Hello reddit, this is a slight repost FYI. Did my title catch your attention? Cute right? I’m somewhat of a funny guy. Punny and attractive? What a score right? Ok, so I mean I’ve lurked for a while and sent some messages out but now instead of me sliding into y’all’s dms, you’ve got the chance to slide into mine!
Now a little bit about me? I’m a guy who’s far from got his life together! I’m definitely laid back, I have a general “go with the flow” attitude 80% of the time. I don’t sweat the small stuff, and hope you don’t either. I enjoy the finer things in life, like reading, writing and art! I’ve got an artsy side to me and can definitely show it off if you’re interested! Like most guys my age im definitely into video games and comics! Xbox and pc are my main platforms and I’ll fight over the dc vs marvel argument all day long. (DC is better)
I work full time in a bar, and I enjoy it but mostly im looking for a career change here soon. I’ve got a few ideas on what that’ll be but I’m oh so indecisive about that. Im also fairly active. I love playing soccer and hiking around on trails and in state parks when the weathers nice! Im definitely a mountains guy to a beach guy, winter is by far my favorite season. Can’t beat a nice cozy night snowed in with a warm fire. My dream one day would be to own a little homestead, with some animals and a nice little slice of paradise where the woes of the world won’t find us, sounds nice right? Im fit and I work out, so that’s something we can do together if you’re interested! My mom tells me I’m handsome so that’s a plus right?
Ideally what I’m looking for? Friends first and foremost. If we vibe, I’d love to move off reddit to somewhere that I get consistent notifications. Let’s be long term chat partners. If the connection is there and we both agree, maybe we move forward from there? Let’s build a life together? How fun is that? I don’t really have any real dealbreakers. Location, age, body type, race, etc. As long as we get along and there’s a mutual attraction, I’m coolio. Height is definitely something I find attractive in a woman. I’m 5’8 so like, if you’re taller I’ll swooon. I’m also generally attracted to people much older but neither are dealbreakers by any means.
So if you read this far and like me even ever so slightly shoot me a chat or DM, I’m waiting to hear from yoooou! :)

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
​

• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
​

• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

My family plan to go to Rocky Mountain NP the last day of our vacation, 07/08. We missed getting an early morning timed entry permit. We got one for 9-11am but not including Bear Lake Rd. We are going to try the night before for an early permit and if we can't get one then we'll plan to go in early before they open. I don't understand why going in before 9am works for the main park but for Bear Lake you'd need to go in before 5am. Would appreciate any guidance on that timing and if Bear Lake Rd is a do not miss part of the park. We aren't doing any hiking due to injury, but can manage a very short walk if that matters. We were planning on the scenic drives with some photo stops as we fly out from Denver at 6pm that day so we can't stay all day. Any tips welcome and appreciated, other than to change our flight which we can't do. TIA!

“What if we hiked the waterfall trail at night?”
“What?” I just finished putting a brown trout on my stringer. John has always had some crazy ideas but that just sounded like a bad idea.
“Yeah man, it would be neat to say we did it.”
Dakota chimed in. “It sounds scary.” I agreed.
Ian spoke up. “I guess I’d give it a try.”
In theory, it wouldn’t be hard to pull off. I’m sure a park ranger wouldn’t approve but they wouldn’t catch us either. They always check in with the campers before they go back to the ranger station where they sit around in case of emergencies. But it sounds way too scary.
The four of us have been camping at this state park since we were teenagers. We have a lot of great and funny stories over the years. I’ve been hiking these trails and swimming since I was a kid. They got plenty of trails but the one they want to hike is the most popular. We try to do this every couple of months.
“Unless you’re scared. I guess you could sit at the site while the big dogs have an adventure.”
“Shut up, John.”
We spent the afternoon prepping and getting ready to cook the fish and the sun was starting to set.
Ian set down his drink. “So we gonna do this?” They all were nodding along at this point. I didn’t want to be alone either so I agreed to go.
We waited as the park ranger stopped by everyone’s tent and told us to be safe and where the station is if we need a ranger for anything. It’s the time of year where snakes are in the park and we’re a whiles away from a hospital.
We put out the fire and made our way to a small trail that would take us to the main parking lot. We all grabbed flashlights and I went in my glove box and grabbed my 9mm.
We didn’t speak at all hardly until we got to the parking area before turning off our flashlights. We made sure no rangers were in the area and we snuck off to the trail.
We eventually turned our flashlights back on and began up the trail. We talked pretty quietly for a while. It wasn’t going to be a long walk, maybe two miles.
It’s hard to describe how eerie it felt to me during the walk. Noises seem louder. It’s like the calm and soothing river now sounds like it’s screaming at me. The beautiful scenery was a void and made me feel small and helpless. There wasn’t going to be any fellow hikers, just us. No help if needed.
Dakota told us a story his grandfather told him as a child about a witch that roamed the hills. People would claim she would hunt people down and eat them or sacrifice them.
They all thought it was funny, but I didn’t. I swear I was hearing twigs snapping and seeing shadows move through darkness. Even the trees looked more crooked.
We made it to the waterfall and made small talk. We all took a picture on my phone and began walking back down the trail. The guys acted like I was crazy for being so scared. I felt more confident, everything was going fine. It felt like. Conquering fear.
The walk back started feeling more at ease until a few times our flashlights all went out at the same time. We were able to tinker with them and get them going again. I felt my stomach drop when I seen some flashlights coming on the other side of the trail.
They definitely seen ours too. We figured maybe it was park rangers who got curious and we’d have to talk our way out of not being banished. The closer we got, it wasn’t rangers.
It was kids. Probably about thirteen or so. They gave us a quick glance and Dakota tried to talk to them.
“Hey kids, where’s your parents? Wouldn’t want them to worry. The walk is a little spooky.” I had every intention of going to a ranger station and telling them. We weren’t far from the parking lot.
They just kept walking though. John was hollering for them to stop but they didn’t even look back at us.
Ian was shivering and whispered to me. “I think those kids had black eyes.”
“What?”
“Like pure black.”
About that time I heard foot prints stomping towards us. By the time I turned around the knocked down John. He began screaming.
Dakota tried pulling a kid off of John. One of them punched Dakota so hard he flew up and hit a tree. He wasn’t moving.
I pulled out my pistol and pointed at the kids. “Get off him!” One walked towards me. I shot in the ground once. He didn’t even flinch. He started getting taller. Whatever that thing was had to be about seven feet tall. I shot at it. It didn’t phase it.
Ian grabbed my arm and told me to run. I looked back at John and one of those things was swallowing him whole. It was like a snake slowly covering over another.
We ran as fast as we could. “What about Dakota.”
“Man, we gotta get ourselves help first.” He tripped. I tried to stop but another one of those things grabbed him and began tugging him away. I fired twice more and missed.
I was hoping the gunshots would at least alarm a ranger something was happening. One of those things was right behind me.
I fell. I don’t remember much of it either. But I remember hitting some thorny bushes and my head hitting a rock before falling in water.
I woke up in my tent, it was morning. I scrambled to figure out what was going on until I heard voices outside the tent. It was the guys.
They were all sitting out by the fire eating some breakfast. I crawled out and sat on my chair.
“This doesn’t make sense?”
John gave me a smile. “Yeah man, you drank a bunch of whiskey last night and had too many shrooms. You conked out pretty early.”
My clothes weren’t damp. I walked to my truck and checked the magazine in my pistol, it was full. It wasn’t making any sense.
I drank some coffee and looked through my photos. I found the selfie we took at the waterfall. I began staring at got nervous. It looked like an old woman standing above the waterfall , somewhat hidden. I heard all the guys chuckling.
I look up and their eyes are pitch black. They all stood up. Ian smiled and his voice sounded distorted.
“If you want to save your friends, come to the waterfall tonight.”
They walked to the shallow stream next to our site and went under. They didn’t come back up.
I’m really scared right now. I’m going to head up there tonight. I’ll update you as I can

So I have been a plus size gal pretty much my entire life. Over the years I have come to accept my body in every form it has been in ( I am 26 now ) but I still struggled with what people may think about me. The constant string of “what are they thinking?” “Are they judging me?” “They think I’m disgusting” “I don’t belong around these people” etc has been exhausting over the years and has often led me to shutting myself in and not leaving the house to do activities unless I was with someone- be it my husband, my sister, a friend etc. well, my husband is out this weekend on a trip so I am alone. It was a beautiful day where I live and it was soooo hot. While we have AC, I wanted to be outside. I love the outdoors. The area I live in is rural and the state I live in has no ocean beaches. We only have lakes and state parks. I asked a friend if she wanted to go to the lake with me to lay out and swim and she couldn’t go, neither could my sister. I sat and contemplated and changed my mind 15 times but finally I said to myself, I’m going, I deserve to. So I put my swimsuit on and my coverup, did some light makeup, grabbed my book and blanket and tanning oil and off I went. When I got there though I started to get cold feet. What if they’re staring at me? What if people think I’m weird for being alone? What if they think I look disgusting in my bathing suit? But I kept pushing those thoughts out of my mind and found a spot to lay out in. I was so hot I wanted to jump in the lake but I was still so afraid of what others would think. Eventually I got so hot I just did it. And I LOVED it. I relaxed, floated, swam, just enjoyed myself. And you know what? Not a single soul looked twice at me. You know why? BECAUSE NO ONE REALLY CARES! And if they do, why should I care? It’s not my place to dictate what image they have of me, and at the end of the day they’re strangers I will never see again. I deserve to have experiences and enjoy my summer, even in a bigger body. I know this is long but this was a revelation for me. I had an amazing day today full of sun, I got ice cream alone, drove home on back roads with my windows down blasting T Swift, came home and enjoyed watching a thunderstorm on my porch. And to think I would have missed all of that if I would have chosen to hide out at home out of shame and fear. I will be going back alone numerous times this summer and will be taking myself on other dates that I’ve been too scared to do. You should too, you deserve it. ☀️🫶🏻

Hi all, I am posting this as a trip report more than anything else so enjoy the read :)
I have recently returned from a 9 days long trip to the Balkans. I let my excitement calm down over the past week or so and I am now ready to share my experience! I will be discussing the budget at the end!
​
WHERE?
I visited 3 countries: Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia
WHEN?
8th until the 17th of May
ITINERARY
8th-11th in Pristina, Prizren and Peje in Kosovo
12-15th in Budva, Montenegro
16th-17th in Belgrade, Serbia
The plan was that there was no plan. I knew what is where and what cool things I can do but unfortunately I didn't enjoy good weather as it was raining for 7 out of 9 days. In Kosovo I travelled with two friends from Korea which I will mention later. We had a rental car from Pristina Airport which allowed us to go around the country easily and allowed us to avoid places with worse weather.
As I was not travelling alone for parts of the trip, I was flexible with activities which unfortunately were very limited due to the aforementioned weather conditions. Whenever we could we were out and about.
​
THE EXPERIENCE
The highlight of the trip for me was definitely Kosovo. Amazing place so different to any country I visited before! Beautiful villages, cities, nature and all of that within reach as the country is small. It makes for a good short trip especially if you have a car, which is very easy to get! Prizren was our favourite city. Good hikes, beautiful views and good food! We also stumbled upon a locally owned liquor store where we bought our first bottle of Rakia, lovely owner!
On the last day we returned our car in the morning and took a bus from the airport to the city centre from where we took a bus all the way to Budva, Montenegro passing through beautiful Albanian mountains on the way south.
I had high expectations for Budva and Montenegro in general. I knew the weather was not going to be great but I tried to make the most out of it. The bus from Kosovo arrived around 1am so I already knew my next day is going to be slow. On the first day I appreciated the beautiful surroundings. That is also the day when my experience started to go south. I got scammed out of 40euros by a taxi driver for a 15 minute ride, why does it always happen in beach destinations? I spent the day swimming in Sveti Stefan, drowning the sorrows of loosing 40 euros. The water wasn't warm but it was the only day of sunshine I had so I had to enjoy it, it was my first time at the Adriatic Sea after all!
I quickly realised that 3 days in Budva are too many especially considering the weather. After my nice swimming/sunbathing day I found myself mostly just strolling around the Old Town(which did surprise me in a good way!). I decided that going to Kotor or anywhere else in the area doesn't make much sense and I will leave it for another trip later this summer. I spent my evenings at the beach next to Old Town, drinking and listening to waves crashing against the walls until late hours of the night every night. That was probably the nicest thing about my stay in Budva, as for a person that doesn't do partying on trips like this, it was a pretty boring and empty tourist town.
Last day in Budva was the bus-catching day. I read a lot about bus services in the Balkans so I was prepared to just let things happen the way they should. And so my ticket was for a 12:30 bus from Budva to Bar. The bus didn't arrive until ~13:00 and I was told by the driver this is not the correct bus despite it being clearly stated on the ticket that it was. Happens, I thought. I asked the ''bus station person'' what to do and they just put me on the next but to Bar at around 13:30, which was completely fine by me.
Why would you go from a tourist town of Budva to a tourist town of Bar some may ask? Well, for the past two years I dreamed about experiencing the Belgrade-Bar railway journey, rumoured to be one of the Great Train Journeys. And so I was finally there, in a random restaurant/bacafe next to a very Soviet-looking Bar Train Station. I bought my ticket for a couchette in a 6-bed compartment for ~24 euros one-way all the way to Beograd Centar. It was 16:00 and my train, Lovcen, didn't leave until 19:00. I spent that time looking for an ATM, eating at a Burger King with a parking lot the size of a country and chilling next to the station, great atmosphere in that area! Very quiet and for someone who hasn't travelled to the east it was very surreal to see palm trees, soviet architecture and Cyrillic all around next to each other. I felt like it was a good time to say bye to Montenegro for now.
The ride was incredible. Yes, if you, like me, can't sleep anywhere outside of your own bed properly you're most likely not going to sleep on this train either. But the sleepless night was worth every minute of the breathtaking scenery of the Montenegrin Mountains as we climbed higher and higher. Having come in May, I only had about ~2 hours of daylight to look out the window and I made sure to not loose a single second of it. If you ever thought about taking the trip, I couldn't recommend it enough. Yes it's not the fastest, most comfortable way to get to Belgrade, but it was an experience I will not forget!
Takeaways from Montenegro:

• do not use ATM's other than the ones from a bank which name I don't remember but it started with an e. All other ATMs charge 5eur for every transaction no matter how much money you want to withdraw. That is another way that I lost ~40 euros.
• Restaurants add service charge not on the bill but by word of mouth which confused me many times but I complied since I didn't know the rules. If that is indeed customary then I would avoid pricier restaurants as the charge waiters were quoting was about 20% of the bill, way too much and a cold shower after Kosovo where I ate a 2-course meal with 2 of my friends for 14euros TOTAL.
• People gotta chill out, no need to get mad at a bus being late, its just the way it is, plan for that in advance and you will be perfectly fine
• More tourists than I expected, especially for May, the rainiest month

​
Next stop was the great city of Beograd. After my ~13hour train journey I arrived at Beograd Centar Station (confusing af!) at around 7:00am. My check-in time was 13:00 so I had a lot of time to kill even though I was already dead. I tried looking for a way to get to city centre because don't be mistaken, Belgrade Central Station is NOT in the centre. During my walk I found an exchange office which didn't scam me so I was off to a good start. With my 6000 dinars I strolled the city looking for food.
Later I saw the pedestrian, ''tourist'' area, the Castle, the riverside and some random streets and local markets. Overall, though I may be biased because of lack of sleep, Belgrade felt a little bit boring. Yes, I saw many people out and about but it felt too quiet. Serbia on the other hand, I will have to visit again as the people and the culture intrigue me!
​
BUDGET
I got tickets from London Luton to Pristina, Kosovo for around £40 and back from Belgrade Airport to London Luton for £45. I didn't hold back on anything really. I was booking AirBnb's on the day of arrival usually especially in Kosovo.
Flights: £95
Car rental in Kosovo £135(fuel included, cost divided by 3 since I was with friends = £45)
AirBnb ~£90 in Kosovo
Budva accommodation ~£50
Belgrade accommodation ~£35
Train ticket from Bar to Belgrade in a sleeping car - £20
Scam ATM's - £40
Food is a tricky one since I didn't exactly track my expenses but I had a lot of seafood and kebabs on the trip. I would say ~£300 for the 9 days. Keep in minds I never cooked a single meal it's all for eating out.
All in all I spent about ~£600 for the 9 days of exploring which works out to between £65-70 per day. Not bad but I know next time what to do to lower the cost. I am fully aware this trip could have ended up £200 or more cheaper but I am satisfied with what I got.
Thoughts? Tips on next time in the area? I definitely need to go back, especially to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania. Hope you had an interesting read!

