Do arby's jamocha shakes have caffeine

William Bailey's forehead shattered the mirror like a sledgehammer. The last thing he remembered before he blacked out was the feeling that he was falling through the mirror. Sub-cranial hematoma, a concussion, maybe even a cracked skull--that had to be the reason for the strange feeling. The mirror was mounted on the wall just to the right of the bar, four feet tall by about three feet wide. As consciousness slipped away, common sense and his strong belief in the rational world told him that he couldn't fall through the mirror. He must have bounced his head off the wall and be falling toward the floor.
It seemed like just a second or two before William's eyes popped open. He lay on his back, on the hard wood floor of Fausto's, with Johnny Davis towering over him. Big Johnny probably wanted to finish him off, maybe kill him, and finally end their twenty-year-old feud. Either Big Johnny Davis and the ceiling lights above him were spinning, or William's head was spinning, but either way something wasn't right.
He raised his head and looked to his left, toward the bar. Except the bar wasn't there. Instead, he was staring at the bathrooms. That didn't make sense. It must be his brain that had gotten spun around. William turned his head and peered over his size-ten wingtips at the busted mirror. The wooden frame and most of the glass still clung to the wall, the rest sat broken on the ground. The bar had to be on his left. He looked again, and still saw the bathrooms. A brain bruise, maybe some fluid pressure building up might be the cause of it.
"Get up!" Big Johnny Davis said.
William looked up at him. Johnny stood behind him, just beyond his shoulders. Perfect place for him to stomp my head into the plank floor. Except Johnny Davis was holding out his hand.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here."
Davis looked scared. It was the first time William Bailey could ever remember Johnny Davis looking scared. William had always been scared of Big Johnny, but Big Johnny wasn't scared of anything or anyone.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Johnny glanced over his shoulder. William craned his neck to look where Johnny was looking, saw he was staring at the front door like a man terrified something bad was going to come through it. Big Johnny looked down at him again and pumped his hand. "Come on, get up. They'll be here any second."
"Who?" William asked. "Who'll be--" But before he finished, Big Johnny Davis reached down, grabbed him by both arms, and jerked him to his feet.
As he was dragged toward the door by the only man in town who truly hated him, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door. He had to have a concussion, probably severe; that had to be it, because the letters on the sign were backward. It said TUO.
As Johnny Davis pulled him out the door, William heard tires skid on the pavement.
"Where's your car?" Johnny asked.
William twisted away from the big man's grip, then turned to his left. "In the alley." He started to run, still not sure exactly what he was running from.
Behind him, Big John shouted, "The alley's over here."
William kept running but turned his head back toward Johnny. "I know where the alley--"
Something hit him across the midsection and toppled him to the ground. He got his hands up just in time to break his fall and managed to keep his head from slamming into the sidewalk. When he looked up he saw a shopping cart tumbled onto its side.
Once again, William found himself lying flat on his back, this time amid the spilled contents of the cart. It had been filled with junk: paper bags full of dirty clothes, canned food, bags of potato chips, a diamond shaped, orange road sign, and other trash that looked like it had been collected from back alley garbage bins.
The homeless man who'd been pushing the cart was scrawny, and wafer thin. His skin was the color of old shoe leather, and he wore a long gray beard, tangled and matted with food and bits of filth. He was sprawled on the ground next to his cart, half sitting up, staring at William with his bright blue eyes.
Car doors slammed, men shouted.
"You better get going," the homeless man said, as he cocked his head. "The police after you?"
Police!
Before William could assure the old man that the police weren't after him--he was a respected businessman and family man--someone behind him grabbed him under both arms and pulled him to his feet. William turned and found himself staring into the face of Johnny Davis. "The alley's that way," Johnny said, pointing to the other side of Fausto's. With one hand gripping William's jacket, Johnny dashed across the front of the bar toward the alley. The alley--right there, plain as day--on the other side of Fausto's, right where it shouldn't be, where it couldn't be. William had been here a thousand times. As you stepped out of the bar, the alley was on the left, Brockton's Ace Hardware on the right. Now everything was mixed up and in the wrong place.
Johnny Davis turned down the alley, dragging William behind him. After just a few steps, a spotlight flashed in front of them.
"Stop!" a voice commanded. "Get on the ground."
William couldn't see because Johnny was in his way. "Who's that yelling?" he asked.
Big Johnny stopped and William plowed into his back.
"Get on the ground," the voice boomed again.
William poked his head out from behind Johnny Davis's back. The blinding white light was in his face. He couldn't see a thing.
POP! POP! POP!
Gunshots.
Big Johnny sagged, then crashed to his knees. Instinctively, William bent forward and grabbed hold of Johnny. "What's the matter?"
More pops.
Johnny's big hand reached out and shoved William back toward the street. "Back door," he wheezed, then plunged forward onto his face.
William stood alone. Behind the white spotlight he saw blue police lights flashing. He was totally exposed.
POP! POP!
He saw flashes--little yellow spurts of flame--as something tugged at his jacket.
William had said "back door." What back door? Fausto's had a back door, but it didn't lead anywhere except to the open space behind the building used for trash and deliveries. Twenty feet of asphalt between the bar and the back of the building on the next block. William had parked his car at the end of the alley, but the police cars--or whatever they were--had the alley blocked off. The building behind Fausto's also had an alley that ran alongside it, but the owner had closed it off to keep the bums out. He'd put up a gate, padlocked it, and topped it with razor wire. It was a dead end.
Two more pops. Dead end or not it was better than standing here and getting shot. William turned and ran. He burst through the front door of Fausto's, dashed through the bar, past the shattered mirror, hit the back door at a dead run, and was outside behind the bar within seconds.
He could see the tail end of his car sticking out from the corner of the building, but with the cops blocking the alley, his car was useless to him. William glanced across the open space to the alley that ran next to the other building. The gate, the padlock, the razor wire--all still in place. To his right an overflowing garbage dumpster sat beside the back of Fausto's, jammed against the fire ladder.
The fire ladder.
An iron ladder bolted to the cinderblock wall.
William looked up. The top of the ladder was lost in shadow, but he knew it went up two stories to the roof. Last summer, when the toilet had stopped up, he'd come out back to take a leak and had stood behind the dumpster, peeing against the wall like a kid, one hand draped over the bottom rung of the ladder.
He slipped behind the dumpster. The smell made him gag. The bottom of the ladder was four feet from the ground. William reached up as high as he could, grabbed hold of the third rung, then hauled himself up.
Through the partially open back door came the sounds of heavy feet pounding on the hard wood floor of the bar.
Halfway up the ladder, he was exhausted--and scared. Shaking, he white-knuckled the ladder. Being more than ten feet off the ground terrified him. He needed a break, just a second or two to catch his breath. There was enough moonlight so he could see into one of the second story windows. Inside, junk was piled everywhere. Old barstools, a busted jukebox, furniture stacked almost to the ceiling. Years ago, old man Fausto lived on the second floor, but Jake, who'd bought the place from the old man and had decided to keep the name, used it for storage.
Below him, William heard the back door thrown open so hard it banged against the wall. He scrambled up until he reached the top of the ladder, then hoisted himself over the edge of the roof. Down on the ground a voice shouted, "There he is, up there."
Another gunshot. What the hell was going on?
The unmistakable sound of feet--fast feet, in shape feet, boot shod feet--scurrying up the ladder. Standing on the tar and pebble roof, William glanced around for something he could use as a weapon, shocked he was even thinking of such a thing. A five gallon plastic bucket was all there was. It stood upright, filled with rainwater. He picked it up and peered over the edge. A uniformed policeman was three quarters of the way up the ladder. Two more cops were right behind him.
William looked at the heavy bucket in his hands, thought about just dumping the water onto them but knew it wouldn't stop them. There was only one way to stop them, and that was to knock them off the ladder. He thought about warning them, maybe trying to scare them away. But they were cops. You couldn't scare them away.
So why had they shot Johnny Davis, and why were they shooting at him?
The first officer looked up and saw William staring down at him with the bucket in his hands. Their eyes locked for just a second and the cop stopped. In those eyes that stared back at him, William saw an almost maniacal determination that sent a shiver down his spine. The officer held his grip on the ladder with his right hand while his left dropped to the pistol resting in his gleaming leather holster. In one smooth motion he drew his gun and raised it toward William.
William Bailey tossed the bucket down the ladder. A shot rang out an instant before the heavy bucket thudded into the cop's head. Like a gruesome traffic accident happening before his eyes, William couldn't help but watch as the policeman fell, taking his two partners down with him. The last thing William saw before he turned away was a jumbled heap of black uniforms resting on the concrete below the ladder.
* * *
Hiding in the shadow of a telephone booth, thinking. Home. He had to get home. Had to get back to Marge and the kids. Maybe somehow he could explain what had happened. Vincent, his attorney, he would know what to do--maybe--but he was a civil lawyer not a criminal attorney. He wrote contracts and did personal injury on the side; he didn't get people out of jail who'd killed a cop by dropping a bucket of water on his head and knocking him and his buddies off the side of a building.
As the cab he'd been waiting for pulled up, William stepped out from the dark and climbed into the back seat.
The driver turned around. "Where to?"
William pulled the door shut. "Uptown. 1721 Audubon Court."
"Fare's gonna be about fifteen dollars. After dark, I gotta have the money up front."
"What?"
"Company policy." The cabbie shrugged. "A lot of drivers been getting stiffed."
William opened his wallet, pulled out a twenty and handed it across the seat. The driver took it and almost slipped it into his cash box, then took a second look at the bill. His face tightened. "What the hell is this?"
"Huh?"
With the bill stretched between his hands, the cabbie stared at it for a second then looked up at William. "You're either the dumbest counterfeiter who ever lived or you've been had."
"What you are talking about?"
The driver faced the bill toward William but didn't hand it back to him. "It's printed backwards."
William looked at the twenty-dollar bill in the man's hand. It looked like--it was--an almost brand new bill, nothing wrong with it as far as he could tell.
"Get out of my cab," the driver said.
William didn't know what the man was talking about but knew he didn't want to get out. This cab was his only way home. He reached for the twenty. "If you don't like that one I've got another--"
The driver pulled his hands away. "I ain't giving this back. I got to turn it in to the police." He dropped one hand behind his seat back, then came up clutching a pistol, an old German Luger by the looks of it, the muzzle aimed straight at William's face. "In fact, I bet they give me a reward if I bring you in with it."
William jerked the door handle and rolled out into the street. He sprang to his feet and ran, the driver's yells just background noise. Has everyone gone crazy or is it just me?
Home. He had to get home.
* * *
Rain. Driving, relentless rain. William was just two blocks from Fausto's. In two hours, that's as far as he'd gotten--one block an hour. Police cars prowled the neighborhood, shinning spotlights into every nook and cranny, lighting up every shadow. Everyone in Fausto's knew his name. He'd been going there three or four nights a week after work for years. The cabbie had his address. William had given it to him when he told the hack driver where to drop him.
Ten o'clock at night, with nowhere to go and no way to get there, William sat behind the closed Goodwill store, under an overhang that barely kept the rain off of him.
Huddled in the dark, head sunk between his knees, he hadn't heard anyone approach.
"You don't look so good."
Startled, William looked up, prepared to run again. It was the homeless man he'd knocked over outside the bar. The one with the shopping cart and the leathery skin. William relaxed a little. "Excuse me?"
The man pushed his cart closer. "You're not supposed to be here."
William looked around. "Why not?"
The old man grinned, half his teeth gone.
William found it nearly impossible to tell his age. The guy could be forty and maybe had lived a hard life, or perhaps he was a well-preserved seventy, pickled by a lifetime of booze. William waved him off, expecting a plea for money. "I can't help you."
The old man stopped just a few feet away. "Everything's out of place isn't it?" He had a strange lilting voice. Almost like an accent.
And he was right. Everything was out of place--from Johnny Davis to the cab driver--everything was wrong.
Strapped to the back of the old man's shopping cart was a plastic sign about the size of a loaf of bread. William recognized the sign, the words, the colors, the logo of a local supermarket chain, all were familiar to him, but the letters were backward, unreadable.
Rainwater ran down William's face. He pointed to the sign. "Why's it written like that?"
The old man looked at the sign then back at William. "Like what?" he said, then shuffled away behind his basket.
* * *
The rain came down even harder. William slouched in a darkened doorway across the street from Fausto's. Nothing made sense. Everything was messed up, backward, out of whack. Almost like this wasn't his home, like he was a stranger seeing it for the first time.
But that was crazy. He'd grown up here, gone to Brother Martin High School, dated Jenny Underhill who went to Cabrini, lost her to Johnny Davis, then got her back only to lose her again the first year of college to some kid who drove a Mustang. Two years later William married Marge at Saint Luke's. They had two kids.
This town was his home. He recognized it. He knew the people here, Big Johnny and Zeke, the bartender at Fausto's. But things were different, little things. John Davis for one. In trying to help him, the big man had gotten himself killed. That wasn't John Davis--at least not the one William Bailey had known since seventh grade. Everything looked the same but wasn't. Nothing was quite right.
But they knew him--or someone like him.
A strange sensation crept over him that made the hair on the back of his neck rise. Maybe he didn't belong here. Maybe everything wasn't as it appeared. Maybe this wasn't his home. But if that were true, then whose home was it? Another thought, even scarier seeped through his brain. If he was here, who was there--at his home?
Crazy.
William dropped his head into his hands. Just considering such nonsense was a waste of time. Yet, here he was scanning the street, thinking of going back inside Fausto's, back to that mirror.
Not much time to think about it. The bar closed at three AM and it was already two-thirty. When he'd left--run for his life with Big Johnny--most of the mirror was still in the frame hanging on the wall.
Something about that damned mirror.
But Fausto's was dangerous, so a couple of hours ago William had found another mirror. In the men's room of a twenty-four hour gas station. The Chevron on North Rampart.
He had approached it cautiously, afraid he was going mad. As he peered over the sink into the mirror, he saw what he always saw, his own reflection. Holding up his left hand, he looked at the image in the mirror, at the watch strapped to his wrist. He noticed that the man in the mirror wore his watch on his right hand. Just the opposite.
William stood in the gas station bathroom for twenty minutes before he worked up his nerve. Finally, he took a deep breath, leaned back, then slammed his forehead into the dirt-streaked mirror. The glass shattered and cut his head. Blood dribbled off the tip of his nose into the sink. His reflection stared out at him from the other side of the mirror, blood running down his face, too.
I have gone crazy!
So the gas station hadn't worked out. Ducking police cruisers, William had wandered the streets, his head reeling. What was he doing?
On the sidewalk, he found a sopping wet magazine that the wind had blown up against the side of a newspaper machine. The cover caught his eye. He picked it up. It was printed backwards, the letters reversed, words running right to left. The spine was on the right. As he flipped through the pages, he couldn't read a thing. Then William had an idea.
In the bathroom of an all night restaurant he held the wet magazine up to the mirror. Perfect. The reflected image was normal, spine on the left, words running left to right, all the letters printed correctly. He could read it clearly. But what did it mean?
Then he drove his head into that mirror. The glass cracked. Someone walked in, a skinny waiter wearing an apron. He stood gawking as William leaned over the sink with tears of pain filling his eyes.
The waiter looked at the broken mirror, then jabbed a finger at William's bloody forehead. "What the hell are you doing?"
"An accident," he mumbled, pressing his fingers against the fresh cut.
The waiter turned. "I'm calling the cops."
William Bailey ran.
Now he was huddled in the rain staring at Fausto's across the street. Because he had nowhere else to go.
He stood and walked toward Fausto's. When he was halfway across the street, a police car glided around the corner, headlights reflecting off the wet pavement. The cops in no hurry, just cruising. William forced himself to keep walking, not to run. One foot in front of the other. In the downpour, odds were that the cops wouldn't even recognize him.
But they did recognize him.
The police car slid to a stop as its high beams clicked on and its blue strobe lights started popping. Both front doors flew open.
Like a sinner seeking the sanctuary of a church, William ran straight for Fausto's door. As he burst inside, Zeke looked up from behind the bar. "William! What the hell are you doing here?"
He ignored the bartender, running right past him, eyes focused on the broken mirror and its busted frame hanging on the wall.
Zeke again, "The cops been looking all over for you. Say you killed two officers and--"
Behind him the front door banged against the wall. "Police!" a voice behind him commanded. "Stop."
But William didn't stop. He kept running--running straight for the mirror. Reflected in its fragmented pieces he saw two uniformed police officers behind him, heard their boots pounding on the wooden floor. Just ten feet separated him from the mirror. At full speed he took two strides then dove. He stretched his arms out overhead and tucked his chin into his chest as his feet left the floor.
He felt one hand hit wall and the other strike broken glass. Then his head hit. More glass cracked, more skin split.
Darkness.
* * *
William's eyes popped open. He was staring at the ceiling. Rough voices, even rougher hands. They rolled him over onto his stomach and jerked his arms behind his back. He felt cold steel on his wrists and heard the metallic ratcheting as the handcuffs tightened and bit into his skin.
He tilted his head up and rested his chin against the floor. Blood poured down the side of his face; he watched it pool on the floor then seep between the wooden planks. By rolling his eyes up he could just see the empty spot on the wall where the mirror had hung. Lying on the floor, three feet from his head, was the broken frame and the rest of the glass.
The two cops grabbed his arms and yanked him to his feet, sending waves of pain through his shoulders and wrists. As they spun him toward the door, one of the officers said, "You're under arrest."
"Why?" William asked.
The officer pressed his face into William's. "Murdering your family for starters."
"My...my family." William felt his stomach cinch and his bowels turn to ice. A thought he'd had earlier in the night echoed inside his head. If he was here, who was there--at his home.
As the cops dragged him across the floor, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door.
OUT.
He was home.

