I've seen a lot of posts over the past few days about how LOTR is so disappointing and underpowered, and I think a lot of people are ignoring that a lot of the cards that feel slightly underpowered come with some type of "The ring temps you" text.
The temptation of the ring mechanic is going to be a major player in Modern, and you should be evaluating Ring buffs on how it makes Modern's best creatures even stronger.
Let's break down what the Ring temptations do for reference:

1. Your Ring-bearer is legendary and can't be blocked by creatures with greater power.
   
2. Whenever your Ring-bearer attacks, draw a card, then discard a card.
   
3. Whenever your Ring-bearer becomes blocked by a creature, that creature's controller sacrifices it at the end of combat.
   
4. Whenever your Ring-bearer deals combat damage to a player, each opponent loses 3 life.
   

Even at Step 1, we're able to make a non-legendary a legend (which factors into a lot in this set with a lot of "legends matters" abilities including the 5 land cycle, but also works well with things like Mox Amber or reducing costs for Boseiju and the other Kamigawa Channel lands) and then gives the creature Skulk. * So right away, even one temptation of the Ring means you can enable a crap load of legendary payoffs, and make something like a Ragavan nearly unblockable.
Then things get really spicy at Step 2, which lets you loot each time you attack with your Ring-bearer. THIS IS REALLY FUCKING GOOD. Looting is one of the most constantly undervalued yet insanely strong abilities in the game. Imagine your opponent's Ledger Shredder now being able to loot when it attacks as well as when its Connive ability triggers, or, to go back to the Ragavan model, we are now at a RAGAVAN WITH SKULK THAT LOOTS EVERY TIME IT ATTACKS.
Let's go deeper to Step 3. Now, if you are able to line up a block on your opponent's Ring-bearer (which still has Skulk from Step 1 btw), you're sacrificing your creature at end of combat. This seems less impressive until Step 4, when your Ring-bearer gains "when it deals combat damage to an opponent, each opponent loses 3 life."
And because the Ring temptation stays at 4, it means from then on you can Voltron the hell out of any creature you have out with each subsequent Ring trigger. This means your opponent, if they have a good flow of Ring triggers and creatures, can basically constantly attack with evasive beaters that loot on combat are difficult to block because of Skulk, that either hit for 3 extra life or force you to sacrifice your blockers.
From level 2 (giving Loot on attack) onwards, the Ring abilities are just insanely strong when stapled to Modern's best creatures. You're essentially adding "this creature is legendary, has skulk, loots on attack, makes your opponent sacrifice any blockers, and hits for 3 more damage" to your best creatures just by playing a good Ring-temptation based engine in your deck. And we've already seen a metric ton of strong cards that have the Ring temptation basically tacked on.
Imagine Ragavan with that typeline. Imagine Fury hitting for twelve because it's a Ring-Bearer. Think of even the implications of having an additional Legendary creature that's difficult to block even if you're only able to activate the Ring temptation once.
To explore this in practice, let's take a look at a reasonably low powered card that serves as a major Ring temptation engine - [[Call of the Ring]]. This thing triggers Ring temptations every turn, and whenever you pick a new Ring bearer, you can pay 2 life and draw a card. It's probably too slow for Modern power level, but that does mean that if you play it in any creature deck, you're basically drawing an extra card for 2 and (in the mid-long game) constantly imparting all 4 of the Ring buffs to one creature or another. Even if you're just making 1/1 tokens Ring Bearers at that point, each one carries with them the long line of buffs that Stage 4+ Ring Temptations offer, and very quickly it seems to take shape why a passive ability like this that significantly buffs creatures with little downside is going to be pretty impactful in Modern.
Don't think of this set as a metric shift in the format - instead, think more what this wide variety of awesome roleplayers and a very powerful new mechanic can do to build upon established decks. Because there's a lot less "automatic staples" in this set and a lot more intriguing build around or high synergy pieces. And many, many of these pieces will see play in competitive Magic.

I think its lyrics are the translation of Hanezeve caradhina, an ancient song sang at burials of cave raiders but I dare to say its sang during the sacrifice of someone to the abyss, and likely to honor their ritual sacrifices and their journey. My reasoning: The language of hollows is complex despite having relatively few words, they gain meaning based on how they say them, and in what context. Hanezeve caradhina sounds "soft" borderline acapella but has some morse like elements to it as well, for me it doesn't sound repetitive. The soothing morse/acapella "lalala" part is meant to describe the journey, the way it gets more passionate and the music gets sort of distorted shows how the journey gets more and more difficult. Every "Hanezeve karadhina" marks the end of a verse. First verse:
With time the boulders leave a trail Becoming a hail of burning steel Turning the ice-clad trees into clouds
Ha la la ha se la ha la le lu Si vi bi le(with time the boulders leave a trail, becoming a hail of burning steel) shi dhina how we le la la le li la Hanezeve caradhina(turning ice-clad trees into clouds) This time Hanezeve(means calling,attraction,a driving force towards somewhere) caradhina(can mean anything associated with the sky, or what falls from the sky) refers to clouds in the sky, the sky is an important detail, words in the language of hollows have mixed meanings, this time it means clouds in the sky, their ascension to the sky. Hanezeve caradhina associated with cloudy sky means "shii"(modest wish) and "kuu"(accumulating value)
Second verse:
Extending their necks through to the sky The colossal turtles gather together(hint at layer 6's deep sea gigantism like effect?) to gaze at the amber sky
Ha la la ha la for the ha la he le le le Le le le col we le la ka la li la hanezeve yu lu mai ni Ha la la ha ze la ha la le lu Si vi bi leshi dhina how we le la la le li la Hanezeve caradhina(this time it means amber sky, the searing sunlight of layer 6) This one was straight forward again, Hanezeve again meaning attraction/call, but not force of nature like vapor rising, its more instinct. Caradhina shifted into amber sunlight from clouds. Again, Hanazeve caradhina refers to value associated with sunny sky "Gutsu" purity "Mei" chaos (This verse will be chaotic, but believe me it makes sense) A gentle voice is calling to you Sparkling gold petals Await in the distant nest Calling you awake
Ko do wo do hon do hon dow He le le le le le le ho we le low He le le le Hanezeve yu lu mai ni(a gentle voice is calling to you) Ha la la ha ze la ha la le lu Si we bi le shi dhina(distant nest, shi-nest, dhina-great distance, refering to the bottom of the abyss) how we le la la le li la Hanezeve(calling you awake-sould returning to the netherworld to be reborn) caradhina(sparkling gold petals-the eternal fortunes used at burials and memorials)
This verse is the longest and most diverse cause it carries the most emotion and value out of all, the verse as a whole refers to "Haku" the shape of a soul. Like its such a great and complex desire conventional words fail to give it justice, the ancient language had a way to at least try to capture such complex emotions.
I know Hanezeve caradhina is anime only, maybe its not canon, but I think Made in abyss is a special case where anime and manga coexists in symbiosis and the manga could take a piece of iconic ost from the anime to make a realy intressting plot point out of it, like every time Riko descends, something wonderfull or terrible is about to happen we hear it, its meant to convey what a cave raider feels. The abyss is infinitely beautyful, its allure draws some special people in who are beyond money or power(shii/kuu), about leaving behind their humanity to become something more(gutsu/mei), those who hear the gentle call from the deep shall find their Haku at the bottom of the netherworld, and their journey shall be on a field of golden flowers.

The medical field places a high value on training. I finished formal training 29 years ago, but the academy insists that I complete continuing education credits and re-board to stay current. The emphasis on training is also reflected, for example, in that clinicians are known by their highest level of training. A general surgeon who completes a plastic surgery fellowship is a plastic surgeon; An internist who completes an endocrinology fellowship is an endocrinologist. Although Dr. Attia underscores his Stanford and Hopkins background- in the field- he’s an unfinished resident. He doesn’t hold board-certification in any field. If this were a book on legal advice, think of it as written by a lawyer who didn’t pass the bar.
He got as far as being a resident, and I’m not at all convinced he was a very good one at that. In the first chapter for example, he retells the story of how he cared for the 14-year-old victim of a car crash. The kid’s pupils were ‘fixed and dilated’. He says this suggested severe head trauma. It also strongly suggested the kid was dead. He writes he knowingly performed futile procedures on a 14-year-old kid, while his colleagues asked him not to. With some virtuous pride, rather than shame, he says his juvenile ego couldn’t conceive of not saving every life. I bet Hopkins was happy to see him go. This is precisely the personality surgical programs fear giving a scalpel. Anyway, he didn’t finish.
He did, however, go to a rehabilitation facility after some homicidal thoughts. He describes a moment of clarity during a fit of rage, that refrains him from ripping another person’s larynx out. It wasn’t because he realized killing is wrong but because he realized he would lose everything he’d worked for. He went to rehab to vacate murderous thoughts from his mind. In keeping, he didn’t finish. Later, when his wife feared for her safety and that of her children he went to another program. Now he’s got it. He’s got a firm grasp on the idea that people are deserving of dignity and respect. Presumably this nugget escaped him during medical school and what he did of residency. He keeps going to programs to relearn the value of “knowledge, dignity and respect.” These are the building blocks of Montessori childcare. Peter is 50.
Attia makes references to “mainstream” medicine but never defines it. Politics, as I understand, is driven by compromise and a “mainstream” of convenience may arise leaving outliers that are less represented. How does that work in Medicine? Exactly what interventions, with proof of effectiveness has medicine shunned for compromise? Attia doesn’t offer evidence of this phenomenon in medicine before affixing the adjective because he can’t. Health science is inclusive of all reproducible evidence. The field includes diet, exercise, immune therapies, surgical interventions, and myriad additional varied tools. Is he trying to use “mainstream” to mean medicine that demands evidence?
I think so. As the book progresses, he uses mainstream interchangeably with dismissive-of-the-unproven. His book is a collection of case reports and rat studies coupled to a disbelief that their findings have not been widely applied. He’s here to run with the ball. He must because medicine can’t run long trials. If medicine can’t run long trials one has to use lesser data, like data that support his points. His editors hope no one finds out how long The Harvard Men’s Trial, The Nurses Study, Framingham, UKPDS, and Hennepin County have been running.
The editing of the book is unnoticeable. Things like ‘I myself’ get through, but editing also allows contradictions from one page to the next. On page 11, for example, medicine has been successful at reducing what he calls ‘fast death’ but markedly less successful at ‘slow death’, like cardiovascular disease; On page 12, cardiovascular disease progress has been stellar, where mortality rates have been cut by 2/3. Which is it: slow or stellar? The confusion of terrible editing can’t hide how little medicine Dr. Attia knows and the difficulty he has understanding the most basic concepts of health science.
Medicine 2.0 is a catch all term for Attia. At times Medicine 2.0 represents standards of care but at other times it’s a repository for what he doesn’t know and hasn’t read. Things are new to the reader if they’re new to him. He reviews the statistics of a trial on hormone replacement because he’s a “math guy.” He concludes that replacement therapy shouldn’t be abolished as it has some clear benefits. He discovered this, not the people writing position papers with the same conclusion. Although exercise has been recommended for centuries; although “Medicine 2.0” has had exercise guidelines for decades, it never played a crucial role in health until Dr. Attia read about it.
Attia regular uses misunderstanding as a building block. In one instance, the resident takes on Hippocrates. Since he doesn’t understand, primum non nocere (first do no harm), he finds it failing. He uses a case of tamponade to illustrate his misunderstanding. As a patient’s pericardium fills with fluid and chokes the heart, he decides to crack open the chest, incise the pericardium, and relieve pressure. He feels this was in violation of the First Do No Harm dictum. He thinks it means you can’t do anything painful or invasive, because short term harm prohibits a broader goal. Drawing blood, in his misunderstanding of Hippocrates, would also violate- First Do No Harm.
The rest of us interpret Hippocrates to mean you shouldn’t do things of which you are unsure that could result in harm. No doctor would be excused for standing by on tamponade because he didn’t want to cause harm. It’s a profound misunderstanding of what the dictum means. He goes as far as declaring Hippocrates and First do no harm sanctimonious. It’s what a resident doesn’t tell you that is worrisome. Except in rare situations, most of us relieve tamponade with an 18G needle, he opened a chest. You might notice not a single physician endorses this book, Hugh Jackman does.
In the end, one learns little from Attia. He intimates at treating pre-diabetes with drugs when every trial has failed to show an effect with early treatment. He’s running a dog trial with promising early data. To the trained ear, it sounds like a trial that couldn’t get traditional funding and hasn’t published results. He mocks the use of LDL and HDL markers though guidelines based on them have saved millions of lives. He ignores that guidelines for the appropriate use of APO-B, Lp(a) and calcium scoring already exist. He likes to leave things early before he understands them. He stayed long enough to learn APO-B and Lp(a) impart an additional cardiac risk, he didn’t stay long enough to learn proven therapies are lacking.
He recommends homocysteine levels and B vitamin replacement acknowledging a link with high homocysteine levels and adverse cardiovascular outcomes. He omits trials have failed to erase the increased risk with B vitamin supplementation. Similarly, he recommends fibrates in the treatment of primary hypertriglyceridemia because he hasn’t read- they don’t help. Perhaps when he learns this and has another episode of uncontrolled violence, he’ll write about Medicine 4.0.
Attia calls attention to Muhammed Ali’s tactical masterpiece in a fight against George Forman. Faced with a more powerful foe, Ali entices Foreman into the irresistible trap of hitting Ali at will. In short order, Foreman loses all strength with the expenditure of his punches and Ali promptly knocks him out. The tactic subsequently enshrined in boxing history as “Rope a Dope”. Attia draws similarities between the brilliance of his message and the tactics of Ali but ironically, his book is a boxer who can’t punch; it’s George Foreman in the eighth. His book doesn’t solve pre-diabetes; It doesn’t solve NASH; It doesn’t relieve dementia. None of Attia’s punches land. His advice to exercise, diet, sleep well and manage stress is unassailable but it’s not Medicine 3.0 and he didn’t discover it.

Welcome to the first installment of Mega Thread creation for helpful hints, tips and advice for the PwC subreddit! There will be a new thread each month, if you have any ideas please submit to the mod team. These threads will be pinned in the Sidebar for reference.
Since we have our Summer Interns starting soon, we are doing Intern Advice/ Helpful Hints and Tips!
Any future interns please ask questions here, I will be updating the post with the items people add. Any current PwCers please help answer these questions!

FAQs:

Is there a way to connect with other interns?

• 2023 Start Intern GroupMe
• Add a flair to your name to show you are an intern

What is the Intern work like?

• The internship is full-time for 8ish weeks. You cannot work another job during this time.
• They care more about how you behave than what skills you actually have.
• You'll do a few PPT's, data entry on excel sheets, sit through meetings where you'll have to take minutes
• Start trust Interns: You’ll be assigned to a pod with people in your office. Each pod has 1-2 coaches and a directopartner that acts as your RL. The bulk of the program is working with your group to extract the information from the Excel file they send you and to make a presentation out of it. Then rest is like you said shadowing but also lots of networking. These aspects really depend on you. If you are good with people, you can get quality shadowing opportunities and connections.
• Hoping some other PwCers or past interns can chime in on their experience

When do summer interns typically start?

• Second- week of June

When is the Intern Disney trip?

• At the end of Summer. 2023 is the week of August 7th

What should I wear when in office for my internship?

• Smart Casual = Business Casual but with the addition of jeans (not frayed/torn, no holes).
  • Your first day will be virtual but it is still recommend dressing for your day.
• For in-person events/going into the office, you’ll see that the majority of professionals wear jeans w/button downs or polos, skirts/dresses. If you’re looking to wear casual shoes, canvas/leather kicks are acceptable.
  • Note the sub will be doing a mega-thread and Pinterest board of office appropriate outfits in the upcoming months

If you got a sign on bonus with your internship, when do you get that?

