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.

So I'm currently in the midst of a new bike build and just feel like I must be missing something.
I'm relatively experienced with having done pretty much all the mechanical work on my last ht but I'm feeling kinda rusty, so if anyone has a list of needed tools I would greatly appreciate it.
Ones I have currently: Wrenches, Allen keys and torx keys of all sizes. A torque wrench Grease Cassette remover Bb tool And that's pretty much it (along with the regular tire leavers, pumps etc)
Any tips or reminders would be appreciated

Dishwasher model: Maytag MDB4949SKZ
Water will routinely come out of the dishwasher air gap.

• I've used a 0.6" drain brush on the gap without issue. I tried using the 1.2" brush but it gets stuck at some point. Here is what I used. Maybe I need stronger brushes?
• the sink seems to drain fine.
• I poured half a gallon of hot water in bottom of the dishwasher and had it drain. You can see it emptying into the garbage disposal, but it is still leaking out the top of the air gap
• Here is how it looks while running a load of dishes. Lots of water everywhere
• Dishwasher is new as of April

I had a plumber out last wednesday to look at it. He replaced the air gap and the hose to the disposal but it is still doing it.
Is it possible the dishwasher is pushing water too fast for my air gap? Do air gaps come in different sizes?
Any insights or suggestions

I have lived in LAR in the past and I want to share my experience and opinion to help students pick out where they want to live. In general, it's a very "okay" experience, there are good and bad points like every other dorm, but I was very happy to move out of it.
LAR is located east of the bottom-right corner of the Quad. It is behind Allen Hall, and so is next to the CRCE gym and the McKinley Health Center. The location is pretty nice, I can walk to the Union in like 12 minutes, to ISR in 10 and to PAR in less than 10. There is a bus stop behind LAR (in front of Allen) and in front of LAR, so getting around the campus is not too difficult.
The building is pretty old, which has the plus of looking cool from the outside, and a nice ballroom where there is often someone playing piano. It has the downsides of lacking air conditioner, which is mostly a problem during the first and last 3-4 weeks of the year, getting a box fan or borrowing one from the dorm if available is necessary. I have lived most of my life without AC, so it is pretty bearable for me, but the thick concrete and brick walls make it so heat stays inside. It also faces the problem of having an old heating system. It automatically turns on when it gets cold enough, and it sounds like something is crawling up the pipes when it starts. The heater works too well, and many times I've had to open the window during the winter while it runs, even with the vent always closed, as the heat emanates from the radiator.
The room size is pretty nice, I always had room for random things and food, and the beds can be lofted. A bed rail can be ordered and installed for free from the campus housing website. The mattress is pretty mediocre, there is a soft side and a firm side that is more "less soft" than firm. There is a lot of space for clothes in the two drawers, and space for additional furniture if needed. There's one half-mirror in the room attached to a closet door, and the closet is pretty spacious. A mini fridge and microwave can be rented from the dorm, but it's pretty easy to find a cheap one on Facebook or Craigslist. If you're picking a room, try to get one that doesn't face the backside, as the food delivery truck or the garbage truck comes in the morning and is super loud. Also, remember that the fire alarm will go off at some times during the year, and I suggest covering your ears or wearing headphones once it goes off as it echoes off the walls to become super loud in the rooms and hallways.
The bathrooms are shared on each wing (usually 2 male or 2 female hallways per wing) of a floor, and there is about 25 people on each wing. The cleanliness of the bathrooms depends on the people using them, personally I found them pretty gross as people leave hairs in the shower stalls or on the toilet seat pretty often, or don't wipe the toilet seat after themselves. Luckily housing cleans the bathrooms every day at around noon, however paper towels always seemed to run out at the end of each day. If there is a problem, notify maintenance and they are pretty quick to respond, usually in the same day or the day after.
The 2 laundry rooms in the basement have 5 machines, and usually one or two of them are out of order. There is a lot of dryers, but be sure to turn the dryer setting on low, as they run super hot for some reason. There's also a big sink if you want to hand wash your clothes. Also located in the basement is a music practice room and a study room.
The food at LAR is pretty hit or miss. There's no breakfast and the dining halls close an hour earlier than the others, but it also has a vegetarian/vegan dining hall. I found myself going to ISR or PAR pretty often during my second semester, as it was much better, and the meats don't have just a surface level of seasoning. The burgers and fries at LAR were pretty good though. The salad and yogurt bar is the same as PAR's, and the lines are a lot shorter. The close distance to PAR and ISR also make it easy to use your dining dollars at the stores.
I had a good experience with the people that lived there with me, there are also a lot of dorm events every month. I found myself out of my room a lot of the time busy with clubs or studying, so a lot of the downsides of the dorm weren't that impactful. Hearing someone play in the music practice room or the piano in the ballroom was always nice. The biggest part of your first year experience is always what you make out of it, and your room is mostly just a place for you to sleep or do work in, so as long as you make yourself active you'll have a good time living anywhere. If you have a problem, talk to your RA or the person directly to sort it out. If it's unsolvable, you're still able to switch rooms and buildings during the year.

LPI (LP Information)' newest research report, the “Domestic Waste Sorting Machine Industry Forecast” looks at past sales and reviews total world Domestic Waste Sorting Machine sales in 2022, providing a comprehensive analysis by region and market sector of projected Domestic Waste Sorting Machine sales for 2023 through 2029. With Domestic Waste Sorting Machine sales broken down by region, market sector and sub-sector, this report provides a detailed analysis in US$ millions of the world Domestic Waste Sorting Machine industry.
This Insight Report provides a comprehensive analysis of the global Domestic Waste Sorting Machine landscape and highlights key trends related to product segmentation, company formation, revenue, and market share, latest development, and M&A activity. This report also analyzes the strategies of leading global companies with a focus on Domestic Waste Sorting Machine portfolios and capabilities, market entry strategies, market positions, and geographic footprints, to better understand these firms' unique position in an accelerating global Domestic Waste Sorting Machine market.
This report presents a comprehensive overview, market shares, and growth opportunities of Domestic Waste Sorting Machine market by product type, application, key manufacturers and key regions and countries.
https://www.lpinformationdata.com/reports/728015/domestic-waste-sorting-machine-2029
The main participants
Waste Initiatives
SUEZ
STEINERT
STADLER
SINTEF
SHERBROOKE OEM
Sesotec
Pellenc ST
MSS
MSMsorting
Machinex
CP Group
Coparm
Beston Group
Yahua Huanbao
Segmentation by type
CCD Vision
Laser Vision
Others
Segmentation by application
Government Department
Industry
Garbage Disposal Plant
Others
Key Questions Addressed in this Report
What is the 10-year outlook for the global Domestic Waste Sorting Machine market?
What factors are driving Domestic Waste Sorting Machine market growth, globally and by region?
Which technologies are poised for the fastest growth by market and region?
How do Domestic Waste Sorting Machine market opportunities vary by end market size?
How does Domestic Waste Sorting Machine break out type, application?
What are the influences of COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine war?
LP INFORMATION (LPI) is a professional market report publisher based in America, providing high quality market research reports with competitive prices to help decision makers make informed decisions and take strategic actions to achieve excellent outcomes.We have an extensive library of reports on hundreds of technologies.Search for a specific term, or click on an industry to browse our reports by subject. Narrow down your results using our filters or sort by what’s important to you, such as publication date, price, or name.
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i am shopping for garbage disposal and i am very frustrated. I am looking at insinkerator 1/2HP and 1/3HP.
both home depo and lowes have it. But they also have another model with same specs but it is labeled "home depo exclusive" or "lowes exclusive" and these "exclusive" ones cost more.
Is there a difference between a non-exclusive and excluive one? when i compared, i do not see any difference. these are the ones i am looking at:
corded 1/2 hp HD exclusive $144 https://www.homedepot.com/p/InSinkErator-Badger-500-Lift-Latch-Standard-Series-1-2-HP-Continuous-Feed-Garbage-Disposal-with-Power-Cord-Badger-500-W-C/300496821 corded 1/2 hp non HD exclusive $117 https://www.homedepot.com/p/InSinkErator-Badger-5-Lift-Latch-Standard-Series-1-2-HP-Continuous-Feed-Garbage-Disposal-with-Power-Cord-BADGER-5-W-C/300278672
second question -
the one that comes with cord is less expensive than the ones that does not come with cord. why is that? i have a 10 year old home and there is a power outlet under the sink where my current disposal is plugged it. so i thought i will buy the one that comes with cord so that i can just plug it in.
is non corded better than corded as it is more expensive? does not make sense to me.
corded 1/3 hp $94
https://www.homedepot.com/p/InSinkErator-Badger-1-Lift-Latch-Standard-Series-1-3-HP-Continuous-Feed-Garbage-Disposal-with-Power-Cord-BADGER-1-W-C/300278660#overlay
non corded 1/3 hp $119
https://www.homedepot.com/p/InSinkErator-Badger-1-Lift-Latch-Standard-Series-1-3-HP-Continuous-Feed-Garbage-Disposal-BADGER-1/100036481
​
they make it so confusing..

I lost my allen wrench for my GSR200SM and I want to buy a new one but I’m not sure on what size I should get. Thanks for any help

So really quick back story.
I’ve been plumbing about 10 years. Me, my dad, and a partner started a plumbing business about 6 years ago.
We had grown it up to about $3.6 million a year gross on average with about 14 employees by year 3.
As of now we’re doing about $2million a year with 6 employees and going downhill fast.
Right now our company is a disaster. Our partner is running it into the ground and we have more debt than income. We can’t keep any employees more than a few months because they can’t stand to work for our partner. I don’t see how we’re going to last another year with the way things are going. We need $100k a month just to pay the bills.
My dad wants out and is retiring. Our partner spends more energy getting side jobs and figuring out how to funnel money into his own bank account than working on the business.
Everyone is basically done and I’ve decided I want to venture out and start a company on my own.
Honestly I want to keep overhead very low and keep it small. Maybe 2-3 employees max. At least of of right now anyways.
Trying to grow a big company I’ve seen a million dollars come in and $1.5 million go out and it’s not worth the headache to me.
I figure if I can keep overhead small I can generate more profit than a multi million dollar company.
I have done all the branding, marketing, and lead generation for the company.
I have the knowledge to install or manage any type of plumbing job with most experience in servicing residential.
I average close to $1million a year in sales just by myself. My closing ratio averages 80% (last month I had a 100% closing ratio for the first time on every call I ran).
I know if I’m trying to manage a business by myself, run calls, marketing, do installs myself, etc. I won’t have the time to generate that kind of revenue. I won’t have the team to perform like that. If I can just do say $600k a year with 1 employee then I’d be very happy and seems easily doable to me.
My biggest ticket service calls are leaks, (leak detection) septic tanks, and clogged drains. 90% of other calls are just busy work (water heaters, faucets, garbage disposals, etc..)
So septic replacement, repipes, and sewer repair is my main big ticket items. This accounts for probably 70% of my revenue.
So with my new company I want to focus on positioning myself to service these types of calls only.
I don’t really want to deal with the liability, headache, and equipment needed to replace septics so that leaves me with repipes and drain repair.
Im thinking of becoming nothing but a drain specialist. Pipe bursting, lining, hydrojetting, mole shooting, rootering, and camera inspections, etc..
I figure I can get more specific targeted calls this way and use my time more effectively.
I also wouldn’t mind leak detection specialization but that seems very limited. And having a drain and leak detection combination seems too random and confusing to homeowners.
I’m just worried that by doing this I’m leaving a lot of opportunity on the table and limiting myself.
I’m also worried I won’t be able to generate enough calls if I’m this specialized. (I live in SoCal and it’s extremely competitive. )
I have an amazing ability to upsell calls. I can run say a faucet replacement call, recommend a camera inspection, and be jetting out their drains by the end of the call. ( this isn’t a specific example but I do an entire home inspection with misc prv replacements, shut offs, water filtration, and a lot of recommendations on each call. ) I also love doing repipes on homes and very good at that as well.
So I do get some revenue from small calls but still seems like a waist of time when I could be running a root intrusion call and be recommending a liner, descaling, clean out, redrain, etc.
So do I stick with what I’m doing and be a general plumber with a lot of busy work to get me by or do I hyper specialize to focus on extremely targeted calls?
Are there other owners out there that have experience with this and specialize in only drain work? What is that like and is there enough opportunity to stay busy?
Update: I also have a massive network of subs I can use for any type and size job so that’s not an issue. I could redrain or rough in a massive commercial building if needed just being a small company and subbing out the really big stuff.
Here’s an example of a perfect call I ran last week and would want everyday:
Homeowner has 4 plumbing companies out. 100’ clay main line with roots coming in at every single joint.
Nex gen ( a huge company out here quotes homeowner $35k to run a liner)
I don’t know what the other 2 companies came in at but think they were close to my estimate.
I win the job at $17k. I do the jetting, digging, cutting, and connections, and sub out the liner for $4100.00.
Total profit is about $12k and 2 days of work. (It costs about $1000 in marketing to get a call like this)
How our current company is set up that doesn’t even pay the bills for the week. If I was a really small company even after expenses should easily net $10k that week off that one job alone.
This is why staying small and specializing makes sense to me but still worried and afraid I’m limiting myself and won’t have enough opportunities. We market for everything plumbing so I don’t know what it would be like just marketing for drain calls only. This is my main concern with setting up a business like this.