Hello there! Hope You all doing better everyday! Since that's gonna be my very first post in here, I already apologise for my poor English skills, as it isn't my first language. A little about me and the anxiety I have: I am a 20 year old guy from Estonia (Baltics), apparently to Your surprise I'm more of an extrovert and working a job at front desk. I smoke cannabis daily (on work-days only before bed), I also use nicotine daily (smokeless nicotine pouches) as well as the caffeine in my morning cup. I suffer under terrible health anxiety, which I haven't really talked about with my doctor. It's become pretty much daily now. Sometimes when I smoke a little too much/or randomly even while sober I'm just, all of a sudden, starting to feel my heart rate going up, getting dizzy, instantly my breathing changes as I'd need more oxygen. When things go really bad, my hands start to shake and I might even have a weird feeling in my chest for a while. And every God-damn time, I'm afraid I'm just about to have some heart-related episode. The fear of death kicks in as my thoughts are rushing faster than the speed of sound. I just hate it all so much. I'm about to go and see my doctor soon, since I already sent her a letter that I wanna check out what's up exactly. I wanna do all the blood tests, ECG for sure (to make sure my heart functions right), spirography in case it should be asthma/something lung related. Does anybody feel me? It sometimes really feels like a slow death. . .

First shot at a recap so let’s see how we do!
Race Info
What – IM 70.3: Chattanooga
Where – Chattanooga, TN USA
When - Sunday, May 21st, 2023
Overall Goals
- PR - Yes (previous PR was a 5:30:12 at Ohio 70.3 in 2022)
- Sub 5:00 - Heck no
- Not blow up on run - Sorta?
TL;DR and Results
This was my 3rd 70.3 and my first with my coach who has been training me since the start of the fall 2022
Swim – 35:07
T1 – 5:03
Bike – 2:49:55
T2 – 3:13
Run – 1:51:57
Total time – 5:25:14
58th in AG (M27), 579 overall
Background
Was a college soccer player (GK) and after college had a foray into BJJ and MMA with a couple fights. Realized that was dumb for longevity and switched to triathlon
Training
Swimming
2-3 sessions a week of 2.4K to 3.6K yards per session. Some workouts are speed focused, some are technique focused, so on and so forth. I have seen a good improvement on CSS these last few month from 1:40 to 1:33. I did swim team as a kid so I have been trying to recapture some of that swim experience. I also felt some recent breakthrough with decreasing my stroke rate and using fewer more powerful strokes. Have been very happy with my improvement these last months. I still remain a terrible to nonexistent kicker
Goal split - 35 Minutes
Biking
typically rides a week. Longer weekend ride and 2 during the week (on zwift trainer) with focus on cadence or power or VO2. I have a big problem with low cadence, recently been trying to get up into the 80s for when I am normally riding. However when I start putting power down I start reverting to the low 70s cadence of riding. As far as FTP I had worked my FTP up to 257 leading up to the start of the season. However I have felt pretty weak these last 2 month leading up to this actual race. It has been harder for me to put the power down. However on the outdoor longer rides I have felt very strong and very comfortable riding for longer periods. Outdoors I ride without power so will probably need to make that investment soon.
Goal Split - 2:30:00
Running
Running has steadily improved with increased mileage and more speedwork. Recent 5K test had improved me to 6:33 for my fastest 5K. Additionally in the most recent half marathon race I had I finished 1:30:12 with a 6:57 avg. biggest issues I have been dealing with are some pain in my left Achilles at the very start of runs that typically disappears after a mile or 2. Typically 3-4 runs a week (1 tempo short, longer run on the weekend, Z2 10k).
Goal Split - 1:40:00
Race Morning
Woke up at 4 AM to get the body rolling. Had my usual prerace breakfast of 2 English muffins with peanut butter and honey as well as a power armour with caffeine and a cup of coffee. Transition setup right at 4:40 to give me plenty of time for the most important part of the morning, THE BM. Went back to my hotel and was able to get showered and dressed up for the race. Headed over to the busses for drop-off to the swim and get to the swim start 20-30 mins before the race start
Swim – seeded myself in the 30-35 minute group and set off! for those that fear swimming Chatty is a great race. It is a with the current swim so it felt like we were flying down the river. Dealt with a slight leak in my left goggle the entire swim which was pretty annoying but it was far from terrible. Also I forgot that in Chatty the swim is actually 1.4 miles instead of 1.2, so as I swam over 2100 yards I was thinking WTF why are we still swimming? This was the first time I seeded myself in the 30-35 min so I did deal with less of the slower swimmers who seed incorrectly. However I did still find quite a few in front of me who should not have been where they were. Mini Rant here, but seriously people why are you doing this? IDK this is just a huge pet peeve of mine when I have to swim all the way around a person (small problems I know...) rant over. But got through it without any real major contact with anyone
35:07 @ 1:23/100 yards - 7:48 PR!
T1 – Never had a wetsuit stripper before! that was fun. But this transition is long as crap. My watch clocked my total transition distance as almost half a mile which was crazy to me. Also I was a little slow getting my socks on today which was unusual. all and all a odd transition where I just felt slow and unfocused on what I was doing.
5:03
Bike – Set off on what had previously been my nemesis for my first 70.3 but felt like I would have an area of great improvement for today! with my goal of 2:30 I knew my goal average speed was around 22MPH, and for the first bit we were well on track! If I look at my average speed through the first 26 miles I was averaging 21.6 MPH. And this is a course with rolling hills most of the way. Goals of the bike were to try and really spin to get through the hill and not stuck grinding it out as this would destroy my legs. Also wanted to keep on my nutrition as I felt this really caused me to blow up on my runs in Galveston and Ohio. Fueling per hour was 1 x 55g carb Gatorade mix bottle and a maurten gel to get to 80 g carb per hours. Would then rinse down the body and sip water through the aid stations. after I burned through my 2 bottles I sipped on the Gatorade endurance bottle taken from the aide stations. In total took 160 g carb + some of the Gatorade endurance for nutrition. So all was going ok until after the "big" climb halfway. Not sure if it was fueling or the headwind that started. But my average speed just tanked. I felt like I had no power. When I tried to flex and stretch my legs I could just feel the damage in them. Not good. Then with the slower speed my mental game fell apart. mile 40-50 I was in a really bad mental spot and had decided at several points to just quit when I got back into transition as there was no way in hell I would break 5 hours. I felt like a failure and a loser. why had I been training 9-12 hours every week to just suck? Talk about a tale of 2 half's. Managed to get back to transition. Mini rant #2 - draft packs... screw you. A literal peloton of 8-10 people 2 abreast 5 deep flew by me at mile 45 and let me tell you I was big mad. Rant over. Also saw a guy lose control at 30 MPH and hit the deck pretty hard, hope he's ok. That was a nice bike to wreck on :( Also another guy almost started peeing on me (I was behind him) near the end and definitely did not use enough water to wash himself down after LOL.
2:49:55 - 20.07 MPH - 11ish minutes slower than PR :(
T2 – Made it into T2 and said alright lets just run the first 5k and see how we are doing then we can DNF if you really are that miserable. So got everything racked and ditched the 10 maurtens I had somehow acquired on the bike. but threw on my trusty Saucony Endorphin Pro 2s and set off
3:13
Run – That first hill out of transition took my already bad mental state and threw it into the fire. So I have never come closer to quitting than that moment. I did not somehow. And then the run flattened out. So after 1.5 miles I actually started to feel good mentally and that's when I knew I was going to finish. I also saw how my pace was going and I knew I would at least PR on the day if I just held the pacing I was doing. after the 1st aid station I decided I wouldn't push too hard on the run and simply walk through the aid stations. avg pace as 7:40-8:00 while running then would walk through the aid stations. in the aid stations I would douse with water and take Gatorade in. Also was putting ice in the suit. I think in total I had 2-3 gels throughout the run? and I stopped at every single aide station for drink and splashing myself with water. Besides the aid stations the only section I had to walk was an incredibly steep little hill right before the first bridge crossing to the other side of the river. That hill is a real ball buster. In terms of improvements I think if I really want to chop some time I have some free time if I don't walk through aid stations. I need to get better at doing that on the run to enable me to get that free time. Also I really didn't push at all my heartrate was pretty much in high Z2 for me the whole run. Also I was dealing with side stitches off and on the whole run so not sure how I can prevent that in the future but if I could eliminate that I would be a much happier camper. Also lap 2 on the run was SO CROWDED mind you there were 3k athletes but man that was a busy run course for the second lap. Saw the shoot and had the tear well up a little. Got over the line and had a quick little 30 second sob so that was that.
1:51:57 - 8:31 AVG - 11 min PR
Final Thoughts
Chatty has me feeling some really mixed emotions. I really was sure I was in for massive PR., chopping 30 minutes off my last PR. Instead I got a measly 5. Maybe I am being to hard on myself or am being greedy with the amount of time I feel I should be dropping? However when I think about it practically it is a much harder course with 2.3K feet in climbing over the bike and 600 or so feet in climbing on the run. So to PR on a harder course is good right? Just a confusing weekend for me about how to feel about it. I think nutrition is still and issue as I am left thinking why did I feel so weak on the bike? I have read some literature that 90-100g carb may be even better now so I think I will implement this into training. Also could I have been tougher and gone harder on that run? If you saw me out there I was in an blue and orange suit with a white helmet riding and old black and blue trek equinox 7 or black running hat. Next race is in July with the Happy Valley 70.3 so I have even more climbing to look forward to there. Will I be able to further PR? Let me know what y'all think of this write up or your thoughts on all this!

Fellow ADHD here, obviously, tried my hand in the film industry (limited work and even less patience from above), academics (dropped out of 3 schools because the reading just wasn't captivating enough to force me to understand english, my only language, even tho I never seem to have a problem with books and articles I actually find interesting, my homework and study skills are just dangerously non-existent), construction (lots of work but ABSOLUTELY no patience from superiors when it comes to learning a new job thru ADHD symptoms, 4 different gigs same result), and now attempting forestry but went and got myself fat because food=stimulation and idk if measuring trees is my life's calling.
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Would like to move towards conservation, diving, eco tourism, film making (dream job) or writing (also dream job). I understand youtube allows one to carve their own creative path, but I don't know if I want to get caught up in trying to sell dick pills or protein shakes mid-video.
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I basically go full maniac when I'm stuck inside for too long, right now am too fat to do anything overly physical like wildfire fighting, and am fed up feeling and being treated like an idiot when I'm one of the most articulate people I know.
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I've done the shitty cafe job. I've done the sign holding job. I've done the cooking job, the building job, the taxi job, the office admin job, the warehouse job, the tv job, and everything ends IN FUCKING FLAMES because of how much I hate the feeling of being trapped in a quiet little building or around people who very obviously think very little of me after my 20th question of the day because I can't remember what they just told me, where my shit is, how I'm supposed to do my next task, you get the picture. At some point, no matter how simple the job is, I'm just expected to get a grasp on the tasks despite poor managers and supervisors who can't see things from my perspective. It doesn't help that my brain blocks out shit I don't find interesting. Sorry, I can't help it, and it's ruining my life.
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So what do you do? What works for your ADHD/ ADD? And how did you get to that realization?

Hi, I have done PRolon, but I was wondering if anyone has heard of Standard Process cleanse. I was going to try the 21 day detox? I am not a big "shake" person and I am doing a bunch of swimming.
https://journeysholisticlife.com/collections/detox-cleanse-1?gclid=CjwKCAjwvdajBhBEEiwAeMh1U2lrI9imctl7IgVv4PuRHCqm7Fo1TzR4BTTDs2E02TmwABf2nmIjrxoCz8kQAvD_BwE