• It will be in your first pay check

Does having an internship mean I will get a full-time offer?

• No. Return offers are not guaranteed by any means.
• That being said, if you put in the work and have really good conversation with people you work with chances are good.

When should you apply for a summer internship? College level and time of year

• You're generally supposed to intern 1-1.5 years before your 150/CPA credit completion date or graduation date, whichever is later.

Do interns get medical benefits?

• No

Updated 6/1/23

Let's give it up for Day 3!
Today I would like to open up a question. We have seen a lot of legendary matters cards revealed but I'm not sure how to best represent that with the cards. Is what I have currently good or would you suggest I add something else? Your feedback is appreciated.
Additionally, there are a few cards listed that I'm not sure are actually in the main set, though there aren't any indications that they are not. I will currently be leaving these for now, however.
Enough housekeeping; let's get to today's clue reveals!
Link to the clues below:
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/718159296243859457/maros-the-lord-of-the-rings-teaser-before

• five different card types get the legendary supertype (Artifact, Creature, Land, Enchantment)
• a decently sized "legendary matters" theme (seen so far on Frodo Baggins and Delighted Halfling)
• new nonmana ward costs (Sauron, the Dark Lord, sacrifice a legendary artifact or legendary creature, Saruman of Many Colors, Discard an enchantment, instant, or sorcery card)
• a mechanic returns but now references a different creature type (Amass, but for Orcs)
• a card that makes a Smaug creature token (There and Back Again, it’s a 6/6 Red Dragon with Flying and Haste, and when it dies it gives you 14 Treasures)
• two three-color and one four-color legendary creature to go along with the five-color one already previewed (Sauron, the Dark Lord, Grixis, Saruman of Many Colors, Esper, and Aragorn the Uniter, RGWU)
• a lot of one-of "creature type matters" cards (Fangorn, Tree-Shepherd, Treefolk, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Halflings, Doors of Durin, Dwarves and Elves)
• a mechanic returns that I had to fight tooth and nail to get into the set it premiered in (Historic)
• a new creature type gets its own equip cost (Dunedain Blade, Human, Bilbo's Ring, Halfling)
• some counters in the set: burden (The One Ring), deathtouch, first strike, hope, indestructible, influence, lifelink, lore (Tom Bombadil), stun, verse, vigilance, and +1/+1 (Galadriel, Gift Giver)
• "Whenever you attack with Merry and another legendary creature," (Merry, Esquire of Rohan, draw a card)
• "Then create a Food token for each creature you control."
• "Remove an indestructible counter from Arwen:"
• "Copy any number of target instant and/or sorcery spells." (Display of Power, does exactly that)
• "Whenever you draw a card during an opponent's turn, create a 1/1 blue Tentacle creature token."
• "Whenever a creature an opponent control dies, put a +1/+1 counter on Legolas."
• "Target opponent gains control of target Horse you control." (Bill Ferny, Bree Swindler, when this is blocked you may do this to remove him from combat and create three Treasures)
• "When this ability resolves for the third time this turn, Gimli fights up to one target creature you don't control." (Gimli, Mournful Avenger, who gets a +1/+1 counter every time another creature you control dies)
• "You may pay 0 rather than pay the equip cost of the first equip ability you activate during each of your turns." (Forge Anew, an enchantment that also returns an equipment on ETB and lets you equip at instant speed during your turn)
• "Whenever you put one or more counters on Aragorn, put one of each of those kinds of counters on up to one other target creature."
• Legendary Creature – Avatar Demon (The Balrog, Flame of Udun)
• Legendary Creature – Bird Noble (Landroval, Horizon Witness)
• Legendary Creature – Halfling Knight (Merry, Esquire of Rohan)
• Legendary Creature – Halfling Soldier (Pippin, Guard of the Citadel)
• Legendary Creature – Horse (Bill the Pony, Shadowfax, Lord of Horses)
• Legendary Creature – Kraken
• Legendary Creature – Nymph
• Legendary Creature – Spirit Noble
• Legendary Creature – Spider Demon
• Legendary Creature – Wraith Noble (Witch-king of Angmar)
• "Birthday Escape"
• "Breaking of the Fellowship"
• "Fear, Fire, Foes!"
• "Grond, the Gatebreaker"
• "Horses of the Bruinen"
• "Lembas"
• "One Ring to Rule Them All"
• "Oliphaunt"
• "Second Breakfast"
• "There and Back Again"

As always, feel free to let me know if there is anything I've missed!

UNDAWN
Action Plan
SWEEPSTAKES OFFICIAL RULES
NO ENTRY FEE. NO PURCHASE OR OBLIGATION IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE THE CHANCES OF WINNING. ODDS OF WINNING WILL DEPEND ON THE TOTAL NUMBER OF ELIGIBLE ENTRIES RECEIVED WORLDWIDE. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED OR WHERE REGISTRATION, BONDING OR LOCALIZATION REQUIRED. SUBJECT TO ALL NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND LOCAL LAWS.
This Action Plan (the “Sweepstakes”) in connection with the Sponsor’s video game Undawn (the “Game”) is governed by these official rules (“Official Rules”), the Game’s EULA available at https://www.undawn.game/en/terms.html (“EULA”), and the Game’s privacy policy available at https://www.undawn.game/gl/privacypolicy.html (“Privacy Policy”). By Additional terms specific to a particular Sweepstakes are incorporated by reference and can be found on the applicable Sweepstakes webpage or the applicable Game event page (“Additional Terms”). By entering or participating in the Sweepstakes, you accept and agree to be bound by these Official Rules, the EULA, the Privacy Policy, and any Additional Terms, and any decision Sponsor makes regarding the Sweepstakes, which Sponsor shall make in its sole discretion. PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE OFFICIAL RULES INCLUDE AN ARBITRATION PROVISION BELOW.
The sponsor of this Sweepstakes is ZAM Network, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company with an office at 12777 W. Jefferson Blvd – Building E, Los Angeles, CA 90066 (“ZAM” or “Sponsor”).
1) Promotion Period
The Sweepstakes begins on June 1, 2023 and runs through June 15, 2023 (the “Promotion Period”). Sponsor’s clock will be the official timekeeper for the Sweepstakes. Any entry received before or after the applicable Promotion Period is void and will not be eligible for a prize. The Promotion Period is broken down as follows (additional information on time may be posted in the Discord server):

• Action Plan (June 1, 12pm PT - June 15, 2023 11:59pm PT)

2)Eligibility
In order to be eligible, participants must be at least (whichever is higher): (i) 18 years old, or (ii) the age of majority in their state or country of their legal residence as of the date of entry, who have an active email account and Internet access. This Sweepstakes is not open to legal residents of Bangladesh, China, Colombia, Dubai, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Quebec of Canada, Singapore, South Australia and QLD, South Korea, Turkey. Any additional eligibility requirements will be indicated in the additional terms found on the applicable Sweepstakes webpage. Persons identified as “Blocked Persons” or persons subject to applicable sanctions prohibitions, including, without limitation, those persons listed on the U.S. Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List are not eligible to participate in the Sweepstakes. Employees of ZAM, Proxima Beta Pte. Ltd., Krafton, and their respective parent company, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising, promotion, fulfillment or other coordinating agencies, individuals providing services to them through an outsourcer or temporary employment agency during the Promotion Period, and their respective immediate family members and persons living in the same household, are not eligible to participate in the Sweepstakes.
3) Entry Instructions
To participate in the Sweepstakes and be eligible for a potential prize, participants must follow the following procedures:

• Participants must post 1 as specified by the events promotional post in the specified Discord channel or on social media channels

4)Drawing; Notification of Winners
All Sweepstakes entries meeting the requirements of these Official Rules will be entered into the prize drawing. The number of winners will be indicated in the additional terms found on the applicable Sweepstakes Discord Post. Each winner will be selected by a random-chance drawing by independent persons or a computer program that randomly chooses the winner, from all eligible entries received and the random selection is final and binding, subject to the below. ZAM will notify winners by email, U.S. Mail at the address associated with the winner’s entry form, and/or by other means consistent with the Sweepstakes as soon as reasonably practicable following the drawing, but at least within seven (7) days of the drawing. ZAM is not responsible for any delay or failure to receive notification, including inactive account(s), technical difficulties associated therewith, or winner’s failure to adequately monitor any account. The winner must then respond to ZAM within fourteen (14) days or such other time frame as may be specified on the applicable Sweepstakes webpage. Winner, and any guest (if applicable), may be required to sign an affidavit of eligibility and liability and publicity release. Should the winner fail to respond to ZAM or cannot be contacted, is ineligible, fails to claim a prize and/or where applicable an affidavit of eligibility and liability and publicity release is not timely received, is incomplete or modified, the prize may be forfeited and ZAM reserves the right to disqualify that winner and select a new one in a second-chance random drawing from remaining valid, eligible entries timely submitted.
5) Prize
The winners will each receive one of the applicable prizes listed in this section below. No cash or other substitution, assignment or transfer of the prize is permitted, except at the sole option of Sponsor, who has the right to substitute a prize with another of comparable or greater value. Winner is responsible for all income or other taxes and fees associated with the receipt and/or use of the prize. The odds of winning a prize depend on the total number of eligible entries received. Sponsor will not replace any lost or stolen prizes. Sponsor will use all reasonable efforts to deliver prizes in a timely fashion.

• 1 winner will win an iPhone 14 valued at US$900
• 5 winners will win a custom Undawn logo patch valued at US$10 each