It’s over…it’s finally over…now where am I gonna get my footy fix? “Watch the MLS?” I’d rather take up heavy drinking again. The World Cup, the Champions League, and the EPL did a number on my sanity this season. Anyone else feeling this way?
Manchester City: It looked like the monopoly was going to finally end again. City brought in a whole new squad with Haaland, Akanji, Alvarez, Sergio Gomez, and integrating academy players like Cole Palmer and Rico Lewis. The first half of the season you could see Pep’s children struggling to play with Haaland. But then…Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish must’ve been juicing in the dressing room. The back half of the season saw Haaland explode with his 36 goals, the most of a single striker in a season. They not only victimized the leaders in Arsenal, they stormed the gates, ravaged the village and took the riches for themselves. AGAIN. Winning the FA Cup is routine by now. But the Champions League…That’s the main prize. Becoming the next English team to win a treble is a good add-on. Man United can punch air knowing they’re still miles behind the noisy neighbors who have now won six league titles under Pep. Better sort of these contracts for Gundogan, Laporte, and Mahrez though. Or don’t, because we know they can replace anyone with all that oil money.
Arsenal: You bottled the league title after over 264 days at the top do the league? What’re you, Tottenham??? This is shambolic squad management. Even with all those reinforcements in Trossard and Jorginho, they couldn’t keep up the pace. Not only do you lose out on the title, you went trophyless. The Cup showings were even worse than previous seasons. And you want to say it wasn’t a bottle job? My brother in Christ, you lost to Southampton. This was the best chance Arsenal has had at ending the league title drought but Arteta is still showing himself as diet Pep. Even if you do buy more exiled City players, more is still needed. Welcome back to the Champions League, I guess. It’s good having a young team like this. Do not fuck it up. Do not waste the young years of Odegaard and Saka.
Newcastle: That Saudi investment is working. The Magpies used their newfound riches to attract the likes of Isak and Botman knowing they were only a few steps away from Champions League nights. Then came the addition of Anthony Gordon because squad depth is paramount in a game like this. And they got it. For the first time since 2004, Newcastle is in Europe. Eddie Howe deserves a lot of praise for the work he has done. He’s unlocked Callum Wilson, Joelinton, Miguel Almiron and Allan Saint-Maximin. Kieran Trippier’s career has been revived. Even players like Big Bird Dan Burn have flourished. We all knew this was going to happen. Just not this soon. We now have to deal with TWO oil money clubs jockeying for the title. I can understand why haters think they’re screwed. Get your money up or get your funny up.
Manchester United: I’m going to give Erik Ten Hag a 7/10 for his first season in Manchester. He got Marcus Rashford scoring again. That was an achievement in itself. Casemiro turned out to be the best thing for United since Fergie. When he’s not getting red cards. Luke Shaw took big strides even at center back. A commendable top 4 finish and a League Cup plus the FA Cup final to round it out. They still lost some really foolish games and they had the Cristiano situation. David De Gea doesn’t look like his old self anymore either. The Glazers-to nobody’s surprise-have still not sold the club. The lack of depth signings continue. But they’re in good position for a nice run next season. Who knows, maybe the Qataris will buy the club. That’ll change things. You’ll just be like Manchester City, I’m just saying…
Liverpool: Well, well, well…Liverpool missed out on Champions League football. It was a trying season, I get it. Not having any reliable midfielders will do that. You brought in Arthur Melo because reasons. Henderson and Fabinho looked like shells of themselves. The departure of Sadio Mane rocked the team, and Darwin Nunez or Diogo Jota couldn’t fill the role. Injuries piled up and the trauma continued. Luis Diaz barely played this season because of them. Trent was cooked on defense all season long. Yet Liverpool still ground out a 5th place finish. Klopp’s not done in England yet. The future remains unclear as FSG continue pondering selling the team or giving Klopp more signings. Knowing how injured Van Djik and Konate have been, they might need it. Especially in midfield. They’re hurting bad in the middle of the park. At least you’re not Everton. Take solace in knowing Alexis Mac Allister is likely on his way to Anfield.
Brighton: Graham Potter leaving Brighton was the greatest thing to ever happen to this club. That and having the best scouting network in the whole league. Finding ballers in the South American youth ranks, the J-League and other random places formed a pesky unit of warriors. Karou Mitoma, Alexis Mac Allister, Facundo Enciso, Moises Caicedo, Pervis Estupinian, Evan Ferguson, Lewis Dunk, Jason Steele. These are the core of Roberto De Zerbi’s army of seagulls. Welcome to European football, boys. Just know you will have to start the next campaign without Mac Allister and likely Caicedo. They’ve attracted too much attention from bigger teams. Even City is sniffing around at Mitoma. I’m honestly impressed, Brighton. I’m also insanely jealous of your scouting network.
Aston Villa: Who knew Steven Gerrard was a fraudulent manager living off the success of a single Scottish title win? LITERALLY EVERYONE. Thus, Villa canned him for Unai Emery, and for the best. They went from relegation fodder to a berth in the Conference League. Ollie Watkins found his scoring touch again. Emi Buendia is now living up to the expectations (somewhat). Lucas Digne is back to Champions League-caliber. Philippe Coutinho is not even a core player anymore, just a good impact sub at this point. Villa might be punching a little above their weight but they’ve been defying expectations for a while now. With the godfather of European football at the helm, the sky is the limit. Welcome back to Europe, boys.
Tottenham: LOL Spurs always reigns supreme. I swear, it’s like rooting for the New York Mets: champagne expectations, perpetual disappointment. This season went from promising to utter dumpster fire in a matter of weeks. Antonio Conte got fed up with the players being shit again and got himself sacked promptly after that fiery press conference. Daniel Levy has never been under more pressure from fans and Harry Kane before. Spurs went from maybe squeaking out Europa League to missing out on Europe entirely. They wasted a 30-goal season from Harry Kane. Son was out of form all season. Richarlison scored 1 league goal all season. They had no defense and Lloris looks like Father Time got the best of him. Games were bottled, and through it all, they are now manager-less AGAIN. Is is time for Levy to step down? I don’t know, but he needs to do something about this team. It’s not even fun to complain about Spurs anymore. Now it’s just pure, unadulterated apathy.
Brentford: This is a fun team to watch. Thomas Frank is a magician with these players. Even with Ivan Toney going full Calvin Ridley mode, Brentford managed to win big matches when it mattered. Bryan Mbuemo played understudy to Toney most of the season but stepped up when they needed him. Rico Henry flourished at the back. Ben Mee transformed into a better player than he was at Burnley. David Raya is making a name for himself as clubs like Spurs eye him. Even Thomas Frank is getting considered for new roles. The Bees are buzzing. The West London newbies not only had a solid summer transfer window, they have finished top 10 in the second season of the big show. Now comes the hard part: next year. What do you do without Toney? Will you buy a new striker like Jonathan David? It remains to be seen, but in Frank’s Nordic vision we trust. He’s definitely got some crafty Danes or Norwegians waiting for a call.
Fulham: Speaking of West London clubs, I’m gonna buy these guys a round next time I see them. Congratulations, Fulham! You didn’t get relegated! Marco Silva didn’t even have to work miracles to do it. They played well at times, and obviously shit the bed in others. But you can’t say they didn’t fight every minute of every game. Aleksander Mitrovic finally learned how to score in the Prem. Willian returned to West London in full cry. Tim Ream made us Yanks proud as he held it down at the back. The X Factor: Joao Palhinha. You didn’t bend the knee willingly, boys. That shows character. Gotta say I’m proud. Now keep going, Tony Khan. You know they can aim just a tad higher.
Crystal Palace: Palace didn’t really do anything different this season. I say that because they pretty much finished where they always do. Comfortably mid-table again. I really thought Patrick Vieria was doing something at Selhurst Park, but then he was relived off his duties after a bad patch of form. So they decided to recycle the nostalgia and bring back Roy Hodgson…uh huh. Nothing really changes does it? Eberechi Eze turned into a special player. Zaha was Zaha, nothing new there. Jordan Ayew played solidly too. Michael Olise might be the standout player. He was really getting linked with a move to PSG to replace Messi?? I prefer not to speak.
Chelsea: Lol Spurs? No, LOL CHELSEA! We all knew the Todd Boehly takeover was gonna change things. We didn't expect a dip into total mediocrity. All while spending over 600 million quid on player signings. Thomas Tuchel was sacked....then Graham Potter got 8 months to make things worse...then they brought back Frank Lampard to see out the season because that's American forward thinking. Yea the viibes are horrendous at Stamford Bridge. Bringing in Enzo Fernandez, Chernobyl Traore in Mudryk, David Fofana, Wesley Fofana, Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly and everyone else killed any team chemistry. Joao Felix was exiled from Atletico by Diego Simeone to basically do nothing in England for 6 months. Kai Havertz is STILL not a real striker. Auba brought back the No. 9 shirt curse. Christian Pulisic was fed up with it all and tried to force himself out to no avail. Mason Mount dropped off hard, but still has enough Englishness to warrant a move to United. The Blue Lions are dying in front of us. After years of poshness and self-absorption, they will not be playing European football next season. Thus, they brought in Mauricio Pochettino to fix things. Spurs fans everywhere are dying on the inside at their old gaffer taking the job...but it's the perfect fit for this Chelsea team. They'll be back, just wait.
Wolves: Wolves…wake up. What the hell are you doing? Why are muddling through these seasons lately? The vibes of the Nuno era are gone. New culture had to be created. Except it wasn’t. Bruno Lage was hired and did whatever it was he did. Which basically flirted with relegation. Julen Lupotegui came in after he was sacked by Sevilla and changed everything. It still wasn’t enough. The team was Ruben Neves saving their asses while Raul Jiminez continues to find himself after his head injury. Take solace in knowing Max Kilman is becoming a fantastic defender. Hwang Hee Chan looks more comfortable in England. But Wolves could be doing so much more. It’s a shame they’re gonna sell Neves. They were so close to shattering the glass season a few seasons ago. Oh how times change.
West Ham: This is the dark side of two consecutive seasons of deep European tournament runs. Your league form suffers. In West Ham’s case, it was injuries and inconsistent football. David Moyes is a decent manager but he can only take you so far. Just ask Everton fans about that. Sure you made the Conference League final but was it worth losing guys like Paqueta, Scamacca, and Antonio to the injury gods while selling Craig Dawson and sacrificing your league form? Declan Rice carried the Hammers at times. Only adding to his value as his big boy move is finally coming together. A bottom half finish is a few steps back but it’s not unexpected. It will be a big summer for the Hammers. It’s time to start planning for life after Rice. You can recover from it, but will Moyes be the guy to take you back to the top 10? You tell me.
Bournemouth: Scott Parker getting sacked in the fall saved the Cherries. Gary O’Neil had a vision for this team. They executed it well. Without his guidance, Bournemouth would surely be in the drop zone. In the first year back in the Prem, Bournemouth produced respectable results. Philipp Billing, Jefferson Lerma, and Dominic Solanke are some talented players but they have their limits. You'll be without Lerma next season since he's moving to Crystal Palace in the summer. Buying up all that European talent helped in the battle to stave off relegation, but where do you go from here? European places will be way too difficult reach with the level of parity we have now. Staying up next season will likely be the goal.
Nottingham Forest: 30 signings later, Forest avoided the drop. What else is there to say? The football was strictly average. Some players like Taiwo Ayonini lived to the hype, as did Morgan Gibbs-White. Keylor Navas was a great addition to keep the ball out of the net. Others like Jesse Lingard did not. The standout? Danilo from Palmerias, a strapping addition. Players like Ryan Yates, Brennan Johnson, and Joe Worrall proved they can hang in the big leagues. Steve Cooper is not getting sacked. But knowing how crazy the Greek overlords are, that could change on a dime. Whether you can take that next step to the top 10 I’m not sure of. Steve Cooper is strictly an average manager. A squad this big with this much high-end talent could use with a better voice. Your move, Forest.
Everton: Conglaturations, boys! You did the great escape…AGAIN. Remember last season how you said “never again?” What a load of horseshit. Everyone knew Everton would be lucky to survive given the state of the squad. When you rely on Abdoulaye Doucoure and Dwight McNeill as your main scoring threats, you know it was not going to be a good season. Try the board running fake stories about getting death threats from fans. Try fans confronting Yerry Mina in the parking lot after a tough loss to Southampton. Try sacking Frank Lampard and replacing him with Sean Dyche…actually that was a good decision. Farhad Moshiri is under serious pressure to turn things around. It doesn’t help Everton are about to get hit with FFP regulations even worse than City or Chelsea…is it worth building that new stadium if you’re playing in 2nd division? It’s not a matter of if Everton go down, it’s a matter of when Everton go down.
Leicester: Dude, what the fuck??? You’re supposed to breaking the Big 6 ceiling, not shattering your own reputation. We lauded Leicester for their recruitment and performances. But this is the fate of bundling all your eggs in the Champions League basket. Missing out on those revenues crippled the finances. Buying all those players came back to haunt them. Without Jamie Vardy leading the line, the team looked lost. Brendan Rodgers knew his time was up but was sacked unceremoniously. Dean Smith could not right the ship. After 7 seasons and three trophies later, the Foxes are back in the Championship. Such a shame. Open the flea market though. Maddison, Tielemans, Ndidi, and Barnes will all be lined up for moves to bigger clubs. Thanks for the memories, Leicester.
Leeds: Leeds are paying for the sins of Radriazzani. The guy he fumbled the bag in the worst possible ways. Forget about his off-pitch antics. This team was trying too hard to remake the Bielsa years. Fans never got behind Jesse Marsch’s American Revolution and he was kicked to curb after a shit run despite beating Liverpool. Javi Gracia took over and changed nothing. So to salvage the season, welcome back Big Sam!! loses 4-1 to Spurs on the final day oh dear lord. Even the relegation dodger himself could not fix a team that can’t connect. Jack Harrison took massive steps forward and is probably the first to go to replenish the coffers. Robin Koch will likely follow suit. Adams, McKennie, and Aaronson are definitely going to other clubs. They never got utilized correctly anyway. The vibes of the Bielsa era are gone. Every attempt to replace them didn’t work, especially if the fans weren’t willing to move on. Don’t make the same mistakes of 2004.
Southampton: The Saints go marching into the Championship. After 8 years of playing big club killer, Southampton is gone. I’m not sad about it. I hated playing against them because they’d always step up against London clubs. For a less bias take, it’s not something they could avoid. They didn’t have the talent or leadership to fix things. Ralph Hassenhuttl was largely uninspiring so it made sense when he got the boot. But Nathan Jones from Lutron Town?? That’s your solution?? That didn’t even last two full months. Ruben Selles as temp gaffer solved nothing. So now you go down without much of a fight. Thanks for giving up JWP, Armel Bella-Kotchap, and Romeo Lavia to bigger teams. You will not be missed by any teams from London.

A while ago, I ran into something very interesting in my local library: a 2012 reprint of a Finnish 1912 novel about the sinking of the Titanic, called “Titanicin perikato” (The Destruction of the Titanic) by Esko Waltala – the only Finnish novel ever written about the disaster!
I picked the book up and looked into it, and it turns out it’s actually a Finnish translation/adaptation (or, in modern terms, an instance of blatant plagiarism) of an original Swedish novel called “Dödsfärden” (The Voyage of Death) by Willy Grebst.
The novel claims to be based on survivor accounts and other facts, which is why I thought people on this sub might be interested in reading about it. While it’s not a fully accurate retelling, as you’ll soon find out, I think it’s a fascinating window into the way the story of the Titanic was perceived in the Nordic countries right after the disaster.

