West deptford nj apartments

West Deptford, NJ

2009.09.13 05:36 West Deptford, NJ

A subreddit for the New Jerseyan Philadelphia suburb.

2023.05.31 01:07 mmaer17 Looking For Paint Color Ideas

I'm looking for paint color ideas for a kids bedroom that we are redesigning into hygge-inspired lounge space. I don't mind the suggestions of the designer (see renderings) but I wanted to toss it out there the see what others would do. I've also included some actual photos as we start to break the room apart. The only thing we've committed to at the moment is an Alabaster- colored sofa and chair from West Elm. While I do like the two accent walls, I'm not married to it. Give me your best ideas for a warm, tranquil space. Thanks!
https://preview.redd.it/ove8u33ef33b1.png?width=1328&format=png&auto=webp&s=d6f58a41dbacdfa037d2cfa70719cf5bed8eef47
https://preview.redd.it/rdww543ef33b1.png?width=1608&format=png&auto=webp&s=216c4b8ac40765f18690902795de1418284009d1
https://preview.redd.it/dskbc53ef33b1.png?width=1604&format=png&auto=webp&s=8d35d8b36fadef1c6e22b7fe453f1dfc69f0fd93
https://preview.redd.it/hwaf483ef33b1.png?width=1594&format=png&auto=webp&s=0f506ac9c767e69a556d895860d5b5c05cf3e6a3
https://preview.redd.it/4q7gt33ef33b1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6f835df3a4aca5f85a4e736b8c827fc3a36504ce
https://preview.redd.it/6689b43ef33b1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eaf656b3f59623ff9d788bde461cc53484039cc5

submitted by mmaer17 to DesignMyRoom [link] [comments]

2023.05.31 01:03 lady_sloane want to help vote out Davenport's corrupt mayor?

For those of you who have been following along with the events happening in Davenport Iowa and the absolute lack of regard for life that are current mayor, Mike matson, has demonstrated, some of you might be questioning what you can do about this really horrible politician like I am. Well if you didn't know, he's up for election this november. And there's a woman running to unseat him. Her name is Jasmine schneider, she's an organizer, an activist, and a caretaker, and grew up not too far from where the apartment building on main Street fell down. So she knows these parts of town and the struggles these people face better than anyone on the city council currently.
For some reason the media is refusing to cover her and so I wanted to make a post letting people know that she is indeed running for mayor and any and all help would be greatly appreciated because Davenport deserves a better mayor than this jackwagon.
I'll include her socials below
https://www.facebook.com/vote4schneide
https://instagram.com/not_quite_anarchy?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
https://www.tiktok.com/@mayor_on_the_move?_t=8clDd6dxLul&_r=1

submitted by lady_sloane to QuadCities [link] [comments]

2023.05.31 00:04 JoshAsdvgi The Dawes Act of 1887

The Dawes Act of 1887
(also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887),
Authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians.
Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted United States citizenship.
The Dawes Act was amended in 1891, in 1898 by the Curtis Act, and again in 1906 by the Burke Act.
The Act was named for its creator, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes of Massachusetts.
The objectives of the Dawes Act were to abolish tribal and communal land ownership of the tribes into individual land ownership rights in order to transfer lands under Indian control to white settlers and stimulate assimilation of them into mainstream American society, and thereby lift individual Native Americans out of poverty.
Individual household ownership of land and subsistence farming on the European-American model was seen as an essential step.
The act provided that the government would classify as "excess" those Indian reservation lands remaining after allotments, and sell those lands on the open market, allowing purchase and settlement by non-Native Americans.
The Dawes Commission, set up under an Indian Office appropriation bill in 1893, was created to try to persuade the Five Civilized Tribes to agree to allotment plans.
(They had been excluded from the Dawes Act by their treaties.)
This commission registered the members of the Five Civilized Tribes on what became known as the Dawes Rolls.
The Curtis Act of 1898 amended the Dawes Act to extend its provisions to the Five Civilized Tribes; it required abolition of their governments, allotment of communal lands to people registered as tribal members, and sale of lands declared surplus, as well as dissolving tribal courts.
This completed the extinguishment of tribal land titles in Indian Territory, preparing it to be admitted to the Union as the state of Oklahoma.
During the ensuing decades, the Five Civilized Tribes sold off 90 million acres of former communal lands to non-Natives.
In addition, many individuals, unfamiliar with land ownership, became the target of speculators and criminals, were stuck with allotments that were too small for profitable farming, and lost their household lands.
Tribe members also suffered from the breakdown of the social structure of the tribes.
During the Great Depression, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration supported passage on June 18, 1934 of the US Indian Reorganization Act
(also known as the Wheeler-Howard Law).
It ended land allotment and created a "New Deal" for Indians, renewing their rights to reorganize and form their self-governments.
The new policy intended to concentrate Native Americans in areas away from encroaching settlers, but it caused considerable suffering and many deaths. During the nineteenth century, Native American tribes resisted the imposition of the reservation system and engaged with the United States Army in what were called the Indian Wars in the West for decades. Finally defeated by the US military force and continuing waves of encroaching settlers, the tribes negotiated agreements to resettle on reservations.[6] Native Americans ended up with a total of over 155 million acres (630,000 km2) of land, ranging from arid deserts to prime agricultural land.[7]

