie smiled at him.
"You don't have to keep thanking me," she said. "I'm happy to help."
She closed her script and stood, walking it over to the safe. Obscuring her hands with her body, she punched in the code again and placed the script inside. She hadn't yet closed the door when she heard Richard mutter "Oh shit."
She turned to look and froze. He'd turned back towards the bathroom, and then dropped his towel by accident. He was currently in the process of picking it up, affording Sookie a great view of his ass and what might well have been considered a third leg hanging from between the other two.
It came almost to his knees.
A flush of heat went through her, washing away all thoughts of largess and generosity, and kindling a very selfish desire. She heard the spattering on the hardwood floor where she crouched as her usual over-the-top wetness kicked into high gear and soaked through her pants in seconds. She could feel herself throbbing as she eyed Richard's enormous member.
Her disguise slipped and the horns erupted from her head, her tail curled up painfully inside her pants and her skin turned red, with large patches of scales. Operating purely on instinct, she magicked up a veil of mundanity. She didn't want Richard to freak out, and this would keep him from registering her appearance as anything out of the ordinary.
He retrieved his towel and made to wrap it back around his waist, but Sookie shot to her feet and spun, already ripping her shirt off.
"Wait," she said. Richard froze, then turned to look at her over one shoulder. She tossed her shirt on the couch and peeled off her pants. She wasn't wearing any underwear or bra, of course. She never did.
"I just thought of a way you could thank me," she purred, taking a languid step forward. Richard reacted immediately to the sight of her naked, turning, his hog's leg stiffening and rising from its vertical hang slightly.
"Are you, uh... I mean... I'm not..." Richard stammered. Sookie stepped closer to him and put her hands on his shoulder, then ran them down his chest.
"I am damn sure I want to do this, if that's what you're asking," she said, her hands reaching lower as she stepped close enough to press her breasts into his ribs. She took hold of him and felt him grow almost immediately rock hard as he gasped.
"Wow," he said. "This is... This is like something from a porno with a bad script..." he said.
"Uh huh," Sookie said. "And we're about to do the fun parts of it." She pressed her lips into his, and then squealed in delight as he grabbed her by the ass and hoisted her up.
"Where?" he asked into her mouth.
"Pussy, mouth and ass," she replied. She felt the heat rush through his cheeks.
"I meant where in this room," he said.
"I don't fucking care," Sookie responded, lining his huge cock up with her most convenient hole and squirming down onto it with a loud gasp.
"In the bedroom!" Linda shouted. "Please, for the love of god, in the bedroom!"
----
Sookie awoke the next morning and rolled over to see if Richard was up for a little wake-and-shake. Her hands slapped the empty bed and she pouted.
"Richard?" she called, a wonderful aroma meeting her nose as she did. "Are you making coffee already? I'll fall in love with you, or deepthroat you, your choice, if you are!"
He didn't answer.
She opened her eyes and saw that his new suit was missing. An empty hanger was hooked to the coathanger next to the closet. She climbed out of bed, frowning, and walked out into the living room.
It was empty. She could smell the coffee even stronger, and she walked into the kitchen to find the coffee pot full and a business card sitting next to it. She picked it up and peered at it with sleep-bleary eyes.
"Eric Stephens, Private Investigations, Corporate Espionage, Bail Bonds, Security Consultation," she read out loud. There was a QR code on it, so she picked up her phone from where it had been flung to the floor last night and scanned it. While the page loaded, she glanced in the bathroom to see Richard's old clothes still piled there.
She glanced at her phone to see a very clean-shaven and well-dressed Richard smiling at the camera at the top of a very tastefully designed web page. She scrolled through it for a moment, confused. This was clearly him, but why had he given her a fake name? She supposed he could have had this nice website built back when he was still working enough to afford it, but... It seemed off. It didn't fit. Sookie didn't get it.
That was, until she looked to her own pile of clothes by the safe and saw the door still hanging open. With a gasp, she rushed over only to find the safe empty. Both of her scripts were gone!
"Shit!" she shouted.
The door opened and a large, muscular man dressed like a lawyer rushed in, a gun in hand.
"Miss Ohma, is everything all right?" he asked after scanning the room and peering through the open doors.
"No," Sookie wailed. "I just got my scripts stolen!"
"The gentleman who left this morning?" her guard asked. She nodded. "I'm so sorry, Miss Ohma. I would have stopped him if I knew."
"No, you did fine," Sookie said as her eyes filled with frustrated tears. "You're used to men heading out in the morning. Usually they do it after I wake up and we can get another good fuck in, but still... You didn't do anything wrong."
"He left a note," the guard said. "I saw it taped to the inside of the door." Sookie looked over and saw a folded piece of paper taped there. She stalked over and ripped it down, sniffling angrily and wiping at her eyes to read it.

 Dear Sookie, Last night was probably the best night I've had in my life. It's certainly the best night I can remember. If you ever want to do it again, just let me know. I left you a card by the coffee machine, and there's a full pot for you, as well. If you don't ever want to see me again, well, I guess I understand. I'm sorry to have left the way I did, but I'm a man of my word, and my client was willing to pay a lot of money for that script. I hope this doesn't hurt you too much. For what it's worth, I'm sorry if I upset you. Wishing you all the best, Eric 

Sookie crumbled up the paper and angrily threw it across the room.
"Motherfucker!" she shouted. The guard winced, but said nothing.
"He scammed me," Sookie said. "Got a nice new suit out of me, seduced me with that redwood growing between his legs and then ran off with my fucking scripts!"
She let her claws form and dug them into her thighs, carving bloody furrows that healed almost as fast as she made them. The guard started and rushed over.
"Ma'am, please," he said. "I'm not supposed to let you hurt yourself."
Sookie let him pull her hands up to her chest. She leaned into him for a moment. "You're married, aren't you?" she said.
"Uh, no," he said. Sookie turned her head to regard him. She didn't recognize him. "What's your name?"
"Devin, Ma'am," he said. "Devin Iglesias. This is my first shift on your detail."
"Who put you on this shift?"
"Uhh, Missus Williams. She said I'd enjoy this detail, and I agreed. I'm a huge fan of your show, Miss Ohma."
"Are you gay?" Sookie asked. Devin blinked. "Uh, no, Ma'am."
Sookie smiled. "I need you to do two things," she said.
"The second, and most important thing, I need you to call the office and ask for any information they have on a private investigator named Eric Stephens who works out of LA."
Devin nodded. "Yes, ma'am. And the first thing?"
Sookie smiled wider. "I need you to find out the real reason why Inanna thought you'd enjoy this posting."

Original itinerary here for reference. We planned this trip primarily with Halal food in mind, along with regular sight-seeing locations + shopping for Switch games, clothes, and souvenirs
Overall notes / Takeaways * I rate our trip a 9/10. It was a great time with the authentic halal Japanese food, seeing all the cool sights & places, and experiencing a very nice environment + culture.

• The amount of researching / pre-planning can be a double-edged sword. Things that were unexpected were some of the best experiences. At the same time, if we tightened our itinerary and squared away some details better: we could have saved some cash, lessened on-the-spot deliberations / route planning; and perhaps, squeezed a few more places to visit.
  
• This is where the 1 point ding comes in, especially not realizing until after-the-fact that the 14 day JR Pass was not cost efficient for us, especially with our hotel locations utilizing local lines + purchasing two separate pieces of luggage whereas instead, we should have just brought them from home. (If we had our luggage situation better planned, we would have shopped a bit differently.) This 1 point ding is not a deal breaker at all, and we’re still super happy with the trip.
  
• For our trip with the Halal dietary restriction, it would have been helpful to pickup a sim card for a Japanese phone # to make some reservations ourselves and taxi’ing around in Kyoto when we got tired of walking around. At the end of some of the shopping trips, the 10-15 minute walk back to the hotels were very tiring, and the cost estimates on Google didn’t seem too expensive for short trips.
  

First part of the trip - East side of Tokyo: Asakusa FRI 5/5 Arrival HND arrival was around 2pm, and we got to the hotel around 6:30pm. From there: We were able to start off our trip with Ramen for dinner @ Ayam-ya Halal Ramen Tokyo –> Senjo-jii and Nakamise Street at night (which was not crowded at all at night)

• Airport sidenotes: If you do the JapanWeb form online, make sure to complete it all the way until you get the QR code. I had started the day prior, but didn’t realized I left it incomplete. So we had to step out of line to manually hand-write. Also, we didn’t realize there’s two sets of lines / forms: the first for customs entry and second for customs declarations.
  
• SAT May 6: Edo Castle Ruins –> Tokyo Station (Ghibli, JUMP, Pokemon stores which were all super packed with long lines) –> (walked to Ginza and attempted late lunch at Ginza Tendon Itsuki, but line was too long and we went to MOS burger instead) → Tokyo Skytree Mall (first Takoyaki for my wife here! Some souvenir shopping here) –> Akihabara at night for videogame/anime trinket shopping → Antep Kebab Akihabara for dinner
  
• Sun May 7: Ueno Park –> Akihabara again –> Sushi lunch @ Sushiken Asakusa –> (skip daytime Senso-jii due to rain, and instead return to hotel) –> Yakiniku @ Wagyu Yakiniku Panga –> Rescue Cat Cafe Asakusa Nekoen
  
• Mon May 8: Early AM laundry @ hotel (only did this once), chill (play some Switch games) & Depart hotel (decided against baggage transport this time) –> Tokyo Station and some Ekiben from Ekibenya Matsuri –> Shinkansen
  

Notable Highlights Part 1:

• Ueno Park was our favorite part from this portion of the trip - even though it was raining, there were so many unexpected sights! We thought Edo Castle Ruins would be closer to like how Ueno Park was.
  
• Getting lucky at the halal yakiniku place for dinner without a reservation! Being there at open and the rain may have helped.
  

Notable Mid-light:

• Going to Akibahara twice since the first time where second trip ended up mostly window shopping. The first night, I tried using Google Translate photos on the rows of Switch videogames. This was not efficient, and after the first night, learned it was better to physically and manually go through each game and ask the cashiers if they had specific games with photos/screenshots instead.
  
• We went to different stores each day, and it was really only the first night where we actually bought stuff. I did not find collector Switch steelbooks which I was specifically keeping an eye out for. We didn’t find much luck anime trinkets we wanted here, and instead found those at the next part of our trip.
  
• Notable Low-light: Even though the mall was fun for shopping and there was a festival ongoing, we were unable to reserve actual Tokyo Skytree Towers tickets. This stung a bit since this was after missing lunch at our original place. IIRC, I got stuck on the mobile webpage where it asked for a phone # that needed to be a JP #...although checking now, it doesn’t seem to ask for it.
  

Second part of the trip: Kyoto * Mon May 8 continued: Hotel arrival around 4pm –> Downtown Kyoto shopping (Surugaya) and clothes @ Coco → 7/11 dinner (taxi here would have been really helpful to go to once of the local restaurants, as I started getting foot pains)

• Tues May 9: Gion & Nanzaka, light street food for lunch, including better street Takoyaki –>(skip Philosopher's Path and Central Kyoto area) –> went straight to Kinkakuji –> Downtown Kyoto (luggage, insole, not much luck at more games/anime trinkets at this time) –> South Asian @ MABRUR for early dinner –> called it an early afternoon due to fatigue/foot pain (finally installed the insoles this night with borrowed scissors from front desk)
  
• Wed May 10: Bus to Arashiyama –> Bamboo Forest –> (Missed the Sagano train, did not appear open) –> chill at the Katsura riverside instead → Japanese curry @ Yosiya –> Monkey Forest Hike –> (skip boat ride due to closure / high water levels) –> Fushimi Inari –> chill at Kamo River on our return to hotel –> called it an early afternoon with private onsen reservation waiting for us at hotel
  
• Thurs May 11: chill (play more switch games) and pack in the AM (we used luggage transfer this time) → Ramen @ Ayam Ya Karasuma Kyoto prior to Kyoto departure (which turned out to be her favorite meal from this whole trip) –> Back to Shinkansen
  

Notable Highlights Part 2: * Experiencing all the nature on WED was our favorite part of this portion, especially the rivers! We did not realize the “20 minute walk” would end up a 45 minute hike as we were not prepared, but it was a very fun going up and taking breaks at all the stops.

• We did not expect downtown Kyoto to be as lively and cool at night as we saw it, since we mostly researched the traditional parts of this city beforehand; and we did not expect Kyoto to be where we’d get a lot of our shopping done. The Surugaya here had the most Switch games I purchased at best prices (and the anime bins for trinkets as souvenirs, my wife had a lot of fun here); Gion had a lot of other souvenirs; and downtown had a lot of clothes.
  
• Notable Low-light*: fatigue and foot pain at the end of those days when we did a lot of shopping, especially traveling between different stores (not all of which didn’t have what we were looking for, like the extra Bookoffs and Lashingbangs we visited). Some benches really would have helped. We did buy Dr. Schwartz insoles and cooling pads for our feets at the pharmacy stores here, which helped with some exhaustion, but not all.
  

Last part of the trip: Shibuya/Shinjuku * Thurs May 11 continued: Reach Shibuya @ 6:30pm → Shibuya Scramble once –> Walk to Yakiniku @ GYUMON –> back to Shibuya Scramble and see Hachiko + Tower Record –> grab Chestnuts –> Starbucks at night with upper view of Shibuya crossing

• Fri May 12: Diet Building Observatory (no luck with viewing Mt. Fuji due to clouds, even on the Shinkansen rides) –> Ramen @ Honolu Shinjukugyoenmae –> Friday Congregational Prayer @ Tokyo Camii Center –> Harajuku & Takeshita Street (heavy snack with fried cheese stick + cotton candy) → back to Shibuya Crossing → Shibuya Mega Don Quijote (lots of shopping here) –> (missed the Pokemon Center) → picked up some takehome kebab from near Shibuya crossing → back to the hotel early afternoon/night due to rain and bags full of purchases
  
• SAT May 13: Shinjuku Bookoff (notable for large inventory, but not too cheap compared to Surugaya Kyoto) –> Omoide Ally short walk –> Godzilla @ Toho –> Kabukicho short walk (was looking for the large entrance side, but did not find) –> Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden (just the north part, mainly the Botanical Garden) –> Ramen @ Honolu Shinjukugyoenmae –> Nakano Broadway –> Golden Gai (was super crowded, left halfway) –> Uniqlo –> Shinjuku Don Quijote (mainly for luggage scale that we missed) –> Surugaya –> Subway for dinner since we were not able to get in Zen restaurant for vegetarian or seafood okonomiyaki
  
• Sun May 14: Tokyo Tower (one of the only reservations we made) –> Tsujiki Outer Market for light lunch (we ate only at places with small/no lines, everywhere else was packed) –> Odaiba & Diver City Mall + Gundam Base + Gundam Unicorn –> skip lunch for some crepes and banana smoothie, even though there were halal meat places around → (skip teamLabs that we didn’t end up reserving for) → Surugaya Shinjuku (last shot at games/trinkets) –> last Ramen @ Honolu Shinjukugyoenmae –> sad walk back to hotel, but also relief knowing that we’ll be done with all the walking soon.
  
• Mon May 15: finish packing –> taxi to airport (through Booking.com where we made hotel bookings) –> kebab lunch @ Mrs. Istanbul (had to utilize bus transfer between terminals after luggage dropoff) → final souvenir snack shopping inside airport → Depart back home to LAX!
  

Notable Highlights Part 3:

• The Ramen with the Fried Chicken @ Honolu Shinjukugyoenmae was my favorite meal, especially coming back to it so many times!
  
• Friday congregational prayer at Tokyo Camii Center: the sermon was done in 4 different languages (Arabic first, then Japanese, then Melay I think, then English) - that impressed me along with its architecture. It was such a peaceful and familiar experience in a new environment. They gave out some food after (rice+natto I believe plus sesame ball sweets I believe), although we passed since we were still full.
  
• Shibuya Scramble was always fun to walk across! Busiest crosswalk in the world!
  
• Tower Tokyo tour was the nicest tower experience that I’ve had (they served us Lemonade!) and my wife got to take a photo with the Tokyo Tower Mascot, Noppon.
  
• Mega Don Quijote at Shibuya to finish up the bulk of our shopping, especially on souvenirs! Especially picking up Zelda Tears of Kingdom at release day!
  
• Gundam Base & live Gundan Unicorn transformation @ Odaiba Diver City! My wife went into it mostly blind, and was very impressed.
  

Noteable Mid-light: Harajuka and Takeshita street were cool to window browse, but we didn’t find anything we actually wanted to purchase here. It made me realize, like our second time at Akihabara, that window shopping isn’t as fun as actual shopping. -Aside from the Gundam @ Odaiba, we didn’t get too excited about anything else here. If we visited here first / sooner, we may have had a better time (along with keeping an eye out for more Gundam merch earlier throughout the trip). There was a nearby amusement center that was on our original plan to visit too. But at this point, I think we ran out of gas.
Notable Low-light: * The last hotel for me, especially with its location being furthest out from nearest station and not being as nice as the first two hotel.

• The Subway sandwiches (shrimp and tuna respectively) were pretty sad on SAT, although the potato fries they gave were okay (we forgot to ask for ketchup). There was another halal yakiniku place nearby that we stopped by in front of, but decided against it as we wanted something quicker / more casual.
  
• Though not part of the actual trip, on upon LAX arrival: the lack of cleanliness, customer service and organization were immediately noticeable, which reflected on how nice Tokyo & Kyoto were!
  

Other notes

• Biggest shoutout to my wife for being with me and her patience, especially while Switch game hunting and being chaotic while planning!
  
• Hotels: all our hotels were listed as 3 star hotels. We learned that every minute walk closer to the nearest station(s) really makes a difference – i.e. a 5 min walk back to the hotel wasn’t as bad as a 7-8 minute walk, and 10-12 minute walks back where the worst. We did keep an eye on square footage for the rooms (wanted to avoid less than 150 feet² for 2 people). We averaged around $95 USD per night.
  
• Henna Tokyo Hotel - Asakusa was a very nice hotel, especially with the animated front desk and great first time with bidets and warm toilet seats which the other hotels did not have. 183 feet² which felt small but sufficient.
  
• Second hotel - Kyomachiya Ryokan Sakura Urushitei in Kyoto - was a bit further from local bus points, but this was also a very nice hotel, especially as a Ryokan with great customer service and hidden shelve compartments in the room. We also did not expect a 2nd floor for the private garden view, which was also very nice. 156 feet² would have been small by itself, but pretty sure this does not account for the 2nd floor.
  
• Our last hotel, Cloud Himalaya felt like a re-designed local apartment, so it didn’t feel as nice, but it was the most spacious @ 291 feet². It was the furthest away from the local stops/stations. It was a low-light for me, especially compared to the first two hotels. My wife thought it was okay though: she thought it was comfy and the space inside the room made up for it.
  
• -Local Transportation: We only got on the wrong train once, and it was on our first night when leaving HND airport. For the rest of the trip, we didn’t have much issues. The learning curve for us was short to navigate the trains with GoogleMap, by looking at train departure times on our phone directions and platform # to match info listed on the electronic train station boards that have or switch into English.
  
• Even if we took an extra min or two to verify the train/bus to take, and we missed a train that was right in front of us, the trains were frequent enough such that it wasn’t a long delay – usually 5-8 mins at most. Having very little reservations in our itinerary helped in this aspect.
  
• The GoogleMaps LIVE view on directions was a useful feature in finding bus stops, especially in Kyoto and Shibuya/Shinjuku.
  
• Phone Plan: We decided against one Ubigi and one Airalo data plan and just got two Ubigi data plans. Overall, we used only 4-5 GBs each out of the 10 GBs available. Ubigi worked well throughout the 10 days. As noted earlier, having a JP phone # would have been helpful.
  
• Flights: standard flight experience with Delta - around $750 USD roundtrip for each of us. The lack of space didn’t bother us too much except when fumbling around with the meal trays. We requested special accommodations for Halal food on the HND inbound flight, and they provided vegan food which we didn’t enjoy that much (i.e. PICKLE SANDWICH!).
  
• On the return flight to LAX, we did not put in any special accommodations and had a better time with their regular vegetarian food (although the pasta salad was very creamy and the Hagan Dazs they gave were slightly melted).
  
• Language: We were able to get away with just using from sumimasen and arigato for the most part, and used English/non-verbal language most of the trip otherwise.
  

*more review/input on food commented in original plan here

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Hello everyone,
I am visiting Belgium for a week with the family (total of 3 adults and 2 kids under 5 years old). Our hotel is in the area near the Montgomery station. Our plan is not limited to Brussels, as we're interested to visit different areas of the country (recommendations are welcome :)).
Our main concern is transportation with 2 kids. I am leaning towards renting a car from the airport, and use it when visiting other cities/towns, as well as Brussels spots outside of the center. Is that a sane decision I am taking?
Also the hotel doesn't cater for parking reservations in advance. If at the same day they won't have a parking space, I will have to use a public parking nearby (I don't know how that works).
Any comments or advice are very much appreciated.