The fictional characters and the plot

The original novel focuses on Swedish characters, but the Finnish edition I read has changed the focus to Finland. The story features three main characters: fictional Finnish second-class male passengers Onni Laurila, Toivo Saarela, and Niilo Vieremä.
In a nutshell, these three are the most insufferable Mary-Sues/Gary-Stus I’ve ever encountered in a work of fiction.
They’re all learned young men, going to America to make it big. Vieremä is an engineer, traveling on the Titanic to learn about her machinery, while Laurila and Saarela have both graduated from the University of Helsinki. Their major is not mentioned, but I’m sure it must’ve been languages – seeing how each of them seemingly speaks six or seven of them fluently, allowing them to discuss with a variety of passengers onboard. Engineer Vieremä, then, steps in to play the role of Thomas Andrews: he’s studied the ship so carefully that when disaster strikes, he can accurately assess the damage and inform his friends about the ship being doomed.
Our heroes are remarkably brave, immediately deciding to do what they can for the women and children, stoically observing the sinking, and going into the water with the ship. Obviously, it then turns out all three of them are great swimmers and very resilient to cold temperatures. (I guess whatever free time they had between studying all those languages, they spent ice swimming in Finnish lakes.) One of them estimates that he is going to survive in the freezing water for at least four hours.
After going into the water, our trio of McGyvers build a raft from two planks of wood, their lifebelts, and some rope that one of them just happens to be carrying in his pocket. In friendly Finnish fashion, they then proceed to beat each other up to stay warm. The beatings work wonders: afterwards, they keep going back to the water like it’s nothing, in an effort to save several women and children. Unfortunately, they all perish before our heroes can get to them. They then pick up some cognac, bread, butter, and milk that’s floating in the water and have themselves a nice little picnic, waiting for the Carpathia to rescue them. And of course, they politely let every single other survivor board the rescue ship before boarding it themselves.
The cast of characters also includes an American family called McDean, traveling in the first class. Saarela falls in love with their daughter Alice, but unfortunately, she is engaged to another first-class passenger – an unpleasant, cowardly Italian prince/charlatan. In a dramatic moment during the sinking, Saarela is pushed into a lifeboat, but he climbs back and offers his seat to the prince instead, thus making a thoroughly unselfish sacrifice for Alice’s happiness. Taking note of this heroic behavior, and learning of her fiancé’s cowardly nature, Alice then ditches the prince on the Carpathia and confesses her love to Saarela instead. They’re married just weeks after the sinking. Jack and Rose who, this is the true love story of the Titanic!
In the finale of the novel, Alice, who’s lost both her parents in the sinking and is the sole heiress to their vast fortune, makes large donations to Laurila and Vieremä. Laurila, who has a fiancée waiting for him in Finland, decides he doesn’t want to make it big in America anymore, goes home, gets married, and starts a bunch of charities to improve his poor home village. The end.

The historical accuracy

So, there’s a lot of made-up stuff in this book, but what about the historical accuracy? Didn’t they claim it’s based on survivor accounts? Well, in short, the historical part of the story is a mixed bag.
The author and the translator of the novel have clearly read a lot of news coverage about the Titanic. They feature many real historical figures and have the basics of the event down, but they also take a lot of artistic liberty whenever it suits their fancy. For example, there are several remarks that show they know that the first and the second class had different dining salons, smoking rooms and such – but even so, the second-class heroes dine in the first class several times, so they can easily gossip about, get to know, and fall in love with the first-class passengers.
The word “unsinkable” is mentioned a lot, and much is made of the 16 watertight compartments. Every single character has been assured that the Titanic cannot sink, some of them by White Star Line representatives and others just by word of mouth. Even so, they’re all borderline obsessed about the possibility of a shipwreck. Several characters have premonitions about the ship sinking. A lengthy passage is dedicated to stories about former maritime accidents involving icebergs, featuring some real ships such as the SS Arizona and the SS Pacific.
When the Titanic finally does hit the iceberg, there are a bunch of inaccuracies and exaggerations, maybe because the authors had read false/sensationalized information, or maybe just to make that part of the story feel more exciting. For example, it’s mentioned that all the lights go out for a while. Panic sets in very soon after the collision. In a disturbing scene, we’re told that crew members with revolvers are holding third-class passengers back, threatening them with immediate death if they dare to move before being given permission. Archibald Butt is shown firing a revolver when chaos breaks out on the boat deck, which encourages several crew members to start firing theirs to bring back order.
Other parts are more accurate to our current understanding of the events, such as the near-collision of the Titanic and the SS New York early in the story, and the affair of lifeboat 13 drifting under lifeboat 15. Interestingly, the ship breaking up in two in its final minutes is mentioned. So is First Officer Murdoch committing suicide, which the narrative voice comments by saying it’s no one’s business to judge him for that decision.

Who’s to blame?

The novel spends quite a lot of time trying to find someone or something to blame for the disaster. It comes to a twofold conclusion: in part, it was J. Bruce Ismay (and capitalism), but in part, it was the Hope Diamond that the fictional McDean family brought onboard.
The way the novel portrays Ismay is interesting. On the one hand, he’s definitely painted as the bad guy, a powerful CEO that even the captain has to obey that’s obsessed with going fast and breaking records. But on the other hand, the narrative voice points out that Ismay is only acting like this because White Star Line shareholders expect it of him – it’s his job to keep them happy, and going faster means more money to them.
Ismay also gets a moment of redemption during the sinking: he is shown helping two maids into a lifeboat. When the women protest, claiming they don’t deserve to be in the boat because they’re “only maids”, Ismay points out that all people are equal in the face of death. The last time Ismay is featured in the story is when the narrative voice reveals he’s in one of the lifeboats, and wonders about the state of his mind. Is he feeling regret, or coming up with excuses for his actions? Surprisingly, the narrative voice doesn’t shame him for entering a lifeboat; instead, in the same chapter, it encourages the reader to refrain from judging the survivors in general for fighting for their lives during the sinking.
Then there is the Hope Diamond nonsense. There’s a full chapter on its backstory, mostly made up of course, with plenty of details about how it’s been causing misfortune for centuries. Then it explains how it ends up onboard, and several characters remark upon its reputation as a cursed item, wondering if it’s going to cause trouble during the voyage. After the ship hits the iceberg, however, the diamond is practically forgotten about, only to be very briefly mentioned again.
In the last chapter of the novel, which is to my knowledge all written by the Finnish translator, the narrative voice has more to say about who’s to blame. First, it blames Ismay for “putting the ice warnings into his pocket without caring about them” (a weird claim to make, seeing how earlier in the story, Captain Smith is shown dealing with the ice warnings), but it also criticizes the British Board of Trade for their outdated lifeboat regulations. This is the only time the fact that there weren’t enough lifeboats is mentioned. The bulkheads only going up to E Deck is not mentioned at all. Instead, the narrative voice suspects that the doors between the watertight compartments likely didn’t close properly, allowing water to flow through.

Some interesting details

• It’s mentioned that there were cows onboard the Titanic, so that the rich passengers could get fresh milk. According to the narrative voice, you can’t have cows on smaller ships because small vessels rock too hard in rough seas. Fair enough, I suppose it would be stressful having to deal with a bunch of seasick cattle.
• Speaking of exaggerated claims, the novel also talks about an onboard greenhouse, filled with thousands of fragrant flowers and palm trees. I suppose the author had heard about the Verandah Café and decided that some potted plants simply didn’t sound impressive enough for his book.
• There is an unnamed Thomas Andrews character (he’s only referred to by titles such as “the chief engineer at Harland & Wolff”) that keeps claiming the ship is unsinkable after it has struck the iceberg, and calls the panicking people cowards.
• The book features the lyrics (both in English and in Swedish/Finnish) and the music notes to Nearer My God to Thee. Feel free to sing along while you read the relevant scene, I guess!
• The Finnish translation/adaptation has several more chapters than the Swedish original. In one of them, the translator praises the Titanic’s engineers, highlighting how their choice to stay in the engine room meant that the lights stayed on and the pumps continued their work all the way through the sinking.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is quite a lot of accurate information to be found within the novel… but it gets lost between all the romanticized, saccharine nonsense the author and the translator have come up with to fluff the story up. Some of it is so over the top you can’t help laughing out loud.
The novel clearly reflects the attitudes of its time and its author(s) – and oftentimes, those attitudes are not pretty. Willy Grebst, the original Swedish author, had ties to an antisemitic newspaper, so it’s no big surprise that there are antisemitic remarks in the novel. There is also an instance of anti-Irish and anti-Italian sentiment, with people of those ethnic backgrounds portrayed as more cowardly/hysterical than their English and Nordic counterparts.
On the other hand, there are also some parts that feel somewhat progressive for the time: for example, there is a scene where someone has to leave a lifeboat because it’s too full and will sink otherwise, and several women argue that instead of defaulting to a man, all single and childless people regardless of gender should draw lots to decide who should die. (The scene then ends with not one but three American men voluntarily jumping overboard.) Greed and rich people not using their money for charitable ventures is also heavily criticized.
All in all, the novel leaves me wondering how its readers in 1912 felt about it. Did they think that inserting fictional elements into the story of a real, very recent disaster was in bad taste? Or was reading a fictional retelling like this helpful when dealing with the anxiety and sadness the news about the disaster had caused? To my modern-day taste, it’s a silly, tacky story – but a very entertaining one at that, so I’m glad to have come across it.

Sources

The original Swedish novel “Dödsfärden” on Litteraturbanken: https://litteraturbanken.se/f%C3%B6rfattare/GrebstWA/titlaD%C3%B6dsf%C3%A4rden/sida/5/faksimil
The Finnish translation/adaptation “Titanicin perikato” on Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/57901/pg57901-images.html

In my late 30s, I hosted an exchange student, "Elsa". Partly to be sure I didn't want a kid. Here's how it went:
I wanted to do the summer program, but they talked me into 11 months. I lived across the street from the high school, which was convenient. My husband was going to be abroad for work for most of it, and I'm a former teacher and principal. (DINKER- Retired at 38.)
It was exactly as I thought.
My husband was the Good Cop/Disneyland Dad who swooped in from work with dad jokes or to take us fun places or to cook dinner and do his usual chores, but he wasn't around to do much of the parenting, and he often was too lazy to enforce the rules (paying for her latte, when she was supposed to pay for it- the $ guidelines are very strict in the exchange program), not checking if her chores were done, etc.
So, I had to be "the bad cop" who followed through with daily drudgery of parenting- teaching her she has to carry her ID at all times, not bringing it to her at school when she called saying she forgot it again, taking her to doctor appointments, arranging carpooling and outings, learning who her friends were, hosting her birthday party, figuring out she was lying when she said her teacher lost her assignment, communicating with her parents and the exchange liason meetings, following the parenting expectations for the exchange program, help her figure out her US clothing sizes, register her for school, etc.
None of my friends cared to ask about me anymore, only they asked about her and my husband (who was abroad). I put a pink rinse in my hair at the time, and looking back, I think maybe it was to get some attention back on myself. Everyone mentioned my pink hair.
And she hated her mom and worshipped her Disneyland Dad who gave her free reign with his credit card- every 2 weeks she spent $500+ at the mall, with her US friend who had an actual job and had to pay her own stuff. (Also- her dad had cheated on her mom, causing their divorce, and lives with his mistress, but kept a flat so ). I had to cajole her into sending her mom a birthday card. Her poor regard for her mom really bothered me.
Elsa lied all the time, even about trivial things. In her country she has used public transportation solo since age 8, so if her mom tried to give her a consequence for misbehaving, she would get on the train and go to her dad's house.
Elsa's divorced parents didn't communicate with each other, so they believed her lies. We were watching Mrs.Doubtfire, and for the first time she wasn't on her phone- she was actually smiling and enjoying the movie- and I asked her if it was because she tricked her divorced parents like the kids do in the movie, and she just had a guilty smile.
Elsa told me I'm the first person who ever followed through and made sure she did everything she said she would do. She said it was an adjustment for her, but it seemed she kind of liked the structure and consistency I provided.
I took her to Hawaii to vacation with my mom and I, and my husband and I took her on a road trip up the CA coast, and we had a pool she loved, she loved my convertible, and I took her to amusement parks, to Hollywood/LA, sports games, hiking, whale/dolphin Watching (her favorite animal is dolphin), etc. The Exchange Liason said I was the best and shared that the other host families were struggling because their kids didn't like the exchange kids getting all the attention.
Since age 8, she's lived one week with her mom, and the next week with her dad and she hates that custody arrangement. It was clear that her mom did the Parenting and her dad spoiled her and took her on annual lavish vacation. But she hated the dad's mistress, and when Elsa left on exchange, the dad wasted no time getting rid of his flat and moving in with the Mistress. This upset Elsa, but she could never share her feelings with her dad.
She loved our house at the beach, our CA weather (and winter daylight), living in one home instead of switching every week, and my cooking.
Does Elsa want kids?
Elsa had requested a host family without kids. (That's us!) She spends a week at her Grandma's every summer with her cousins, and by the end she hates being around those little kids. But she advised that she does want to have one or two kids. I asked why, and she had a hard time explaining it (she was 17), and it sounded like she wants a Mini Me, a child of her own. When I asked her about taking care of the baby when it's sick and stating up all night, etc. And she just shrugged.
We were duped: We chose Elsa from the application pool, because she said she was Outdoorsy and loves the beach, wanted to go to museums, liked travel, and wanted to improve her English.
Besides swimming in the pool, Elsa is Far From Outdoorsy! She can't ride a bike, she won't step on sand, and she refused to go in any museums (she'd wait outside as we went in) or go hiking. Elsa is ftom a country where they say babies are "born with skis on", and Elsa doesn't ski.
Her mom had been on exchange in the 80s, and has a job with Microsoft where she speaks English all day, and I've video-chatted with the Mom and she speaks nearly perfect English (for example, far better than the Germans when I lived there, although Elsa and parents aren't German). (I have a teaching certification in language acquisition, so I have a better understanding than most people.) Elsa's family never hosted a student in "exchange".Americans were always troubled upon hearing that I didn't have a kid living on exchange with Elsa's family. Elsa's mom loved her exchange and her mom still has her cowboy boots, insists on an American clothes Dryer in her flat, and is in touch with her Texas "Mom and Dad".
We also learned that Elsa's family owns a home in Florida and she Vacatons there every year, which is likely why she didn't have to learn how our stores, sales tax, etc worked, like tge rest of the exchange kids did. (I also worked in law enforcement, so I noticed all the details that weren't adding up, and Elsa was frustrated tgat I caught her in lies all the time.)
Americans all assumed Elsa was American. They didn't hear any accent. We were never given photos of her before we chose her, but she has green eyes like my husband and I (only 2% of Americans have green eyes, lol), and the same hair color as me, so people were in shock when they were told she's not our kid. Elsa and us, we all found it amusing.
How it Ended: The exchange program rule was that the kids had to participate in a sport or activity outside of school, because American high school kids are very busy with jobs/sports and Exchange kids find it hard to make friends. Despite being very outgoing and social, This was true for Elsa.
My friend asked Elsa how her activities were going and I heard Elsa say that she quit them.
(Also, despite all the amazing trips, Elsa was mad that I didn't take her to San Francisco yet, and tgat I didn't let her skip school to go to Disneyland with an exchange student who was finishing her exchange early.)
There were some other things that I knew the other exchange kids were doing (things that the kids signed and pledged to do in the exchange contract), like cook a meal from their country, celebrate a holiday from your country with your host family, etc. And after 6 months and her national holiday passed, Elsa had never done any of it.
Elsa was annoyed at me for catching her in a lie about where she was, and advised that she just wants to be my "roommate". She wants me to cook, clean,provide room and board (her own bedroom with private bath in our million dollar beach house), but not be concerned with where she is or what she does.
I advised that what she is describing is the University international student program- but she would have roommates AND have to pay Tuition, room, board, and cook and clean for herself. Of course, she isn't interested in that.
So, I told Elsa to ask her one friend at school if she could live with them, because I'm going to rent out her room, since she gave me the idea about how much better roommate life is than the exchange.
When the time came to move out, after 6 months, Elsa didn't want to go. This new situation was atypical and she would share a room and a small house with 4 other kids and their parents, and they don't cook, lol.
It was a drama to get her to go.
My opinion: The way Elsa treated her own parents is the main reason that validated my choice to remain childfree by choice.
I don't believe in year-long exchangestudent to the US, for many reasons, unless it is someone from a disadvantaged country who speaks little English- of the 14 students in our group- there was only 1 kid tgat was like that and he really did benefit from the long exchange, and he really did suffer culture shock, and he really was very grateful for all he was provided for a year. Just do the summer one if you want, although some of my teacher friends have terrible stories about those, too.
Elsa's older half-brother (he's my age) was correct. He had found out that Elsa's host family was a military Colonel and a retired School Principal, and he told her that she'd never make it. He was correct!