6)Intellectual Property
7)Ownership of the pre-existing underlying intellectual property of the entrant remains the property of the entrant subject to Sponsor’s rights to reprint, display, reproduce, perform, use, and exhibit the entry for the purpose of administering and promoting the Sweepstakes and for Sponsor’s marketing and advertising purposes. By participating in the Sweepstakes, each entrant grants to Sponsor a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual, transferable license, with the right to sublicense, to reprint, display, reproduce, perform, use, and exhibit (including the right to make derivative works of) the entry and materials and information submitted on and in connection with the Sweepstakes or use or receipt of the prize for any and all purposes in any medium. If an entrant is selected as a winner, instead of the license granted above, each entrant grants to Sponsor an exclusive, worldwide, fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual, transferable license, with the right to sublicense, to reprint, display, reproduce, perform, use, and exhibit (including the right to make derivative works of) the entry and materials and information submitted on and in connection with the Sweepstakes or use or receipt of the prize for any and all purposes in any medium. Each participating entrant hereby warrants that any entry and other materials and information provided by entrant are original with entrant and do not violate or infringe upon the copyrights, trademarks, rights of privacy, publicity, moral rights or other intellectual property or other rights of any person or entity, and do not violate any applicable laws, rules or regulations. If the entry or information or materials provided by entrant contain any material or elements that are not owned by entrant and/or which are subject to the rights of third parties, entrant represents he or she has obtained, prior to submission of the entry and information or materials, any and all releases and consents necessary to permit use and exploitation of the entry, relevant information and materials by Sponsor in the manner set forth in these Official Rules without additional compensation.
Each entrant warrants that the entry and materials and information provided do not contain information considered by entrant, its employees or personnel, or any other third party to be confidential, and that the entry, materials and information provided do not violate any laws or regulations. Entrant agrees that Sponsor has the right to verify the ownership and originality of all entries and that, upon Sponsor’s request, entrant must submit a written copy of any release or permission entrant has received from a third-party granting entrant the right to use such property. Entrant understands and acknowledges that in the event a submission is selected as a winning entry, and entrant’s ownership, rights and the originality of the entry cannot be verified to the satisfaction of Sponsor or is in any other way ineligible, Sponsor may select an alternate winner based on the same judging criteria.
8) Except to the extent prohibited by law, entrants waive the benefit of any “moral rights” or “droit moral” or similar rights in any country to any content that they upload, submit or otherwise provide to Sponsor associated with the Sweepstakes (“Entrant Content”). In addition, when an entrant creates, appears in, uploads, or posts Entrant Content, that entrant grants Sponsor a non-exclusive, transferable, worldwide, royalty-free, unrestricted, perpetual, irrevocable, license, with the right to sublicense, to such entrant’s name, likeness, and voice, including in connection with commercial or sponsored content. This means, among other things, that such entrant will not be entitled to any compensation from Sponsor, its affiliates, or its business partners if such entrant’s name, likeness, or voice is conveyed through the game or any related services, or on one of Sponsor’s business partner’s platforms.
9) Disputes
In the event of a dispute as to any participant, the authorized account holder of the email address associated with the entry will be deemed to be the participant. The “authorized account holder” is the natural person assigned an email address by an Internet access provider, online service provider or other organization responsible for assigning email addresses for the domain associated with the submitted address. Each potential winner may be required to show proof of being the authorized account holder. ZAM will make final determination of identity of participants and timing of entries in its sole discretion.
10) Additional Conditions
ZAM reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate, modify or suspend the Sweepstakes in whole or in part, if in ZAM’s opinion (a) the Sweepstakes is not capable of running as planned by reason of the occurrence of any event beyond its control including, but not limited to, fire, flood, epidemic, pandemic, earthquake, explosion, labor dispute or strike, act of God or public enemy, communications, equipment failure, utility or service interruptions, riot or civil disturbance, terrorist threat or activity, war (declared or undeclared), interference with the Sweepstakes by any party, or any federal, state, local or provincial government law, order, or regulation, order of any court or jurisdiction, or other cause not reasonably within ZAM’s control, or (b) any other factors beyond ZAM’s reasonable control corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the Sweepstakes, in all instances without liability to the participants. ZAM also reserves the right to disqualify any participant or winner, as determined by ZAM, in its sole discretion.
11) List of Winner(s)
Individuals may request the name of the winners by emailing Sponsor at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) with the subject line: “Undawn - Action Plan Winners List”, within 90 days from the end of the Sweepstakes.
12) Personal Information
ZAM may collect personal data about participants online, in accordance with its privacy policy and as may be more specifically set forth in these Official Rules and the Privacy Policy.
13) Disclaimers and Limitations on Liability. ZAM MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING ANY PRIZE OR YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THE SWEEPSTAKES. BY ENTERING THE SWEEPSTAKES OR RECEIPT OF ANY PRIZE, EACH ENTRANT AGREES TO RELEASE AND HOLD HARMLESS THE SWEEPSTAKES ENTITIES, ANY THIRD-PARTY SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS UTILIZED FOR THE SWEEPSTAKES, AND THEIR SUBSIDIARIES, AFFILIATES, SUPPLIERS, DISTRIBUTORS, ADVERTISING/SWEEPSTAKES AGENCIES, AND PRIZE SUPPLIERS, AND EACH OF THEIR RESPECTIVE PARENT COMPANIES AND EACH SUCH COMPANY’S OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES AND AGENTS (COLLECTIVELY, THE “RELEASED PARTIES”) FROM AND AGAINST ANY CLAIM OR CAUSE OF ACTION, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PERSONAL INJURY, DEATH, OR DAMAGE TO OR LOSS OF PROPERTY, ARISING OUT OF PARTICIPATION IN THE SWEEPSTAKES OR RECEIPT OR USE OR MISUSE OF ANY PRIZE. THE RELEASED PARTIES ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR: (1) ANY INCORRECT OR INACCURATE INFORMATION, WHETHER CAUSED BY ENTRANTS, PRINTING ERRORS OR BY ANY OF THE EQUIPMENT OR PROGRAMMING ASSOCIATED WITH OR UTILIZED IN THE SWEEPSTAKES; (2) TECHNICAL FAILURES OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO MALFUNCTIONS, INTERRUPTIONS, OR DISCONNECTIONS IN PHONE LINES OR NETWORK HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE; (3) UNAUTHORIZED HUMAN INTERVENTION IN ANY PART OF THE ENTRY PROCESS OR THE SWEEPSTAKES; (4) TECHNICAL OR HUMAN ERROR WHICH MAY OCCUR IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SWEEPSTAKES OR THE PROCESSING OF ENTRIES; OR (5) ANY INJURY OR DAMAGE TO PERSONS OR PROPERTY WHICH MAY BE CAUSED, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, FROM ENTRANT’S PARTICIPATION IN THE SWEEPSTAKES OR RECEIPT OR USE OR MISUSE OF ANY PRIZE. If for any reason an entrant's entry is confirmed to have been erroneously deleted, lost, or otherwise destroyed or corrupted, entrant’s sole remedy is another entry in the Sweepstakes, provided that if it is not possible to award another entry due to discontinuance of the Sweepstakes, or any part of it, for any reason, Sponsor, at its discretion, may elect to hold a random drawing from among all eligible entries received up to the date of discontinuance for any or all of the prizes offered herein. No more than the stated number of prizes will be awarded. In event that production, technical, programming or any other reasons cause more than stated number of prizes as set forth in these Official Rules to be available and/or claimed, Sponsor reserves the right to award only the stated number of prizes by a choosing from all legitimate, unawarded, eligible prize claims. In the event Sponsor is prevented from continuing with the Sweepstakes as contemplated herein by any event beyond its control, including but not limited to fire, flood, earthquake, explosion, labor dispute or strike, act of God or public enemy, or any federal, state or local government law, order, or regulation, or other cause not reasonably within Sponsor’s control (each a "Force Majeure" event or occurrence), then subject to any governmental approval which may be required, Sponsor shall have the right to modify, suspend, or terminate the Sweepstakes. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of these rules shall not affect the validity or enforceability of any other provision.
14) Indemnification
You agree to release, indemnify, defend and hold ZAM and its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, directors, officers, employees, sponsors and agents, including advertising and promotion agencies, and assigns, and any other organizations related to the Sweepstakes, harmless, from any and all claims, injuries, damages, expenses or losses to person or property and/or liabilities of any nature that in any way arise from participation in the Sweepstakes or acceptance or use of a prize or parts thereof, including, without limitation, (a) any condition caused by events beyond ZAM’s control that may cause the Sweepstakes to be disrupted or corrupted; (b) the prize, or acceptance, possession, or use of the prize, or from participation in the Sweepstakes; and (c) any printing or typographical errors in any materials associated with the Sweepstakes.
15) Publicity
Except where prohibited, by participating in the Sweepstakes, you consent to the use of your name, photograph, likeness, voice, opinions, information, biographical information, entry and statements attributed to you (if true), hometown and jurisdiction of residence for advertising, publicity and promotional purposes, including without limitation, inclusion in ZAM’s newsletters, social media accounts and affiliated websites and the applicable Sweepstakes webpage, without further compensation.
16) Governing Law
These Official Rules, and any action related thereto, will be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, federal arbitration law and the laws of the State of California without regard to conflict of laws provisions. Except as otherwise expressly set forth in Section 15 “Dispute Resolution and Arbitration” the exclusive jurisdiction for all Disputes (defined below) that you and ZAM are not required to arbitrate will be the state and federal courts located in Los Angeles County, California and you and ZAM each waive any objection to jurisdiction and venue in such courts.
17) Dispute Resolution and Arbitration
a) Mandatory Arbitration of Disputes. We each agree that any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or relating to these Official Rules or the breach, termination, enforcement, interpretation or validity thereof or participation in the Sweepstakes (collectively, “Disputes”) will be resolved solely by binding, individual arbitration and not in a class, representative or consolidated action or proceeding. You and ZAM agree that the U.S. Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of these Official Rules, and that you and ZAM are each waiving the right to a trial by jury or to participate in a class action. This arbitration provision shall survive termination of these Official Rules.
b) Exceptions. As limited exceptions to Section 15(a) above: (i) we both may seek to resolve a Dispute in small claims court if it qualifies; and (ii) we each retain the right to seek injunctive or other equitable relief from a court to prevent (or enjoin) the infringement or misappropriation of our intellectual property rights.
c) Conducting Arbitration and Arbitration Rules. The arbitration will be conducted by the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (the “AAA Rules”) then in effect, except as modified by these Official Rules. The AAA Rules are available at www.adr.org or by calling 1-800-778-7879. A party who wishes to start arbitration must submit a written Demand for Arbitration to AAA and give notice to the other party as specified in the AAA Rules. The AAA provides a form Demand for Arbitration at www.adr.org. Any arbitration hearings will take place in the county (or parish) where you live, unless we both agree to a different location. The parties agree that the arbitrator shall have exclusive authority to decide all issues relating to the interpretation, applicability, enforceability and scope of this arbitration agreement.
d) Arbitration Costs. Payment of all filing, administration and arbitrator fees will be governed by the AAA Rules, and we won’t seek to recover the administration and arbitrator fees we are responsible for paying, unless the arbitrator finds your Dispute frivolous. If we prevail in arbitration we’ll pay all of our attorneys’ fees and costs and won’t seek to recover them from you. If you prevail in arbitration you will be entitled to an award of attorneys’ fees and expenses to the extent provided under applicable law.
e) Injunctive and Declaratory Relief. Except as provided in 13(b) above, the arbitrator shall determine all issues of liability on the merits of any claim asserted by either party and may award declaratory or injunctive relief only in favor of the individual party seeking relief and only to the extent necessary to provide relief warranted by that party’s individual claim. To the extent that you or we prevail on a claim and seek public injunctive relief (that is, injunctive relief that has the primary purpose and effect of prohibiting unlawful acts that threaten future injury to the public), the entitlement to and extent of such relief must be litigated in a civil court of competent jurisdiction and not in arbitration. The parties agree that litigation of any issues of public injunctive relief shall be stayed pending the outcome of the merits of any individual claims in arbitration.
f) Class Action Waiver. YOU AND ZAM AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN YOUR OR ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. Further, if the parties’ Dispute is resolved through arbitration, the arbitrator may not consolidate another person’s claims with your claims, and may not otherwise preside over any form of a representative or class proceeding. If this specific provision is found to be unenforceable, then the entirety of this Dispute Resolution and Arbitration section shall be null and void.
g) Severability. With the exception of any of the provisions in Section 15(f) (“Class Action Waiver”), if an arbitrator or court of competent jurisdiction decides that any part of these Official Rules is invalid or unenforceable, the other parts of these Official Rules will still apply.
18) Languages. These Official Rules may be made in multiple language versions. In the event of a dispute as to the terms of different language versions, the English version shall prevail.
19) Country Specific Notices.
20) If any provision of these Official Rules is invalid under the law, rules, or regulations of a particular country, it will only apply to the extent permitted.
21) No Affiliation with Social Media Channels.
22) This Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or administered by, or associated with, any of the social media channels used in connection with this Contest. Entrants understand that entrants are providing information to Sponsor and not to the social media channels. The information provided by entrants will only be used as described in these Official Rules and the Game’s Privacy Policy.
For any feedback or questions regarding these Official Rules, the Sweepstakes, winners, or prizes, you can contact Sponsor by sending an email to: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Lore: New to the hobby and my money is burning a hole in my pocket. I've got 6 sets of cheap dice, 4 standard dice trays, DMG, PHB, and MM, and a DM screen that came with the books. I've got a notebook but it's just a standard 3 section with perforated paper. I don't have any LGS near me unfortunately and amazon is hit or miss with quality
Adventure: I don't need better dice (but anywhere to get quality sets that look good would be appreciated for future reference). Dice trays I'm not worried about but maybe a place to get dice towers eventually as well
Amazon seems alright for the content books but if there's anywhere I could get them for a but cheaper that'd be nice (nevermind as I type this my gf just send me a D&D section at Barnes and Noble I'm on my way they have SO MUCH) Edit: I forgot to mention I'm planning on getting Tasha's, XGtE, Volo's and MoM
My biggest thing ATM is notebooks. Disorganization is one of my biggest pet peeves so I want separate books for everything. Adventures, plot hooks, notes, NPCs, environments, maps, PCs inventories, magic items, and then all of these I'm still gonna have subsections with sticky notes and bookmarks. I tried doing it all on my phone/computer but it just doesn't compare to pen and paper (despite being so much easier). I'm worried about high quality notebooks that won't tear super easily and bonus points for looking cool
Also where to find people to commission things. I'm assuming DMs guild has a lot of this but I've not actually gotten around to visit it yet. I want to give my party signature items and some art of them on an index card type thing with their rules and stats would be great. Also creating visuals for the cities and environments (just maybe a drawing depicting a church or getting a feel for it to help build immersion)
Anything else anyone can think of that I may or may not want eventually would be great so I can come back here :D

Can somebody help out with a tip?
Where is the best place for me to download the National Defense Authorization Act 2022, specifically the sections on it that pertain to AARO?
I checked the usual spots but nothing I'm turning up makes any reference to AARO anywhere in the body of the legislation! Simply can't find it.
Anyway I am drawing a blank, help appreciated, please and thank you. :)