Introduction: Mexico City has been a recent interest of mine ever since the YouTube algorithm started recommending me videos on this mega city. Like most Americans, I was ignorant and incorrectly under the assumption that Mexico City was sketchy and had nothing to offer for travelers other than poverty tourism. However, after watching YouTube videos and reading more about this city, I quickly learned that Mexico City, and Mexico in general, has a very rich culture and history. It also is the biggest city in the Western Hemisphere. I was locked in this point to explore this city so close to home.Booking this trip was very random, I originally booked a vacation to go to EDC Vegas with friends (insanely fun time btw) but I wanted to extend my PTO for the rest of the week after because I was already taking a day off to rest and had the Friday off for MDW.
After exploring other options in the US like possibly other areas in the south west like Utah or Arizona I quickly realized how expensive this would be. Vegas has great prices on flights so I wanted to take advantage of that and go somewhere international, due to my recent interest with Mexico City and how it isn’t too expensive, it just made sense. I booked the flight and hotel instantly so I wouldn’t think too much about it.
I invited some other friends at first and received some maybes, ultimately I knew that this would end up being a solo trip. I have some experience with solo trips, my first one was Hiroshima while I was studying abroad in Tokyo, that trip gave me my first powerful global experience that has ultimately became my goal when i travel now. I also did Denver last summer to see a red rocks show ( stayed in a hostel which ended up being the same price as a decent hotel in CDMX 🤣). I didn’t have much of a structured plan for this trip except to see the historic district and maybe teohiucan if it wasn’t too difficult to get there.
Logistics: I stayed in a Roma Norte hotel from Tuesday Night - Sunday Morning.
Interests: architecture, food, electronic music, nature, history
Day 1: Arrival
I arrived into CDMX around 1045pm via Volaris. The Volaris experience sucks, honestly worse than Spirit lol. For about an hour we were sitting on the runway not moving without AC in the Vegas heat. Apparently this is due to them not having runway rights? Not sure about this but that’s what some googling told me.
For some reason I exchanged usd for pesos at the cash exchange counters instead of using an atm to take out pesos. Not sure why I did because I have travelled internationally and know that ATMs are usually the best options. Whatever, I just took the L there. I called an Uber to my hotel after rejecting many taxi drivers.
I arrived to my hotel hungry and looked for open places to eat that were close to the hotel. I did not want to walk too far as I heard that night time gets sketchy. I ended up finding a taco place right across the street from my hotel so I went there. The place was called Taquería LOS HUARACHINES (ROMA). Ordering was a bit tough due to the language barrier but I got 2 Al pastor tacos, a plate of carne asada with about 5 tortilla, and a Coca Cola. This was an amazing meal and exactly what I wanted. The Al pastor was incredibly juicy and probably were the best tacos I had in my life at this point. I’m currently based in Texas so I’ve had real tacos before but these were just something else. I walked back to my hotel and quickly went to bed.
Day 2: Roma Norte & La Condesa
I had no official plans for this day. I was still tired from EDC Vegas so I woke up pretty late and didn’t get out of the hotel until around 1130-12. Once I did get out, I originally just planned to walk around neighborhood and see what piqued my interest. I started with a coffee. I got an iced coffee as it was hot out, I don’t think iced coffee is a thing anywhere else besides the US so this was also a little harder to order due to language barrier. Luckily someone spoke English at the counter and helped me order.
I began to walk north, I stopped at plaza rio de janiero to smoke a cigarette (I’m not a regular smoker except on vacation and when I go to raves lol). Very cool spot. My first impression of the Roma Norte neighborhood was that it was a nicer, greener, cleaner version of nyc with a European flair.
Next, I ended up at I believe Zona Rosa? It was a pedestrian only area with a lot of shops and restaurants. I stopped in a few shops maybe looking to buy sunglasses or a shirt but ultimately did not. I continued my walk.
I saw there was some sort of park near me called Bosque de Chapultec. I decided that would be my next destination to walk to. I passed the el Angel de la indepencia which was very impressive. I finally got to the park and was wowed by how nice it was. I didn’t know it was such a big destination until I got there and saw there a bunch of museos and vendors set up. I bought a pair of sunglasses as it was bright out and walked around a bit to take it in. Finally, I decided to check out a museum. I chose Museo de Arte Moderno as I wanted to see some art. I much prefer modern art over traditional art too. I really liked this museum and connected with a lot more paintings that I thought I would. About of 1/4 of the way through I realized can use Google translate to read the descriptions for some of the paintings. I wish I took down the artists who created some of these paintings but I think I can find the artists again if I really wanted to.
I went outside to the sculpture garden and this was a little underwhelming tbh. I was also getting hangry so I went through it quick. I decided to get lunch at Los Pancheros as it was nearby and the Google reviews seemed good. I ordered Plato rachero & caldo xochitl. HUGE portions and incredibly good. I really liked the soup though, it was some sort of chicken and rice soup. It took a little bit for the check to come but it finally did and I paid and left.
I ate way too much and I had to lay down somewhere so I went back to the park and found a nice place to lay where other people were. It was some sort of fountain that I can’t find on Google maps but even though it wasn’t exactly “grand” it was very chill and everyone there just seemed relaxed lol. I laid there for about 20-30 mins until I was ready to go again. I saw on Google maps that there was a castle in the park!? I really wanted to see that. I decided to walk in that direction and also passed Lago de Chapultec. Wow that was beautiful, I wish I took my rest time there lol.
I finally got to the castle entrance but they weren’t letting people in anymore as it was too late, damn. I should’ve paid more attention to the times, I didn’t realize all the museums closed at 5. I decided to finish up my park experience and Uber to the historic center just to check it out. However Ubers were very hard to get at this time as it was rush hour and traffic was insane outside the park. I had multiple people cancel on me, I also canceled on someone after seeing how long it would take to pick me up and drop me off to the historic center. I eventually decided just to walk back. It was about an hour walk back so I had to tough it out.
Not much happened on this walk, just continued to take in the city. Stopped at glorieta de Los insugentes to take a break and smoke a cigarette. I felt a little sketched out here due to all the people constantly moving. I was a bit worried about being pick pocketed but I think it was just the tiredness making me anxious. I got out of there relatively quick and made it back to my hotel to rest before dinner.
At this point I decided I wanted to go to teohiucan the next day. I explored my options for getting there and eventually just decided on Uber because I don’t really like being in a group when going to tourist sites as I’m a bit “quirky” and like to take weird routes and repeat some areas a few times I also keep an inconsistent pace so that made the group experience out of the question. I could’ve taken the bus but did not want to deal with the stress that public transit can be in a foreign country lol. For dinner, I made a reservation at the sushi place Makoto as I wanted something other than Mexican food. Fabulous place, I ordered a glass of wine, sushi sampler, and the fatty tuna nigiri.
Day 2: Teohiucan
I woke up somewhat early for this day. I ordered an Uber and was off. It was really interesting to see Mexico City outside the nicer neighborhoods. I think this is what most Americans imagine when they hear Mexico City. It looked like the COD MW2 map Favela. I wondered what life was like in this area of Mexico City. I even saw a ski lift in use to bring people up the mountain to their house maybe?
I got dropped off at Teohiucan and entered in. I skipped breakfast because I assumed they would have something there. I was half right, they had some convenient stores. I just bought a pack of crackers and a electrolit and hoped that would get me through the whole time I was there lol.I walked around all the pyramids, I was hoping to climb them but I saw they were closed for climbing, honestly a good thing, I imagine they were getting a lot of wear and tear from that. I feel like these pyramids are underrated in terms of world wonders. They’re pretty big and the city itself was apparently one of the biggest cities in the world at the time.
My favorite part about this visit was this path that you can take that allowed you to walk on the outside of the main path. It was super peaceful and you got to see the pyramids at different angles with no people around. In terms of my favorite structure, I liked the citadel a lot due to the intricate designs on it. Some random things I liked there were the jardin and the things the vendors were selling that made the animal noises 😂 I thought it was hilarious how everyone was basically spamming it in chat. I should’ve bought one looking back
I was a little anxious about getting an Uber back but I got one relatively quick and got back to my hotel. When I got back I was very hungry and I found this place near my hotel with a deal that gave 5 al pastor tacos and a cervesa for $100 pesos. Amazing deal but then I saw the al pastor looked like it was dry and has been out for awhile. Unfortunately i felt too awkward to leave after sitting, a mistake that I learned from later if you keep reading. However the tacos were still decent. I was still pretty hungry and found a street vendor selling hamburgers, I ordered con queso and it was insanely good. I ate it in a park and then got some churros from Churrería El Moro which were also good.Again I was way too full and had to lie down. I went back to my hotel and took a nap.
When I woke up I was still full but I started experiencing the first signs of montezumas revenge. However it didn’t seem that bad and I wanted to go out for a rooftop drink. I went to Supra Roma. Great vibe. I had to stand by the bar the whole time due to not having reservations but the views were fantastic and the dj was decent too. She was playing house music. I definitely want to bring my friends here if they ever want to come to cdmx. I had 1 cocktail and 2 beers there. Was thinking about talking to people there but mostly everyone was speaking Spanish so I decided not to.
I left and was gonna call it an early night but heard some more house music being played across the street at departmento. I decided why not and paid the cover to check it out. It was ok. Dj was decent but the vibe seemed kind of “basic” other than the music. Nothing too unique about this place, just a terrace playing music with young people hanging out. I had 2 drinks and left and got a torta. I made it back to my hotel around 12am and this when things started to go south unfortunately. Montezumas revenge came back and this time even stronger than earlier. The alcohol definitely did not help. It quickly kept getting worse in terms of cramping and the ability to not go to the bathroom for more than 20 mins. I think it was the Al pastor tacos from earlier today. I did not get much sleep this night and was basically in survival mode lol luckily I had some water bottles to stay hydrated but I knew I would have to venture out to get more eventually. I basically spent the whole night on the toilet or curled up in pain.
Day 3: Recovery
I was hoping I’d feel feel better in the morning and I was somewhat correct. After 12 hours I could walk again although it was definitely difficult. I managed to make it to a farmacia where the pharmacist recommended me treda. I got that and more water + electrolit. It was around 1pm so I sat outside and drank my electrolit to see if I strong enough to do some sort of activity. After about 20 mins of sitting outside I decided I definitely could not and decided to just take the L for today so I could be full strength for tomorrow. I took my treda and was able to get some rest. When I woke up I was still feeling montezumas revenge a little bit but I knew I had to eat something. I ended up using Uber eats to get consomé de pollo from this place called Toks. It seemed like a safe option as it looked like a chain and I assumed chains usually have somewhat good hygiene standards. It ended up being way better than expected and I managed to put down most of it.
After eating, I took a walk to get more electrolit. I was still a little weak so I just went back to the hotel and went to bed. I was a bit bummed I lost a day but anytime you’re in a 3rd world country you should budget a day for stomach issues.
Day 4: Castillo De Chapultepec & Historic Center
I woke up feeling a lot better. It was actually crazy as 24 hours ago I couldn’t even walk straight. I took my treda and headed out. I was debating on if I should go back Chapultepec park to see the castle or if it would take too much time as I was planning to go to the historic center today. I decided to see the castle as I was thinking about it too much to skip it.
I took an Uber there this time and paid the admission. It was definitely worth it. The castle was so beautiful and there was so much history inside. I learned a lot about Mexican history and was able to take in some nice views of the city. My favorite part were the murals inside and the jardin. After, I walked to 7/11 to get more electrolit. I also got pringles as I was hungry but my stomach was still a little rough. From there I ubered to the historic center.
When I got to the historic center I was instantly overstimulated lol. It was a Saturday afternoon so it must’ve been the most popular day. It was a lot bigger than expected too. I didn’t really know where to start so I just started walking. My first stop was actually the adidas store as I needed to get my bearings and am a fan of adidas lol unfortunately there wasn’t much in there though that seemed exclusive. I know in Tokyo they’ll have exclusive stuff but didn’t see anything like that in Mexico City, bit disappointed but otherwise it provided a place for me to take a breath. I got out and started walking towards zocalo plaza.
Zocalo Plaza was just epic. The big Mexican flag with the cathedral behind it had so much swag for lack of a better term lmao it showed off the immense pride that Mexico has for itself. I really liked this area a lot.
I continued walking and ended up at these streets with vendors. This was even more overstimulating than the other areas. So much noise and people. I stopped in a store and got a can coke and kept on trucking along.
I decided to go to palacio de bella artes. I really liked palacio de bella artes as well. The architecture and colors were stunning. The Torre Latinoamericana building was also interesting. I decided to check out the museum inside palacio de Bella artes. At first i thought it was a bit underwhelming. I was not too big of a fan of the murals and it seemed like some areas were closed. I then came across the Dioses y Maquinas exhibit by Santiago Sierra Soler. This exhibit was an “immersive cinema installation” that told the story of the aztecs getting colonized by Spaniards. It was very powerful and really made me understand some of the politics of Mexico. Also globalism in general and how colonization impacted the world. It gave me that powerful global experience that I mentioned before. I think everyone who visits cdmx should experience this exhibit to really wrap your head around the politics of the country and how it became what it is today. When I walked out I began to see the two sides of Mexico, the native side and european side and how they interact with each other.
That exhibit made me want to learn about the Aztecs more so I ended up going to museo del templo mayor. This place was also impressive with countless exhibits about the Aztecs. It’s insane to me how there was an ancient city right under us. By the time I was done there I was getting hungry so ironically I got McDonald’s as my stomach needed something familiar. I got it to go and ate it near the palacio de bella artes. I wanted to go the sears rooftop after but couldn’t find the entrance so I just walked around the surrounding neighborhood. This part reminded me a lot of Manhattan.
I walked through the Barrio Chino and thought it was hilarious tbh. I did not see any Asian people and there wasn’t much Asian culture other than the lanterns i guess lol the restaurants also did not look too good. Cool experience nonetheless.
I ended my walk at a plaza San juan to call an Uber as it was about to start raining. I found the torre de telefons de Telmex structure also super interesting. I made it home and rested before dinner.
For dinner I went to this Argentinan steak house called Gardela. A bit risky after my stomach issues but I wanted to get a nice dinner on my last night. I got a dry aged New York strip and it did not disappoint. I ordered it medium rare but it was a bit more rare than expected. I ate it anyway and was wowed. One of the best steaks I’ve ever had. Amazing service too, can’t recommend this place enough if you want a good steak.
When I got back to my hotel I was having an internal debate if I should go out. I had an early flight and was already pretty tired and full. I decided to go out anyway as it was Saturday night and didn’t get to do anything the day before. I ended up at this techno club called yuyu. Pretty intimate spot. The techno was very good and creative. The crowd was also fun, I had a few shallow conversations with people but nothing deep. Mostly my fault though as I wasn’t making much conversation. I just drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and listened to good electronic music which is a solid night for me. I headed home around 2 and went to bed for my flight.
Closing remarks:I really enjoyed my time in Mexico City. Im not sure what my expectations were for the city but they were definitely exceeded. Definitely an underrated city as there is so much culture and history but I never here much people talk about it in the states. I will definitely be back as I feel like there’s still so much to discover and it was pretty cheap to get there and get lodging.
Not gonna lie though, I was bit nervous going solo here but once I got there most of the anxiety went away. In terms of safety, just be where you’re supposed to be (tourist areas & safe neighborhoods), keep your possessions zipped up, and don’t walk at night. I felt more sketched out in most US cities

