Hello everyone, and welcome to the annual peak back into the past!
It's been another year since the 2022 capsule was posted, and for the 9th time we'll be unpacking all sorts of info that was stored away in this annual tradition. Not only is this a great way to look back on what all changed over the last year, but the time capsule also serves as the most complete recap for the current state of Mindcrack and is the best way to see the entire group's recent overall activity with info not found anywhere else.
We'll be opening the ninth edition of the mindcrack time capsule from 2022. You can also find these frozen moments in time for every year going back to 2014 here: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021. Now that all that's out of the way, let's officially open the 2022 time capsule!

Today is the 29th of May, 2022.

General Information

A current concise definition of Mindcrack is "A group of friends and content creators founded in 2010 who come together for gaming content and regular charity events primarily based on Twitch."
Mindcrack currently has 24 official members and around 18 VIPs/Friends active in the group, though there is no official list on who all is a Friend and the linked image is probably missing at least Darkosto and Sapphyrei. Mindcrackers and Friends essentially differ only in name.
The latest member to join officially was OMGChad on the 31st of October, 2014. The latest member to leave was BTC (BlameTheController) on the 12th of November, 2015. The latest Friend to join is difficult to determine, as most Friends have gradually become involved in the group over multiple years.

Charity

There have been nine full Mindcrack Marathons to date and a multitude of other charity efforts, both from individuals and the full group. In total Mindcrack has raised an incredible $1,950,563.23 for others through their group fundraising streams since 2013, of which $1,817,090.78 has been for the charity Extra Life (totals missing $0-5K). The latest full marathon was on November 8-14 and ran for 117 hours across a full week for the first time, raising a record $348,565.69 for Extra Life plus Twitch and merch revenue.
A complete list of all totals raised during Mindcrack group fundraising streams can be found here, the source message is pinned in the Mindcrack Discord and regularly updated.
The most recent fundraising event was held less than a month ago for Arbor Day and was Mindcrack's first time supporting Gone West, the UHC raised £6,161 for the company, helping plant over 1,125 trees for the planet. It's been mentioned that Gone West will return in future fundraising events. Mindcrack also raised $15,651.94 for Extra Life last month during the first spring marathon since 2019 which ran for 12 hours. It was followed up by Extra life United's return to Florida just over a month ago, Mindcrack had multiple attendees who also spent several days at Disney together where some of them unfortunately got COVID-19. ELU 2022 featured the return of the Minecraft Building Competition, and Pakratt led team Mindcrack to a 1st place finish against 6 other teams which included Aureylian.
The Mindcrack Patreon has now been supporting Mindcrack's charity efforts for over 2 years, allowing the marathon to grow in size and production quality. A new $10 tier was added in fall which gives monthly behind the scenes updates on charity events. Currently the Patreon has 413 Patrons pledging $3,626 per month, with 88 Patrons on the $25 tier, 1 on the $500 tier, and the rest split between $5 and $10.
Kurt's Far Lands or Bust journey has continued on as always, having just started Season 10 with Season 9 ending a couple months ago after close to a million blocks traveled in a year. He is currently at 5,765,878 blocks traveled towards the Far Lands as of March 28th, 2022, sitting at 45.9% of the way there. The latest episode was #829 on May 28th, 2022. The series has raised $472,939.92 for 7 different charities since 2011, with $4,470.00 raised during Season 9 for Rise Above The Disorder, and $4,600.00 raised for Equality Texas Foundation during the recent FLoB-a-Thon.
MCGamer and the Zeldathon Team have raised $3,064,623 for 11 different charities during their 32 charity events. The latest Zeldathon was Zeldathon Ascent which raised $176,843.00 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital from December 26th to January 1st, and they just finished the smaller event Piece of Heart raising $20,120 for St. Jude at MomoCon from May 26th-28th. The next Zeldathon will be Zeldathon Daybreak, scheduled to start on August 2nd raising money for Direct Relief.
There's also a multitude of individual charity efforts in Mindcrack; several people in the group hold streams supporting their individual Extra Life campaigns, and there's frequently one-off streams for various charities, such as a few days ago where Justin, McLaffyTaffy, and MyLawyerFriend were in a D&D stream supporting St. Jude. A complete list wouldn't be feasible to collect, but their efforts are appreciated. In total everyone in the group have raised over $5.5 million for charity over the years.

Regular Series

The Mindcrack Podcast is hosted by Sevadus, Guude, and recently Soccer releasing two episodes every week, consisting of a public episode every Monday and a Patron-exclusive episode every Thursday. Additionally, Patrons at the $25 tier can watch the recordings live and discuss in the live chat. The latest public episode was S2E99 which released on May 23rd, 2022, and the latest premium episode was episode 99 released on May 26th, 2022. The 10 year anniversary of the podcast is just a few weeks away.
Cone, Kurt, and Zeekay host the podcast Ran When Parked which releases new episodes every other week, the latest episode was episode 78.
As of tonight Coestar's StreamADay is sitting at Day 3,099, and Phedran's daily streaming streak is on Day 1,702. Coe still holds the second longest daily streaming streak on Twitch.
There have been over 500 collabs within Mindcrack in the last year, but with Mhykol's Discord bot not posting VODs it's hard to track them and get specific numbers. In the last year Monday Group Games, Space Cops, and the Dads have gone on indefinite hiatus, so there's currently fewer weekly series than normal.
The following is a list of the more stable weekly collab series within Mindcrack currently:

• Armo, Breon, Coestar, and Kingster play PUBG for Sunday Gunday every week, and PUBG also makes frequent appearances throughout the week with other squad combinations.
• Pakratt's Vintage Story Tuesday with Honney and DireDwarf recently ended after 38 weeks, it's likely TFC Tuesdays in MC 1.18 will replace it in the near future.
• Coestar and Guude's Two Bananas for Sale continues strong, playing games together or with Patrons every Friday night. Their most recent games include We Were Here Forever, UHC, Traitors in Salem, and Codenames. Their joint Patreon currently raises $625 per month thanks to 36 Patrons.
• Arkas, Guude, Nebris, and Pakratt have recently returned after a long hiatus to play Divine Journey 2 every other Saturday and just passed their 7-year anniversary playing together.
• Arkas and Cone just wrapped up another season of Cities Skylines, this one being a challenge to build the best city in 36 hours.

Servers

Season 9 of the Minecraft vanilla server is currently ongoing; Amethyst, Guude, his daughter Apple, Honney, Mookake, Pakratt, Phedran, and a multitude of $25 tier Patrons have been on in the last month. The current season started on December 11th, 2021, and the server is running on 1.18.2 with some extra plug-ins. For the first time the majority of Mindcrack is using shaders on the server in a client modpack with other QoL mods. This season has had approximately 765 hours streamed by Mindcrack so far. The most recent event on the server was the Spring Festival held on May 1st and 7th; Amethyst, Guude, his daughter Apple, Honney, Pakratt, and about 15 Patrons attended one of the two.
Mhykol hosts a server map at https://mindcrackmap.com, the map uses BlueMap which was used as a secondary map on the previous season.
The most recent full modded server was Crackpack Season 4, Mindcrack's 7th modded season which was active from November 2019 until January 2020. A more restricted Crackpack 3 server was active for 3 hours every week from May to October last year as part of Monday Group Games.
The Dadcraft Minecraft server reset at the start of December for 1.18, Arkas and Jaaski joined Chiblee, Coestar, Justin, and Pause with others and the server was active for about a month.
Adlington, Arkas, Cone, Dire, Doc, Kurt, Phedran, and VintageBeef all have fan servers for Twitch subs and/or Patrons.

Ultra Hardcore (UHC)

There have been 33+28 (Twenty-seven donation UHCs and S4b) seasons of Mindcrack UHC. There were 8 Mindcrack UHCs in 2021, the most since 2012 with 9 UHCs.
Breon, Coestar, ConeDodger, and Kingster are the winners of the latest UHC season, Season 33, which was streamed on the 26th of February, 2022.
Mookake and SethBling are the winners of the latest donation UHC, the 27th of its kind, which was streamed on the 30th of April, 2022 for Gone West.
PauseUnpause is the most deadly player in regular UHCs with 36 kills, and Coestar is the most deadly player in donation UHCs with 38 kills, having recently taken the lead from Arkas. Nebris and VintageBeef are tied for the most wins in regular UHCs with 9, and Guude and Kurt are tied for the most wins in charity UHCs with 7. (Latest UHC Stats by Guardax)
Seasons can be categorized as follows: 21 teams of four, 15 teams of two, 13 teams of three, 8 free-for-all, 2 PvE, 1 teams of five, 1 teams of ten.
UHCs have been becoming more frequent recently with renewed interest from the group and there's plans for even more in the future, starting with the first ever collaboration between VintageCraft and Mindcrack Patrons with a UHC next month on June 11th.

Individual Members

The table below contains current subscription, follower, and member data for the Mindcrackers' various social media accounts. Each number is hyperlinked to include an image of that member's account as it appears on this day for easy comparison of account contents, videos, and Discord channels:

Mindcracker	Twitch	YouTube	Twitter	Patreon	Discord Size	Discord Messages**
Adlingtont	2,889	35,200	6,405	9 ($71)	44	29,700
AnderZEL	286,781	532,000*	72,995		Twitch sub to join	4,160
Arkas	39,358	86,300*/383	25,712		447	51,640
Aureylian	148,698	267,000*	164,528
AvidyaZen	21,652	274*	353		78(new)	9,090
Coestar	62,880	110,000*	30,709	29 ($79)	1,554	1,943,640
Docm77	128,355	982,000	225,648	124 ($952)	Patron only	?
Guude	45,651	366,000	95,260		Twitch sub only	875,670
JSano19	5,103	48,800	14,035	1 ($5)	Patron only	?
Kurt	53,293	412,000	57,844	199	Patron or Twitch sub only	180,680
MCGamer	87,722	HIDDEN	36,934
Mhykol	15,793	53,000	25,336		154	17,280
Millbee	55,977	114,000	45,799		545	754,160
Nebris	20,809	134,000*
OMGchad	53,832	119,000*/1,390,000	32,816		2,047	34,920
Pakratt	102,661	50,200	20,929		562	351,980
PauseUnpause	151,562	HIDDEN			947	134,680
Pyropuncher	29,807	HIDDEN	48,857
SethBling	246,113	2,020,000	380,303		330	37,240
Sevadus	412,912	45,600*	57,420		1,875	45,810
Vechs	9,692	171,000	50,404	114	1,061	154,270
VintageBeef	28,405*	1,570,000/13,800/19,800*	197,020	251	Patron only	?
W92Baj	9,548	113,000	43,394	7	Patron only	?
Zisteau	55,408	340,000/981(new)	72,216	91	1,240	400,910
Mindcrack Network	70,390	153,000	50,044	413($3,626)	2,711	262,240

* indicates accounts that haven't been used in the last year ** Discord messages are all messages sent in default channels since server creation.
The following table is the same info for Friends that are content creators, though this isn't an official list so it may have extras and not be complete:

Friend	Twitch	YouTube	Twitter	Patreon	Discord size	Discord messages**
Amethyst	552		852
Breon	2,605	291	1,705		167	49,230
Chiblee	24,332	4,330(new)/1,540(new)	31,923		2,338	473,600
ConeDodger	5,598	9,340	1,423	160	Patron or Twitch sub to join/use	1,006,770
Dahl	458	21,400/25(new)	837	0	Patron to join	51,560
Darkosto	76,839	3,560	6,049		7,947	439,360
DireDwarf	18,335	4,730	3,104	5($56)	372	190,740
Drooo	346	11	446		54	21,150
HCJustin	66,741	13,500	19,144	29($178)	Twitch sub to join	1,184,780
HonneyPlay	11,607	3,100	1,259	11	562(shared w/ Pak)	351,980
Jaaski	10,850	458*	2,694		606	220,530
Kingster	390	2(new)	20
Mookake	690	2,360*	244
Phedran	9,470	8,870*	4,900	52($388)	372	89,430
Ryuski	1,383	181	436		75	26,541
Sapphyrei(formerly OnlyBentley)	17,636	58(new)/129,000(old)	12,243	3($19)
Soccer	505	137*	251		Twitch sub to join	440

There are currently about 28 people part of Mindcrack that stream on Twitch regularly, and about 10 that upload to YouTube regularly.
In the last year there were approximately 30,813 hours streamed on Twitch by about 41 Members and Friends, with 2,483 combined hours streamed during last month. During that year there were 792 unique categories streamed, 4,294,294 total views, and 3,863,022 hours watched on Twitch which is equal to 441 years.
The most streamed games in order were Minecraft, PUBG, Escape from Tarkov, RimWorld, and Elden Ring. Minecraft had the most streamers with 37, most hours streamed with 6,278, and most hours watched with 713,580; the category Just Chatting was also among the most streamed and had the most views with 718,610.
Here's a chart showing monthly hours streamed by Mindcrack members from August 2015 to April 2022; here's a similar chart with Friends added from May 2020 to April 2022.
According to the Mindcrack website, the total YouTube subscribers across all official Mindcrackers is 9,042,471(+24,900 in the last year), the total number of videos is 71,787(+1,586), and the total views is 2,418,417,594(+36,497,698). The website hasn't been updated in years so the accuracy of those numbers isn't guaranteed.
The total member count across public Discord servers in Mindcrack is 25,526 which includes significant overlap(13,595 for just Mindcrack Members). In total there's been approximately 9,394,181 messages sent across all 33 servers including from bots, but I don't currently have Doc's or Beef's numbers which would push that number well over 10 million. Coe's server remains heavily active and is poised to be the first to reach 2 million messages in about 4 months.
SethBling is the most subscribed on YouTube with 2.02 million subscribers as well as the most followed on Twitter with 380k followers. Sevadus has the most Twitch followers with 412k followers. Darkosto has the largest Discord server with 7,947 members, and among the Mindcrack Members OMGchad has the largest with 2,047 members.

Subreddit

mindcrack has approximately 45,100 subscribers. Discord servers and Twitch chats are the primary places the active Mindcrack community's interactions are based, so the subreddit sees minimal activity.
The Moderator Team of mindcrack consists of 10 humans and 2 robots: GuudeBoulderfist, pakratt0013, stinusmeret, Zisteau, pajam, Lost-Chord, Compieuter, ArmoAram, stevetheclimber, emilythecool, MindcrackTwitchBot, and CrackBot / AutoModerator.
This is the subreddit today using old Reddit (Picture Version), and this is the same page using the redesign (Picture Version).
Here's the current flair selection, and here are the subreddit's traffic stats which are normally only viewable by mods.

Miscellaneous

Docm77 and VintageBeef are both also members of HermitCraft, and Arkas, Chiblee, Coestar, Jaaski, Justin, and Pause are all members of Dadcraft.
SethBling currently holds 2nd place for the Super Mario World 0 Exit speedrun with a time of 41.350 seconds. He also holds records for several speedrun categories he created, including SMAS+SMW All Five Games with ACE which he'll be running in this year's SGDQ in July, he currently holds a record of exactly 9 minutes for it.
On the IRL side of things several people in Mindcrack have gone through changes in life; in the last year, Guude and Jess got engaged, Cone and Paint also got engaged and announced they have a baby coming, and DireDwarf got married. There's also been multiple kittens and other pets, at least half a dozen job changes, and several moves, including Soccer living with Guude until earlier this month.
There have been no updates in the last year on Mindcrack's progress towards becoming a non-profit that's publicly been in the works for years.

Community Contributions

u/Omegatron9 has kept his spreadsheet and graphs on YouTube subscribers up to date.
The events of Mindcrack's first 10 years are covered in my History of Mindcrack written in 2020.
Some spreadsheets I have with stats:

• Mindcrack monthly hours streamed - August 2015 to April 2022 copy
• Mindcrack Stream stats - May 29, 2021 to May 28, 2022, has extensive numbers for every category streamed by everyone in Mindcrack in the last year
• Quarterly content produced by Mindcrack Members, 2010 Q4 to 2020 Q2, useful for seeing Twitch overtake YT for Mindcrack content

Thanks to Guardax, Pellervo_page, and Ageofdune for providing Discord numbers.

And there we have it, another look back into the past is complete as we take a moment to reflect on how we got here amongst the never ending flow of time. Even in just one year there's been countless changes throughout the many people in Mindcrack, both good and bad, and it's easy to lose track of just how much happens with so many different people each living their own lives. Who knows what kinds of changes we'll see as another year passes and we open the 10th time capsule in 12 months.
The 2023 time capsule will be coming soon, there's a lot of info to collect so I'll be asking for help in the Discord, and anyone in the community will be welcome to add their own messages and info in the capsule. For the time being though let's focus on this capsule and all the changes that took place in the last year, and feel free to discuss any of them that stood out to you!

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.