”Short” recap of the Jets' 2022 Season

The Jets had a noisy offseason in 2022 as they were big spenders in free agency, bringing in CB DJ Reed, TE CJ Uzomah, and OG Laken Tomlinson. The also had 3 first round picks and an early second rounder to give the team one of the youngest roster in the NFL by snaps given. The main headline going into the Jets regular season was, like most NFL teams, centered around the quarterback position. The Jets drafted BYU QB Zach Wilson #2 overall in the 2021 NFL draft. Statistically, Zach's rookie campaign was off to an abysmal start with 4 TDs and 9 picks in his first Five starts before having his midseason interrupted by a knee injury. Zach would return and threw 5 touchdowns and just two picks in his last seven games, playing less dynamically than he had in Tennessee but smarter and safer. Zach went into the 2022 season looking to improve on his 2,334 yards passing, 55.6% completion percentage, 9 passing touchdowns, 4 rushing touchdowns, and 11 interceptions from 2022.
However, Zach would miss September due to a miniscus tear he suffered in the preseason. The Jets started Joe Flacco at the quarterback position for their opening three games; going 1-2 with a historical comeback win at Cleveland (I didn't have to mention this but it's the most exciting Jets football you'll ever see). After Zach returned, the Jets opened out on a winning streak. However, this had more to do with the star performances of the Jets rookies, namely WR Garrett Wilson, RB Breece Hall, and CB Sauce Gardner. In Denver, the Jets suffered a pyrrhic victory at hands of the Broncos as the team won 16-9, but suffered season ending injuries to OL Alijah Vera-Tucker and Breece Hall. Hindering the offensive line and prematurely ending Hall's OROTY campaign. This altered the course of the Jets' season for the worse. While young stars Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner continued to shine, the team's offense couldn't make up for the loss of Breece Hall as they were forced to look to Zach Wilson to lead the passing offense. Zach Wilson regressed heavily from his already terrible rookie season and as a result of his poor performance and attitude, was benched. The Jets attempted to salvage their season by looking to Mike White, who almost immediately went out with injury, and then later to Flacco (and at one point, Chris Streveler, fresh out of the CFL). Only two seasons into Wilson's career, he's cemented himself among the greatest draft busts in NFL history and for the sake of playefan morale, is completely unplayable in 2023. He isn't going to be cut until at least August, as there's no financial incentive to give up on him until after next season. The Jets missed out on the playoffs in 2023 for the 12th straight season, the second longest drought in North American sports. The silver lining for the Jets this season is that their roster is still full of young talent across the board, as AVT should be back by the preseason, Breece Hall should be back in the early regular season this year, and Garret Wilson and Sauce Gardner are back for their sophomore seasons after winning Offensive Rookie of the Year and Defensive Rookie of the year, respectively. The Jets had very little coaching staff/front office turnover from 2022. The main exception is the Jets moved on from young offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur to sign veteran OC and recently fired Denver Broncos' head coach, Nathaniel Hackett. This move was met with middling reception by fans. As many cited him as an underwhelming retread, though there was potentially one huge upside to signing Hackett and his name is...

Aaron Freaking Rodgers

After acknowledging his failure in drafting and developing his franchise QB, New York Jets General Manager Joe Douglas, scrambled to find a QB the Jets can compete with during their current window where their most talented players are on rookie deals. Joe Douglas doesn’t have the luxury of trying again with rookie QB roulette as he’s already four years into a rebuild that has yielded zero winning seasons. Many considered his huge failure with Zach Wilson to be a fireable offense, but due to his success in building the rest of the team, Jets owner Woody Johnson publicly voiced his confidence in Joe Douglas and let him have another offseason to try to pull a rabbit out of his hat at the QB position. The Jets were connected to almost every veteran QB that might conceivably be on the market from January to March. Around the time of the NFL Combine, the Jets had their options narrowed down to Tannehil, Cousins, and Aaron Rodgers headlining the group. With Rodgers’ ending his career in Green Bay, he then descended into a Darkness Retreat. Afterward, Aaron decided to tell Schefter to lose his number and went on the Mcafee show to announce that he had decided to play for the Jets, despite still being on contract with the Packers. After a month and a half of Jets and Packers fans taking to Reddit and Twitter to argue endlessly about Leverage, the Jets and Packers finally worked out a deal on April 24th, just days before the 2023 NFL Draft. The Jets acquired Aaron Rodgers and a 5th round pick in 2023 in exchange for a 1st round pick swap (Jets go 13 to 15th overall), a 2023 2nd round pick, a 2023 6th round pick, and a 2024 second round pick that can become a 1st if Rodgers plays >65% of snaps in 2023. Many were quick to declare an immediate winner to the trade, though I think with trades like these, you need to see how things play out and what will happen on the conditions before knowing for sure. My knee-jerk reaction to the trade is that it’s an overpay if Rodgers were to retire after 2023, but if he comes back for 2024 like he says he’s going to, then this is fair overall. If Jordan Love doesn’t pan out and the Jets make a Super Bowl over the next two years, people will look back on this trade as a steal for the Jets. Time will tell.

Jets Free Agency

Contrary to popular belief, the Jets did more this offseason than roll out the red carpet for Aaron Rodgers. In free agency, the Jets rolled out the red carpet for all of Aaron Rodger’s favorite teammates. In Free Agency, the Jets brought in:

• WR Mecole Hardman (KC)
• WR Allen Lazard (GB)
• OL Trystan Colon (BAL)
• OL Billy Turner (DEN)
• P Thomas Morestead (MIA)
• C Wes Schweitzer (WAS)
• QB Tim Boyle (DET)
• DT Quinton Jefferson (SEA)

Over half the names on this list have some kind of connection to Aaron Rodgers. Allen Lazard was the biggest swing for the Jets in free agency with $44MM over 4 years. The Jets cut bait by trading Elijah Moore to Cleveland, but are going to keep Corey Davis for the third year of his contract despite disappointing availability and stats by Davis. Lazard has experience in the slot, despite being primarily an outside the numbers receiver. With Moore and Berrios out, the Jets are a little bit heavier on outside receiver and light on slot receiver, so they’ll likely focus on size over shiftiness over the middle. However, bringing in Mecole Hardman brings a lot of the speed over the middle that the team is missing. Outside of WR, the Jets added more depth on the offensive and defensive lines. The main highlight of free agency for Jets fans was, strangely enough, the punter they signed- Thomas Morstead. Morstead punted for the Jets in 2021 filling in for an injured Braden Mann with an average of 48 yards/ punt and 7 punts within the 20. The Jets let Morstead go to let Braden Mann return. Mann was a decent punter for the Jets at best, but was infamous in NY for a shank a game that eventually became too much. The Jets have also worked out with P Matt “Punt God” Araiza, but that’s a can of worms I won’t get into. The Jets also brought back:

• LB Quincy Williams
• K Greg Zuerlin
• DT Solomon Thomas
• RB Ty Johnson
• C Connor McGovern

I have much less to say about these players. Ty Johnson has already been cut, which has been a small controversy due to his surgery that was allegedly recommended by the Jets. But especially after the draft, the Jets have a glut of runningbacks on the roster. I don’t see what the Jets see in Solomon Thomas but HC Robert Saleh really likes him. Greg Zuerlin has been a replacement level kicker for the Jets. Quincy Williams is back, which is mostly interesting as his older brother, Quinnen Williams, is in a contract holdout with the Jets. The number for Quinnen Williams is likely going to look similar to what Dexter Lawrence got from the Giants.

The New York Jets 2023 NFL Draft

Pre-Draft Needs

Positions of Need going into the Draft: OT, FS, DT, RB
The Jets' strength on the defense was on the outsides, both on the passrush with Carl Lawson and Jermaine Johnson coming back and in the pass defense, with Sauce Gardner and DJ Reed returning after being arguably the best CB duo in 2022. The weakness was over the middle in the passing game and between the tackles in the run game. The Jets have Quinnen Williams on the 5th year option looking for a new deal this year and don't have another quality DT to complement him on the interior of their 4-3 front. Jordan Whitehead was disappointing for the Jets last year at SS and Ashtyn Davis hasn't fully panned out at FS.
On the offense, the Jets have fewer holes, but have positions like RB, TE, and WR where they can afford to add more talent. The biggest liabilities for the Jets are on the offensive tackle, where Mekhi Becton is coming back from two whole seasons of injury and Duane Brown is 38 and playing likely his last season of Pro Football.