Girls: Izzy
Boys: Ezekiel, Mal
Episode 26: Hawaiian Punch
"Previously, on Total Drama World Tour!" Chris said, the first clip of the recap showing a pan from the wrecked plane to Izzy, Mal, and the host himself. "The Final Three took off like bats out of Drumheller," Chris continued as Mal was shown ducking behind a rock with a smirk, Izzy and Topher took off into the air in a makeshift hot air balloon, and Ezekiel was reading a newspaper in the train's passenger car.
"Unfortunately, Izzy brought Topher the plane-wrecker along for the ride," Chris added as the two teens were shown flying into the hailstorm. "Even more unfortunate? A broken yeti heart." Mal was shown being disgusted by the yeti kissing him.
"Thankfully, Ezekiel Clone made things less crappy to watch," the host conceded as Ezekiel Clone was shown chasing Ezekiel around the dessert cart. "Good times!" the host added as Ezekiel's boat hit a naval mine and were blown into the air.
"In the end, Mal the Mayhem King reached Hawaii first," he said as Mal's triumphant arrival on the beach was shown. "And Captain Canada and Princess Destructo tied for second place," he added as Ezekiel's boat was shown crashing into Izzy's, sending both finalists and Topher flying onto the beach at the same time. Chris laughed as the Final Three reacted with shock at the tie.
"Who will Mal face in the final challenge?" Chris asked, the recap ending with a flash to the beach, where the Final Three were lined up behind him. "And who will go home with a million dollars?!" he exclaimed in a dramatic emcee's voice. "Iiiiiit's finale time! Right here, on Total! Drama! World Tour!"
XXXXX
"Welcome to the live finale of Total Drama World Tour," Chris said, a triumphant tune already playing as the camera zoomed in on him, the finalists, and Dawn and Harold standing on the beach. "Moments ago, these guys tied for second in a boat sandwich," he said, the shot zooming in on the finalists before he stepped over to join them. "Tasty!" he added.
"During the break, we sent them to vent in the confessional. Check it!" Chris told the camera.
Confessional: Izzy
Izzy was first, and the new Hawaiian confessional seemed to be a roofless wooden outhouse set up somewhere in the jungle, based on the vines that were drooping into it.
"Finale time!!! I can't wait to purchase my very own race track and monster truck!" she cheered. "Granted, I tied with Ezekiel to the finish line, but I think I can handle him."
She paused for a moment. "It's Mal that's the most challenging. He shouldn't be in juvenile detention. That guy belongs in jail!"
Confessional: Ezekiel
Ezekiel's confessional started with a whoop of joy. "I can't believe how close I am to the million dollars! With that amount of money, I can hire more teachers to homeschool me and buy new and advanced books to study from."
He facepalmed his head. "I just have to beat Izzy and Mal in order to reach that goal."
Confessional: Mal
Mal was next. "Getting rid of the fifteen past losers was like scraping gum off my shoe. A bit sticky, but oh so satisfying! And with Mike trapped in my subconscious, that million dollars is mine!"
He delved into maniacal laughter once more, with the background fading into a fiery inferno before the shot zoomed into his subconscious again.
Mike, Manitoba Smith, Vito, Svetlana, and Chester have reached the top, panting in exhaustion from the stairs they had climbed.
Mike, who still had Chester on his back, walked over to a red button in the center of the room. "Oh, come on. We came all the way up here for a lousy button?" Mike complained.
"It's a destruction button, you ninny!" Chester stated.
"What? What does it do?" Svetlana asked.
"You see this tower here?" Chester started. "You press this button, and the tower goes kaboom!"
"Why would Mal have a self-destruct button?" Vito asked incredulously.
"Mal made this tower and since his head is all swelled up, he put this button there just to mock us for not being able to stand up to him," Manitoba deduced.
"But what if it hurts all of us?" Mike asked in concern.
"It's not going to kill us. That's not how DID works!" Chester moaned. "Mal will lose control of his body when his tower is destroyed."
"And after that, Mike and Mal will have to go one-on-one to see who'll claim control!" Svetlana realized.
"Hold up. I have to fight Mal?" Mike said in shock.
"You two are the most dominant out of us," Vito reasoned. "If me or anyone else tried to face him, we'd lose immediately."
"And if Mal defeats you, we'll be back to being under his control, and so will you, for the rest of your life!" Manitoba emphasized.
"That means I won't see my family or friends ever again," Mike gasped. "I have to do this!"
\
"Go Team Ezekiel!" Sadie cheered, drawing attention to the stands just off to the side where most of the rest of the cast were seated. "Your team is rooting for you!" she said, waving a small flag with the home-schooled guy's face on it.
"Why are they in teams?" Mal asked Chris, stepping towards him and shooting a skeptical look towards the gallery. "And why do I not have one?"
"The Peanut Gallery's playing a major role in choosing a winner," Chris explained, earning a cheer from those in the stand.
"Sweet," Duncan grinned. "I guess we're all voting on the winner again."
"A vote?" Mal said blankly and nervously.
"Yep. If you can't tell, you're done for," Noah smirked.
"We are here for you Izzy!" Owen said. "So show them you're the boss!"
"But first," Chris said as the music turned tense, "we gotta break a tie. Mal," he turned to the evil personality, "you won the race to Hawaii, so, your reward is this advantage: you can select the tiebreaker yourself, or you can let Izzy or Ezekiel do it."
"Like I'd give these short sacks a choice," Mal said with a chuckle. "I'll do it!"
"I was hoping you'd say that," Chris said with an ominous laugh that caused Mal to raise an eyebrow.
\
"Ta-da!" Chris said as the footage skipped forward to a close-up of a clear glass booth with some sort of yellowish bulb filled with small balls on top. "Each ball inside our challenge booth has a different tiebreaker written on it," he said, gesturing to the bulb as the shot pulled back to show the Final Three on the left and the Aftermath hosts behind the booth on the right. "So, take your pick!"
"This is going to be such a thrill," Mal said cynically before walking into the booth.
The door was closed and the machine whirred to a start, challenge music playing as Mal was pelted with the white golf balls of the challenge booth. "Are these golf balls?!" Mal yelled, wincing with every hit and causing the Peanut Gallery to laugh.
"I know for a fact that we only put ping pong balls in there," Harold said nervously, Dawn nodding in agreement.
"I know," Chris told them, "and I'm not mad. Just disappointed. I had to dial it up to meet my usual high standards!"
"Enough!" Mal said, still wincing with every hit. "This should stop right-" he said, tilting his head up as he tried to reach for the bottom of the bulb – the source of the balls. He was cut off abruptly, and suddenly put a hand to his throat. His eyes starting to bulge, he barged his way out of the booth and began to gag.
"No ball, no exit," Chris told him. "Back you go!"
Mal stayed put, grabbing his throat as he coughed and choked about. Eventually, he spat up a ball, and it landed in a small pool of spit in the sand.
"Dawn, Harold, go ahead and read that, would you?" Chris asked them.
"Yuck," Dawn winced, crouching down to pick up the spit-covered golf ball in two fingers. "Mal has selected the Traditional Hawaiian Fire Dance of...Death?" she announced, ominous music playing as Ezekiel frowned at the news while Izzy clapped for it.
\
The same Hawaiian tune that had been used in the past couple of episodes was playing as the footage skipped ahead to Ezekiel and Izzy standing on opposite ends of a wooden platform in the ocean, each dressed in coconut bras and grass skirts and holding padded jousting sticks. Between them was Mal, tied up tightly to a pole in the center of the platform.
"Why does a male warrior have to wear a coconut bra," Ezekiel commented, motioning to the odd piece of equipment.
"Forget about tradition?" Mal griped as the Hawaiian music cut out. "I'm stuck to a pole!"
Those in the gallery laughed. "He's funny when he's tied up and can't hurt me!" Owen laughed.
"Once I win this finale!" Mal countered, "you will all treat me with the utmost respect! I will not be forgotten again!"
"Right," Chris told him, the shot cutting to him and Chef on the beach – the hulking man in a floral-print skirt with a bow in his hand and a quiver of arrows on his back. "The first person to free Mal wins the last spot in the Final Two," Chris announced, "and a shot at the million!"
"I have one more question," Izzy spoke up. "If no one frees him, would that make me and Ezekiel the Final Two?"
"Hey!" Mal said in outrage.
"Won't work, I already checked," Chris answered. "Chef, would you do the honors?" he asked his assistant, the man drawing back two flaming arrows and releasing them with a twang. They struck a darkened patch on either side of the platform, just behind each competitor, which promptly burst into blazing fires that startled Izzy and Ezekiel.
"Oh, and stay out of the water," Chris added. "Starting...," Chef shot off another pair of arrows, these ones tipped with steaks, "now!" The arrows landed in the water where a pair of shark fins were already circling; one rose up and swallowed an arrow just as it plunked into the water.
"Good thing we're out of the game," Ella whispered over to Sadie.
"And rekindled our friendship in the process," Sadie agreed as challenge music began to play.
The gallery began to cheer and holler as the camera zoomed in on the platform, Izzy quickly taking the offense by swiping at Ezekiel with her jousting stick. "Prepare to go down!" she said, slamming her stick down hard against his as he tried to block.
"I'm too young to die, eh. I'm gonna take you down!" Ezekiel glared and blocked Izzy.
"Stay on your guard, Zeke!" Topher encouraged him.
"Go for her legs! It's easy!" Shawn spoke out as well.
"Alright, Izzy! You can pound him into meat!" Eva shouted.
"I'd ask any of you for my encouragement, but it'd be useless," Mal mumbled.
"I don't support people who mess with my best friends!" Sky said firmly.
Mal scowled back at her, and an arrow from Chef hit the pole he was tied to, causing it to burn up while Mal tried to blow it away.
His view was covered by Ezekiel having the upper hand on Izzy and thrusting her back. "Save yourself the trouble and let me win!" he said and continued to push his jousting stick onto Izzy and send her closer to her edge.
"Someone better win or I'm going to burst into flames!" Mal yelled impatiently.
Izzy struggled under Ezekiel's stick, but an idea formed in her head. "Hey Ezekiel, I see a hawk that's flying towards you," she fibbed.
"Do you really think I'm that stupid?" Ezekiel said. "Nice try."
"Darn it!" Izzy cursed under her breath.
Ezekiel pushed her to the ground, and just as he was about to swipe her off, Izzy lifted her stick and hit Ezekiel's foot with it. The homeschooler howled in pain and let his guard down, and Izzy used the opportunity to jab the padded end of her stick at his chin, knocking him a couple inches into the air and allowing his jousting stick to sink into the water.
He landed on the platform on his back, and Izzy quickly ran over to Mal. The camera angle switched to show her hands darting to the knot on the back, already partially undone, and seconds later the ropes slid off Mal as the challenge music ended.
"It's about time you got me out!" Mal whined. "You took too long to beat Ezekiel of all people."
"You leave him alone!" Izzy snapped. "He's proven himself to be more capable than any of us this season, and he is twice the person you will ever be!"
Ezekiel, still lying on his back, took the moment to smile. "That really means a lot coming from you," he told Izzy.
"Sorry I had to defeat you just to reach the finals," Izzy said as he helped Ezekiel back on his feet. "Are you going to be fine with taking third place?"
"I'm not going to win the cash prize," Ezekiel admitted, "but I've made friends, improved my views on the outside world, and gained a girlfriend from this show. That's more than enough for me now!"
Mal rolled his eyes, and someone in a hazmat suit appeared on the platform with a fire extinguisher. As they began putting out the flame on the fallen charmer's side, the former Final Three made their way to the edge of the platform to the general cheering of the unseen gallery.
\
The scene skipped forward to Izzy (back in her usual clothing) and Mal standing on the beach with Chris, the person in the hazmat suit clinging to the burning and sinking wreckage of the platform in the background.
"Now that we have our Final Two," Chris said with a broad smile, "it's my pleasure to announce the Peanut Gallery will not be voting for the winner."
"Yeah!" Mal said in triumph.
"Wait," Topher spoke up. "You said we were supposed to be playing a major role."
"Yep," Chris told him. "Just not in a vote-y kinda way. Prepare to have your minds blown out by the most lethal challenge in Total Drama history!" he announced dramatically.
"Izzy," he said as a shot of The Psycho Hose Beast smiling goofily against a red background, "versus Mal," a shot of The Malevolent One grinning darkly against a bluish background took over the screen, "versus the Volcano!" The shot changed to a distance shot of a volcano as it belched out a plume of smoke.
"Back in the day," Chris said as the scene cut to him standing between the two finalists; Mal on his left behind a light blue rug, Izzy on his right behind a light red rug; "human sacrifices were tossed into Kilauea volcano to appease the Gods. Sadly, the lawyers won't let me use real people as sacrifices. So! Mal and Izzy will have to make sacrifice stand-ins, using the island's most abundant resources."
The camera followed off-screen, landing on a pile of "Pineapples, and driftwood!"
"And to make it nice and symbolic," Chris continued as the shot cut back to him and the finalists, "you guys have to make dummies of each other to dump in the volcano. Now, you each get to pick two helpers."
"I'm not letting either of you pick me," Duncan immediately told them.
"I'll pick Eva," Izzy said immediately.
"Great!" Eva said standing up. "We'll win this one!"
"Exactly," Izzy smiled. "And my second choice is Noah."
"I normally don't care about contests, but this is one I can't sit out on," Noah said with a smile of his own.
"Sorry, Big-O! I need Team E-Scope for this part!" Izzy told her boyfriend.
"No problem. I want you to win with the best of the best," Owen told her.
Mal looked at the Gallery nervously, the camera panning across Peanut Gallery, all its members glaring at him. "Do I have to pick two?" Mal asked the host.
"Definitely! And all of them hate you." Chris snickered.
Mal groaned under his breath. "In that case, I'm choosing Sky first!"
"I'll help…but only for Mike!" Sky enforced.
"And lastly," Mal scanned the Gallery again, "I'll take Shawn!"
"I would refuse, but the rules won't allow me to do so," Shawn shrugged.
\
"Okay! We have our helpers!" Chris said as the scene flashed back to the two colored rugs; Izzy by the light red with Eva and Noah, Mal by the light blue with Shawn and Sky. "Now, Izzy and Mal, you have to stay on your mats and direct your helpers to bring you logs, driftwood,and pineapples that resemble parts of your opponent. And to make things a little more rhymey~!" He added with an excited smile as the all-to-familiar dings sounded and the musical note icon appeared on-screen.
///\
[A reverent, almost chanted riff opened as Sky and Shawn looked up and back, and the colors of the scene shifted to something more animated: the two in blue, against a background of reddish-pink flowers. The shot changed so that it seemed to be looking up at a blue volcano as it erupted against the floral background, and a blue and almost larger-than-life Mal emerged from its peak and with a laurel wreath on his head.]
"Hey peons, you should head straight! Don't ask, it'll make me ache!"
[He sang commandingly as a hip-hop tune began; holding out his arm as if to catch something before an almost cartoonish thunderbolt appeared in his hands. He threw it, and the camera followed it down to Shawn and Sky. They were forced to flee before the bolt struck where they'd been loitering along the ground.]
"You two, get me; wood shaped, like Izzy's tiny fe~et!"
[His helpers ran to a titanic pile of neatly-stacked blue logs, and the shot cut back to Mal idly examining his fingernails before turning to his helpers and smirking as he finished the line. The shot panned to the right to a red volcano as it, too, erupted; a red Izzy emerged from it, also wearing a laurel wreath.]
"Come on, come on, move it fast! Hurry, hurry, won't be last!
[She sang as another cartoonish thunderbolt appeared in her hands, casting her opponent a disparaging glance then throwing the bolt over her head down at the red Noah and Eva below. They too were forced to flee before the bolt struck where they'd been loitering.]
"Find wood that looks like him, so pencil-like and sli~im!"
[The camera continued to follow Eva and Noah as they ran past Sky, who was securing a rope to a peg on the side of a large hunk of wood. She briefly turned her head to watch them, then turned back and tugged the rope extending up off-screen.]
"I'm gonna win it (Yeah!) And you can't take it (No!) I'm right here in it (Yeah!) But you just fake it! (Oh!)"
[The two finalists sang, together even with the chanted words in the background. As they dueled the shot moved from Mal, his hands alternately throwing lightning bolts at his helpers, to Scarlett, throwing only one bolt, to both as they turned to one another and sent their god-like abilities at each other, resulting in an explosion of purple smoke that took over the scene.]
"Are these legs thin enough?"
[Eva called out, the smoke dissipating into her close-up before the shot zoomed out to show her standing on a pale gray scaffold next to another large chunk of wood suspended by a rope tied to a peg.
"Uh-huh!" Izzy replied from off-screen.
"H~ey!" Mal sang, the camera panning up to a higher level of the scaffold where Shawn was standing next to a rather thin piece of wood, also suspended point-down on a rope.
"Man, is this neck squeezed enough?" he asked, receiving a red thunderbolt for his trouble.]
"Whoo! Now it's psycho versus insane; Mal and Izzy cause some pain and!"
[The purple smoke cleared to show Shawn in his Drama Brothers outfit and a mic in his hand; the beat changed slightly as he began to rap from a small pillar of rock between the two finalists. The camera rotated about him as he gestured over his shoulder first at the finalists.]
"All this tension for the million; to that I have no opinion!"
[The camera zoomed in as he smirked and threw a dollar bill in the air, then zoomed back out as he got in front of Izzy, who threw a thunderbolt at him.]
"That is good, hurry back; I need arms weak and slack!"
[Mal continued in a commanding tone as Shawn, now riding atop another cone-like piece of wood as it was carried along by the attached rope, met up with Sky who was in a similar position and the shot cut back to Mal.]
"Her butt is su-per flat; And don't forget that!"
[Mal sang. He then turned to Izzy and shot her a mocking smile.]
"Get me two stringy knees; and hands like flat cheese!"
[Izzy responded, throwing another thunderbolt at her two tiny followers. Eva quickly ran away but Noah stayed in place and looked at her.]
"One more thing should be said; Don't forget his big head!"
[She pointed to a pile of giant red pineapples. Noah nodded then ran off.]
"I'm gonna win it (Yeah!) And you can't take it (No!) I'm right here in it (Yeah!) But you just fake it! (Oh!)"
[The two finalists repeated, once again sending their lightning towards their respective helpers before turning their god-like powers on each other.]
"All of this hard work; won't make me go berserk!"
[Eva sang, the smoke dissipating to show her on the scaffold once more next to a long and surprisingly arm-like piece of wood. The shot zoomed out to show it already affixed to her team's effigy – currently a long piece for the chest, a slightly bulkier piece for the waist, and two skinny legs; all pieces were connected by the shorter wooden pegs the ropes had been tied to. On the other side of the scaffold was the effigy Mal's team had created – two small, thin pieces for the chest and waist, two thin arms and a somewhat curvy leg; the effigy was kept upright by a rope tied around the short peg where the neck would be.]
"Now place the head right there; Pineapple, not pe~ar!"
[Izzy told her, looking down before the shot cut to Noah trying to push a massive red pineapple across the ground.]
"I'm gonna win it (Yeah!) And you can't take it (No!) I'm right here in it (Yeah!) But you just fake it! (Oh!)"
[The finalists repeated a third time, sending their lightning towards their helpers at a slightly faster pace than before. And still, they ended up turning their god-like powers towards one another to cause another purple explosion.]
"I'm gonna cash it! (Yeah!) You'll never win it! (No!) You should trash it! (Yeah!)"
[They continued as the smoke dissipated to reveal Eva and Noah carrying their red pineapple, before gaping in shock as Sky managed to slot her team's head down in its proper place.]
"'Cause I just did i~it!"
[Mal sang triumphantly, the shot pulling back to show Sky sighing in relief, Shawn on the other side wiping the sweat from his face. The scene finally cut to reality as the song ended, Mal smiling smugly with Sky and Shawn beside him, the two of them not looking at all enthusiastic.]
///
"And Mal takes the lead!" Chris announced over a shot of Izzy squinting at her opponent. "Next step, haul your sacrifice to the top of Kilauea and toss her into the volcano, like so!"
The shot quick-panned away from the host all the way up to the crater where a person in a hazmat suit tossed a crash test dummy into the magma below. This, however, caused molten rock to splash back up, partially coating the person in the hazmat suit. They screamed in pain as fire engulfed them, and ran away scorched.
"Yeah," Chris said as the shot cut back to him, "watch out for the back-splash. We'll be right back with all the hardcore lava-riffic sizzling finale action," he told the camera, "here! On Total! Drama! World Tour!"
\
(Commercial Break)
\