The Anomaly was stable.
That's what the government called it, the magic field around the town that turned people into Kobolds. The rules we had ascertained at the beginning of this were still consistent, a Human could enter and leave as many times as they liked and they would remain Human, there was no known process to reverse this, except a spell called True Polymorph, but that would take years, perhaps even decades, of experimentation, innovation, and- possibly- killing, if the players were correct.
It was the realization that I wanted to remain a Kobold that had allowed me to realize I had been fixated only on my kind, our little village in the town. I distinctly remembered living as a Human- even though the memories caused me nothing but grief- knew how to navigate, how to speak with our Human neighbors, how to use technology.
My understanding of the world wasn't being overridden, it was just that, culturally, me and my people were regressing, and even understanding that, we couldn't stop because we didn't want to stop, it felt more comfortable.
The term 'medieval stasis' was tossed around, the idea of a setting remaining locked in a culturally and technologically medieval state. This didn't feel true to me, if I had a microwave that didn't take up a shit ton of space, I'd definitely use it over cooking over a fire. The flatscreen in my old house was practically like sitting in a theater, the bed was disproportionately huge, like going from a twin to a really long queen size.
I didn't see it as technological regression, so much as nothing was made for us, there was no way to accommodate us in a modern society. Even just going to the nearby city was distressing because we're really fucking small, and even scampering across a road on all fours was just asking for someone to get run over or stepped on.
Not to mention, the Humans were also distressed at our presence, even though it was explained what had happened. That said, there were people who came to our town, people who specifically wanted to become Kobolds. Even knowing that it was a very permanent and life-changing experience, even having us explain that there was nothing to accommodate them out in the wider world, they simply accepted that, yes, we were very much a minority in the world that couldn't possibly be accommodated because we were so rare.
But they were insistent, they were fully willing to abandon their prior lives for this, and reluctantly, they were allowed in.
The process was always painless, they just walked in, shrank, and turned into a Kobold, and could just walk over to us and fit right in. The people who wanted this just seemed to be more natural at it, or maybe they were just aware of what we were supposed to act like and knew how to do it, unlike me, who had been completely blindsided.
It was a month into the second year, when one of the Human kids to the Kobold parents turned into a Kobold. Of course, everyone freaked out because it was against the rules, this was an illegal action and changed everything.
Except, it didn't.
The kid simply didn't want his parents to be alone anymore, so he started trying to figure out how to become a Kobold. Well, we had already established anyone who wanted to become a Kobold, aside from that initial mass transformation, would become one, he wanted it, so he became a Kobold. His brother tried as well.
Simply saying he wanted it didn't work, but when he became distressed that he couldn't to it. Pop! Instant Kobold.
Throughout all of this, Brutus just stuck to my side as a very good boy and just did not seem to mind or care that people were changing into Kobolds around him.
I woke up one morning from a sudden surge of magic within myself. At first I was freaking out, thinking I was going to explode, but then I felt myself calming down as the power settled.
Everyone freaked out when I got onto the roof of the nearest tallest building. I mean, even I was a little freaked out because this was entirely new to me, but I ran and took a flying leap off, and with a big-add feather in hand, I spoke a word, and my rapid descent slowed until I touched the ground.
Of course, everyone was pissed at me, told me that I should never do something so recklessly stupid again. Seeing everyone's concern filled me with shame, and I explained that I knew it was stupid, but I felt I had to do it. That if I tried to tell anyone, they'd just lock me up in a room or something.
How do you rationally explain you want to throw yourself off a building so you can make yourself glide to the ground?
The anger turned into excitement as people realized that meant I knew another spell, that I had hit second level and that I should be able to restore the spell I just used, which I was able to.
This of course led people to give me a player's handbook for D&D and told me to read it because my sudden growth of power meant it was absolutely consistent with it and that I should be able to figure out what all I could do.
Which I did.
It certainly outlined a lot of stuff, but it wasn't particularly useful for me, and I had a feeling that at best it was an abstraction of what our reality was, and at worst, an unreliable guide into life. So I just kind of set it to the side, said "That's nice." and went about my life.
It was the third month of the first year that the mine collapsed.
It was a dull roar, a distant rumble.
We all knew what it was the moment it happened, and every single one of us ran to the mine. Human or Kobold, we all lived in constant fear of a collapse. Our family members were competent, this was a generations-long job that a large portion of us learned just to keep the economy going.
I remembered the sound of someone screaming, there was someone trapped under a large boulder, still alive, but unable to get himself out.
Now, I had never bothered to learn the trade, that was something my father did that I was too terrified to do. I remembered, at that moment, that even though a lot of the people who became Kobolds had been miners, they refused to go into the mine, saying they just didn't feel safe in it.
We'd all just passed it off as an understandable fear that a small creature like us could get easily lost in there. But as I looked at the pile of rubble, I knew how to get him out without causing the whole thing to bury him.
I didn't hesitate, I ran forward, throwing off my clothes because I felt they would get in the way, and grabbing hold of rocks I was absolutely certain were stable, I began to climb and began grabbing the rocks that were most likely to fall and potentially kill the man and got them out of the way.
I only registered there were other Kobolds with me when I handed the rock to one of them, who passed it on to another, and another. We cleared out the immediate danger first, while other Kobolds jerry rigged something to get the boulder off the man and drag him to safety.
It goes without saying, that if I could use magic as what the players called a Sorcerer, others could use magic as something called a Cleric, and well, if the man being healed wasn't a sign that there actually was some sort of divine force in the world, I didn't know what was.
We continued to clear out the entrance, not even one rock fell as we instinctively grabbed what would cause a rock slide and got it out of the way.
When I began to feel exhausted, another Kobold came up and told me to rest. I did, carefully climbing down and only passively realizing I'd been up there for a solid four hours just working my ass off to clear the rubble.
It only occurred to me then, as I drank some water and ate some meat, that my father was down there. Saving him hadn't even been on my mind, all that ran through my mind was that I had the knowledge to help, so I helped.
A tool used for smashing the larger rocks to pieces snapped, I barely registered I was running over to them, I just took the broken tool from them and fixed it.
It didn't even matter that I was fucking exhausted and sore, I was up and over there because I was the only one that could use magic to fix things.
Nobody stood idle, There was a group of Kobolds who were waiting, certainly, but they were watching intently, hopping up and running over to relieve someone who was getting exhausted, or running food and water to someone who needed it.
We saw the first hand poking out of the rubble six hours into clearing up the entrance, focus shifted to getting them out immediately, because they were still moving, Within minutes, they were being carried down the rocks to the ground, it was clear to me they were in critical condition, and if they weren't healed, they were going to die.
The spell used on him was called 'Spare the Dying' according to the players. He instantly stabilized, the worst of his wounds- while still bleeding- simply stopped oozing out blood.
I overheard one of the nurses from the nearby city's hospital remark that- by all rights- that man should be dead. It only occurred to me that people from the hospital had come the moment the news of the collapse reached them. None of them had turned into Kobolds, but I could see on their faces that it hadn't even been a concern.
I continued fixing any tools that broke, which allowed everyone to use them again when they did break.
I saw a rock suddenly break loose, I didn't even register the word I spoke, or my hand flying out. All I knew in the next moment was my Magic Missiles hitting the rock head-on. Once, to knock it off course, and the other two times to ensure it completely missed hitting anyone. A few Kobolds looked at me with surprise and gratitude.
I simply nodded, continuing to repair things as they broke.
We found more people, most of them still hanging on by a thread, the Clerics standing by to stabilize them before having them moved over to the doctors and nurses, who were doing their best to make sure they were in a position to be taken to the hospital, where their injuries could be more properly addressed.
The fact of the matter was, we didn't have enough spells to go around to heal everyone, even among the more naturally inclined Druids.
There were people who had died. Family, friends, every time we found them, there was a pause in our work before they were dug out and brought out. We kept working, bolstered by the wails of the bereaved.
We couldn't save everyone, but we'd be damned if we didn't try.
We heard the first muffled voices of the survivors who had managed to avoid being crushed under several tons of stone. We didn't work faster, we kept up the sustainable pace we had, because hurrying would just lead to injuries.
The first hand that reached out from the darkness was briefly grasped before drawing back in. The hole was gradually widened, those of us who could fit went in, working from the inside to safely widen the hole, to shore up the unstable mine enough to keep people safe.
One by one, the trapped miners were carried out, but it wasn't even half of them.
"The rest are still in there." One of them said. "The whole thing is unstable, there's no way we can safe them."
"There's no way you can save them." Kassa, one of the Kobolds who had been a miner, said. "But we're sure as hell going to try."
I could feel the weight of the earth above me as I entered the unstable mine. It terrified the shit out of me that at any moment, it could cave in and probably kill me instantly.
Still, they needed me to fix their tools, because they were sure as hell going to break again.
It was ten hours into the rescue, we had only just gotten maybe a fourth of the people out, and a further fourth of them were dead. We had instinctively known the mine was going to collapse, we avoided it like the plague, but we didn't realize it at the time.
The earth shifted above us, small stones raining down on us. I set to work repairing the cracked timbers, I could feel that weight lessening slightly, it bought us maybe minutes, maybe seconds, but it was enough to get support struts in place.
The plan was simple, we all knew it needed to be done. We would rescue the miners, and then we would collapse the mine.
The Humans argued that the mine was our lifeblood, that without it, the town would dry up, there would be nothing.
"We can always dig more mines." I said. "We can't waste more lives on one that's just going to collapse."
As hellish as it was to make our way down into progressively more dangerous tunnels, being out of the sunlight was doing wonders for my stress. We knew where it was the most unstable, the miners knew where to put the struts to be the most effective, and when we came to the first collapse, we worked our tails off to clear it out.
We silently passed the dead along, those unlucky few who had been crushed. but the survivors who managed to cling on to life were stabilized and taken out with yips and yaps of encouragement and comfort.
When we broke through and saw the wide, terrified, yet hopeful eyes of more of the miners, we immediately knew if we proceeded, their section of the mine was going to collapse, rendering all of our hard work moot.
"We need to pass them a strut." Kassa said. "Listen, and listen carefully. We need to pass a strut through this hole to you. You need to ensure on your end it does not hit the rocks, otherwise, the section you're in will collapse."
"Just pass it through."
It was easily the most stressful thing I'd ever taken part in. Dozens of small hands keeping the damn thing stable, while the miners on the other side tried their damnedest to keep it steady. Kassa directed them to where to put it, and once it was firmly in place, we cleared the rocks out, urging the miners to get out.
They looked back at us when we didn't follow.
"No, absolutely not. You are not going in there." One of the miners said.
"Kobolds don't abandon family." My brother, Tallyn, said firmly. "We'll all die before we consign them to death."
Even though our every instinct screamed at us to turn tail and run, we pressed onward, the struts only barely keeping the ceiling above stable.
I began to hyperventilate, requiring someone to help calm me down. I was welcome to go, but I needed to stay, I needed to be present to ensure our tools could be repaired.
As if to illustrate my point, one of the struts broke, the mine groaned, and I immediately leapt up to repair it.
We went deeper.
The next collapse was reasonably stable, for what it was worth, we were able to clear it out, and thankfully without any other casualties. I had to resist the urge to run over to my father and hug him, but I did grab his arm and gave it a squeeze.
I think that was the first time he'd ever looked at me with such pride in his eyes.
Eighteen hours into the rescue, we reached the end and got everybody out. The sudden jolt of terror that ran through my body told me we needed to leave immediately. We ushered the miners out, tried not to panic as we slowly ascended to the surface. Struts began to crack, it was all I could do to keep them whole while everyone got out.
I began to smell fresh air, and that's when the mine behind us began collapsing. There was no time to waste, we ran for the surface, my exhausted and hurting body screamed at me to move, but just as I was almost out, I felt something heavy hit me, and then I was buried.
I wasn't afraid anymore. I knew I was going to die, but the moment I realized that, all fear of dying just... went. I had stabilized the mine for as long as I could, I had worked my tail off to keep things going, and I was proud of what I had accomplished.
Still, I only had the merest trickle of air, and my brain was still in survival mode.
I fell unconscious at some point, I wasn't going anywhere, and I was too tired to fight it. But when I opened my eyes, it was to the faintest shaft of light peeking in, the sounds of rocks being moved.
It was just me in here, the chances of me being alive right now was completely slim, I would have forgiven them for leaving me to tend to the wounded, but they resolutely kept working.
They had to be exhausted, at the end of their rope, there was nobody capable of continuing.
There was nobody who could save me.
"I don't care if he's dead, I'm not leaving my boy in there!" The voice was muffled, but it brought tears to my eyes. I tried to call out, but all I could manage was a weak sound.
Still, I kept breathing, kept trying, even as the rocks shifted around me dangerously, threatening to finish me off.
There was a brief pause, an indistinct voice, and then silence.
I cried out, my voice barely a audible even to me, there was no way they could hear me.
Still, I cried out, I couldn't manage a single word, but I tried regardless.
"Did you hear that?"
I cried out as loudly as I could, and then I could hear the rocks moving again, I felt the weight around me shift, I could get more air in. I cried out, louder, straining to push myself out, and then, the finally gave way.
All I could manage was pushing my snout out into the fresh air and managing another sound, I felt a hand on it, smaller, a Kobold's hand. They were still trying to reach me.
I was pulled out, my breath rasping, my body in utter agony, I was blind in one eye, and against the hellish light of the bright morning sky, I saw a Kobold leaning over me.
"Family doesn't abandon family." He spoke with my father's voice.
I felt relief as my body was healed, but I was still absolutely weak from fighting to survive.
"You became... a Kobold..." I rasped.
"I kept thinking to myself, if only I knew how to get to you." He said. "If only I could find you. I could feel myself on the cusp of transforming, and I ran headlong into it because it was the only way to save you." He hugged me, crying, overwhelmed with relief.
Of roughly 2,000 Humans, 786 died.
The miners had found a new vein, silver, certainly more than enough to keep the town going.
But they dug too deep, they weren't careful enough.
There was no resentment from the Humans for us not realizing the mine was unsafe. We didn't know at the time what the aversion was, so it was just chalked up to fear due to being in an unfamiliar situation
With the mine utterly collapsed, there was no real way of salvaging it, it would probably cost more to excavate it and make it stable than that silver vein would be worth.
Incidentally, the moment everyone was out and safe, every single Kobold had 'gained a level', the players explained that we had solved a significant crisis, and that gaining a level was usually the result of such.
They then said, with the kind of manic grin I only saw from gamers who liked games with punishing gameplay, "It's only going to get harder to earn them from here."
Getting used to life with a blind eye was a bigger adjustment than learning how to live as a Kobold was. Still, it was a small price to pay for saving as many people as we could.
We started scoping out another location for a mine, somewhere close enough that we wouldn't have to go far.
When the Human miners heard that we had an instinctive sense of when a mine was safe or not, they all instantly transformed. Even the merest prospect of having that kind of ability had led to such a strong want for it, that they just flat out changed.
Of course, like my father, they had to adjust. Some of them were upset that it happened, but like me, they learned to accept it and appreciate it.
I threw myself into honing my spellcraft, every day I practiced, getting creative with my spellwork and just generally improving in my reaction times.
My fellow Kobolds all looked at me with respect and gratitude. We all knew that my dogged insistence on going with the rescue party to make sure our tools were in top condition had prevented a lot more deaths.
It wasn't that they thought I was the only reason we succeeded, but they understood my absence would have led to catastrophe.
Having achieved this third level of power, I had gained access to something called 'metamagic', as well as second level spells.
I didn't really have any control over which spells I gained insight into, but I could sense that any spells I knew prior I could change one of them into something else.
Thus, I gained an understanding of the spells 'Witch Bolt, Vortex Warp, and Enhance Ability'. Which meant I could conjure a steady stream of electricity, teleport someone to another spot near me, and enhance someone's physical and mental attributes, of which there were apparently six.
The 'metamagic' that I learned granted me the ability to cast certain spells near-instantaneously, and to extend the duration of an effect.
There was a hard limit on what I could do, but it was useful when applied correctly. If someone was going to be doing heavy lifting, I could bolster their strength for an hour- two, if I used metamagic- or bolster the intelligence of someone who just couldn't figure something out.
The scientists who had come to study us wanted to make exclusive use of this, but I very firmly told them, "Unless you're absolutely stuck on something, and nobody else needs it before I need to sleep, then I'll do it."
That being said, I did absolutely test the spell on myself so I had an idea as to what it did.
That all being said and done, we did have a town meeting.
The Players had something important to tell us, something we needed to be aware of, before we did anything with the dead.
"There are two spells we do not have access to yet, that can return the dead to life."
Resurrection, a 'Seventh Level' spell, and True Resurrection, a 'Ninth Level' spell.
"As a Cleric, I will be devoting my all to reaching Level 13, which is the earliest that Resurrection can be learned. It is entirely likely it will take more than a year to even learn this spell, let alone get to a point where I could cast it more than every long rest."
"Roughly eight hours of rest." Another Player helpfully clarified.
"I want you all to understand, it may be entire years until I can learn it. At that point, I will only be able to restore three people to life per day. It would then take a little over nine months of non-stop effort to bring them back."
"We did the math, three people per day with just one person, that's twenty-one per week, or eighty-four per month. Seven hundred and eighty-six people divided by eighty-four is- rounding up to the nearest tenth- nine-point four."
"This is with the understanding that there is no guarantee of bringing them back. If the soul is free and willing to return, then they will return to life. Otherwise..." The Cleric trailed off.
"Otherwise, they will remain dead." His aide spoke solemnly.
"I want everyone to weigh the choice I give. I can't say they'll be appreciative of being brought back, they'll more than likely be upset that they've missed years of their life, or even if they will get the missing years back."
He looked at everyone, who sat in silent shock. "Either make your peace with the dead and move on, or wait knowing that as long as I draw breath, I will bring them back." He paused. "I will be conducting a funeral at the end of the day. May the Platinum Dragon grant you comfort, and may any Gods you worship do the same."
With that, he bowed his head and left.
​
[Navigation for 'Dragon Rising'- [1] [2]]