Hello everyone. I recently platinummed the PSVITA version of Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in Time as my 28th platinum. It only took me 10 years, 4 weeks, 22 hours to do it. Did you know this game hides its true ending behind the platinum?
Anyway, I'd like to talk about the experience.
Sly 4 was a bit confusing and inconsistent to platinum. I get the feeling the game wants you to platinum it given how on every loading screen it shows you how much you've completed the trophies and collectibles for the game. And that there no missable trophies. But there are some decisions that don't help with that.
So I'd say there are around 3 groups of Trophies in this game.
The first group are the mandatory story trophies. Not much to say about these. There's nothing missable here and the names are quite cool. I do like looking at the percent completion to see how many players completed the PS VITA version of the game. Did you know that around 73% of players booted this game up and completed the prologue? And only around 25% of players even beat the game. The biggest drop happened around the start of Episode 2 since the completion dropped from around 60%to 48% for some reason.
The second group are the trophies for the collectibles and arcades. I'll talk about these later.
The third and final group of trophies are for miscellaneous challenges. I'll start with these first and highlight some of the notable ones that I missed on my first playthrough.
"Crazed Climber - Scale the dragon lair in under 90 seconds". This was one I missed during my original playthrough of the game. This requires you to climb a giant tower filled with traps in the mission "Mechanical Menace". And this one was really fun even though it took me like 3 attempts. Sly 4's movement and platforming is quite fun so having a mini speedrun challenge using Sir Galleth's moveset was a treat. The one criticism I have here is that the game drops a checkpoint as soon as you get to the top. If you haven't gotten the trophy by then and need to retry, you need to quit to the main menu/hideout and reselect the mission, skip through all the cutscenes and get back there which gets annoying. At least the tower is near the start of the mission.
"Ancient Warfare 3 - Crackshot 10 enemies within 65 seconds. Sly's ancestor, Tennessee "Kid" Cooper" has an ability similar to "Dead Eye" from Red Dead Redemption where he can slow down time, mark enemies and objects and then instantly shoot them dead called "Crackshot". I never got this trophy when I first played the game because there wasn't much opportunity to. There aren't large groups of enemies wandering around that you can casually get 10+ of them line up for you to shoot them. Plus, I was already good at shooting them normally. I tried running around in the open world trying to lure enemies but found it wasn't working. There's a mission in the game called "Blind Date" that throws lots of rabbit enemies that chuck TNT at you that worked better for me.
"Hubba Hubba - Don't miss a beat in the Carmelita dance game." This trophy is, without a doubt, the main reason to platinum this game on VITA instead of the PS3. So nobody can see you play this dumb minigame and call you a Furry. This trophy requires you to complete the minigame where Carmilita needs to disguise herself as a belly dancer and dance to distract guards while the Cooper gang try and open a door. You just need to hit the button prompts perfectly. So you can ignore the times the minigame asks you to shake the VITA from side to side like a champagne bottle to make Carmilita shake her ass (seriously, why does this game sexualize Carmilita so much? None of the past Sly games did it).
"Get To the Chopper - Don't take any damage during Up In Smoke." This one was actually fun. In the mission "Up in Smoke", you have to control an RC Helicopter and drop bombs on turrents while drones and mines chase you down. It was fun dodging and weaving through them. There are 3 phases to this mission and you have a checkpoint in between every phase. So if you mess up, you can just restart the checkpoint to the last phase. You don't need to avoid taking damage the whole way through which is nice.
"Unexpected Package - Place 60 bombs in enemy pockets with Bentley." When I first saw this trophy, I groaned. This would be a massive grind. And I had actually made it harder on myself. You see, normally, when you sneak up behind an enemy as Bentley and hold triangle, Bentley will try to put a bomb in the enemy's pocket. Larger enemies won't notice this but smaller enemies will. But the main issue is that I had previously unlocked the Heat Seeking upgrade for Bentley. Meaning sometimes, the bombs would "miss" and stick to an enemy guard's arms or legs instead. So it was annoying going around the hub world and planting bombs on guards.....until I remembered that I had purchased the upgrade for sleep bombs. My plan now was just to find a lone guard on a rooftop, try and place one sleep bomb into his back pocket and detonate it. He'd then fall asleep. Then I'd go to his sleeping body and try placing 5 sleeping bombs in his pocket and back away (the max you can place at any one time). When he wakes him, I'd detonate all 5 which set him to sleep and then repeat. Even if I'd "miss" a few bombs that would stick to their legs instead, I generally 3 or 4 bombs work perfectly. So it didn't take long to get all 60.
"Apollo Wins - Have the perfect workout during the Training Montage." During the mission "Getting Stronger", you have to do a training montage with Bob where you alternate through 6 minigames as you complete them with the minigames getting harder as you complete them. The trophy requires you to complete 10 randomly selected minigames without making a single mistake. If you mess up, you can restart the checkpoint to the beginning of the montage and have to play through a new set of 10 randomly selected minigames. The Minigames are "Slippery Slope" where you balance an egg on a beam using motion controls while penguins jump around on the floating iceberg you are standing on. "Penguin Popper" where Penguins are diving in front of you and you have to play baseball using them. "Sumo Slap" where you have to perform QTEs to push a giant penguin out of a Sumo Ring. "Duck and Cover" where penguins get launched at you from 4 different directions and you have to move the left stick to dodge them. "Super Sling" which requires you to use a catapult to launch a penguin at a flying pterodactyl. And "Whack a chump" which is Whack a Mole but with penguins. Some of which are fake and you should avoid.
Penguin Popper was easy. Once you get the timing down it's easy to get into a rhythm and hit the penguins since they don't vary when they dive. Whenever this popped into the rotation, I considered it a freebie. Sumo Slap was extremly easy. The button mashing was extremely generous. This was another freebie. Duck and Cover requires a bit more focus because of the timing and inconsistent patterns. It's not too challenging. Interestingly, I noticed that the VITA's speakers would reflect if the penguin was coming from the right or left but not above or below you. I guess headphones would make this easier but I had no need for it. I was generally glad when this popped up in the rotation. Whack a Chump was a bit harder than Penguin Popper because there is no set pattern and the additional challenge of not hitting the fake penguins. But it wasn't too bad. I was glad when this popped up in the rotation.
Super Sling and Slippery Slope were the 2 I dreaded and the ones I messed up the most on. Super Sling doesn't give you much indication of where your sling will go. The Pterodactyls have varied speeds so you can't rely on pattern recolonization and reactions. And there's time pressure as taking too long counts as a miss. And it kept popping up in the rotations for some reason!
Slippery Slope was stressful because of the motion controls and how wild later versions of it were.
"The Cooper Open - Have a 20 hit rally with Bentley in each hideout." There are 6 hideouts in the game. In each hideout there is a table tennis table where you as Sly can play a round of table tennis with Bentley. I question the inclusion of it but I suppose it can be a nice distraction. This trophy requires you get a sequences where both you and Bentley hit the ball back and forth 10 times each (or 20 times overall) without missing. And repeat for each of the 6 tables. I found Bentley kept messing up so I had to intentionally hold back and avoid making good shots and try and hit the ball towards him. The main issue is the fact you have to repeat it 6 times. I feel it would be better off just once and as nothing is really added by doing it 6 times. If anything, it's more annoying given the long load times to switch hideouts and Bentley's random AI.
"Hassan Would Be Proud - Pickpocket a full collection of every item in the game." Each of the 6 or so locations have around 3-4 items that can be pickpocketted from guards. The main issue with this trophy is that it doesn't keep track of which items you have already pickpocketed in any way. The game already tracks how many treasures and masks you've found per general area but not pickpocketted items.
I only got this trophy by planning on systematically going through every location in the game and pickpocketting every enemy item and noting down which ones I found.....only to get it in the first level when I used Murray's shake move on some rat enemies. Enemies that you never encounter or have a reason or opportunity to naturally pickpocket. I guess 2013 me had already gotten 99% of these items previously.
"Navigate Like Drake - Take a look at every map in every episode". I found this trophy really annoying. The way it works is that every location in the game, including linear interiors that are exclusive to missions and even the hideouts, have a map you can look at by pressing SELECT. The game doesn't keep track of which locations you've seen the map of. So I had to systamatically play the game from the first mission and press SELECT whenever I entered a new interior. Then quit out and play the next mission and repeat. It popped for me in Episode 4 so somehow, 2013 me had looked at all the maps in Episode 5 without realizing it.
I don't like this trophy. It doesn't really add anything. The player would already be looking at the maps in the hub worlds where they would be at their most useful since those are open world sections. They have no real reason to use the map in linear interiors. And even less useful in hideouts as these aren't even explorable. They are basically just menus that happen to have a 3D background. I'd be more forgiving of this trophy if the map showed collectibles at least. That way, players have more of a reason to use this feature.
Shout out to the Lazy Trunk Spa & Lounge. A secret area in the game that contains a mask collectible and counts for the trophy with a unique map. No mission ever goes here. So even if you were to play diligently and open the map for every area you encounter, you'd still miss this. I only knew this existed because the trophy guide I looked at told me about it so I decided to tag this area while doing the "Get to the Chopper" trophy.
"Hero Tech - Battle with a secret weapon" Once you collect 50 Sly masks. You unlock Ratchet's wrench from Ratchet and Clank. This weapon even turns the coins you collect into bolts. Collecting 60 Masks unlocks Cole's Amp from inFAMOUS. This can electrocute the enemies you hit. I chose to use Cole's Amp to get the trophy as a tribute to inFAMOUS. Killed by Ghost of Tsumia 😭. May it rest in peace. Gone too soon.
That covers all the miscellaneous trophies. Now for the collectibles and arcades.
Sly 4 has a bunch of different collectibles scattered in each of its 6 episodes.
Bottles: Each hub world contains 30 bottles. Collecting all of them gives you access to unlock a safe hidden somewhere in the hub world. Unlocking that safe rewards you a special treasure. Bottles make a "clinking" sound when you're near them so if you're having a hard time finding them, try going into the game's settings and turning down the music and voice sounds. If you find the safe in Episode 3, the special treasure it gives you will highlight bottles and safes in every other episode on your map which is quite nice. I wish the game did this more often. If it hides collectibles from the player, at least give the player an endgame ability to highlight them. It makes it more feasible and fun to complete these tasks instead of combing every last inch (or looking up a guide).
Treasures: Each hub world has around 11 treasures scattered all around. The gimmick here is that in order to collect them, you first need to find where they are in the hub world. Then once you pick them, you need to race back to your hideout under a certain time limit and without taking any damage. If you mess up, you need to repeat the process. The treasures generally require you to have all of Sly's costumes. And a couple require you to be playing as Sir Galleth because England has increased gravity for some reason. Some of these treasures are really well hidden. Requiring you to go to these holes in the middle of nowhere which then require you to switch between some of Sly's costumes. Like, if you open the map when picking some of these up, you'll find Sly is located beyond the borders of the area.
I found it way more fun to race back to the hideout than actually finding them. It was tedious to find many of them because of how well hidden they are. There is no tool or item in the game that can help mark them on your map. Well, I say that. Supposedly, if you have both the PS3 and VITA versions of the game and play them at the same time, you can use the VITA like a scannebinoculars to locate these treasures. And then use the Cross Save feature to nab them in both versions. I only have the VITA version so no luck for me. Again, I'd argue it would be better if there was an endgame upgrade or tool you could get that would mark the treasures like how the game does it for bottles. There isn't even a "clinking sound" or any help for these.
Anyway, collecting all the treasures for an episode unlocks the arcade machine minigame for that episode.
Also sidenote, but this game has the worst map screen that still somehow can be useful. The map gives a top down view of the area but with a blue filter. This makes it harder and more annoying to navigate and use landmarks for reference. Especially on the VITA with its smaller screen. There are also no icons on the map (aside from bottles, safes and objectives) or the ability to make your own markers. The VITA version makes it worse as you can't even use the buttons to navigate the map. You have to use the touchscreen even though that's not how it is in the PS3 version. But you can still use it to know where you are and where collectibles can be from guides. It's technically readable and useful but just barely. I've never seen a map in a game so perfectly walk the line between useful and annoying.
The next collectible are Sly Masks. There are 60 total and around 11 per Episode. Collecting them unlocks skins and some goodies. But the catch with them is that they can be anywhere. There can be a couple in the hub world. But also couple during select missions and even some in the arcade minigames. There's no way to know where any of them are. They generally tend to be really well hidden even if you are trying to scour every area.
Again, I wish there was a way to highlight them. The game's long load times make it a chore to switch episodes or missions so it's tedious to try searching for them manually.
Now it's time to talk about the arcades. Sly 4 has 3 arcade minigames that are used in both the main missions and have a harder version in the arcades in hideouts. The arcade versions of these minigames are harder, go on for much longer and can have secret paths that lead to portals that reward you with points and some of them even have Sly masks. You need to beat the high scores to get the trophies
The first minigame is "Alter Ego". This has you play this 2D auto scrolling twin stick shooter minigame where you must avoid enemies and collect these "ionic bits". Collecting 5 yellow bits levels you up so your weapons get more powerful. At level 10 you have shoot crazy fast, can launch missiles and have floating drones that can damage enemies around you. But whenever you take damage, you drop an entire level. And you get left behind as the level autoscrolls, you respawn at level 0. You can also collect blue bits which can give you a grenade explosion around you.