As I've been lurking around this forum for quite a while before going, I thought I'd write a report of how our trip went to give back to this amazing community.
First of all, I'd like to say thanks to everyone here for all the extremely useful information!
Me (M30) and my wife (29F) had the chance to travel through Japan for about 18 days. We are both Muslim so we kept to a halal food regime (seafood and some halal places here and there).
General tips: - JR Pass: I'd say the JR pass is only worth it if you use the shinkansen (bullet train) for long distances a lot. That being said, it also provides a form of comfort and ease of mind. We had an unexpected change in our itinerary which made us stay an extra night in Tokyo, having the JR pass made this easy for us to just go on another train the next day. We also used it quite a lot in Tokyo and Osaka for smaller distance trips (protip: use the Navitime app to see if your itinerary is covered by JR pass). You could just take a 7 day pass and activate it during the period you would be doing all the long distance travel.

• Get an IC card (Suica/Pasmo). Easy to use and charge and can be used in convenience stores and in a lot of other places.
  
• don't overcharge your itinerary. Japan is beautiful and has a lot to offer, but try to keep it cool and enjoy the things you will visit. We did an average of 20-25k steps daily and we were not even rushing things.. (pack decent shoes)
  
• Navigating through train stations might be hard and overwhelming at first (especially the big ones like Shinjuku) but just find your base point and always follow the colors. Google maps is also very handy as it provides detailed information about platforms and what exits to use, etc..
  
• Google lens came in quite handy at times!
  
• luggage forwarding! Such a thing of beauty. Most hotels will help you with the procedure but if they don't, you can just go to a post office or most of the convenience stores help you out with it as well. The prices depend on the size of your luggage from what I've experienced, the distance doesn't seem to matter.
  
• Reservations: so basically, if you know you wanna go somewhere in Japan, try to book as soon as possible. Almost all of the activities we did (Usj, Disneysea, karting in Tokyo, Teamlab, Ghibli museum) needed reservations well in advance. In kyoto, we even had a hard time finding places to eat because all the good looking restaurants were constantly fully booked. Keep this in mind when going.
  

Halal food tips : - Honolu Ramen (Osaka) - we only tried the one in Osaka and the ramen with the chicken karaage was really good. Highly recommend. - Curry Coco (they have locations everywhere) (not halal but provides good curry and seafood/veggie options) - Osaka PANGA Yakiniku (Osaka) - halal, good food and they have halal Wagyu.
Alright so here we go :
15/05 - 20/05 Tokyo
We stayed at the APA Hotel Higashi-Shinjuku Kabukicho Tower. Rooms were pretty small compared to European standards (no closets) but overall the room was clean and all the amenities you'd need (wifi, hair dryer, tooth brush, shampoo, etc). As for the location, Shinjuku station was about a 10 minute walk from the hotel and Shinjuku is a cool place to be at generally speaking. It does get a bit hectic at night so depending on what you're into, you may or may not appreciate the vibes.
15/05 - arrival day:
We arrived at 6pm at Haneda Airport and immediately took a shuttle bus to Kabukicho Tower. Just ask the tourist information point at the airport and they'll guide you. It was 1300 yen per person and it led us almost straight to our hotel. After a long flight, this was a welcome comfort. We checked in and went for a walk in the neighbourhood but we were pretty tired so we went to sleep pretty early.
16/05 - Shinjuku neighborhood, Sumo fighting and karting through Tokyo
We started off our day having some Japanese brunch in Shinjuku, visited the Don Quijote and went to ryogoku to go see Sumo wrestling (really cool experience and if you stick around the arena you'll see the Sumo wrestlers walking to the arena, they are mostly very friendly and they will accept to take pictures with you). After that, we headed to the karting office and we went for a karting ride through Tokyo (shibuya, harakuju, etc) which was an amazing experience. It was already dark out so driving through these streets with all the flashy Tokyo lights is a must do in my opinion.
17/05 - TeamLab, Asakusa and akihabara
We headed to teamLab in the morning. It was a fun experience and I certainly don't regret doing it. Some of the exhibitions are really impressive. It was a bit crowded. We headed to Asakusa and wandered around the streets while heading for Senso-ji temple. Really cool temple. After that, we headed to Akihabara to stroll around and see some anime/manga/gaming related stores. We saw a few cool things and spent some time in the arcades but I was a bit disappointed by the lack of merch for the older manga and games. Everything seems to be about the new and popular anime which was a bit of a let down for me. Headed back to Shinjuku for dinner and called it a day.
18/05 - Disneysea Tokyo
My wife was super excited to go and see Disneysea so we did and boy we did not regret it! Sunny weather, not too many people and an overall fun experience. Contrary to what most people seem to be saying here, we actually arrived around 10.30 am and the gates were empty. We walked in, downloaded the app and just went to the attractions that had the less waiting time and we ended up doing almost all of them. Thrill wise I'd say we have way better attractions in Europe, but the scenery and details of the park are incredible. The rides are very immersive and beautifully done. I'm not a Disney fan at all but I really enjoyed my time there. A lot of the rides are meant for children as well so you can skip those. I really enjoyed the Indiana Jones, the horror tower and the volcano one.
19/05 Ginza & Shinjuku
Originally, we had planned quite a lot for this day, but my wife wasn't feeling great in the morning so we decided to sleep in and head out a bit later. We went to Ginza, visited the huge Uniqlo and did some shopping there. We then headed back for a calm night, had some fun in the arcades and finished up.
20/05 - Kawaguchiko
We took a bus in the morning at Shinjuku station to kawaguchiko and stayed in a Ryokan with a public onsen with a view on Fujisan. We really loved the atmosphere here as it was completely different from Tokyo. So calm and peaceful. We stayed at the hotel, we booked a private onsen and had a relax day/evening.
21/05 - kawaguchiko lake & arakura Sengen Shrine
We checked out of our hotel, headed to the station and took a train to the arakura Sengen Shrine stop. We went up the stairs (not too hard but it was hot so stay hydrated!) and enjoyed the magnificent view of Mt. Fuji with the shrine. It was a bit crowded and it was getting worse as time passed on. We decided to head down and go to Honcho Street. Nothing special about the street in itself, it just has a pretty cool view of fuji. Please be aware that fuji can get shy at times and is not always visible on a cloudy day. Don't lose hope, the clouds move around and you'll get to see fujisan. After that, we decided to head to the kawaguchiko station, rented some electric bikes (highly recommend) and we did the full tour of the kawaguchiko lake. It took us about 2.30 hours with stops and the electric bikes made it an easy and enjoyable experience. Cycling around the lake with the different parks and the mountains and mt fuji in the background is a magical experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone going to this region.
We headed back to the station, took a bus back to Tokyo and we were supposed to head to Kyoto but due to traffic delays, we missed the last shinkansen and booked an extra night in Tokyo.
This is the first part of our trip, I'll get back to the next part (Kyoto and Osaka) another time but please feel free to comment if you want more details on some aspects.
Edit : I forgot to add, for the karting you will be needing an international drivers licence or you can get yours translated in Japan. Someone did it for us so unfortunately I don't have the details on where exactly you can do it but I could find the info if needed, just send me message and I'll see what I can find out!