Preamble

I primarily play Hunter, so this is from my perspective as a Hunter player. Dungeons are probably close to my favorite thing in this game. They're topped only by new raids and secret missions. Although generally I like the secret missions a little less than the dungeons (with the exception of Presage which was one of my favorite activities in the game when it was in the game). I'm not the best player in the game, and I experience good days and bad days. So usually my solo/flawlesses take about a week from the point where I start my attempts to getting the completion. The only exception to this was Spire of the Watcher for reasons I'll discuss later. The important point for the preamble is that I didn't complete Spire until last season, even though I made more than a few solid attempts during the week it launched and the weeks after. I just couldn't figure out a strat I was comfortable with for Persys.
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There has been a lot of chat on this sub and others (and in my group lobbies) about this most recent dungeon's difficulty and it's boss HP scaling. Players like Gladd have made rant videos about the HP bars of the bosses (which is notable only because he usually opts to talk shit on people for things being too easy rather than too difficult). I myself spent the first two days of the dungeon's launch in three different 3-5 hour clears because I was helping out friends and figuring out the dungeon and DPS options. And then, I started my solo attempts. And while I haven't yet quite gotten my rhythm down for the final boss, I can reliably get to her solo now in less time than the first successful clear of the first boss took with a group. I also find that even though I haven't figure out how to consistently stay alive in her room yet, her shields are not all they're cracked up to be. I'm not even using Arbalest and they seem to go down quicker than some Barrier Champs... And this is what prompted me to write this post. Because I think people see things like final damage values in a certain light, and then they correllate that to their experience of fighting for hours without stopping to think about alternative explanations for what they're seeing and experiencing.
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And don't get me wrong. It's brutal the first time. The second time. And the third time. Ghosts of the Deep (GotD) has the largest quantity of endlessly intense add phases I've seen since Prophecy. Not even Duality can hold a candle to the sheer volume of enemies you'll defeat by the end of a normal run of GotD. So I'm going to discuss add pressure, discuss boss HP values, number of phases to get the kill, mechanics with a kill timer vs. mechanics without one, and "artificial difficulty" (and probably some other things). So buckle up, because we're gonna be here for a while.
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Difficulty of Dungeons in General

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First, lets just talk about difficulty in general in a pre-GotD world. And to do that, I think a bit of a history lesson is in order.
Shattered Throne
A thing that everyone should keep in mind when evaluating dungeons is that Shattered Throne (ST) as the first came about in an era before we could customize mods in our armor, and long before 3.0 anything was even dreamed of as a possibility. ST came about when the most "efficient" solo strat for killing the final boss was to sit on a pillar and plunk away at her with an infinite ammo Whisper of the Worm. And back then, this dungeon was a slog. Getting to the first boss (The Ogre) was tedious, even though it wasn't too hard. The Ogre itself though would wipe groups because they didn't understand how to pick up the buffs or how to stay alive in a room with little to no cover and a boss that would pin you to the wall with it's eyebeam if it got line of sight on you. Even now, this boss room can still fuck you up if you aren't paying attention and don't treat the Ogre with respect. Back then, this was a 3-4 phase kill IF you had 21% Delirium (which didn't even come out until two seasons after ST launched).
Once you got to the final boss, Dul Incaru's room is still one of the most bullshit boss arenas I've ever fought in. It's small, you've got three fucking huge HP sink knights, a million Psions and a Hive Witch that deletes you if she can see you for more than a second or two. I don't know how people did this fight without Anarchy to chain down the knights, but man was this fight hard to just stay alive in. But if you could, then you were rewarded with a fairly easy 1-2 phase boss (depending on which meta you were playing in) because the damage buff from the Knights buffed your damage significantly. But it also had a timer that would just kill you if you didn't cleanse yourself or kill the boss. Oh and cleansing required you to jump on an exposed plate in the middle and then shoot a crystal with the HP of a yellow bar enemy before you died.
If this all sounds reasonable by comparison, remember that you could only do Shattered Throne one week out of the month (once every three weeks). So yea, it was easier by comparison because you couldn't just run it any time you pleased so it HAD to be easier so that people could actually complete it in a given Strong Curse Week.
Pit of Heresy
IDK what to say about Pit other than that it was my favorite for a long time because I liked how it used verticality to make things feel immense. This dungeon suffered from (and still suffers from) bugs and inconsistent enemy behaviors in the first encounter and the totem encounter. This was also my first solo flawless (I had gotten ST solo, but not flawless). Pit was very approachable as a solo flawless, and I would still recommend it to most people looking to try one out for the first time, because it only has one actual boss encounter. The opening encounter is about as easy as ST's was, but a lot more fun because you could sword fly around.
The maze with the Ogres is the first time I heard people say that dungeons were using "artificial difficulty" (there's that term...). But this encounter is not even a little bit hard IF you take the time to learn a route to go. If you didn't do that and just floundered around complaining about the ogres being too strong and doing too much damage, then this encounter was the bane of your existance. And to this day, if I join Pit groups most of the time at least one if not both of the other people have no clue how to navigate this area. But once you have your route mapped and know that you can punch jump to move quicker with a ball, this mini encounter becomes a breeze as you just run from one to the next in the space of a couple minutes. But you can't do that unless you come in and actually practice and learn the route, learn how to kill the Hive in the caves, and learn how to get past Ogres that are in front of you. And this takes believing that it was possible to do.
The Totems is the true test. So many people would refuse to do this encounter without the ball dupe cheese and would swear it's impossible. For my part, on my clear I would kill two knights and bring two balls back and dunk both to get only one add wave. Which is still somewhat of a cheese, but it doesn't just skip the encounter. This encounter was the second place I heard people say the dungeon was just too hard for no reason. And sure, at first this encounter was extremely hard. It is probably still one of the harder plate defense encounters in the game (if you play it correctly) simply because of how many things you have to juggle to get through it. We're talking a stacking debuff that kills you if it gets too high, a totem that kills you if you don't touch it every few seconds, boomer knights raining death from above, endless waves of acolytes throwing thousands of solar grenades at you while thrall and exploding thrall rushed to push you off the plate. Oh and you had to kill mini-boss knights to get the ball to dunk. And yea, everyone would just cheese this encounter because back then it was the latest version of the "this is too hard and unfair" encounter.
The maze that came next also still throws people for a loop, and again required you to practice your route so you could navigate it safely. If you don't know your way around, then this part could take a long time and you might die many times trying to find your way. But again, just like the Ogres, once you know the way through, it's a piece of cake assuming you can platform past swinging pendulums.
And after all that, the final boss was not too bad. The adds were nowhere near as oppressive as they were at the totem, and the mini-bosses were all close by and in set spawn locations so you didn't have to run all over the place like in the opening encounter. The only part of this that was somewhat difficult was the actual dps phase because there was a timer to it, but you didn't get to see the timer. The boss would swing his huge flaming sword and leave piles of fire everywhere and cursed thrall would come in from all sides and you could only damage him while being in the middle.
For this I remember distinctly choosing to just go with Celstial Golden Gun and Anarchy with the plan to just blap him once, stick two Anarchy's to him and then kill Thrall. This took me like 5 phases to do (I think... It's been a while... but it was at least 5, possibly 6), but because it was consistent and I could do the rest of the fight easily with my other weapons, I went with it.
Overall, once I did this dungeon once solo, I immediately jumped back in (as soon as I was done) to do the solo flawless attempt in one go. And it was easy the whole way except for totems.
Prophecy
Prophecy was brutal. Prophecy was the first one to take me a week to do. I lived in that dungeon all week and I swear it was impossible without god roll Falling Guillotine, god roll heavy GL, and Trinity Ghoul with the catalyst and Witherhoard. There is so much RNG in these fights that it's not even funny. And I remember seeing many threads back then complaining that this new dungeon, while cool, used RNG to create "artificial difficulty".
The first boss had RNG affecting which motes you needed to deposit and how the shadows moved when you banked those motes. He had at the time some of the most oppressive add pressure in the game and he'd boop you off if you got careless for even half a second. This fight was SOOO easy to get yourself stuck in a position that you couldn't get out of and die... Oh and about 1/2 way through the damage phase he summoned a couple dozen goblins to make him immune, so you had to save you super for that so that you could kill them quickly without just losing half the phase... Oh and his shield would block your damage and swords. You had to hot swap Witherhoard with a Guilliotine back and forth to get him down in any kind of remotely quick time, and I'm pretty sure this was a 4-5 phase when I was first learning it and I got it down to a 2-3 phase by the time I was done. But the add phases in between those DPS phases took forever because of how the mote spawning worked and just how many fucking psions he threw at you. Sometimes you even had ot purposely kill the mote spawning Knights to spawn the wrong motes just so that you could alleviate some of the pressure. So sure, this fight only took 2-3 phases once you had it down... but it still took for fucking ever because of what happened in-between.
The Desert is boring. idk what else to say about it other than Trinity Ghoul shit on it.
The Cube Room required Trinity Ghoul. If you didn't have it, you weren't clearing the Acolytes and their Eyeblasts in time. We didn't have Jolt, ignite, or easy access to volatile. But the add pressure was such that you'd think we did... Trin Ghoul with Catalyst was the closet thing you could get to that.
This fight has it all. Minimal cover, many holes to fall to your death on accident, endless waves of strong enemies, snipers that spawn above you and when you kill knights, knights on the ground with you when you kill snipers. You had to kill two snipers to spawn two knights to get orbs. But the moment the knights died, the snipers respawned, and the acolytes spawned endlessly with their eyes. So as soon as you picked up all your motes and now had no weapons, there was shit spawning all around and snipers bearing down. Oh and I forgot to mention that Toland spawned randomly and sometimes on the ceiling (which I STILL to this day do not understand how to choose a side when he's on the ceiling). If he was on the ceiling, your 6 room run was now an 8 room run. Oh and the room it drops you into, and the color of motes you'd need are completely random. Some rooms were equal, some rooms favored light motes, some favored dark. So you could get a room that favored light motes, but you needed dark motes and there might be only 1 or 2 places to stand to be able to spawn those motes... So when you finally get to the "boss" it's easy sure... again because everything else was so damn hard that a hard boss at the end would have just been beyond cruel...
Rainbow Road is pretty, but I hate it because it's just long and boring when you're soloing it. Don't sparrow because you might fall.
Final boss was the definition of a nightmare and early on you were LUCKY to get a group that could three phase this thing... Most groups were going to do four, possibly five, maybe even six if things went horribly wrong.
It has everything we had in the last encounters. Random mote colors needed, random rooms being dropped into, and absurd add pressure the likes of which had not been seen in 3 man content to that point. On top of that, there was literally no where to hide because the boss was in all three corners bearing down on you. So you had to start this encounter off knowing where the psions and knights spawn ahead of time, planting witherhoard on them before they spawn and then deleting them to create the correct color within a minute or you would get overwhelmed instantly and have literally nowhere safe to hide. There was not one single part of any of those rooms that you could hide in for more than a couple of seconds until you cleared off one of the bosses AND killed the Ogre that spawned in his place.
Once you finished all three sides, you were off to DPS where we have a boss designed to thwart Well of Radiance by not only teleporting away down a long room full of platforms to jump to and Taken hobgoblin snipers, but also by throwing a teleport wall at you. You had to flawless this room solo if you were going to have a shot at 5 phasing this boss. I remember mastering my jumps and making sure I was getting double Witherhoard stacks on him (tagging him and putting one on the ground) at every platform he teleported to, while juggling the platforming, the snipers and his teleport death wave. And at the end of the run, you got a chance to dump some heavy into him (also briefly at the beginning to, but you needed to leave early to get ahead of the teleports and enemy spawns).
For most solo completions, this was a five phase boss or more. There might have been some streamers out there who could get him to four. I'm sure having mountain top and not killing yourself on accident with it was part of those loadouts (I didn't have it so that wasn't an option).
This dungeon was a nightmare to solo and even now I imagine the final boss is quite challenging to solo flawless, even if you can probably kill it in far fewer phases now due to power creep.
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Modern Dungeons