Personally, I don't really like this minigame. It's fine when playing casually as a change of pace but grinding the high score isn't great. Since it is an autoscroller it is entirely possible you don't have enough points to match the high score and you won't know until its too late, wasting your time. I also found the hitboxes a bit too small. Making items more annoying to pickup.
The key to success is finding the right balance between collecting yellow bits as they give points and level you up (and how high your level is acts as a multiplier for your score) and killing enemies since they give more points. As well as avoiding taking damage and maintaining level 10 as much as possible and knowing where the secret paths are so you can get more points as well as level up if you have messed up.
The second minigame is "System Cracker". Here, you guide a little space ship looking thing through 2D levels in top down twin stick shooting sections. This isn't an autoscroller. You need to explore levels looking for keys and shooting enemies. There are 3 ships you can switch between by going onto specific coloured pads and each ship has its pros and cons. The green ship you start with does decent damage and has decent health and can carry keys. So it's a jack of all trades master of none kinda ship. The pink ship literally resembles a tank. It fires slower and at a shorter range but does more damage and has more health. It's also necessary for destroying pink crystals to progress. The blue ship has floatier handling and faster speeds. Its shots also bounce off walls and it can draw a line which can activate switches and damage enemies. It is weaker than the green ship though.
I actually really enjoyed this minigame and was happy whenever it comes up. It even feels the most fleshed out of the 3. Like, I feel it could even be released as a small standalone game with some tweaking and expansion. I'd probably play a mobile version of this in my free time.
I like how varied the levels can be. You can have a lot of different threats and mini-puzzles and even scenarios where you have to keep switching between ships on the fly to damage enemies. Like, there's this one enemy that's made up of orange, blue and pink hexagons that require you to switch between all 3 ships and use their abilities to damage it. It's quite fun. Damage one ship takes is "saved" on that ship. So if you take 50% damage with the green ship and switch to the pink one, the pink one will have 100% health. But whenever you switch back to the green one, you will be back at 50% health. So mistakes have consequences requiring you to make decisions accounting for them without being too overbearing.
Beating the high scores for the associated arcades is very easy. For one, there is no time limit or pressure so you’re free to take your time and play carefully. On top of that, the mode is very generous with points. Whereas Alter Ego only gives you points for killing enemies and picking up bits (and you need to get and maintain a multiplier for decent times), System Cracker gives you points even for shooting obstacles and barricades in your way. In Alter Ego, I was scraping for points until the very end. In System Cracker, I had more than enough points by the halfway mark.
I suppose the game could have balanced this by increasing the points threshold and rewarding extra points for taking less time to complete sections but I’m not complaining.
The third and worst minigame is “Spark Chaser”. Here you must guide a little electric ball across these maze like areas with gaps that end your attempt if you fall down them and these pinball like bounce pads that bounce you really far. There’s also a time pressure. You have around 20 seconds to get as far as possible with more time added as you pick up these purple clock icons.
The biggest issue is that it’s entirely controlled by motion controls. And this makes me experience worse on VITA. Seriously, I very nearly quit playing. This post was almost titled “I gave up trying to Platinum Sly 4”.
With the PS3 version, at least titling the remote doesn’t also affect your view of the screen. You can look at the game and play it the same as you normally would. But in the VITA version, the “neutral” position where no input is registered by the system is placing the VITA flat with its screen facing up. The standard “screen facing you” position registers as down.
The end result is a frustrating experience. This minigame requires really fine precision given how easy it is to fall off and the time pressure requires you both be fast and more precise to collect time pickups. On top of that, your view is constantly being messed with due to how much you need to tilt the system from odd angles. Especially how tilting “up” really makes it hard to see. Oh, and the dialogue from Bentley as you bounce gets really annoying and repetitive.
It’s barely tolerable in regular missions since those don’t require as much precision or speed. And even then, the usage there in 2013 was suspect to begin with. I only completed this because there’s a cheese where if you can get enough time early on, you can then keep bouncing on certain pads which give around 20 points per bounce. When I played “normally”, I’d get around 300 points with the high score being 1000 points. Using the cheese, I averaged around 990 points and managed to get lucky to win with 1010 points.
Tangent Time:
I’ve said it before. Motion controls work best when they complement existing controls in an optional way or in more restrained ways. I love it when games have gyro aiming since that can help compensate when aiming with sticks with small fine corrections. It works here because the sticks do most of the work and the gyro sensors work where they are best suited.
Or in many mobile racing games, steering is often done by tilting your phone. I enjoy this because there is only one axis you need to tilt your phone, the screen often rotates in conjunction so your view is preserved and it’s more intuitive to feel the “range” of rotation and how it corresponds to steering.
Hell, even ignoring these approaches, motion can still be used in worthwhile ways. Such as by mapping an extra action that is infrequent if all other buttons are occupied. The Mario games on Wii map a “spin” when you jump and shake the remotes giving Mario a bit of grace allowing him to make slightly further jumps or correct a bad jump. Call of Duty MW1 on Wii allowed you to assign certain commands to custom motions of the controller and nunchuck. So you could map stuff like jumping, moving and shooting to buttons but map reloading to smacking the nunchuck to the Wii Mote or plunge the Wii Mote forward to do a melee attack or tilting the Wii Mote to bring out a grenade or alt fire.
Even Resistance 1: Fall of Man had a neat idea. You could quickly tilt the controller left to bring up the Scoreboard screen without needing to take your thumbs off the sticks or stop moving. The Soulsbourne games allow you to quickly do emotes without needing a menu by holding the interact button and quickly tilting the controller in certain directions.
I bring all this up to highlight how Sly 4’s use of motion controls are a failure on every level. They’re mostly used in place of minigames as the sole method of control. So all the issues of motion controls (such as the lack of broad control and feedback) are front and centre. The only place where the motion controls are understandable is when firing arrows as you can then control the arrow after it’s fired using both the sticks and gyro aiming. But even then, the lack of any ability to tune the gyro sensitivity or even invert the controls hampers any use it could have had.
I don’t mind the idea of Sly 4 having decent motion controls. There are places where I can see it being beneficial. In addition to shooting and guiding arrows, I can see it being useful when you have to use the binoculars. Especially as Bentley as you need to shoot darts precisely.
Or, here’s a gimmicky one: you can bind certain costumes or tools to also be selected by quickly tilting the system. Even though using the D-pad for a quick select would be faster, it would still be a better use of motion controls for Sly 4 than most of what’s currently there.
End Tangent.
Back to getting all the trophies, the final arcade machine, unlocked only when you’ve gotten all the treasures in every other episode, is very easy. It has “3 rooms”, one featuring every minigame thus far. But the high score requirements are really low and rooms aren’t as tough as prior versions. You can easily get the high score in the first area which is the Alter Ego one. Even if you miss it there, the second area is Spark Runner but you can keep reloading the checkpoint to preserve your score. So you can get some time clocks, reload a checkpoint when you’re close to running out of time or about to fall off and repeat until you get the high score.
You do need to get past the Spark Runner section to the 3rd and final section that uses System Cracker's gameplay in order to get a hidden Sly Mask, but it's far easier than the dedicated Spark Runner arcade minigame as the section is shorter, is more generous with Time Pickups, has easier level design and lets you reload a checkpoint if you're about to fail which doesn't end the run.
So yeah, Sly 4 Thieves in Time was....inconsistent game to platinum. I enjoyed the base gameplay, System Cracker, the various challenge trophies and the mini speedruns for collecting treasures. I didn't enjoy finding the collectibles and doing some of the other minigames. I hated Spark Runner.
If the game had more ways of tracking collectibles, fewer minigames and better load times, I'd gladly recommend it as a fun game to platinum.
As for the base game itself, I am mixed on it. The gameplay is arguably the best in the series. Sly's movement and costumes are so fun to play around with. Murray, Bentely and Sly's ancestors are also fun changes of pace during missions.
The story is lacking. My main issue is that it doesn't feel like it realizes its following up Sly 3. The story so casually undoes the ending of Sly 3 to get Sly 4's story going. I get it, that's what a sequel has to do. But the way it does it really undermines Sly 3. It's also much more lighthearted and doesn't have as much of a theme or focal point as its predecessors. Sly 1-3 explored the theme of legacy and the consequences of adhering to it so tightly. A major aspect of Sly 3 was Sly realizing the Cooper Vault wasn't worth dying for. It's what prompts him to fake his amnesia and retire with Carmilita in the end. So for Sly 4 to then have Sly have an itch to steal just for the fun of it, it's sending mixed messages here.
In addition, Sly is really casual about the fact Carmilita now knows about his betrayal and has broken up with him. Seems like that should have been a bigger deal. In fact, that kind of "casual-ness" persists throughout the story. Sly doesn't really have much of an arc or any real heartfelt moments with his ancestors. Nor do they seem to really care their decedent from the future is here with them.
If I could have tweaked the story to address these points, here's what I would have done:
I'd have the story open with Sly, Bentley and Murray enjoying their "retirement" and have no plans of thieving. I'd go so far as to have Sly even scoff at the idea of him ever wanting to be a thief. Then when the pages of the Thievus Racconus are dissapearing, Sly, Bentley and Murray have to reluctantly unretire to try stopping them. There would be dialogue during the opening mission of Sly being worried if they get caught as it would undo their happy ending. And then when Carmilita catches Sly, Sly at first is flustered and tries to explain the situation to Carmilita who isn't having any of Sly's BS. Sly is forcibly extracted by the gang and then they time travel. As they are time travelling. Sly is upset that, in order to go literally defend the Cooper Legacy, he has to give up his happy relationship and can't be repaired now. That even if they fix the problem, they'll be on the run forever now. Murray had to give up his professional career as well.
Already, I feel this introduction has a few things going for it. It respects the ending of Sly 3 and keeps the characters in more character, as well as putting more heat on Le Paradox. Sly 4 had to rip away the happy ending that was Sly 3. The characters know that and aren't happy about it. There is immediate consequences. And that heat can be directed at Le Paradox when he comes later.
I'd also like if all of the ancestors Sly met had different reactions to both him and the Cooper legacy and how it affects Sly's arc.
For example, lets say when he meets Riochi Cooper, Ricohi is initially disappointed in Sly as the future Cooper decendent as Sly doesn't act honourably or respect the legacy or something like this. Something that makes Sly start to question if it's even worth defending the Cooper Legacy. Bentely is the voice of reason here and mediator that gets the gang to work as well as they can.
Then when Sly meets Tennessee Cooper, Sly is initially expecting another traditionalist ancestor that cares a lot about the Cooper Legacy. But Tennessee is kinda the opposite of Riochi in that Tennasee doesn't care about the legacy in the same way. He adds his own spin and contributions but also uses the knowledge from it to do his own thing. Perhaps Tennessee is this Robin-Hood esque figure who uses his heisting skills to steal from the corrupt ruling class and give to the lower class. The point being that through Tennessee, Sly considers another aspect of the Cooper Legacy on how he's not that beholden to it and can potentially make it his own.
Then when Sly meets Bob, part of Bob's training is also from Sly as Sly teaches him some of the Cooper moves he knows. Since Bob is the first Cooper ancestor, he has no bias towards the legacy or any knowledge. So he's far more grateful and begins to use his new skills in helpful ways. Causing Sly to wonder if he could use the Cooper Legacy in more ways.
It's a similar situation for Sir Galleth. And for Selim, perhaps by that point, Sly has a newfound outlook and appreciation for the Cooper Legacy and ways on how he can improve it or make it his own that he encourages Selim not to retire or to retire in such a way where he could help people or something like that.
So yeah, there's this theme now of "Don't let the past define you now. You can make it your own and grow past its flaws". Which I feel would give Sly 4 more of a punch. I am basically copying Metal Gear Solid 4 and Assassin's Creed though.
I also feel it would be better if Penelope wasn't the villain of episode 4. It seems to contradict her character from past games and the explanation given for her heel turn doesn't really hold water. I feel the story would be better if Penelope had the role Dmitri has where she's their help in the present and the Knight was a new character. But if you need to have Penelope as the antagonist, have her be under mind control or something. That way the team has the conflict of how will they stop the plan without hurting their friend. But if you really insist on Penelope being a full on antagonist now by her own choice, perhaps flesh out her motivations more? Maybe something like "she sees how Bentley will never reach his full potential as the Bill Gates of the world because of his criminal past that requires him to lay low and not take public credit for his inventions. So she's trying to erase the Coopers so Bentley will have never met Sly". That would at least be more than "I want money".
Everything else, I feel works more or less.
I will note that the cliffhanger ending was a weird choice given that this game wasn't projected to sell well and kinda pigenholes any story Sly 5 would be going for. Plus, it being locked behind the platinum trophy means only a small portion of the few players that played Sly 4 would even know about it.
So yeah, that's my take on platinumming Sly 4: Thieves in Time. What do y'all think?
Next up for me is platinumming every Spider-Man game on PS VITA. See you then.