Introduction: Mexico City has been a recent interest of mine ever since the YouTube algorithm started recommending me videos on this mega city. Like most Americans, I was ignorant and incorrectly under the assumption that Mexico City was sketchy and had nothing to offer for travelers other than poverty tourism. However, after watching YouTube videos and reading more about this city, I quickly learned that Mexico City, and Mexico in general, has a very rich culture and history. It also is the biggest city in the Western Hemisphere. I was locked in this point to explore this city so close to home.Booking this trip was very random, I originally booked a vacation to go to EDC Vegas with friends (insanely fun time btw) but I wanted to extend my PTO for the rest of the week after because I was already taking a day off to rest and had the Friday off for MDW. After exploring other options in the US like possibly other areas in the south west like Utah or Arizona I quickly realized how expensive this would be. Vegas has great prices on flights so I wanted to take advantage of that and go somewhere international, due to my recent interest with Mexico City and how it isn’t too expensive, it just made sense. I booked the flight and hotel instantly so I wouldn’t think too much about it.
I invited some other friends at first and received some maybes, ultimately I knew that this would end up being a solo trip. I have some experience with solo trips, my first one was Hiroshima while I was studying abroad in Tokyo, that trip gave me my first powerful global experience that has ultimately became my goal when i travel now. I also did Denver last summer to see a red rocks show ( stayed in a hostel which ended up being the same price as a decent hotel in CDMX 🤣). I didn’t have much of a structured plan for this trip except to see the historic district and maybe teohiucan if it wasn’t too difficult to get there.
Logistics: I stayed in a Roma Norte hotel from Tuesday Night - Sunday Morning.
Interests: architecture, food, electronic music, nature, history
Day 1: Arrival
I arrived into CDMX around 1045pm via Volaris. The Volaris experience sucks, honestly worse than Spirit lol. For about an hour we were sitting on the runway not moving without AC in the Vegas heat. Apparently this is due to them not having runway rights? Not sure about this but that’s what some googling told me.
For some reason I exchanged usd for pesos at the cash exchange counters instead of using an atm to take out pesos. Not sure why I did because I have travelled internationally and know that ATMs are usually the best options. Whatever, I just took the L there. I called an Uber to my hotel after rejecting many taxi drivers.
I arrived to my hotel hungry and looked for open places to eat that were close to the hotel. I did not want to walk too far as I heard that night time gets sketchy. I ended up finding a taco place right across the street from my hotel so I went there. The place was called Taquería LOS HUARACHINES (ROMA). Ordering was a bit tough due to the language barrier but I got 2 Al pastor tacos, a plate of carne asada with about 5 tortilla, and a Coca Cola. This was an amazing meal and exactly what I wanted. The Al pastor was incredibly juicy and probably were the best tacos I had in my life at this point. I’m currently based in Texas so I’ve had real tacos before but these were just something else. I walked back to my hotel and quickly went to bed.
Day 2: Roma Norte & La Condesa
I had no official plans for this day. I was still tired from EDC Vegas so I woke up pretty late and didn’t get out of the hotel until around 1130-12. Once I did get out, I originally just planned to walk around neighborhood and see what piqued my interest. I started with a coffee. I got an iced coffee as it was hot out, I don’t think iced coffee is a thing anywhere else besides the US so this was also a little harder to order due to language barrier. Luckily someone spoke English at the counter and helped me order.
I began to walk north, I stopped at plaza rio de janiero to smoke a cigarette (I’m not a regular smoker except on vacation and when I go to raves lol). Very cool spot. My first impression of the Roma Norte neighborhood was that it was a nicer, greener, cleaner version of nyc with a European flair.
Next, I ended up at I believe Zona Rosa? It was a pedestrian only area with a lot of shops and restaurants. I stopped in a few shops maybe looking to buy sunglasses or a shirt but ultimately did not. I continued my walk.
I saw there was some sort of park near me called Bosque de Chapultec. I decided that would be my next destination to walk to. I passed the el Angel de la indepencia which was very impressive. I finally got to the park and was wowed by how nice it was. I didn’t know it was such a big destination until I got there and saw there a bunch of museos and vendors set up. I bought a pair of sunglasses as it was bright out and walked around a bit to take it in. Finally, I decided to check out a museum. I chose Museo de Arte Moderno as I wanted to see some art. I much prefer modern art over traditional art too. I really liked this museum and connected with a lot more paintings that I thought I would. About of 1/4 of the way through I realized can use Google translate to read the descriptions for some of the paintings. I wish I took down the artists who created some of these paintings but I think I can find the artists again if I really wanted to. I went outside to the sculpture garden and this was a little underwhelming tbh. I was also getting hangry so I went through it quick.
I decided to get lunch at Los Pancheros as it was nearby and the Google reviews seemed good. I ordered Plato rachero & caldo xochitl. HUGE portions and incredibly good. I really liked the soup though, it was some sort of chicken and rice soup. It took a little bit for the check to come but it finally did and I paid and left.
I ate way too much and I had to lay down somewhere so I went back to the park and found a nice place to lay where other people were. It was some sort of fountain that I can’t find on Google maps but even though it wasn’t exactly “grand” it was very chill and everyone there just seemed relaxed lol. I laid there for about 20-30 mins until I was ready to go again. I saw on Google maps that there was a castle in the park!? I really wanted to see that. I decided to walk in that direction and also passed Lago de Chapultec. Wow that was beautiful, I wish I took my rest time there lol.
I finally got to the castle entrance but they weren’t letting people in anymore as it was too late, damn. I should’ve paid more attention to the times, I didn’t realize all the museums closed at 5. I decided to finish up my park experience and Uber to the historic center just to check it out. However Ubers were very hard to get at this time as it was rush hour and traffic was insane outside the park. I had multiple people cancel on me, I also canceled on someone after seeing how long it would take to pick me up and drop me off to the historic center. I eventually decided just to walk back. It was about an hour walk back so I had to tough it out.
Not much happened on this walk, just continued to take in the city. Stopped at glorieta de Los insugentes to take a break and smoke a cigarette. I felt a little sketched out here due to all the people constantly moving. I was a bit worried about being pick pocketed but I think it was just the tiredness making me anxious. I got out of there relatively quick and made it back to my hotel to rest before dinner.
At this point I decided I wanted to go to teohiucan the next day. I explored my options for getting there and eventually just decided on Uber because I don’t really like being in a group when going to tourist sites as I’m a bit “quirky” and like to take weird routes and repeat some areas a few times I also keep an inconsistent pace so that made the group experience out of the question. I could’ve taken the bus but did not want to deal with the stress that public transit can be in a foreign country lol. For dinner, I made a reservation at the sushi place Makoto as I wanted something other than Mexican food. Fabulous place, I ordered a glass of wine, sushi sampler, and the fatty tuna nigiri.
Day 2: Teohiucan
I woke up somewhat early for this day. I ordered an Uber and was off. It was really interesting to see Mexico City outside the nicer neighborhoods. I think this is what most Americans imagine when they hear Mexico City. It looked like the COD MW2 map Favela. I wondered what life was like in this area of Mexico City. I even saw a ski lift in use to bring people up the mountain to their house maybe?
I got dropped off at Teohiucan and entered in. I skipped breakfast because I assumed they would have something there. I was half right, they had some convenient stores. I just bought a pack of crackers and a electrolit and hoped that would get me through the whole time I was there lol.I walked around all the pyramids, I was hoping to climb them but I saw they were closed for climbing, honestly a good thing, I imagine they were getting a lot of wear and tear from that. I feel like these pyramids are underrated in terms of world wonders. They’re pretty big and the city itself was apparently one of the biggest cities in the world at the time.
My favorite part about this visit was this path that you can take that allowed you to walk on the outside of the main path. It was super peaceful and you got to see the pyramids at different angles with no people around. In terms of my favorite structure, I liked the citadel a lot due to the intricate designs on it. Some random things I liked there were the jardin and the things the vendors were selling that made the animal noises 😂 I thought it was hilarious how everyone was basically spamming it in chat. I should’ve bought one looking back
I was a little anxious about getting an Uber back but I got one relatively quick and got back to my hotel. When I got back I was very hungry and I found this place near my hotel with a deal that gave 5 al pastor tacos and a cervesa for $100 pesos. Amazing deal but then I saw the al pastor looked like it was dry and has been out for awhile. Unfortunately i felt too awkward to leave after sitting, a mistake that I learned from later if you keep reading. However the tacos were still decent. I was still pretty hungry and found a street vendor selling hamburgers, I ordered con queso and it was insanely good. I ate it in a park and then got some churros from Churrería El Moro which were also good.
Again I was way too full and had to lie down. I went back to my hotel and took a nap. When I woke up I was still full but I started experiencing the first signs of montezumas revenge. However it didn’t seem that bad and I wanted to go out for a rooftop drink.
I went to Supra Roma. Great vibe. I had to stand by the bar the whole time due to not having reservations but the views were fantastic and the dj was decent too. She was playing house music. I definitely want to bring my friends here if they ever want to come to cdmx. I had 1 cocktail and 2 beers there. Was thinking about talking to people there but mostly everyone was speaking Spanish so I decided not to.
I left and was gonna call it an early night but heard some more house music being played across the street at departmento. I decided why not and paid the cover to check it out. It was ok. Dj was decent but the vibe seemed kind of “basic” other than the music. Nothing too unique about this place, just a terrace playing music with young people hanging out. I had 2 drinks and left and got a torta.
I made it back to my hotel around 12am and this when things started to go south unfortunately. Montezumas revenge came back and this time even stronger than earlier. The alcohol definitely did not help. It quickly kept getting worse in terms of cramping and the ability to not go to the bathroom for more than 20 mins. I think it was the Al pastor tacos from earlier today. I did not get much sleep this night and was basically in survival mode lol luckily I had some water bottles to stay hydrated but I knew I would have to venture out to get more eventually. I basically spent the whole night on the toilet or curled up in pain.
Day 3: Recovery
I was hoping I’d feel feel better in the morning and I was somewhat correct. After 12 hours I could walk again although it was definitely difficult. I managed to make it to a farmacia where the pharmacist recommended me treda. I got that and more water + electrolit. It was around 1pm so I sat outside and drank my electrolit to see if I strong enough to do some sort of activity. After about 20 mins of sitting outside I decided I definitely could not and decided to just take the L for today so I could be full strength for tomorrow. I took my treda and was able to get some rest. When I woke up I was still feeling montezumas revenge a little bit but I knew I had to eat something. I ended up using Uber eats to get consomé de pollo from this place called Toks. It seemed like a safe option as it looked like a chain and I assumed chains usually have somewhat good hygiene standards. It ended up being way better than expected and I managed to put down most of it.
After eating, I took a walk to get more electrolit. I was still a little weak so I just went back to the hotel and went to bed. I was a bit bummed I lost a day but anytime you’re in a 3rd world country you should budget a day for stomach issues.
Day 4: Castillo De Chapultepec & Historic Center
I woke up feeling a lot better. It was actually crazy as 24 hours ago I couldn’t even walk straight. I took my treda and headed out. I was debating on if I should go back Chapultepec park to see the castle or if it would take too much time as I was planning to go to the historic center today. I decided to see the castle as I was thinking about it too much to skip it.
I took an Uber there this time and paid the admission. It was definitely worth it. The castle was so beautiful and there was so much history inside. I learned a lot about Mexican history and was able to take in some nice views of the city. My favorite part were the murals inside and the jardin. After, I walked to 7/11 to get more electrolit. I also got pringles as I was hungry but my stomach was still a little rough. From there I ubered to the historic center.
When I got to the historic center I was instantly overstimulated lol. It was a Saturday afternoon so it must’ve been the most popular day. It was a lot bigger than expected too. I didn’t really know where to start so I just started walking. My first stop was actually the adidas store as I needed to get my bearings and am a fan of adidas lol unfortunately there wasn’t much in there though that seemed exclusive. I know in Tokyo they’ll have exclusive stuff but didn’t see anything like that in Mexico City, bit disappointed but otherwise it provided a place for me to take a breath. I got out and started walking towards zocalo plaza.
Zocalo Plaza was just epic. The big Mexican flag with the cathedral behind it had so much swag for lack of a better term lmao it showed off the immense pride that Mexico has for itself. I really liked this area a lot.
I continued walking and ended up at these streets with vendors. This was even more overstimulating than the other areas. So much noise and people. I stopped in a store and got a can coke and kept on trucking along.
I decided to go to palacio de bella artes. I really liked palacio de bella artes as well. The architecture and colors were stunning. The Torre Latinoamericana building was also interesting. I decided to check out the museum inside palacio de Bella artes. At first i thought it was a bit underwhelming. I was not too big of a fan of the murals and it seemed like some areas were closed. I then came across the Dioses y Maquinas exhibit by Santiago Sierra Soler. This exhibit was an “immersive cinema installation” that told the story of the aztecs getting colonized by Spaniards. It was very powerful and really made me understand some of the politics of Mexico. Also globalism in general and how colonization impacted the world. It gave me that powerful global experience that I mentioned before. I think everyone who visits cdmx should experience this exhibit to really wrap your head around the politics of the country and how it became what it is today. When I walked out I began to see the two sides of Mexico, the native side and european side and how they interact with each other.
That exhibit made me want to learn about the Aztecs more so I ended up going to museo del templo mayor. This place was also impressive with countless exhibits about the Aztecs. It’s insane to me how there was an ancient city right under us. By the time I was done there I was getting hungry so ironically I got McDonald’s as my stomach needed something familiar. I got it to go and ate it near the palacio de bella artes. I wanted to go the sears rooftop after but couldn’t find the entrance so I just walked around the surrounding neighborhood. This part reminded me a lot of Manhattan.
I walked through the Barrio Chino and thought it was hilarious tbh. I did not see any Asian people and there wasn’t much Asian culture other than the lanterns i guess lol the restaurants also did not look too good. Cool experience nonetheless. I ended my walk at a plaza San juan to call an Uber as it was about to start raining. I found the torre de telefons de Telmex structure also super interesting. I made it home and rested before dinner.
For dinner I went to this Argentinan steak house called Gardela. A bit risky after my stomach issues but I wanted to get a nice dinner on my last night. I got a dry aged New York strip and it did not disappoint. I ordered it medium rare but it was a bit more rare than expected. I ate it anyway and was wowed. One of the best steaks I’ve ever had. Amazing service too, can’t recommend this place enough if you want a good steak.
When I got back to my hotel I was having an internal debate if I should go out. I had an early flight and was already pretty tired and full. I decided to go out anyway as it was Saturday night and didn’t get to do anything the day before. I ended up at this techno club called yuyu. Pretty intimate spot. The techno was very good and creative. The crowd was also fun, I had a few shallow conversations with people but nothing deep. Mostly my fault though as I wasn’t making much conversation. I just drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and listened to good electronic music which is a solid night for me. I headed home around 2 and went to bed for my flight.
Closing remarks:
I really enjoyed my time in Mexico City. Im not sure what my expectations were for the city but they were definitely exceeded. Definitely an underrated city as there is so much culture and history but I never here much people talk about it in the states. I will definitely be back as I feel like there’s still so much to discover and it was pretty cheap to get there and get lodging. Not gonna lie though, I was bit nervous going solo here but once I got there most of the anxiety went away. In terms of safety, just be where you’re supposed to be (tourist areas & safe neighborhoods), keep your possessions zipped up, and don’t walk at night. I felt more sketched out in most US cities

Hotel Bodhi Tree is the best hotel for unmarried couples in Patna. Known for its warm hospitality, contemporary amenities, and commitment to privacy, Hotel Bodhi Tree provides an ideal sanctuary for unmarried couples seeking a memorable stay in Patna. In this comprehensive review, we will delve into the various aspects that make Hotel Bodhi Tree the best hotel choice for unmarried couples hotel Patna.
Hotel Bodhi Tree is the best hotel near Patna Railway Station, Hotel Bodhi Tree enjoys a prime location that offers easy access to the city's major attractions, shopping centers, and business districts. Its proximity to the airport and railway station makes it a convenient choice for both local and out-of-town visitors. With excellent connectivity to public transportation, couples can explore the city without any hassle.
Being the best hotel in Patna, Hotel Bodhi Tree boasts a range of well-appointed rooms and suites designed with the utmost comfort in mind. The hotel offers a variety of room types, including deluxe rooms, executive rooms, and suites, catering to the diverse preferences of couples. Each room is elegantly furnished, featuring modern amenities such as plush beds, LED TVs, air conditioning, high-speed Wi-Fi, and 24-hour room service.
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Hotel Bodhi Tree is the best hotel near Patna Junction, presents a delightful culinary experience with its on-site restaurants and cafes. The hotel's main restaurant offers a diverse menu comprising both local and international cuisines, prepared by skilled chefs using fresh, locally sourced ingredients. Couples can indulge in a range of delectable dishes while enjoying a cozy and intimate ambiance.
For those seeking a more casual dining experience, the hotel features a coffee shop where couples can relax and unwind with a cup of aromatic coffee or enjoy light snacks and refreshments throughout the day. The hotel also offers in-room dining services, allowing couples to enjoy a romantic meal in the privacy of their own room.
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Hotel Bodhi Tree is renowned for its exceptional service and attentive staff. From the moment of arrival until departure, the hotel staff goes above and beyond to ensure a memorable and comfortable stay for every guest. The front desk operates 24/7, providing round-the-clock assistance, concierge services, and travel guidance.
The hotel's commitment to customer satisfaction is evident in its prompt response to any inquiries or requests. The staff is well-trained, friendly, and always ready to assist unmarried couples with any specific requirements they may have.

Just got back from 10 days in Japan and wanted to type up a trip report to hopefully help others that are trying to plan a trip!
Our trip was 5/16 - 5/28 including travel days. This was my 2nd time in Japan (first time was study abroad for 5 weeks in May/June 2016), but it was my mom & sister's first time, so the goal was to include as many must-see activities as we possibly could in the short time we were there. Our days were packed to the brim however all 3 of us are fairly active and healthy so despite being absolutely exhausted by the end of each day, in retrospect we wouldn't have changed a thing in our itinerary.
That being said, our itinerary would be much too busy for the average person's first trip to Japan so keep that in mind if you use this information to plan your own trip. For example, we usually only had time to sit down and eat for one meal per day and had to eat on the go for the other meals in order to have enough time to go to all the places we wanted to go to. There was very little downtime in our trip.

Tourist Tips

• Luggage
  • We each traveled with 2 checked luggage since they were included in our flight. I had one full sized suitcase and one slightly smaller suitcase which both only had one side filled when I left the US. The plan was to fill the other half of the suitcases with souvenirs to bring home. Last time I went to Japan, it cost me ~$200 to ship two large boxes of souvenirs back home, so despite having to bring a lot of luggage this saved me a significant amount of money and I will be doing this for future trips as well.
  • Within our luggage we also packed a duffel bag to hold all our purchases on heavy shopping days and a daily backpack to hold things like our trash bag, hand towel, hand sanitizewet wipes, body wipes, small purchases, etc. My carry-on was a 40L backpack that I took with us when we stayed overnight in Kyoto.
• Money
  • I brought $400 cash to exchange at the airport. I had gotten a Charles Schwab debit card before leaving which has no foreign transaction/ATM fees so I planned to use my card for whatever purchases I could then use cash for everything else. I ended up withdrawing another ¥20000 which was just enough cash to last me the rest of our trip.
• Walking
  • Last time I went to Japan I survived wearing flat gladiator sandals basically the whole trip, but this did NOT work this time around for whatever reason (I guess we walked a lot more this time?). BRING COMFORTABLE SHOES TO WALK IN. I ended up having to buy sneakers on day 2 because I stupidly didn't think I would need them. I was more concerned about looking cute for pictures (ha) but I quickly realized that all the girls in Japan wear sneakers with their cute skirts and dresses, so I blended right in. I would also recommend bringing a second pair of shoes with you each day (in your backpack) to swap into if the shoes you are wearing start giving you blisters.
• Masking
  • We saw a lot of people not wearing masks, but the majority of people still wear masks. I would say the ratio of people wearing masks to not wearing masks was about 80:20.
• Trash
  • As many have mentioned on this subreddit, due to the lack of public trash bins I would highly recommend bringing a reusable trash bag to store your trash while you're out and about until you can find a bin. We found these cool black fabric ones with a waterproof liner on the inside that you could rinse out when it got dirty and could clip to the outside of your backpack so it wasn’t with your other belongings.
• Restrooms
  • Due to the lack of hand dryers/paper towels in bathrooms we also brought hand towels as recommended, but found ourselves just air drying our hands way more often than using the hand towels as it was often more cumbersome to remove our backpacks and fish out our hand towels to use.

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Accommodations

• Sakura Hotel Jimbocho in Tokyo
  • I stayed in this hostel when I studied abroad in college in 2016, so it holds a special place in my heart. You can get a single room here for cheap, and although the rooms are extremely small, I don’t travel to Japan to spend time in my hotel so when looking for accommodations price is my #1 factor, not comfort. Toilets and showers are shared in this hostel and the rooms are set up coming off of a square hallway with sinks/restroom facilities in the center. The facilities don’t appear to be very modern and pretty, but the water pressure of the showers is the BEST. They have other room types as well, like bunk-beds, double rooms, etc. They have a 24 hour cafe downstairs and breakfast is included in your stay. All their staff speak English & Japanese (and other languages as well). They host some cool events like language exchanges and walking/jogging groups if you are more of a social person. I really enjoy the location of this hostel. You are within walking distance from the Imperial Palace and it still feels like you are in the city without it being so loud and busy like if you were to stay in Shibuya, etc. They do have other locations if you’re looking for somewhere with more nightlife.
• The Millennials Hostel in Kyoto
  • This is a really modern looking hostel in Kyoto, 2 streets over from Pontocho. The facilities are gorgeous and look brand new. They are set up similar to a capsule style hotel with a bunch of rooms coming off a hallway. Your bed takes up your entire space, and you have about 18 inches at the foot of your bed to stand. You pull an opaque privacy screen down to make your room private - there is no door. You can control your bed’s incline and lights through an iPhone in your room. There is storage space under your bed and on a shelf above your bed. Restrooms are shared but the showers are in one room and toilets in another. There are a lot of shared common spaces including a full stocked kitchen you can cook your meals in, but we literally only stayed here to sleep so we didn’t explore those spaces. I was worried about other guests being noisy but that wasn’t the case - everyone was super respectful. The price and location was great so I would definitely come back here.

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Daily Itinerary

Day 1 & 2: Travel

• We flew out of Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Our direct flight to Narita was around $1600 after taxes, fees, and flight insurance. I had one layover the last time I flew to Japan and in the future I will only be buying a direct flight as I found this to be way easier than having a layover.
• Once we arrived in Narita we turned on our e-sim. We chose Ubigi after reading many positive reviews on this subreddit and I highly recommend them. We had some issues getting iMessage to work despite following Ubigi's instructions to a T, so we ended up just using WhatsApp to message during the trip, however, iMessage did start working later on.
• We decided against picking up our JR passes & seat reservations at the airport because the line was long and we didn't need them for another 5 days.
• Going through customs/immigration and grabbing our luggage only took about 20-30 minutes. There were many staff to guide you and we found the whole process to be really smooth.
• We exchanged our currency and went downstairs to buy our tickets for Narita Express at a ticket vending machine. We got round trip tickets for ¥3460 (keep in mind that the return ticket needs to be used within 14 days). We had purchased our Suica before leaving and put them in our iPhone wallets and they came with a balance of ¥2000 so we didn't load money onto our cards until the following day.
• We took the Narita Express to Tokyo Station then took a cab to our hostel in Jimbocho. We each traveled with 2 checked luggage, so we found the short and inexpensive taxi ride to be a better option than lugging 6 giant suitcases on local trains to get to our hostel.
• We checked into our hostel. The total price per person for 11 nights was ¥49500 (about $380).

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Day 3: Imperial Palace/Ueno

• We woke up and walked to the Imperial Palace/East Gardens. We got there right when they opened and spent about 90 minutes there. We walked back to Jimbocho to go to my favorite tempura place in Jimbocho. This place has gotten quite famous since I was last there in 2016. We were first in line at 10:45am and by the time they opened for lunch at 11:30, there was a line of 20+ people. Our lunch cost only ¥800.
• After lunch we took the train to Ueno and spent some time in the Tokyo National Museum and Ueno Park. We also visited Shinobazu No Ike Bentendo Temple which is a cool temple right inside Ueno Park. While at Ueno Station, we picked up our JR passes & seat reservation tickets and also put ¥5000 on our Suica. We really enjoyed the fact that you could charge your mobile suica at a convenience store using cash - we didn’t have to worry about finding the machines in train stations with the phone holders.
• After that we walked through Ameyoko and did some shopping - I bought a super cute used Coach purse for around $65. Ameyoko seemed to have a lot more products than when I was there in 2016… but I also had more money this time around so maybe I was just paying more attention!
• We took a train back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags and change. We took a train to Shinjuku to go to New York Grill for our dinner reservation. New York Grill is on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt hotel in Shinjuku and the views were incredible. We got the Spring Harvest 5-course dinner which included wagyu and it was easily the best beef I have ever eaten in my life - so juicy and buttery. The cost was ¥23100 per person (~$175).
• 25,138 steps on this day.

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Day 4: Shibuya/Akihabara

• We woke up and took a train to Shibuya to see Hachiko, go to the Starbucks near Shibuya Crossing, and shop at Shibuya109 and Uniqlo. It was hard for me to find any clothing that would fit me at the stores in Shibuya109 (I am a US 8/10 which is basically considered plus size in Japan) however I was able to find a cute t-shirt at Punyu's in Shibuya109 and two dresses at Uniqlo. I also bought sneakers at the Skechers store.
• I also went to the Mega Don Quijote in Shibuya and spent about $102 on candy and snacks to bring home. Lots of fun KitKat flavors here but it was very crowded and hard to walk around with my extremely full baskets.
• We took a train back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags and had a quick lunch via conbini.
• We took a train to Akihabara and bought some souvenirs and gachapon, and walked all the way back to Ameyoko where I spent another $90 on candy and snacks to bring home.
• We took a train back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags and change. We took a train to Ginza to go to Tempura Kondo for dinner (a Michelin starred tempura restaurant). We got the Yomogi dinner which was ¥23100 per person (¥25410 after fees, ~$195). The staff were amazing - they noticed that my sister was left-handed and set up her plates/silverware as such which was really observant. We loved the dinner, however there was WAY too much food for us; the staff recognized we were starting to get full, and asked us if we would be able to eat the next course which was ten-don. I was really concerned about being disrespectful and wasting food, so I was really glad that they noticed and asked!
• 19,445 steps on this day.

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Day 5: Asakusa/Ginza/Omoide Yokocho

• We woke up and took a train to Asakusa to see Sanja Matsuri. We shopped at the small souvenir shops on Nakamise-dori and had street food at the festival for lunch. I bought an awesome goshuincho here with a wooden cover and foxes on it.
• After being completely overstimulated, we took a train to Rikugi-en Garden to escape the crowds. This garden is a little off the beaten path, just outside the big city, but it is completely gorgeous and so worth the trip.
• After the garden, we took a train to Ginza to window shop and go to our reservation at Higashiya Ginza for wagashi & tea pairing. We had 5 wagashi paired with 5 teas that were amazing. It cost ¥4500 per person.
• After this, we walked to Mitsukoshi Ginza to explore the basement food floor and grab dinner. They start to discount the food as the stores near closing time, so going for a late dinner can save you a couple yen! After eating on their rooftop terrace which was beautiful, we walked to Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki Paris Marunouichi to grab dessert then headed back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags.
• After we ate, we took a train to Shinjuku to walk down Omoide Yokocho. We had a drink on the third floor of Bar Albatross - highly recommend! The alleyway is a lot shorter than I imagined, and very crowded as you would expect. I probably wouldn’t go back here in the future but I am glad we visited!
• 25,002 steps on this day.

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Day 6: Harajuku

• We woke up and took a train to Harajuku to visit Meiji Shrine and got our first goshuin.
• After visiting the shrine, we walked back to Takeshita-dori to get lunch at Afuri Ramen. They’re known for their ramen with yuzu in their broth and this was one of our favorite meals during our trip. We got there about 20 minutes before they opened and were ~8th in line. By the time they opened, the line was stretching around the building!
• We walked down Takeshita-dori and shopped, then went to our reservation at Mipig Cafe (mini pig cafe). This place was so cute! You can make reservations for 30 minutes or 1 hour where you sit on the floor and miniature pigs will come and sit on your lap. You weren’t allowed to pick the pigs up and the staff were super kind and handled the pigs well. A 30 minute reservation was ¥1800 per person.
• After the pigs, we walked down Omotesando and took the train to Shinjuku to get dinner on the food floor at Isetan.
• After we ate on the rooftop terrace (beautiful once again), we headed back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags. We took the train to Shibuya to go to our reservation at Shibuya Sky. We got the package where you get an admission ticket including a 50 minute reservation for the sofa seats and a choice of a mini bottle of champagne or 2 beers per person, which cost ¥5900 per person. The views were unreal and I recommend reserving the sofa seats so you can get amazing pictures. This was a highlight of our trip.
• 21,719 steps on this day.