I parked in the tower's lot, letting my headlights bore into the amalgam of twisted metal and glass for a few moments before shutting them off.
Josh muttered, his voice low. "We're really doing this, huh?"
He ran a hand through his mop of curly hair— a dumb tic he developed last summer when his girlfriend, Annabeth, told him it was sexy. She was beside him now, cuddled up in the backseat across his lap.
I glanced at my own girlfriend, Ellie, in the passenger seat. She was trying her damndest to appear brave, but I knew better. There was no way she was comfortable with trespassing tonight.
I sighed, realizing that Josh would also chicken out.
"We're doing this? You sure you want to come?" I prodded.
Josh shifted in his seat, hand running through his hair yet again. "Maybe it's better if I stay in the truck.”
Annabeth shrugged next to him, unsurprised.
"Me, too,” Ellie chimed in, nodding at Josh.
Annabeth met my eyes, a glimmer of understanding passing between us. Our partners were both boring, god-awful goody two shoes.
"Pussies," I jabbed, swinging open my door without giving them a moment to respond.
Annabeth hopped out behind me, waving at the two losers in the truck before spinning towards me with a grin on her face.
"They're weird," she said, rolling her eyes.
For a moment, I was drinking in the way her golden hair shimmered in the moonlight. A light breeze tickled at our faces, sending sparkles of her moon-lit hair between us.
"Yup," I mustered.
I turned, strolling towards the chain link fence that formed a circular perimeter around the base of Sabe's Tower.
Sabe’s Tower. Thirteen stories of abandoned potential, whispering of times past when our town's inhabitants thought we'd hit a population boom, becoming the Houston of West Virginia. In the 70s, our success was tied to coal. Jobs flooded in, and with them, a myriad of people trying to make their way in life. Then the mines abruptly ran dry, decimating our town's economy. Since that time, our population has done nothing but dwindle.
Sabe’s Tower. Thirteen stories of decaying grandeur, silently rotting from the inside out. Some say that's what happened to Sabe himself— a rot took hold in his core, spreading and spreading until nothing but rot was left. In the end, he took his own life, which some say was for the best. He was a greedy fool, the wealthiest man for miles, owning half the surrounding countryside before the mining industry took off. Made a fortune selling his family's land to coal companies, putting every ounce of profit into making his towering hotel more luxurious than a Ritz Carlton.
Sabe’s Tower. Thirteen stories of failed dreams, now screaming vulgar obscenities at our eyes. It is a truly ugly behemoth, domineering our town's skyline with unmerited arrogance. Sabe thought painting the tower purple would give it an air of majesty, like royalties of the past, swaddled in silky lavender robes. His aspiration, after all, was nothing less than to emulate the sacred Tabernacle of Moses, to make his hotel a dwelling place for gods among men. In its current state of disrepair, however, the tower was no more than an eyesore— a visual cacophony of broken glass, peeling sickly-purple paint, and rusted steel inlays.
Adding to the hotel's disgrace, it was cylindrical in form, perched atop the highest peak for miles, jutting into the sky like a middle finger to the gods. Its phallic outline stood in stark contrast to the run-down strip malls lying in its wake.
The fence surrounding the tower was a bit too tall and a bit too wobbly to safely scale, so we circled, looking for an entry point. Every few yards, a DO NOT TRESPASS sign hung, tied to the fence with zip-ties in each corner. Someone had taken the liberty to spray paint a word underneath each sign, now making them all read:
DO NOT TRESPASS ALONE.
"Good thing you're coming with me," I joked, pointing at one of the signs.
Annabeth paused to read it for a moment. "Yeah... kinda weird that someone did that. I wonder why?"
I shrugged, continuing around the perimeter.
Eventually, we found a gate in the fence, held closed with chains at waist level. The gate's post careened steeply outward, creating a manageable gap near the top. The gate post was only held in place by the chains, not even slightly anchored to the ground. Without too much of a struggle, we hoisted ourselves up and through the gap.
Once inside the fence, I found myself spellbound by the abandoned hotel. The stars in the night sky reflected across the windows, bending and warping around the curved perimeter. Each glimmer of starlight turned into dizzying fractals, melding together and slipping between the shards of broken glass with each shift of my gaze.
The result was honestly breathtaking.
At night, the eyesoriffic tower was beautiful. Its silhouette dared to embrace the star-studded cosmos, standing with a quiet dignity that defied its daytime mockery.
I felt Annabeth shuffle beside me.
Suddenly, her phone flashlight was on, illuminating a path through overgrown concrete to the tower. At the end of the path was the structure’s entrance— a gaping hole with no attempt to conceal the darkness within.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" I yelled, spinning to face her.
"W... What do you mean?" she stuttered.
"Turn that off, you idiot," I explained, lowering my voice. "Someone might see the light and call the cops."
The light flicked off, Annabeth mumbling apologies.
I blinked away the afterimage of weeds eating through the concrete lot, silently cursing myself for being so ridiculously hostile toward her.
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"You're good, Donovan" she whispered, brushing her hand across my arm.
As we continued to the open doorway, the outside of the tower came into focus. It was far further dilapidated than I had realized— each accent of purple paint, faded and peeling, was bulging out from between the glass and steel like it was trying to escape. I rubbed a fingernail on the paint, revealing a soft, rotting wood beneath.
I entered the tower first, pausing to let my eyes adjust. The darkness of the doorway opened up into an atrium that must have once made for a magnificent entrance. It was shaped like a slice of pie, us standing near the crust, peering inward toward the center. Above was pitch black, not yielding any answers to just how high up this mighty room's ceiling stretched.
The musty scent that filled my nose was surprisingly welcoming— somewhere between the smell of fishing trips and century old bookstores. I took a deep breath, relishing in the soft stench.
I could vaguely make out wires dangling down from the ceiling of the atrium. They were impossibly long, stretching upward into the infinite gloom.
"They look like vines," Annabeth whispered, her voice a soft purr.
The air was thick with falling dust, filtering down from the abyss above, twirling between the wires in satisfyingly slow-motion. The falling dust made it even harder to see in the dark, leaving the walls on either side of the room foggy blobs. I waved my hand, sending fleeting dust spirals through the air.
I remembered seeing photos of the atrium online, taken on some of the earliest digital cameras ever made. Those pictures showed marble countertops, intricate wooden carvings, and lushly carpeted floors.
The room, as it stands today, is a barren husk of Sabe's vision. The carpet, only present in scattered clumps, was impossibly dark, soiled to the point of true black. It clung to the concrete foundation, viciously holding on for dear life in a losing battle.
I bent down to examine a clump of carpet in front of me, amazed by the absence of light reflecting back. It was like staring into a pit of nothing, a vague absence, an outline of something that should be there.
I poked the toe of my boot at it.
FPOOSH.
It exploded, erupting into my face.
I gagged instinctively, tasting the vile substance mix into my lungs. Annabeth slapped my back as I continued gagging and coughing, begging the mucus to tear itself free from my lungs and just fucking get out of my body because it feels like I'm dying oh GOD.
And eventually, it did.
The violent hacking subsided into slight wretching, then was gone.
"Are you okay?" Annabeth tested.
Do you think I'm fucking okay?
"What the fuck was that?" I spewed.
She bent over the clump of carpet. Underneath the blackened top layer that just violently erupted was a pale network of matted spiderwebs.
"Hmm..." she began, "It kind of looks like mycelium."
She met my raised eyebrow with an eye roll.
"You know, like the roots of a fungus or some shit, I don't know. I just saw the shrooms growing in Bryce's closet that one time he showed me his stash. This white stuff looks just like it. So I guess that makes this black stuff like the part of the shroom we eat, or whatever."
"Oh dip," I responded, nodding. "That makes sense. One time I saw a nature show about some plants that shoot their seeds everywhere when something touches them. It's probably just spreading its spores when we touch it."
"Yeah," she breathed, "pretty gnarly."
We shuffled deeper into the gloom, weaving between dangling cables and clumps of fungus. I felt a drop of moisture flick off a cable, sliding onto my arm.
I groaned. "Fuck. That cable was wet."
"Disgusting," she whispered back.
We made our way to the apex of the room, the center of the tower, revealing a rusted set of elevator doors leaning together like drunks at a quinceanera. The doorway to the stairs, however, beckoned to us with the same unobstructed, pitch-black allure that the tower's entrance emanated just minutes before.
In the dark, it's truly amazing how utterly void all open doorways look.
Upon stepping inside the stairwell, the world vanished. The only proof of having working eyes was a faint, vertical glow of light filtering through the door, abruptly fading into all-consuming black.
Every sound in the entire building bored through my soul, bouncing from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, echoing on and on for all of eternity. The stairwell, directly in the center of the decrepit hotel, was the focal point of every creaking floorboard, every popping nail, every howling gust of wind. It was as if I was holding up a monstrous conch shell to my ear— a deafening murmur of echoes in disarray, smelting together to form satanic harmonies.
"Whoa," Annabeth mumbled.
Her word cut through the other echoes, impossibly loud against their monotonous hum.
Instantly, the echo of her voice filled the stairwell, rising like the build up of a dubstep song until peaking, impossibly overwhelming for a few brief seconds. The echoes of her voice then faded as quickly as they arrived.
She put a hand to her mouth, the whites of her eyes barely visible in the glow coming from the doorway.
I reached out, placing a hand where her shoulder should be. There was not enough space for us to stand abreast in the stairwell, leaving us in a comically squished proximity. She was breathing rapidly, barely managing to stay silent. I squeezed, and her breathing quickly slowed. I felt her hand creep onto mine, and we stood for a minute, simply listening to the cries of the dying building echo around us.
As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a staircase spiraling up the curved wall. Clearly this was a service stairwell, as it is much too cramped for the likes of Sabe's guests. Only a few steps were visible through the darkness at a time, making the staircase feel even tinier than it already was. Luckily, no fungus grew on the stairs themselves, leaving the metal alone to rust.
Annabeth shuffled onto the first step, producing a small object from her pocket. She handed it to me, then pointed up the stairwell, careful to not send echoes through the cylindrical chamber again.
I brought it close to my eyes for inspection, straining against the lack of light.
A joint...
She wants to go to the roof and smoke.
A smile cracked my lips. Classic Annabeth.
Every couple stairsteps, there would be a doorway. Most of them let in a dim glow, offering a glimpse into what must have once been a custodial closet on each floor.
On floor 9, I tugged at Annabeth's hand. We made eye contact in the faint light coming from the doorway. I motioned through it, pointing to the nearly fungus free floor. I wanted to explore at least a little bit, to see if the closet circled around the stairwell or not.
I poked my head through the doorway, freeing myself from the overwhelming cacophony of echoes in the stairwell.
I verified that the closet did, in fact, curve around the circular staircase like a donut. A few steps in one direction led to a terrifying drop— the elevator shaft. Next to it, a sidewalk sized ledge led to an open door, giving a view of the floor's main hallway. The path looked safe— no fungus, cracks, or otherwise obvious defects— so I proceeded, treading as light as a fox, fumbling for Annabeth's hand behind me.
The main hallway ran between the custodial closet and the guest rooms, creating another donut ring around the central stairwell. Throughout the hallway, patches of fungus grew alarmingly close together, threatening to overtake the concrete.
"That stairwell was insane," Annabeth whispered.
I nodded. "Fuck yeah, I wonder what it was like when the hotel was actually open. Must have been miserable for the staff."
We weaved through the fungus filled hallway, coming to room 901. I glanced at Annabeth, raising my eyebrows. The door was slightly ajar, hanging from its one remaining door hinge. I pushed gently, eliciting a monstrous creak.
The room was empty, extending away to the outside in a familiar pie shape. The mold seemed to grow thinner in the room, leaving most of the exposed concrete safe to cross. At the far side, a floor to ceiling panel of windows looked out over our town.
I gasped, taking in the view. Never before had I seen our town from this high up. My eyes drew to the smokestacks by the river, their blinking lights ominously flickering over downtown. Individual streets ran in parallel lines away from the tower, lit with yellowing streetlights. Between the roads, tiny lights cast from window panes twinkled, blending with one another into a starscape of their own.
"Dude," I said. "Look at this."
No response.
I spun, looking for Annabeth, frantically scanning the room. My eyes had adjusted to the outside light, leaving me sightless.
"Annabeth," I hissed.
A cold tingle went up my spine, pulling at hairs on the back of my neck.
"Annabeth?"
​
Silence.
​
Silence.
​
Silence.
​
I crept back across the floor, now aware of the entire room at once. There was nowhere for her to be hiding. No desks, cans of paint, ladders, nothing. Just an empty room with patchy fungus growing on the cement.
Something must have happened.
I studied each fungal growth in the room as I passed by. Even with the light cast from the windows, the tops remained impossibly dark. Not a single feature was discernible— only an outline was visible.
Halfway to the door, a three foot wide hole led straight to floor 8. I could have sworn it wasn't there before. I peered into the opening, seeing straight through to the room below. From what I could see, it was identically empty.
"Annabeth," I tried again, nearing the door to the hallway.
"BOO!"
I stumbled backward, tripping over my own feet. I landed squarely on a patch of fungus.
FPOOSH.
I remembered to hold my breath, close my eyes, and plug my nose.
Annabeth cackled from the threshold of the doorway, standing over me with both hands on her forehead.
"You should have seen the look—" she began, breaking off into another fit of laughter.
"Shut up," I groaned, pushing to my feet. My entire body was covered in squishy fungus gunk. I pointed at the hole behind me, continuing. "You could have killed me."
"Blah, blah, blah," she mocked. "You're fine... you're just being a baby."
Annabeth gave me a playful shove, hands lingering for a moment overdue. Swatting her paws off me, I marched back to the stairwell. I led the rest of the way to floor 13, followed by her snickers.
As I reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the 13th floor, my jaw dropped. It was a scene straight out of a surrealist painting. An enormous pool room lay before us. Glass walls extended up from the tile floors, creating a massive, clear domed perimeter. A swath of stars twinkled brilliantly through the clear ceiling, their light refracting through the glass, casting ethereal patterns onto the room's otherwise bleak surroundings.
The pool itself was a semi-circular cutout covering half the floor space, starting at ground level and deepening in a corkscrew motion. Its ceramic tiles, once probably a bright blue, were now tinged with patches of the same fungal growth we had come across on the lower floors. The growth was sparse here, though, letting the original floor design take prominence.
In the center of the room— on top of the staircase we just stepped out of— stood a circular pillar that extended up to the middle of the glass dome, like a spine holding up the entire tower. A small antenna jutted out from above the pillar atop the dome. Surrounding the antenna was a low fence, perhaps a safety measure for maintenance workers.
Annabeth, having finally contained her laughter, stepped beside me, her face illuminated by the soft starlight filtering in through the dome. She too stood silent, taken aback by the unexpected beauty of this forgotten space.
As we moved around the room, our steps echoed across the vast emptiness. With every patch of fungus we passed, the same eerie darkness hovered, the undulating mold standing stark against the ceramic tiles.
We made our way back to the central pillar. A ladder, carved into the pillar, connected to the glass ceiling with a trapdoor.
"To the roof?" Annabeth sang, rubbing her hands together in a goblin-like motion.
"Ladies first."
As she climbed above me, I couldn't help but crane my neck and drool. She slammed open the trapdoor, and we burst through to the roof.
The fenced-in area was covered with a dark spongy surface, gripping at my knees when I stood up. Wind whipped around us, carrying a chill that cut through my clothes and bit into my skin. With each gust, the antenna above us groaned and swayed, almost as if it were joining in a dance with an unseen partner.
We sat on the squishy rubber surface, comfortably in silence. I met her eyes, smiling dumbly. We passed the joint back and forth until it dwindled down, its ember glow flickering one last time before extinguishing completely. A familiar haze crawled through my thoughts, slowing the passage of time to a languishing crawl.
"Hey..." she started, "I think I've finally found inspiration for my next album."
I scooted closer to her, taking her hand. I knew the topic brought about an unusual timidity in her— a blemish in the badass persona she's so keen on presenting. She won't even talk to her own boyfriend about her music career.
"Yeah?" I floated.
She hesitated for a second, settling into the moment. I felt a tug at my crotch, suddenly all too aware of how pretty she looked in the moonlight. I took in every detail— the way her hair fell across her face, the pattern of her freckles, the soft speckling of stars reflecting across her eyes.
"I think you need to take off your shirt, first, though," she whispered, now inches from my face. "You're filthy."
I glanced down, remembering the fungal gunk that had soiled my clothes when she scared me.
Without warning, her hands slid under my shirt, warm and sure. I helped her yank it off, collapsing into her lips.
***
When we got back to the truck, I was still high enough to see everything in slow motion. Before pulling out of the parking lot, Annabeth and I regurgitated the events of our urban exploration, trying to show our significant others what fun they missed out on. It goes without saying that part of the story was intentionally omitted.
Ellie and Josh were unamused. Their lack of adventure will forever be a mystery to me.
We swung out of the lot, hopping onto the highway headed into town. I swayed between lanes, struggling to keep the double-yellow lines in focus.
"Are you sure you're good to drive?" Ellie asked, gripping the armrest.
"I'm fine," I slurred.
Seconds later, another truck materialized in front of us. I swerved to avoid it, then everything went black.
***
I woke up to a strong hand pulling me out of the window. My truck was upside down, the roof completely caved in.
I groaned. "Aww... fuck...."
The person who pulled me out looked like the kind of guy to chew tobacco and spit wisdom. His fishing cap cast a deep shadow across his eyes in the moon's glow, concealing his gaze. He was an old timer, that's for sure, one of those folk who came during the coal rush and decided to stay when all was said and done. I could see his truck— the same truck I saw moments before the crash— pulled into the shoulder of the highway with its blinkers on.
"Easy now," he reassured, his voice like gravel under a boot. "Anyone else inside?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
I plopped onto the grassy slope embarking off the side of the road. The old man pulled their mangled bodies out, one by one.
The countryside shrank around me. I felt the corners of my vision pulling in, the weed in my system straining the limits of shock I could take before melting down.
"I'm sorry, son," he whispered, his voice carrying the weight of my guilt. "The police will be here soon. Don't you worry."
The police.
I stood up. I knew exactly how the police treated people with my skin color in this town.
I ran.
"Hey now!" the man hollered.
I kept running.
Away from my truck, away from my dead friends, away from the police.
I ran until my breath came in ragged, uncontrollable huffs. I flopped to the ground, laying on the cool concrete, cradling my head with my hands. Blood flowed between my fingertips, pooling onto the pavement.
I laid there until police sirens wailed through the night, rapidly approaching. They stopped at the wreck, leaving me in silence. Moments later, the sirens picked up their mournful song again, heading toward me.
I sat up.
I was back in the lot of Sabe's Tower. Only then did I realize how little distance I really ran from the wreck— a couple hundred yards at most.
Four, five, maybe even six sirens filled the air. They were all coming for me. They knew what I had done.
I bolted from my position on the concrete. I could hide in the tower. No way the cops would look for me in that rotting place. They wouldn't dare.
I squeezed through the gap in the fence, same as before, vaulting past the
DO NOT TRESPASS ALONE
signs in a fluid lunge. The sirens behind me screamed into the night, melding together into a continuous doomsday chant.
Red and blue lights filled the lot. I hit the ground right in front of the gaping entrance to the tower, praying that the weeds poking through the concrete would be enough to mask my form. I army crawled, inch by inch, dragging myself across broken bottles and plywood shrapnell, until I was safely in the darkness of the tower.
In.
Out.
I breathed.
In.
Out.
A police cruiser parked in the lot. Its siren drowned out all other wails for a moment before shutting off. A chubby white officer hopped out, surveying the scene. His gaze came to rest on the spot where I had lain. He squatted down, raking a finger through the pool of blood I left behind. He took a few steps toward the tower, squatting down yet again. Another splotch of blood, no doubt.
His voice floated through the plaza, slightly nasal and a little out of breath. "Dispatch, this is officer Chetty, badge number 741. I'm on the scene at 1019 Pleasant Valley Lane, in the lot of Sabe's Tower. I've located a pool of fresh blood that may be linked to our hit-and-run suspect. Possible injury, suspect could be close. Requesting immediate backup and forensics for evidence collection."
Fuck.
I wormed my way further into the tower's belly, sliding between patches of fungus like a mouse in a snake pit, heading for the stairwell. I had to ascend, to find some nook or cranny out of reach of the pursuing officers. The godforsaken tower was one big game of hide and seek, only this time, losing meant far worse than a bruised ego.
Something gurgled in the darkness.
My blood froze. I halted, my heart hammering a tattoo against my ribs. Holding my breath, I strained my senses, eyes peering into the graying murk, searching for the source of the sound.
It came again, a wretched retching, like an animal choking on its own vomit. Hacking, gurgling, bubbling wetness bursting through strained vocal chords, a sound of fading vitality. It was coming from near the door, just outside the meager halo of light slipping through the hole.
A wet line smeared across the back of my neck. A yelp escaped my lips before I realized it was just a cord dangling from the ceiling.
At my yelp, the gurgling paused.
A heavy hush fell over the place, the quietude of the hunted.
I could faintly make out echoes emanating from the stairwell, only a few feet behind me.
The gurgling continued, sucking at the thick air. It began to drag itself forward through the fungus covered floor— a slow, steady, rhythmic drag against the concrete.
FPOOSH.
A geyser of spores bloomed, mingling with swirls of dust in the meager light. The creature, or whatever it was, did not slow its approach. Out of the darkness, a form began to shape— a silhouette clawing its way toward me.
FPOOSH.
I could see this eruption envelop the mass on the floor. One hand appeared, then another. Its fingers scrabbled over the concrete, searching for any purchase to grip. They flexed, heaving the thing even closer.
A mop of curly hair appeared between the hands. A body, face down. It pulled itself closer, into another fungal growth, grinding its face through the rough concrete.
FPOOSH.
A knife protruded from its back. The handle jutted upward, a grim totem amidst the grime and gore. I shuddered, involuntarily taking a step closer to the stairwell.
It looked up at me.
Or rather, Josh looked up at me.
I stared back, mouth agape.
His face was nearly sanded off from the concrete. His nose took the worst of it, ground down to the bone, leaving only two sucking, gurgling holes between his eyes. His cheeks were a mangled mess of blood and rocks, viscous red flowing freely to the tip of his chin before dribbling off. The chunks of meat hanging where lips should have been flapped against his teeth with every jerky motion, tethered to his face by all too little strands of flesh. Beneath them, his teeth showed bright red and white in a perpetual grimacing smile.
"Josh?" I managed to whisper, my voice a frightened squeak.
Josh opened his mouth as if to respond, ripping both cheeks in half. He hacked, gurgling, spitting up blood that came from deep within his torso. He slowly cocked his head to the side, but instead of stopping at a slant, he kept twisting his neck until bones started to crack and his head dangled upside down.
His mangled, upside down head swung limply as he pulled himself to his knees, his neck like jelly. He wasn't wearing the same clothes he was wearing earlier tonight— no, he was wearing clothes from the night Annabeth first cheated on him with me. He was at a Villanova game, supporting his favorite team since birth. Annabeth knew he would be gone for the weekend, so we took our chance. I was still at her place when he came back, wearing his Collin Gillespie jersey and reeking of beer.
Now in front of me, his prized jersey was in tatters, torn to ribbons by the concrete. He groaned, shuffling and reaching for me with bloody fingers.
I bolted into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. I pushed myself faster and faster until the door to floor 9 loomed to my side. I didn't pause for a moment, pushed forward by the gurgling echoes reverberating from below.
My thighs, weak from the frantic climb, begged for a break. I wobbled into the hallway, painfully tip-toeing through the fungus. The door to 901 beckoned ahead, hanging open like it had been awaiting my hasty return.
I stumbled over the threshold when Annabeth's singing filled the room. "Oh, Donovan!"
I froze.
Outlined against the window was a two-headed beast. One face belonged to Annabeth, the other to Ellie. The creature swayed, an obscene dance of bare, fused flesh. It wore no clothes, as if to mock God himself. It had two sets of everything— eight appendages total, like a humanoid arachnid. Annabeth's breasts, now side by side with Ellie's, put Ellie to shame, even now.
Annabeth crooned again, "Oh, Donovan!" each syllable laced with acid and honey. The sound made my skin crawl as it floated through the silent room.
"You always did want more, didn't you Donovan?" Ellie sneered, a harsh grin splitting her face.
Annabeth spat, "More than Ellie could give. More than anyone could give."
The thing dropped to the floor with a thud. All eight limbs moved in unison as it crawled.
"Isn't this what you wanted? Both of us at the same time?" Their voices tumbled over each other, mouths moving in synchrony. Together, their laughter filled the hollow room. "Don't you like the thrill, Donovan? Don't you like playing with fire?"
The thing scurried at me, jumping over fungal growths with powerful leaps. The sudden movement broke my paralyzation, spurring my legs to action. I darted into the closet and through the stairwell door, into the gurgling echoes.
Back down the stairwell I ran, the two headed beast in pursuit. Both girls snarled, hindered by their conjoined size in the narrow passageway. Their struggle echoed through the stairwell, mixing with the gurgling. I fled further down, needing to put distance between that thing and me.
I stopped dead in my tracks between floors 2 and 3.
Josh was there, leaning against the wall with the knife removed from his back, now grasped tightly in his hand. I staggered back up the stairs, instinctively retreating, narrowly avoiding the blade as he lunged at me.
Glancing up, I caught a flash of pale skin bearing down on me, cutting off my escape. My only way out was the door to floor 3. I charged through the closet, leaving the echoes behind me.
Floor 3 was empty— no walls, only fungus and windows. The atrium loomed to my left, a pie shaped hole missing from the floor and ceiling. I backed away from the door, eyeing the dangling cords hanging in the atrium.
Maybe... Just maybe....
Josh stumbled from the stairwell, filling the air with his wet slurping. Annabeth and Ellie followed, scrambling toward me.
I didn't have time to think.
I jumped, grasping at the dangling wires, praying they would hold my weight.
Time stuttered, hanging suspended like an icicle on a winter's morning. The world spun in a dizzying blur as I twisted, fingers stretching for a grip. Panic clawed its icy fingers up my spine, but it was the surprise that struck me most. The simple disbelief that this was happening.
A wire found its way into my hand, snapping without slowing my fall.
The wind whooshed past, ripping the breath from my lungs. Above me, the third floor retreated, its grimy concrete replaced by a view of the atrium's ceiling, wires swinging back and forth from my desperate escape.
Then came the sensation of falling. It's a feeling that strikes a primal chord, an orchestra of fear and adrenaline that means the end of a life. My stomach lurched, free-falling alongside me, while the rest of my body seemed to hover in a state of disbelief.
The impact came as both a shock and an inevitability. There was a moment of sheer, undiluted pain, a soundless scream reverberating through my very bones. It felt like being shattered from the inside out, an explosion of agony that started from my back and radiated outwards. An iron-hot spike of pain shot through me, and then, a chilling void as everything below my waist slipped into a terrifying numbness.
The echo of my body's collision rang in my ears as the world spun into a disorienting whirl of blurs, shadows, and pain. The cold concrete beneath me felt real, solid, a chilling contrast to the sudden loss of sensation in my legs.
In the throbbing silence that followed, I understood. I had fallen. I was broken. I lay sprawled on the atrium floor, gasping, the world tilting dangerously in my vision.
Annabeth and Ellie emerged from the staircase, scrambling across the atrium floor. Red and blue police lights filtered through the tower’s windows, making shadows dance between the monster's eight limbs. Josh wasn't far behind, still clutching onto the bloody knife, head rolling upside down between his shoulders.
"Police, we're coming in!" a familiar nasally voice shouted.
The moment officers stepped foot in the tower, the monsters vanished in a spray of spores.
​
X

Special thanks to u/That_guy_why for letting me remake this thread

Roger Smith and The Big O

"Big O! Showtime!"