The Reservation system, though forced upon Native Americans, was a system that allotted each tribe a claim to their new lands, protection over their territories, and the right to govern themselves. With the Senate supposedly being able to intervene only through the negotiation of treaties, they adjusted their ways of life and tried to continue their traditions.[8] The traditional tribal organization, a defining characteristic of Native Americans as a social unit, became apparent to the non-native communities of the United States and created a mixed stir of emotions. The tribe was viewed as a highly cohesive group, led by a hereditary, chosen chief, who exercised power and influence among the members of the tribe by aging traditions.[9] The tribes were seen as strong, tight-knit societies led by powerful men who were opposed to any change that weakened their positions. Many white Americans feared them and sought reformation. The Indians' failure to adopt the "Euroamerican" lifestyle, which was the social norm in the United States at the time, was seen as both unacceptable and uncivilized.

By the end of the 1880s, a general consensus seem to have been reached among many US stakeholders that the assimilation of Native Americans into American culture was top priority; it was the time for them to leave behind their tribal landholding, reservations, traditions and ultimately their Indian identities.[10]

On February 8, 1887, the Dawes Allotment Act was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland.

Responsible for enacting the division of the tribal reservations into plots of land for individual households, the Dawes Act was created by reformers to achieve six goals:

breaking up of tribes as a social unit,
encouraging individual initiatives,
furthering the progress of native farmers,
reducing the cost of native administration,
securing parts of the reservations as Indian land, and
opening the remainder of the land to white settlers for profit.[11]
The Act facilitated assimilation; they would become more "Euro-Americanized" as the government allotted the reservations. Native Americans held specific ideologies pertaining to tribal land, to them the land and earth were things to be valued and cared for, it represented things that produced and sustained life, it embodied their existence and identity, and created an environment of belonging.[12] In opposition to their white counterparts, they did not see it from an economic standpoint.

But, many natives began to believe they had to adapt to the majority culture in order to survive. They would have to embrace these beliefs and surrender to the forces of progress. They were to adopt the values of the dominant society and see land as real estate to be bought and developed; they learned how to use their land effectively in order to become prosperous farmers.[13] As they were inducted as citizens of the country, they would shed their uncivilized discourses and ideologies, and exchange them for ones that allowed them to become industrious self-supporting citizens, and finally rid themselves of their "need" for government supervision.[14]

The important provisions of the Dawes Act[2] were:

A head of family would receive a grant of 160 acres (65 ha), a single person or orphan over 18 years of age would receive a grant of 80 acres (32 ha), and persons under the age of 18 would receive 40 acres (16 ha) each;
the allotments would be held in trust by the U.S. Government for 25 years;
Eligible Indians had four years to select their land; afterward the selection would be made for them by the Secretary of the Interior.[15]
Every member of the bands or tribes receiving a land allotment is subject to laws of the state or territory in which they reside. Every Indian who receives a land allotment "and has adopted the habits of civilized life" (lived separate and apart from the tribe) is bestowed with United States citizenship "without in any manner impairing or otherwise affecting the right of any such Indian to tribal or other property".[16]

The Secretary of Interior could issue rules to assure equal distribution of water for irrigation among the tribes, and provided that "no other appropriation or grant of water by any riparian proprietor shall be authorized or permitted to the damage of any other riparian proprietor."[17]

The Dawes Act did not apply to the territory of the:[18]

Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Miami, and Peoria in Indian Territory
Osage, Sac, and Fox, in the Oklahoma Territory
any of the reservations of the Seneca Nation of New York, or
a strip of territory in the State of Nebraska adjoining the Sioux Nation
Provisions were later extended to the Wea, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankeshaw, and Western Miami tribes by act of 1889.[19] Allotment of the lands of these tribes was mandated by the Act of 1891, which amplified the provisions of the Dawes Act.[20]

Dawes Act 1891 Amendments
In 1891 the Dawes Act was amended:[21]

Allowed for pro-rata distribution when the reservation did not have enough land for each individual to receive allotments in original quantities, and provided that when land is only suitable for grazing purposes, such land be allotted in double quantities[22]
Established criteria for inheritance[23]
Does not apply to Cherokee Outlet[24]
Provisions of the Curtis Act
The Curtis Act of 1898 extended the provisions of the Dawes Act to the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory. It did away with their self-government, including tribal courts. In addition to providing for allotment of lands to tribal members, it authorized the Dawes Commission to make determination of members when registering tribal members.