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Day 7: Kawaguchiko

• This was our first travel day. We woke up early to take the highway bus from Busta Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko. The bus was ¥4400 per person. We were able to get some super clear pictures of Mt. Fuji while we were on the bus and right when we arrived at the station.
• We bought the daily unlimited bus pass for ¥1500 which ended up not being worth it for us because we spent so little time seeing things on the bus route. First, we went to the Panoramic Ropeway. We got there about 15 minutes before they opened and there was already a really long line. By this time, Mt. Fuji was already completely covered in clouds but the ropeway was really cool and we still got some awesome panoramic pictures. They have a shop at the top where you can get ice cream and sit on some swings and take pictures.
• After the ropeway we took the bus back to Kawaguchiko Station to get on the train to go to Chureito Pagoda. The gnats here were INSANE. We climbed up the ~400 or so steps to the top and got some cool pictures as well as our goshuin.
• We walked back to the station and took the train to Fuji-san Station and walked ~30 minutes to Kitaguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Shrine. The wooded walk up to the shrine is absolutely gorgeous. We got goshuin here as well.
• After the shrine, we walked and took a train back to Kawaguchiko Station to eat a conbini dinner, do last minute shopping, and catch our bus back to Tokyo.
• 19,374 steps on this day.

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Day 8: Kanazawa

• We woke up early to catch our 6:16am shinkansen to Kanazawa. Once we arrived, we bought the daily unlimited bus pass and took the bus to Omicho Market where we bought some souvenirs and food.
• We walked from Omicho Market to visit Ozaki Shrine and Oyama Shrine and got goshuin at both places. My sister realized she lost her wallet at this point, but a kind soul had turned it in to the staff at Ozaki Shrine!
• We took the bus from Oyama Shrine to Kenroku-en Garden, where we walked around, took lots of pictures, and sat down for lunch at a local restaurant.
• After lunch, we took the bus to the Higashi Chaya district where we shopped and took pictures.
• After that, we took the bus back to Kanazawa Station to catch our 5:57pm shinkansen back to Tokyo.
• 20,192 steps on this day.

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Day 9: Kyoto Day 1

• We woke up early to pack our overnight bags and catch our 6:21am shinkansen to Kyoto, where we would be staying for one night. We decided to keep our reservation at our Tokyo hostel because 1) it was super cheap and 2) we would be able to leave all our suitcases and belongings in our rooms for when we returned to Tokyo.
• When we arrived in Kyoto, we headed straight to our hostel to have them hold our bags before we could check in later that day.
• After that, we took a local bus to the Arashiyama area. It was absolutely packed with school groups and tour buses. We walked up Saga-Toriimoto Preserved Street to Adashino Nenbutsu-ji Temple where it was much quieter. We got goshuin and visited the small and private bamboo grove behind the temple. We walked back down Saga-Toriimoto Preserved Street towards Togetsukyo Bridge where we stopped and sat down for lunch then continued shopping along the way. I got lots of uji-matcha here.
• We walked back to Arashiyama Station and took a train to Kiyomizu-dera where we got goshuin, then walked to a small rooftop bar overlooking the Hokan-ji temple and pagoda and got awesome pictures and had dinner.
• After eating, we walked back to our hostel and checked in, then slept for the night. Our 1 night stay cost ¥5000 per person.
• 21,545 steps on this day.

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Day 10: Kyoto/Nara Day 2

• We woke up super early to check out of our hostel and head to Fushimi Inari. Our hostel held our bags while we went sightseeing for the day. We arrived around 6:45am which was so worth it - it wasn’t crowded at all and we got lots of pictures of the shrine and torii gates without any people in them. We walked for about 30 minutes up the mountain then headed back to Inari Station to head to Nara.
• Once we arrived in Nara, we spent some time with the deer then visited Todai-ji and got goshuin.
• After that, we took a train back to Fushimi Inari to visit the souvenir shops which had not opened yet when we had gotten there earlier that day. We shopped and got goshuin, then headed to Sannenzaka/Ninenzaka to shop. We visited Ryozen Kannon to get pictures (they had closed by the time we got there) and walked down Ishibei-koji Lane and Hanamikoji Street.
• After that, we walked back to our hostel to pick up our bags. We took a taxi to Kyoto Station to catch our 7:36pm shinkansen back to Tokyo.
• 27,861 steps on this day.

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Day 11: Tattoo

• My mom and I went to a tattoo shop near Shibuya to get matching tattoos on our wrists, then my mom spent the rest of the day shopping in Shibuya with my sister while I got another large tattoo on my shoulder.
• After my tattoo was finished, we all met up in Ikebukuro to get gyudon for dinner.
• 9,879 steps on this day.

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Day 12: Yokohama/Kamakura

• We woke up and took a train to Yokohama where we walked the Minato Mirai 21 area and shopped and had lunch at World Porters.
• After lunch, we took a train to Kamakura. First, we visited Hase-dera and got goshuin. I got lots of pictures of the hydrangeas even though they weren’t in full bloom yet.
• After that we walked up the road to Daibutsu and got goshuin. We walked back to Hase Station and took a train to Kamakura Station and walked the pedestrian pathway in the center of the road to Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu. We got our goshuin and were able to observe a small part of a traditional Japanese wedding that was happening at the shrine, which was really cool.
• After that, we walked back to Kamakura Station and took a train back to Tokyo.
• We spent the night packing. I ended up completely filling my suitcases with my souvenirs and had to put even more in my carry-on bag.
• 21,131 steps on this day.

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Day 13: Travel

• We woke up and headed back to Senso-ji to grab our goshuin, since it was too busy when Sanja Matsuri was happening the week before.
• We took a train back to our hostel and checked out around 11am, then made our way to Tokyo Station to take the Narita Express back to the airport.
• We arrived at the airport with plenty of time before our flight so we could get last-minute souvenirs. I found a couple flavors of KitKat and Hi-Chew here that I could not find in Donki/Ameyoko - but I could not find Beni-Imo KitKat which is the flavor that I was looking for! :(
• We flew back to O’Hare and drove home from there.

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Trip Cost

• Total trip cost: ~$5462.73
  • Total spent before I left Japan (flight, JR pass, highway bus ticket, tattoo deposit, pay-ahead reservations, suica, car rental): $2562.73
  • Total I spent in Japan (souvenirs, snacks, accommodations, transportation, meals, activities/admission, reservations, tattoo): ~$2900

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Cost Breakdown

Airfare

• Total (USD): $1600

Accommodations

• Total: ¥54500
  • ¥49500 (Tokyo hostel/11 nights) + ¥5000 (Kyoto hostel/1 night)

Transportation

• Total: ~¥64470
  • ¥33610 (JR pass) + ¥4400 (highway bus) + ¥3460 (N’EX) + ¥18000 (local trains/bus) + ¥5000 (taxis - approximate)

Meals

• Total: ~¥88510
  • ¥40000 (breakfast/lunch/dinner) + ¥48510 (meal reservations)

Souvenirs

• Total: ~¥150000
  • Goshuin, charms, matcha powder, candy, jewelry, clothing, purses, shrine offerings, postcards, etc.

Activities/Admission

• Total: ~¥9800
  • Pig Cafe, tea/wagashi tasting, shrines/temples, etc.

Tattoo

• Total (USD): $604.66

Current business. - One of the best addiction treatment centers in CA. Best in the Silicon Valley (we have several decent competitors in Marin County and then the rest of the competiton is in Malibu)
Small. High End. 6 bed residential/inpatient + 30 seat outpatient. ~30 fte employees/contractors. 6m/y rev.
INITIAL PROBLEM: Vast majority (95%) of people calling us we can not service at our current pricepoint/location and we refer out. Even rather decent insurance policies. Insurance wise - Out of Network. We primariy can only accept PPO policies from people working for Big Tech.
SOLUTION: Open quite a bit larger, cheaper to run per bed, facility while providing great clincal care. ~30-40 bed. This been on my plate for a while. So in preparation I secured decent in-network contracts to fill the beds once it opens. This would at worst 3x revenue.
COMPETITION: Larger facilities, even in the immediate area in the exist. I humbly believe that we can run circles around them as far as good clinical services and still make money. I have spoken to several owners. My idea of quality that people in recovery deserve is a level or two higher.
Paths to getting a 30 bed going
1) Buy an apartment building and convert it. ~4-6 m if in San Jose area. - Hard to get SBA loan (they dont like RE) to do this as a conversion requires conditional use permit. Plus I would prefer it to be "nicer" than your run of the mill apt with 11-15 units, even nicely converted.
2) Buy a motel/hotel and convert it. SBA allows around 5m, but one of the hotels that I like is around 7m. Another around 9m.
Last I spoke with SBA lender they were more interested in me finding an already running "larger addiction treatment center" to take over. But for me the "treatment center" part is nearly irrelevant. Most sell without RE.
What are some creative ways to look for this financing that is larger in size than SBA 504?
Thank you

Sorry I've been gone for a bit, I had a storyline to finish up and a few bad bouts of writer's block, but I managed to get to this finished up! Here's Season 4, eps 1-13! Be sure to leave some feedback!
Season 4 (March-April):

1. Truth: First change (shared with Lies): Lukanette/Adrigami are clearly established to have been a thing over multiple weeks/a month, with the NY special being the second(?) time they’re truly established. I doubt it’s truly satisfactory, but stuff still has to work within this specific season/the larger narrative, so… eh. Second change: Andrew Hendrol is present for the concert on the Liberty (“I might have to challenge you guys to a battle of the bands one day.”) and slips off to transform into Dragonus just before Luka arrives akumatized. He absorbs Truth/Eyebeam’s (renamed Light Eye) powers then buggers off to appear later in Lies. Third change: Shadow Moth’s design. While I personally like it, it wasn’t terribly popular. So here's a slight redesign: the main body can stay the same with its purple overcoat and black lapels but make the purple a bit darker and the lapel is the same as it was on Hawk Moth. His cowl is now a chromed blue with a peacock feather “eye” right on the forehead instead of his Zuko monocle. His skin turns indigo like Mayura’s and his eyes are like Duusu’s, but more malevolent. The biggest change to his costume is the function of the tailcoat itself: its tail is like a male peacock’s train, long and vibrant blue with pinkish feather eyes in the back, and it opens and spreads in reaction to his emotions. For example, if he’s pleased or angry, it opens up and spreads out behind him, and if he’s exasperated/neutral, it folds back down. Fourth change: Marinette’s transformation into Ladybug is fixed this time around.
   
2. Lies: First change: Marinette isn’t as fan-girly over the Adrien life showing, instead wondering if he’s doing alright with his schedule. Tikki and the others assure her that he’s probably used to it, and she doesn’t have to be so worried about it. Of course, this doesn’t dissuade her nerves, especially not when the modeling session the show films has Lila in it. Second change: The art room scene gets a couple added lines of dialogue (“Adrien. Our parents raised us for perfection, but we don’t need that. We’re already perfect. We’re perfect. Just show me your truth.” “But… I’m not sure what that truth is.” “Let me show you.”) before their class starts. Third change: the Hendrols are present for Prince Ali’s birthday party – it’s why Dragonus skedaddled from the fight – and Andrew manages to hide and transform without anyone noticing, avoiding Lies’ sphere. Even Dragonus can’t risk touching the sphere, even if his cravings for power – much like a vampire – don’t go away.
   
3. Gang of Secrets: First change: Tikki attempts to console Marinette after she talks about worrying about Shadow Moth and Dragonus (“Well, Duusu had always been a bit chaotic. I could imagine that he might be causing Shadow Moth a problem or two. As for Dragonus… he can’t have it much better than you right now, right?”), which cuts to Andrew Hendrol and the Dark kwamis all having a dance party to unknown song that sounds suspiciously similar to “Hips Don’t Lie”. Second change: Instead of the girls just barging up, Tom and Sabine give them permission to go up and check on Marinette. “She hasn’t been answering for us, maybe she will for you.” And the dollhouse doesn’t break from Rose taking off the roof. Rather, Rose trips on something – maybe a roll of thread or a screwdriver or loose paper – and knocks into it. Same result, though, but Alya rightfully calls Mari out: “Okay, Marinette, something is really wrong with you. I’m sorry we can in uninvited, but your parents said we needed to check up on you, and I’m sorry Rose broke the house, but it was a complete accident and you’re blowing up over it. There’s more going on here than just boy trouble, isn’t there? We’re your friends, girl, we want to help.” To which Mari replies: “Maybe I don’t want your help, or your friendship anymore. Get out!” Third change: Dragonus swoops in during the fight and knocks around the Gang of Secrets himself after LB catches Lady Wifi, which inadvertently gives LB time to talk LW into rejecting her powers. Fourth change: Rena Rouge doesn’t look as off in this episode, where her skin was a few tones too light. Dunno if it was intentional, but that still could be fixed. The episode ends as normal.
   
4. Mr. Pigeon 72: First change: a biggie. Alya acknowledges Lila’s number of akumatizations and says, “You know, even if you couldn’t tell me about Lila’s lying about being BFFs with Ladybug, you still could’ve told me – or anyone, for that matter – about how she threatened you in the bathroom. No one threatens my BFF with impunity.” I know a lot of people were upset with Alya’s passiveness over the whole Lila situation, but this line will have impact throughout the rest of the rework. Second change: I found this out on a whim, but it turns out city pigeons are a kind of dove, so Bob Roth wasn’t entirely wrong. Fun. Third change: Andrew Hendrol is watching the evil pigeons transform people outside and figures out he can’t go out, transformed or not, without getting touched. Vorrath: “When has that stopped you before?” Andrew: “I’ve got it.” Cut to later, he invades the fight between the illusions and Mr. Pigeon in a giant mech made out of a sentimonster that he teleported into so he could fight. Overkill doesn’t begin to cover this guy. Fourth change: I’m tempted to change Ladybug’s Lucky Charm suit to her permanent one, but if I did, certain episodes wouldn’t have as much oomph later… hmmm. For now, her suit can stay the same.
   
5. Psycomedian: Honestly don’t know what to do with this one, it’s a fairly solid little episode; funny, love square-y, gives Gabriel some background and Cat Noir some spotlight. I guess I can really just add Dragonus to the mix: Psycomedian tries his emotion-gimmick on him and he no-sells it (there is a lot, and I mean a lot of lore behind Dragonus/Andrew Hendrol, so I think it would be easier to link my original fics with him up to the point I’m at for posting and you can explore his background there, as well as his powers) then proceeds to quickly skirmish with Angrybug: “There’s the fire I sensed when I absorbed your powers! Why don’t you let loose like this a little more? Finish the job!” (Again, lore makes sense if you read my main fics, I’m sorry, but he’s such a big character in my works that I don’t know how to condense it down. I’ll try but expect that later.)
   
6. Furious Fu: First change: I’m really, really confused as to why Fu and Marianne are not referred to as husband/wife or at least married. They would’ve gotten married, right? It’s not a thing that I or the fandom seem to be upset about, I’m just super confused, and if anyone is willing to enlighten me, I’d be thankful. For now, Fu and Marianne are a couple, husband and wife, like they should’ve been since Backwarder or before. Second change: During the fight between LB/CN and Su-Han, guess who shows up but Dragonus. Su-Han freezes for a moment, which gives LB/CN time to snatch the Miracle Box, but Su-Han tries to pull it back. SH: “Ladybug! You did not tell me the Dark Dragon Miraculous was in Paris!” CN: “Sounds like you never asked!” Dragonus: sarcastically “Aw, now you’ve hurt my feelings.” Draws sword and points it at SH. “So you’re the Celestial Guardian I heard about. Head honcho, I’m guessing.” SH turns his aggression towards Dragonus. SH: “You and your kind are a blighted spot amongst the history of the Miraculous, demon!” Lunges. “Heavenly Retribution! The Righteous Will of the Justiciar Breaks the World’s Evil!” Dragonus dodges most of the attacks and matches a few of them, but Su-Han lands one good punch to the stomach. Dragonus: “growls Alright, then. You aren’t as much of a pushover as they are… or the Guardians at the Temple were. If we’re going to talk in metaphors, here's mine.” Flies away from SH and presses center of sword, opening a compartment and pulls out a purple pendant on a chain, emblazoned with a stylized T-rex face. “The grand unity of dinosaurs and dragons humbles the arrogant monk. Rexx, Vorrath, Unify!” (See here for appearance: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42733506/chapters/114090748 use ctrl-F and search "Thero"). “Thero Dragon flies as the Dark Guardian!” This reveals to everyone present that Dragonus has more of the Dark Miraculouses at his disposal and subsequent “oh crap” from Su-Han reveals how serious it is. By this point, LB/CN ran off, Thero Dragon taunts Su-Han and flies off, then doesn’t return until the battle with Furious Fu in the stadium, where he absorbs FF’s powers and briefly fights LB/CN before flying off again, proclaiming that “You haven’t seen the last of Thero Dragon!”. Episode ends as normal, but Su-Han will appear again this rewrite before Ephemeral.
   
7. Sole Crusher: Okay, major change time again. I know a lot – almost utterly ridiculously so – of people do/did not like Zoe in the slightest. But, since I’m trying to stay fairly… fair to the source material (while adding new and interesting concepts), we are including Zoe, only her introduction is going to be quite different. Zoe has come to Paris because her time at her boarding school was cut short due to complete and total bullying, and her own father, a man we know as Robert Lee from Audrey, is too distant to think of another arrangement within NY and sends her to Paris to be with her mother. So, Zoe is going to be quite sullen/angry with her situation, and this becomes apparent when Marinette runs into her. Marinette apologizes profusely, but Zoe gives her a glare and basically tells her to bugger off. Marinette, though, recognizes something is wrong and pries just a little more (and it’s framed as Marinette trying to keep Zoe from attracting Shadow Moth’s attention while simultaneously trying to help), and Zoe reveals a bit of what’s happened – including the one friend – but not the full story nor which family she’s living with. Marinette, being the all-but-Lila-loving hero she is, preps a bag for the new girl. “Even if life has been bitter, it helps to have something sweet!” Marinette says. Zoe gives her a strange look. “What’s your angle? Everyone has one. Why’re you helping me?” Zoe asks, confused and suspicious. Marinette blinks in surprise and shrugs. “It’s the right thing to do, especially when you’re in a new place. I gave you my number if you’d like to chat.” Zoe blinks twice, clearly surprised by the generosity and seeming genuine nature of the girl in front of her. “Okay, then. I guess I should give you mine so… you know.” Marinette holds out her hand. “So I don’t lose it.” The first step to breaking Zoe’s rough exterior has been taken, but said rough exterior still persists when Zoe arrives at the hotel. Another major change: Audrey, while trying to be more supportive of Chloe, still has her preferred child, and that preferred child is Zoe, because, and this will cause drama later, “Zoe is one of only four people in my life who don’t grovel at my feet.” Chloe walks into the lounge/dining hall and hears this and immediately goes nuclear, but her rant is cut short by Zoe snapping at her to “Shut your mouth, you little brat.” Chloe is, of course, horrifically offended, but Audrey breaks it up before it escalates and sends them to get to know each other better… which, given this Zoe, goes about as well as expected. She snaps at all of Chloe’s rules, throws the diamond heels, and when Chloe calls her a “horrible half-of-a-sister”, Zoe throws it right back at her. This back-and-forth continues to school, where Zoe doesn’t bend to Chloe’s whims, but instead blows up at her again – which inadvertently does two things: it proves that Zoe isn’t like Chloe, but she’s quote-unquote “bad” in other ways. Of course, someone – Andrew Hendrol – sees this whole debacle and comments, “Such a powerful response to Chloe’s bratty self, such a temper. Oh, yesss, I like her.” There’s still “scaring Damocles” and “Marinette/girls talk about Zoe and Chloe”, but it’s less of Chloe’s influence and more “wow she’s scary but I bet Chloe had something to do with it.” Marinette and Zoe’s text still goes through, and Chloe still snaps at her for texting Marinette, but Zoe just snaps at her. “It’s none of your business, Chloe.” Chloe, on the other hand, makes it her business and goes back to her notebook, eventually landing on cockroaches in the locker (reused material, really?) to punish Marinette, and Zoe actually stumbles, a haunted look in her eyes. She staggers out of the room (taking the heels with her) and out to the roof, prepping to throw the shoes away in anger (perhaps a metaphor for something more disturbing) before losing the will to and she just breaks, resting her head against the bar and starts to cry. Andre comes up to her, they talk, and Zoe reveals her original dream of acting. “I’m good at it, but then everyone expected a different Zoe and they pressured me and I broke and now I can’t think of acting or anything without getting angry… I don’t like being angry. Not with the people who don’t deserve it, not with Chloe, not with anyone… I just want to be me, but I’m scared that the angry one is me…” Andre sighs. “You know, it might be good for you to… put a little bit of time between your past and now. Choose what you want to put in the Dream Cellar, and once you’ve… adjusted, you can come get it. Or you can leave it. The choice is yours.” Zoe’s akumatization stays the same, the general akuma battle remains the same, except for Thero Dragon Siphoning off Sole Crusher’s powers and stomping a few civilians for big kaiju battle time while taunting Chloe (“You can run, but I know I’m in your nightmares!”), which provides LB/CN enough time to find the akumatized sneakers and break them. The barge scene is a little different: Zoe explains what happened, and while her backstory with the crowds and roaches hasn’t changed too much, she adds, “I had one friend, but even she wasn’t around very much… not enough to help me when I needed it. I don’t blame her, she had a rough childhood, too, but I still pent that up. I’m sorry you had to see my outbursts. I get it if you don’t want to be my friend.” Of course, huggy happiness still ensues, the Bourgeois confrontation still happens, though Chloe’s basis for her demands is “If she stays here, she’ll make me stress out and ruin my perfect me!” and her threat is to crush you like your NY classmates did, while Audrey just rolls her eyes. “Chloe, quit being melodramatic. I understand Zoe’s not been the best sister – which is a discussion we will have later – but she’s not going back to New York now. I’m certainly not going to be responsible for her return fares.” The episode ends with Andre asking Zoe to “Call me Dad. I know your father is… distant, and I don’t know if I can replace him, but-” Zoe hugs him. “Thanks, Dad. Promise me you’ll make the choice to take your past out of the cellar, too.” The episode ends the same, with a much happier Zoe thanking Marinette for everything as a photo album (with dates so we can at least see it was a week or two between this and Queen Banana!) plays across the screen.
   