Opening
Roger Smith is a Negotiator in Paradigm City, a city whose residents lost all memories 40 years ago. He will negotiate nearly anything, from kidnappings to pet ownership, for nearly anyone, provided both sides of the negotiation play fair. However, he refuses to work with the Paradigm Corporation unless absolutely necessary. Roger is also the pilot of the Big O, one of the giant robots known as Megadeuses. Whenever the city is threatened by another Megadeus or a giant monster, Roger calls in Big O to save the day.
Hover over the feat for the episode number.

Roger Smith

"My name is Roger Smith. My other name is Negotiator, a much-needed job here in Paradigm City, a city that has lost its memory"

The Watch

• Used to call Big O to his location
• Alerts Roger that he has been locked onto with a missile launcher
• Has a grappling line
  • Grabs the top of a building after jumping out of a window
  • Grabs the railing of a walkway and pulls himself and Angel up
  • Grabs the fender of his car while its on top of a factory roof
  • Swings from a gargoyle
  • Ascends a building, grabbing Norman along the way
  • Takes down Vera from a distance
• Has a radar that shows Big O's position
• Communicates with Norman
• A laser that cuts through a metal cuff

The Griffon

• Armors itself to prevent theft
• Roger uses the watch to have the car fire missiles
  • Blows a hole in the roof of a factory and drops two missiles into it
• Has a radio and video screen inside
• Has machine guns on the front that tear through wooden signs
• Can self-drive
• Picks up police radio and changes its color
• Drives through a brick wall
• Bulletproof with the armor activated and drops mines to blow up robots
• The guns, missiles, and mines destroy robots and a road barricade
• Warns Roger of danger

Physicals

Strength

• Pulls Dorothy free from wiring and carries her
  • Dorothy is stated to weigh 130 kg and a man can't move her
• Throws a chair through the window of a submerged building
• Snaps the device controlling Dorothy in half
• Breaks out of metal cuffs

Durability

• [Limit] Gets knocked out by a taser
• [Limit] Gets knocked out by a blow to the head with a rifle
• Jumps out of a window unharmed
• Falls off a ladder
• Runs through fire
• Shrugs off getting knocked back by an explosion at his feet
• Gets smashed through the top of a stone column
• Gets crushed by Dorothy for a time
  • Dorothy can lift and throw a bicycle and two men with one hand and knocks a locked prison door out of its frame

Speed/Agility

• Catches up to a small submarine on foot
• Dodges bullets
• Jumps a fair distance through a window and lands in his car as its driving
• Dodges a crane
• Dodges swipes from an android
• Blocks a surprise stab from behind with a book

Skill/Misc

Resources

• Has an informant
• His butler Norman maintains and repairs his car and Big O
  • Norman carries a big gun

Skill/Intelligence

• Can tell that the Griffon's break efficiency has dropped by 1/8th
• Uses Dorothy as a decoy to draw enemy fire
• Repositions Big O so that the Megadeus trying to reel him in is pushed back
• Gets out of the ropes he's tied up in
• Though he doesn't carry a gun and refuses to shoot people, he's a fairly accurate marksman
• Explains how to negotiate kidnappings
• Blinds Big Duo with the Chrome Buster, allowing him to dodge his attack unseen
• Uses his jacket as a decoy while fleeing a pursuer
• Hears Alan ready his gun from a distance away
• Grabs a pipe (from somewhere) to counter Alan rushing him with a sword
• Throws Alan over his shoulder

Misc

• Makes pretty good scrambled eggs
• Not very good at painting faces

Misc Gear

• Activates a briefcase with jets attached to it using a remote
• A key mold pen
• A flashlight
• Binoculars
• A zipline briefcase
• His house has a defense system

Big O

"Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty"

Physicals

Strength

Striking

• Sticks its hand through a parking structure to catch a van driving away from it
• Stomps through the street to reach underground
• Breaks a Megadeus' faceplate with a punch
• Tackles a giant chimera through a laboratory complex
• Punches through a giant sword and knocks back a Megadeus
• Knocks the Leviathan down the street
• Punches through a wall and destroys two robots
• Clashes with Big Duo's diving punch, making a shockwave that shatters the windows on a nearby building and tosses cars, though it ends up with a damaged arm

Lifting/Throwing

• Tosses aside a smaller Megadeus
• Yanks a Megadeus to him using the Mobydick Anchors and lifts it with one arm
• Throws a giant robot high into the air
• Lifts the Behemoth, a massive Megadeus and destroys it off-screen

Pushing/Tearing

• Pushes a Megadeus into a building hard enough to shift it back
• Tears apart a giant sea monster's tongue
• Tears apart the chimera's tendrils and rips off its arm
• Tears off the plating covering Big Duo's pilot area

Other

• Overpowers Big Duo
• Catches Big Fau's rocket arms right after they plow through a building

Durability

Impact

• Blocks a bunch of blows from a Megadeus with its arm plating
  • The Megadeus was strong enough to lift Big O
• Gets hit by a glancing attack from a Megadeus
• Gets tackled by a smaller Megadeus
• Gets knocked over by a smaller Megadeus after throwing it
• Gets continuously blasted by a Megadeus' sonic weapon
  • An accident involving the weapon at the lab where it was created left a massive crater in the ground
• Gets tackled across a dome and through a building by Big Duo
• Blocks a dropkick from a Megadeus
• Gets thrown into a building by a Megadeus
• Gets tackled by the same Megadeus
  • The Megadeus matched Big O in strength
• Blocks more punches from the Megadeus with its arm plating until it gives up
• Gets tackled through a bridge by the Hydra

Piercing

• Takes a hit from a Megadeus' drill
  • Another Megadeus, using the same drill, drilled through concrete
• The Megadeus' drills bounce off its arm plating
• Blocks Big Duo's machine guns with its arm plating
• Blocks Big Duo's drills with its arm plating
• Blocks Big Fau's saw with its arm plating
• Big Fau's saw shaves off its crown, but doesn't damage the head underneath
• Takes a hit from Big Fau's saw to the torso

Energy

• Gets shocked by a sea monster - Again
  • The sea monster's electricity disabled a car and lit up a city
• Gets hit by a bunch of fireballs from a Megadeus
• Lasers that carve through buildings and a dome just bounce off its arm plating/crown
• Takes electricity from three Megadeus
  • A Megadeus made of components from those three shoots electricity that carves through buildings, a bridge, and tanks
• Blocks a Megadeus' laser with its arm plating
  • The laser blew up Military Police vehicles
• Gets hit with the Hydra's electricity
  • The Hydra's electricity caused large explosions
• Blocks several laser blasts from Big Fau

Explosives

• Blocks missiles with its arm plating
• Tanks missiles from a Megadeus
• Blocks Big Duo's missiles with its arm plating

Limits

• Its arm is ripped off by a point blank sonic attack

Speed

• Uses the Mobydick Anchors to dodge explosive fireballs
• Intercepts missiles
• Grabs a giant chimera as it leaps at him then slams it down
• Avoids finger lasers from a Megadeus
• Blocks Big Fau's laser blast

Misc

• Big O is 30 m tall
• Escapes a Megadeus' tendrils after being lifted into the air
• Destroyed a power plant off screen
• Either tanks or avoids two missiles from Big Duo
• Moves on its own to come to Roger's rescue

Equipment

Sudden Impact

• Uses the pistons on its arms to enhance the strength of its punches, blowing a hole through a Megadeus' torso
• Gives a van a good shake
• Pulling back the piston knocks the sea monster entangling it off
• Boosts itself back to the surface while underwater
• Destroys a Megadeus' head
  • The Megadeus was undamaged by missiles that knocked it back into a building hard enough to crater it
• Beheads a Megadeus without harming the people inside
• Punches a hole in a giant tree and the building it enveloped
• The air pressure punches through two skyscrapers
• Destroys Big Duo's head and makes a large crater in the ground beneath it
• Knocks back two Megadeus, leaving craters in their chests
• Destroys a piece of space debris
  • The debris was undamaged by the Chrome Buster
• Blows a hole through the chest of a giant construction robot
• Punches a Megadeus through a very thick concrete wall

Mobydick Anchors

• Fires a hip-mounted chain-linked anchor that stabs into a Megadeus
• Catches Big Duo as it's flying away
• Hooks to the top of a dome
• Fires anchors in a spread around it, piercing through three Megadeus, though they were previously damaged by Sudden Impacts, as well as a ship
• Have claws and can be finely controlled for delicate operations
• Lift Big Duo into the air
• Stops itself from falling over
• Pulls Big Fau into the water as it's falling in

Missile Party

• Launches a bunch of missiles from its abdomen, lifting a smaller Megadeus into the air and destroying it in the explosion, which also damages the area above ground
• Precisely blows off just a Megadeus' sonic weapons while leaving the pilot unharmed
• A few missiles damage a giant tree and the building it enveloped

Cannon Party

• Fires machine guns out of its chest, exploding and burning off Big Duo's bandages
• Breaks part of Big Duo's armor

O Thunder

• Fires an array of machine guns in its arm to destroy a Megadeus
• One shots Beck's Megadeus
• Blows off Big Duo's head and blows a hole through the line of skyscrapers behind it

Arc Line

• Shoots beams out of its eyes that destroys chunks of buildings
• Blows a hole in a Megadeus
• Blows up a giant robot containing bombs
• Cuts through part of a giant tree

Chrome Buster

• Fires a beam of energy from its head that tears through a giant sea monster
• Blows a hole in a dome
• Destroys the Leviathan's head
• Cuts off and destroys two of the Hydra's heads

Plasma Gimmick

• Makes an energy shield that blocks the Hydra's electricity, then expands with a powerful shockwave to annihilate it

Final Stage

• Produces an energy cannon that does massive damage to Big Fau and the surrounding area of the dome
  • This attack requires Dorothy to perform and appears to break after being used once

Misc

• Travels the city via an abandoned railway system and rises through the ground
  • Rises through the ground wherever it is
  • Rises through an entire skyscraper
• Tracks down the location of a man who was remotely piloting the Megadeus he just fought
• Determines the position of a Megadeus using holograms by tracking the path of the projectiles it fired
• Has a compartment in its hand that holds Angel
• Identifies that a giant robot is carrying bombs
• Has a garage in its foot for the Griffon
• Releases a smokescreen

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/5vn3blL
I can take Apple Cash, Venmo or Zelle. Paypal is no longer allowing me to take Family and Friends payments because it is a business account. NO NOTES! First Dibs gets it. Make offers through PM or Chat, not in the thread. Sales over $20 are free shipping. Add $5 for shipping if under $20. I will not ship high capacity magazines to banned states.
Again! No notes on any transaction except for Emojis on Venmo Payments. Venmo Payments should be friends and family and not Goods and Services.
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SOLD~~Bundle of 4 – Magpul 300 Blackout Magazine (30 round capacity) - $50 shipped~~SOLD
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Easter Island (Rapa Nui) was truly one of the most amazing places I've ever visited and I would love to go back there someday - 5 days was not enough.
There is a process to get to Easter Island, although fairly simple. Here are a few things to know ahead of time:
It's a 5-hour direct flight from Santiago, Chile.
You have to fill out the online Formulario de Ingreso a Rapa Nui (Rapa Nui Entry Form) (IRN). I printed the form out after submitting it, although this turned out to not be necessary. You go through a special line at the airport in Santiago and they look up your passport in their database - they know if you have submitted the form.
https://ingresorapanui.interior.gob.cl/
You have to have reserved accommodations that are registered with the National Tourism Service (SERNATUR). This was stated very clearly with the AirBnB that I booked.
You have to have an official guide to visit any of the archaeological sites that are within the National Park, which is about half of the island. It's best to buy an entry ticket for the National Park ahead of time (about US $80), which can be done online:
https://www.rapanuinationalpark.com/pages/compra-de-tickets
Print out the ticket and always have it with you. There are entry stations at each of the major archaeological sites and they will stamp it there.
Hanga Roa is the only town, its small but there are lots of shops and restaurants, a good place to buy souvenirs. Internet is extremely limited throughout the island, but there is a little café on the main street that has great wi-fi. It's called La creperia Rapa Nui, the food and service are great, and the tropical juices are so refreshing in the hot weather.
Some of the top sites to see:
Orongo: old ceremonial site where the bird man contest took place each year to choose a new leader. It is located on a high cliff, right next to the Rano Kau volcanic crater. A small trail runs around the top of the crater.
Rano Raraku: a spectacular quarry where all of the moais (the carved heads) were carved, then transported around the island. There is a 2-kilometer trail that winds through the quarry, past lots of partially carved moais. You really appreciate having a guide here because every moai has its own story.
One thing I didn't know before I got there: there are more than 800 moais that form a circle around the island. ALL OF THEM were knocked over about 300 years ago during a period of inter-tribal warfare. The ones you see in photos have been restored by archaeologists in the past 50 years.
Tongariki: this is the largest restored platform, with 15 moais. It is an amazing place to watch the sunrise. You need a guide with transportation, because it is about 15 kilometers outside of Hanga Roa. My guide threw a bicycle in the back of her pickup and I rode the 15 kilometers back to town after sunrise, past big herds of horses and lots of old fallen moais and platforms along the coast.
Anakena: on the northern coast of the island, this is the beach where the Rapanui people first landed 1,000 years ago. It is spectacular, with a large platform that has 4 moais. There are also several small restaurants, the best ceviche I've ever had anywhere in the world.
Tahai: just north of Hanga Roa, easy walking distance. A platform with 5 moais and a single one by itself, this is the place to watch the amazing sunsets.
There is an excellent guidebook that is available on the island in both English and Spanish. A Companion to Easter Island, by James Grant-Peterkin.
The Rapanui people are very warm and friendly, although not many people speak English. The island is part of Chile, so everybody speaks Spanish and about half the people speak the Polynesian language of Rapa Nui. Two important words in Rapa Nui will be greatly appreciated:
Iorana: hello, goodbye, how are you? good morning - this is the Easter Island equivalent of aloha.
Māuru-uru: thank you