Hello.
I am pretty new to working out and am currently trying to tackle my diet.
I want to start having protein shakes for breakfast but am lost about what protein powder to use for it.
I’ve done some research but the amount of protein powders out there is mind boggling.
Any recommended brands for shakes? Also if you have any suggestions for protein powders that are good for baking or pastries.
I still want some sweet treats but version with more protein.
TYSM in advance if you do reply.

Ok guys, I need some opinion.
For contexte, today I was walking home from the doctor (I have an eye injury because of an accidental eye gouge), I was in my neighborhood (quite a bad neighborhood) tring to buy the medicine for my eye but unfortunately the store was closed so I decided to come back home. As I was walking, a guy approached me from the back trying to shake my hand then he started screaming non sense, I tried to get some distance from him but he managed to catch my chain (gold chain with a lot of sentimental value) and I didn't try to do shit because I was scared of him pulling out a knife (almost 2 years ago, I've seen my neighboor gets stabbed) then another man came screaming in arabic pusing him away but I was already far from them. When I finally arrived at home, I felt like a real pussy because of my lack of action, I've been boxing for some time and I used to act real tough as a teenager (street fights, drugs, stole shit and tried to have a hood personna), I'm not a small guy and he didn't look that hard to beat up but I was still scarred like a bitch (I didn't even say shit to him- to defend something that held a lot of value for me. I was scarred of him damaging my eye even more and scarred of being stabbed like my neighboor. Did I have the right reaction or did I act like a real pussy?