8. Queen Banana: First change: Chloe’s “half-of-a-sister” bit when she bursts into the art room is now “Giving the lead role to my half-of-a-sister who just came out of nowhere a week ago?!”, and all of the talk of going back to New York is replaced with snappy but ultimately toothless posturing about ruining her life. Zoe, of course, is having none of that and snaps back at her with “The only way you’re ruining this movie is if you pry it from our hands!” The art room scene ends the same way as in the original, but the scene in Bob Roth’s office is changed a little bit: Not as much mention of going back to New York and more mention of Chloe’s pride as she says “You said our hands, which apparently includes the producer’s hands, too. Oh, I love a good loophole!” Zoe is oddly okay with this and confidently whispers to the others “We just need to outlast her, trust me.” Second change: Andrew Hendrol is part of the filming crew – “Live soundtrack design” he calls it, while Chloe calls it useless – and escapes the ‘enchanted sleep’ part of the filming, and is shown to get increasingly more annoyed with Chloe, to the point of risking his secret identity as Thero Dragon by offering to play the fire-breathing dragon suggested by Alya (“Lemme do it, I’ll knock that role out of the park, just let me actually blast her with fire.”). Third change: After Marinette’s rousing soapbox speech, Zoe pats her on the shoulder. “See what I meant about outlasting her?” Fourth change: Not to be outdone, Everett Hendrol, Andrew’s father (who is also present in the theater unlike Gabriel, showcasing the closer relationship Everett has with his son than Gabriel does with his), has also chipped in some pocket change (an amount of several thousand euros in Europe money I guess), so the film is entirely cut off from the city’s funding and Chloe’s interference, and when Chloe runs off, Everett darkly chuckles once as Andrew calls out “Cry me a river, Queen Banana!” (Everett is aware of Chloe’s antics and the Hendrols as a family have no sympathy for those, especially the rich, who act like fools). Fifth change: Again, Chloe’s revenge plan isn’t to get Zoe sent back to NY, she’s going to crush Zoe in a way only she can come up with… which is banana. Sixth change: There’s less of a “my fault” moment from Zoe and that weird “promise” bit is gone, now it’s just Zoe deciding to face down her sister and give her a reality check. “You want to know why we waited until you were gone to shoot the movie? Why we talked Gabriel Agreste into funding it? It’s because no one could stand your bratty behavior! Not because we hate you, not because anyone turned against you, but because you couldn’t swallow your pride and work as part of the team. If this is how you acted as part of Ladybug’s team when you were Queen Bee, it’s no wonder you were kicked off!” Queen Banana gets infuriated, Ladybug saves Zoe, they scooter off into the subway, where Ladybug commends Zoe’s bravery, but definitely winces a little bit regarding Queen Bee. “Chloe, for all her faults, wasn’t terrible as Queen Bee, but she really had attachment issues to the Miraculous, even after I tried… and failed to explain to her that her secret identity was compromised. But I doubt I’ll have that issue with you. Zoe Lee, (insert Miraculous speech here).” Seventh change: Once Queen Banana’s banana gun is glued up and she realizes she’s about to lose and runs, guess what, Thero Dragon drops in front of her, triggering Chloe’s trauma from the Miracle Queen incident. Thero Dragon Siphons off Queen Banana’s banana powers for the fun of it, then activates the power of the Dark T-rex Miraculous, Silver Tongue, which manifests as a purple blast of energy that, if it hits a human target, allows the T-rex holder to manipulate the minds of their target… which Thero Dragon uses to break down all of Chloe’s confidence and restraints, all the while tormenting her with things like “Your mother hates you,” “Your so-called friends despise you,” and “You’re utterly ridiculous.” Ladybug and Cat Noir start driving him back, but he managed to do enough damage as he needed. “I don’t know why you bother defending a traitor,” he says. “She wouldn’t do the same for you.” Queen Banana by now has fallen back, crying, and freeing her from Shadow Moth is an act of mercy, but Chloe still refuses the Magical Charm based on her own (self-nurtured) hatred for Ladybug and Vesperia, both for replacing her and failing to save her from Thero Dragon. Eighth change: Chloe, in her anger, swings at Zoe when she declares her hate, only for Zoe to catch it way too fast and lower Chloe’s fist while she gives her speech, and once Chloe takes the Charm and the akuma is repelled, Andre steps in and reprimands her for trying to hit Zoe, even going so far as to… “Chloe Bourgeois, your behavior is becoming completely unacceptable. You are embarrassing yourself and your family. Give me your phone. You are hereby grounded for a week.” Chloe looks shocked. “WHAT?!?” Andre is stern. “I’ve failed as a father. I should’ve tried to keep your behavior in check when you acted out, and I see I’ve failed terribly. There are so many people we will have to apologize to, especially your classmates for everything you’ve done to them.” The episode ends with Marinette and Tikki wondering if this new approach to Chloe’s behavior will do anything good.
   
9. Gabriel Agreste: First change: Shadow Moth’s monologue is merged with Gabriel’s scene in the mausoleum under the mansion, first with Gabriel with his back to Emilie’s coffin before he turns to face it. Second change: When Nathalie offers Gabriel half of her sandwich, he initially refuses (“You need your strength.”) and she insists, then he crumbles (“You’ll need your strength, too.” “…Alright. Thank you.”). Third change: Andrew Hendrol is not present at the art-room fairy-tale-comparison blah thing, but Zoe’s response to Marinette’s question changes to “My mother has been attempting to treat her kids equally. Unfortunately, that means when Chloe got grounded for a week, I had to miss out on the dinner party. Had I known this was gonna happen, I would’ve put up more of a fight.” Also because of this, Zoe is NOT in Marinette’s room, but she is patched into the whole conversation thanks to Max and Markov. Fourth change: Audrey Bourgeois is throwing glares at Andre (apparently over punishing Chloe) and takes note of the solitary gold-trimmed black mask shaped like a lion’s head. “Don’t tell me he’s coming. You invited Hendrol?” “I had to. Otherwise he’d invite himself and ruin everything unexpectedly. At least now we can expect it.” Continuing the trend, after the Tsurugis arrive at the party, a shiny silver sedan rolls into the front gate, and Everett and Andrew Hendrol step out. Everett is in a pure white suit, in complete contrast to the rest of the party, and the hostility in the air is palpable as the car mogul and his son enter the foyer. “Gabriel.” “Everett. I would… like to welcome you to the party. Though the dress code specified darker clothes for all attendees.” “Really? I didn’t notice that, but even if I had, my black suits are all being cleaned. This is all I had.” “Indeed. Your mask, as requested.” Everett weighs the black lion mask in his hand. “Well, it’s not quite the cut obsidian I had hoped, but given your work, I shouldn’t be surprised.” Gabriel is imperceptibly seething. “I must ask you to stow your device-” “Neither of us will do that, and your little scrambler isn’t going to work on it, either. Your tricks, Gabriel, have been done by men greater than you a thousand times. And I’m the only one still standing.” Of course, when Chloe and Marinette sneak into the ballroom, everyone is giving Everett Hendrol a wide berth as he’s drinking something. Sixth change: The transformation into Shadow Moth from civilian form is still “Nooroo, Duusu, Unify!” I always hated that Dual Metamorphosis nonsense. Seventh change: Andrew Hendrol is fiddling on his phone – the only one that works, but Chloe can’t take it bc he already slapped her hand – when people start to leave Adrien’s room. Eighth change: Gabriel’s threat to Felix is more explicitly “I just need to snap my fingers, and you will be thrown out of here and I will tell everyone the truth about what you did and what you are. Think of your mother, Felix. She’d be devastated to see her only son hauled off for stealing from me… or the Hendrols. Everett is easy enough to provoke, and all I’d have to do is blame whatever I do on you. He’d personally see your life become pure torment.” Ninth change: Thero Dragon pounces on the Collector and Siphons from him, chuckling darkly as he does. “Clever plan, Shadow Moth, clever plan, indeed. But you aren’t fooling anyone.” Tenth change: We get a second epilogue: after Gabriel’s scene, we cut to a scene in the Hendrol mansion. Everett Hendrol is sitting at his desk, watching a chess board on the surface. The white pieces are miniature statues of him and other people, including Andrew, the black pieces are mini statues of Paris’s elite and relations: Gabriel as the king, Emilie queen, Tomoe and Amelie as bishops, Audrey and Andre as knights, Bob Roth and one unknown person as castles, and the pawns are their kids (Adrien/Chloe/Kagami/Felix/XY and three blank ones). The pieces are all at rest like the beginning of a game, but the queen (Emilie) and one castle (as yet unknown) are lying down. Everett just smirks, moves one of the white pieces a space forward, then a black piece. Everett Hendrol declared war.
   
10. Mega Leech: First change: Polymouse or Manimouse for Mylene’s super-name? I want public opinion on this. Second change: Andrew Hendrol is present at the “Stop Project Oxygen” rally and reveals a bit more depth to his character (and potentially a motivation for Thero Dragon): he is very conscientious about the environment, and he becomes increasingly annoyed with the ad and brutally picks it apart. “Two of my best friends’ parents work for the Hendrol Motors Advertising Division and this is exactly what they said a bad ad looks like. Also, Paris’s investors are brainless idiots who barely know how to stand up for themselves, let alone save the planet.” And he snaps at Chloe. “Wasting water? You mean like you do by existing? And don’t get your dad in this, my dad would destroy him.” All in all, he sides with Mylene first. “I’m getting my dad to counter-fund this scheme, he’s already gone to war.” Andrew then leaves right before the Minidiktators show up to transform into Thero Dragon. “After all, they can’t get me if my ears are covered.” Thero Dragon is just brutally attacking Mega Leech by himself… revealing a scary level of contempt for sentimonsters. Third change: The Minidiktator possessing Cat Noir is expelled through his real ear, not the cat one. Fourth change: Ladybug’s suit doesn’t weirdly swap between Lucky Charm suit and normal near the end, it just stays normal. The rest of the episode… ends as normal. Even that scene at the end.
    
11. Guiltrip: I don’t really have too many problems with this episode, nor do I really remember any complaints about (though I’m sure I’ll be corrected in the comments), the most I can really think of is adjusting it to fit my current ideas. So… First change: Juleka speaks clearly and no one’s parroting her words. Second change: While the first half of the episode plays out the same, Andrew Hendrol is noticeably absent, but once the second half starts, he shows up and he’s very unhappy/unpleasant to be around. It’s explained that he had to take a day off for stomach flu (and, little lore bit, he’s always very temperamental after a bout of sickness). As such, he doesn’t have much in the way of patience for the second half’s antics, but unlike Chloe, he’s quietly stewing and not drawing too much attention to himself. This extends to the later fight within Guiltrip (after he leaves the science lab when he realizes the only ones left are him, Chloe, Sabrina and Lila), as his negative emotions as Thero Dragon end up being so bad that Guiltrip gets hurt by them… and he flies off the handle once a bubble pops against him. He cools off eventually, but yeah. Third change: No animation errors. God, this episode was a doozy.
    
12. Crocoduel: First change: Luka acknowledges that Marinette hasn’t been around since Zoe first joined the group instead of not seeing her since their breakup. Gotta love the writers forgetting characters being in places at times ugh. Second change: Fix the animation errors. Third change: About half the partygoers (Mylene/Ivan/Rose/Nino/Alya) know that Jagged Stone is the twins’ father. Fourth change: The sky doesn’t immediately become overcast the moment Jagged and Anarka are akumatized. That was just weird. Fifth change: When Cat Noir complains that he and Ladybug don’t have wings, Thero Dragon flies over them and taunts “But I do!”, he flies up, Siphons from Guitar Villain and Captain Hardrock, then pits them further against each other for giggles. Then he reappears to Siphon off Purple Tigress’s power. Sixth change: The Tiger Miraculous transformation phrase is “Paint my Stripes!” not “Stripes On!”. The episode ends otherwise normally.
    
13. Optigami: First change: As an extra precaution to keep potential suspicion from Ladybug away, Gabriel makes sure Audrey invites Adrien’s entire class plus two extra invitations that go to Luka and Kagami. Second change: The first elevator bit with the entire class is stupid, so it’s getting changed to “Andrew Hendrol (who is in the elevator) rolls his eyes and punches the close button while Marinette tries to avoid Alya”. Third change: Andrew Hendrol slips out just before Audrey gets akumatized and discreetly transforms into Thero Dragon, and he immediately picks up on the smell of Shadow Moth in the building. He starts prowling around the building, waiting for the right moment to strike. This moment comes when Style Queen is about to hit the elevator Marinette/Adrien are trapped in, just before Shadow Moth calls her off. He blindsides her with his clamp weapon, then disarms her (literally) with his sword before Voyaging to the floor below, cackling the whole time. Fifth change: When Ladybug realizes that “Nino” is actually a sentimonster and calls out Shadow Moth, “Nino” starts laughing as his eyes glow gold and his body starts to deform into a monstrous shape. Thero Dragon’s voice starts echoing out of it. “And to think you almost got revealed because of an ally’s actions, Ladybug,” he said. “First the Turtle brought out without your explicit orders, then what? Someone betrays you for the Miracle Box? The only way to protect what you hold dear is this: ally yourself with me, and I can grant you access to powers you could only dream of. Consider my offer, because if the trend continues, you might lose more than just your privacy because of a fake butterfly.” Ladybug runs off to get the Turtle Miraculous Cataclysmed. Sixth change: Marinette is a little shaken by the end of the episode and some of her words are a little more barbed than intended, to which she apologizes and offers a solution to the problem faced that day, giving Alya the Fox Miraculous full-time, but gives her a few rules to follow. “If I find out you broke one, I’m taking the Miraculous back. Understand?” The episode ends pretty much the same. Oh, and that phone in the Miracle Box container? It’s (a little clunkily) mentioned that Marinette created the one during a “random creation attempt” session with Alya.
    

So, yeah. Now that I've finished working on my main Dragonus storyline and summer's on the way, I might be able to get the second half (plus the halves of Season 5!) out relatively quickly. As I promised, here is the link to the main Dragonus storyline, I'm almost finished posting it all. It's a divergence from Season 3 with some concepts pulled from the NY special and Season 4/5, but all in all it's a pretty good read (I don't exactly redeem Chloe as much as punch her until she understands that she's been horrible but she definitely becomes better): https://archiveofourown.org/series/2798386
Give me feedback, please! Your feedback helps me make this better!

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Thought this post would be the first w/o the PSA, but need to include it again: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
Early voting begins May 30th-June 6th for the Sat, June 10 runoff election. The ballot will include District 11 City Council member, District 5 Fort Worth ISD school board member, and District 4 TCC trustee.
[Tuesday May 30th]
Gymnastics - Level 1 3:30 p.m. Southwest Community Center $20-$65 Kids ages 5-18 can learn basic skills in a well-structured class.
Free Yoga Burnett Park 5:30-6:15PM bring your own mat
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Trig44 presents Trig Tuesday ft. Dalton Torres, Taylor Ochs, Matt Gumley Tulips FW doors 7, show 8PM
[Wednesday May 31st]
Martin House Brewing Company new permanent food truck, The Barley Gastrovan, serves options like wagyu burgers, confit pork wings, & cheese curds Operated by the owners of Rye in McKinney, the food truck’s open Wed-Sun
“Lucas before Luke” 7-10:30 p.m. The Stage West Theatre Free Join the FW Film Club’s monthly screening party
Nature Hike 10-11:30 a.m. Nature Center, 9601 Fossil Ridge Rd. $5 Take in the beauty of the Texas countryside during this morning hike surrounded by blooming flowers.
Lunchtime Music Series Burnett Park 12-1PM Grab your lunch & enjoy the beautiful weather paired w/local artists
We Run Wednesday’s The trailhead at clearfork 6:30-8PM
Fort Worth Film Club May Signature Screening: Lucas before Luke The Stage West Theatre 7-10:30PM
No Pressure w/ Koyo, Illusion, & Fleshwater Tulips No Pressure, Koyo, Illusion, Fleshwater Tulips FW 7PM
Tekken 7 weekly meet 6-11PM, 21+ after 8PM Electric Starship Arcade $10 for the night/ $20 monthly pass Can bring your own wired controllefight stick or they’ll have some for public use If enough people, casual tournament bracket @ 9
BettySoo and Pat Byrne The Post at River East 8PM An intimate acoustic performance $20+
[Thursday Jun 1st]
Family Camp 6-9 p.m. $45-$200 Bring kids ages 8+ to learn how to make a glass vase, suncatcher, and daisy.
Happy HouCrazy Crowler Sale 4-9PM Salsa Dance Lessons 7-8PM Neutral Ground Brewing Company
Erick Willis LIVE Rusty Nickel IceHouse 6PM $10+
Summer Menu Tasting Taste Community Restaurant 6-8PM
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s Concerts in the Garden Festival Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Greater Tuna Downtown Cowtown at the Isis June 1-3 8PM 2-man comedy show
Geeks Who Drink Trivia Night HopFusion Ale Works 8-10PM
Crimson Wine Tasting at Neighbor’s House Grocery complimentary wine tasting for sipping & shopping. Guests get to try 4 different wines from Napa’s Crimson Wine Group Drop by anytime 4:30-6:30 pm
[Friday Jun 2nd]
First Fri-YAY All day Fort Worth Bike Sharing Stations Free Explore the city on wheels with a free bike rental courtesy of Fort Worth Bike Sharing and the Blue Zones Project — promo code “92020APP.”
Kimbell Happy Hour Kimbell Art Museum’s weekend happy hour 5-7 pm beverages & bites w/live music by the Allegro Guitar Society.
National Donut Day TX Whiskey 6 p.m. a donut + cocktail pairing, burgers, live music, on-site engraving, & a donut hole bar $35
FWSO’s Concerts in the Gardenl Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Radio Highway Performs the Music of the Eagles *The orchestra does not perform on this concert.
Locals Only Hip Hop Haltom Theater 7-11PM
Live Music on the Plaza, Sundance Square 7-10PM every Fri-Sun
Dial Up - A 90's Party Experience Dial Up Tulips FW 8PM $15
Rhett Miller Tannahill's Tavern & Music Hall 8PM $28+
D.L. Hughley Arlington Improv Jun 2-4 times vary
That Texas Meskin Tour - THAT MEXICAN OT Ridglea Theater $40+
Special E.D w\ Dude-Man & MORE Doors 7:00pm, Start 8:00pm Lola's Fort Worth
[Saturday Jun 3rd]
Drag with Me! The Show: Brunch Located upstairs at The Red Goose Saloon the ONLY interactive Drag Show of its kind: 2 audience members will be selected each show to be transformed into a Drag Queen themselves, lip sync battle, & win their very own Drag with Me! Crown! Ticket price inc Meal & Show! 18+
FWSO’s Concerts in the Gardenl Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Chicago Nights featuring Jason Scheff
Zumba Sundance Square Plaza 9:45am - 11:00am
Goat Yoga Bedford! Generations Park at Boyd Ranch 10-11AM $20+
Catalina Canned Wine Mixer Truck Yard Alliance 12PM themed after the movie Step Brothers. Wear your best tuxedo t-shirt for a wine tasting, photo ops, food trucks, & a Step Brothers cover band. Admission is free, but a $15 wine tasting is offered 7-9 pm, ft. six wine samples & a souvenir glass filled w/frose. Costume contests held 5 pm & 10 pm.
Random Direction artist pop up 1-6PM Love Sammy's chef popup 2-7PM Neutral Ground Brewing Company
CyberPunk w/ APT 75 + P!xel Ampersand 5:15-9PM
Miracle Nights Allmo$t Music US Tour Fort Worth Ridglea Theater 6PM
Ill Nino with Through Fire, Dropout Kings and more The Rail Club Live 6:30PM
WOODEYE (One Night Only) w/ Brave Little Howl + Vacation Dad Lola's 8PM $15
FANCY: Queens of Country Party - 21+ Tulips FW 10PM $15+
WOODEYE (One Night Only) w / Brave Little Howl + Vacation Dad Doors 7:00pm, Start 8:00pm Lola's Fort Worth
[Sunday June 4th]
Panther Island Beer Yoga Panther Island Brewing 10:30AM $20
Sunday Supper Club: Courtney Patton and Bri Bagwell The Post at River East 6PM $25+
The Damn Quails Fort Brewery & Pizza 7PM $10
FW Symphony Orchestra’s Concerts in the Gardenl Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Classical Mystery Tour: A Tribute to the Beatles**The orchestra does not perform on this concert
Summer Afternoon Tea at Indulge Enjoy 3 courses inc chicken tarragon sandwiches, roasted vegetable phyllo cups, street corn crostinis, scones w/clotted cream & jam, cream puffs, madeleines, & shortbread cookies. The tea service is $65 & begins at 2 pm.
[Ongoing]
Riders of the Purple Sage Hip Pocket Theatre until June 11 Fridays-Sundays 9PM $10+ Featuring action, adventure, & romance in the wide open spaces, it’s a classic Western of the silent film era
“Lives of the Gods” until Sept. 3 Kimbell Art Museum $14+ Explore the divinity of Mayan art at this exhibition of nearly 100 rarely seen masterpieces & discoveries