1st Round (15th Overall) Will McDonald IV, EDGE – Iowa State

Before discussing McDonald as a player, we should discuss the Steelers’ trade with the Patriots at 14th overall. This trade led to a lot of criticism of the trade back with Green Bay for Rodgers as well as Joe Douglas’s composure as a drafter. The main thing we know about Broderick Jones is that the fact that Pittsburgh was interested in trading up for him long before the Rodgers trade. Jones to the Steelers was one of the worst kept secrets of the NFL draft this year and the New England Patriots (while not to pretend that Belichick doesn’t love to screw the Jets over) are notorious for trading back in the first round. I’m not going to assert that the Jets weren’t interested in landing Broderick Jones, I think the people who are skeptical of Douglas’s claim that McDonald was their top target are missing two things: the first is that Robert Saleh is a defensive minded coach who is obsessed with having an excess of edge rushers with good bend. Saleh and Douglas are still on good terms, and I would be very surprised if during the draft Saleh wasn’t pounding the table in Joe Douglas’s ear for Will McDonald. The second is that while Jones was on board, Douglas himself said that McDonald was his number 1. You can debate if the Jets should’ve taken Jones if he were available, but he wasn’t and so, the Jets picked McDonald. Will McDonald is a 6’4” 236 lbs Edge rusher from Iowa State University who turns 24 years old June 6th. He was considered a high draft prospect after his 2021 and 2020 seasons where he had 11.5 and 10.5 sacks respectively, but still decided to come back to school in 2022. This, plus the fact that he didn’t begin playing football until he was 17 years old, contribute to Will McDonald IV’s advanced age as a prospect. Some might have called this pick a reach due to his age, but it’s worth noting that McDonald isn’t exactly a “late bloomer” as a player, but rather he has been a competitive pass rusher in the Big 12 since about 2019 and is tied for #1 overall in the Big12’s career sack list. Another reason why Will McDonald IV is an underrated prospect is that many people aren’t familiar with the defense that Iowa St. and how it deflates pass rusher numbers. Iowa State runs something called a STAR defense, or a 3-3-5 (3 DL, 3LB, 5 DBs). This helped the Cyclones against pass heavy, air raid and/or spread style offenses, but means that a premier pass rusher like Will McDonald will get basically zero help in the box. The traits that scouts fell in love with that made Will McDonald IV a first-round talent were his bend around the edge, his top end speed, and his usage of his hands. The weaknesses that were brought up centered mostly around his smaller size, power, and lack of body of work on run defense. But his overall athleticism and potential to bulk up are the main thing the Jets are banking on as they look develop him going forward. McDonald’s athleticism is so over the top, that he’s made a hobby of jumping over cars and doing other acrobatics that will keep the Jets management up at night if he keeps it up through his rookie contract.
The main thing to understand when watching McDonald as a prospect is that the Jets are going to play him a lot differently than the Cyclones did. Due to the ISU 3-man front, McDonald was often moved inside if he wasn’t double or triple teamed as a 5 tech. When Robert Saleh called Will McDonald to let him know the Jets were drafting him, Saleh said “We’re getting you out of that 4i and into that Wide 9”. That meaning, that instead of playing him between the guard and the tackle, they’re going to put him as far out as the o-line is built. I think the Jets will try to get him standing up; even though they typically have four defensive linemen down as I trust Robert Saleh to not pigeonhole a guy to a set role and will just try to set him up to succeed as a pass rusher. The important thing to remember when evaluating McDonald’s upcoming rookie season (or Jermaine Johnson’s rookie season from 2022), is that the Jets have a religious dedication to cycling their defensive linemen in and out regardless of how well or poorly they’re playing. So, for young players like McDonald, Johnson, and Michael Clemons, they’re guaranteed to get a shot, but even if they succeed, they’ll get cycled out. But this does mean that in 2023, we’re guaranteed a chance to see the speed and shiftiness that Will McDonald IV will be bringing to the Jets defense for years to come.

2nd Round, 12th pick (43rd Overall) Joe Tippmann, C – Wisconsin

After the first night of the draft, most were shocked over the Jets’ selection of Will McDonald. And many more in Jets land were disappointed that the team couldn’t find any offensive line help for newly acquired QB, Aaron Rodgers. Fortunately for the Jets on night 2, the board broke their way positively, unlike on night 1. With most of the premier tackles off the board, the Jets then turned their attention interior offensive line. The Jets re-signed Connor McGovern to a 1 year $1.915 million deal after the main rush of free agency subsided and McGovern was unable to find a better deal. McGovern was a serviceable Center for the Jets on his previous 3 year deal, but at 30, the Jets are starting to look for long term options with higher upside. With McGovern making barely backup Center money, the Jets had basically no assets committed to the center position. With every center in the 2023 NFL draft on the board, I don’t think I need to do as much defending of the positional choice for center as I had to do for Edge rusher in the first round. The Jets selected Joe Tippmann with the 12th pick of the 2nd round. The Wisconsin Badger is one of the taller Centers we’ve seen at 6’6” (not including the mullet) and 313 lbs. However, Tippmann has shown on film that he’s able to get low off the snap off the height and in the later block can leverage his size. He had the highest athleticism score at his position (which is going to be a consistent theme for the Jets in this draft). He started his last two full seasons at Wisconsin, shining as a run blocker and allowed only on sack and five pressures over 338 pass blocking snaps. His strengths coming out of Wisconsin are his fluid movement and rotation, his high football IQ, and his size. His main weakness is his sense of balance and his high point of contact. Some might have questioned why the Jets chose Tippmann over John Michael-Schmitz and, while I would’ve been happy with either, I personally believe the Jets made the slightly better choice in banking on a player who is younger, bigger, healthier, and possibly has higher upside. The Jets have been looking for the heir apparent to Nick Mangold since he’s retired. While McGovern was a serviceable stop gap for the last three years and will get a chance to compete with Tippmann this summer, I believe this pick is a great chance for the Jets to find a new leader of their offensive line for years to come. The Jets are at their best in their franchise history when they have a Center with leadership, strength, and durability to support the offense.

4th Round, Pick 18 (120th Overall) Carter Warren, OT – Pittsburgh

In 2022, the New York Jets offensive line was a revolving door as the offensive line was decimated by injuries before they even started the regular season. They were able to mitigate these issues for the first few weeks of the season by deploying Alijah Vera-Tucker as a Swiss Army Offensive Lineman, but when he suffered a season ending injury, that had to come to an end. In this offseason, the Jets didn’t add many players who will contend for starting positions at guard or tackle in 2023, but Joe Douglas has made a point to bolster the depth at these positions so they’re better prepared for when Mekhi Becton, who hasn’t played a full game since mid 2020, or the 38 year old Duane Brown get injured.
To prepare for this, the Jets picked New Jersey native Carter Warren in the fourth round out of Pittsburgh. With his 7 foot wingspan, core strength, and leadership experience, Warren has the traits of a prototypical NFL Tackle. Carter Warren’s athleticism graded highly at the combine at the workouts he performed despite not being 100% from his shoulder injury. He fell to the fourth round in the draft as expected due to his season ending injury in 2022 and his overall lack of power and ability to sustain blocks for longer drives. The Jets are looking for Carter Warren to develop into a capable swing tackle or high end backup LT. The team is possibly still banking on Becton serving as the long term starting Left Tackle, but we’ll sort that out when training camp gets here. With veteran Billy Turner on the team and second year Maxx Mitchell returning as a swing tackle, the Jets are hopeful that they won’t rely on a rookie tackle in 2023. But if they do, Carter Warren has the traits needed to keep the offense on schedule when injuries inevitably come.

5th Round Pick, Pick 8 (#143rd Overall) Israel Abanikanda, RB – Pittsburgh

After selecting the Pittsburgh Panther from New Jersey in the fourth round, the Jets elected to take his teammate, RB Israel Abanikanda from Brooklyn, with the very next pick. In the last two years the Jets have brought in a lot of young runningbacks from the draft such as Michael Carter, Breece Hall, and Zonovan Knight. The Jets running back room looked like it was on the road to being elite after Breece Hall’s early career breakout before his tragic season ending injury. Breece Hall had emerged as a physical, downhill runner for the Jets and Michael Carter and Bam Knight were capable change of pace backs, pass blockers, and receiving backs. Breece Hall is going to go back to being the Jets premier runningback if he comes back to be 100% of what he was last year, even with Abanikanda on the roster. But what the Jets were lacking, even with Hall on the roster last year, was a shiftier, higher end speed running back that can break open in space. Hall checks off a lot of these boxes, but did so by being more physical over the middle. In 2022, Izzy Abanikanda’s stats were impressive. He reached 100 yards rushing in 9 out of his 11 games and rushed for 20 TDs on the season. With Hall, Izzy can be a dangerous lightning to Breece Hall’s thunder as the Jets look to round out their offense. Izzy’s athleticism is (say it with me now: ) really good. He ranked 5th out of running backs in this draft despite being a 5th round pick. The biggest weakness commonly cited about Izzy Abanikanda is his pass protection. This has been a recent focus on running backs in the NFL and something that will likely limit Izzy’s day one impact. But the Jets can keep things simple on the offense and just focus on getting the ball of playmakers like Abanikanda. The most exciting thing about Abanikanda is that he’s young, not turning 21 until October 5th of this year (making him born in 2002, if you wanted to feel old today). Abanikanda is an extremely speedy player with home run ability. The value in the 5th round is great for the Jets here and they are now hedged against a key RB injury like they suffered last year. This pick may spell trouble for fans of Michael Carter and Zonovan Knight (apologies to /DynastyFF), but it puts the Jets in a position to be dynamic in the ground game to capitalize on defenses thinking they can afford to sell out against the Aaron Rodgers-led passing offense.

6th Round, Pick 7 (184th Overall) Zaire Barnes, LB – Western Michigan

Getting later into the draft, the Jets start to look for roleplayers and positions where the team is light. Zaire Barnes fills both of these criteria with his special teams experience and coverage linebacker experience. The Jets have Quincy Williams and CJ Mosely playing in the box to handle secondary running coverage. The team may still bring back Kwon Alexander to return as the WILL linebacker in space, but the Jets are looking to bolster their coverage over the middle. The Jets have arguably the best cornerback duo on the outside with DJ Reed and Sauce Gardner and a capable slot corner with Michael Carter II. This means that most of the teams that threw the ball on the Jets did so over the middle.
At Western Michigan, Barnes lined up close to the line of scrimmage and focused mostly on man coverage. In order for him to unlock his potential and make this pick a steal, he needs to unlock his ability to use lateral movement to help in zone coverage. At 6’1” his height is unremarkable but more than adequate for a linebacker within the box. If Zaire Barnes can make himself valuable on special team and take advantage of the opportunities to make a play in coverage over the middle or to make an impact in the run game where the Jets are also light, Zaire Barnes will be able to be a part of this Jets team for a long time.

Round 6, Pick 27 (#204th Overall) Jarrick Bernard-Converse, DB – LSU

In writing Bernard-Converse’s position on the headliner, I opted to just write DB, as he’s played all over the secondary. Looking at JBC’s skillset and the holes the Jets have in their roster, it would seem Bernard-Converse’s best outlook on the Jets is to move to the Safety position. With good tackling ability, high athleticism, and four years of starting experience at the Power 5 level, the Jets are banking on Bernard-Converse’s ability to adapt to a new role as opposed to being a true CB. In coverage at LSU, he did have some issues letting players get behind him due to his ability to trail and backpedal, another sign that he’s likely better suited for the safety role. With Jarrick Bernard-Converse, the Jets are banking on his adaptability and Robert Saleh’s ability to develop a player with raw talent into a contributor on the backend.

Round 7, Pick 3 (#220th Overall) Zack Kuntz, TE – Old Dominion

The Jets have looked to rebuild their TE room after years of it being in disarray. Unfortunately, the group that Douglas has put together, CJ Uzomah, Tyler Conklin, and Jeremy Ruckert, didn’t quite pan out in 2023. Part of this was on the quarterback play, but part of this is that the tight ends on the Jets didn’t quite have the plus abilities the team needed to get production from their Tight Ends. This is just the beginning of why Zack Kuntz is an exciting pick for the Jets. Kuntz (pronounced KOONTS, unless you’re Australian) was primarily a receiving tight end for Penn State and Old Dominion in college. At 6’8” 255lbs, Kuntz has more than the prototypical size of a blocking Y tight end, but he instead spent his college career using his 4.55 speed to be a menace over the middle. His most productive season was only 692 receiving yards and 5 touchdowns, which is a bit less for the insane athleticism that a speedy and shifty tight end such as Kuntz possesses. Still, it’s hard to imagine how 32 GMs looked at Kuntz and decided over 200 times that they don’t need this freak of nature on their team. The Jets may look into developing his blocking a bit more, but I think they’re probably more excited by refining his hands and getting him over the middle to create some size mismatch. With Zach Kuntz elite size and speed, he’s truly a menace with the ball in his hands.

UDFA Rapid Fire

The Jets traded back in the 6th round at a pretty heavy loss. I believe this is because they wanted special teams and depth and were relatively satisfied with most of the starters they had going into the NFL draft. So, the Jets will likely not have a ton of contributions from UDFAs this year. Here are the 13 players the Jets have currently signed as UDFAs and I’ll highlight a few of the ones I think I have a chance at making the 53 man roster below:

• Jason Brownlee, WR Southern Mississippi: Despite receiving a combine invite and showing a good vertical and 40 yard dash, Brownlee ends up unsigned on the Jets. I think the Jets will look to leverage his athleticism on special teams, as most of the WRs on the roster have little experience/interest in playing special teams.
• Trey Dean, Safety Florida: A former starter as a freshman for the Gators in 2017, he’s got a lot of experience. As mentioned earlier, both safety positions are weakspots on the Jets roster, so a safety with Dean’s experience might be able to stick on.
• Deslin Alexandre, DL Pittsburgh: Joe Douglas sure does love his Pittsburgh guys. Deslin played as an edge rusher in college, but went undrafted due to weak bend (which is an important trait in an EDGE rusher, as I’m sure you can imagine). Still, a player with his size could still be a valuable Defensive Tackle in a 4-3 defense such as the Jets’. The main thing for Alexandre will be improving his run defense, as that’s currently a sore spot for the Jets DL.