The apartment was cheap, but not suspiciously so, especially given the relatively decrepit state of it. It was a 1 bedroom affair, the building itself constructed at some point before the Great Depression, and it certainly showed its age. The bathroom was prone to mold, the windows let in a draft even when closed, and the fact that it was up 6 flights of stairs in a building where the elevator seemed perpetually out of order certainly didn't help. However, beyond these usual allowances made for an affordable apartment in a city such as mine, there were no outward signs that anything wrong with the place. There were never any strange noises, unusual cold spots in the center of rooms, no eerie lights. For all intents and purposes, the apartment appeared utterly mundane.
It took me a frankly embarrassing amount of time to notice the door. 7 months in fact. I've never been much of a night owl, and on the rare occasions when I did have reason to be up in the wee hours my time was generally spent in someone else's bedroom.
At first, when I noticed the door, I assumed that I was hallucinating. I was, after all, in a fairly inebriated state, having just returned from a rather pleasant evening of laughter and debauchery. I already had experienced considerable difficulty in extricating my key from my apartment's lock, so I figured it was more likely that something had gone wrong with my perception rather than the unlikely scenario that a wood paneled door had suddenly materialized in my living room where previously there had only been wall.
It was old fashioned looking, with a shiny brass knob and wood the color of old leather. I shook my head for a moment and blinked, squinting at the object. The door was still there. I rubbed my eyes and closed them, counting down from 10. When I'd finished, I opened my eyes again. The door was still there. I'm not exactly sure what I thought counting down from 10 was supposed to accomplish. Beyond one mercifully brief experience with salvia at a very bad party, I'd never experienced hallucinations before, so I was sort of going off of what I'd seen in movies and TV shows.
There was something intensely unnerving about the door. It emanated a feeling of primal wrongness, I instinctually knew that I was gazing at something totally in violation of the natural order. It took a lot of willpower to do what I did next.
Having exhausted all other apparent options to my disorganized mind, I moved on to the next logical stage of inquiry; I tried to open it. The doorknob was cold to the touch, arctic even. It felt like touching the inside of a freezer. A shiver ran down my back, though I can't be sure in retrospect if it was entirely from the temperature. I tried to turn the knob. It didn't budge.
An immense sigh of relief escaped my lungs, releasing a breath that I didn't know I was holding in. Trying to think of what else I could do, I pulled out my phone and snapped a quick photo of the thing, sending it to my landlord, with a caption somewhere along the lines of "wtf is this dude, y is there a new door???"
Nodding sagely to myself, as if I had succeeded in doing anything of note, I stumbled my way into my bedroom and locked the door before falling into blissful slumber.
I awoke to the incessant screeching of my alarm clock loudly informing me that it was 7 o' clock, about 6 hours from when I had fallen asleep. I slammed my fist against "off" button and rubbed the sleep from my eyes with my other hand. In following with my usual morning routine, I then pulled out my phone and checked through my notifications.
Alongside the usual torrent of internet pseudo-acquaintances posting pictures of their brunches and whatnot was a text message from my landlord. "What are you talking about Christina", it read, "is this photoshop or something?"
At first, I didn't understand what he was referring to, but when the rusted gears of my sleepy (and hungover) brain finally started turning, I immediately jumped out of bed and scuttled over to the spot where the door had been just 6 hours prior. I did so with the intent of recording a video to further prove its existence to my skeptical landlord... but I was greeted with nothing but wall.
I texted my landlord an apology, lying and saying it was just a poorly thought out prank. Then I popped into my car and drove down to the local electronics store to purchase a camera from the grumpy underpaid college student behind the register.
Making my way over to the photography section, I searched a long while for the option that simultaneously fit my budget and the requirements for my investigation. Eventually, I found just the item.
It was a trailcam, the sort of thing hunters and geriatrics with too many acres of land and not enough hobbies use to observe wildlife. It had an SD card with enough space for several hours of blurry, black and white nightvision video, and most importantly it was cheap. I paid for my prize with the surly cashier and made my way happily back to my apartment.
I set it up securely in front of where the door had previously appeared, and, feeling like a genius, went about the rest of my day. I fell asleep that night secure in the knowledge that by morning I would have proof of what I had seen the night before.
The next morning, I rushed over excitedly to my living room, feeling like a child on Christmas morning. My giddy excitement died as I stepped into the living room, noticing the complete lack of the trailcam. Old Saint Nick appeared to have shit in my stocking.
I made my way back to the electronics store, forced once again into interacting with the student behind the register for whom my very existence seemed to be an inconvenience. Upon noticing my arrival, he sighed heavily. "Can I help you ma'am?" he said, emphasizing the last word with the same inflection one might say intestinal parasite.
"I'm looking for a cheap camera that will stream video directly to my computer." I said, trying my best to avoid mimicking the man's petulant tone.
Shrugging his shoulders and releasing another drawn out sigh, the cashier shuffled his way over to the photography section and picked out a small camera, rather similar to the last one I purchased, but approximately twice as much in terms of cost. "Do you have anything cheaper?" I asked, trying my best to sound polite.
"No." declared the cashier, with all the compassion of an exterminator crushing a cockroach beneath a steel toed boot.
I ended up paying the exorbitant price on my already abused credit card, and grumpily stalked back to the apartment to set up the new equipment, knowing I wouldn't get to see it after the night was over.
Nevertheless, I had to know how the door got there, and I needed to have irrefutable evidence.
The process to set up the new camera was a bit more involved than the last. There was all manner of fiddling about with connecting the device to my WiFi network and installing some new software to my computer, but by the time it was over it successfully uploaded footage directly to my hard drive where I could watch it at my leisure.
I went to bed that night wondering what I would do with the footage after I acquired it. After all, I couldn't really go to the police with it, could I? Excuse me officer, I imagined myself saying, but a mysterious door appears in my apartment at night, and I was wondering if you could send someone around to take a look? I'd end up institutionalized. Similarly, it's not like I could go to the newspapers either. I live in a big city, and the reporters have more important fish to fry than transient doors.
At some point while I pondered my options, I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew I was awakened by the banshee cries of my alarm clock, angrily informing me that it was once again 7 o' clock.
I jumped out of bed, excitedly moving over to my computer to check the footage, finding that there was about 5 hours of video. I had turned on the camera at around 10 o' clock PM, so that meant whatever happened to the camera occurred at about 3 AM.
I set the video to fast forward and watched it carefully. The first 2 hours or so showed nothing, just the regular blank wall. At exactly 12 o' clock, however, static engulfed the screen, and suddenly the old wooden door simply appeared, as if it had always been there. I rewound the footage and played it at normal speed, trying to discern anything that would show how the door suddenly manifested in the wall of my apartment, but the static was far too heavy to tell. The video simply got incredibly distorted for around 10 seconds, and suddenly the static dissipated and there was the door.
Even on video, just looking at it gave me the chills. That sense of complete and utter wrongness came through even from the screen. I shivered slightly and set the video on fast forward yet again. There was no change in the door for nearly 3 hours, but as the video crept closer and closer to the end, I switched it back to normal speed with about a minute to spare.
As I watched, the door began to slowly open. There was no microphone built into the camera, but I could imagine the ancient hinges creaking. I could feel my palms begin to sweat as I stared, transfixed. I glanced at the time remaining on the video, it was only around 30 seconds.
As the video progressed onwards, the door eventually swung fully open, revealing a black, yawning void beyond it. Static began to gather at the corners of the screen, increasing in intensity as I vaguely discerned something moving in the darkness. The quality was rapidly degrading, and I couldn't tell any specifics, but it moved in an almost spider-like manner, skittery and deeply unnerving. It seemed just about to come into view when the footage fully dissolved into static and the video ended abruptly.
I leaned back in my chair, contemplating my next move. While the video had certainly convinced me that I wasn't just going crazy, I knew that it wouldn't exactly convince the average person. I could easily have added in the static with editing, and the vague movement behind the door could just be computer generated effects or some sort of puppet. After a few minutes of pondering, I came up with an idea.
---
"I'm sorry, what?" exclaimed Lilith, who was trying hard not to choke on her iced coffee.
"A door. It appears in my apartment at exactly midnight. I have it on video", I replied, sliding my phone across the table of the coffee shop.
I first met Lilith in college, where we shared a course on the history of Gothic literature. She was a perfect picture of the stereotypical goth, with pierced septum, dyed black hair, pentacle earrings, and a wardrobe whose diversity of color could charitably be compared to that of a raven. We hadn't spoken in a long time, but I figured if there was anyone I should contact about this sort of thing, it would be her.
I'd condensed the 5 hours of footage down to a few minutes with the help of a free online video editor, and watched in slight amusement as Lilith's brow furrowed, her eyes glued to the screen. After the video ended, she seemed utterly amazed.
"Any thoughts?" I asked, pulling back my phone.
"This is some sort of joke, right? You're screwing with me?" she asked, utterly bewildered by what I had just shown her.
"No joke. No screwing around. I figured you'd be the one to ask about this, because of the whole, you know..." I said, gesturing at the leviathan cross emblazoned on her black t-shirt.
Lilith rolled her eyes at me and fidgeted nervously with one of her bracelets. "I'm not sure Christina, this seems a little bit outside of my pay grade. I don't really know what you expect me to do."
"I just need a witness of some kind. What I've got here isn't really enough to prove anything on its own, but if someone else sees it that might lend me a bit of credibility. If some random chick goes to the news complaining about a mysterious door appearing in her living room at midnight that's nothing, but if I get a witness then they might have to listen to me. Plus, I figured maybe you could, I don't know, set up some form of protective circle or sigil or something." As soon as the last words left my lips, I felt like a moron, but Lilith actually seemed to perk up a little bit.
"I mean, I guess that makes sense. How about tonight? I can come over at about 11 o' clock so we have a little bit of time to get ready", she said, a tinge of excitement in her voice.
"Sound's like a plan then, I'll text you my address. I really appreciate you doing this for me." We got up from the booth, exchanged hugs, and went our separate ways. I was skeptical about how much good Lilith's "magickal" expertise would do with regard to the unearthly door, but I had mainly mentioned it to get her interested.
I wish I hadn't.
---
About 12 hours later, I heard a knock at the door (my front door, in this case, not the impossible one). I peeked through the peephole, saw it was Lilith, and I ushered her inside. She had brought with her a black leather bag, bulging with various books, candles, jars, and other occult accoutrements.
"That's a lot of stuff", I commented, gesturing towards the bag, "are you sure you'll need all of it?"
She shrugged. "I figured it's better to be safe than sorry. I'd rather be overprepared than come up short."
"Seems reasonable."
I showed her the spot of the blank wall where the door appears and she began setting up candles and incense, drawing strange signs with chalk, and pouring salt in a semi-circle in front of where the door would be. As she worked, she occasionally read out loud from some cheap paperbacks with titles like "The Witch's Bible" and "The Unquiet Dead: A Field Guide to the Afterlife".
To be entirely honest it was incredibly underwhelming. I didn't feel any "mystical energies" or unseen vistas of space and time yawning before me. There was just a goth screwing around with some candles while reciting mangled Latin out of books she got for 4.99 apiece at a charity shop.
Nevertheless, I let Lilith get on with her business and sat back drinking some cheap beer. After about 45 minutes she seemed satisfied. The floor and walls were covered with crude sigils done in white chalk, and the whole room smelt of incense and scented candles. I checked my watch, seeing it was 11:48.
I offered Lilith a drink but she declined, instead just taking a seat and fidgeting a bit with her jewelry. We talked for a while about what the door could be, where it came from, that sort of thing. Lilith seemed convinced it was must be the restless spirit of a former tenant, but I was a bit skeptical. While at this point I could no longer honestly say I didn't believe in the supernatural, this didn't necessarily strike me as some sort of haunting.
"I don't think it's a ghost", I said, taking a sip from my near empty can, "it strikes me as something further beyond our realm of experience than that. Something, I don't know, alien somehow. I mean it changes reality itself doesn't it? It transmutes a wall to a door, and let me tell you that door was real wood and the knob was real metal. Aren't ghosts supposed to be intangible or something?"
Lilith seemed like she was about to say something before she paused, a weird look crossing her face. "Christina, what time is it?" she whispered.
I checked my watch, the digital face reading out 12:07. I turned to see the door. It had been there for 7 minutes and we hadn't even noticed its arrival. Something about us not having realized it was there bothered me far more than its materialization. Was it possible that I'd passed by it in the apartment before and just never noticed it? I'd previously assumed that I'd simply always been asleep or out of the apartment when it materialized, but now I wasn't so sure.
Lilith had turned to look at it too, after a moment saying "It's like it's always been there."
The next 3 hours passed slowly, painfully. We snapped plenty of pictures of the door at every conceivable angle on our respective phones, videos too, and decided that after it disappeared again we should take footage of the bare wall for contrast. Lilith and I chatted a bit, but it was hard to continue conversations for long. Now that we had noticed it, we could feel the wrongness emanating out from the door, as if we were being watched by something just out of sight.
I don't know if there is such a thing as true evil, some sort of absolute moral right and wrong on a spiritual level. But being near that door, I felt like I was bearing witness to an atrocity against reality itself. We spent the last 2 hours of observation in nearly complete silence. It seemed like the longer we were cognizant of the door, the worse the feeling of discomfort got. If you've ever been on a roller coaster, you'll be familiar with the feeling of going up the track towards a long drop, the tension in your very blood as you brace yourself for the fall to come. As we sat there, I felt something similar.
I almost wanted to call the whole thing off, just have Lilith and I go to a 24 hour fast food place or something and call it a night. But I had to know.
Unlike with the door's appearance, we noticed when it started to open. We sat there, paralyzed with fear and excitement as it slowly started to creak open, the worn hinges squealing just as I thought they would. The room grew significantly colder, until we were both shivering intensely. Behind the door was void, absolutely void. It was black as the depths of the ocean and emanated pure dread. The smell of incense and scented candles seemed to dissipate, replaced with a vague stench like rotting seaweed.
Finally, the entrance was swung fully open, and we sat there, staring blankly into it. We didn't even try to pull out our phones to record what we saw. The thought to do so didn't cross my mind until well after.
I could see something start to move in the darkness beyond, some sort of motion, spidery, skittering. It was coming towards us. I caught a vague glimpse of a long, thin limb reaching out from the door, coming towards us, grasping blindly from out of the dark, and then-
I felt the sun shining on my face, my entire body sore.
I opened my eyes to find myself lying on the ground, outside. There were trees overhead, but the foliage wasn't dense enough to block out the light which had awoken me. All things being equal, I would have preferred my alarm clock.
I stood up, painfully, taking stock of my surroundings. I was in a park, one which I had been to before, located a couple miles from my apartment. I looked for my phone, but couldn't find it. I began to stumble my way back home, trying my best to ignore my aching muscles. I called out for Lilith a couple times, but was met only with silence. She was gone.
As I limped my way along, a passing jogger called out "Nice tattoo". Confused, I looked down at my arm.
Burned into my flesh in white letters, as if through frostbite, were the words "BRING MORE".

I wish I found this subreddit sooner so I could expand my research prior visiting Japan. I only found this subreddit after I returned from the trip so after reflecting upon the trip I will write my mistakes that I made and things that I have learned so I can perhaps help other first time travellers going to Japan. It will be also useful for me in the future. PS: forgive my grammar, English is not my first language. Also a late report + numerous trip fumbles ahead so please be kind xDD
Me (30M) and my gf (25F) went on a trip to Japan April 24 - May 11, 2023. This was our first time travelling to Japan and our first time travelling in a different country by ourselves in general. We both had no experience travelling without family/experienced travellers with us so it was a bit stressful but we still had fun in general.
What we learned:

• Get a very good shoes for extensive walking/hiking. I cannot stress this enough. Man, I returned with bunch of callouses on my toes+heels and blisters on my pinky toes that turned into some sort of stage 2 pressure sore. It was not fun walking with pain that I feel bad for unable to keep up with my gf. I had to sit many times to give first aid and end up buying some products for my feet. Was still able to complete all itineraries but it could have been prevented. No more Sketchers for me.
• 1 month prior to flight, my vegetarian gf attempted to become omnivore for the trip. She was sick for a couple of weeks for eating meat but she braved through it because she did not want to miss out on food while in Japan. She adapted in the end although she had nauseous from eating meat at times. In the end, there were actually numerous vegetarian options for her that she did not have to adapt in the first place.
• We needed more time to prepare for the trip. Our trip was kind of spontaneous and we booked the flight ticket around late March so we have to pay hefty amount of money more. The itinerary was too much than we could have accounted for. We should have given ourselves free time in between destinations and not clump them like there is no tomorrow.
• Check the weather forecast. Preparing for the itinerary while considering the weather can be very difficult as the weather in Japan fluctuates very easily. Good thing we group our itineraries that can be done indoors vs outdoors so would switch up the plan depending on the weather. I also did not know cherry blossom forecast was a thing. I visited places expecting some cherry blossoms and they turned out to be green when we get there. This is a good thing to consider while visiting during spring season.
• Be flexible for the trip. Our trip was supposed to be Osaka -> Kyoto -> Nagoya -> Kawaguchiko -> Tokyo. Then we switched up Tokyo and Kawaguchiko due to price increasing during the Golden Week. We visited within the Golden week period (we did not know this event was a thing) and we realized the price of hotels skyrocket within this period. I wanted to experience some high end ryokans in Kawaguchiko with a view of Mount Fuji but then the price was like 3-4 times the price during the Golden week, hence, we switched up the places. We saved money for lodging because of that.
• Popular restaurants + Tourist trap places can have long lines. If you have tighter schedule like we did, I highly suggest making reservations or come earlier to get into the lines. Even a lot of restaurants that open at 11am, I saw a line already around 9:30am. I did not have time for that that we end up visiting not so pupular places and yet still experience delicious food. Tourist trap places tend to be overrated and expensive. It is a good thing that we went to try other places. Our restaurant policy if there are more locals eating vs tourists eating, it is good and most likely cheap. Some restaurants also do not appear on google maps due to not adapting to the English language so you can usually find hidden gems here and there.
• I think it is better to check in a hotel with breakfast services as most restaurants open around 11am. We had hotel with breakfast service and some have dont. We end up buying food at combini and also got lucky with Denny's near our first hotel as it opens at 6am.
• Note for type of train traveling within your station. I only realized this during the middle of our trip. There is Local, Rapid, Express. Local stops station to station, rapid seemed to skip some stations, and express seemed to only stop at key stations. It is good that the stations have English translations and even the train pre recorded voice also had English parts.
• Check exchange rate before withdrawing money from ATMs. The currency exchange fluctuates but it is not a huge difference. It is still good to win as much money in the exchange to have more cash in hand. The money I lost due to the exchange were minuscule at first but they accumulate since I did not check exchange rate until I returned.
• I should not have been afraid to ask for help. I had this impression that Japanese people don't like to be bothered and they seemed resourceful themselves to not bother themselves asking. At least I learned this the second day of the trip. Hotel receptionists are good resource to ask.