Part 3
The landscape changed as Gary prowled through it. It started as the farmland he remembered so well. Small copses of trees began to appear as he moved around, hunting. Between them, individual trees began to appear. The buildings, small houses and sheds, mostly, thinned out as the trees grew thicker. The ground grew steeper and mountains rose around him.
Before long, he was prowling the slopes of a narrow wooded valley. He could see ixlets darting through the woods around him. He glanced down the slope and saw a mix of greasers and Taliban, moving through the trees.
He moved further down the valley, towards the Taliban and greasers. They ignored him, except to keep their distance. That suited Gary just fine, as he was after a different prey.
Down below the greasers, the landscape changed again. The trees thinned out and vanished, replaced by rocky, windswept tundra, dotted by small lakes. He found a ruin there, massive gray stones emerging from the ground.
He moved past the ruin. Trees appeared again, but instead of oak and ceder and ash, he found mangroves and pines and huge ceibos. They came together, getting denser and denser until he stepped out onto a large rock and could see the town of Esteli spread out before him.
He continued on, into the narrow streets. The buildings crowded together, wall to wall. There were signs everywhere; for the shops that dotted the streets, for American companies that selflessly graced the slums of Nicaragua with their business, for local brands, for strip clubs and bars.
The people crowded the streets, competing with the tiny cars and occasional donkey. Gary moved on.
The streets changed. The crowds changed, too. They had darker skin and wore less clothes. Trikes began to appear, enclosed three-wheeled ramblers built around a motorcycle frame. A sign pointed him to Clara Town in English.
This time, Gary paused. He remembered this place. Monrovia, Liberia. On the west coast of Africa. His first contract for the Agency had brought him here. The spook he was here to protect had been a stupid little shit that had ruined his own operation and gotten them into a gunfight. He'd met Drake here, as well. The younger man's bright pink hair had stood out to Gary, a massive cross-section on his gaydar.
He remembered being holed up in a run-down hovel following the fight. Everybody was injured, but nobody had died. Gary was down to two mags, one of them in his rifle and the other half-empty in a pouch on his chest. Drake had offered him a blowjob for the half-empty mag, confirming Gary's suspicions about which way he swung. Gary had handed it over without a word, but as they rode away in a beat up minivan driven by one of their assets, he'd leaned over and asked Drake to pay up, half jokingly.
Well, maybe a quarter jokingly.
That had been a bad day, but far from the worst he'd seen. And not someplace he would find the bugbear.
"Where the fuck are you, ya foggy little goblin?" Gary muttered. This place felt wrong. He remembered what Inanna had said, somewhere else.
"...They're not intelligent, though they can speak."
Gary glanced around. This place... This was not a place of fear. This was a place of a curious, entertaining memory. Frustrating, at the time, and painful as well. But not frightening. Not like those fields where he'd killed the boys.
The bugbear wasn't here, he realized. It hadn't been any of the places he'd been. Instead, it had been sending him away from it. Sending him to places where he'd hunt the thing, while it...
Gary knew where to go.
He pictured the park and began to walk.
He tried to work it out. He was in his own head. He needed to get out, to get back to the real world. He reached out with his magical senses, feeling the world around him. It felt... Delicate. As if it would fall apart at a simple touch. Experimentally, he reached out with a bit of magic. The buildings on one side of the street crumbled.
He pushed out harder, reaching out all around him, tearing the world apart with magic, until he floated in a deep void. From here, he could feel the real world. It was up. He turned his face in that direction and flew.
----
Inanna Williams, Fucking Shit Balls, Motherfucking Cock Sucker
She would not call Jerry. Or Yarm, or Sookie, or anyone else who might be awake right now. But she was getting pretty fucking disgusted with this thing. Suzanne crouched below one of the picnic tables as Inanna held her sword in her hands and kept herself between the bugbear and the girl.
Her sword blazed with fire, of course. Drawing flame from metal was one of the simplest acts of magic, an effect easily imbued into any artifact. And the weapons forged by Grandfather were works of art, pristinely forged and crafted and eager to soak up any enchantments they could. The flames were good, they helped. They weren't the problem.
Keeping magic suffused through her body was the problem.
She'd already moved around more magic today than she had in the last week. The effort had exhausted her. She barely had the strength to hoist her sword. And she was making a continuing effort to keep enough magic in her body to actually hurt the bugbear.
She didn't know how long she could keep this up.
The bugbear lunged again and she whipped her blade up, tip menacing the thing. It growled and hissed and spat, but it had already learned what pain that weapon could inflict.
Inanna glanced over to where Gary had collapsed, only to realize he was not there. His sword and shield lay on the ground, but Gary was gone. She carefully flicked her eyes from the bugbear to different areas of the park, searching for him. She saw no sign of him whatsoever. Gary had vanished.
A grin split her features.
"You are in for a world of hurt, you ugly motherfucker," she said menacingly. The bugbear ignored her, of course. It was a beast, after all.
----
Gary Johnson, Fucking Pissed
He didn't even bother with his weapons. He remembered Inanna's words, and the effect Percy's punches had on the thing. He pulled in his shield, burying it just below his skin. He poured more magic into it, thickening it, strengthening it.
He could feel the tension of the shield as he crept off into the shadows. The bugbear was menacing Inanna, who menaced it right back with her big ass sword. She looked exhausted, like she might fall over at any minute. Too much magic use, Gary thought. The rituals had each taken a toll on her, and he knew from experience how difficult teleporting someone who wasn't touching him was.
He snuck around behind the thing as Inanna said something he didn't catch. He idly wondered why she hadn't called Jerry, but the answer presented itself before the question had even been formed. It was pride, of course. She could not bring herself to ask for assistance defeating something she'd dismissed as 'not particularly tough'.
Gary got to within tackling distance and then brought his wet blanket back up and threw it over the monster. Its blurry form solidified, the pale white face and dark body coming into focus. Its limbs were long, with long claws on each finger. Its elbows and shoulders were bulbous, its chest sunken, its hips protruding. It noticed, of course. It snarled at Inanna, but before it could strike, Gary rushed it, his temper cheering at the thought of getting his hands on the thing.
It spun at the sound of his feet pounding on the grass, so Gary swung a textbook perfect punch right between its eyes. The blow clotheslined the beast, flipping its feet forward, tossing it on its own head and neck with a sickening crack that would have killed any mortal.
Razor sharp claws lashed out at him as he threw himself on top of the thrashing monster. They scratched at the top layers of his skin, but the wounds closed and they couldn't penetrate past his shield.
He used his left hand to interfere with the claws, getting his forearm onto the bugbear's and pressing down. With his right hand, he pounded at the beast's face, over and over. Each blow crunched into the thing with the force of a freight train, the unfocused magic in his body turning itself into raw physical power.
The bugbear roared in pain and rage, so Gary opened his mouth and roared right back. The beast slipped its arms free and jammed them into Gary's sides, but he ignored them and got his left hook working the thing as well.
Snarling in rage, he snatched his knife off his chest and brought it down into the thing's throat. Its roars turned into a wet, gurgling sound. Gary pulled the knife out, then thrust it into its belly and ripping up, the force of the move shattering ribs and spraying Gary with a black ichor.
He growled deep in his chest, pulling the knife back out and slamming it into the bugbear's neck again, this time from the side. He left it there and resumed punching it, slamming his fists down with enough force to shatter the bones in his hands, leaving them just enough time to heal between blows.
He struck the beast over and over and over, ignoring the pain in his hands, focused only on hurting the thing. He kept going long after it stopped fighting back, stopping only when he felt a small hand on his back. He spun, his eyes wild and angry, but it was only Inanna there.
"You got him, Yarm," she said wryly. Gary stared, uncomprehending at her for a moment. Then it clicked. He barked a short laugh out and rolled off the thing, sitting on the grass next to the unmoving body.
"Is it dead?" he asked, his chest heaving from the exertion.
Inanna held a hand out towards the bugbear. "Yeah, it's dead."
"Good," Gary said. They sat in silence for a moment.
"The girl all right?" he asked.
Inanna nodded. "Yup." She looked over her shoulder and called out, "It's okay, hun. You can come out, now." A tiny figure moved hesitatingly towards them, stopping at the dead body of the bugbear and looking down at it.
"It's dead, darlin'," Gary said. "Nothing but a bag o ectoplasm, or whatever that black stuff is."
"Ectoplasm," the girl said quietly. Gary nodded and looked back at Inanna.
"Did you just call me Yarm?" he asked. She chuckled. "You reminded me of him just then. You were fighting like him."
"Heh," Gary said. "Balls to the wall, unchecked aggression."
"Yup," Inanna agreed.
"Don't tell nobody, but I gave a bit of thought to dropping trou and squeezing out a stink pickle on the thing's face. Just for a second, mind."
Inanna laughed. "Why didn't you?" she asked. Gary shrugged. "No point. It's long past caring what I do to it."
"Now there's the Gary I know," she said. Then she looked at Suzanne and frowned. "The Washingtons are dead. She's got nowhere to go."
"I might have a lead on that," Gary said. "In the meantime, she can come stay with me."
Inanna scoffed. "You'll adopt her within a month," she said. Gary just shrugged. "Maybe. Like I said, I got a lead."
----
Liam MacReady, On His Day Off
Liam answered the door to reveal an older guy standing there. He had a big, bushy beard that was mostly gray, a leathery face, and a figure that suggested a lot of time in the gym. He had a veteran's air about him, too, Liam noticed. It was in the insouciant sloop of his shoulders, the stiffness of his lower back, the way he stood with his hands on his hips.
"Can I help you?" he rumbled.
"Liam MacReady?" the man asked, his voice tinged with a backwoods twang. Liam nodded, so the man held out a leather mitt. "My name's Gary Johnson. I'm with the Divine Crisis Management Group. I have some records here that say you applied to become a foster parent about two years ago, is that right?"
Liam frowned even as he shook the man's hand. He had a firm grip, but he didn't try to crush Liam's hand. Which was good, because Liam had mastered that particular show of dominance long ago.
Still, he didn't like this. "Why you looking into me, bro?" he asked.
"There's a little girl, goes by the name of Suzanne," Johnson said. Liam's hard look evaporated at the mention of the little girl he'd tried to take in.
"I know that look," Johnson said in a softer voice. "I got a daughter of my own. Can I come in?"
Liam thought about it. A cop would ask him to step out, not ask to come in. Unless he wanted to search for something. But Liam could kick him out if he started poking around. He pushed the door open wider and stood to the side.
Johnson walked in. He didn't poke around, but went straight to the living room and waited for Liam to join him. Liam closed the door and walked into the room, taking his favorite chair and gesturing at the couch for Johnson to sit. He did.
"So what's this about Suzanne?" Liam asked.
"Can you tell me how you know her?" Johnson asked.
Liam threw up his hands. "Brother, can we just get to the point?"
"This is the point, Mister MacReady," Johnson said. "I need to ask you some questions about her."
"When'd you serve?" Liam asked.
"Eighty-seven to oh-seven," Johnson answered without hesitation. "You?"
"Oh three to twenty-ten," Liam answered. "Second Ranger Battalion."
"Fifth Group," Johnson said. Liam quirked an eyebrow. "Green berets. Choice gig, that."
"Kinda sucked, to be honest." Lian chuckled at his answer.
"So how did you meet Suzanne?"
Liam rubbed his chin, thinking. After organizing his thoughts a bit, he spoke.
"Dated a girl a couple years ago. Suzanne's mom. She was a train wreck, but it took me a while to realize it. The girl..." Liam chuckled again.
"She was scared of me at first. I got these burns," he gestured to the side of his face, "In Kandahar. Don't do a lot to make me pretty, you know? But she warmed up to me in time. Sweetest little thing, she was. I never really thought of myself as a parent, you know? Always had too much going on, what with work and the club. But I loved spending time with that girl.
"I'd have dumped her mom's druggie ass much sooner, if not for her. When I finally had enough of her shit, I called CPH. Left an anonymous tip. I put in my application to be a foster parent, knowing that they'd rather her go with someone she knows. But they denied me. The club, me being single... I guess I can't blame them."
Johnson had been carefully watching Liam's face as he spoke, and Liam felt a strange sensation in the air. The temperature had dropped, and the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up.
"You gotta good heart, Mister MacReady," Johnson said.
"Uh, thanks, I guess," Liam responded. Johnson pointed at Liam's kutte. "What's the missing rocker?" he asked.
Liam looked down, noticing the threads still hanging out. "Master-at-arms," he said, touching it with one blunt finger. "I stepped down back when I was trying to become a foster parent. Freed up more of my time, you know?"
"Would you like to see Suzanne? Spend the afternoon with her?"
Liam leaned forward, his interest thoroughly captured. "Yeah. You can make that happen?"
Johnson raised a finger. A few seconds later, Liam heard a knock on the front door. He stood and answered it to find a bookish-looking man in a suit and bowtie standing there. He was flanked by two more figures. One was a short, brunette knockout. She had a middle-eastern cast about her, curves like a scenic railroad track and tits that could stop all conversations within a dozen yards. But she wasn't the one who caught his eye.
"Mister Liam?" Suzanne asked. Liam's face lit up in a wide grin as he knelt down and threw his arms out.
"Hey punkin!" he cried as she rushed into them. He hugged her carefully for a long moment.
"Mister MacReady," the nerdy guy said. "I know about the troubles you had applying to become a foster parent. There's nothing we can really do about that, it's a state matter. But we have lawyers in all specialties, including family law. I'm confident we can arrange a private adoption. We've already contacted her mother at the MCI women's facility, and she's agreed to relinquish custody."
Liam stood, still clinging to Suzanne, who gripped him tightly.
"Why?" he asked.
"We want her to be with someone who loves her. And Gary is quite sure that's you."
"Uh..." Liam wasn't good with this kind of stuff. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, that's me." Johnson stepped past him and all three of them stepped off the stoop.
"I'll be back around nine," Johnson said. He handed Liam a pair of cards, which he took and carefully examined over Suzanne's shoulder. Both were for the same company he'd mentioned earlier. One had his name on it, and the other had a woman's name.
"Call the woman, Astrid, when you're ready to move forward on the adoption," Johnson said.
"And the other?" Liam asked.
"Call me if you ever find yourself willing to give up the outlaw life and work a steady, good paying job," Johnson told him. He met Liam's eyes and then nodded.
"I missed you so much," Suzanne said as Johnson followed the other two out to a black Humvee parked by the curb. Liam grinned so wide his face hurt.
"I missed you too, punkin," he said.
The End.

Respect the Doctor

🎵

"Bit of adrenaline, dash of outrage, and a hint of panic knitted my brain back together. I know exactly who I am. I'm the Doctor. Sorting out fair play across the universe. Now please. Get off this planet while you still have a choice."

So you've come to see my respect thread? mmmm I love respect threads. In fact, I invented them right after 4 slice toasters. So... where was I? Oh, that's right. Me. Doctor, the Doctor. I was born on this little planet on the Constellation of Kasterborous... or was I? Things get a bit complicated there... where I came from or who I am. I've been lots of people, some of them I don't even remember. The person reading this might be the Doctor too (?)... Anyway, back on point. The person who I am now is an easy-going travelehigh-speed engineebiscuit-lover. Me and my fam explore the universe in muh good old TARDIS, righting wrongs and chilling like there's no tomorrow (which is a possibility wink-wink). I'm happy to be your bezzie mate if you play nicely, but if not --- well, you'll get an idea if you keep reading. (scronch)

Source Key

Hover over a feat to view its source.

• Doctor Who (2005) series # episode # = S#E#
• Twice Upon A Time = TUAT
• Resolution = R
• Revolution of the Daleks = RotD
• Eve of the Daleks = EotD
• Legend of the Sea Devils = LotSD
• The Power of the Doctor = PotD

Intelligence

Technological Aptitude
Understanding Technology

• Assures the "safe" crash-landing of a spaceship.
• Identifies the futuristic technology used by Krasko as well as their limitations.
• Identifies the various technology stolen by the Skithra.
• Makes correct conclusions about a spacecraft beyond even her level of technology and puts the techno jargon involved into understable terms.
• Identifies the technology at the Sea Devils' base and how it keeps the place airtight under the sea.

Using/Operating Technology

• Works the Tsuranga's touchscreen controls.
• Uses the Thijarians' own transmat locks to keep them out of Umbreen's farm.
• Uses Kerb!am's prototype robot to hack into the system and prevent an act of terrorism.
• Uses an alien space shuttle to distribute the antidote to Praxeus all over Earth.
• Operates a ship's computer using harp controls.
• Pilots a cyberfighter which uses an unothrodox control scheme.
• Uses a 1960's brain scan device to stun some Weeping Angels.
• Pilots a Lupari ship.
• Uses the Master's TARDIS to bring his cyber-conversion planet to 2022 and thwart his plan to erupt all of Earth's volcanos by converting the lava into steel.

Building Technology

• Crafts her own sonic screwdriver out of Stenza technology and spoons.
• Builds a transport pod out of various electronics to send her to the TARDIS, only to end up sending her companions and herself into outer space because the TARDIS had relocated to a planet out of orbit.
• Builds an ionic membrane from scratch and claims she could make a human out of crayons and half a can of spam.
• Rigs up a cloaking bypass in a minute to access to the Orb of Thassor's data.
• Helps Nikola Tesla finish Wardenclyffe Tower so they could use it to banish the Skithra from Earth.
• Rigs up a CCTV out of a 1960's television and some odds and ends found in her pockets.