53 Man Roster Projection

POS	1st String	2nd String
QB	Aaron Rodgers	Tim Boyle	Zach Wilson
RB	Breece Hall	Israel Abanikanda	Michael Carter, Zonovan Knight
WR	Garrett Wilson	Corey Davis	Mecole Hardman
WR	Allen Lazard	Randall Cobb	Jason Brownlee
TE	Tyler Conklin	CJ Uzomah	Jeremy Ruckert
LT	Duane Brown	Warren Carter
RT	Mekhi Becton	Maxx Mitchell
LG	Laken Tomlinson	Wes Schweitzer
RG	Alijah Vera-Tucker	Billy Turner
C	Connor McGovern	Joe Tippmann
DT	Quinnen Williams	Al Woods
DT	John Franklin-Myers	Deslin Alexandre
DE	Jermaine Johnson	Isaiah Mack
DE	Carl Lawson	Michael Clemons	Solomon Thomas
ILB	CJ Mosely
OLB	Quincy Williams	Bryce Huff
OLB	Will McDonald IV	Zaire Barnes
CB	Sauce Gardner	Michael Carter II	Brandin Echols
CB	DJ Reed	Bryce Hall	Javelin Guidry
FS	Ashtyn Davis	Jarrick Berndard-Converse
SS	Jordan Whitehead	Justin Hardee	Chuck Clark
K	Greg Zuerlein
P	Thomas Morstead
LS	Thomas Hennessy

Notes on 53 man roster

• Yes, the front seven is a complete mess. The Jets move guys around so much that even trying to delineate between a LB or a DE can be difficult. This is a rough guesstimation of what players will make the final roster, not necessarily where they’ll play.
• The NFL has a new rule that allows teams to carry 3 QBs and still be under the 53 man roster. So that's why you may count 54 on this.
• I only did this with players currently either on contract or drafted by the Jets. I think Kwon Alexander will eventually sign but for now, he’s not on here.
• I really wanted to find a spot for Zach Kuntz, but it was tough since there’s a lot of dedicated money to TEs. I thought maybe we could cut Randall Cobb, but we’ll see.

Final Thoughts

This offseason will be remembered as the offseason where the Jets made a huge swing for a future Hall of Fame QB. It’s impossible for me to try to put this draft class up against that. But the Jets got a lot of athleticism in this draft that can set them up to be competitive in the long term. It was surprising that they traded back, seeing as they’re in a win now mode, still. I think the Jets got 2 or 3 starters from this draft, likely some combination of Abanikanda, Tippmann, and McDonald. Certain players like Warren and Kuntz do have some longer term potential, too. Nothing will ever touch Joe Douglas’s 2022 draft class, but I thought this class was solid and built a lot of overdue depth. Still, when July rolls around and it’s time for camp, it’s going to be the QB that all Jets fans are looking at.

This was originally posted on Blazersedge
Last year I published a post on Blazersedge titled "The Perfect 2022 Blazers Offseason," and in it I outlined the following moves I thought the Blazers should make during the 2022 offseason:
1) Trade for Jerami Grant
2) Draft Shaedon Sharpe
3) Trade for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope using the TPE we had last year
4) Use our MLE to sign Kevon Looney as our backup big.
Not to congratulate myself too much, but the first two the team actually did and look to have been the right moves, and if they'd done the other two I think we'd have had a much better season as both those players have been key parts on playoff teams.
So, I've thought a lot about what the Blazers should do this summer (my family says probably too much), and after considering a variety of scenarios I think I'm ready to outline what I believe would be the "perfect 2023 Blazers offseason."
To start with, I must fully admit that I'm a Dame guy. I'll ride or die with him, which I know will disqualify everything else I'm about to say for about half of you. But, I just fundamentally believe that we should make every effort to build an actual contender around him before trading away the best Blazer I've had the good fortune of watching (too young to speak on Walton). With that said, I'm also a huge believer in the draft and the value in having players that are outperforming their contract. Outside of the Jokic's of the world, this has most often meant picking near the top of the draft. The more Shaedon's we can have on our team the better (I know! Hot take!). But, as I'll demonstrate, these two things aren't mutually exclusive.
I also believe that the most valuable traits in a player are positional size, competitiveness, and court awareness. Being a former collegiate player myself, as well as a coach at the high school level, I understand implicitly the value in having guys that compete at a very high level and can process the game rapidly at both ends of the court, especially when those are packaged with someone who can overwhelm you with size.
This was so apparent when watching us play against a team like the Bucks last year. Sharing the court with them looked like it was the freshman squad versus the varsity team. We were so tiny comparatively that, outside of a Dame nuclear event, we were just never going to have a chance at being competitive.
A couple other things must be considered. First, the new CBA is effectively going to serve as a hard cap for all but the most profligate spenders. However, a few of the most honerous provisions don't fully bake in until next offseason. So, we have a bit of a window to go for it this offseason before accepting the full ramifications of that decision next year. Speaking of those full ramifications, I think any transactions also have to leave you with "outs" to escape the full brunt of the imposed roster building restrictions, if it proved necessary. Meaning we still need to have assets we could get real value for if we had to backtrack.
Alright, enough prologue, let's get to it. Here is the deal: Portland engages Orlando, Phoenix, and Toronto in a four team trade with the following moving parts:
Portland gets: Pascal Siakam, Deandre Ayton, #11
Phoenix gets: Jusuf Nurkic, Gary Harris, Kevin Knox, #13
Toronto gets: Jalen Suggs, Nassir Little, Keon Johnson, #3
Orlando gets: Anfernee Simons
Yes, it's a lot of moving parts and it may actually need to be separate transactions, but I believe it's all legal and works salary wise (according to Fanspo, for what that's worth). I also think it's a classic "all sides feel like they gave up too much, which means it's probably about right value for everyone" type of trade.
As a result, we have upgraded our talent at two positions in the starting lineup and still have multiple bites at the draft apple, including a lottery pick, as well as our MLE to upgrade our depth. We're also huge, across all five positions. Even Dame is fairly big for a point guard.
With the picks you take Cason Wallace at #11, James Nnaji at #23, and Olivier-Maxence Spencer at #43. Only Wallace would be in the opening day rotation.
We then re-sign Grant, Thybulle, and Eubanks, and with our MLE we go after a veteran wing like Torrey Craig (the free agent market is garbage this year).
In the end, the new roster looks like this:
Dame/Wallace/Mays
Matisse/Sharpe
Grant/MLE/Spencer
Siakam/Watford/Walker
Ayton/Eubanks/Nnaji
Note: I think Matisse makes the most sense as a starter with that group, as he can be the point of attack defender next to Dame, but Shaedon will end up playing a majority of the 2-guard minutes.
Yes, that's a very expensive team that would be well into the tax, but if we ventured back in time two years and I told you we could have a starting lineup of Dame, Matisse, Grant, Siakam, and Ayton, with a young and supremely athletic Brandon Roy (Sharpe) as our 6th man and a young Jrue Holiday (Wallace) and Clint Capella (Nnaji) on the bench as well, and all we'd have to give up was Anfernee Simons, Nurk, the #3 pick, some salary filler, and some of the Allen Family Trust money in tax payouts, I assume the vast majority of you'd ask where to sign.
I think this gives Cronin and Jody a year to assess the situation and decide whether to continue down the path of competing with Dame (which would entail resigning Siakam, as ridiculously expensive as that would be), or blowing the whole thing up to see what you can get for Dame, Grant, and Siakam (in a sign and trade) next offseason. I also think it takes advantage of a time in the NBA where there's no truly dominant team (a #7 and a #8 seed were 2/4ths of the conference finalists this year). As good as I think Denver is, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the lineup outlined above would at least have a reasonable chance against them in a seven game series.
So, what say you Blazers Redditors? For those with critiques, I welcome you! All I ask is that you actually be willing to intellectually engage, rather than just say some variant of "your stupid, your proposal is stupid," as that just shuts down all potential for productive back and forth. I look forward to engaging with you in the comments.