This brings us to what I call the Modern Dungeons, which is Grasp of Avarice (GoA), Duality, Spire of the Watcher (SotW), and Ghosts of the Deep. We're going to spend less time here because these ones all have one crucial factor in play that the previous three didn't. They are all tuned with modern abilities and weapons in mind. So their bosses will be tankier than bosses of the previous three which were tuned for different times and different metas.
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Grasp of Avarice
Released too early. Everything through the sparrow race is fantastic, but the Servitor and final boss fights drag on needlessly. I firmly believe this dungeon was originally scheduled to release with Season of Plunder, but was bumped up to release early because they wanted to pad out the anniversary pack due to Witch Queen being delayed.
This dungeon is very easy assuming you can do two things: complete the sparrow section and deal with the sniper shank in the final boss room. This shank that respawned every damage phase has as much HP as a Hero Nightfall boss. He's tanky as fuck, hard to hit, no crits, and he hits you for half your HP if you let him see you. So unless you had heavy to burn on him, you were doing what I did which was sticking the Scorch Cannon blast to him and charging it up to detonate. Killing this Shank alone for every boss attempt took more time than it took me to kill the Ogre at the first part of the dungeon. Between this guy and the boss tier vandal that also spawned with him, this boss had easily 5x as much HP as any other boss (if we think of these two guys like the shields on the bosses in GotD).
I hate this dungeon, but I love the theme.
Duality
While the final fight was plagued by bugs, this dungeon was awesome. It put pressure on you the whole way but also gave you space to breath where you needed it. All the encounters were about managing add spawns and racing the red world timer. I don't like the Dungeon overall because the teleporting that you do between bosses can leave members of your fireteam behind, and there just isn't much going on in the maps in general. It's very bland looking. But I loved the fights and I love the Calus voicelines.
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Spire of the Watcher
I was so excited to get a Vex dungeon and Rasputin themed stuff. But damn was this dungeon a letdown overall. The chasing the node mechanic is a fantastic solo mechanic, but it sucks in group play because you end up with just one person doing it while everyone else just does adds. This is the same problem that RoN had, but that's a different topic. It's just not a good group play mechanic, and so in groups this dungeon just kind of sucks because you're stuck going at the speed of whoever is doing the nodes...
For solo play, this dungeon was mostly fine. The first half of it is a cakewalk once you have the nodes memorized.
The Harpy Boss is where everyone talks about the dungeon becoming a slog... but again this is a slog the player is in control of. The ask is to hit all the nodes to trigger damage, then you break a couple dozen eyes to render the boss vulnerable. The main thing people get stuck on is killing these eyes in a reasonable amount of time, but if you can do it then this boss was 2-3 phasable at launch with artifact mods. Currently it's about 4 phases on my Hunter, 5 if I make mistakes. But chaining the nodes together takes almost no time, so this fight overall has been reduced to a 20min fight at max, even if I do do a short 5th damage phase to chip off the last little bit of HP. But like Pit of Heresy from before, it requires you to memorize a route and a rhythm that allows you to do the nodes quickly. If you don't do that, then this fight will take an eternity.
For the final fight, I got very frustrated because I couldn't figure out a good damage setup, and I couldn't find any guides that didn't use gear swapping for hunters. It's frustrating because I think that while this is certainly optimal, it discourages creative problems solving that could lead to figuring out the best ways to actually do the encounter. I'm always feeling like were one or two patches away from this being nerfed (kind of how they nerfed it in Trials of Osiris). Once Strand came out, the mobility and damage resistance made this fight infinitely more approachable, and the super + a magazine of Xeno had this guy down in 5 quick phases. The only thing that would slow me down was if I had to farm for heavy ammo.
The hardest part of this fight by far is getting the first 5 red cable nodes hit. But again, this is something that the player can master if they spend time to actually study the fight. Just running in blind every time and raging at it for being "unfair" and "artificially difficult" will not get it done. But if you take time to figure out how to manipulate the supplicant spawns, then you can do this easily and you don't even need woven mail.
I don't like DPS on this boss because Wyverns are just too hard to precision hit without a mouse, so I feel forced to use non-precision weapons. I don't mind this sometimes, but for a solo boss I think restricting the player in this way is not good design.
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Ghosts of the Deep

And now we're here. And if you've read this far, thank you. Don't worry, this will be short.
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If we look back over the history of things, we can see that it wasn't uncommon for dungeon bosses to either have large HP pools, long mechanics phases, ammo/time sink enemies, bullshit ways to die, etc. It's just how these things go. And over time, all of them were moved into farmable status once we had time to figure out the best ways to do them.
The Shields
They are vulnerable to anti barrier. They melt to almost any super hit. But the critical part is that damage done to shields shows up in your total damage done. And since they take bonus damage from some things.... while they might go down easy with the right weapons, you'll still see numbers like 12million on damage because of the damage being done to the shields.
As I said near the beginning, I spent many multi hour attempts on these because we were using machine guns, and even when we'd wipe we'd get insane damage numbers. And I know for a fact that my Commemoration, no matter how good it is, doesn't do the dps that those numbers suggested. So stop acting like these bosses have HUGE HP values. They don't have any larger of HP values than any other dungeon boss on average. You're not doing 9million damage with your LMGs/Linears and a super. You weren't doing that against raid bosses, and you're not doing it here. This is simple deductive reasoning. For example one Light-Light-Heavy combo of Lament will destroy more than half of the first bosses' shield, if not completely destroy it. Lament combo does not do 1mil damage. But it does do close to that to his shield.
So the reality is that we don't actually know the HP values of the bosses. No one does. Anyone saying that do that doesn't have a reliable way to account for inflated shield hp/damage is wrong.
The solution then is not to complain that the bosses have too much HP, but to figure out ways of dealing with the shields. I just watched someone strip off the final bosses' shield with one Gathering Storm and a Levi Breath shot or two (and no he wasn't using Star Eater's either... He was using Assassin's Cowl and never swapped). He did enough damage that this boss was four phasable comfortably if you made no mistakes.
My own kill of the first boss also makes it feel like it's four phasable with no mistakes. But probably five phases typically while solo. And this puts them on par for other bosses in dungeon history. And like those bosses... a year or two from now, the new meta of the future will probably shit on these bosses and we'll be 1-2 phasing them and complaining that they're too easy.
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The Add Pressure
What makes these fights drag is the adds. You have to have a build that shreds adds FAST. Because of RoN and all of last season, everyone is defaulting to LMGs for this and then wondering why the bosses take an eternity to kill... Add pressure also makes getting the mechanics done quickly very difficult until you spend enough time with the bosses to understand the spawns well enough to abuse them in your favor. Once you can do that, you can blitz through the mechanics in no-time and that (just like the bosses from ST, Pit, Prophecy, Duality, and Spire) is where you save time in your run. That is how you take your runtime down from 2-4 hours to 1.5 hours. Because if you take a long time to kill the adds, or if the adds are constantly forcing you to hide to recover HP, then you are adding time to the run that you don't need to add to the run. And it makes the boss phases feel worse because you spent 10 minutes getting to the phase, only for it to be over at 7% of their HP bar damaged. But if you practice getting that in between time down to 3-5min, and figure out a good weapon loadout... you find that in the time it took you to do two damage phases before for 7% each, you're doing four phases of 10-15% or more. And that's when it starts to shine through as possible.

Closing Thoughts

I don't know what I'd use on a Warlock or Titan because I don't play them much. But you need to find ways to stay alive. You can heal yourself with sublcass abilities and mods. And you can do DPS with things other than what you see on a stream or a youtube video. If you've done these before, then you know how to solve this problem.
There is no such thing as "artificial difficulty". This term refers to challenges that the player feels frustrated by to an unreasonable degree. But all difficulty is artificial. It's all scripted to be a certain difficulty or not. A boss having a lot of HP is no more artificial than a boss having less HP but a long ass mechanics phase. Or very low HP but very short windows for DPS. The bosses in GotD have extremely long DPS phases for how little is actually happening during those phases. All they do is attack you, move around, and spawn some Thrall. And you have what feels like 30-40 seconds of time to shoot at them... So Bungie "artificially" reduced the difficulty there by making the phase take long enough that you have time to deal with the adds and the shield and then still have a comparable amount of time to hit the real HP bar (compared to other dungeons). But right now, it's all fresh and new. And right now you aren't comfortable in the arena. And right now it feels unfair. But it won't in a month or three.
You heard it here first. My predication is that this dungeon will be talked about as one of the easiest released in a long time. And I believe this will be said of it before The Final Shape launches.
So I believe in you Guardian. You can do this. It is made to challenge you to solve the problem. If your solution isn't working, then come up with another one. You don't need a streamer to tell you how to play, or how to do a build. Don't just go for only safety because that too will add full hours to your run that you don't have to spend. Get comfortable with being aggressive. Learn to love riding the red blinking HP line between awesome and despair, and get in there!
TLDR: Ghosts of the Deep is not even remotely out of band compared to previous dungeons in their given release metas. Many dungeons have been outpaced by power creep, but all of them were brutally hard to solo/solo-flawless in their day.

