Coin buyers near me

I mean, what was that diary recipe you got soaked in enough to say "this is the one"?
This is circumstantial, as I know some people here are always tinkering, but for those that have a go to, or one you brew often enough to have nearly always on hand, what is it?
For me, it's my strong bitter I've been making minor tweaks to for years. It was my first self made recipe when I was doing partial mash partial boils, and it's my go to ag recipe.

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

Looking to buy my first table saw and after reading many reviews and hearing advice from around the Internet I had decided to get the DWE7491RS. However, when I was shopping, the price for the saw was roughly $550 at retailers. However, now that I've put the money together, the price has gone up to roughly $650 at retailers. I'm not familiar with the tool markets and if it is likely to go on sale again in the near future or if it will probably stay at ~$650. Is this still a good pick for $650?
I'm not an experienced carpentewoodworker by any stretch. I'm looking for a saw to work on general household projects such as building fences and gates etc. However, I'd also prefer a saw that is capable and functional enough to allow me to grow into woodworking as a hobby, eg. building tables, furniture, etc. without causing me to pull my hair out. In other words, I know a cheap Harbor Freight saw would probably be fine for a simple deck or fence project but I imagine you can almost guarantee pulling your hair out trying to keep precision across multiple cuts for things like miter joints etc. keeping in mind that I don't have a collection of other tools such as a miter saw, etc. I like that the DeWalt saw has what looks like a pretty good rolling stand that would be very handy for me as I don't have a very large indoor shop area so lot's of stuff will need to be done outside.
Thanks for the help! Excited to get into it!

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

Demographics: Indian/Pakistani/Persian Male (50% Indian, 25 - 25 others) Apparently this allows me to put MENA on my common app.
Applying to college as a junior because I hate my life and I want to run away. I have guaranteed admission to UCM and UCR which is my worst case scenario.
My family thinks I'm fucked because I got 2 Bs. Residency: SoCal
Top Public High School in California
Income: >350k Intended Major(s): Political Science ACT: 36 (All Sections) UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.92UW/4.27W Top 15% Coursework: AP Chem (5), AP Calc AB (5), APWH (5), AP HUG (5), Intro Poli Sci (community college), Calc 2 (community college) Senior Year APs: AP Lang, APUSH, AP Bio, AP Stats, AP Psych Awards:
- Congressional Gold Medal
- PVSA Lifetime
- Eagle Scout
- County Academic League Winner
- School Character Award (Given to 2 kids per grade)
- Quiz Bowl Team Nationals 13th place
- AP Scholar with Distinction
- Duke Of Edinburgh Silver Award
(lemme know which ones to put) Extracurriculars (Help Me Condense these) Trying to make a story about American Politics:

1. Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts, and ASPL. Have been in Scouting since first grade.
2. Political Science Research at a T100 UC near me. Doing this for 2 years. My name is on publication.
3. Political Science Research at Brown. Doing this for 3 months.
4. Political Science Research at a State School Online. My name is on Publication.
5. Internship with State Assemblymember.
6. Founder Of a Nonprofit that teaches kids political literacy at three of the local elementary schools. Nonprofit since 7th grade.
7. Vice President Of Quiz Bowl, Have been a part of since 7th grade. Served as Treasurer last year.
8. Captain Of Junior Varsity Academic League
9. President and Founder Of Model Congress Club. First Model Congress in the city.
10. Secretary Of Model UN.
11. Youth Fellow at National Democrat Organization
12. Member Of a National Civics-Based Youth Board
13. USA Head at a big global nonprofit.
14. Wrote and self-published a book on civic engagement for children. Sold over 1000 copies (don't ask who though)

Help me make my story, please
Essays:
8.5/10, gonna write about my struggles with eating disorders and how I lost 150 pounds after my family bullied me for my weight.
LORs: Brown Professor / T100 UC Professor (Depends on which school), AP Chem Teacher 7/10, APWH Teacher (11/10) - Notorious for only writing letters for only 3 kids. She is the advisor of Model UN, Model Congress, Academic League, and Quiz Bowl. In her letter of rec for my youth board, she wrote that I am the hardest working student she has ever had.
Schools: Brown (ED), Bowdoin (ED2), Uchicago EA, UVA EA, NYU (Gallatin) RD, Cornell RD, Dartmouth RD, Amherst RD, UMich EA, Emory RD, Williams RD, USC EA, UCLA, UCB, Harvard RD, Duke RD,
Please let me know what I can do to make my application stronger. I AM DESPERATE TO START A NEW LIFE!!