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Chapter 25 - Looking Back, That Was the First Time We Really put Our Necks on the Line
Last Time: Ashta had been roused from her slumber by the rumbling of the sky. All of her attempts to go back to sleep had been futile as the rain kicked in. She hated the rain and hated storms ever since she had been stranded with no hope of shelter as a child. Daisy’s family had been passing by then though, and they had taken her in and given her shelter. She had grown close to Daisy, and Daisy had grown close to her, though she never truly felt like she understood the crime boss that well. When Daisy had made her play and taken over most of the illicit activities in Tripit, the halfling had been dutifully at her side. She shook her head out of her reverie and got up to go to her desk. She had left a little scrap of her favorite relaxant in a hidden pouch underneath the well-worn surface and meant to retrieve it. Before she could reach her desk however, she saw movement. The first time she thought it was a fluke but pressed herself against a wall anyway. The second time, she saw the pale green skin of the goblin-elf boy who had come in with the other boy and so interested Daisy. After she was sure he had gone, she scurried away immediately. Daisy had to know about this.
With Oxcard leaning heavily on my shoulder, we began to make progress away from his room and out towards freedom. I had noticed that Arcadia had drawn one of the packages from her satchel and was gripping it tightly in the hand that wasn’t supporting Ox’s considerable weight. She looked about as tense as I felt and jumped as a crash of thunder rattled the whole building around us. I looked away from her, worried that I’d begin to panic if I watched her too long, and tried to take stock of everything.
Arcadia and I were each flanking Oxcard, supporting his weight as best we could between the two of us. Oriwyn was a few feet in front of us, daggers naked in the dark compound. She stood with an intense posture, listening to every sound, trying to pick out danger from the persistent patter of the rain. I knew Laran was ranging somewhere further ahead still, out of sight and trying to keep an eye out for danger. Worry for the elf-goblin started to creep in, but I pushed it down hard. That worry wouldn’t do any of us any good.
The last two members of our party, Leor and Brams, presumably still stood on the rooftops outside the building. I fervently hoped that our exit would be stealthy and peaceful, and that their protection would not be needed, but it was always better to plan unnecessarily than come up short in an important moment.
I took a few deep breaths, hoping the change in my breathing was interpreted as exertion instead of sounding like me panicking. Arcadia’s hand still fidgeted nervously with the long, wrapped box she had withdrawn from her bag. Between us, Oxcard’s head lolled a little as the painkiller Ori had given him kicked in. I jostled him gently and he seemed to snap back to attention. I stopped for a moment to shift Ox’s weight and let Oriwyn get a peak around the corner.
As I was catching my breath, I heard Ori hiss under hers. I looked at Arcadia, who leaned Ox more completely on herself, and joined Oriwyn around the corner. What I saw instantly locked time in place as the immediacy of battle crashed down around us all.
Laran stood with his back to a wall, posted up between a bookshelf and a potted plant that served to keep him from being flanked. His spear was drawn - we had bought short ones for the mission since we figured the long ones would be too tough to use indoors and quietly - and he already had a rip in his black shirt that spoke of a narrow call with a blade earlier.
Three thugs stood arrayed in a loose fan before him, wielding daggers and cudgels in a motley assortment of weaponry. One was nursing a wounded arm, but on the whole they looked much too healthy. As my Commander abilities kicked in, I took a moment to survey the scene. I had to use every advantage available to me to its fullest.
I could only see the three thugs that were menacing Laran, which was a blessing. Still, dealing with them was unlikely to be quiet - we would need to strike a balance between speed, safety, and stealth. I decided we could afford to take the moments needed to fight the three of them and then continue on - I didn’t fancy having armed enemies hounding us the whole way.
I waited for someone’s turn to start before suddenly realizing that it was my turn. I wondered how long I’d been just waiting due to my nervous inattention, but again tried to bury the feeling. I instructed myself to draw the short spear I had and try to protect Laran. The same strange feeling I always got from watching myself move washed over me as my body drew its weapon, stepped forward, and forcefully said words in a voice that was uncomfortably close to a yell.
“Stand tall with your Spine of Steel and let no blade fell you this day!”
I watched as my hand gestured outwards and a blue glow enveloped Laran. It was faint, but in the dark building it provided a small amount of light. Satisfied I had done all I could, I let my turn end.
Oriwyn was up next and was apparently raring to go. She spoke a mere split second after I’d locked in my own actions and watched them happen.
“I need to go and help Laran. He’s not been hit yet, but this could go bad quickly.”
She sounded ferocious and protective, almost like what I imagined a mother grizzly bear would sound like when protecting her cub. She was holding back admirably so far, but I could hear the stress and fear and anger trying to break through. Despite that, however, I didn’t have a better plan so I simply agreed with her.
“Yes, he needs the help. Still try and be as quiet as you can.”
I barely got an acknowledgement from Oriwyn as we watched her outline trace a headlong charge into the back of one of the assailants. She locked in the movement and shortly thereafter I watched her spring forward like a bat out of Hell. The tackle she delivered would have felled the burly beastkin had he been a similar size to her - Oriwyn’s form was impeccable as she flew into him. The beastkin stumbled but didn’t fall, and I was worried until I noticed something.
The beastkin’s back had formed a scarlet bloom, low and slightly to the side of the spine. Oriwyn had charged in and planted a dagger in him up to the hilt. Even in the frozen state of time, I saw the beastkin begin to crumple to the floor.
Arcadia was next. I told her about the battle in the next room and encouraged her to just take care of Oxcard - we could handle the enemies. She agreed and spent her turn simply moving the orc. She got up to the door of the room where the other three of us were, but no further. It frightened me to see how slowly she and Ox could move - the lack of speed would be a severe problem getting out of here, especially because it seemed like things were about to go loud.
One of the thugs went next. He took a surprised step back before squaring up with Oriwyn and trying to club her over the head with his cudgel. She artfully dodged it, ducking the wild and slightly disoriented blow easily.
Our training had paid off.
The next thug made her move and chose to go on the defensive, maybe sensing that the dagger buried in her companion’s back would soon be turned on her. She drew her two daggers up, getting ready to try to intercept any strikes coming her way, and did the worst thing imaginable.
“Here! Over here! There’s a bunch of ‘em and they got Ox with ‘em!”
Her turn was over, but I swear I could still hear the echoes of her call bouncing across all the walls of the compound. I cursed under my breath - there was almost no way for us to get out of here without a protracted fight now, not that there’d been much hope as soon as we saw any hostile people to begin with. We were barely out of Oxcard’s room, and it felt like the exit was a solid million miles away. My sour thoughts were interrupted by Laran’s turn beginning, who immediately echoed my own concerns.
“Well shit, guess we oughta go fast now.”
I grunted and let out a humorless laugh. Silently we stared at the scene below us, taking a moment to collect ourselves, before Laran sighed. He sounded very tired.
“Well, the guy who just tried to hit Ori turned his side to me. I should probably make him regret that.”
Laran moved and stabbed the man behind his arm and almost under his armpit since he was so extended from swinging his cudgel. The wound was nasty and deep, and I figured he would likely not be getting up from it ever again. Hell, if Laran had been on his left instead of his right, the blow may have just simply pierced his heart and killed him outright.
Our party now had an official body count, but I was too stressed to even begin to contemplate that. As I struggled to bring my thoughts under control, some small, dark part of me noted that the man Oriwyn had stabbed was unlikely to live through his wounds either. I didn’t know exactly where she had stabbed him, but I did vaguely remember that the liver and kidneys were in that general area and I figured grievous damage to organs was almost always a bad, life-threatening thing.
Before the round ticked over, the thug that had been stabbed fell to the floor and started screaming. Luckily Oriwyn plucked the dagger out of him before it was wrenched from her hand. He didn’t do anything else except flail in pain - he looked only half dressed, so the dagger had encountered no resistance as it pierced him. His turn was over, and I could hear distant footsteps coming closer - other people had noticed the noise.
We needed to get closer to the part of the building with windows facing Leor as soon as possible.
As my turn rolled around, I began to charge to a door. Luckily, it was not blocked by the one uninjured thug. As far as I could remember, the hallway past the door would lead us through a common area and then towards one of the exterior sides. As the other members of my party took their turns, I relayed the same idea - run to the windows. Everyone agreed and took off in the direction I’d indicated, though Arcadia hesitated a moment to make things easier for herself.
When it was her turn, Arcadia brought the package she’d been holding up to her mouth and ripped the covering off with her teeth since her other arm was occupied supporting Oxcard. What was revealed was a rectangular block of clay that was etched with strange runes. She hadn’t demonstrated her powers much before, so when she began the ritual I watched with interest.
On one end of the clay block, a simple face was carved. She brought the face close to her own lips and spoke words that pulsed with power. The runes and lines on the block were suffused with a green light, and then she threw it to the floor. Once there, it rapidly grew and began to assume the shape of a rough, humanoid figure - a golem, or at least something akin to the representations of golems I’d seen before back on Earth. The floor splintered slightly under the golem’s bulk, adding even more noise to the growing cacophony. After the golem had grown to full size, Arcadia guided Oxcard to its arms.
“Take him! Protect him! Follow us!”
The golem stared at her mutely for a moment before bending down to pick up Oxcard at the legs. I felt like cheering as I watched it happen - if the golem could just carry the orc like Arcadia thought it could, then we would have a much easier time running. What joy I had was instantly cut off, however, by a twist of fate.
Oxcard panicked as the golem was picking him up and struggled to get free. He couldn’t break the golem’s grip, but as he arched his back and bucked, the wound on his stomach began to reopen. Crimson blood began to seep out and stain his light shirt as the stitches struggled to hold. Arcadia tried to quiet him and mostly succeeded, but the damage had already been done.
Oxcard was bleeding, and that put us on the worst sort of timer imaginable. More than that, Arcadia and Oxcard were now very much behind the rest of us, and there was still a thug in the room with them. Even with all the time in the world to communicate thanks to my powers, we had still managed to mess up our planning. Though it couldn’t be helped now. We just had to make do and survive.
As the new round began and it became my turn, I slowed my headlong flight. Turning back, I raised my short spear and tried to look intimidating as I stared down the last standing thug. I wanted to create some clearance for Arcadia to get away, but I didn’t want to run all the way back and engage her either. As the others’ turns came up, I updated them. We slowed slightly, trying to get ourselves back in something resembling a formation, before pushing on. I felt pretty good about things, until the one thug got her turn.
I heard her yell, “Blink!” and all of a sudden she had vanished. She reappeared in front of Arcadia, drawn blades slashing viciously. Arcadia threw her hands up to cover her face and caught two vicious slashes, one to her palm and one to her forearm. I could feel my disembodied heart pounding - it felt like we were being hemmed in and trapped.
It felt like we would meet our ends here.
Despair washed through me, threatening to break my resolve. I watched beads of blood flow off of Arcadia’s hand, watched the scarlet flower on Oxcard’s torso grow bigger and bigger. As the emotion reached its crescendo however, a new certainty began to grow and began to eat away at the fear.
I was the Commander. I had promised to keep everyone safe. Nobody was going to die on my watch!
The next several rounds were a chaotic exercise in focus and nerve. Ori and I managed to drive the dagger-wielding thug away from Arcadia, freeing her and Oxcard to move. Laran surged ahead and was almost constantly fending off some assailant or another with his spear. As time passed, the conversation during each round got more and more terse as the tension, terror, and exertion of the night began to weigh heavily on each of us. Despite everything, however, we were making progress.
We had finally broken free of all of the assailants we could see and had charged into one of the hallways on the edge of the house. I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t taken a wrong turn in the twisting labyrinth of the compound. With any luck, Leor would see that something was going on and know to intervene. As we all made it into the hallway, I was cautiously optimistic. We had made it well past halfway out, and all of us were still breathing.
I took a little longer on the next round, giving everyone a moment to calm down and mentally catch their breath while I checked in on their status. Laran had received a small scratch from a glancing blow, Oriwyn had some bruising but nothing else wrong. Arcadia had managed to avoid any further wounds, but her hands were an absolute bloody mess - she was barely able to draw the shortsword she had brought with her for the slickness of her hands. Oxcard was still in the worst condition by far. Oriwyn’s medication had fully kicked in, and it was clear that he was barely perceiving the world around him between the drugs addling his mind and the pain that undoubtedly still racked his body.
We had gotten about halfway down the long hallway when all of a sudden every single light in it went off. They must have been gas or magic, because I didn’t feel any gust of wind. Even with time frozen, I could feel everyone’s shock at being suddenly plunged into darkness. I looked around just in time to see a thug slamming a door shut next to us. All down the hallway, as enemies had their turns I could hear doors close.
They were sealing us in the hallway.
As my terror grew, a lone figure stepped around a corner and my stomach sank like someone had tied a rock to it and thrown it in a river.
Daisy came through a door, a wickedly curved scimitar in her hands. She was wearing light clothing that showed off her body - rippling with muscle like a gymnast, with a small but notable collection of scars. The smile on her face was downright predatory as she began to advance towards us slowly.
Out of nowhere, Oriwyn broke the turn order. For a split second I could feel all of us present in the disembodied, liminal point of view over the battlefield. Her warning was brief and loud.
“BRAMS SAYS GET DOWN!”
+=+=+ Leor +=+=+
Come rain and lightning, come howling winds! I am the conduit of your fury, the vessel of flesh at your disposal! Blow and burn and sting and smite! My wrath is yours and your will is mine!
+=+=+ Aiden +=+=+
All of us dropped to the floor without question. Even the golem turned so its back faced the windows. It was a good thing we did, because almost simultaneously every single one of them exploded.
Ozone-smell lanced through the air as a flash of light brighter than anything I’d seen before exploded against the outer wall. The thunderclap that followed was immediate and shook my bones in my body. Shards of glass embedded themselves into the golem’s back, and I heard a horrible shriek from Daisy as she caught some fragments across her face and shoulders. She dropped to the ground, scimitar clattering uselessly beside her, as she cradled her wounded head.
I frantically cast my eyes around. There were glass shards everywhere, including some stills stuck where the windows panes had been moments before. Any hope I had of a hasty retreat through the windows died as I looked at the diamond-clear daggers that lined them. We still needed to get to the doors, and now would be the opportune time to do it.
I started running, making sure I didn’t outpace where I thought the golem could take Oxcard. In the chaos of the lightning blast, I think he’d finally fallen unconscious - I could still see his chest rising and falling, but he was now limp in the golem’s arms. That suited us just fine for the moment.
Oriwyn’s turn came up, and there was another surprise. Brams leapt through a window, teeth bared, and started to attack Daisy. He landed a few clean hits, ripping off a small chunk of hair and scalp and lacerating her hands as they covered her eyes. Oriwyn yelled commands and finally got him to stop attacking, though he couldn’t get far before their combined turn was over.
On Daisy’s turn, things started to go wrong. With a monstrous howl, her arm swept out and caught Brams in the flank. The badat was thrown against the wall, a shard of glass opening a red streak down his light colored wings. As Brams slumped to the floor, I could hear Oriwyn scream an answering roar to Daisy’s.
An icon appeared on Oriwyn’s nameplate. Fearing the worst, I checked her status.
Enraged
Everyone else moved, running down the hallway, but when it came to Oriwyn’s turn I couldn’t speak with her. I could only watch as she charged towards Daisy. Despite Oriwyn’s daggers being drawn and the look of murder in her eyes, I was chilled to see that Daisy was smiling.
Daisy rolled on the ground, dodging each strike that Oriwyn rained down on her. Her reflexes were nightmarish, though Oriwyn’s bladework was sloppier than normal. I could see it took her effort to remove her daggers from the floor after she had buried the point in the wooden boards - she was striking to skewer the crime boss through, with no regard for herself.
This lack of self-regard became clear as Daisy had her turn. Coiling her legs under her, she launched a vicious kick that caught the mouse-goblin on the side of the head and hooked her face towards the floor. I heard a crunch as Oriwyn’s skull smacked into the boards - Oriwyn was still conscious, but her eyes were slightly unfocused. At least it seems the blow to the head had made her enraged condition go away.
Daisy stood then, and turned towards me. I was mesmerized despite the fact I wasn’t seeing through my own eyes at the time. I had no idea how she still had more actions on her turn - the rules of the game seemed so desperately vague to me. The feeling of hopelessness seemed to steal back into my heart and threaten to make it beat out of my chest. Daisy grinned wolfishly at me and said a single word in a honey-sweet voice that dripped with venom.
“Run.”
I had a split second impression of an icon showing up over my own head before every bit of information went away. I couldn’t see nameplates, couldn’t hear my teammates. I was alone staring at my own body, Commander of absolutely nothing. My pulse thumped in my ears, drowning out even the noise of the rain. I couldn’t think, couldn’t plan, couldn’t understand what was even going on.
In the end I ran. What else was there to do? I ran for all I was worth, away from Daisy and towards what I hoped was the direction of the door. I could see Arcadia and the golem and Laran, though I couldn’t hear what Laran was shouting through the pounding in my temples. I had completely lost my ability to interact with my party as the blinding panic stifled the powers granted to me as a Commander. As I fled, I was vaguely aware of what happened behind me, but only enough to get impressions.
I saw Oriwyn struggle to her feet, clutching Brams to her chest. She began to run as well, and I could see her nose was smashed and bloody - blood was also flowing from her mouth. I saw Daisy reach down and pick up her scimitar, grinning in the darkness. The blood that flowed down her face blended in with the darkness of the hallway, making her seem like she was part of the walls themselves.
I saw the flash of light as Leor unleashed another lightning bolt, blasting the already damaged wall. She managed to aim her blast right next to where Daisy was standing - whether by skill or providence, I didn’t know. The blast threw Daisy and she tried to break her fall with her hands. As she did, I heard a snap and a scream of pain - several of her fingers had bent back the wrong way as they’d jammed into a doorway and were obviously broken. The members of the party that were in the building made a mad dash towards the exit. I wept as I saw the door in front of us.
Whatever Daisy had done to me wore off slightly before we reached the door. I had everybody back in turn order again. There was simply silence. No one felt like talking, nobody had a clever plan. All we could do was sprint off into the stormy night and hope that we could put enough distance between us and Daisy that we could be safe.
When we finally dropped out of turn order I was relieved for a split second. I thought that meant we were safe from danger, at least for the moment. The constant slowness of time had been wearing on me and I needed it to end.
I remembered I would experience everything that I’d just been through with my own eyes mere seconds before it happened.
I had never thought much of Hell. I was not raised particularly religious and had mostly just picked up that which was basically unavoidable to pick up simply by living in the United States.
What I saw and felt in that flashback, the pain and the confusion and the terror of the encounter, forevermore became the basis of what I thought of when I thought of Hell.
As I caught back up with the proper flow of time, my companions and I were running through the empty streets of Tripit. Leor had joined us, and I thought I saw that her beard and hair were singed and her hands blackened. I couldn’t focus on that though. All I could focus on was keeping us going.
We ran for ten minutes, then I fell. After I picked myself up, we marched. When even that seemed too much, we stumbled on and we didn’t stop for five hours. We had run out of the city, out into the woods, and hopefully out of the reach of Daisy.
We had done it.
Elsewhere: The teamster hated driving their cart in the dark. Their donkeys had already given them trouble when they tried to saddle them up in the rain, but the beer deliveries weren’t going to make themselves. Or, more properly, there was no way that they were going to magically get back to the brew works to pick up their next allotment of booze to be sold in Tripit. So, with an empty cart, two disgruntled donkeys, and a rain poncho, the teamster drove through the night-time forests around the capital. They hummed quietly to themself as they felt the ruts of the road buck the wagon under them. Suddenly, a huddled group of figures emerged from the darkness. One of them was a tall, husky-looking human - maybe he had a little of the beastkin in him? He looked haggard, and his companions didn’t look much better. They sat slumped together on the side of the road with a curious, half-melted sculpture that seemed to be made of clay slowly dissolving next to them. The teamster was about to draw their breath to speak when one of their number - he had green skin, though was tall for a goblin and short for an orc - looked up at them and gave a plaintive request. “Please, we need your help. We need to get away from here.”
The teamster simply did what any good person would do, of course.
From the Author: Hello everybody! Well wasn’t that quite exciting? It looks like everyone has gotten out alive, though whether or not they’re okay is another matter entirely. Regardless, the story will go on! This marks the close of what I’ve been internally thinking of as Arc 1 - the party is now fully assembled, and once they’ve had a moment to themselves, I’m sure they’ll find something else to get up to. I do remember that Commander is supposed to be a little more comedic and a little less stressful than it’s been recently, so worry not - things will get better. For a time at least.
All this being said, I also have an announcement: I’ve decided to set up a Ko-fi! If you’ve been enjoying the story and want to make a contribution to support me and help commission some art, check it out! I have some plans to add a bit of additional information / behind the scenes stuff to the page, but my first and foremost priority is the story itself. That being said, I’ll post the link, and I hope you will continue to enjoy I Became a Commander, Whatever that Means!
Want to support me and the story? Visit https://ko-fi.com/redcastoff!
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Chapter 25 - Looking Back, That Was the First Time We Really put Our Necks on the Line
Last Time: Ashta had been roused from her slumber by the rumbling of the sky. All of her attempts to go back to sleep had been futile as the rain kicked in. She hated the rain and hated storms ever since she had been stranded with no hope of shelter as a child. Daisy’s family had been passing by then though, and they had taken her in and given her shelter. She had grown close to Daisy, and Daisy had grown close to her, though she never truly felt like she understood the crime boss that well. When Daisy had made her play and taken over most of the illicit activities in Tripit, the halfling had been dutifully at her side. She shook her head out of her reverie and got up to go to her desk. She had left a little scrap of her favorite relaxant in a hidden pouch underneath the well-worn surface and meant to retrieve it. Before she could reach her desk however, she saw movement. The first time she thought it was a fluke but pressed herself against a wall anyway. The second time, she saw the pale green skin of the goblin-elf boy who had come in with the other boy and so interested Daisy. After she was sure he had gone, she scurried away immediately. Daisy had to know about this.
With Oxcard leaning heavily on my shoulder, we began to make progress away from his room and out towards freedom. I had noticed that Arcadia had drawn one of the packages from her satchel and was gripping it tightly in the hand that wasn’t supporting Ox’s considerable weight. She looked about as tense as I felt and jumped as a crash of thunder rattled the whole building around us. I looked away from her, worried that I’d begin to panic if I watched her too long, and tried to take stock of everything.
Arcadia and I were each flanking Oxcard, supporting his weight as best we could between the two of us. Oriwyn was a few feet in front of us, daggers naked in the dark compound. She stood with an intense posture, listening to every sound, trying to pick out danger from the persistent patter of the rain. I knew Laran was ranging somewhere further ahead still, out of sight and trying to keep an eye out for danger. Worry for the elf-goblin started to creep in, but I pushed it down hard. That worry wouldn’t do any of us any good.
The last two members of our party, Leor and Brams, presumably still stood on the rooftops outside the building. I fervently hoped that our exit would be stealthy and peaceful, and that their protection would not be needed, but it was always better to plan unnecessarily than come up short in an important moment.
I took a few deep breaths, hoping the change in my breathing was interpreted as exertion instead of sounding like me panicking. Arcadia’s hand still fidgeted nervously with the long, wrapped box she had withdrawn from her bag. Between us, Oxcard’s head lolled a little as the painkiller Ori had given him kicked in. I jostled him gently and he seemed to snap back to attention. I stopped for a moment to shift Ox’s weight and let Oriwyn get a peak around the corner.
As I was catching my breath, I heard Ori hiss under hers. I looked at Arcadia, who leaned Ox more completely on herself, and joined Oriwyn around the corner. What I saw instantly locked time in place as the immediacy of battle crashed down around us all.
Laran stood with his back to a wall, posted up between a bookshelf and a potted plant that served to keep him from being flanked. His spear was drawn - we had bought short ones for the mission since we figured the long ones would be too tough to use indoors and quietly - and he already had a rip in his black shirt that spoke of a narrow call with a blade earlier.
Three thugs stood arrayed in a loose fan before him, wielding daggers and cudgels in a motley assortment of weaponry. One was nursing a wounded arm, but on the whole they looked much too healthy. As my Commander abilities kicked in, I took a moment to survey the scene. I had to use every advantage available to me to its fullest.
I could only see the three thugs that were menacing Laran, which was a blessing. Still, dealing with them was unlikely to be quiet - we would need to strike a balance between speed, safety, and stealth. I decided we could afford to take the moments needed to fight the three of them and then continue on - I didn’t fancy having armed enemies hounding us the whole way.
I waited for someone’s turn to start before suddenly realizing that it was my turn. I wondered how long I’d been just waiting due to my nervous inattention, but again tried to bury the feeling. I instructed myself to draw the short spear I had and try to protect Laran. The same strange feeling I always got from watching myself move washed over me as my body drew its weapon, stepped forward, and forcefully said words in a voice that was uncomfortably close to a yell.
“Stand tall with your Spine of Steel and let no blade fell you this day!”
I watched as my hand gestured outwards and a blue glow enveloped Laran. It was faint, but in the dark building it provided a small amount of light. Satisfied I had done all I could, I let my turn end.
Oriwyn was up next and was apparently raring to go. She spoke a mere split second after I’d locked in my own actions and watched them happen.
“I need to go and help Laran. He’s not been hit yet, but this could go bad quickly.”
She sounded ferocious and protective, almost like what I imagined a mother grizzly bear would sound like when protecting her cub. She was holding back admirably so far, but I could hear the stress and fear and anger trying to break through. Despite that, however, I didn’t have a better plan so I simply agreed with her.
“Yes, he needs the help. Still try and be as quiet as you can.”
I barely got an acknowledgement from Oriwyn as we watched her outline trace a headlong charge into the back of one of the assailants. She locked in the movement and shortly thereafter I watched her spring forward like a bat out of Hell. The tackle she delivered would have felled the burly beastkin had he been a similar size to her - Oriwyn’s form was impeccable as she flew into him. The beastkin stumbled but didn’t fall, and I was worried until I noticed something.
The beastkin’s back had formed a scarlet bloom, low and slightly to the side of the spine. Oriwyn had charged in and planted a dagger in him up to the hilt. Even in the frozen state of time, I saw the beastkin begin to crumple to the floor.
Arcadia was next. I told her about the battle in the next room and encouraged her to just take care of Oxcard - we could handle the enemies. She agreed and spent her turn simply moving the orc. She got up to the door of the room where the other three of us were, but no further. It frightened me to see how slowly she and Ox could move - the lack of speed would be a severe problem getting out of here, especially because it seemed like things were about to go loud.
One of the thugs went next. He took a surprised step back before squaring up with Oriwyn and trying to club her over the head with his cudgel. She artfully dodged it, ducking the wild and slightly disoriented blow easily.
Our training had paid off.
The next thug made her move and chose to go on the defensive, maybe sensing that the dagger buried in her companion’s back would soon be turned on her. She drew her two daggers up, getting ready to try to intercept any strikes coming her way, and did the worst thing imaginable.
“Here! Over here! There’s a bunch of ‘em and they got Ox with ‘em!”
Her turn was over, but I swear I could still hear the echoes of her call bouncing across all the walls of the compound. I cursed under my breath - there was almost no way for us to get out of here without a protracted fight now, not that there’d been much hope as soon as we saw any hostile people to begin with. We were barely out of Oxcard’s room, and it felt like the exit was a solid million miles away. My sour thoughts were interrupted by Laran’s turn beginning, who immediately echoed my own concerns.
“Well shit, guess we oughta go fast now.”
I grunted and let out a humorless laugh. Silently we stared at the scene below us, taking a moment to collect ourselves, before Laran sighed. He sounded very tired.
“Well, the guy who just tried to hit Ori turned his side to me. I should probably make him regret that.”
Laran moved and stabbed the man behind his arm and almost under his armpit since he was so extended from swinging his cudgel. The wound was nasty and deep, and I figured he would likely not be getting up from it ever again. Hell, if Laran had been on his left instead of his right, the blow may have just simply pierced his heart and killed him outright.
Our party now had an official body count, but I was too stressed to even begin to contemplate that. As I struggled to bring my thoughts under control, some small, dark part of me noted that the man Oriwyn had stabbed was unlikely to live through his wounds either. I didn’t know exactly where she had stabbed him, but I did vaguely remember that the liver and kidneys were in that general area and I figured grievous damage to organs was almost always a bad, life-threatening thing.
Before the round ticked over, the thug that had been stabbed fell to the floor and started screaming. Luckily Oriwyn plucked the dagger out of him before it was wrenched from her hand. He didn’t do anything else except flail in pain - he looked only half dressed, so the dagger had encountered no resistance as it pierced him. His turn was over, and I could hear distant footsteps coming closer - other people had noticed the noise.
We needed to get closer to the part of the building with windows facing Leor as soon as possible.
As my turn rolled around, I began to charge to a door. Luckily, it was not blocked by the one uninjured thug. As far as I could remember, the hallway past the door would lead us through a common area and then towards one of the exterior sides. As the other members of my party took their turns, I relayed the same idea - run to the windows. Everyone agreed and took off in the direction I’d indicated, though Arcadia hesitated a moment to make things easier for herself.
When it was her turn, Arcadia brought the package she’d been holding up to her mouth and ripped the covering off with her teeth since her other arm was occupied supporting Oxcard. What was revealed was a rectangular block of clay that was etched with strange runes. She hadn’t demonstrated her powers much before, so when she began the ritual I watched with interest.
On one end of the clay block, a simple face was carved. She brought the face close to her own lips and spoke words that pulsed with power. The runes and lines on the block were suffused with a green light, and then she threw it to the floor. Once there, it rapidly grew and began to assume the shape of a rough, humanoid figure - a golem, or at least something akin to the representations of golems I’d seen before back on Earth. The floor splintered slightly under the golem’s bulk, adding even more noise to the growing cacophony. After the golem had grown to full size, Arcadia guided Oxcard to its arms.
“Take him! Protect him! Follow us!”
The golem stared at her mutely for a moment before bending down to pick up Oxcard at the legs. I felt like cheering as I watched it happen - if the golem could just carry the orc like Arcadia thought it could, then we would have a much easier time running. What joy I had was instantly cut off, however, by a twist of fate.
Oxcard panicked as the golem was picking him up and struggled to get free. He couldn’t break the golem’s grip, but as he arched his back and bucked, the wound on his stomach began to reopen. Crimson blood began to seep out and stain his light shirt as the stitches struggled to hold. Arcadia tried to quiet him and mostly succeeded, but the damage had already been done.
Oxcard was bleeding, and that put us on the worst sort of timer imaginable. More than that, Arcadia and Oxcard were now very much behind the rest of us, and there was still a thug in the room with them. Even with all the time in the world to communicate thanks to my powers, we had still managed to mess up our planning. Though it couldn’t be helped now. We just had to make do and survive.
As the new round began and it became my turn, I slowed my headlong flight. Turning back, I raised my short spear and tried to look intimidating as I stared down the last standing thug. I wanted to create some clearance for Arcadia to get away, but I didn’t want to run all the way back and engage her either. As the others’ turns came up, I updated them. We slowed slightly, trying to get ourselves back in something resembling a formation, before pushing on. I felt pretty good about things, until the one thug got her turn.
I heard her yell, “Blink!” and all of a sudden she had vanished. She reappeared in front of Arcadia, drawn blades slashing viciously. Arcadia threw her hands up to cover her face and caught two vicious slashes, one to her palm and one to her forearm. I could feel my disembodied heart pounding - it felt like we were being hemmed in and trapped.
It felt like we would meet our ends here.
Despair washed through me, threatening to break my resolve. I watched beads of blood flow off of Arcadia’s hand, watched the scarlet flower on Oxcard’s torso grow bigger and bigger. As the emotion reached its crescendo however, a new certainty began to grow and began to eat away at the fear.
I was the Commander. I had promised to keep everyone safe. Nobody was going to die on my watch!
The next several rounds were a chaotic exercise in focus and nerve. Ori and I managed to drive the dagger-wielding thug away from Arcadia, freeing her and Oxcard to move. Laran surged ahead and was almost constantly fending off some assailant or another with his spear. As time passed, the conversation during each round got more and more terse as the tension, terror, and exertion of the night began to weigh heavily on each of us. Despite everything, however, we were making progress.
We had finally broken free of all of the assailants we could see and had charged into one of the hallways on the edge of the house. I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t taken a wrong turn in the twisting labyrinth of the compound. With any luck, Leor would see that something was going on and know to intervene. As we all made it into the hallway, I was cautiously optimistic. We had made it well past halfway out, and all of us were still breathing.
I took a little longer on the next round, giving everyone a moment to calm down and mentally catch their breath while I checked in on their status. Laran had received a small scratch from a glancing blow, Oriwyn had some bruising but nothing else wrong. Arcadia had managed to avoid any further wounds, but her hands were an absolute bloody mess - she was barely able to draw the shortsword she had brought with her for the slickness of her hands. Oxcard was still in the worst condition by far. Oriwyn’s medication had fully kicked in, and it was clear that he was barely perceiving the world around him between the drugs addling his mind and the pain that undoubtedly still racked his body.
We had gotten about halfway down the long hallway when all of a sudden every single light in it went off. They must have been gas or magic, because I didn’t feel any gust of wind. Even with time frozen, I could feel everyone’s shock at being suddenly plunged into darkness. I looked around just in time to see a thug slamming a door shut next to us. All down the hallway, as enemies had their turns I could hear doors close.
They were sealing us in the hallway.
As my terror grew, a lone figure stepped around a corner and my stomach sank like someone had tied a rock to it and thrown it in a river.
Daisy came through a door, a wickedly curved scimitar in her hands. She was wearing light clothing that showed off her body - rippling with muscle like a gymnast, with a small but notable collection of scars. The smile on her face was downright predatory as she began to advance towards us slowly.
Out of nowhere, Oriwyn broke the turn order. For a split second I could feel all of us present in the disembodied, liminal point of view over the battlefield. Her warning was brief and loud.
“BRAMS SAYS GET DOWN!”
+=+=+ Leor +=+=+
Come rain and lightning, come howling winds! I am the conduit of your fury, the vessel of flesh at your disposal! Blow and burn and sting and smite! My wrath is yours and your will is mine!
+=+=+ Aiden +=+=+
All of us dropped to the floor without question. Even the golem turned so its back faced the windows. It was a good thing we did, because almost simultaneously every single one of them exploded.
Ozone-smell lanced through the air as a flash of light brighter than anything I’d seen before exploded against the outer wall. The thunderclap that followed was immediate and shook my bones in my body. Shards of glass embedded themselves into the golem’s back, and I heard a horrible shriek from Daisy as she caught some fragments across her face and shoulders. She dropped to the ground, scimitar clattering uselessly beside her, as she cradled her wounded head.
I frantically cast my eyes around. There were glass shards everywhere, including some stills stuck where the windows panes had been moments before. Any hope I had of a hasty retreat through the windows died as I looked at the diamond-clear daggers that lined them. We still needed to get to the doors, and now would be the opportune time to do it.
I started running, making sure I didn’t outpace where I thought the golem could take Oxcard. In the chaos of the lightning blast, I think he’d finally fallen unconscious - I could still see his chest rising and falling, but he was now limp in the golem’s arms. That suited us just fine for the moment.
Oriwyn’s turn came up, and there was another surprise. Brams leapt through a window, teeth bared, and started to attack Daisy. He landed a few clean hits, ripping off a small chunk of hair and scalp and lacerating her hands as they covered her eyes. Oriwyn yelled commands and finally got him to stop attacking, though he couldn’t get far before their combined turn was over.
On Daisy’s turn, things started to go wrong. With a monstrous howl, her arm swept out and caught Brams in the flank. The badat was thrown against the wall, a shard of glass opening a red streak down his light colored wings. As Brams slumped to the floor, I could hear Oriwyn scream an answering roar to Daisy’s.
An icon appeared on Oriwyn’s nameplate. Fearing the worst, I checked her status.
Enraged
Everyone else moved, running down the hallway, but when it came to Oriwyn’s turn I couldn’t speak with her. I could only watch as she charged towards Daisy. Despite Oriwyn’s daggers being drawn and the look of murder in her eyes, I was chilled to see that Daisy was smiling.
Daisy rolled on the ground, dodging each strike that Oriwyn rained down on her. Her reflexes were nightmarish, though Oriwyn’s bladework was sloppier than normal. I could see it took her effort to remove her daggers from the floor after she had buried the point in the wooden boards - she was striking to skewer the crime boss through, with no regard for herself.
This lack of self-regard became clear as Daisy had her turn. Coiling her legs under her, she launched a vicious kick that caught the mouse-goblin on the side of the head and hooked her face towards the floor. I heard a crunch as Oriwyn’s skull smacked into the boards - Oriwyn was still conscious, but her eyes were slightly unfocused. At least it seems the blow to the head had made her enraged condition go away.
Daisy stood then, and turned towards me. I was mesmerized despite the fact I wasn’t seeing through my own eyes at the time. I had no idea how she still had more actions on her turn - the rules of the game seemed so desperately vague to me. The feeling of hopelessness seemed to steal back into my heart and threaten to make it beat out of my chest. Daisy grinned wolfishly at me and said a single word in a honey-sweet voice that dripped with venom.
“Run.”
I had a split second impression of an icon showing up over my own head before every bit of information went away. I couldn’t see nameplates, couldn’t hear my teammates. I was alone staring at my own body, Commander of absolutely nothing. My pulse thumped in my ears, drowning out even the noise of the rain. I couldn’t think, couldn’t plan, couldn’t understand what was even going on.
In the end I ran. What else was there to do? I ran for all I was worth, away from Daisy and towards what I hoped was the direction of the door. I could see Arcadia and the golem and Laran, though I couldn’t hear what Laran was shouting through the pounding in my temples. I had completely lost my ability to interact with my party as the blinding panic stifled the powers granted to me as a Commander. As I fled, I was vaguely aware of what happened behind me, but only enough to get impressions.
I saw Oriwyn struggle to her feet, clutching Brams to her chest. She began to run as well, and I could see her nose was smashed and bloody - blood was also flowing from her mouth. I saw Daisy reach down and pick up her scimitar, grinning in the darkness. The blood that flowed down her face blended in with the darkness of the hallway, making her seem like she was part of the walls themselves.
I saw the flash of light as Leor unleashed another lightning bolt, blasting the already damaged wall. She managed to aim her blast right next to where Daisy was standing - whether by skill or providence, I didn’t know. The blast threw Daisy and she tried to break her fall with her hands. As she did, I heard a snap and a scream of pain - several of her fingers had bent back the wrong way as they’d jammed into a doorway and were obviously broken. The members of the party that were in the building made a mad dash towards the exit. I wept as I saw the door in front of us.
Whatever Daisy had done to me wore off slightly before we reached the door. I had everybody back in turn order again. There was simply silence. No one felt like talking, nobody had a clever plan. All we could do was sprint off into the stormy night and hope that we could put enough distance between us and Daisy that we could be safe.
When we finally dropped out of turn order I was relieved for a split second. I thought that meant we were safe from danger, at least for the moment. The constant slowness of time had been wearing on me and I needed it to end.
I remembered I would experience everything that I’d just been through with my own eyes mere seconds before it happened.
I had never thought much of Hell. I was not raised particularly religious and had mostly just picked up that which was basically unavoidable to pick up simply by living in the United States.
What I saw and felt in that flashback, the pain and the confusion and the terror of the encounter, forevermore became the basis of what I thought of when I thought of Hell.
As I caught back up with the proper flow of time, my companions and I were running through the empty streets of Tripit. Leor had joined us, and I thought I saw that her beard and hair were singed and her hands blackened. I couldn’t focus on that though. All I could focus on was keeping us going.
We ran for ten minutes, then I fell. After I picked myself up, we marched. When even that seemed too much, we stumbled on and we didn’t stop for five hours. We had run out of the city, out into the woods, and hopefully out of the reach of Daisy.
We had done it.
Elsewhere: The teamster hated driving their cart in the dark. Their donkeys had already given them trouble when they tried to saddle them up in the rain, but the beer deliveries weren’t going to make themselves. Or, more properly, there was no way that they were going to magically get back to the brew works to pick up their next allotment of booze to be sold in Tripit. So, with an empty cart, two disgruntled donkeys, and a rain poncho, the teamster drove through the night-time forests around the capital. They hummed quietly to themself as they felt the ruts of the road buck the wagon under them. Suddenly, a huddled group of figures emerged from the darkness. One of them was a tall, husky-looking human - maybe he had a little of the beastkin in him? He looked haggard, and his companions didn’t look much better. They sat slumped together on the side of the road with a curious, half-melted sculpture that seemed to be made of clay slowly dissolving next to them. The teamster was about to draw their breath to speak when one of their number - he had green skin, though was tall for a goblin and short for an orc - looked up at them and gave a plaintive request. “Please, we need your help. We need to get away from here.”
The teamster simply did what any good person would do, of course.
From the Author: Hello everybody! Well wasn’t that quite exciting? It looks like everyone has gotten out alive, though whether or not they’re okay is another matter entirely. Regardless, the story will go on! This marks the close of what I’ve been internally thinking of as Arc 1 - the party is now fully assembled, and once they’ve had a moment to themselves, I’m sure they’ll find something else to get up to. I do remember that Commander is supposed to be a little more comedic and a little less stressful than it’s been recently, so worry not - things will get better. For a time at least.
All this being said, I also have an announcement: I’ve decided to set up a Ko-fi! If you’ve been enjoying the story and want to make a contribution to support me and help commission some art, check it out! I have some plans to add a bit of additional information / behind the scenes stuff to the page, but my first and foremost priority is the story itself. That being said, I’ll post the link, and I hope you will continue to enjoy I Became a Commander, Whatever that Means!
Want to support me and the story? Visit https://ko-fi.com/redcastoff!
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Hi all - my garbage disposal's motor hums but it doesn't turn. I've looked online and confirmed that this model uses 1/4 inch allen wrench and I've tried several such wrenches in the hole at the bottom of the unit. None of them seem to actually grip the socket and just turn freely i.e. without turning the impeller - everything I find online talks about too much resistance but the wrench doesn't even seem to engage. So I feel like an idiot asking this but am I maybe doing something wrong? Its an Insinkerator Compact-2.