Why do players constantly push main? I seriously don't get it, there's usually a minimum of 2 alternative methods to reaching either point, payload, or push bot. But NEARLY everyone seems to have this unnatural, masochist drive to push main regardless of the situation. Then they'll proceed to fight at the choke point for minutes.
This is significantly worse when the enemy team runs bastion or a relatively decent widow. They'll run into the bastion, the literal dps that shreds health. Consider taking height, consider not pushing bastion, consider waiting until he's not an actual moble minigun that will, more than likely, annihilate you before you even pull that trigger. Hell, a pocket bastion + zen means do not push into him. Same with widow, abuse the potential of them lacking object permanence. Some people will forget about you if you're not actively in their LOS.
Regarding widow, do not shoot her venom mine if you intend on flanking her. It still tells her that you're, at the very least, nearby. If you are going to destroy it, then fine do so, but take another position to at least confuse her. Believe me, from bronze - plat you can abuse the hell out of people who do not pay attention to their surroundings.
The single most important piece of advice; switch. Waiting to use your ult just so you can switch, isn't always the best option if you're actively losing the match. If there's a phara, don't just wait for your second DPS to swap, you have to take the initiative, you can't expect your partner to do so because they're probably expecting you to swap. Take control of your games.
Be an opportunist, there's always 1 player in your match that isn't on their best game. Find them, constantly kill them. Why? You'll change a 5v5 into a 4v5 constantly, that will significantly increase your chances of winning. If it's a support, that's even better because more than likely, their support will waste resources and time to assist their own support. Now you've turned a 4v5 into a 3v5 and your enemy team is starving for support, heals, or damage/speed boost.
Be the threat not the victim. Let's assume you're a support player, even better, let's assume you're Ana. How many options to deal damage do you have? Is it just your rifle? Nope, you have your sniper and your anti-nade. For a large portion of the time, your anti-nade isn't going to be helpful to your team, especially now at 60 HP heals, that's useless. However, do you know what's more useful? Denying the enemy the chance to get heals, they'll either back off or die and that's what you want. You want to be the threat, be the inconvenience to the point that they'll overextend just to kill you.
Ignore the tank, as a support or dps player, don't always dump your resources on the tank because for a large percentage of the time. All that damage is getting healed, supports are addicted to healing their tanks and partially for their DPS (assuming their DPS isn't just railing your team on a Sunday), so ignore that tank, find that one dude who isn't paying attention to you and screw them over, bonus points if it's the support that's pocketing the tank.
Use cover, please, I'm begging you to not just stand out in the open. Try sticking near a wall or behind a car, so long as there's something between you and the enemy. You will not believe how useful it is to just hide behind a pillar while a DPS has a hard on for your eventual demise. Move around the pillar, make it hard for them to hit you.
Change angles when you're in an active exchange between someone. Combine this with using cover and you can, more than likely, bamboozle someone. The concept of changing angles can also maximize your threat level, not only can you find other ways of targeting the slacking player, but you'll make it more difficult for the other DPS to secure a kill if they can't consistently find you.
Have an escape plan if you plan on flanking, you need to know where you can safely escape to regroup, where your enemies can pop up, and more importantly what cheeky angles can you claim.
Health packs, they're scattered all over the map and you're more than likely near one at all times. If you're a DPS, please use them to ease how much resources/time your support has to use on you. If you're behind your support, find a health pack because the last thing you want is for your support to not be looking at their enemy and teammates and risk someone dying because they had to give you attention. It's so much easier to ask for this if you're at least in front of your support or within their LOS.
Speaking of LOS (Line of sight) something extremely important is understanding it. LOS isn't just "Can my Ana see me" but also "Can my enemy see me" a lot of abilities rely on LOS. If you can't see it, then it more than likely won't kill you.
Now, we need to understand how certain ults (ultimate) work and possible ways of countering or minimizing the damage that you may receive. I, by no means, am a professional. I ranked at diamond5 on console as support, but I have experience in Overwatch 1 and now Overwatch 2. So, here's the deal and let's start with some common DPS ults (excluding phara because let's be honest, you're either consistently eliminating her or constantly getting eliminated by her. It's really just a good luck situation, and no, it's not a skill issue verticality in OW is just horrendou)
Anyways, let's start with Junkrat and I'll be honest, you're probably not going to destroy his tire, so here's what you should do. Run away from your team, stay away from everyone but don't extend to the enemy side. If you can make Junkrat kill 1 person that's better than him getting a full team kill.
For 76, abuse cover to break LOS because again, his ability requires LOS and a frustrated 76 may will overextend to maximize his ult. That's fine, you can capitalize this assume you have someone nearby. The same applies to Cass, B.O.B, Blizzard (Mei not the company), Sojourn, and surprisingly Sombra's EMP
Reaper will, more than likely, wraith form his way into an ult or teleport. If you see this, just back off from him since you REALLY do not want to fight him up close to begin with.
Bastion is tricky since it really depends on what kind of bastion you're going up against. Most will full dump their ult in one spot in some small circle, for this, you'll have to be quick in response and just run. If you have a more patient bastion that tracks, this is when you'll DEFINITELY need to be on your A-game for reacting. Don't jump, just run forward, not backwards, please do not run backwards you're significantly slower when moving backwards compared to moving forward. Pick a direction, move there, watch where he's targeting and move the immediate moment you see red (or whichever color you see). Since it's a circle, you only really need to move in a straight line in either direction, again, make sure you're moving FORWARD. Do not stop moving, but do not move in a single, constant, direction. For example, move forward when the first artillery comes, then quickly move left or right with the second, move the opposite direction for the third. (If you're feeling cheeky and know bastion will dump a full artillery in one spot, you can give it a moment before moving, it's a really short moment so stick to your A-game)
Now, let's chat about Mei, Sym, and Torb. These three dominate metal ranks, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond(?). For Mei, you do not want commit a push unless she used her wall. Now, assuming she's using her self heal, ice block or whatever, just ignore it and find something else to kill. Mei is effectively not a threat while in ice block, she does not exist until she comes out and by then you'd want to kill at LEAST 1 or 2 of her teammates.
Sym is like bastion, it depends on which one you're up against but, understand this, most players have repeatable habits, some good, some bad. You'll have a Sym that's solely dedicated to securing and preventing your team from securing point, push bot, or payload. Here's what you'll do, first figure out where Sym Sentry Turret is located (It'll either be all clumped up in one spot, or spread out). Next, find a different angle, Sym has 3 turrets and together they will shred you regardless of who you are, once you find them take it out ASAP. I'll make it an important note that this isn't law, overwatch is a game where a lot of odd things can happen, but if you have an opportunity do destroy the turret. Torb functions the same as well so the rule tip applies, find turret, eliminate turret, then eliminate Torb.
Now you might be saying, "But Kyeonji, what if Sym lasers me with a max out laser because nobody could stop her?" Or "What if Torb gets all angry and red and spew his shotgun sludge at me?" Well good question voice in my head, for Sym it's honestly going to be an aim and decision skill check. If her laser is max and you know this, keep distance and just rail her from there (assuming you have range, if not, switch to get range). If it's Torb, you'll have to either capitalize on your range, wait for overload to be on cooldown, or punish him after he uses overload. (You can also bait it by just getting some cheeky pokeshot, they'll usually pop overload when they're either half health or near death, when that happens you can full commit).
Now, as far as I know there are a couple of tanks that people have difficulties dealing with, so I'll list some counter plays for some tanks, but honestly they can be applied to most, if not, all tanks. For now, let's do Zarya. This one is very easy, don't shoot her bubble, or at least try not to constantly shoot it UNLESS she's near death. The moment she pops bubble, swap targets. Your teammate may not be aware of this, but as long as YOU don't contribute to Zarya damage boost, then you're at least minimizing how much damage Zarya will output.
Winston, oh boy this is a tough one. I'll be honest, you'll have to counter Winston most of the time, especially if it's a good Winston. Your average Winston will go after your support, this is when you'd NEED to back up your support. Winston is HEAVILY reliant on his jump skill, this is what you need to keep an eye on. If you see Winston jump, track him, find him, and punish him as quickly as possible. To better assist in this, try and stick near your support or preferably, suggest that your support swap to a more mobile one that can, hopefully, distant themselves from Winston.
D.va is a game sense check, typically you'll run into a somewhat repeatable D.va gameplay style. But, there's 1 thing you NEED to pay attention to and it's Defense matrix above all else. This will mess you up, deny some of your abilities, or downright make you useless. So, you'll have these options; you can either dump your abilities AFTER D.va defense matrix isn't being used, or swap to a Hero that D.va can't consistently deny abilities. Mei is a good option as her primary fire denies Defense matrix, it slows her down to make it easier to land headshots, plus wall can deny her escape. Other options include, Zarya, Rein, Winston, Sym, Echo (You'll have to time your abilities with D.va Defense matrix), Doomfist (You're gonna have to be really smart about this one, don't full focus D.va, but abuse her endless shotgun to max your rocket punch, you can also stun her out of bunny rocket), Brigitte (keep moving, swap between attacking and shielding to maximize your self-heal against her endless shotgun, stun her out of bunny rocket, rinse, repeat), Moira (keep moving, try not to rely too much on your orbs as she can deny it with Defense matrix, disengage if she uses bunny rocket if necessary, just don't risk it)
The remaining tanks that oppress others in metal ranks can be dealt with following these steps. Junker queen wants to get close to you or pull you to her, deny this by keeping distance and prioritizing her support, abuse cover if you're struck by jagged dagger, so instead of being pulled to Junker queen, you'll be pulled into a wall which is safer than Junker queen (although the wall won't dom you like Junker would so... Gotta sacrifice something for the W).
Orisa, same as Junker queen, prioritize support because you're probably not going to kill a fully pocketed orisa. If you can't reliably eliminate Orisa's support, then time your abilities with hers. What you're looking out for is mostly fortify, it's not worth dumping resources into it. Now, Javelin blocks both projectiles and melee damage, so you're either going to have to take that javeline, or swap to Sym, Mei, Zarya, Winston, Doom, or Brigitte to at the very least inconvenience Orisa during javeline spin. Why you may ask? Well, here's a list of abilities that Orisa javeline spin cannot block: Sentry Turret, Rocket Punch, Shield Bash, Swift Strike I wouldn't recommend relying on Genji to deal with Orisa), Accretion (You may find value with Sigma if Orisa keeps shooting at your kinetic grasp, but again, wouldn't really recommend), Deployed Turret (Insane right?), Petal platform (Get creative), and Immortality field (Helps if you have a Kiriko as protection suzu isn't protecting you from the javeline)
Reinhart, mister big boy, destroyer of galaxies, the big daddy. This one is easy, keep distance, Rein is mainly melee and really does want to close the distance. So, take height and unleash hell but don't shoot that shield, swap angles because you're just wasting both time and resources on something that, unless you're boosted by Mercy, isn't going away anytime soon, again you can ignore this if he's near death.
Ramatra, Sigma, and Doomfist. This one is tough, so let's start with Ramatra. Again, try to not dump your resources on the shield, ignore him while he's blocking unless he's near death. Ramatra, like Rein, also wants to fight you at close-range, so naturally you'll want to abuse range which also applies to his ult.
Sigma follows this as well, but he's more mid-range, instead what you're really looking for is the timing between Kinect grasp being online or offline, capitalize that moment and again, avoid shooting the shield.
Doomfist is where you're dancing with cooldown and movement. The Doomfist combo is rocket punch, hand cannon, melee. Of course, Doomfist has a lot of mobility so what you're looking for is the gap between his cooldown. If you can position yourself in an inconvenient position where Doomfist will either die due to being too deep into enemy line, or forcing him to expend all of his ability and having no escape. Like Ramatra, ignore him while blocking as to not boost his rocket punch. (Unless you can CC [Crowd Control] him with Sombra, Sigma's accretion, Rein charge, Javeline, Sleep dart, hook).
Anyways, this is a pretty long post. So I'll end it with this note. None of these is by any means an iron-clad law that must be followed, Overwatch isn't linear and every player is different. However, every Hero, including their abilities, has a weakness which is exactly why swapping exist. If your opponent isn't aware of these weaknesses, capitalize on it. Be aware of your surroundings, don't be afraid to swap if you're losing to another play. You can lose the battle, but at the end of the day you want to, hopefully, win the match. Don't be afraid of your opponents, make them afraid of you. Be the threat and make them submit. Good luck out there Heroes and if you found this helpful, share it with others. If you have questions, suggestions, criticism, then share them don't be afraid to speak your mind.