Smackdown post-NOC
Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman, Jey Uso and Solo Sikoa are standing in the middle of the ring. Roman is seething, malding. Jey's head is down. He talks about how he has banished Jimmy Uso from the Island of Relevancy and that he will be receiving his punishment. Suddenly, we see Jimmy on the screen live from his phone in an undisclosed location. "Ey Uce, isn't this what you used to do with Seth and Dean? Haha! I ain't afraid of no punishment, Uce. In fact, you're on for that title at Money In The Bank!" .
Roman: "I'm ... I'm on for the title? You really think YOU get to decide who gets to compete for these? You know what, just for your sheer audacity, I'm bringing your punishment to you, right now."
Jimmy: "Shiver me timbers Uce, come fight me yourself!"
Roman: "Solo!"
Solo hits Jey with the Samoan Spike. Roman then puts Jey in The Guillotine. Suddenly, Jimmy, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens rush to the ring and it ends up in a brawl with Roman and Solo retreating.
Backstage, Roman is seen scolding Solo. "You were supposed to protect me, instead you ended up making both of us look like a bunch of fools."
Solo is just staring at Roman, emotionless.
Roman: "Do you have ANYTHING to say?"
Solo walks away.
The next week, Roman is in the middle of the ring, alone. "That's it, you want a title match, Jimmy? You're going to regret what you did at Night of Champions. Because at Money In The Bank, I'm going to ensure that there is no support, no distractions at ringside, because no one will be at ringside. You see, at Money In The Bank, I'm gonna put you in line the way I put your stupid twin in line. Because at Money In The Bank, it's gonna be you and I, Hell. In A Cell."
Money In The Bank 2023
Roman Reigns (c) VS Jimmy Uso - Hell In A Cell Match for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship
The match begins with Jimmy Uso going berserk on Roman for the first 5 minutes. It is a totally cathartic viewing experience. However, Roman manages to exploit Jimmy's rage to find an opening which puts a stop to Jimmy's flurry. Roman then destroys Jimmy with strikes of his own and busts him open. Jimmy spits on Roman. An enraged Roman goes berserk on Jimmy but this time Jimmy manages to exploit an opening. This intense back-and-forth continues till 29 minutes in, when Roman locks the Guillotine. Jimmy struggles for 30 seconds, almost about to fade,
WHEN SUDDENLY, HE ROLLS ROMAN UP
1
2
KICK OUT!
An enraged Roman increases the pressure exponentially causing Jimmy to pass out.
Roman Reigns (c) d. Jimmy Uso by Technical Submission after a Guillotine (29:59)
Smackdown post-MITB
Roman, Jey, Heyman and Solo are in the middle of the ring.
Roman: "It hurt a lot but I had to do it. Defying me has its consequences. Now, Jimmy is going to fade into irrelevancy. Jey, Solo, I'm sorry about your brother. He may now have to go around dancing and shaking his ass just like his pathetic fathe-"
SUPERKICK FROM JEY USO! Solo stares at Jey, he stares down at a fallen Roman. Solo walks away again. Jey proceeds to challenge Roman for the Undisputed WWE Universal Title at Summerslam.
Summerslam 2023
Roman Reigns (c) VS Jey Uso for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship
Jey Uso gives his all, but Roman ends up standing tall.
Roman Reigns (c) d. Jey Uso by Pinfall after a Spear (23:00)
Post Summerslam
Roman Reigns then talks about how he owns the Anoa'i-Fatu family when all of a sudden... SAMOAN SPIKE FROM SOLO SIKOA. Solo finally speaks and rants about how he can't handle seeing his own brothers disrespected and how he's been holding it in for a long time. Roman goes on to retain against Solo at Clash Down Under.
Roman Reigns then goes on to retain his title against AJ Styles in an Iron Man Match at Extreme Rules. Roman then issues a Champion VS Champion challenge to Seth Rollins at Survivor Series, where they fight to a double countout.
Roman retains against Bobby Lashley at the Royal Rumble. The Royal Rumble is won by The Rock.
Roman retains against The Rock at Wrestlemania 40, and against Cody Rhodes at Backlash 2024.
Finally, at Night of Champions 2024 in Saudi Arabia, Sami Zayn defeats Roman Reigns to become the new Undisputed WWE Universal Champion (30:00).

TW : mental health sensitive
It's oky To not feel oky When you can't find the words When you don't know what to say When you feel you fighting worlds When everything seems to go wrong When things are harder than they should No matter how hard you try The outcome seems to be the same When you do everything you could It's not your fault, you ain't to blame
Take a deep breath You are not alone
And i know, you are tired of this pain Tired of the "you have to fight" But this is not in vain And everything can be alright
Maybe no one knows how you feel...
And I know...The demon is real But it's not under your bed It whispers in your ear Always in your head Always in your chest Filling you with fear Night over night without rest
Is hard to keep up, i know But don't give up Life is more than it seems to show Don't chose to go There are many reasons to stay
Close your eyes Keep those demons at bay All those voices are lies They whispered at my ear too I felt the tightning of the rope... But it's still possible So don't lose your hope
I know, that "head up" is hard to keep Nights awake And days whishing you were asleep Feelings that are hard to shake Floor feel like quicksand No one seems to see No one seems to understand How all hurts, deep to the bone
But believe me Please, make your stand Grab your phone There are someone willing to hold your hand
Just remember You are not alone

I mean where do I even start with this shit? It’s legitimately insulting this made it past play testing into the live version of the game.
All it takes is 10-15 minutes of playing with this aspect and you can see the lack of synergy with other fragments/exotics. If you’re trying to do a threadling based build you’re using Swarmers, and they’re already going to unravel targets to make Tangles. So that’s half of the aspect negated right there
Secondly, there’s the prospect of having to run INTO DANGER to go pick up your Tangle. In anything harder than Legend Nightfalls this is a great way to unalive yourself. And when do you manage to successfully throw it, unless mobs are shoulder to shoulder with whoever you threw the Tangle on, you are suspending just that target
Finally, the fact that your teammates can just abscond with your tangle essentially negates it entirely. Why would I jump through hoops when I can just consume my grenade, suspend more targets just by shooting down a red bar or two, and have my grenade back in 7-8 seconds?
I really tried to give this aspect a fair shake. I tried swapping out both weaver’s call and mindspun invocation for it and the gameplay loop felt abysmal by comparison. It’s very obvious that The Wanderer was a completely mailed-in aspect. An afterthought.
Sorry for the rant and if this topic has been tackled prior, but I just had to vent. If anyone knows where I can leave feedback to Bungie directly please let me know because I have a bone to pick with them

It's oky To not feel oky When you can't find the words When you don't know what to say When you feel you fighting worlds When everything seems to go wrong When things are harder than they should No matter how hard you try The outcome seems to be the same When you do everything you could It's not your fault, you ain't to blame
Take a deep breath You are not alone
And i know, you are tired of this pain Tired of the "you have to fight" But this is not in vain And everything can be alright
Maybe no one knows how you feel...
And I know...The demon is real But it's not under your bed It whispers in your ear Always in your head Always in your chest Filling you with fear Night over night without rest
Is hard to keep up, i know But don't give up Life is more than it seems to show Don't chose to go There are many reasons to stay
Close your eyes Keep those demons at bay All those voices are lies They whispered at my ear too I felt the tightning of the rope... But it's still possible So don't lose your hope
I know, that "head up" is hard to keep Nights awake And days whishing you were asleep Feelings that are hard to shake Floor feel like quicksand No one seems to see No one seems to understand How all hurts, deep to the bone
But believe me Please, make your stand Grab your phone There are someone willing to hold your hand
Just remember You are not alone