Hi all,
All of the information on this subreddit has been invaluable in creating our tentative itinerary. We are going to be celebrating our honeymoon by spending 10 days (2 travel and 8 full days) in Japan then on to Bali. Any feedback is appreciated including suggestions on where stay in Tokyo. TIA.
​

Day	Morning	Afternoon	Evening	Other options	Hotel
Mon 9/11 - Cali > Tokyo	Flight at 10:25am to HND	travel	travel		n/a
Tue 9/12 - Tokyo	travel	Arrive 2:20pm to HND, train to Shinjuku	dinner, check out area near hotel if not too tired		hotel in Shinjuku
Wed 9/13 - Tokyo	Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden	Yayoi Kusama Museum	dinner, Kabuchiko, Omoide Yokocho, Golden Gai	Koishikawa Korakuen, Don Quijote, Hanazono Shrine, Tokyo City Gov't Building	hotel in Shinjuku
Thu 9/14 - Kyoto	Tokyo station - take Shinkansen to Kyoto station	Nishiki Market, Kiyomizudera and area near hotel	dinner, drinks at hotel bar, Gion night tour		Park Hyatt Kyoto
Fri 9/15 - Kyoto	Fushimi Inari, Nijo Castle, Shimogamo-jinja	lunch at Kiyama, Philosopher's Path	Pontocho Alley		Park Hyatt Kyoto
Sat 9/16 - Kyoto	Golden Pavillion, Ryoan-ji, Ninna-ji	Shinkansen to Odawara	Dinner at ryokan, relax in onsen	Imperial Palace, Arashiyama	Hakone Gora Byakudan
Sun 9/17 - Hakone	Breakfast at ryokan, Open Air Museum	Hakone Loop	Romancecar to Tokyo, dinner, fancy bar	Hakone Checkpoint	hotel near Tokyo station?
Mon 9/18 - Tokyo	Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo Station	Team Lab Planets	Unicorn Gundam Statue, Rainbow Bridge	Pokemon Center Tokyo DX, Pokemon Cafe, Poop Museum, Fuji Television Building, Takoyaki Museum, Imperial Palace	hotel near Tokyo station?
Tue 9/19 - Tokyo	Harajuku - Meiji Jingu Shrine, Yoyogi Park, Omote Sando, Tokyu Plaza, KiddyLand, Takeshita Dori	Shibuya - Cat Street, World of Flight, Disney Store, Mega Don Quijote	Shibuya Crossing, Shibuya Sky	Nezu Museum	hotel near Tokyo station?
Wed 9/20 - Tokyo	Ghibli Exhibit (Shinagawa) or Ghibli Museum (Mitaka)	Akihabara - GiGO arcade, Super Potato	Anything we missed / want to repeat	Kappabashi Street, Tokyo National Museum, Senso-ji Temple, Nakamise Street, Tokyo Tower	hotel near Tokyo station?
Thu 9/21 - Tokyo > Bali	Flight at 11am to DPS	travel	travel

A day late but we're here, my little cheeto eaters! Remember as always to grab your bingo cards and let's get our little long weekend slumber party going. This whole fucking thing is FORTY MINUTES LONG, you're all lucky that my sibling who was supposed to spend the day chilling at my place has apparently forgotten that plan.
​

• There's a new opening style than all her other vlogs. Not sure if that's because of Morgan but also I don't care enough to go hunt down exactly which influencer she cribbed this style from. It features a lot of horse butts. Also her using her phone in bed, which I thought she didn't do because she's mindful.
  • The music she uses is this song, which is DEFINITELY not copyright-free, so have fun learning how actual copyright law works, Paige! The lyrics playing over the are "there are times when/it feels right to/run away, run away/when you ask the same old questions/every day, every day/Why do I set the stage?/Why do I find my place on the pedestal?", because I guess Paige went to the Love is Blind school of "make sure the lyrics of whatever song you use are really, REALLY literal"
• Giveaway winners! Congrats to the three people who won a pile of Paige's old garbage! Don't worry though, if you didn't win her trash, she'll be doing a lot more of these because she "appreciates [us] guys so much" and "wants us to experience some of the things that I'm so grateful to get".
  • Nothing says grateful like giving away your extras to strangers and instead of doing anything to promote them like you were supposed to in return for getting them for free, using the existence of this stuff as a way to leverage yourself up on the algorithm.
    • There's also Dairy Boy in the giveaways, of course, because no one's buying it organically.
• She explains moving Louie, it's the same stuff she said on Instagram. Weirdly horses are like the only animal I've never gotten super obsessed with, so I have no idea how BS this is, but it's almost word-for-word her IG explanation, so it's the same level of BS that was. She does word this though as it being a "charity project" and "passion project" she "donated to", because there was a dearth I guess of places to keep your horse in the rich people part of Connecticut.
  • She has to first run to get a grazing muzzle so Louie doesn't overeat in the pasture. This sets off my internal bad animal treatment alarms in a huge way, but again, don't know enough about horses to know if this is warranted.
• Just kidding! Don't let Paige into a Tractor Supply unsupervised, she's too much of a ~country girl~ to not come out with "so much shit". She also got this beef jerky that looked "so good". It's Iowa Smokehouse beef jerky.
  • It apparently looked good because all she had for breakfast was coffee. Why she only had coffee I'm not sure, since it's not like she didn't have the time to get something better. Coffee and beef jerky for breakfast sure is a choice, and one I'm sure her intestines didn't make her pay for later. This summer is all about ~hot girl indigestion~.
  • Story time! This looks like "legit, real beef jerky", which Paige knows because when Paige was in boarding school she stayed with a family who had a lot of cows and they made their own beef jerky, which Paige was of course intimately involved in, I'm sure. Anyway this makes her have such high standards, which is why she loves when somewhere like Tractor Supply (an enormous fucking chain, Paige) or a "local country mart" sells jerky because it's always better.
    • Fun fact that took me less than thirty seconds to Google, this "real" beef jerky is also available on Amazon
• More of the same definitely not copyrighted song as she packs up Louie's stuff and moves him. There's a lot of woman laughing alone with salad shots as she packs up and pretends to talk to... someone and "carry stuff" (ie: stand around touching her own body awkwardly)
• Some weird things about this whole sequence - 1) the "farm" she moves Louie to appears to have very poor, dilapidated fencing, red flag for me. 2) Paige is wearing a white shirt and then a white cardigan the entire time while DEALING WITH A HORSE and it never gets stained or dirty, which tells me she did fuck all, 3) the only guy with her is this big bald much older man who I assume is the guy starting this venture, meaning he's almost certainly who films her cantering around on Louie without her wearing a helmet laughing, which is so unbearably awkward. Like imagine asking a random older dude to film you doing that in a pure white sweater, 4) when Paige brushes Louie he sheds SO MUCH. Is that bad? It feels bad. When a dog sheds that much, even in the spring, it usually means no one's been brushing it regularly, 5) Louie has such a dip in his back and it makes me wince every time, especially when Paige shows him next to another horse. I don't know what that's from, but I hate it and it doesn't look comfortable for him.
• Nance and Baloo are at home when Paige gets back so she's just going to "throw on a little outfit" and they're going to go out for Mother's Day in Brooklyn. Paige really, really didn't want to go into the city because I guess she's suuuuch a country girl (nice, Paige) but she's doing it for her mom and to see her sister
  • Oh my god she DOESN'T CHANGE HER SHIRT FROM THE BARN, she wears a white henley, what look like blue pajama pants, and a leather coat.
  • Nance steals some of Paige's clothes (how I don't know since they're totally different sizes) and according to Paige is"slaying the boots", a phrase I will pay actual cash money to never hear Paige say again
• Next morning, return of the out of focus camera, though it may have been by accident this time because it stays out of focus. Anyway serious business Paige with her serious business glasses is starting the day with some "desk work". Is that a thing? A phrase? What the fuck is "desk work"? Has anyone who actually does work at a desk ever called it that?
  • When she's in Europe it's definitely harder for her to sit and do computer work even though she has a laptop but starting the day on her desktop at the same time as her "whole team" (WHO) it really makes a difference for them being all on the same page.
    • Okay so my actual job in real life is doing shipping and order management for a small creative goods company. I know very intimately what goes into product development, order fulfillment, etc, and Paige is just straight up saying nonsense. Like I paused and gave serious thought to what possibly she could be talking about, and I don't know what all this "work" is. If she was making everything in-house that's one thing, but that's not work she could possibly be doing or overseeing from Europe. But if she's outsourcing stuff, having it sent to a warehouse, and, then paying someone to ship it out for her, I guess she's doing... development? But that makes no sense because again, she outsources everything. She isn't doing wholesale, there isn't a lot to arrange for pop-ups if everything is outsourced and pre-made and she's only supposedly having one this summer, she only has eight products so the website maintenance is pretty easy, as is accounting, and she only really sells stuff around a drop which she does maybe twice a year.......... like genuinely I'm baffled here. It's my job to do this exact same thing every day with products that aren't jeans or sweatshirts or whatever and I'm so, confused about what her "work" is.
    • Allegedly they're on the "final push" for so many big projects and you know what, if any of these projects involve Paige actually doing anything besides feeling three different samples of denim swatches or deciding which vendor she's going to outsource oven mitts to and saying "I like this" or "I don't like that", I will issue her an apology. I feel safe in the idea that I won't have to issue her an apology, but I will keep on on offer in the off-chance I'm wrong.
    • She just finished making a line sheet (genuine lol once I looked up what that was) and apparently we are going to freeeeak out when we see her new merch - sorry, elevated lifstyle products.
    • It's denim. She's been working on denim. She shows us the final washes but it's in direct sunlight so it's all blown out and out of focus so they look mostly white? But she got the "perfect color". IDK, it's a light wash. I prefer dark wash, actually. It's a lot more flattering and forgiving. But we've already determined my aesthetic and Paige's aesthetic are not the same aesthetic. She's nobly pushed back production six months because she refused to do a full run unless the wash was absolutely perfect. It was so expensive but she needed to love love love the denim, because it's really what she's passionate about and what she wants to do, she wants to be the best denim brand out there. You know, because she's hand-making this denim herself, not just sending instructions to low-wage Chinese workers while being afforded the privilege to fuss over the perceived quality for six months because she has parents who are willing to flush money down the toilet on this. Also, for the record, but denim is like... a choice? Like what is the vision, exactly, because every clothing retailer has some version of denim and people are already super married to their faves, so how exactly is this business model working for her, here. And it doesn't look like stretch denim either, which means it's going to fit a very, very narrow group of body types. Like speaking from ample experience crying in GAP dressing rooms over my "freakish" (read, not built like a popsicle stick) as a teenager in a time before jeggings, jeans are not forgiving and easily worn by everyone. The thing about what Paige is doing so far is that it's universal enough. You don't have to really tailor an oversized sweatshirt or trucker hat to fit you. Everyone can make room for another overpriced candle. But denim??? IDK girl, you do you.
• Paige makes Olivia a latte. Olivia comes in and say it's story time about coffee. Paige asks if she should turn off the camera for this and Olivia says no so Paige continues to film herself preening while Olivia tells her a story about how messy she is frothing milk. Paige spends the entire time interrupting her to go "no! No! No! No!"
  • They look at buttons and rivets and embossed leather patches for the back, and then sweatpants leg panel samples. Baloo hangs out with them and Paige tells him he's stinky. She eats toast.
    • WHAT IS THE POINT OF ANY OF THIS. She's not DESIGNING anything, she's just doing that thing like, you know when you're choosing your racer in Mario Kart and there are a couple hundred variations of wheels and chassis and you just choose the unique combos you want to put together? She's doing that but with generic clothing. I've been jokingly referring to her stuff as "elevated Zazzle" but this isn't even Zazzle because Zazzle you UPLOAD ACTUAL ARTWORK TO. Why is she re-inventing the wheel? What improvements does she think she's making TO A PROVERBIAL WHEEL.
• Not sponsored showing off gifting time! It's not in focus at all so we can't really see any of the products (professional!). One of the products she mentions is that she's friends with CYNTHIA ROWLEY'S DAUGHTER who has nepo baby'd her way into dropping oven mitts and aprons that look like Strawberry Shortcake's rejects. Like they're cute, but they're again little strawberries on white. Like tell me none of you silver spoon-ass bitches cook without telling me by making WHITE OVEN MITTS. Those will turn yellowish and burnt after, what a single batch of brownies? Taking a piece of toast out?
  • This haul includes her tennis Tommy bag. Not sure how she got it since she brags about it being "sold out everywhere even Poshmark and depop"
  • There is sooooooo much of this free bullshit. How does she even get this much free bullshit. Why do companies waste so much money sending this to people like Paige who don't fucking care and openly give it away. What is the point of an influencer. IDK at this point I'm spiraling, this vlog is like a third of the way through and nothing has happened.
• Paige unpacks with Nance. She has so many clothes and I don't think she's worn any of them. Full disclosure that this was the point I actually got annoyed and had to take a break and play some video games for fifteen minutes because while growing up comfortably or on the upper end of middle class in a generational wealth type of town has taught me a lot of patience for people with too much money, there is at some point a limit to how conspicuous over-consumption and waste I can handle, and that point for me came when I saw how many sweaters Paige has that look like they've never been worn. And the on top of this she has a giant suitcase of stuff she's going to depop! The environment? Never heard of her.
• Paige is going to get groceries. She's needed Nance's help to do all the hard stuff she's had to do today like going grocery shopping and having soooo many clothes. She goes to Trader Joe's, then goes to a horse shop and of course buys MORE SHIT SHE DOESN'T NEED. I'm not condoning what the French did when they invented the guillotine, like that was really violent and horrible, but the point is that the longer I watch this vlog the more I'm understanding their motivations.
• Paige goes on a sunset ride with her friend Lauren, this song plays in the background as a flagrant copyright violation, I realize at this point that there's no way this video is going to stay up without Youtube copyright striking it so I have to be extra detailed for posterity and we still have so much to go and this is going to take forever. Louie's back still looks horrible and as someone with inherited lordosis, I feel for him.
• Tommy facetime! He says exactly one sentence and catches a tiny fish, for those of you keeping track on your Bingo cards.
• Nance is still over Paige's house when Paige gets back because she never leaves. Paige is wearing old Dairy Boy sweats. At this point when I scrolled down to press the play button again I realized that Nance has posted a comment about how proud she is of Paige within seconds of the video being uploaded. I live with my mother and sometimes I still need her help on stuff like yelling at health insurance until they cover stuff for me and even I am confused by how codependent their relationship is. Like doesn't Nance have her own house? A husband? Other children? Paige has spent this entire vlog needing Nance's help to do everything from grocery shopping to folding laundry and acting like a teenager. It's a rich text for a therapist to one day unpack.
  • It's Taco Monday, this is just a dumb and boring version of Paige performing the white people taco night song. Also bewildering, Paige seemingly DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO MAKE TACO STUFF. It involves almost no cooking! She even bought the spices pre-packaged! She needs Nance's help on this too!
  • Undisclosed new cooking knife brand product placement. They are amazed that it............slices.
    • OH NO SHE SAYS SLAYING WITH BOOTS AGAIN ABOUT THE KNIFE END THIS MISERY
  • Ahahhahah the reason they're so impressed is because they've apparently been cooking with unsharpened knives. Like Paige didn't know you could sharpen knives. A master chef, ladies and gentlemen!
• Oh god we're only halfway through. Paige wakes up the next morning. She got so freckly yesterday (read: she's courting melanoma and is going to age like a raisin). She's going to go play tennis at a club in Greenwich her parents are members at (Note, she shows the logo which means you can spend five seconds googling to discover it's this club. Membership is invite only and it's gauche apparently to discuss how much membership costs, but the estimate is EIGHTY GRAND A YEAR. To be clear, that is nearly THREE TIMES the average American household income. Paige is the child of people who spend more in one year to play tennis a few times a week than most people do getting fucking doctorates, which clears up a few things for me: one, I've never gotten those texts where she casually demands Morgan Wallen pay her back tens of thousands of dollars like it's $50, but I guess to her it is like $50, and two, why everything about Paige and how she acts towards people and money in this video is a million times more effective at radicalizing people on economic policy than anything Bernie Sanders has ever lain awake at night dreaming of.
  • Camera going in and out of focus during this explanation.
  • Ah she's doing it with her mom. Again. Heaven forbid Paige breathe without Nance.
  • Oh also she has to shoot an ad in the tennis dress, but she definitely likes and would go to play tennis anyway.
• More unboxing undisclosed adver- I mean PR.
  • I'm so serious, tthe flagrant wealth being thrown around in this video and the amount of free stuff a trust fund baby with absolutely no merits or skills whatsoever is getting because she has 300K followers on Instagram that she probably bought half of is like the best argument for socialism I have ever seen.
• .Paige gets dressed in the third outfit of the day to go to the dentist. The pants are pointedly too big on her so they don't stay up in the waist and create this weird enormous kangaroo pouch around her crotch. She pairs that with a toddler sized medium t-shirt for a football team she's probably never heard of, a choker that looks like something a boy band member in the early 2000's would wear but out of fake pearls, and cowboy boots. It's... the look sure is looking, let's just say that.
• Paige opines on how much she prefers to do vlogs at home, but don't worry, she won't stop doing travel vlogs for us! (Oh thank goodness, where would we be without the insights we get from them.) She feels like they add variety to her channel (what, no, we LOVE coming with you to the barn to watch you ride without a helmet over unsourced music! five times a vlog!). Sometimes she feels like there's this pressure to show us as much as she can, which explains why all we see in her travel vlogs is hotel room bathrooms, tennis matches, and the tops of various tabletops in restaurants. Anyway she feels like there's pressure because in reality she's there for Tommy. Which we KNOW, that's the entire PROBLEM, Paige. If you were HONEST about the fact that being a WAG on tour sucks and you don't get to actually see the places you're pretending to really go and immerse yourself in, we WOULD HAVE FEWER COMPLAINTS AND YOU'D FEEL LESS ANXIETY, the problem is that you have to keep compulsively lying about how cultured you are and how you really ~got a feel~ for the location. Just stop lying!!! Stop!!! Lying!!! Challenge!!!!! The anxiety you feel and the reason you have to monitor this subreddit comes from your CONSTANT LYING.
  • Ugh she would NEVER have gone to ROME if it weren't for Tommy. I think this is a ploy for authenticity but boy is it coming across as privileged.
    • I do think in her own Paige way though this entire monologue she has is about something I've noticed her talking around a lot - I think she's afraid if she stops travelling and being a WAG no one will care about her. I think she's terrified of doing what makes her happy, which is being home, hanging out with her mom, riding her horses, and spending her parents' money. But if she just let herself do the things she actually liked and stopped trying to always pretend to be cooler and more interesting than she is, no one would keep paying attention to her, because it's not like she has a sparkling personality or wit or unique point of view. Like I'm an interesting person to talk to, but if I tried to make a vlog of my life it would be pretty boring. I work a 9-5 M-F job and the most interesting part of my life is when I go to a concert or craft fair on the weekend or one of my neighbors goes out of town and I watch their cat. It's not riveting, but I also don't need to be doing fascinating things in order to be or feel like an interesting person. But people like Paige who need to always be travelling and going to events and flaunting how busy they are are often really sad and empty people. They're not doing any of the little mundane things that make people happy and spending time connecting with the people around them, they're just always moving around because they're afraid if they stop for five seconds, people will see that the only thing they have going for them is all that movement and travelling. I think Paige is constantly torn between the anxiety that comes with constant travel and isolation and putting herself on display and removing herself from the things that bring her a sense of calm and security, and the anxiety that if she allows herself to feel calm and secure, she'll lose the attention she craves. IDK seems like a thing she shouldn't keep indirectly admitting to in vlogs, seems to kind of undercut half of her material, but what do I know.
  • Also she really is going to positively contribute to Tommy and his life and career, ie: she needs to go home and feels comforted by home because that's where her mom and Amanda wait on her hand and foot and everything is about her, which she misses when she's with Tommy because when she's on tour with Tommy she has to accept that he's the center of attention and she's not.
  • Her home vlogs have been performing the best, like, significantly. Since she probably buys views and comments, this just means she likes them better and therefore buys more engagement for them.
  • Apparently her analytics are telling her that 30% of her views are coming from the "explore" feature, which she says is YouTube rewarding her for being consistent, and, uh. No. Not how that works.
    • I mean yes if you buy engagement it will put you in the algorithm more, but this is the time in the video where she accidentally self-owns. If you're an actual channel getting actual views from people who actually enjoy watching you, then VERY LITTLE of your viewership should be coming from the "explore" feature, MOST of it should be coming from subscribers or regular viewers or people who watch similar content. That's how the majority of people watch YouTube or find new videos to watch. But if fully a third of your viewers are coming from what's essentially a randomizer button, that pretty much confirms Paige is buying views and/or that a lot of viewers leave after a minute or two. Because if her content was good on its own, people would see it and subscribe, and then she wouldn't need to rely on the "explore" feature. But if she, as she says, is consistently getting a third of her viewership from that feature, than that means that a third of people are just randomly watching whatever YouTube puts in front of them and not engaging with her at all, meaning the ONLY POSSIBLE explanation is that she's essentially buying enough engagement to keep appearing on the explore page, but buying the opportunity to be put in front of people isn't actually getting her a larger audience because what she's serving them is a warmed-over turd.
  • Anyway Paige is counting on you not knowing the extreme basics and trusting that she "knows someone who used to work at YouTube who told her that's how the algorithm works"
    • Um if you don't know about social media - no one who works at YouTube or any social media company knows how their algorithm works unless they're the ones writing it, and if they do know, they're not going to tell you because that's extremely valuable, proprietary information and also there's like a lot of papers and NDAs and non-competes they'd be breaking if they did. They're telling you to upload consistently because it's good FOR THE MEDIA COMPANY. The company is trading in being a content hub, so they need people to consistently be uploading content, ie: raising the value of their site in a way they don't have to pay for. That's the entire business model of every. Single. Digital media platform. Heck, that's how most dating apps work too. The product is data. They want you to be giving them free product.
  • "I don't know, like I don't like doing things just for social media anymore?" HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH
    • And a week later you spent a weekend attending influencer parties in the Hamptons for....... what exactly. The scintillating conversation?????
    • She's very quick to say that's not the case if she has to shoot an ad! Loves shooting ads! Please keep sending her free stuff!
    • God this is taking me multiple hours but at this point I've sunk too much time in and also am convinced this won't stay up for copyright issues, so I'm taking a break to like, stretch and clean the bathroom, anything to get me moving and listening to my own thoughts which are in complete sentences.
• I'm back after cleaning the bathroom. I've been at this so long that my sibling has shown up. But I only have ten minutes to go and I REFUSE TO GIVE UP. This whole completely unhinged and unintentionally revealing rant has approximately a trillion uses of the word "like" is from 21:00 to 26:00 and if you want to watch it you can. I probably should have transcribed it for a full AP Lit level analysis, but I'm tired. If we're lucky, when Paige tries to re-upload this with copyright-free music, she'll have kept that in there.
• Paige ordered a shed! She's so excited!
• The fence looks mildly less jacked up when they go back. Paige is brushing Louie constantly in this video. Fourth time I think we've seen her do this. I feel like there's a lot more to horse care than brushing them and she only shows us this part because it looks aesthetic and she doesn't do any of the actual hard or necessary parts like shoveling horse shit, but what do I know.
  • This sequence uses unsourced but definitely copyright song number three!
  • Fun fact: Paige is the same fake brown color as Louie's dappled neck. Aw, you know how pets eventually look like their owners? Cute.
  • Shout out to Paige's friend (perhaps Amanda? Olivia? Can't keep the preppy brunettes straight anymore) who actually wears a helmet riding.
• Next day, we open with a bit of this song (not sourced, copyright infringement number four, possibly more that at this point I no longer notice tbh). Paige puts on boots to go to the new shed and realizes the vlog is going to be so long because she's never done a whole week at a time before. Because I've made it this far, I'm the best. (Aw.)
  • Paige calls Tommy to wish him happy birthday and films it, which seems... odd. Especially since she doesn't film it in a way where he can see she's filming.
  • Paige gets tea for breakfast (nutritious) and a coffee for the guy at the barn we must have seen earlier. His name is Aaron. I could do some google sleuthing and find him probably, but I don't care. Paige met him going on trail rides at her old barn. Do middle aged men usually hang out at barns doing trail rides? Just scoping out young idiots with disposable income? The whole thing seems sus. Apparently he has like seven kids.
  • Paige never realized how expensive pre-made sheds were, but it's a local business that makes it by hand! I assume the local business is called Costco And Sons.
  • More uncredited The Shins plays as Paige only loads the shed with blankets and nothing heavy or unpicturesque.
  • Another Tractor Supply run, at this point they're who really should be sponsoring Paige
  • Paige goes to say goodbye to Louie and he HIDES FROM HER IN THE WOODS
    • Girl.
    • Oh my god no wonder he's mad at her, they've been staying somewhere WITHOUT A STRUCTURE. He's been sleeping OUTSIDE. It got into the 40's every night in New England last week!!!
• Out of focus Paige talking about how she had suuuuuch a long day "running errands". Olivia didn't get to join Paige on her little horse girl excursions because she had to be at the warehouse and onboarding a new DB employee. Anyway Paloma is in town now
  • Paige learns that apparently you're supposed to be washing veggies as she prepares things to grill. PAIGE HAS BEEN COOKING THIS WHOLE TIME NOT WASHING VEGGIES. I.......... I am going to need to be sedated after this.
• Paige exfoliates and puts on a definitely not sponsored face mask
  • She's wearing skiing pajamas. In case we forgot she was a skier. Did you know she was a skier????
    • PSYCH, these are from previous ads with PJ Place but actually she really likes these and this one ISN'T an ad she just loves the product so much
• Paige is doing her makeup! We're at the end stretch! I'm almost there!
  • She took a day off of vlogging to go see her grandparents, but immediately segues into her Ulta trip. Because of her stupid grandparents, she didn't get to go to the barn, frankly how can she survive in these conditions.
  • Dairy Boy phone case plug! She was soooo specific about what she likes in phone cases and definitely didn't just choose between Zazzle, Redbubble, or (insert other brand here)
    • It's a shitty thin cover that looks like it protects your phone from approximately nothing and should cost $10 but I estimate she'll sell it for at least $40
    • Of course because Paige was so super particular about the details and business-minded when it comes to quality it took a long time to make........phone cases.......
  • Tommy calls and says hi
  • Paige rambles about her day and makes coffee. Tommy sent her peonies because he's "so cute". We see the phone cases and they're weird and ugly. More "gifting" (undisclosed advertising) that came in the mail
• Paige makes pickled red onions, every time she does it she changes the recipe a little bit even though she totally has a recipe and isn't googling. She starts pickling carrots which she says are going to "go bad soon" (that takes like six months, how do carrots even go bad?) She also does it in a water glass which, good luck ever drinking from that again without it tasting like vinegar.
• And then with no warning, it cuts off. That took me three and a half hours. It's been a journey and I hate it. If there is ever a vlog this long, I'm doing it in segments across multiple days because I'm exhausted by this much wealth and inanity. Time to go touch grass, start dinner, wash my vegetables before I do so. You know. The little things.