Your body knows who it is.
Listen to it. Every moment, there are at least ten discrete sensations you can feel on your body. A good way to do this(other than meditation, which is the best way) is to take a moment throughout the day to mentally(preferably printed) check in with those sensations. The important part is that it's about the sensations now. You will want to add in previous sensations that are affecting now. Try to find the sensations from before in your list and remove them.
Your mind is the most powerful program ever run by the most powerful computer ever. But it is still only a tool.
That shit ain't real. It's a program that has a few endlessly complex functions. First, it observes; second, it judges(or compares); third, it analyzes creates a virtual synthesis of your environment; fourth, it makes plans and forecasts the future. It has been designed by 4 billion years of evolution, and it is incredibly good at its job. It's so good that you can start thinking the abstract, unreal, not-you stuff it whispers is ACTUALLY you or worse, actually real. The key to this is to realize that your thoughts come from nowhere. They simply appear in your mind in response to stimuli. There's nothing running the show. Your body is giving it data that it then uses to analyze, but the map can never be the territory. There isn't some hidden you beneath it all, and its syntheses are only, in the end, guesses. It can never interact with reality. Take what is useful and leave the rest.
Emotions are to be cherished, not feared.
How does the mind do that with such little volume and mass to work with(other than increasing surface area)? Well, it has a specific code for a specific set of stimuli. These are your emotions. When the mind notices an emotion, there is an action-urge that follows. It's hardwired, built by evolution specific to the environment, both social and physical, humans found themselves in. The action urge then generates a specific set of thoughts and, yes, emotions.
Anger: I have been hurt. I must flee/fight/fawn/freeze;
Sadness: I am in pain, I need aid and comfort, and if not those, then safety;
Envy: I deserve that because it's mine and they're taking it. I will hurt whoever is causing this emotion;
Fear: I am entering a situation where I will not survive. I must flee/fight/fawn/freeze;
Joy: The activity I'm doing is currently helping me survive/ intake nutrients/reproduce. I love it. Let's keep it up;
Disgust: This thing will make me sick, I must get away from it.
Think of them as evolutionary shorthand. While the mind is powerful, the brain is on a whole other level. Think the difference between a light bulb and the sun. The mind can not handle the input of information the brain is capable of sending. So, it uses shorthands to sum up the scenario and what you must do to survive. These are emotions. In my opinion, the coplexity of human emotions is one of the fundamental reasons we adapt so well. They flow through us and, in doing so, impart knowledge of our ancestors into us, as if by magic. Listen to them. They're there because they're useful.
Everyone's mind is concerned with one thing above all else: the person it rides.
Never, ever, attribute to malice what can be attributed to personal conceit. Never, ever think you can know someone else's mind without asking them. Never, ever think that someone can know your mind without you telling them. Never, ever think that your mind is identical to another's. If you follow these rules, I don't think it's possible to feel much social anxiety.
You are incredible, indescribable, beyond anything that has ever developed and likely will ever develop. But you're also just a person and smaller than almost anything you will ever encounter.
If my summation of some neuroscience analysis tickled your fancy, just wait. Do you know what you are? BILLIONS of individual life forms make you up, all acting in tandem, of their own volition, to make sure you get to eat them fucking tacos. Enjoy those fucking tacos. Worse than that, TRILLIONS UPON TRILLIONS of things make those things up, ad infinitum, to the base of reality. And THOSE things all have to work exactly as expected so you don't implode. It's incredible. Awe-inspiring to a degree that I can't fathom.
And yet you think you're a piece of shit. Why?
Well, because the rest of reality is also incredible, suped up, and designed specifically to contend with an uncaring, cruel, blind, and dumb universe. It makes sense that you struggle. On a galactic scale, you are microscopic, and on a universal scale, galaxies are rice kernels. You can't possibly hope to understand, overcome, civilize, or even reach nearly everything that ever is and ever will be. You can't reach the counter, and there's not a stool big enough to get you there.
But that's okay. Because(ahah, I'm gonna seem very clever) every moment you struggle is a miracle. Every second you pick taco shell out of your teeth is a miraculous second. Yeah, the world sucks and will beat you down. You will lose and lose and lose and eventually lose everything. But, the ride, the sheer magnitude -- Just feeling a brush of air across your skin lift your hair is an effort of TRILLIONS OF TRILLIONS. If you fuck up, it's the effort of more things than you could even possibly contain in your brain. So, fuck up, and then, when you feel sad, realize that sadness is telling you to reach out, to be comforted, and eat some tacos with friends. And ENJOY them. Don't worry about what you were feeling before. Your body is telling you it's okay now with the warm fuzziness.
And remember:
Life is a totality. Like Doctor K. Says(man is a genius). It is both the hardest thing you will ever hope to do, something you cannot ever defeat, and the easiest, most fulfilling Odyssey you ever experience. All Odysseys end in homecoming. Remember, you walk a path with an end already written. All you have to do is keep going.

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

Hey everyone! I am a Co-Founder for a newly formed media outlet called College Football Dawgs which officially launches on June 10th.
This is a fan-run sports media site, and our mission is to let the fans have control. 247 Sports, On3, and other media outlets are run by ex-university officials and talking heads. Here at CFBDawgs, we are police officers, veterans, teachers, soccer moms, political junkies, grammar teachers, real estate agents, construction workers, and River pilots. And we all have one thing in common: We love college football!
The website will feature news articles, opinion articles, podcast episodes, and videos which will then be shared on social media. We have a 24/7 on-call graphic designer that will make a graphic within 1 hour, 7 days a week.
We currently have over 70 insiders covering nearly 50 schools. Although this is a great start, we are still looking to add college football insiders that would be open to covering a school, at any level. Covering a school entails writing articles for the website, making guest appearances on the podcast, and creating a rapport with the school, coaching staff, recruits, and other media in the area. As you can probably understand we are a start-up, so we aren't paying anyone at the moment (but it is in our future!). We are currently completely volunteer with the hopes that this venture takes off and we will be able to pay our insiders. However, the "incentive" for joining now would be getting media passes to games, representing CFBDawgs at practices, etc. We are going to have an ex-NCAA official train our insiders in July before we send them out to represent us on the ground as credentialed members of the press.
We are in the process of planning our first podcast show which will air live on Tuesday, June 13th. Following that, our podcast will air weekly on Monday evening. During the CFB Season, we will have a live broadcast every Saturday morning from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum where you will get a chance to hear live reports from our insiders attending games all across the nation. We already have several FBS coaches and players committed to make guest appearances on the podcast this summer. A reservation has also been placed for space in Houston to do a live show from outside the CFP National Championship game, and we are working on reserving a space in Frisco to do a live show for the FCS National Championship.
There are plans in place to start covering Division II and III football in future years, along with high school football, fantasy football, and football betting.
In terms of our motivation behind this, we are just two guys who love everything college football and wanted to provide a space for CFB fans that was run by CFB fans.
If you have made it this far and are interested in becoming an insider or would like to learn more, feel free to send me a private message.