This is a very affordable rental for UTA students wanting to live near campus!
Hey, I am looking for a UTA student seeking off-campus housing who is willing to take over my lease starting as early as June, July or August of 2023 depending on how fast you'd to move in! I signed my lease for next year through July of 2024, but I've decided to stay with my family in the Garland area for the next school year. The unit is at the Liv+ Arlington Apartments. It's a 4bed/4bath that I signed for just $689/month, and you would just be taking over my unit. The apartment is in perfect condition, comes furnished with all of the amenities that you could ask for as a student, and all of the roommates are quiet, respectful, keep the space very tidy, and are always very welcoming and down to hang out. It's on the first floor—a 5-10 minute walk to campus, close enough to park on the street, it's got a poolside view, 30 seconds away from the 24/7 gym, super close to the bus stop, like just downstairs from the snack/coffee bar, and the tenants have been there long enough that they've got all the streaming services hooked up, a well-furnished living area, and a neatly kept up kitchen. NEVER had a pest, upstairs neighbors or any maintenance issues. In addition, Liv+ is great because the management is always available for communication and lets you know about all of the social events happening around the complex. It's also BY FAR the best option for nearby off-campus housing that you can get because the building hasn't even been there for a full decade. I will also add that I wouldn't rely on their roommate matching system on their website because I had to move units when I did, but I'm so grateful I ended up in the unit I did. This is an extremely affordable location option for any guy wanting a space in Arlington to be able to study peacefully and open to making some friends. Hit me up for more details🤞🏼

I have been with my fiancé for 4 years and we recently decided to get married. We’ve been engaged for 2 years, but we wanted to wait to have a ceremony until we had some money saved up.
The reason that we decided that now is a good time to get married is because I just joined the military and will have to move for my job training, but it would be a lot harder to pay the bills with my new salary as it stands. If we were married, however, I’ll get more money based on my zip code that would significantly help pay the bills and I won’t have to break my current lease.
The issue that I’m running into is whether I should tell my parents. They aren’t fond of my fiancé because he grew up very poor and they don’t like the way he is because of it. My family is fairly wealthy and they 100% look down on him. It even got to the point that 3 years ago I moved two states away to go to university and they canceled the two bills of mine that they had been paying because they thought he had followed me (which he didn’t), but that was right before COVID and we had mass student evictions. I got sent back to my home state and had to move in with him at that point because my parents wouldn’t help me pay to get all the way back to them and he had a truck and just enough money for gas.
I had cut my parents out of my life for a few months because I was incredibly hurt that they would react so harshly and for such a ridiculous reason that wasn’t even true. We later got back into contact and have been working on our relationship to improve our communication and things have been going decently well, but they still can’t stand him and he feels very uncomfortable around them.
My family and I have both moved quite a bit in the past few years, and my fiancé has put in an effort to get into contact with my family to bring me by to visit if we make a road trip anywhere near their house. Every time, without fail, my mom finds a way to tell me that I shouldn’t be with him. After bringing this up to her, she’s stopped saying it, but now my fiancé feels so uncomfortable around my family that he won’t go with me to any holidays or vacations. At this point I really don’t understand why they can’t even pretend to be nice, but they refuse.
They also blame him for me dropping out of school, but the truth is that I couldn’t afford my tuition because I couldn’t get approved for a loan, even with him as a co-signer, and the school basically kicked me out since I couldn’t pay. Now I’m joining the military so they can help me pay for school and my parents aren’t too happy about it.
They know at this point that we will get married eventually, but I know that my mom wants me to have a big wedding ceremony and I would rather just have a small outdoor gathering with some good friends and the love of my life! I personally don’t think that there is any room for people that will make either of us uncomfortable on such a special day, but what do you think?

Idk where I am heading to . I am lost , I just hope I could make something out of my life . Every other person has some goals or targets here , I don’t have any purpose in life, it’s like I am wasting my life . When I see people with blueprints of their life and openly discussing it with each other I just feel left out because I haven’t decided anything and I am fuckin scared but I still wake up everyday trying to understand everything and purpose of everything . Everyday I wake up to prepare for entrance exam and I don’t even know if I even passed the exam would it change my life for good or make it worse. Am I following my parents blindly to get their validation or attention? I haven’t figured out anything till now - where ever I am now it’s a hell hole. My life is now limited to my room wake up- study-eat-binge watch-sleep. And this time table has made me sick. I wanna live a real life , meet some people , discuss things, have a convo with them . Almost 5 days a week I don’t have anyone to talk to and other 2 days ( weekends ) my elder brother doesn’t talk to me much . And my parents makes it worse , they don’t let me go out much not even for 10 mins and my exams are near and the idea of me not getting accepted in college makes me precipitate and the face of disappointment my father would have on that day makes me wanna kms. I am dying inside but the small hope that everything would turn out great is making me alive.