What saved us the trip:

• Being an anime fan/hololive fan helped me with the language. I watched so many animes that it surprisingly helped improve my vocabulary and I was able to understand people speaking in Japanese. Although I cannot read their language(thank god google image translate), I was able to hold conversation even though I speak like a toddlekindergartener. It is almost funny that some anime characters speak unnatural that I even used their kind of speech at times. I am ever so proud when some people told me "Nihonggo Jouzu"-d 4 times during this trip. Some people take that as an offense but I was so delighted when I received that.
• Booking online for reservation. We avoided spending more for this trip since we did not go to theme parks and focused on temple visiting as we preferred. We only had few reservations to do without much competition.
• Renting wifi device. I was about to use roaming but it was too expensive for a 17 day trip. Thank goodness for renting. Things would have been a disaster without my internet. Everyone should get their internet access as their priority.
• Get a power bank device. Since I use my phone all the time, the device dies easily. There are charging stations around but if you want to keep moving, bring your own and charge them while you walk. I had my 20000mah power bank and it is more than enough for charging 2 phones, 1 tablet, 1 wifi device for the day. I just charge the power bank while I sleep.
• Getting a Suica pass. This is self explanatory. I almost got into the hype of getting a JR pass too but I thought it was too expensive for me. I did not need a JR pass. With the help of google maps and Suica pass, I was able to go to my destination. I am amazed they put the price of the transport that I was able to choose which method of transport should I be getting. No taxis for me in this trip since I heard they tend to be expensive.
• Buying unlimited day pass also saved us some money for transport during the trip. It is a good practise to calculate your itinerary beforehand before deciding whether an unlimited day pass is a good option. There were days we did not buy unlimited pass.
• Putting Akihabara near end of trip than early. I would have ran out of money to spend for other places if I went there first.

Brief trip report:

• Day 0 (April 25) - Arrive to Osaka after Layover from Narita around 8pm. Checked in the hotel and ate combini food before turning in for the night.
• Day 1 - Osaka Castle (entered with an entrance fee) -> Izakaya Toyo (watched the episode on netflix and decided to visit) -> Sumiyoshi Taisha -> Nagai Park (it was at this part I realized about the Golden Week as we saw construction of stalls as preparation) -> Team Labs Botanical. The botanical experience was underwhelming for me. I was only impressed with the blue lights on the foliage.
• Day 2 - Yoshino. This is the part where I wished I knew about the Cherry blossom forecast. I checked google to see where in Japan has best place for cherry blossom and it recommended Yoshino. The cherry blossom was already over but the place was still very nice and visited some temples there. I will definitely come back for the actual cherry blossom viewing. At least the Blue Symphony train was a cool method of transport to Yoshino. Then spent the rest of the day/evening at Tsutenkaku.
• Day 3 - Shittenoji Temple (they were building stalls for the festival? got few good pictures due to stalls within sights) -> went to Kobe and tried their Kobe beef from a golden cow plate restaurant in Kobe -> cable car to Nunobike Herb Garden -> hang around BE KOBE sign -> Dotonbori for the rest of the evening (VERY CROWDED).
• Day 4 - Nara. Rented bike there and went to various places. Nara Deer Park -> Sage Ike pond -> Kasuga Taisha shrine. Feeding deers everywhere. -> Todaiji temple (entrance fee) -> Kofukuji temple -> Higashimuku Shopping Street -> returned bike then train back to Osaka-> going first time trying bath house in Solaniwa.
• Day 5 - Checked out hotel. Used Kyo Train Garaku to Kyoto. Used a coinlocker since check in starts at 3pm. -> Jonangu Shrine (entrance fee for garden) -> Fushimi Inari Taisha. Attempted to climb up but my poor feet were screaming. We turned back after reaching the second station before Mount Inari. -> Gion for the evening before checking in to the hotel.
• Day 6 - Arashiyama Bamboo Forest (I was underwhelmed by this place as it was small. Make sure to come early as it gets crowded later on) -> Nearby Temples (Nonomiya, Mikami, Jojakkoji, Nisonin) -> Tenryuji Temple (entrance fee but most impressive garden I have visited this trip) -> Tenryuji Shigetsu to experience their vegan cuisine -> Sagano Romantic Train to Kameoka -> train back to shop around Arashiyama -> Kinkakuji Temple -> Nishiki Market for the rest of evening.
• Day 7 - Kiyomizu-dera (entrance fee) -> Sannenzaka (they have Starbucks in tatami there, also my gf visited "My Only Fragrance" shop and made her own perfume there). -> Yasaka Shrine (there were numerous food stalls everywhere I think this is how they celebrate Golden Week and I ate good) -> Heian Temple (entrance to garden). They also had numerous food stalls and a concert stage and I ate good -> Kodaiji Temple (entrance fee but they had a nice light show there during the evening).
• Day 8 - Nijo Castle (Expensive entrance fee compared to other entrances. Imo, there are other better places that should be more worth the fee compared to this place). -> Kyoto Imperial Palace (free entrance) -> Rokusonno Shrine -> Higashi Honganji Temple (free entrance. More stall constructions) -> Gion for the rest of evening.
• Day 9 - Check out Hotel. Used Hinotori express train to Nagoya. Always wanted to try capsule hotel and checked in to 9 hours hotel. -> Visited Nagoya Castle (entrance fee but I was disappointed we could not enter the castle itself compared to Osaka Castle). There were also numerous food stalls inside and I ate good. -> Visited their Malls -> Slept at the capsule hotel. To be honest, I slept really well compared to other hotels we have booked. It was surprisingly comfortable despite the random fire alarm that woke me up during that night.
• Day 10 - Checked out Hotel. Used Shinkansen to Tokyo. Checked in at the next hotel. -> Teamlab Planets (way better than Teamlab Botanicals) -> Dinner at Gonpachi (Kill Bill reference). The movie was old and it is the theme of the restaurant. Their food was mid though. It is just a nice ambiance where noise seemed to be welcome here.
• Day 11 - Suga Jinja (Your Name reference). Still surprised there are still visitors there due to that movie. Did some cringe Your Name photos. -> Meiji Jingu -> Explored Harajuku (visited Aoyama flower market tea house) -> Shibuya Crossing (ate good food there). Visited Tower Records + Don Quijote + Miyashita Park. Wanted to do Shibuya Sky but they sold out their tickets. End up getting lost among the crowds for the rest of evening.
• Day 12 - Nezu Shrine -> Sensoji Temple (It was raining too hard that day so we decided to come back another time. -> Shopping at Asakusa ROX + tried their conveyor belt sushi -> Akihabara (spent quite a lot of money here for anime merch). Anime store hopping + visited maid cafe for the first time.
• Day 13 - Sensoji Temple (better weather) -> Ate at Happy Pancake (I find it overrated but I still enjoyed their pancakes) -> Visited a big Muji store in Ginza -> Akihabara part 2 (more anime merch).
• Day 14 - Check out hotel. Left all check in baggages in a coin locker for 3 days prior heading to Kawaguchiko. Used bus from Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko station. Took shuttle bus to hotel. Check in at ryokan with a bath house + footbath on their rooftop with nice view of Mt. Fuji. Walked around the lake + view of Mount Fuji. Found myself a waifu Kawaguchiko-san seemed to be the mascot of the town since I see the character on various tourist spots. Had myself a mini scavenger hunt to find all of her cut outs around the town and I found them all!
• Day 15 - Shopping for souvenirs around. -> Took the boat going around the lake with nice view. Took car cable up to have a better view of Mount Fuji. Walked up more higher to have better vantage point. Proposed to my GF, now I have a fiancée.
• Day 16 - Check out Hotel. Bus back to Shinjuku. One more stop at Akihabara for merch. Retrieved coin locker baggages. Train to Narita Airport then flight back to Canada.

EDIT: post formatting

media.tenor.com/ydMWvQCt6MIAAAAC/horny-shrek.gif
Video: Mirror - Shrek
This is part of a series exploring the hidden motives and actions of the main players during Robert's Rebellion, named LBJ in reference to the influence of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam War on GRRM's views and writings on war. LBJ also indicates considerations over whether Lyanna + Bobby B = Jon Snow. Previous installments include:

• Rhaegar Had To Be A Warrior
• Why Did Rhaegar Crown Lyanna?
  • Ice, Ice Baby?
  • Political Suicide?
  • Was She 'A Very Kinky Girl'?
• The Forging of Lightbringer: Blue Flowers & Narrow Visors
• Rhaegar Mistakenly Crowned Lyanna
• I am not fond of fish, but when fish is served, I eat it.
• All is fair in love and war...
• Kingsguard Loyalty
• Southron Ambitions & Lies
• The Return of the Prince: Éowyn at the Trident

In the last part, we combed through evidence that Lyanna fought disguised as Rhaegar at the Trident. We'll now examine why Cersei's torture of the Blue Bard indicates that Rhaegar was tortured by Robert, for the crime of crowning his beloved Lyanna with winter roses in front of half the realm.

"It saddens me to see Your Grace so careworn. I say, run off and play and leave the King's Hand to hear these tiresome petitions. We could dress as serving girls and spend the day amongst the smallfolk, to hear what they are saying of the fall of Dragonstone. I know the inn where the Blue Bard plays when he is not singing attendance on the little queen, and a certain cellar where a conjurer turns lead into gold, water into wine, and girls into boys. Perhaps he would work his spells on the two of us. Would it amuse Your Grace to be a man one night?"

- A Feast for Crows Cersei VIII

Mirror on the Wall: King Robert vs. Queen Cersei

Robert is practiced at shutting his eyes to things he’d rather not see, like when he can’t admit he’s too fat for his armor (like Cersei assumes washerwomen shrunk her gowns) or when he pretends wine made him hurt his queen (which Cersei reenacts on Taena, but is frustrated when that Myrish slut enjoys it). Robert fills his court with corrupt lickspittles and admits on his deathbed that he was a bad king when previously he expected Ned to say otherwise. Likewise, Cersei assumes she’s a political mastermind, basically Tywin with teats. In answer to Robert grooming Barra's barely pubescent mother, Cersei grooms and psychologically scars young Lancel (and Tyrek too for all we know). Robert incestuously cheats with his Estermont cousin early in his reign, so Cersei rekindles incest with her brother Jaime. Cersei has bastards killed who could threaten her own children's claims, and Robert tries to have Dany and her unborn child killed to protect the throne from dragonspawn. Robert pretends to care about his baseborn children, and people doubt Cersei loves anyone as more than an extension of herself (although Varys disagrees). Robert does seem to realize he doesn’t love his heirs, which raises the question of whether or not he knew they were bastards.

To her credit, Cersei did not look away. “He saw us. You love your children, do you not?”
Robert had asked him the very same question, the morning of the melee. He gave her the same answer. “With all my heart.”
“No less do I love mine.”

- A Game of Thrones Eddard XII
King Robert and Queen Cersei are an exercise in avoiding hypocritical analysis; any fault decried in one is reflected in the other in a role-appropriate way. Both lie to themselves and others, drink in excess, have cruel tempers, are physically and sexually abusive, and are terrible parents and rulers. Martin has clearly written Robert and Cersei to mirror one another, and if we saw Robert’s inner monologue, surely it would reveal that he’s just as arrogant and delusional as his wife.
It’s often claimed Robert was unaware of the illegitimacy of his heirs, as he would have gone berserk had he known. If one believes Robert would have executed Cersei for cuckolding him, then it must also be true that Rhaegar incurred Robert’s hatred when he crowned Lyanna with sexually suggestive winter roses in front of half the realm. In fact, we know he did:

As for Robert Baratheon himself, some say he laughed at the prince’s gesture, claiming that Rhaegar had done no more than pay Lyanna her due…but those who knew him better say the young lord brooded on the insult, and that his heart hardened toward the Prince of Dragonstone from that day forth.

- The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring The World of Ice and Fire
Given his family history of Targaryen betrayal, when the Laughing Storm rebelled against the Iron Throne over a broken betrothal, as well as his possessiveness of Lyanna, Robert would seek vengeance over Rhaegar's actions at Harrenhal. So when Robert talks about Rhaegar raping Lyanna, it’s easy to imagine that he’s reinforcing a lie to himself. Similar to how he projects Lyanna onto Cersei on their wedding night, Robert is capable of projecting his own actions onto Rhaegar. Robert is the person who actually had sex with Lyanna… but only once.

The king touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh. “I vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to her.”
“You did,” Ned reminded him.
“Only once,” Robert said bitterly.

- A Game of Thrones Eddard I
This subtext is mirrored by Jon Connington's implied love for Rhaegar. Connington laments that Rhaegar ass-ended his tower only once, then indicates that all the girls cried when Rhaegar played his harp, implying that Lyanna crying over Rhaegar's music was nothing special.

Yet when they parted, Jon Connington did not go to the sept. Instead his steps led him up to the roof of the east tower, the tallest at Griffin's Roost. As he climbed he remembered past ascents—a hundred with his lord father, who liked to stand and look out over woods and crags and sea and know that all he saw belonged to House Connington, and one (only one!) with Rhaegar Targaryen. Prince Rhaegar was returning from Dorne, and he and his escort had lingered here a fortnight. He was so young then, and I was younger. Boys, the both of us. At the welcoming feast, the prince had taken up his silver-stringed harp and played for them. A song of love and doom, Jon Connington recalled, and every woman in the hall was weeping when he put down the harp. Not the men, of course. Particularly not his own father, whose only love was land. Lord Armond Connington spent the entire evening trying to win the prince to his side in his dispute with Lord Morrigen.

- A Dance with Dragons The Griffon Reborn
Robert's false accusation of rape mirrors Lord Mathis Rowan's daughter's lie which landed Dareon, a singer and harpist, on the Wall; if Arya had this information, maybe she wouldn't have murdered him for desertion.

It made her angry to see Dareon sitting there so brazen, making eyes at Lanna as his fingers danced across the harp strings.

_

He is a man of the Night's Watch, she thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. And the singer should be on the Wall.