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Any troubleshooting ideas for a crashing game? I unpause and it makes it about 5 seconds and then crashes to desktop. I've had sporadic crashes in the past and have usually been able to get past them but I am totally stone walled this time.
I've tried the usual troubleshooting steps - PC restart, disable fullscreen optimization, checking for driver updates, closing background apps - even tried cleaning up the save by deleting all the .dat files. No luck. My PC meets the "recommended" specs - though it is definitely not designed for gaming.
Population is 150 and world is the medium, 7 years old with 1 previous fort. Embark size is 2x2.
I've gotten up to 200 population in the past without a problem. My guess is that things just got too heavy in this file. I have a forking river with a waterfall and have dug through 2 aquifer layers and discovered a big lake in the caverns. There are currently 2 firebreathing FBs wandering around the caverns burning stuff. There's just so much mist and smoke and liquid going on. I have at least 20 guests hanging out in my tavern and have another 20 goblins in cages that I keep meaning to dispose of. I need to clean up all of the worn clothes and other random garbage that's lying around. Also there's a huge stack of dead animals at the bottom of the waterfall - they kept falling in for some reason.
My current plan is to count this one as a loss and to move on to a new world and see if I can keep things a bit tighter with managing my hoard - less stockpiling and overharvesting. Keep things cleaner. Smarter work orders. Maybe avoid rivers, waterfalls and/or aquifers.
I guess I could consider getting a better computer at some point.
I'd welcome any advice on either addressing the issue with this save file or maybe preventing future files from getting too bogged down and crashing all the time.