English is not my first language so please pardon me.
I have always dreamt about being a handsome white dude born in a posh family . Probably born in the UK or US . I would have attended a private school like eton . I would have gone to an ivy league school or probably oxbridge . Being taught by the greatest professors out there like Nobel prize winners would have been so awesome. Learning would have been so much fun. Being rich I would not have to worry about anything . I would probably have a girlfriend who would love me and I would have loved her . I could enjoy all my 20s without any worries. Then get married in my 30s and have kids settled in a big house near the sea . What a beautiful life it would be, wouldn't it? Almost the opposite of my life I am currently living.

I got canon 200 d mark 2, and i needed lens for better clarity in my videos. The difficulty is videos i make when camera is very near and with 50 mm lens is too zoomed in for me.
I need lens which can be used when making videos from nearby with wide picture. Please help.
If it helps my husband gifted me this lens today after watching videos which suggested to buy 50mm for better clarity.
We are not professionals, total newbie without anyone guiding us and today i felt his hard earned money just got wasted as amazon doesn't accept returns.

Anyone else absolutely hate how they’ve changed the trick battle mode? It’s nowhere near as fun as it was. It wasn’t broken, it did not need fixing! It needed new maps but that’s about it. Ruined my favourite game mode ngl. Don’t get me wrong they’re allowed to do what they want, it’s their game. But man, I’m gonna miss the old mode for sure.

Ik what normal double checking looks like, this isn't that.
Did I just pour OJ in a glass? *looks at the glass and carton a couple times and thinks about it for a minute or so telling myself that I did.
Even typing out this post I'm checking that it's actually uploaded and spending time telling myself that I did it. Just scrolling through Reddit or YT shorts I'm constantly on edge thinking I deleted or liked/disliked/unsubbed something accidentally without thinking even though I know my fingers didn't move, this habit is starting to make stuff like gaming feel like I a chore cause I'm always rechecking things for absolutely no reason and taking a literal minute or more to tell my mind that I did/didn't do something or that I'm gonna do something.
This habit makes being interrupted in any way the worst thing ever, sometimes I'm afraid to wake up in the morning or even touch my phone cause Ik I'm gonna give myself a headache rechecking and confirming things.
It doesn't help that my mind takes any movement I make at all as a reminder for some random thought I had. It's like, I'll place a coin somewhere and that'll mean something like "Eat pizza for dinner" for me to return to later which yehh I know I do on purpose but it's just how I stop thinking about it but the fact I do it starts convincing my mind that everything I do means something which ik it doesn't.
I've tried stuff like tapping my head or sucking my teeth to confirm things and overshadowing my constant thought of "Did I do that or to do that" with random thoughts and although their helping, it's not enough. I guess to put it simply you can say I have a hard time switching tasks or gears in a way.

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

Hey!
Yesterday, I ran the first part of my “Tangletown Tango” Score (it’s kind of a score, kind of not). Basically, many of the factions and notable people of Doskvol gather every year at Tangletown to hold challenges and competitions and events in a massive all-day party. Because of the success of their previous Score for Bazso Baz (the actual first session, but it was very short and it was our first time so it was more of a trial run), Bazso vouched for the crew to attend the Tango.
The purpose of this Score was to try and show my players all that the setting and mechanics had to offer by basically doing a “Faction Showcase” so they would want me to run Blades as a full campaign. And it went great! As I predicted, this’ll take another session to complete, but my players are extremely excited and have already said they want to do this as a campaign!
Some highlights:
• Our Whisper (“The Lamb”), a Tycherosi Doskvol Academy dropout and prophet of a cult, was confronted by their former patron (a witch in the Path of the Echoes) while their face was covered in ember-roasted pomegranate (art the player drew of the situation).
• Our Cutter won a Billhook fighting match against their ex-girlfriend, Marlene the Unbreakable.
• Bazso Baz smashing his empty whiskey bottle and congratulating our Hound like he was his nephew after the Hound won the Lampblacks’ freerunning competition.
• Australian-accented Silver Nails.
I was really struggling with how to organize this pretty non-linear and sandbox-y Score, until I eventually realized I could use a flowchart! I’ve actually never made one before and I had to really rush it because the session was the next day (I’ll go in and clean it up soon) but I found that this was truly the best way to have organized this session.
I’m thinking now that it might be good for Scores in general, since having a list of possible complications or events or challenges during a Score is basically all the prep you need, and with a flowchart you can have them connect and lead to other things and such. Obviously not nearly as prepped as the flowchart above, but just some connected obstacles and NPCs and such might be cool. I’d love to hear what you guys think!
Anyway, I just wanted to share because I had a blast running this session! I think BitD is my new favorite system!