Modifying Technology

• Reboots Ryan's phone into a tracking device.
• Reprograms the Master's Kasaarvin-summoning device to shut down when it detects the Kasaarvin.
• Thwarts the Sea Devils by rigging their power core to implode.

Disabling Technology

• Stuns the Gathering Coil with a loose cable upon first seeing it then stuns it again later by overloading its sockets with a more elaborate setup.
• Deactivates a group of self-rebooting sniperbots using an EMP found inside of the destroyed bots.
• Disables the security system inside Karvanista's ship using the Hopper virus.
• Teaches Victorian soldiers to sabotage the Sontarans' life support systems.
• Deactivates a space train's electromagnets to make a group of CyberMasters float away.

Repairing Technology

• Tunes up the TARDIS' wiring in her spare time.
• Figures out how to repair a transport pod by mutating a necessary fuel source.
• Fixes Vinder's ship in a hurry.

Computing

• Decrypts an obscure alien code from an interdimensional species.
• Hacks the guest list of Daniel Barton's party to get invites.
• Types up a debug script in an alien dialect to neutralize the Hopper virus.

Observation

• Recognizes that a tent is holographic upon first glance.
• Recognizes that a building's life support systems have been disabled from the noises heard.
• Can tell what setting Krasko's temporal displacer is on from behind her back.
• Identifies Krasko as a former prisoner of the Stormcage Containment Facility from a wrist tattoo.
• Sees the connection between a series of spider-related incidents occuring all over Sheffield.
• Realizes that the hospital she's being treated at is a spaceship from the vibrations present. Though her wooziness causes her to take a while to figure this out.
• Reaches multiple conclusions about the mud zombies from observing one.
• Notices that something is up with a random house seen from afar.
• Notices that there's another person present with Erik when he claims otherwise.
• Roughly guesses the century she's been transported to while recovering from a daze.
• Points out that a "linen cupboard" is not really a linen cupbard.
• Discovers a secret tunnel that the current homeowner was not aware of.

Deduction

• Exposes Tzim-Sha as a cheat.
• Figures out why Krasko uses non-hostile means to prevent the Montgomery bus boycott.
• Realizes what the P'ting's intention is by hijacking Tsuranga.
• Figures out that Becka Savage is infected with an alien creature.
• Discovers that a ducking stool is a piece of alien technology.
• Realizes that the dimension she entered is a Solitract by remembering a bedtime story from childhood.
• Realizes that the Recon Dalek mutant is revived by ultraviolet light and recalls this fact when it's used again to send a bunch of them into their casings.
• Forces the Master to give up his ruse when she notices a discrepancy between his words and the information she read about the man he's impersonating.
• Works out the Kasaavin's grand scheme.
• Learns about the Dreg's capabilities from the measures taken against them.
• Discovers the key to destroying the CyberMasters from something uttered by the Lone Cyberman.
• Deduces that they have ended up in the middle of the Crimean War.
• Gets interrogated by the Grand Serpent and manages to learn more about him than he does about her.
• Figures out the Sontaran's strategy against the Daleks and Cybermen.
• Deduces what the Sea Devils' ultimate goal is.

Persuasion, Trickery & Manipulation

• Gives Ryan some moral support to overcome his dyspraxia.
• Gets information from Rosa Parks by pretending to be a market researcher.
• Negotiates with an untrustworthy alien.
• Encourages her companions to reject the Solitract's allure before convincing the Solitract itself to release her.
• Coaxes Paltraki into trusting her after his mind was disturbed by psychotropic waves.
• Uses Noor Inayat Khan to frame the Master as a double agent to the Nazis.
• Forces the Alpha Dreg to let her and Bella go using its dependency on carbon dioxide.
• Tricks the Skithra Queen into holding a teleportation device.
• Posing as an imperial regulator, she negotiates with a Judoon captain using both real and made-up legal jargon.
• Helps Tahira conquer her fear so she can control her nightmare monster.
• Defeats the Death Squad Daleks by luring them into what appears to be her TARDIS, only to reveal that it's another TARDIS which she has rigged to self-destruct with them inside.
• Persuades an Ood to go against his superior's wishes and help her.
• Uses a Sontaran commander's obsession with human snacks to get two allies onto the Sontaran ship.
• Lures a Sea Devil into a trap.
• Fails to convince King James that she's not a witch, but likely sows enough doubt in his mind to prematurely end her trial.

Resourcefulness

• Destroys the Remnants by igniting a cigar in a field of acetylene.
• Isolates a giant spider using vinegar and garlic.
• Alleges she used spider web to stop a plane in flight with Amelia Earheart.
• Contains a swarm of giant spiders by luring them into a panic room using the vibrations of loud music.
• Kills two birds with one stone by feeding the P'ting the Tsuranga's bomb, thereby sating its hunger for energy and containing the explosion.
• Puts together a chemistry set on a Punjabi farm in the 1940's to analyze a sample her sonic couldn't.
• Uses peanut butter as a mechanical lubricant.
• Uses a car's rear-view mirror to reflect a deadly laser.
• Forms a circle of fire out of the chemicals in Thomas Edison's factory.

Medical

• Diagnoses General Cicero with Pilot's Heart.
• Can identify the exact cause of death of victims of alien attacks through a quick examination.
• Treats Ryan for the Hopper virus the moment he contracts it.
• Leads a team to develop a cure for Praxeus.
• Can't help Graham with his cancer worries because of... um, social awkwardness(?).

Planning & Strategy

• Places instructions onto Barton's plane in the past to help her companions pilot it in the present when it almost crashes. Her prediction of their responses is so accurate it makes the recording she left resemble a live conversation.
• Gets rid of the Defense Drone Daleks by summoning the Death Squad Daleks to wipe them out, knowing they would prioritize eradicating "impure" Daleks over harming humans.
• Quickly devises a formation for the Lupari ships to successfully defend Earth from the Flux.
• Hijacks the Sontarans' plot to eliminate the Daleks and the Cybermen using the Flux to get rid of all three forces at once.
• Comes up with a plan to break a time loop and dispose of the Daleks pursuing them at the same time.

Miscellaneous Skills

• Uses Venusian Aikido to temporarily paralyze or render humanoids unconscious.
• Translates an alien language without the TARDIS.
• Claims she is a doctor of many things.
• Thanks to Harry Houdini, she single-handedly escapes when chained to a ducking stool and submerged in cold water.
• Impractically summons her sonic screwdriver from her coat pocket into her hand with both arms tied.
• Tails a Sontaran without being spotted.
• Thinks at such a fast rate her surroundings appear slowed while inner-monologuing.
• Sword-fights handedly with a Sea Devil.

Mental Abilities

Mental Resistance & Willpower

• Quickly overcomes of the nightmare-inducing power of Zellin.
• Identifies a perception filter and instructs a group of humans to move past it.
• Breaks out of the Matrix by overloading it with the memories (stock footage) of her past lives.

Mind Reading & Communication

• Communicates with the Master over a long distance.
• Looks into a Dreg's mind to learn their origin.
• Shows Commander Gatt the future of Gallifrey.
• Looks into Percy Shelley's mind so she can learn something his mental state prevents him from telling her.
• Attempts to locate the Master by linking with his mind, however he senses this and misleads her in response.
• Enters Claire's mental space to communicate with the Weeping Angel inhabiting her mind.
• After being split thrice, the three Doctors network with each other.

Mind Manipulation

• Wipes Noor Inayat Khan's and Ada Lovelace's memories of her.
• Performs an "Old Time Lord Trick" on Percy Shelley to extract the Cyberium from him; mentally simulating his death to trick the Cyberium into leaving its host.

Sensing & Feeling

• Receives the Thijarians' telepathic message, though it is painful for her.
• Senses the Kasaavin approaching even though the sonic can't detect them.
• Gets a vibe of unrelenting evil in Villa Diodati.
• Sees and feels the universe breaking down from the Flux.
• Finds her biomodule from hearing it reach out to her - a noise that an Ood (a telepathic being) could not hear.
• Feels that the time loop they're trapped in is shortening with each loop.

Other

• Like all Time Lords, the secret of the Timeless Child hides deep in her memories.
• When made to relive a past event as the Fugitive Doctor, she converses with her past self after seeing the physical difference in the mirror.
• After the Master hijacks her regenerations, the Doctor's mind enters a subconscious plane where she is met by manifestations of her past incarnations. They inform her that even though her body has changed, the forced regeneration has not yet passed its threshold and can still be reversed.

Physical Attributes

Strength

• Frees an elderly woman chained to a ducking stool then drags her out of the water.
• Pushes one end of a ducking stool from a lake.
• Keeps a Skithran from busting through a door.
• Keeps both her companions from drifting away in space.

Speed & Agility

• Leaps from one crane to another.
• Strategically avoids being shot by robot drones as she flees the area.
• Avoids Dalek blasts at point-blank range and rolls into cover.
• Draws that same Dalek's fire so her companions can close in on it.
• Ducks under a close-range laser blast.
• Sidesteps a shot from a Silurian blaster.
• Ducks under a trio of swarming Cyberdrones.
• Flips herself upside-down to right-side up onto a gravity bar, utilizing tricks she learnt at a high-gravity workshop.
• Moves fast enough to pull her companions and herself into the center of the Time Force before Swarm could vaporize Yaz.
• Dodges lasers from behind the moment she enters the area.
• Ducks under sudden Dalek blasts from behind.
• Does a front-flip while avoiding a Sea Devil's sword swipes.
• Steps away from the energy blast of a CyberMaster that just transmatted in.
• Avoids blasts from multiple CyberMasters as she flees into the TARDIS.
• Dodges a close-range Dalek blast.

Durability

• Remains in good spirits when an electric shock violently shoves her backwards (thought this likely due to her post-regeneration rush).
• Recovers from the vacuum of space faster than her human companions.
• Tries to hold back an explosion big enough to take out an airplane's cockpit with only its door to shield her.
• Travels in warp drive without adverse effects.
• Her biology can withstand the Time Force that would be overwhelming for humans, allowing her to briefly jump into Dan and Yaz's timestreams. However, the pressure would eventually kill her.

Senses

• Feels the DNA bombs in her collarbone that none of her companions notice.
• Determines that they've landed in Norway by tasting the grass.
• Discovers an alpaca farm 25 miles away by tasting the soil.
• Determines the century a skeleton originates from by tasting its boney powder.
• Tastes the residue of a stun cube used by the Lupari.
• Incorrectly deduces the decade from sniffing a man's coat, noting he must have owned it for a while.

Regeneration
Time Lords can survive fatal injuries through the process of regeneration whereupon every cell in their body is rewritten, radically transforming their appearance and personality. This regeneration produced some interesting changes...

• This ability is restricted to 12 regenerations across 13 incarnations. Due to the Doctor gaining a second regeneration cycle and the whole Timeless Children revelation, this limit might no longer be in play.
• Excess regeneration energy affords a Time Lord a degree of invulnerability within the first few hours of their regeneration. The newly-regenerated Thirteenth Doctor fell from her airbourne TARDIS in the stratosphere down to a nearby train, crashing through its roof and getting up completely fine.
• Side-effects following regeneraiton include memory loss, fainting and slowed movement.
• The Master uses a machine to force her to regenerate into him so he could go around the universe causing destruction in the Doctor's name. This process was reversed shortly after using the regeneration energy from his CyberMasters.
• Regeneration can be temporarily delayed without suffering negative effects, which the Thirteenth Doctor did for a little while to eat ice cream.
• The Thirteenth Doctor's regeneration into the Fourteenth Doctor was unique from past regenerations in two respects; firstly being that this form strongely resembled her Tenth incarnation instead of a totally new body and secondly in that it also changed the Doctor's clothing (the only other time this happened was the First Doctor's regeneration into the Second).

Miscellaneous Time Lord Biology

• Has two hearts and therefore two pulses.
• Has a much longer lifespan than humans. In this body, she spent several decades imprisoned without visibly aging.
• The Cyberium chooses her as a host over the Lone Cyberman.

Equipment

Get the full rundown of the TARDIS and Sonic Screwdriver in the comments

Psychic Paper
The psychic paper is a blank piece of paper that telepathically projects the Doctor's thoughts into the eyes of whom she presents it to.

• Poses as a crisis investigator to get answers from Jack Robertson.
• Gains employment at Kerb!am by presenting fake references.
• Seizes control of a witch hunt by posing as a Witchfinder General.
• Gain access to Tranquility Spa's command centre by posing as a Pan-Galactic Standards and Practices officer with several areas of expertise under her belt.
• Claims to be part of the Institute of Psychic Investigation to intervene in Professor Jericho's psychic experiments.
• Claims to be members of the local council when investigating a storage facility.
• Gives Ryan and Graham their own psychic papers so they can continue investigating strange goings-ons without her.
• Fails to pass her off as the Witchfinder General to King James due to his sexism so she is instead designated the Witchfinder's Assistant.
• Doesn't work when wet.

Futuristic Technology

• Makes her companions scour a junk planet for spare part using modified metal detectors.
• Gains a comm dot at Tsuranga which she and her companions use on another occasion.
• Uses neural balancers so she and her companions can enter the planet Ranskoor Av Kolos without succumbing to its psychotrophic waves. She later uses them to block the Ux's psychic signal.
• Prepares communicators, codebreakers, trackers, grenades and a remote-detonated bomb during their visit of Ranskoor Av Kolos.
• Gives a woman some medicine to help her recover from Dalek possession.
• Wears an O2 cannister when forced to brave Orphan 55's hostile environment.
• Uses a Braxium Bouncer Mk III to teleport herself, Yaz and Nikola Tesla out of the Skithra's spaceship and then later to send the Skithra Queen back inside the ship.
• Uses a device to take an instant blood sample from a Praxeus patient.
• Carries a flip phone (presumably boosted by the sonic) to contact her companions across time and space.
• In their fight against the Cyberman, she equips her companions with technology that unsuppress the Cybermen's emotions, project gold particles which Cybermen are allergic to and generate forcefields.
• Attacks the Lone Cyberman with a grenade.
• Owns a pair of voice-activated handcuffs, but they aren't very responsive as they were likely set up by a past incarnation.
• Hands Vinder a communicator with a direct line to the TARDIS.
• Owns at few copies of the orange spacesuit she acquired in her Tenth incarnation.
• Places a small device on a Dalek traitor's casing to extract the information about its race's plans.
• Leaves Yaz a device which projects a recorded adaptive hologram of the Doctor to give her guidance after two weeks of no contact. The hologram was later upgraded into a fully-interactive AI made from the Doctor's data collected over thousands of years which only activates during the gravest of emergencies. The Doctor imprinted this AI onto Yaz, Tegan and Ace via sonically-triggered nano-implants resembling static electricity.
  • This hologram can perceive its surroundings through the ocular nerves of the Doctor's companions.
  • The hologram is predictably intangible so lasers harmlessly pass through it. The CyberMasters were also unable to recognize it as a hologram.
  • The hologram's interface will inadvertently change according to the emotional memory of who it's addressing in the moment, causing it to resemble past Doctors to past companions like the Fifth to Tegan Jovanka and the Seventh to Ace. It also willingly assumed the form of the Fugitive Doctor to fool the Master even though her history is shrouded in mystery.

Mundane Items

• Lends Graham a pair of sunglasses she got from either Audrey Hepburn or Pythagoras.
• Writes with a special marker pen that can be concealed by the sonic.
• Uses a stethoscope to auscultate people and places.
• Uses chalk to write up a message for her companions without letting a blind girl know.
• Unravels some string so they don't get lost in the Anti-zone.
• Gives Ryan a ginger humbug to help him recover from motion sickness.
• Hits a Sontaran's probic vent with a slingshot.

Miscellaneous

• Opposes the use of firearms, even against robots and mutant spiders, but is fine with using explosives to take out structures.
• Has Elvis' phone number.
• Strongly implied that she's the mysterious street artist Banksy.
• Featured in a whole chapter or volume in the Book of Celebrants.
• Officiated Albert Einstein's wedding and Yaz's grandmother's first wedding.
• Claims to have invented wellies.
• Keeps companions around to show off.
• Lord Byron fancied her.
• Was arrested and imprisoned by the Judoon for at least seven thousand offenses. In that time, she recited Harry Potter to entertain herself which really shows how out of the loop she was with human affairs.
• The very notion of meeting the Doctor is enough to convince a stubborn Sontaran to agree to her terms.
• Bit narcissistic.

"She was the universe."