- A Feast for Crows Cat of the Canals
So when one considers that our favorite evil queen had an innocent singer imprisoned and tortured on trumped up charges, it then should not come as a shock that the fan-favorite warrior king would do something similar.

The Blue Bard Mirror

Cersei has the Blue Bard arrested and tortured in the dungeons, framing him for seducing Margaery. Afraid of Maggy the Frog's prophecies and thus jealous of Margaery, Cersei imprisons the young queen's favorite musician, accusing him of bedding her. She enlists Qyburn to torture a false confession from the Blue Bard and lies to herself about its veracity. The main beats of Cersei's motives and actions here 'rhyme' with what actually happened to Rhaegar: jealous over the prophecy-minded, musical prince's use of pale blue roses at Harrenhal, which according to Bael the Bard's song indicates a desire to bed and father a child on a Stark maiden, Robert imprisoned and tortured Rhaegar, also having Lyanna imprisoned in the tower of joy with Dorne's help, raped her, and lied about Rhaegar's guilt.
What follows is an examination of the Blue Bard torture scene from A Feast for Crows, Cersei IX.
Like Bael the Bard, the Blue Bard is linked to pale blue roses, signaling that his story is relevant to mysteries surrounding Lyanna.

“Not kind,” said Cersei, “merely truthful. Taena tells me that you are called the Blue Bard.”
“I am, Your Grace.” The singer’s boots were supple blue calfskin, his breeches fine blue wool. The tunic he wore was pale blue silk slashed with shiny blue satin. He had even gone so far as to dye his hair blue, in the Tyroshi fashion. Long and curly, it fell to his shoulders and smelled as if it had been washed in rosewater. From blue roses, no doubt. At least his teeth are white. They were good teeth, not the least bit crooked.
“You have no other name?”

His eyes are like Robert's eyes, beckoning readers to 'see':

A hint of pink suffused his cheeks. “As a boy, I was called Wat. A fine name for a plowboy, less fitting for a singer.”
The Blue Bard’s eyes were the same color as Robert’s. For that alone, she hated him. “It is easy to see why you are Lady Margaery’s favorite.”
“Her Grace is kind. She says I give her pleasure.”
“Oh, I’m certain of it. Might I see your lute?”
“If it please Your Grace.” Beneath the courtesy, there was a faint hint of unease, but he handed her the lute all the same. One does not refuse the queen’s request.
Cersei plucked a string and smiled at the sound. “Sweet and sad as love. Tell me, Wat . . . the first time you took Margaery to bed, was that before she wed my son, or after?”
For a moment he did not seem to understand. When he did, his eyes grew large. “Your Grace has been misinformed. I swear to you, I never—”

vs.

For a moment Robert did not seem to understand what Ned was saying. Defiance was not a dish he tasted often. Slowly his face changed as comprehension came. His eyes narrowed and a flush crept up his neck past the velvet collar. He pointed an angry finger at Ned. "You are the King's Hand, Lord Stark. You will do as I command you, or I'll find me a Hand who will."

- A Game of Thrones Eddard VIII
Not only do these passages share certain words and syntax, but they also reinforce both Cersei and Robert's rash, retaliatory natures. Both expect to be obeyed.
Cersei's violence towards the singer even evokes Robert smashing the rubies off Rhaegar's armor at the Trident.

“Liar!” Cersei smashed the lute across the singer’s face so hard the painted wood exploded into shards and splinters. “Lord Orton, summon my guards and take this creature to the dungeons.”
Orton Merryweather’s face was damp with fear. “This . . . oh, infamy . . . he dared seduce the queen?”
“I fear it was the other way around, but he is a traitor all the same. Let him sing for Lord Qyburn.”
The Blue Bard went white. “No.” Blood dripped from his lip where the lute had torn it. “I never . . .” When Merryweather seized him by the arm, he screamed, “Mother have mercy, no.”
“I am not your mother,” Cersei told him.

Cersei retorts that she's not the Blue Bard's mother, before having Wat tortured out of jealousy of her step-daughter Margaery, who she thinks is the younger queen from Maggy's prophecy. This is clearly meant to reflect the story of Snow White, in which her vain and wicked step-mother is told by a magic mirror that the princess is more beautiful, leading her to send a huntsman to kill her. He takes Snow White into the deep of the wood but lets her flee, presenting a boar's heart to the evil queen instead. Similarly, Robert is a huntsman who is killed by a boar, with the aid of strongwine supplied by Cersei.

Dorcas put a silver looking glass into her hand. Very good, the queen thought, smiling at her reflection.

- A Feast for Crows Cersei V
I've previously argued that the queen of love and beauty's laurel at Harrenhal was actually formed from white roses and mistaken as pale blue like frost in shadow. "The Blue Bard went white" is just one of many pieces of text that foreshadows this reveal. Azor Ahai forges Lightbringer, so it makes sense that solutions to major mysteries would involve light phenomena.

Even in the black cells, all they got from him were denials, prayers, and pleas for mercy. Before long, blood was streaming down his chin from all his broken teeth, and he wet his dark blue breeches three times over, yet still the man persisted in his lies. “Is it possible we have the wrong singer?” Cersei asked.
“All things are possible, Your Grace. Have no fear. The man will confess before the night is done.” Down here in the dungeons, Qyburn wore roughspun wool and a blacksmith’s leather apron. To the Blue Bard he said, “I am sorry if the guards were rough with you. Their courtesies are sadly lacking.” His voice was kind, solicitous. “All we want from you is the truth.”
“I’ve told you the truth,” the singer sobbed. Iron shackles held him hard against the cold stone wall.
“We know better.” Qyburn had a razor in his hand, its edge gleaming faintly in the torchlight. He cut away the Blue Bard’s clothing, until the man was naked but for his high blue boots. The hair between his legs was brown, Cersei was amused to see. “Tell us how you pleasured the little queen,” she commanded.

vs.

There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

- A Game of Thrones Prologue
Qyburn slices off the Blue Bard's nipple and the wet red eye weeps blood... Margaery may favor his music, but it's obvious they did not have a sexual relationship. Lyanna also was moved to tears by Rhaegar's music, but that doesn't mean she desired him. This series is called A Song of Ice & Fire, so it's appropriate to hide major clues to its most important mysteries in a singer's tale.

“I never . . . I sang, was all, I sang and played. Her ladies will tell you. They were always with us. Her cousins.”
“How many of them did you have carnal knowledge of?”
“None of them. I’m just a singer. Please.”
Qyburn said, “Your Grace, mayhaps this poor man only played for Margaery whilst she entertained other lovers.”
Lord Qyburn ran a hand up the Blue Bard’s chest. “Does she take your nipples in her mouth during your love play?” He took one between his thumb and forefinger, and twisted. “Some men enjoy that. Their nipples are as sensitive as a woman’s.” The razor flashed, the singer shrieked. On his chest a wet red eye wept blood. Cersei felt ill. Part of her wanted to close her eyes, to turn away, to make it stop. But she was the queen and this was treason. Lord Tywin would not have turned away.

vs.

The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head.

- A Storm of Swords Bran II
Like Cersei mentally distorts reality to believe Margaery seduced the Blue Bard, it's easy to imagine Robert convincing himself that Lyanna tempted Rhaegar, to try to make sense of the insult at Harrenhal:

In the end the Blue Bard told them his whole life, back to his first name day. His father had been a chandler and Wat was raised to that trade, but as a boy he found he had more skill at making lutes than barrels. When he was twelve he ran off to join a troupe of musicians he had heard performing at a fair. He had wandered half the Reach before coming to King’s Landing in hopes of finding favor at court.
“Favor?” Qyburn chuckled. “Is that what women call it now? I fear you found too much of it, my friend . . . and from the wrong queen. The true one stands before you.”
Yes. Cersei Robert blamed Margaery Tyrell Lyanna for this. If not for her, Wat Rhaegar might have lived a long and fruitful life, singing his little songs and bedding pig girls princesses and crofter’s lord’s daughters. Her scheming forced this on me. She has soiled me with her treachery.

Cersei urges the Blue Bard to recant certain accusations, reinforcing the fact that people of means have privileges, a theme of King Robert's reign:

"Not true, Your Grace," protested a wispy young man who must have been Caswell. "What is mine is yours."
"Whenever someone said that to my brother Robert, he took them at their word," Renly said.
"Do you have daughters?"
"Yes, Your Grace. Two."
"Then thank the gods that I am not Robert. My sweet queen is all the woman I desire." Renly held out his hand to help Margaery to her feet. "We'll talk again when you've had a chance to refresh yourself, Lady Catelyn."

- A Clash of Kings Catelyn II
vs.

By dawn the singer’s high blue boots were full of blood, and he had told them how Margaery would fondle herself as she watched her cousins pleasuring him with their mouths. At other times he would sing for her whilst she sated her lusts with other lovers. “Who were they?” the queen demanded, and the wretched Wat named Ser Tallad the Tall, Lambert Turnberry, Jalabhar Xho, the Redwyne twins, Osney Kettleblack, Hugh Clifton, and the Knight of Flowers.
That displeased her. She dare not besmirch the name of the hero of Dragonstone. Besides, no one who knew Ser Loras would ever believe it. The Redwynes could not be a part of it either. Without the Arbor and its fleet, the realm could never hope to rid itself of this Euron Crow’s Eye and his accursed ironmen. “All you are doing is spitting up the names of men you saw about her chambers. We want the truth!”
“The truth.” Wat looked at her with the one blue eye that Qyburn had left him. Blood bubbled through the holes where his front teeth had been. “I might have . . . misremembered.”
“Horas and Hobber had no part of this, did they?”
“No,” he admitted. “Not them.”
“As for Ser Loras, I am certain Margaery took pains to hide what she was doing from her brother.”
“She did. I remember now. Once I had to hide under the bed when Ser Loras came to see her. He must never know, she said.”

The previous line draws attention to a gaping hole in the Rhaegar red herring: Rhaegar believed his children by Elia were heads of the dragon, his son Aegon the prince that was promised, and yet he allegedly left three Kingsguard with Lyanna while leaving none to protect his other children. He also failed to explain their disappearance, when doing so would have gone a long way towards keeping his and Lyanna's families alive.

“I am not lying. Ser Amory dragged Princess Rhaenys out from under her father’s bed and stabbed her to death. He had some men-at-arms with him, but I do not know their names.” He leaned forward. “It was Ser Gregor Clegane who smashed Prince Aegon’s head against a wall and raped your sister Elia with his blood and brains still on his hands.”

- A Storm of Swords Tyrion IX
Wat is kept in the black cells and given milk of the poppy for his pain. He is told by Cersei that he can take the black if he lies sufficiently, so he continues to lie when the Faith gets ahold of and also tortures him. Ned was likewise kept in the black cells, feverish from his broken leg but denied milk of the poppy, then was given a similar deal, the black in exchange for lying and dishonoring himself, before being beheaded on the steps of the Sept of Baelor.

“I prefer this song to the other.” Leave the great lords out of it, that was for the best. The others, though . . . Ser Tallad had been a hedge knight, Jalabhar Xho was an exile and a beggar, Clifton was the only one of the little queen’s guardsman. And Osney is the plum that makes the pudding. “I know you feel better for having told the truth. You will want to remember that when Margaery comes to trial. If you were to start lying again . . .”
“I won’t. I’ll tell it true. And after . . .”
“. . . you will be allowed to take the black. You have my word on that.” Cersei turned to Qyburn. “See that his wounds are cleaned and dressed, and give him milk of the poppy for the pain.”
“Your Grace is good.” Qyburn dropped the bloody razor into a pail of vinegar. “Margaery may wonder where her bard has gone.”
“Singers come and go, they are infamous for it.”
The climb up the dark stone steps from the black cells left Cersei feeling breathless. I must rest. Getting to the truth was wearisome work, and she dreaded what must follow. I must be strong. What I must do I do for Tommen and the realm. It was a pity that Maggy the Frog was dead. Piss on your prophecy, old woman. The little queen may be younger than I, but she has never been more beautiful, and soon she will be dead.

Ahem...

It rained all through that night, and come morning Ned, Lem, and Watty the Miller awoke with chills. Watty could not keep his breakfast down, and young Ned was feverish and shivering by turns, with skin clammy to the touch.

- A Storm of Swords Arya VIII
Of interest, the only time our author's name appears in the canon is applied to Lord Confessor George Graceford, a notorious torturer during the reign of Aegon III who had a knack for extracting false confessions. Because of this, and in light of mirrored text during Qyburn's torture of the Blue Bard, surely this scene is of utmost importance in unravelling hidden truths.
Like Cersei with the Blue Bard, Robert may have wanted to witness the torture of Rhaegar. Previously, we saw indications that Rhaegar and/or his companions were held in Ghaston Grey, the Alcatraz-style island prison in the Sea of Dorne. Yet it's also possible Rhaegar was held for a time on the mainland, perhaps at Summerhall or even Storm's End, where Robert lingered while trying to consolidate his military power:

The king's voice was thick with anger. "My brother had a gift for inspiring loyalty. Even in his foes. At Summerhall he won three battles in a single day, and brought Lords Grandison and Cafferen back to Storm's End as prisoners. He hung their banners in the hall as trophies. Cafferen's white fawns were spotted with blood and Grandison's sleeping lion was torn near in two. Yet they would sit beneath those banners of a night, drinking and feasting with Robert. He even took them hunting. 'These men meant to deliver you to Aerys to be burned,' I told him after I saw them throwing axes in the yard. 'You should not be putting axes in their hands.' Robert only laughed. I would have thrown Grandison and Cafferen into a dungeon, but he turned them into friends. Lord Cafferen died at Ashford Castle, cut down by Randyll Tarly whilst fighting for Robert. Lord Grandison was wounded on the Trident and died of it a year after. My brother made them love him, but it would seem that I inspire only betrayal. Even in mine own blood and kin. Brother, grandfather, cousins, good uncle . . ."

- A Storm of Swords Davos IV
In testament to how easy it is to be duped into supporting conflicts based on lies, just as Robert and his allies garnered support for the rebellion based on malicious propaganda, consider this fact about the film The Rock, set at Alcatraz:

A scene from the film was the basis for incorrect and false descriptions of the Iraqi chemical weapons program. Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service was led to believe Saddam Hussein was continuing to produce weapons of mass destruction by a false agent who based his reports on the movie the false claims of weapons of mass destruction were the justification for UK’s entering the war.)

Video: The Rock - Ranger Bob
Going forward, we'll continue the examination of evidence that Robert Baratheon truly earned his moniker the Demon of the Trident, showing that he went along with a deceptive plot to overthrow the Targaryen dynasty, and even raped Lyanna after his loss at Ashford. We will then conclude by examining Ned's inner turmoil, indicting his best friend and king. To preview where this series is headed, in its full audio/visual glory with greater detail, look here.

About Me

Gender: F // Age: 32 // Country: UK (London) // Height: 5’9”/175cm // Weight: 65kg // Build: Slim-ish
Clothing: Men’s Small - Women’s UK 8-10/Small // Shoes: EU40 - UK 7 - US Men’s 8 - US Women’s 9.5
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

General Comments

I ordered some ‘hype’ items and some boring items in this haul because they were cheaper than buying retail and I just wanted to try some things out. I’m not overly worried about being called out because I’m 32 and I don’t care, but have checked other reviews/images of the items to make my comments about accuracy.
List of items in haul: FK Reverse Mochas, Panda Dunks, Syracuse Dunks, Dior B23s, Gucci x Adidas Gazelles, Sambas, Converse, Hermes Oran Sandals, Essentials tracksuit, shorts & quarter zip, Goyard cardholder & AirPod case, Supreme Pill case, Tiffany money clip
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Agent: Pandabuy

Comments: This is my first haul and Pandabuy was super easy and clear to use, I wasn’t confused by the process at any stage. The communication was great, including asking if I wanted refunds when sellers took ages to send. Shipping was easy and quick, imo.
Sidenote: I used After Ship to track as it had more detail for my country than 17track. It was very accurate with delivery times etc. Parcels were delivered on my end by ParcelForce.