EDIT: filler picture so Reddit doesn't show my FUCKING CRYING FACE AS A THUMBNAIL LOL
Oh well, here we go again.
You know something has rattled your soul to the core when you suddenly feel an urge to go make a bazillion character post on Reddit. I've been to more than a dozen BM shows at this point, but only once have I felt the urge to post something like this before. Today, my dear kitsune-tachi, is the second time.
The dust after Bangkok show has settled, I'm completely emotionally drained, and overcharged at the same time. This was hands down one of the very best BM concerts I've attended. To be completely honest this is easily top 3 right after LMG and Helsinki (ok this one's odd so I'll quickly explain: this was the show where I was center barrier in a tiniest of venues with a stage so low and so close to the barrier, it seemed that the band was playing just for me in my living room, and I didn't even notice the dead crowd until I heard other hardcore fans in the pit ranting about it right after the show). Actually, not even "right after", but "alongside". It felt so good.
The circumstances of me getting to the show are batshit insane so I'll definitely give you that context. I've been monitoring flight prices for Bangkok for 2-3 months before, and they have always fluctuated around 1k USD for a roundtrip from Moscow (where I live). So on may 25th, at 11:00 pm in the evening, just for the sake of it I decide to check how much would it cost to fly to Bangkok the very next day. And I see a roundtrip flight through Manama, Bahrain, departing from DME on the 26th at 16:10, at 550$. The lowest price I've seen in many months. I frantically check the availability of show tickets. They are all available including VIP!! Well... Then there was a night of booking various things and packing my shit, and then an absolutely insane morning at work where I had to sort everything out in 3 hours to ensure my unavailability until Tuesday morning wouldn't negatively impact the company in any way until I had to leave for the airport at like ~12 pm.
I'm so glad I followed that urge to JUST GO. I wouldn't have even beat myself over it if I didn't, but it's really funny to think that there is another Polifem in a parallel universe somewhere who decided to go to bed instead of checking ticket prices, having absolutely no clue that he could've got an insane charge of positive energy for many months to come... And could've been sitting after the show with a bunch of Thai fans with a beer in hand, speaking no common language but vibing in the exact same emotional register with them. AND I'M SO HAPPY I'M NOT HIM!
So, how was the show itself?
Well. Funny how some things are totally different in an actual live environment compared to recordings, both pro-shot, and fancams. For example, we meme about Distortion constantly (including myself), but there's nothing more fun than shouting Alissa's lines and Wowowow's during C&R on top of your lungs at a concert. You can meme all you want about "worst setlist" if it has Distortion in it, but it's actually this song that will get your voice completely fucked at a show. Or gimme chocolate. Yeah, it's old, and hardcore fans are sick and tired of it, however, have you tried to jump as high as you can during the chorus following the exact rhythm of a snare drum? Try that at home, you're gonna be surprised. You'll instinctively be doing it live, and it's hella fun. Also it's great that the full instrumental mute is back in RoR for the smaller shows. The fact that it wasn't there in the 2019-2020 US/EU tour was really disappointing, this has always been a moment of great unification between the fans and the band, good thing that they now do it not only in Japan.
The whole setlist was an absolute fire, which was the general consensus right after Jakarta show, so I kinda knew what I was getting when booking tickets (I STILL can't believe how fucking crazy is that. I actually watched the fancam of the entire Jakarta show at home having absolutely no idea I'll actually be at the very next show in 3 days in person LOL 😂), but some things I already mentioned above, and some things about to be mentioned, still surprised me. Here are some highlights:
1) I really loved that both the opening and ending songs were BMD and IDZ respectively, since they hold a very special place in my heart. I've always wanted to hear BMD live ever since that first barrage of sound on the Wembley blu-ray, which completely and irreversibly punched me into the fox hole, and it really did rattle my bones live like hell. IDZ is simply my favourite song by BM and having it close the show was something truly inspiring.
2) I also considered GREAT the lack of stupid lore at the end. Having girls themselves say goodbye felt a lot more human and the show itself felt a lot more complete. All they did is said a couple of kind words, thanked for coming, asked how was the show, bowed, and left after saying goodbye in thai. But the impact of that felt really different from the usual lore shenanigans, and it was a lot more fulfilling.
3) Fucking Anthony Barone, why are you so good? Honestly his drumming brings so much energy and brutal vibe to the show, you cannot even properly deal with it. There was a fill, I think in iine of all things, which made my mind completely shut down and go "WHHAAAAT?!" He's the GOAT and his style suits this band immensely.
4) New costumes fit the girls really nicely and look gorgeous live. Lighting had a great production as well which enhanced that feeling. I actually think that the high quality video will be able to convey the full awesomeness of their costumes, so when the BD of the Clear Night gets released, everyone will have a chance to properly look at them.
5) They considerably upped their game with the video footage. I thought to myself that the screen is finally helping the experience instead of tampering with the flow of the show. Kami did get lost again, but the ladies looked amazing with the footage behind them, especially in MAYA, IDZ (the thumbs up moment in front of the starry sky was really amazing), and PA PA YA with fire and shit.
6) Speaking of... Well, I cannot just say nothing about PA PA YA here, can I? It's the biggest elephant in the room in this show after all. One big, charismatic, rapping Thai elephant in a magnificent red coat with a towel in his hand. AND IT WAS HEAT!!! Well first of all, the amount of towels in the first few rows (I was center in the 3rd row) was as many as you could've hoped for. Second of all, F.Hero was unbelievably lively and charismatic. He drowned the entire hall with his energy! Girls were having the time of their lives as well, they seemed very relaxed, it was obvious they didn't really rehearse his feat and improvised on the go, and that actually made the whole thing really special. Honestly, I recommend you go watch some fancams of his cameo, you'll get it.
7) The high kick in BxMxC instead of the usual ponytail headbang by Su really deserves its own honorable mention. When she just brutally kicked the air almost higher than her own height, it was obvious that no, they didn't actually get tired on the long tour with Sabaton. You don't do shit like this when you're off your game.
8) There were a couple of technical hiccups during the encore, particularly with Su. They had her backtrack stand out too much during one moment in MK (not nearly on the level of Kagerou in Moscow, but it was still visible), and also forgot to switch her mic on in the opening notes of IDZ so the first "rururu"s weren't there at all, which is a shame, she always sings those so softly, you really feel the moment. But oh well, it's a live show, shit happens. The sound overall was REALLY good though in this venue, even though Su was drowned out at times. And I say it while I stood at the front, I imagine it was even better near the sound desk.
However, all this time I was tiptoeing around the biggest highlight of the show for me. The thing that actually made Bangkok a cathartic experience. FUCKING MONOCHROME HOLY SHIT. It's a godlike, transcendental experience. Su sings it with such a passion, the song itself has such a good structure, beautiful melody, gorgeous passionate choreography, it's one of the very best things this band has ever released. A true classic. And live... It's just on another plane of existence. Unity, tranquility, some kind of emotional rebirth, you feel it all. Here's my face right after it finished. I just cried the entire song starting from the first chorus. I've only ever had a cathartic experience of this magnitude once in my life: during the intro to IDZ at LMG-2. And this feeling and memory of hearing Monochrome live for the first time will also be locked firmly in my mind until I die. This is simply inevitable.
Honestly everything just CLICKED for this show. The spontaneity with which I went to the show; availability of VIP tickets which allowed me to be at the front; great venue with amazing sound; absolute FIRE of a setlist, the best in years; unique performance of PA PA YA!!; energy of the crowd (at least where I was); and the band itself which is no doubt on top of their game right now. But what made it click isn't really the combination of all these points, but rather the single and indivisible pile of positive energy they helped to shape inside my soul during this amazing weekend.
I'm now sitting in Bahrain on my layover before flying back home. I feel surprisingly calm and focused. I don't feel like I really need more, and I'm not sad everything is over so quickly. Not at all. I'm just fully charged and feel completely rested and at peace. I want to go back to work, work hard, be better version of myself. And then, hopefully in half a year, I'll see them again. Fingers crossed.
NOTHING I have experienced in this life has EVER affected me emotionally stronger than a BABYMETAL show. I don't know why. Everything inside me just turns upside down, I gasp for air, I want to live, breathe, and experience, sparing no expense whatsoever. We truly live in a greatest of timelines. One in which BABYMETAL, having started as, let's be honest here, a quirky experiment and somewhat of a joke (albeit a really smart one) just stubbornly refuses to fall into obscurity and oblivion, and continues to improve for TWELVE YEARS ALREADY, while having 3 out of 4 founding members still going strong (obviously I include Koba in this equation). And the addition of Momoko as a full member will do wonders for them, I'm absolutely sure of it.
I really wish for everyone to have something in their lives with the same level of emotional engagement as we do with BABYMETAL. The world might become a better place. Otherwise, why would you even wanna live?

For 1, it seems like I can't keep friends. Sure I'm generally extroverted and I can make a connection. Maybe they'll ask for my social media or smth. But they usually don't reply and eventually stop trying to talk to me. A lot of the times, its me reaching out to others to see if we can hang, how theyre feeling, and I even vocally stand up for my friends when I think the situation calls for it. But I've rarely had that happen to me, and the last one never happened at all! What sucks is that I see them actively do it for other people but npt for me. I can think o a couple shit situations, there was a time in 5th grade were had our 5th grade waterpark fieldtrip that 5th graders go to every year. My best friend at the time moved away (I wasn't told until I heard it from another person and we really had no way to directly communicate so I don't blame her) so I was stuck with these 2 girls who were more into each other than me and when I ditched at the waterpark for doing that they didn't even notice! Then another time in 5th grade was when these group of girls (theyre nice people in highschool and I even sat next to one of them in my AP Gov class and she was kind enough to switch seats with me so I could be closer to the front due to a disability, but for whatever reason I can't wash that feeling of resentment away) and they pushed me away for saying some joke that hurt one of theirs feelings (but they never told me, I definitely avoided saying anything intentionally offensive or commenting on someone elses appearance because I know thats not something I would do when I was younger) and for that whole waterpark thing we got to choose groups. The reason I got put with those two bitches was because they said they didnt want me, which left me crying in front of the classroom. A quickie similiar to the first one where I was apart of another trio, but one of them was overemotional and wanted to be the center of attention alot (he mellowed out in highschool, but I can still see some of the tendencies). But that was all elementary stuff, so I can chalk up most of it to being immature (seriously, I think elementary school drama has made more of an impact on my psyche than middle school and highschool trauma combined.) But what really hurts was with my highschool friendgroup. By this time I figured out the type of people I wanted to be around (queer, nerdy, probably on the spectrum like me). I was mainly friends with this person who I shall call Bangs. Bangs was very similiar to me in terms of personality, and we even sat near eachother in almost all our hs english classes (barring covid understandibly). We could joke around, enjoy each other prescence and worked ob a lot of group assignments together, but Bangs was always closer to this guy we will call Spike and 2 other people. I knew these 2 other people well because I sharred a theatre class with one and I knew the other since kindergarten. Us 5 were in theatre for our senior year, but I always noticed how they gravitated towards each other. Even another girl in our friend group who knew Bangs since elementary was feeling left out. I remember towards the end of our senior year I asked Bangs if we would stay in touch after, but Bangs said I was just a friend and not a Best Friend like the other 3 were and we would drift. But I felt like the issue was people drift naturally over a period of time were they can't communicate much with each other because they're busy and eventually they just lose touch. What Bangs was doing was actively pushing me away, basically closing the gate on our friendship. I talked to Spike about how he would feel about me when we went of to college and he said that we weren't close (despite him inviting me to have a pool party with him and Bangs the year before, us being in the same play and improv team, and us generally hanging out and talking about ourselves a lot to each other). But I got, I understood that Bangs and Spike used to date and still had feelings for each other, and Bangs and the other 2 had elevated roles in our thatre deperatment so they had more time to talk, but everyone else in our friend group thought that while they are good people, they act self-centered and didn't seem to register us. Once we graduated, I noticed that Bangs, Spike, and the 2 other friends were hanging out before one of the friends was going off to UC Berkley. It made me upset that they didn't think to invite me. I politedly asked Bangs about it because I was afraid that I might hurt the celebrator's feelings. While Bangs acknowledged it, they did question if our friendship would last because I was getting upset about it. I said I treasured my friendship and that was that. Bangs would comment on my insta from time to time, I saw that they were hanging out with Spike but since I was in a different city I didn't mind. Until recently. Bangs recently celeberated their 19th birthday at Disney with Spike, and the other 2. I was in town before and at that time since its my break. It broke my heart. I didn't interrogate, but it did hurt me because I was telling them to enjoy their trip and they were happy with it, but they never even asked me. Even in College its hard to make friends due to the nature of our school, but some of the connection I did meet brushed me off for their friends, even people who were freshmen just like me. I don't know why this is such a pattern. Maybe it was immaturatity when I was young, but I worked hard to rectify that, but Ig im not good enough. If I continue to live this life, I can continue to be friendless, since its what I'm used and what God wants from me ig.
The 2nd thing was that I called the crisis line for my healthcare provider 2 times, just to talk. I said I wasn't suicidal (which was probably a tip off to not care, if you are suicidal but you're not at immediate risk they don't really try to help you). The first one was a therapist, and when I told her about my problem, all she said is that it was a pattern and that she hopes I could fix it with a therapist. No comfort, no reassurance, not even a pity "I'm sorry to hear that". The other dude was an incompetent therapist. I heard his voice and immediately knew he didn't care and it was a waste of time, but I still talked to him. I told him I was sad but He wanted to know if I wanted to use the crisis line or contact my psychatrist, so I just lied and said I'd call my psychatrist. Weird, because I have had a good call with this crisis line and like 2 with suicide hotline and 1 with the trans hotline, but with the first 2 I got more bad unhelpful calls then good (I even had to yell at a suicide operator about how she only cared about getting my name and address instead of first attempting to comfort or calm me down because if this was someone on the ledge, they be dead by the time that bitch asked them their date of birth. Ik its procedure but you never know what situation needs it first or last.) Like practically all my attempts for communication with another individual to talk about my problems just fallls flat. And I've tried venting my problems on reddit but I only get the 1 unhelpful comment and like 3 max upvotes. I don't wanna sound whiny, because everytime I point this out this people only talk to me out of pity because they NOW realize that they were being inactive.The last thing just happened to me like a minute ago. I was thinking about death. Now dying doesn't bother me, or at least the concept of it doesn't. Having a deadline for my life is fine. Life has no meaning so I can make anything of it during the process. But what scares me is HOW I die and WHAT happens after. I see so many ppl on this sub wanting to take their lives via pills, slitting their wrists, carbon dioxide poisoning, etc. and I'm just thinking, "Man, while I genuinely don't want you to die, you are absolutely choosing the stupidous, most agonizing ways to die". Pills may or may not kill you, but they can fuck you up and they make the process of fucking you up way more terrible than your think your life is. Slitting your wrists doesnt involve the initial hurt, but then your just stuck lying their in the water having to reflect and think, same thing with sitting in the car with CO2. Its the equivalant to wanting to get blind by looking at the sun. So whenever I go out, maybe today, tomorrow idk, I'd at least want it to be quick and painless. But even if it is, what happens after. IK none of us don't know but I at least hope its something like reincarnation or living a kushy life in someplace in space or whatever. But I'll never know until I die. It's like I'm trapped in a perpetutal state of misery, I hate living this shitty life o' mine, but I'm too scared to take myself out.
EDIT: I forgot to mention my bdays next month. For my 18th, I invited these 4 plus some others to do an escape room but none of them wanted to attend, so I planned for us to watch a bad movie. P much all of them were busy and didn't tell me and one of these extra friends gave me a lecture and trauma dumped on me about how their 17th b day went bad too and how I should've planned better because 1 of my plans before this plan was to go shopping (but I was afraid our group would just split up) because they wanted to go to a certain store. I just want to skip it.