I have a Cane Corso called Spot who is about 4 years old at this point. He's quite big, but he's also a very affectionate dog, he likes to sit next to me on the sofa and lean up against me, sometime he will lie on me and sometime he will lie over me. Since I WFH and have done since before COVID, we've never really be seperated for more than a few hours at a time and for all intents and purposes, he is my best friend.
About 2 years ago I started seeing a girl and over the last year it's got more serious to the point that we moved in together about 6 months ago. She was aware of Spot and had met him multiple times, even took him on walks with me before we moved in and at first she was quite scared of him but seemed to get over it after a few weeks.
Now, about a month ago, she got a small dog (Thumper) who is a cross breed, most prominently a Shih Tzu and almost immediately afterwards she started bringing up how we need to re-home Spot because he's too big and scary for Thumper. I think she's being ridiculous as in the whole 4 years i've had Spot he's never once even growled at another dog, even when other dogs have fought him, he just wags his tail, gives a happy yip and thinks they're playing with him.
Anyway, she brought it up again last night and said that "We need to re-home Spot, we have Thumper now, we don't need 2 dogs". I told her flat out that the only time I will be without Spot is after he dies and to drop it because i'm not re-homing him. She started screaming about how I value my dog over my relationship with her and stormed off to her moms for the night. I woke up to a bunch of angry texts from both her and her mom basically saying the same shit.
Am I really the asshole here? I could see where she's coming from if Spot was aggressive and going after people but he's completely the opposite to the point that if you're playing with him and get your hand near his mouth he'll open wide and back off straight away.

Hey all!
Slowly getting into the coin world and going through some hand me downs.
Is it ever worth getting smaller coins like quarters graded?
https://imgur.com/a/l0tZA5w
Ive got three quarters still in mint plastic (1960 D, 1964, and 1964 D) and a pretty perfect proof 64. Just wondering what you would look for or need to see in order to grade something like this?
Thanks!

Don't get me wrong the mode is pretty unique on its own and cool but all the issues from the past still are there, they just thrown em under the carpet expecting no one would care, but I do
THE ISSUES:
1- The matchmaking
While not necessarly a Duels issue itself it definetly becomes super noticeable here due to how it works, lets say you lost a match because of the brawlers you picked, so you decide to change em, however in the first match you start you meet your counters, its game over
Or you just meet people that straight up look like they just came out of a Brawl Stars Championship (Won't miss a single shot)
2 - The Maps
Oh boy the maps... They are bad, very bad, before they were bad due to easily being exploited, they did remove the walls from the middle now however when you really consider that there still walls (in some maps) + unbreakable walls in side locations of the map (most of the times near the center) it doesn't actually fix the issue at all not to mention the ones that have water in incredibly important positions making Eve too good there or are just throwers and Edgar and Buzz (Iron Core...)
3 - The mode still favors too much passive playstyles
Brawlers like Edgar or Buzz straight up are pratically uncounterable here due to how the mode allows them to keep running away till they get their Supers, or straight up punishes you for not wall hugging or camping in the mode, you pretty much cannot play offensively in this mode at all
4 - Duels Meta
While every brawler can be used in this mode it doesn't mean anything since only like 10 of them are actually worth using in there, everything else just being mediocre to garbage, Spike with curveball becomes almost unstoppable in this mode, along side Edgar, Buzz, Gale, Stu (depending of the map), Rico (also depending of the map), Bea, Surge, or almost any thrower due to the walls positions
5 - Skill doesn't matter (to some extent)
The issue with a 1v1 mode in a 3v3 based game is, some brawlers match ups are pretty much Rock, Paper and Scissors, no matter how good you are with it you won't ever win with it in this game mode (Poco won't ever beat Edgar, El Primo won't ever beat Jacky, Mortis won't ever beat Shelly, etc...)
Yes in 3v3 this is also an issue however you have teammates to mitigate it, in Duels you are completely alone and even if you do pick brawlers that counter your previous one it might not matter because of the reasons stated above (The enemy team may have Edgar and you are Poco, if you have a Bull or Shelly in your team the problem is solved fairly easily)
I believe this game mode has potential but these issues are not something I can just shrug off either, they really take the enjoyment away from the experience

For sale are 10 2016 British Sovreigns in mint condition.
Very very competitive price of $475 each with free USPS priority shipping. I will 100% ship first to buyers with a lot of purchase history. Zelle payment upon receiving coins.
All questions welcome. Pics and proof: https://imgur.com/a/ZGVgU72

Not even a skill issue because I’m not playing sweats. But it’s like I fundamentally cannot play the game. Passes take a second longer than they should to register, and go nowhere near where they’re supposed to. Elite dribblers can’t dribble. I feel like the aliens from space jam took my players talent and I’m actually playing with a bronze squad.
It’s not my Internet speed either because rivals and champions play just fine. This is the only time this game makes me mad, idc about losing to someone better than me. But having to play with weights around every player’s ankles is so frustrating.