Shipping

Divided this into 2 parcels. Full details of shipping timeline here.
Carrier: GD-E-EMS // Total weight: ~13kg
Total time from warehouse: 6 days (Parcel 1) // 8 days (Parcel 2)
Haul Total: ¥3021.63 // Shipping Total: ¥1441.56 // Total Cost: ¥4463.19 // £504 // $628
​

Timeline	Parcel 1	Parcel 2
Order Submitted	May 24th	May 24th
Order Received	May 30th	June 1st
Total Shipping Time	6 days	8 days

​

Details	Parcel 1	Parcel 2
Actual Weight	6.3kg	6.4kg
Estimated Weight	6.6kg	6.5kg
Actual Shipping Cost	¥719.72	¥710
Estimated Shipping Cost	¥746.79	¥721.84
Insurance	¥59.59	¥72.33
Extras	¥25 - vacuum packaging, shrink wrap	¥5 - moisture bag
Declare amount	$50	$50

Parcel 1: Gucci x Adidas Gazelles, Adidas Sambas (no box), Converse (no box), Essentials Quarter Zip, Essentials shorts, Essentials tracksuit, AirPod holder, pill case, metal money clip.
Parcel 2: TS Reverse Mocha AJ1, Dior B23, Dunks x2 (no box), card holder, Hermes Oran sandals.
Notes: The vacuum bag was pointless, it wasn't actually vacuum packed, just in an unsealed vacuum bag in the parcel. Added the moisture bag as it was only CNY 5 and thought it might discourage too much rooting around in the parcel lol. Also asked them to add in foam packing material and a note saying “from grandma” or something. Trying some different things.
Border Force checked only the Hermes and TS boxes, they were opened and resealed with Border Force tape.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shoes

Comments: I'm not an expert on any of these shoes so take what I say with a pinch of salt and look at the in hand pics and make your own decision.

Travis Scott Reverse Mocha Air Jordan 1 - FK Batch (EU40)

Seller: CSJ
Price: ¥360 (+ ¥10) // £41 // $51
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: 9/10 // Comfort: 8/10 // Quality: 8/10 // Fit:
Notes: 4 days to warehouse. Shipped with box because I like the box.
The box was a little damaged, but not wearing the box etc etc. They're comfortable enough, my first AJ1 lows, not as comfortable as the highs I have (retail) and maybe don't feel quite as good quality, but quality is off with a lot of retail Nikes in general so that could just be the TS's anyway. The laces feel kind of plasticky, but idk if that's normal for this model. Suede seems ok to me, but I'm no expert. In terms of flaws, The "Cactus Jack" under the white swoosh is slightly misaligned compared to retail. The AIR is slightly different to retail on the tongue. But they look pretty good to me, not complaining. Obviously I could be completely wrong. I'm happy.

Panda Dunks and Syracuse Dunk Low - VT Batch (EU40)

Seller: Passerby
Price: ¥199 each (+ ¥20) // £23 each // $28 each
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: 9/10 // Comfort: 8/10 // Quality: 9/10 // Fit: TTS
Notes: 2 days to warehouse. Shipped without box.
Shipped these without the box so they were a little beat up when they arrived, but were fine as soon as they were on feet. The Syracuse were sent with spare laces in an SB bag but not SB laces, a bit strange. In terms of accuracy, the Nike logo isn't as puffy as on retail. On the Syracuse, the orange on the liner top bit of the shoe doesn't really match well, but not super noticeable. Tags on the tongue don't seem quite right and maybe the NIKE on the back is a bit small. No major flaws and these are so common I don't think anyone will call them out as such. In terms of fit, they are close to TTS I'd say, but the Pandas are a little tighter than the Syracuse.

Dior B23 (EU40)

Seller: WWTOP
Price: ¥400 (+ ¥10) // £45.50 // $56.50
Colour: Black and White High Top
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: 9.5/10 // Comfort: 9/10 // Quality: 10/10 // Fit: TTS
Notes: 10 days to warehouse.
Box was damaged. These are a lot more comfortable than usual 'Converse' style shoes, actually feel really good on foot. Fit a little large for me, but not much, so I'd say close to TTS. I don't think the tongue or the material have the kind of leathery quality that the retails have but you'd have to touch it or look inside it to see that. I think the translucent layer is meant to touch on the front half of the shoe, but not too noticeable. Overall pretty good reps.

Adidas Sambas (Size EU40)

Seller: 7up
Price: ¥134.83 (+ ¥10) // £15 // $19
Colour: White and Black
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: 7/10 // Comfort: 9/10 // Quality: 8/10 // Fit: TTS
Notes: 5 days to warehouse. Shipped without the box and tags and they were fine when they arrived, not mashed up at all.
There are some issues with this pair: you can see in the pictures that the suede on one shoe is slightly darker than the other (this is more noticeable in pictures than IRL), the “SAMBA” is way too close to the stripes, the corner of the lacing unit should be aligned with the edge of the first stripe, the tongue seems a little short but that’s not noticeable on-foot.
Overall, it’s a pair of Sambas, nobody’s going to LC them and they’re comfy, so I’m really not bothered by the flaws. Feels like leather but smells like plastic. I’m happy with this pair for £15. Let’s see how they hold up.

Black and Cream Converse Chuck 70 Hi (Size EU40)

Seller: ezreps
Price: ¥150 (+ ¥10) // £17 // $21
Colour: Black & White/Cream
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: 8/10 // Comfort: 7/10 (but I feel this way about all Converse Chucks) // Quality: 7/10 (but not far from retail) // Fit: TTS (which in my experience is slightly large)
Notes: 5 days to warehouse. Also shipped without the box and tags and they were fine when they arrived, no damage.
Again, some small flaws with these: star on the back tag thing on the heel is too large, sole’s maybe a little thick (idk). But again, Converse Hi Tops, nobody cares or will LC. They feel like normal Converse, where quality is not amazing. But honestly, I’d never spend £85 on a retail pair of these when you can get these for under £20 and they’re fine. Meant to actually buy regular Converse Hi Tops in B&W but bought these by accident, they’re fine though, happy enough with these.

Brown Adidas x Gucci Gazelles (Size EU41)

Seller: Xiaorao Men's Clothing Discount Store
Price: ¥388 // £44 // $54
Colour: Brown Gucci Print
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: 8/10 // Comfort: 8/10 // Quality: 7/10 // Fit: 1/2 size small
Notes: 6 days to warehouse. Shipped with the box and stuff because I bought these for my mum. Came with the box, tags and some weird plain dustbags and one Adidas x Gucci dustbag (like for one shoe) and a carrier bag. Box was mashed up in a few places, but not wearing the box so that’s fine (pictures of the packaging here).
I love these shoes, they’re fun. As I said, bought them for mumsy but they’re a bit too small for her but fit me, so another one in the haul for me now! These look great, but do have flaws. The “G” of Gazelle on the left shoe is shoddy AF (shown in in-hand pics). Print of the “Gucci” logo on the back is printed pretty badly. They don’t feel as comfortable or good quality as the plain Sambas that I bought for myself, but this could be because they’re canvas. Print looks alright to me. Tongue doesn’t feel great, and might be a bit short, but doesn’t seem too noticeable on foot. Going to buy another pair, a size bigger for mum. For £45 vs. £700+ mum’s happy, and now I have a pair so I’m happy too.

Brown Hermes Oran Sandals (EU 42)

Seller: Fisherman
Price: ¥480 // £55 //$68
W2C: WhatsApp (+86) 16602067117 (I bought via this link)
QC //In Hand // Retail (for reference)
Accuracy: 9/10 // Comfort: 7/10 (but they're leather sandals with wooden bottoms, not exactly comfortable shoes in any case) // Quality: 10/10 // Fit: TTS but narrow
Notes: 11 days to warehouse, sent QC directly (before sending to warehouse) after 7 days. Communication 10/10.
Another pair for mum. She really wanted this pair so I looked around and Fisherman seemed to have decent ones. He had good communication, I recommend him as a seller after this interaction. He told me they were TTS and length-wise they're good but you'd need to have quite narrow feet. I have narrow feet but mumsy doesn't - so she's going to have to stretch them out a bit.
They're leather. The stitching is maybe a bit bright-white compared to retail and the foot-pad thing is a bit square - this is common on all reps of these sandals and you can't see it on foot. They look like really good reps overall, mum's definitely not going to get called out on these and she's happy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clothing

Comments: Ordered different Essentials bits from different sellers, wanted to see the difference and I’m mostly concerned about comfort. Added images and QC and everything so everyone can check out the stuff from these sellers for their own information. I’m not adept at legit checking Essentials so you’ll be able to see the flaws in the pictures, but I won’t necessarily. For me, I’ll wear most of it regardless because I can wear it at home and it’s comfy AF.
Also, I’ve put them through the wash and reported how they’ve held up after a wash. At present, I can’t vouch for any more quality/longevity than that.

Essentials Tracksuit (Small) - 1688

Seller: 1688 - Ningbo Yinzhou
Price: Hoody ¥130 (£15/$18) + Trackpants ¥110 (£12.50/$16) (+ ¥12)
Colour: Moss
QC // In Hand
Hoody: W2C // PandaBuy Link
Pants: W2C // PandaBuy Link
Accuracy: 6.5/10 // Comfort: 10/10 // Quality: 9/10 // Fit: Hoody oversized, pants a bit small.
Notes: 4 days to warehouse. I was aware the seller didn’t take refunds before they sent (Pandabuy agent told me ahead of time) but thought I’d go ahead and get it anyway because I know I’ll wear it either at home or on school trips (I’m a teacher) that I have to go on and not worry about clothes getting messed up.
First the good, super warm, really nice weight to them and super comfortable. One of the most comfortable hoodies I own. The hoody is oversized and quite large on me but the pants are really tight but still comfy. I think together they look a bit odd because of the size difference (see fit pics). Pant legs and sleeves are quite long, so if you’re tall these will still work.
Flaws: The main problem is the wonky and thin font on the front of the hoody. This is a bit annoying Also, inside tags aren’t great. Probably way more because these just seem fairly inaccurate all round.
All in all, it’s a comfortable tracksuit for less than £30 all in. I’m going to try another 1688 seller next time, as I’ve seen some decent ones in the subreddits from there.
Held up good after a wash and still super warm, soft and fluffy. None of the print peeled or anything.

Essentials Shorts (Small) - 1688

Seller: 1688 - Lu'an Jiangzuo Electronic Commerce Co., Ltd.
Price: ¥50 (+ ¥6) // £6 // $7
Colour: Matcha Green (plus velvet)
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: /10 // Comfort: 10/10 // Quality: /10 // Fit: TTS
Notes: 4 days to warehouse.
So. Comfortable. Don’t know if they’re the most accurate, don’t care that much since they were £6 and I haven’t taken them off since getting them. I’m not sure anyone would legit check shorts that closely, but they’re certainly not doing it to me. Will buy more, love these. Worst bag of the selection, but we don’t wear the bag.
Held up good after a wash and still super warm, soft and fluffy. None of the print peeled or anything.

Essentials Quarter Zip (Medium) - Gman

Seller: Gman
Price: ¥235 (+ ¥12) // £27 // $33
Colour: Avocado (same colour as the Matcha Green shorts - think it's actually 'Sage Green' in Essentials)
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: /10 // Comfort: 9/10 // Quality: /10 // Fit:
Notes: 5 days to warehouse. Ordered a size M as this was the smallest size available from Man.
From Gman, seems good quality. It doesn’t feel as soft or comfy as the tracksuit or shorts tbh. This was the one Essentials item that I really wanted to get, so a bit disappointed that it’s too big for me. Ultimately, this is comedy large on me, so I will most likely give it away or sell it and have to get this from a different seller (recommendations welcome).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Accessories/Random

Goyard Cardholder

Seller: u[30467653
Price: ¥35 // £4 // $5
Colour: Orange
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: 6/10 // Quality: 7/10
Notes: 16 days to warehouse.
Had to get the FashionReps classic ¥35 cardholder. Not overly bothered by accuracy tbh but seems ok. Feels nice, looks nice. The Ys don’t touch, so maybe I’ll get called out. I like it though and that’s all that matters.

‘Goyard’ AirPod Case

Seller: Chinese cabbage mobile phone case
Price: ¥14.80 // £1.60 // $2
Colour: "Orange Stripes"
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: No idea (pretty sure this is fantasy) // Quality: 8/10
Notes: 2 days to warehouse.
I ordered orange (I wanted something that would match the cardholder, and this is more muted and not orange like a lot of the Goyard stuff). But I needed an AirPod case, it fits my AirPods and it’s sturdy, so it does the job and looks pretty nice. It was under £2. Not much more to say, might try and find one more like what I wanted but it’s no biggie.

Supreme Pill Case

Seller: Plaything Research Institute
Price: ¥20 //£2 // $3
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: 9/10 // Quality: 9/10
Notes: 4 days to warehouse.
Just needed something to keep my meds in. It’s pretty accurate from what I can tell, but again not super bothered about accuracy - I put 9/10 because I’m sure there are some flaws but what they are idk. I will say this is very small, there’s no way I can keep all of my meds in there given that some of them are larger tablets. Also, now I’m wondering if it’s safe, I’ve disinfected it so I’m sure it’s fine?

Tiffany & Co Money Clip

Seller: Baojibao Zhongbao Shangpin Collection
Price: ¥16 (+ ¥10) // £3 // $4
Colour: 'YQJ101-silver wide and long 6 bottles'
W2C // PandaBuy Link // QC // In Hand
Accuracy: 6/10 // Quality: 6/10
Notes: 4 days to warehouse.
Needed a money clip - don’t like trying to stuff cash into my card holders. Did cut through one of my notes when I pulled it out, so I needed to pull it apart a bit and loosen it up. When I did that there was a big flaw which is that there’s a bit where the silver coating has come off, presumably from rubbing against each other (hard to describe, you can see it in the pics) and it had created a sharp bit. Filed it down with some sandpaper and it’s fine now, no more cutting the notes.
It’s not the most accurate, the engraving isn’t deep enough, it’s a bit too shiny and the 1897 is too wide. But idc, it does the job and it was £3.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The End

That’s a wrap. Thanks for reading (sorry it was so long). I’ll be doing another summer haul soon - lots of shorts and t shirts and probably more trainers, so looking forward to that.
If this review was crap, sorry. Let me know what I can do better next time!

I did not give permission, but I was entered into a draw on the ADIDAS app. The draw includes two shoes, each priced at $250, making a total of $500. I don't want these shoes, so I contacted support to cancel the order. However, they informed me that they are unable to assist me in canceling it. When I asked if initiating a chargeback on my card would cancel the order, the adidas representative replied, "I cannot provide advice on this matter as it does not concern adidas. Do what you think is best." They then ended the call.
My main concerns are: Will initiating a chargeback cancel the order? And could I potentially face legal consequences for committing "fraud"?

I did not give permission, but I was entered into a draw on the ADIDAS app. The draw includes two shoes, each priced at $250, making a total of $500. I don't want these shoes, so I contacted support to cancel the order. However, they informed me that they are unable to assist me in canceling it. When I asked if initiating a chargeback on my card would cancel the order, the adidas representative replied, "I cannot provide advice on this matter as it does not concern adidas. Do what you think is best." They then ended the call. My main concerns are: Will initiating a chargeback cancel the order? And could I potentially face legal consequences for committing "fraud"?

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full [R-word censored by jobs] to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.