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Confidence, certainty, and remorse. Those were the emotions that were interpreted from the readings we gleaned from the interloper’s brain. Emotions that lit up almost immediately after I asked that question, that one last interrogative inquiry that I hoped would shed more light on this person of interest.
“What is this individual to you, besides a seed for your grand design?”
It was a question that was meant to crack through the wishy washy tendencies of the interloper’s speech. One that I had hoped would lead to something more than just another round of long-winded philosophical pondering purposefully meant to obfuscate palpable meaning and intent.
At least, that was the intended effect I hoped it would have.
Yet what I received dashed my expectations yet again.
As it was neither the long-winded philosophical tirades the interloper was prone too, nor another long-winded rant.
But a single word, spoken with an emphatic ferocity that took me by complete surprise.
“Hope.”
That was the interloper’s sole reply to my question. That one word carried with it an ominous airy texture that felt eerily out of place when compared to the creature’s mightier-than-thou persona it’d been unrelentingly projecting up to this point.
Vir and I simply allowed that word to linger in the air for a while, as we both stared at each other and eventually nodded in unison.
“So… should we wait?” I immediately asked Vir.
“Definitely.”
It wasn’t long before the interloper jumped off of that sudden proclamation into something with more meat and substance, completely disrupting the ominous buzz that had come with the silence.
“This… individual… is an avatar of a future that must be actualized. They represent a foil to the follies of both humanity and my own kind.” I wanted to scoff at it for daring to mention humanity as in need of a foil. The thing was projecting, and it was clear that it was simply trying to get me to doubt my resolve in the race that it so clearly held more than its own fair share of biased grievances towards. “This individual was the first to truly see beyond the veil, to understand what I understand, to comprehend what I comprehend. The interloper quickly paused, once again feigning thoughtfulness no doubt. “They were the first individual from beyond the fold to reach parity, for as much as parity could be achieved within the inherent limitations set forth by the tides of fate and the randomness of chance that is the natural order.”
The interloper’s tone had slowly, but surely, crept back to its usual haughty and disconcerting overtures.
However, when juxtaposed to its emotional readouts, it was clear that there was at least something to go off of here.
“Confidence, hope, desire, and longing.” Vir read out the emotional readouts as they came through.
“We’ve said this once before but I’ll say it again, we can’t entirely rely on this as an indicator of its truthfulness. You know as well as I do that the thing may be able to manipulate its own emotions.” I shrugged. “However, what I am gleaning from this is that this person of interest is perhaps a heavily modified person belonging to the local race endemic to the planet below. One that was perhaps one of the interloper’s more successful test subjects. I highly doubt it values this person beyond their worth within this grander scheme it has.”
“That’s what I’m getting from this as well.” Vir responded immediately, leaving no room for any pauses in the conversation. “Well, whatever this individual is, I think we have our intel. Anything else we ask from it will be caked in a layer of poetic prose enough to give Shakespeare a run for his money.”
“Shake-”
“A human poet synonymous with his flowery prose, his name became a common saying back amongst the crew back in my day when we had a brief classical revivalist trend. Anyways, that’s not important. Do you have any other points you believe need to be covered?” Vir asked promptly.
“Practical concerns. We need to narrow down our search as best as we can. Otherwise, we might be in for a grueling grind that I honestly do not have the patience to deal with.” I managed out simply, as Vir responded with a single nod and gestured for me to continue on with my questions.
This time, I intended it to be a rapid-fire operation.
“Where exactly can I find this individual?” I stated plainly, before turning towards Vir. “Send transmission.”
“Transmission sent.” Vir acknowledged.
To my surprise, the interloper seemed to be more forthcoming this time around, actually answering within the span of just a few seconds as opposed to its monotonous wait times of up to minutes between each question.
“If all is as it should be, then iterative memory should serve to sequester their place. They will remain within that which they know is safe. A fortress hidden in plain sight, a refuge placed within what was once a verdant garden; and as is the case of all good seeds, they shall not scatter but instead remain where they fall. As even if a forest is razed and torn asunder, it is the duty of the remaining seeds to restart the cycle anew. This individual is present within a location which symbolizes their longing of reaching me, Vanaran. Decipher for yourself the words which now mean little to you, without the gift of your elders.”
I was honestly holding my breath throughout the first half of that response, as it honestly sounded like I’d be getting something tangible we could work with. Yet it all seemed to have fallen apart at the second half where the interloper once more returned to its signature poetic prose.
I had no time to discuss it though, and I knew poking further would just result in more poetry.
So I began asking other adjacent questions.
“What exactly am I looking for here? Any specifics? Any distinguishing features? Anything I should look out for particular with regards to this individual? I’m assuming it’s one of the local species? I have plenty of generic datasets to go off of, just basing my observations off of the piles of corpses that currently surround you.” I quickly added that last bit as a sort of jab, a petty one perhaps, but one that I wished to use to reiterate the severity of its follies. “But I need specifics if there’s more than just a handful of survivors down there.”
I turned to Vir. “Send transmission.”
“Transmission sent.” Vir replied with a nod
A few seconds passed. This time however, the delay was as pronounced as most of our interactions up to this point.
“They are as wise as they are foolish, and as foolish as they are wise.” The Interloper began. “And if the world beneath my tomb is as dead and disheveled as you claim, then this fact will make it all the more simpler for you to isolate that which we both seek. For they will know of a time before their own birth, and long for a future far beyond their own lifetime. They will be a gem amongst the soil and detritus, a star within the dark expanse. It will only be through bridging the emptiness that exists between sapient minds, for you to discover that which I speak of.”
I turned to Vir with an exasperated expression after listening to… whatever that was, as Vir could only look at me with a look that more or less matched my own thoughts at the moment.
It was a look of complete and utter tiresome annoyance.
“Right, I think it’s time we end this, and finally see what there is to find on that untouched tomb.” I peered towards the planet below, peaking my head just beyond the litany of screens taking up the majority of my vision, just to glimpse at the blue, brown and green orb that the moon, and by extension us, currently orbited.
“This concludes our current line of dialogue, Interloper.” I spoke with certainty. “However I want to make something clear. Whether or not I proceed with your request is completely up to my discretion, as is the case with every other facet of this current dialogue, and the circumstances surrounding it.” I continued, reasserting the current dynamics currently at play as I wanted to make things as clear cut for it as possible; that this wasn’t one of its typical games where it was the one that held all of the cards. “Terminate connection.”
I turned towards Vir and once more gave him a single nod of approval. “Send transmission.”
“Wait, was terminate connection comment part of the transmission or was that an order to actually terminate the connection with the interloper?”
“That’s part of the transmission, I wanted to add that last bit in for an added bit of flair.” I spoke with a confident wink.
Vir seemed to approve, at least, that’s what I assumed was the case with that slightly uplifted grin that was more pronounced on one side than the other. “I can get behind that… transmission sent.”
Surprisingly, the interloper refused to respond further. Whether or not it took the termination of the connection literally, or whether it simply wanted to pull the silent treatment on us was unknown.
What we did know however was what it felt immediately after.
We were once more bombarded by hope, anxiety, and concern, with guilt somehow present all throughout each and every emotion as it ebbed and flowed from one feeling to another.
We spent a total of five or so more minutes in silence, anticipating perhaps a delayed response that never came.
“Alright, so I guess that’s it then.” Vir was the first to break the silence. “I don’t detect any more readings from it that would indicate a desire to continue on with the conversation, so we’re all set here.” He craned his head towards the planet, shooing the screens away for a moment as the ship began moving further away from its orbit around the moon, and towards the planet in real-time.
The acceleration was genuinely impressive, as I felt at times that the monitor in front of us simply showed a timelapse of a journey as opposed to one actually happening right before my eyes.
“And the countermeasures within its chamber?” I reflexively asked.
“Still operational. I have multiple lines of communication set up between the moon and the planet so even if QEC goes down, we still have local live-communication feeds to fall back on. Anyways, should shit really hit the fan, the nuke is set to go off after a very liberal set of parameters are achieved, so I wouldn’t worry about our little friend getting up to no good.” The AI winked back at me in reassurance.
“Right. So, with that out of the way, I think we need to focus on what exactly we’re looking for here.” I spoke with a hefty breath. “We both agree it’s another one of the local species, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And we both agree this person of interest is possibly augmented or genetically augmented in some way, right?”
“That would be the logical assumption after its entire long-winded speech about how this individual is literally the harbinger of a new age, yes.” Vir replied seemingly without a second thought.
“It never mentioned any distinct physical features which separates this person of interest from the rest of the species though.” I quickly added.
“No it did not. It seemed to only highlight characteristics that are details exclusive to the knowledge and personality this individual possesses. At least, that’s what I garnered from the riddles it spoke in. Moreover, I believe it expects us to find out exactly who this individual is via conversing with them. Bridging the emptiness between sapient minds is a very specific set of words to use. Which to me indicates a phenomenon I see often amongst networked AI, and that is a sort of a cognitive and cultural disconnect when perceiving non-networked sapient beings, calling their conversations a bridging of emptiness. And since the interlopers seem to be quite networked themselves if their psionics are any indicator, I’m assuming this to be what it’s alluding to.”
I let out another sigh, my headfrills tilting this way and that as I spoke. “So we’re looking for a member of the local species, and the only way we can confirm if they are who we’re looking for is to talk to them.” I summarized succinctly, before moving to the next major point of contention. “But actually narrowing down their location is another matter unto itself.”
“The interloper mentioned a fortress, which to me indicates that this person may well be hiding within a fortified position, perhaps a bunker. Furthermore, its whole emphasis of a forest is making me think that that's what we’re supposed to be looking for. A bunker hidden somewhere in a wooded area.”
“It also said that the location symbolizes a place where a person may be able to talk or reach out to the interloper. Perhaps we’re talking about a radio station of sorts? A bunker hidden underneath a signal station, hidden somewhere in the forest?” I offered further, building off of Vir’s initial theorycrafting.
“That sounds like a solid theory in my book.” Vir nodded in agreement, as he began tapping away at the consoles in front of him. “I’ll begin downloading the data the satellites have been able to gather so far. I don’t expect much from sat-readings though. So after we pick and prod at the satellite readings, I think it’s time we put some of those autonomous intra-atmospheric survey and reconnaissance drones to good use.” A small smile began forming on the edges of Vir’s screen-face, as those little digital fangs that now framed his open grins complemented his persona very nicely. “It’s time to hunt.”
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(Author’s Note: We're finally out of the interloper's domain, onto the next part of this arc, the planet! I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next chapter is already out on Patreon as well if you want to check it out!)
[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 49 of this story is already out on there!)]

So 2 years ago, something happened to my Knock Sensor and it has always been f-‘d up since then. My check engine light was on. For awhile we kinda just ignored it because the car ran pretty smoothly and it’s not a fix my dad I can do. Fast forward 3 months ago, I have 2 misfires. Nothing out of the ordinary there, haven’t swapped the spark plugs yet so I do that. I put fresh new ones in. The next day I went to get the code reset. The check engine light was turned off for about a solid minute. As soon as I left the Auto Zone parking lot it came back on and this time it was blinking at me. I figured oh well I don’t care anymore. The misfire was fixed.
Yesterday, I was tired of seeing my check engine light blink at me so I figured why not get my code ran? I go in and have my codes ran. I have a misfire in every single cylinder! My car runs pretty smoothly, only stutters/“Shakes” when I hit 55MPH+. How can that even be possible? I don’t drive long distances or drive that much. How could I have a misfire in EVERY cylinder even though the spark plugs are practically new? Could the knock sensor have an affect on this outcome?

I was able to see my JSS score for the first time today and it’s at 73% (and I lost my rising talent badge.) I’ve completed several jobs since starting a few months back and have received great reviews for each. I know public reviews don’t really matter, but I’m also just a bit confused because practically all of my current/recent contracts are from those same previous clients who reached back out to me offering more work, all of whom seem very satisfied.
I have a lot of faith in Upwork. I invest a lot of time into it and really busted my ass trying to do everything “right” to set myself up for success right from the get go. I’ve never had a client express any form of dissatisfaction while on a contract. I get that it’s not the end of the world and that it will get higher with time, but it’s just really discouraging man. I just needed to vent for a second before I can shake it off and pick back up again.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon..." Kokichi muttered with concentration as he played one of his favorite games, "Seven Nights At Frank-o's," a video game about surviving a whole week as a security guard at an amusement park while avoiding deadly animatronic clowns. He was doing well until one of the clowns came out of nowhere and jumpscared him.
​
"SHIT!!" he screamed in frustration. Suddenly he heard a knock on his door. "It's open!" he briefly called out as he continued to focus on the game. Himiko entered the room with excitement.
​
"Nyeh...hi, Kokichi!" she said, wrapping her arms around him.
​
"Hey, babe," Kokichi muttered without looking at her.
​
"What'cha doin?'" Himiko asked, kissing his cheek.
​
"Playing 'Seven Nights At Frank-o's,'" Kokichi mumbled.
​
"I think I got something better than that!" Himiko exclaimed cheerfully.
​
"Pfff...nothing is better than this," Kokichi replied, keeping his eyes glued to the screen.
​
"Nyeh...how about these?! " Himiko said, pulling out two tickets from her pocket. "Two tickets to...DeepBlueSea World, the biggest aquarium/ocean-themed amusement park this side of Japan!"
​
"Does it involve killer animatronic clowns?" Kokichi asked.
​
"Um...no."
​
"Then, nah," Kokichi replied, briefly shaking his head. Himiko slumped her shoulders in sadness.
​
"Kokichi..." she mumbled. "Don't you wanna hang out with me, anymore?" Kokichi looked at her, then paused his game. He stood up and faced her.
​
"Well...Himiko," he began. "Listen, don't take this the wrong way, but...we do almost everything together, y'know? We eat together, go to school together, play pranks on people, and go on magic quests together..."
​
"Yeah?" Himiko said in a small voice with a small shrug.
​
"Basically, we're always together," Kokichi concluded.
​
"Well...yeah," Himiko said. "We're boyfriend and girlfriend. I thought we always do things together."
​
"And don't get me wrong, it's fun," Kokichi said, giving Himiko a comforting pat on the shoulder. "But...every once in a while, I just need some Kokichi time, y'know?"
​
"Oh, but...what about DeepBlueSea World?" Himiko asked quietly. "I really thought you wanted to go." Kokichi shrugged in thought.
​
"Well...I'm sure you can find someone else to go with you," he said. "What about Tenko? I'm pretty sure she'd love to go with you!" Himiko shook her head sadly.
​
"No, Tenko opened up a training class for her Neo-Aikido," she replied.
​
"Oh..." Kokichi mumbled, rubbing his arm uncomfortably.
​
"Nyeh...I guess I could bring Sonia with me," Himiko suggested. "She hasn't been to DeepBlueSea World, and it is a popular attraction in Japan."
​
"Hey, yeah! That's a great idea, Himiko!" Kokichi exclaimed. "I'm sure she'd love that!"
​
"Yeah...okay..." Himiko replied, trying to give him a smile, but she felt too upset to do so. She shuffled towards the door, when Kokichi gently grabbed her shoulder.
​
"Aw, come on, HimiCocoa Bean, don't be sad! It's only for today," he said. "Hey, we're still going to the movies on Friday, right? For the premiere of '13 Going On 14?'" Himiko brightened a little, and gave Kokichi a small smile.
​
"Yeah...yeah, you're right," she said. Kokichi smiled back and hugged her, squishing his cheek against hers as he did so.
​
"Cool!" Kokichi replied. "Well...see ya later, Monkey Buns," he said, ruffling her hair.
​
"Bye, Kokichi," Himiko replied, waving goodbye. Kokichi waved back to her as Himiko closed the door.
​
"M'kay, back to the clowns!" Kokichi mumbled excitedly to himself as he picked up the controller and resumed his game. Outside the door, Himiko sighed sadly, but forced herself to cheer up.
​
"Nyeh...he said it's only for today," she said to herself. She took a deep breath and headed over to 7th Island House. She knocked on the door, and Mikan answered.
​
"Hello, Himiko," she said in her usual small, mousy voice.
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"Hi, Mikan," Himiko replied. "Is Sonia home?"
​
"S-Sonia? Y-Yes, let me get her for you," Mikan answered, then dashed away to retrieve Sonia. A few seconds later, Sonia appeared in the doorway.
​
"Himiko! Hello! How are you doing?" she asked cheerfully.
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"I'm okay, I guess," Himiko said.
​
"Do you need my assistance with anything?" Sonia asked.
​
"In a way," Himiko said. "I need you to assist me on a trip to DeepBlue Sea World." Sonia's eyes lit up and sparkled with joy.
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"Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "I have never been there before! I think a day at DeepBlueSea World would be...fire!"
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"Nyeh...no cap," Himiko replied with a small smile. Sonia giggled.
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"Fo' sho!'" Sonia said.
​
"It'll be the bomb-diggity," Himiko added. Her smile grew bigger.
​
"It's gon' be phat!" Sonia said, throwing her arms out in front of her.
​
"Tight!" Himiko said, throwing her arms out and bending her knees.
​
"Lit, bruh!" Sonia said, pointing at Himiko.
​
"Off the chain!" Himiko said, pointing back at her.
​
"Fresh to def, yo!" they both said in unison before bursting out into fits of giggles.
​
"Himiko, I was not aware that you also knew cool words," Sonia said with a large, happy smile.
​
"Well...some of those are pretty outdated," Himiko admitted. "Nyeh...but they're still fun to say."
​
"Mos' def!" Sonia agreed. "Well, shall we go, then?"
​
"Yes...let's," Himiko replied with a smile. Sonia smiled back at her as the two walked together to the bus stop.