North America handbag market size was USD 10.34 billion in 2020. The market is estimated to grow from USD 11.31 billion in 2021 to USD 17.91 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 6.8% in the 2021-2028 period. This report is published by Fortune Business Insights™, in its report, titled, “North America Handbag Market, 2021-2028.” As per our analysts, the increasing fashion industry influence over common people is likely to boost the demand for these bags especially in the North American region given the high disposable income of the population.
Additionally, the clearance sales and Black Friday sales in the U.S are popular and women specifically overcrowd to buy accessories such as purses. The international sellers present in the North American market witness a hike in their sales during these events. Therefore, the attraction for accessories is expected to bolster market growth during the forecast period.
Amplified Luxury Handbag Costs to Endure Market during COVID-19 Crisis
The coronavirus pandemic affected every region and almost every industry was left to suffer economically from its effects. Due to a halt in the production and shipment process, several companies faced huge losses amid the pandemic. To recover the occurred losses, key corporations were forced to raise the costs of their products, which resulted in a global recession. For instance, from April to May 2020, premium brands such as Gucci, Chanel, and Prada upsurged the cost of their handbags in the European and U.S. market.
This has preserved the region’s bag income amid the pandemic. Moreover, to evade coronavirus infection, people are progressively opting to purchase personal products through e-commerce services. This assists in elevating product income in such rough times. For example, Wolf & Badger, which is a U.K.-based premium products online seller, stated a 414% hike in its Canadian luxury products sales in 2020 as compared to 2019.
Report Coverage
The report presents a holistic study of the fuel delivery system market along with current trends and future anticipations to establish proximate investment gains. An in-depth analysis of any upcoming opportunities, threats, competitions or driving factors is also mentioned in the report. Step by step, a thorough regional analysis is offered. The COVID-19 impacts have been added to the report to help investors and business owners understand the threats better. The top players are identified, and their strategies to bolster the market growth are shared in the report.
List of Key Players Covered in the North America Handbag Market Report