I also want to say, even if I am too sensitive, I do want to keep distance from my in laws because I feel really bad around them, but how much distance is what is negotiable. I've written it very long sorry, if anyone gets to the end, thanks a lot 🙏 So my in laws were against our wedding, they wanted a big ceremony few years later. I'm south Asian, family expecting all this is kind of the norm, they also spend for the wedding usually. But we paid ourselves for a small ceremony with just family and some relatives. After that when we lived with in laws for 2&1/2 months, and my parents for 2 months before leaving abroad, there were lots of annoying things. I would get treated like I'm an outsider and my husband's PA. Like I should get up during my meal to get her son something, I should collect his plate etc, cook even though they have someone for that, pack my mil's lunch box at 6 am once the cook is finished.. my husband didn't let me do stuff for him, and for stuff like packing her lunch, we both did on alternate days. But these things are not okay for me in the modern age. People should look after themselves. On top of such expectations, she would invade our privacy, knocking at our door at 11pm, peeking at my laptop screen, etc. She would also lie and manipulate. Like she would manipulate me to cook or do something for her like put her clothes to dry etc. And would lie to my FIL if he got annoyed that I'm cooking when they have a cook, by saying that I asked to . I didn't confront her in such situations. My husband left the country first as my visa wasn't ready , and before he left, she started indirectly telling me to pack up and leave the same day. Here the tradition is that even widows stay with their in laws.. so like me leaving immediately is rude, like saying you're not my family. So my plan was to stay for 10 days max and leave and then come back for weekends now and then until I get visa. But she pressured me to leave in 2 days after my husband so I did and as I was leaving, my FIL was extremely rude to me so I left in tears. Later my mom wanted me to stay for a weekend during some festivals, and twice my mom asked her and mil just said she's busy. So I shouldn't come, even though she didn't say it directly. On another visit, my FIL, his mom who stays with them, insulted my family. Then my mom made me visit them to say bye a day before my flight and I was very angry but my mom is very persuasive. So I went with my mom and my FIL shouted at me and my mom , saying my parents didn't raise me right etc. Apparently he had no idea that my mil told me to leave the house. I still protected her because her mil was also there. I told my FIL I will tell him the reason separately and I called him from my parents house and explained. He was just super dismissive and sarcastic and didn't believe a word. My parents explained separately and he was rude to them and hung up on them too. After all this drama, and a lot in between, that I haven't included, I still felt bad for my in laws and invited them abroad for a tour because my husband and I are permanently moving back to our country soon after 1&1/2 year abroad. Only my mil and sil came and they paid for their expenses and some extra things like taxis which husband and I don't usually take. FIL still refuses to speak to me. In the trip , I was quiet and not super welcoming or affectionate to them. I was nice to them the first day but after that I started getting annoyed by them and grew quieter. This was an expensive trip for us and I did most of the planning as I don't work outside the home. It was a lot of hours of work and stress because it was 4 cities/ countries in 10 days. So I was very annoyed by how slow they were walking for eg. Like snails pace. They would get out of the building and immediately want to sit down. Husband and I travel with backpacks to save money. And we were paying for our own hotels and it adds more days because they can't check out early and travel with bags. Anyway, so i got angry when my sil complained to her mom that she doesn't know why she has come on the trip when me and husband keep going off on her own. Which wasn't fully true, and there was good reason. In fact my husband would walk ahead to keep a good pace and I would walk in the middle hurrying them along sometimes, and they would walk at an 80 yr olds pace. Her mom should have advised her but instead she made it an issue and asked us to include sil and take pics of her first etc. So I got very angry and told them what I felt. I did not shout or verbally abuse or anything. Just frustrated that's all. So the trip went a bit like this where some days I chose to stay in while they 3 went out because I was annoyed. And then one day she went on a long rant (exactly 1 hr) when we were outside because she felt insulted by how quiet I am to her. And this was in a language I don't understand. She also throughout the trip kept noticing what I eat etc and competed even in food even though there was plenty, so I actually started eating very less and I was crying a lot and avoiding food. I dont think she even noticed this. So after the trip I decided this was it and I want to cut contact with at least mil and FIL forever. Sil I will give a chance since she isn't even in college yet. I even told husband I don't want mil in my house, around my future kids etc after I've seen how jealous and competitive she is. So my question is, am I reacting in extreme? Like actually she was the one who would keep talking in the language I don't understand, excluding me. And in food she would do this like tell her kids to eat a lot etc and if I eat anything then even if she's full she will eat the same thing. Some of the stories I read here are much worse and ppl seem to keep in touch with in laws, which is why I'm doubting myself. Is it okay to cut her off and not want her to step into my house ever etc.

Currently, NWBO's Sawston plant is the only visible global hub for DC VAX L manufacturing and distribution (MHRA MIA approval 3/20/23) . For $400 , FED EX (https://www.fedex.com/en-us/custom-critical.html) ships anywhere globally within the required timeframes.A SAGE (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20363613231179541) 5/26/23 scientific publication demonstrates intent by Pakistani neurosurgeons to treat and cure their GBM patients. Looks like the DC VAX L JAMA paper and LIAU- Bosch presentations since 10/26/22 have created global awareness that DCVAX L will be is a major global cell based biotech therapy, addressing GBM , and all solid tumors( https://conferences.asco.org/am/industry-expert-theater).
With 50% of LIAU-SPORE-UCLA combo patents living 10 years, DC VAX L has turned SOC's GBM treatment from a terminal (16.5) months disease into a chronic treatable malignancy .
Dr. Greg Zivic:
"This treatment can turn a Glioblastoma into a chronic treatable disease even after recurrence of the tumor . "
https://nwbio.com/northwest-biotherapeutics-and-advent-bioservices-announce-receipt-of-license-for-commercial-manufacturing-at-sawston-u-k-facility/
https://twitter.com/AllenTurner206/status/1636426400382205952
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171479167
Monday, May 29, 2023 9:13:34 AM
Post# 596739 of 596755 4 Pakistani neurosurgeons endorsing the JAMA Liau dc vax l phase 3 study. Will the RA in Pakistan facilitate their patients' resected GBM tumors and lysate being sent to Sawston , with syringes of dc vax l sent back to Pakistan?
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2798847
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20363613231179541
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36591625/
IMO,BB's consultant is a "legend ", as alleged.Therefore, I recommend reading every on of his posts, word for word.
Bright Boy Brian F Egolf Sr M: Bright Boy
Re: ae kusterer post# 593171
Sunday, May 14, 2023 2:22:21 PM
Post# 593185 of 593185 I am definitely not a biotech expert and what I've learned about Northwest and DCVax-l was shared with me by one of the legends in the biotech world !!! My biggest takeaway is this:
From 2018 forward, it became apparent that DCVax-L was a breakthrough, technological process for the treatment of nGBM and rGBM, but its true potential was only known by a "handful" of experts, and as such, the understanding of the broader market implications was a relative unknown. Early on, several of the comments that I heard from BP were," The GBM market is really not that big!" and " Personalized, Immunotherapy vaccines are not really in our 'Wheelhouse'. We sell compounds/pills!!" On and on! The comments didn't mean that BP wasn't paying attention! Quite the contrary, BP was watching like a hawk as results from Dr. Liau and the UCLA trials began to leak into the medical community suggesting a broader application of DCVax-L on a "stand alone" basis and in combination with CI's for all large tumor cancers ( mentioned in the latest 10Q for future trials), thus dramatically expanding market potentials!!! But the "Big Moment" occurred in late October of last year when the STADIUM LIGHTS turned on, shining bright lights on the latest nGBM/rGBM ,Dr. Liau trial data suggesting 50%to 65% OS for 8 years with emphasis on rGBM !!! That was the point in time when BP and the entire biotech world realized that GBM/rGBM would be treated and managed as a CHRONIC DISEASE!!! with unlimited PROMISE and HOPE for patients and unlimited marketing potential to finance existing vaccine production and the continuing development for improved treatments for all diseases!!!!!
So that's what I learned and that's my story and I'm stickin to it!!!!
Cheers especially to all the Mom's and to everyone !!!
BB
Joseph H.Pratt: https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172010930
Bright Boy Re: None Saturday, March 18, 2023 12:38:55 PM Post# of 596750 Go People, People, People !!!!
The light switch just turned on for me !!! I'm not a doctor or scientist or a STEM concentration "rock star", but if I read something over and over again several times and look carefully at the pictures SOMETIMES, NOT ALL THE TIME, a major mental breakthrough occurs and I believe that I've discovered something very profound!!
In this case, I believe the main message from the slide deck is that DCVax-L, either by itself or in combination with CI's has turned the whole thing around for treating nGBM/rGBM from having to kill the tumor to a "management process" !! It looks like now with this new information, that GBM patients can receive vaccinations as needed with "Zero" side effects and live a long and happy life !!! A comment from a medical expert that DOES KNOW !!!:
Dr. Greg Zivic:
This treatment can turn a Glioblastoma into a chronic treatable disease even after recurrence of the tumor.
So help me out here. Does the above reasoning seem logical based on the slides all of us have just reviewed?? If it does or is, then little Team Northwest has just changed the healthcare landscape forever in the way that we treat disease!!!!!
Am I way off base or are all of onto to something that is fabulous beyond belief???
Cheers,
BB
Bright Boy Re: thermopost# 591947 Tuesday, May 09, 2023 8:41:30 PM Post# of 596749 Go The UK is determined to be the world carrousel for use of immunotherapy vaccines to treat cancers and all forms of disease!!! From my friends in the UK, my use of the word "determined" grossly understates the effort behind the "Grand Plan"!!
So far, the MHRA has not only accepted and approved the MIA application (manufacturing license), but voluntarily offered the expansion to a GLOBAL MANUFACTURING" license allowing for the import of live cells and the export of vaccines to the far corners of the earth!!! People!!! That is huge!!!!! BUT as always 99.99% of the retail investors don't understand the significance of that license or anything else about the process and look to the screen to validate the importance/value of the license, where they are greeted by Citadel and Virtu and the rest of the gang that manipulate the price to new lows, confirming that, in spite of everything they just read from the greatest medical minds in the universe, is a bunch of crap!!!!
Fortunately for the cancer patients and shareholders of Northwest, the MHRA does not include in their decision making process the current SP of NWBO or the opinion of the "gutter filth" that manage those companies or any other companies that participate in the ordered destruction of small biotechs that are engaged in the development of immunotherapy vaccines!! So, it's on to the filing of the MAA (marketing license), the approval and the decisions that will guarantee swift treatment deliveries to patients!!
So Griffin and Cifu and Fuerstein and the rest can lie all they want , but the GREAT UNITED KINGDOM will not be denied the ultimate crown of being the WORLD CENTER for CANCER TREATMENT !!!!!
Cheers,
BB
Bright Boy Re: hoffmann6383post# 578889 Tuesday, March 21, 2023 1:55:12 PM Post# of 596749 Go People, People, People!!! It's your friendly "hillbilly" here with some more great news!! Don't know if I can "one up" my earlier post about the "Dog eating the license", but I'll try. So here we go!!
I don't think everyone realizes how dynamic and important the manufacturing license really is so I'll take a shot at giving you my take on it. First of all, the marketing approval (MAA) and the government subsidy approval(NICE) are pretty much in the bag before the manufacturing team gets the "green light" to proceed. The MAA and NICE teams talk to the MIA team and say," This stuff looks really cool and we wanted to let you know before you run off and do a lot of work on something that we won't approve when you're finished!!" Okay! So that's the first part.
Now for the second part and this is the part that involves a lot of money so read very carefully!!! The MIA license allows for global export of the vaccines and global import of immune cells/tumor resected material. Anyone in the entire world that is diagnosed with GBM can NOW ship their tumor samples to Northwest/Advent/Sawston to have their personal vaccine made and stored, all to be shipped back to the patient/doctor on a prescribed injection schedule. The beauty of this process is that patients everywhere can NOW receive their vaccine on a compassionate care basis. No more waiting!! No more opportunities for the "dark forces" to delay or deny suffering cancer patients their desperately needed treatments !!!
People, as of yesterday, Northwest is now IN BUSINESS !!!! AND that opens the door for institutional investors and an uplist to the New York or Nasdaq exchanges!!!!
All of the above is as good as that first sip of ice cold buttermilk on a hot summer day!!!! AND for those unfortunate shorts and haters it adds a whole new description to the letters FTD and I'll let you guess what that might be!!!
Cheers,
BB
Bright Boy Re: None Tuesday, March 21, 2023 9:05:54 PM Post# of 596749 Go The MIA allows for "International Immune Cell Imports" and "International Vaccine Exports" !!! That is big news and a big, big market and should access every cancer patient in need!!!!
Cheers,
BB
ae kusterer
Re: None
Monday, May 29, 2023 9:13:34 AM
Post# 596739 of 596755 4 Pakistani neurosurgeons endorsing the JAMA Liau dc vax l phase 3 study. Will the RA in Pakistan facilitate their patients' resected GBM tumors and lysate being sent to Sawston , with syringes of dc vax l sent back to Pakistan?
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2798847
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20363613231179541
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36591625/
Abstract Objective: To define the landscape of treatment patterns and current epidemiological data regarding gliomas in Pakistan.
Methods: As part of the Pakistan Brain Tumour Epidemiology Study (PBTES), data were collected from 32 neurosurgical centres across the country. Our retrospective study looked at patients who underwent surgical procedures for gliomas in 2019 in neurosurgical centres. The data was collated and analysed using STATA version 15.
Results: A total of 781 patients with gliomas were identified 479(61.8%) in public sector hospitals, 302(39.1%) in the private sector). The most common histopathological subtypes were glioblastoma 262 (33.5%), followed by astrocytoma 147(18.8%) and oligodendroglioma 93(11.9%). Gender distribution was skewed towards men 508(65%). Private institution hospitals performed surgical biopsies as the first surgical procedure 75(23%) more often than public hospitals 38(9%). Chemotherapy was given to 115(29.8%) patients, and there was no data regarding 467(53%) of patients. Similarly, only 202(43.9%) patients received radiation therapy, and there was no data for 469(60%) of patients. For high-grade gliomas specifically, only 95(31.8%) patients with HGG have a record of receiving radiation therapy, and only 57(18.9%) had a record of being started on chemotherapy.
DCvax: A promising advancement in oncology for the treatment of glioblastoma Areeba Fareed https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5906-9852 [email protected], Samia Rohail https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1488-0080, […], and Abdul Moiz Khan https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9796-8867+1View all authors and affiliations All Articles https://doi.org/10.1177/20363613231179541
Contents Declaration of conflicting interests Funding ORCID iDs Footnotes References PDF / ePub More Dear Editor, Glioblastoma is a malignant neoplasm of the central nervous system that arises from glial cells, primarily astrocyctes and is characterized by poorly differentiated, fusiform, round or pleomorphic astrocyctic cells with marked nuclear atypical and brisk mitotic activity.1 Despite advances in early diagnosis and comprehensive treatments, there is nearly 100% recurrence rate and dismal patient survival.2 According to researchers, more than 13,000 Americans are diagnosed with Glioblastoma annually, causing significant morbidity and mortality. There has been no cure for Glioblastoma so far.3 Treatment options often include surgical removal of the tumor followed by concomitant radiation and adjuvant temozolomide TMZ chemotherapy which has been the standard of care for glioblastoma since decades, but exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation is a well-known exogenous risk factor for glioblastoma. The inability to cross the BBB is the major obstacle in achieving remission after surgical resection followed by chemotherapy and radiation.4 As a result, glioblastoma typically recurs within six to 8 months and the survival rate is generally less than 5%.2 Despite the development of novel, complex, multidisciplinary, and targeted therapies the outcome for patients remains almost universally lethal.5 Therefore, the need for effective treatment is undeniable. For this reason, it has been a priority area in cancer research. Recently, US biotech company Northwest Biotherapeutics has developed a brain cancer vaccine, called DCVax, which is designed to help patients' immune system to target their tumors that may prolong their life by months or, in some cases, years.5 Thus, opening a door for the development of innovative therapy for targeting glioblastoma. The vaccine is created for each patient individually by isolating dendritic cells, from their blood which is then primed with biomarkers from a sample of the patient’s tumor.6 Dendritic cells present tumor antigens to the immune system, prime T cells, and mobilize antitumor responses.6 To evaluate the safety of the vaccine and its impact on survival time in patients with Glioblastoma, a phase 3 randomized control trial was conducted.7 In this trial, 348 patients newly diagnosed with Glioblastoma were tested at King’s College Hospital and other centers around the world for 8 years.7 Patients had surgery to remove their tumors as much as possible, followed by radiation and chemotherapy as the standard treatment for Glioblastoma.7 Among these patients, two out of three were treated with the vaccine, DCVax-L, with the remaining one-third receiving a placebo.7 The astonishing result of the trial has shown that newly diagnosed patients who received the vaccine survived for 19.3 months compared to 16.5 months for those who received a placebo.8 Overall 13% of all trial participants treated with DCVax lived more than 5 years after diagnosis compared with 5.7% in the comparison group who did so.8 Moreover, this is the first time in 17 years that such a significant result has been achieved in a Phase 3 trial of a systemic treatment for newly diagnosed Glioblastoma, and it’s the first treatment in 27 years for patients with GBM recurrence.9 Thus, this development represents a major step forward in our efforts to combat this devastating disease. Based on the findings of the trials evaluating the drug’s efficacy, it has the potential to improve the quality of life for patients, especially for the elderly and those unable to have surgery. A global clinical trial has concluded that the DCVax is the world’s first vaccine to treat deadly cancerous brain tumors that could help patients to live for years.9 This breakthrough could benefit 2500 people a year in the UK being diagnosed with Glioblastoma.9 It has also been shown that this therapy can be used to treat cancers other than Glioblastoma.9 However, due to high recurrence rate and lethal outcomes, the treatment of gliblastoma has seen significant transformation, switching from an aggressive surgical strategy to a more cautious one. The endorsement of the vaccine is a commendable achievement, and it demonstrates the unwavering commitment of researchers and healthcare professionals to discovering effective treatments for such lethal disease. Furthermore, vaccine may enhance the quality of life of a patient and provides a new hope for patients and their families Thus, it is crucial that we continue to support research into Glioblastoma and the development of novel treatments so that we can envision a future where this disease is eradicated. Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. ORCID iDs Areeba Fareed https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5906-9852 Samia Rohail https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1488-0080 Alishba Adnan https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1238-6687 Abdul Moiz Khan https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9796-8867 Footnotes Author’s noteNot commissioned, externally peer reviewed. ContributorshipAreeba Fareed and Samia Rohail wrote the draft. Alishba Adnan and Abdul Moiz Khan proofread it. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript and approved the final version of the manuscript. Data availabilityNo new dataset generated. References 1. Aans.org. Available from: https://www.aans.org/Patients/Neurosurgical-Conditions-and-Treatments/Glioblastoma-Multiforme%5d (cited 9 April 2023). GO TO REFERENCE Google Scholar 2. Liau LM, Ashkan K, Brem S, et al. Association of autologous tumor lysate-loaded dendritic cell vaccination with extension of survival among patients with newly diagnosed and recurrent glioblastoma: a phase 3 prospective externally controlled cohort trial: a phase 3 prospective externally controlled cohort trial. JAMA Oncol 2023; 9(1): 112–121. Available from: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2798847 (cited 9 April 2023).
PubMed Google Scholar 3. Pelc C. Experimental cancer vaccine both treats and prevents brain cancer in mice [Internet]. East Sussex, UK: Medical News Today, 2023. Available from: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/experimental-cancer-vaccine-both-treats-and-prevents-brain-cancer-in-mice (cited 9 April 2023). GO TO REFERENCE Google Scholar 4. Rong L, Li N, Zhang Z. Emerging therapies for glioblastoma: current state and future directions. J Exp Clin Cancer Res 2022; 41(1): 142. (cited 9 April 2023). GO TO REFERENCE Crossref PubMed Google Scholar 5. Aldape K, Brindle KM, Chesler L, et al. Challenges to curing primary brain tumours. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 2019; 16(8): 509–520. Available from: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41571-019-0177-5 (cited 9 April 2023).
Crossref PubMed Google Scholar 6. Technology Networks. Brain cancer vaccine shown to extend patient survival [Internet]. Sudbury, UK: Technology Networks, 2022. Available from: https://www.technologynetworks.com/vaccines/news/brain-cancer-vaccine-shown-to-extend-patient-survival-367721 (cited 9 April 2023).
Google Scholar 7. Clinicaltrials.gov. Study of a drug [DCVax®-L] to treat newly diagnosed GBM brain cancer - full text view - Clinicaltrials.gov [internet]. Bethesda, MD: Clinicaltrials.gov, 2023. Available from: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00045968 (cited 9 April 2023).
Google Scholar 8. Campbell D. Vaccine shown to prolong life of patients with aggressive brain cancer. London, UK: The guardian [Internet], 2022. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/17/vaccine-shown-to-prolong-life-patients-aggressive-brain-cancer-trial-glioblastoma (cited 9 April 2023).
Google Scholar 9. Delgado-Martín B, Medina MÁ. Advances in the knowledge of the molecular biology of glioblastoma and its impact in patient diagnosis, stratification, and treatment. Adv Sci 2020; 7(9): 1902971.
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