I recently completed my Citizenship by Descent (jure sanguinis) appointment at my local Italian Conuslate's office in Houston, Texas. Below is my write-up that outlines my experience. Hopefully, this is helpful for those currently working through the process. Best of luck to you all! ✨
Background
In July of last year, my father was diagnosed with cancer. While the news was both unexpected and frightening, my dad’s diagnosis ignited a latent desire to learn more about who he was and the ancestors that came before him. In the weeks and months following his diagnosis, I tried to connect as often as possible with my dad – I asked questions about his childhood. I asked him to tell me about his parents and grandparents. I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned.
One late summer day last year, as my dad was preparing for another round of chemotherapy, he mentioned that his grandfather, Vincenzo, had immigrated from Italy to the United States. He didn’t know much about his late grandfather. He had died before my dad was born. I spent the following days deep in the far corners of Ancestry.com combing through records in search of everything Vincenzo Panevino. It turns out my dad was right about his grandfather ¬– Vincenzo Luigi Antonio Panevino had indeed crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a one-way ticket to New York City at the ripe age of 30. Each record I uncovered unlocked even more information on my great-grandfather – he was born in 1859 in Aliano, Italy (a small, rural town that sits right near the arch of the boot). His birth came nearly two years before Italy’s unification in 1861. It was during my research on my great-grandfather that I stumbled upon the process of jure sanguinis. The more I learned about the process, the more it felt like the next logical step on my journey into the past. My dad agreed. And with that, I was off to the races on a vital record collection spree!
Appointment Recap
In March of this year, I was able to secure an appointment for this past Thursday at 9:30 a.m. This came after a previous appointment I had secured for this past January was randomly canceled by the Houston Consulate without an option to reschedule. The process of obtaining this second appointment most definitely aged me!
The night before my appointment, my husband and I drove into town. Thankfully, my in-laws live in the greater-Houston area, so we were able to spend the night at their house before driving to the consulate the following day.
The morning of my appointment, my husband and I arrived at the consulate a bit early. Parking was seamless; the cost is only a few bucks an hour and the lot is located within the same building as the consulate. With some extra time to spare, we decided to stop by nearby Fiction Coffee (literally a stone’s throw away from the lobby of the building that houses the consulate). Their coffee and breakfast tacos were amazing! I left my husband there and made my way up to the 19th floor ready to officially kick things off.
I arrived at the entrance of the consulate and pressed the red button adjacent to the doors; a voice blared out asking what I was there for. I informed the person on the other end that I was there for my citizenship appointment, and I was quickly buzzed in. Once inside, an Italian officer instructed me to place my belongings onto a conveyor belt for a security scan. Next, I was directed towards a window to a consular official who again asked the reason for my visit and for my name. After he jotted down some notes, I was let into a small waiting room and told to make my way to window number 3. While I waited for my appointment to begin, I glanced around the room. The windowless space was quite small, filled with only a handful of red chairs and multiple copies of Italics Magazine.
A woman arrived behind the glass partition and introduced herself as Margherita. I told her that I had heard so much about her through the amazing Dual U.S.-Italian Citizenship Facebook group. She let out a genuine smile and told me how thankful she was that such a group exists to help people complete this process (join if you haven't already!). After a few minutes of small talk, Margherita and I got right to work!
I began by handing over my driver’s license and passport as well as photocopies of each. Next up, was a utility bill with my name and address on it. Finally, Margherita asked me to sign all forms in front of her (in my case, that was Forms 1, 2, 4, and the Registry Form). With these initial documents out of the way, Margherita took a moment to scan my forms and acknowledged that it appeared as though I was eligible to move forward based on the forms I handed over. Margherita propped up Form 1 on a clipboard and then pulled out a secondary form that she would use to annotate each document I submitted.
We began with my great-grandfather, Vincenzo. I submitted a printout of his Italian birth certificate from PEC which was accepted. Additionally, I also had printouts of his original Italian birth record and birth index (both of which I found on Antenati) which Margherita also accepted. Thankfully, because I had read other member recaps for the Houston Consulate, I made sure to bring a certified copy of the ship record/manifest that documented my grandfather’s arrival into New York City in 1889. Margherita was appreciative that I had this and mentioned that manifest records were important to her when she was reviewing cases. Just to be safe, I highly recommend ordering this record via NARA if you’re within Houston’s consular jurisdiction. Next up, I handed over my great-grandfather’s marriage, census, non-naturalization records (USCIS, NARA, county records), and death records without issue. Because my great-grandfather never naturalized, Margherita asked if I had his A-File (Alien File) Card as further evidence of his non-naturalization. I had not found such a card during my research process. Margherita stood up and pulled out a photocopy of what the A-File Card looked like from her filing cabinet. I quickly grabbed my cell phone and searched for more info. On NARA’s website, I discovered that Alien Registration Numbers and A-File’s were not first issued until just after my great-grandfather died in 1940. Because of this, he likely was never issued an Alien Registration Number or an A-File. I pressed my phone up to the glass to show Margherita the National Archives website. She scanned the web page I presented to her and appeared to agree that I would be unable to locate this record. I was not assigned homework to collect this. Onward we went!
Although the Houston Consulate’s website states that non-line documents are optional, I made sure to bring them just in case! I had gathered certified copies of all non-line documents with translations. Margherita made a point to explicitly call out that translations and apostilles were not necessary as non-line documents were only used by the consulate staff to corroborate any information on your in-line family members. Nonetheless, she accepted everything I gave her. Similar to my great-grandfather, my great-grandmother also immigrated from Italy and Margherita was also appreciative that I had secured her ship manifest/arrival record as well.
We continued down the line, sliding through the window apostilled and translated birth/marriage/divorce/death documents for all in-line relatives and basic copies with translations for non-line relatives. When we got to my father’s documents, Margherita paused and let out a notable sigh. She stammered, “Your father, he is no longer with us, no?” I nodded. Two months prior to my appointment, my father’s battle with cancer abruptly ended. As I worked to process the loss of my dad, I continued on with this process. In many ways, I found this journey to be a somewhat cathartic way to work through my pain. I received my father’s apostilled death certificate exactly one week before my appointment. It was the final document needed to complete my application. Margherita put down her pen and we spoke at length about my dad. She didn’t seem to mind our appointment running a bit longer. She was genuine and compassionate. We are so fortunate to have her as our consular official.
As my appointment drew to a close, Margherita slid the document she had been using to notate every document I submitted back to me. She asked me to review her notes for accuracy while she went to the back of the office to officially submit my application with my $321.70 USPS money order. She returned with a photocopy of my Form 1 document which now had my file number written at the top. She informed me that I had no homework as of right now and mentioned that she would contact me via email if any additional documentation was needed. She also let me know that although the consulate had 24 months to process my application, she believes the process would likely wrap up much sooner. Margherita even told me that whenever she has moments of free time, it’s not uncommon for her to pull out an “easy” application (i.e. applicants who aren’t married, have no kids, or those with little to no homework) to try to complete it. Fingers crossed that means we’ll see even more approvals out of this consulate this year!
I thanked Margherita extensively as my appointment came to a close. We waved goodbye through the glass and Margherita disappeared into the office behind her. And just like that, this phase of my journey was complete. I walked out of the office homework-free and one step closer to my goal of dual citizenship. My husband and I celebrated afterward with an amazing lunch at North Italia just up the block. I was elated!
Closing Thoughts/Takeaways

• Margherita is extremely flexible when it comes to name discrepancies. I had a few and she never even mentioned name variations. I even had an OATS affidavit on standby but never needed it. All she seemed to care about were that key dates matched up relatively well.
• Err on the side of being overprepared. I had ship manifests, baptismal records, census records, WW2 draft registration cards, and countless other documents I found throughout my research process. Bring them all! Especially in cases of non-naturalization, Margherita needs extensive evidence that your LIRA never naturalized. Having all documentation ready to go also increases the likelihood that you’ll be one of the “easy” applications Margherita tries to complete in her free time at the office.
• Organize, organize, organize! In the weeks leading up to my appointment, I meticulously crafted a binder separated by each generation to come before me. On the day of my appointment, this binder proved to be invaluable. It was super easy to pull out each document Margherita requested. She seemed to appreciate this as well!
• Leverage online resources. This Reddit community and the Dual U.S.-Italian Citizenship Facebook group are such tremendous resources. It is through these spaces that I found an amazing translator in Andrea/lastfuelstation on Fiverr. These groups also introduced me to John Chiarelli (https://www.docutrek.com/) who was able to gather No Record of Naturalization letters very quickly from multiple counties in New York City. Beyond that, these online communities understand the ins and outs of this process in ways that no service provider ever could. I am so thankful
• Be gentle with yourself. Obtaining citizenship in a new country is a big deal that requires a bunch of work! Balancing ordering records, securing a coveted appointment and a ton of other jure sanguinis obligations can easily become overwhelming. Be kind to yourself throughout this process. You will get there. We will get there.

The last time I visited my dad in the hospital, I shared all the details I had dug up on ancestors I’d only seen in a handful of pictures. We pieced together their lives. In some sense, they were all finally real to me. To us. On Thursday, as I walked out of the Italian Consulate, I closed out an unexpected chapter in my life. Buried in the seemingly mundane vital records I had just turned over was a bridge back to little ol’ Aliano, Italy, and a connection to my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my dad. It’s through this very process that, in some small way, I get to keep them alive.
Grazie mille to everyone who helped me along the way to unlock the past and future when I needed it most. I could never thank you enough! Now, off to celebrate with some gelato! 🇮🇹✨

nervous please help
i have been on combined birth control pill blisolvi fe 1/20 for 3 years now. I take it daily although not at the same time everyday. For the past two weeks i made sure to take them on time because i was planning to have sex. I had sex the week of my placebo pills without protection. he pulled out, i felt nothing go in me but it was near on body and it was dark in the room. that was the last day of placebo week so I started my active pills that night and took it. i then realized i did not have any pills for monday and tuesday as i was out of them and could not get any til wednesday from my doctor. i missed mondays pill, took a plan b tuesday, and finally got my pills and took them wednesday. i also tested negative wednesday at the doctor. i have been really nervous because my boobs have been sensitive this weekend and my anxiety causes me to feel nauseous. please help.

nervous please help
i have been on combined birth control pill blisolvi fe 1/20 for 3 years now. I take it daily although not at the same time everyday. For the past two weeks i made sure to take them on time because i was planning to have sex. I had sex the week of my placebo pills without protection. he pulled out, i felt nothing go in me but it was near on body and it was dark in the room. that was the last day of placebo week so I started my active pills that night and took it. i then realized i did not have any pills for monday and tuesday as i was out of them and could not get any til wednesday from my doctor. i missed mondays pill, took a plan b tuesday, and finally got my pills and took them wednesday. i also tested negative wednesday at the doctor. i have been really nervous because my boobs have been sensitive this weekend and my anxiety causes me to feel nauseous. please help.

i have been on combined birth control pill blisolvi fe 1/20 for 3 years now. I take it daily although not at the same time everyday. For the past two weeks i made sure to take them on time because i was planning to have sex. I had sex the week of my placebo pills without protection. he pulled out, i felt nothing go in me but it was near on body and it was dark in the room. that was the last day of placebo week so I started my active pills that night and took it. i then realized i did not have any pills for monday and tuesday as i was out of them and could not get any til wednesday from my doctor. i missed mondays pill, took a plan b tuesday, and finally got my pills and took them wednesday. i also tested negative wednesday at the doctor. i have been really nervous because my boobs have been sensitive this weekend and my anxiety causes me to feel nauseous. please help.

I started spiro (100mg) back in February. At first it was working pretty well for me. No new cysts coming in, skin was slowly but surely clearing up. However, i’m nearly 4 months in and started flaring up badly. I started going dairy free this week, i’m not sure if my body is reacting to that? I’ve also ordered DIM and spearmint supplements to help. I just feel so hopeless ): Should I stick with the spiro?

Hello, just looking for someone(s) to chat with casually. I have always held better conversations with women than men.
Ever get bored of the same thing day in and day out? Wanna talk about random things like space, reality, if tacos are as delicious as people say or are we all just feeding into the taco Tuesday trend? Need to vent about work? Kids? Spouse? I get all that too. Getting older sucks sometimes, it's awkward meeting people, at least for me. It's like there's so much more pressure in social outings, knowing that 90% of the people would rather be at home binging their latest obsession than make a friend. I like to try and be more casual about it.
If this sound kind of cool and can relate a little, feel free to message me.
Oh, also, please be older than 18, actually, at least old enough to go to a bar legally

I hired a handyman to fix the bathroom leak, he showed up did half to the work and i paid him full and he told me he will come and complete the project on Monday but never showed up and never picked up my calls and on Tuesday again he never showed up so i opened a dispute with my credit card so he messaged me on Friday that he is near my place to complete the work without informing me but i was at work then he said he will come on Saturday @2 pm but @1pm he messaged me , he dont have money to buy paint so i need to buy the paint (I already paid for the paint) or he need to cancel the appointment. So he never showed up again. Today he messaged me again and he said he can come tom but i need to pay him again . I am done with all the cancellations, can i hire someone else to complete my job and compliant about him in BBB.

Got through all the paperwork in one day. Mere minutes after submitting it, I received and was alerted to a background check and obliged. The next day at work I had all new responsibilities and expectations and have been doing the extra work for three weeks now.
Manager keeps moving the goalpost. All the paperwork and credentials got knocked out in a matter of minutes; the payraise? Oh that'll take until Sunday. Oh sorry not today, we'll get it in by Tuesday. Oh, what? That still hasn't gone through? I'll call the office... Office says you should be good on Friday.
What do I do? I'm actually livid. I really need that raise and I've been doing tasks that have been put upon me in exchange FOR the raise. They've shorted me nearly $600 in the last three weeks alone just by NOT giving me the raise.
I'm going in today (On a Federal Holiday for a WHOPPING $1.50 bonus!) and I don't know how to keep bringing this up on my boss without having a complete meltdown on her.