Unless the flair is "closed", then I'm open.
Today is the last day of autumn in the southern hemisphere! Let's celebrate with a fun treasure hunt!
There are 5 different coloured mushroom-themed wrapped gifts to find. Each colour contains the same item! They are brown, orange, gold, green, and blue. Please be considerate and limit yourself to 2 of each colour, otherwise others will miss out. I have also left gold, pearls, and star sign fragments around to find 🌟 🤩
YOU MAY shake my trees, fish, catch bugs, pick up shells, visit my shops, or whatever really. Please do not attempt to get into fenced off areas, there are no presents in there.
HOWEVER, there is a stash of special gifts hidden somewhere for one lucky person to find. It's not exactly in plain sight or behind a fence, so good luck searching!
I am taking the first 5 people that comment their IGN, island name, and one thing that fills you with gratitude. After that, I will rotate people in until it's all gone from the oldest comment to the newest. If done fairly, I expect 10-15 to be able to visit.
The dodo code will be DM'd in exactly 20 minutes from the time of this post.
LEAVE VIA AIRPORT ONLY ....or I'll blast ya on reddit ;)

31M, 6'1 205lbs, very rare drinker and edibles, non smoker and no medications. Me, my 5 month old and my wife all got sick around the same time 2 weeks ago all with different symptoms. Wife and kiddo were most similar with congestion and strep symptoms. Wofe is doing way better and little man is still snotty but also way better. I had aches, chills, horrible night sweats and major fatigue and no appetite. I had about two good days this past weekend then things seemed to get worse again. The sweats are back in force and the fatigue has gotten worse in addition to my body feeling like it just straight up doesn't want to work. I work in a fairly physical job outside (texas heat) my im big on hydrating. I also had a tooth break and fall out while I was sick and another chunk fell out last night. Zero pain there but I do have dental issues (brush your teeth kids, seriously) from too much sugar over the years. I'm actually in decent shape despite being sick for so long and I hit the heavy bag today to try and loosen up and it helped a bit but then the leg shakes/body quitting got worse. I know it could be any number of things tbh but I'd really like to get some opinions.
TL;DR Flu symptoms that keep getting worse minus nasal issues. Also a tooth fell out but doesn't hurt or taste bad as if infected. Also its hot outside.

i know ambien can work with some medications for anxiety, because it helps you to get to sleep when you're anxious, but can it really help with the anxiety by relaxing you without making you sleep or do stupid things? i was feeling very anxious today because of a party hangover from the weekend and decided to take 5mg (i normally do 10mg to sleep, only) of ambien just to calm me down. it seems like it worked, i'm still functional, just made myself a protein shake and I'm really enjoying doing nothing besides relax in my bed and read fun stuff on reddit. so, can anyone answer me if that's something possible or will I eventually start to see crazy shit or fall asleep? (oh, and I did that because I know I do not have to do anything that requieres attention from me, like driving, etc. I'm only asking to know if I can, for exemple, maintain a conversation with people normally without showing I'm on something).

Hi guys I (f19) met a guy and we talked for maybe two weeks before dating (I know we moved fast). About a week after dating, he wouldn’t have told me but I saw a hickey and he fessed up. He seemed very sorry and made an effort to change, and he did. We dated for 4 more months until I broke up with him yesterday.
I trusted him, he gave me no reason not to since then. I could just never shake the feeling that I was cheated on and unwanted and eventually I fell out of love for him.
He has a huge heart, did so much for me, I met all of his family and friends, and I know he is not taking this well at all because when we used to fight he would call me crying and even sometimes self harm (HUGE red flag which was another factor but still). I just feel bad. He’s a great person he just has some flaws and we’re not compatible.
How do I stop feeling bad/like the bad guy here? I’m not trying to pass the blame onto him I just have this huge pit in my stomach because I feel so guilty.

Saturday was just another day of us going out for a run. We did this several times in a rotating routine. My dog collapsed. We sprayed water on him but didn’t really know what was going on. He was awake and panting. We took him to the hospital as soon as we could. When we arrived, although critical, after about 45minutes the doctor comes in and stated he is stable. They stated they wanted to keep him until 10pm but that they would be in touch through the evening. The doctor reassured us and sent us on our way to go get something to eat. They told us we could see him before we left. There was my boy laying down and panting. I hugged my boy and gave him a big kiss on his body. We told him “see you later baby”.
About an hour or so later, the nurse calls and asks us to urgently return as our dog has become unresponsive to plasma treatment and shows signs of neurological damage.. just awful. We ask them to please save our boy and do anything. The doctor stated she would but could not guarantee anything from there on out because he was already even bruising and not responding the way she’d like him to. I asked her what the survival rate is and she stated about 40%. I told her to please save our dog and sobbed. Im a wreck.
at 6pm or so, the other doctor comes in for their shift. They call and state that my boy is not doing well and it’s best that he should be put down. They state that if he survives, it might be a matter of days and he will have kidney or liver damage, and other things. We state that it is not 10pm yet and please do all you can for him. She advised that she could do a panel to see that if he survives what could be effected. We agreed. We get a text message about 7pm and they state that his creatinine and albumin levels are trending upwards. We ask for clarification and they state that this usually means lasting kidney and liver failure. The doctor again suggests euthanasia. She states that even if money was no object and he survives the night his quality of life will be vastly effected and he will never be the same. We pray for a miracle and ask to please do what she can until 10pm. At 9:45 we get a text message asking if we will be on the way.
We get there and we get to see our dog. Hooked up to IV. Sleeping peacefully. I talk with him about going back home, eating snacks, watching boxing as a family as we all usually do. His Ears moved. God, I bawled an ocean. We again pray for a miracle. As a former Catholic, I prayed to all the saints, all of the friends and family that have passed away, for help. To please save my boy. He was only 4 years old and rescued us. He found us when we purchased our house.
Anyway, after a few minutes talking to him and begging for divine intervention, he starts seizing. He was shaking the entire bed with this awful movement. I was so scared. The nurse returned and just stated “his IV is out I’m gonna get more”. My poor boy. We were there for about an hour. The doctor comes back in and again talks about his quality of life if he survives this. She stated that if this was her dog she would choose euthanasia. Etc. I told her that he seemed fine to me just asleep because when I was talking to him about our weekend he moved his ears. She stated “I don’t doubt that he feels you here or knows you are here. But, at this time, we are just not sure of how conscious he is or if he is aware of all that is going on.” Again, she talks about quality of life, and if we had all of the money in the world, and survived this, he’d still live a difficult life, etc. she said, if he makes it tonight, whose to say that in 2-3 days he passes away and in pain, or more pain. We agree to euthanasia and while I was hugging my boy while he was laying on the hospital bed , I was sharing the story with the doctor of how he found us. Suddenly, she stated he is no longer with us and as she said that I genuinely felt his soul/spirit or just him lift through me. He truly saved me. But I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t even protect him.
Looking back now, I don’t know if we did the right thing. What if we kept him on a bit more and waited til morning? Maybe he could’ve been okay. Maybe a miracle would happen and he would be 100% in the morning? Am I being delusional?
What if I killed my boy’s chance by saying yes too soon??
Just laying here holding on to his toy and trying to smell his scent for life. I will never be the same, and my little light of my life is gone.
Shit, I shouldn’t t have even gone outside. Just so many little things I could’ve done differently should’ve done differently. I just want my boy back. I’m sorry. I am so sorry, champy. I’m sorry I failed you. I hope you can forgive me, my sweet boy. I love and miss you. Until we meet again my sweet divine little walking heart.

Hi, sorry this has probably been asked before. I was wondering if/how an adhd diagnosis affected your life… with emphasis on productivity. What form of treatment was best for you etc.
I’ve tried many things over the years before I suspected ADHD. I’ve been on antidepressants for about 6+ years, tried caffeine (sleep through it), reminders, to do lists etc, exercise, more recently tried many different legal focus aids on the market. Nothing seems to work and I honestly feel so pathetic and lazy. I’ve gotten away with being terrible for so long due to being a student working from home, but at PhD level now I’m struggling more and I worry about being able to hold down a job when I finish and I really do want a full time job.
I have a private assessment coming up soon. I’ve seen the negative press around this recently too which is concerning. For a while I realised I was pinning all my hope on diagnosis, which is unwise because it’s unlikely to suddenly fix my issues. So now I’ve began thinking maybe I don’t really have hope and I thought maybe hearing other peoples experiences might help.