• Tapestry Inc. (New York, U.S.)
• Michael Kors USA (New York, U.S.)
• LVHM (Paris, France)
• Longchamp (Paris, France)
• Vera Bradley Sales LLC (Indiana, U.S.)
• CHANEL LIMITED (London, U.K.)
• Tory Burch LLC (New York, U.S.)
• Kering Pinault S.A. (Paris, France)
• PVH Corp. (New York, U.S.)
• Prada Holding S.P.A. (Milan, Italy)

Drivers and Restraints
Rising Implementation of Handbags by Consumers for Daily Usage to Drive Market Growth
Increasing adoption of premium purses by users as their regular fashion necessity is mainly budding the market growth. Moreover, consumer convenience related to the clutches and cross-body bags of chic designs and extravagance patterns shall drive the demand for such products. Also, rising consumer consciousness concerning the accessibility of such purses via social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, and others is stimulating the market growth.
Anyhow, indefinite U.S. governmental import restrictions imposed on luxury goods are anticipated to resist product consumption, thus detaining market growth. For example, in July 2020, Trump Administration executed 25% import duties on French handbag producers.
Segmentation
Based on product type, the market is segregated into tote, clutch, satchel, and others. Among these, the North America handbag segment, tote bag, held the highest market share of about 33.24% in 2020. The factor influencing the growth is the amount of space tote bags offer for ladies to carry their belongings.
On the basis of raw material, the market is divided into leather and fabric. By end-user, the market is further bifurcated into men and women. Based on distribution channels, the global market is classified into departmental stores, mass market, off-price, and others. In terms of region, this industry is segregated into the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
Regional Insights
The U.S. market was estimated at USD 8.69 billion in 2020. The U.S. held the maximum North America handbag market share of about 84.10% as of 2020. Owing to the large consumption of numerous hand bags among the U.S. population for their regular fashion needs. As per to the statistics published by the National Leather Council, the Government of France, U.S. luxury goods imports were responsible for 17.2% of the worldwide imports in 2018. Increased import of premium products basically aids the U.S. to fulfil its local customer requirements for such goods.
The rising user popularity of owning petite luxury totes and clutches in Canada are probable to deliver fresh market growth chances. Additionally, the escalating fondness towards luxury handbags amongst the middle and lower-income population is estimated to further drive the Canadian market growth.
The Mexican population mostly chooses to purchase fashion products from local producers such as Jaime Ibiza, Collectiva Concepcion, PANTERA, POPPY BARLEY, among others over imported brands. This shall offer fresh opportunities for the native manufacturers to expand their business in Mexico.
Competitive Landscape
Key players to Launch Fancy Products to Stay on Top Position
Key players are often seen making efforts in order to dominate the market regionally as well as globally. They at times use efficient strategies such as launching products, acquiring companies, signing collaborations, and many others. For instance, in April 2021, Porto Vino, a U.S.-situated manufacturer, made an acquisition of Swankey in order to launch an implausible collection of wine bags in the U.S.
Detailed Table of Content:

• Introduction
  • Research Scope
  • Market Segmentation
  • Research Methodology
  • Definitions and Assumptions
• Executive Summary
• Market Dynamics
  • Market Drivers
  • Market Restraints
  • Market Opportunities
  • Emerging Trends
• Key Insights
  • Overview of the Parent/Related Markets
  • Industry SWOT Analysis
  • Supply Chain and Regulatory Analysis
  • Recent Industry Developments - Policies, Partnerships, New Product Launches, and Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Qualitative Analysis (in relation to COVID-19)
  • 4.5.1 Impact of COVID-19
  • 4.5.2 Supply Chain Challenges
  • 4.5.3 Potential Opportunities due to COVID-19
• North America Handbag Market Analysis, Insights, and Forecast, 2017-2028
  • Key Findings / Summary
  • Market Size Estimates and Forecast
    • By Product Type (Value)
    • By Raw Material (Value)
    • By End-User (Value)
    • By Distribution Channel (Value)
    • By Country (Value)

TOC Continued…!
Key Industry Development
February 2019: Rebag, a New York-based online shopping site for selling and purchasing premium handbags financed USD 25 million to launch five brick and mortar stores at Los Angeles, and New York, U.S. sites.
Browse Detailed Overview of This Research:
https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/north-america-handbag-market-105566
About Us:
Fortune Business Insights™ delivers accurate data and innovative corporate analysis, helping organizations of all sizes make appropriate decisions. We tailor novel solutions for our clients, assisting them to address various challenges distinct to their businesses. Our aim is to empower them with holistic market intelligence, providing a granular overview of the market they are operating in.
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