Provisions of the Burke Act
The Burke Act of 1906[25] amended the sections of the Dawes Act dealing with US Citizenship (Section 6) and the mechanism for issuing allotments. The Secretary of Interior could force the Indian Allottee to accept title for land. US Citizenship was granted unconditionally upon receipt of land allotment (the individual did not need to move off the reservation to receive citizenship). Land allotted to Indians was taken out of Trust and subject to taxation. The Burke Act did not apply to any Indians in Indian Territory.

In 1922, the General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted an audit of 12 reservations to determine the severity of fractionation on those reservations. The GAO found that on the 12 reservations for which it compiled data, there were approximately 80,000 discrete owners but, because of fractionation, there were over a million ownership records associated with those owners. The GAO also found that if the land were physically divided by the fractional interests, many of these interests would represent less than one square foot of ground. In early 2002, the Department of the Interior attempted to replicate the audit methodology used by the GAO and to update the GAO report data to assess the continued growth of fractionation; it found that it increased by more than 40% between 1992 and 2002.

As an example of continuing fractionation, consider a real tract identified in 1987 in Hodel v. Irving, 481 U.S. 704 (1987):

Tract 1305 is 40 acres (160,000 m2) and produces $1,080 in income annually. It is valued at $8,000. It has 439 owners, one-third of whom receive less than $.05 in annual rent and two-thirds of whom receive less than $1. The largest interest holder receives $82.85 annually. The common denominator used to compute fractional interests in the property is 3,394,923,840,000. The smallest heir receives $.01 every 177 years. If the tract were sold (assuming the 439 owners could agree) for its estimated $8,000 value, he would be entitled to $.000418. The administrative costs of handling this tract are estimated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs at $17,560 annually.

Today, this tract produces $2,000 in income annually and is valued at $22,000. It now has 505 owners but the common denominator used to compute fractional interests has grown to 220,670,049,600,000. If the tract were sold (assuming the 505 owners could agree) for its estimated $22,000 value, the smallest heir would now be entitled to $.00001824. The administrative costs of handling this tract in 2003 are estimated by the BIA at $42,800.

Fractionation has become significantly worse. As noted above, in some cases the land is so highly fractionated that it can never be made productive. With such small ownership interests, it is nearly impossible to obtain the level of consent necessary to lease the land. In addition, to manage highly fractionated parcels of land, the government spends more money probating estates, maintaining title records, leasing the land, and attempting to manage and distribute tiny amounts of income to individual owners than is received in income from the land. In many cases, the costs associated with managing these lands can be significantly more than the value of the underlying asset.

submitted by JoshAsdvgi to Native_Stories [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 23:57 Bartleby_wit_da_buns [Looking for] 1 Bedroom Lease Takeover 6/30 ($4,000)

Searing for a one bedroom lease takeover (takeover the full apartment) sometime mid-June or by 6/30. Must be dog friendly!
East Village / LES / Gramercy / West Village / Greenwich Village / Soho / Chelsea / Hell’s Kitchen / Hudson Yards

submitted by Bartleby_wit_da_buns to NYCapartments [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 23:50 RedizeYT [union] Looking to join a group that has fun and has expert officers? Join the 59th NY! [NA & EU!]

Join the gallant 59th New York!

While we are a newer regiment to the community, our staff is experienced with some of our highest ranking members dating back to the earliest alpha days. We have companies to accommodate both NA and EU players! We do not require attendance but during events we will try to stay as professional as possible. Out of events we are very laid back and will play other games together fostering a community that's more than just a WoR regiment.

The 59th New York was historically a brand new regiment coming into the Maryland Campaign. They unfortunately were apart of Sedgwick's Division as it entered the disaster in the West Woods. The regiment would bounce back and for the remainder of the war they would become a prime example of valor with three of its members earning the Medal of Honor. Today the regiment has three monuments dedicated to it with two being located at Antietam and one located in Gettysburg.

Here is our most up to date schedule!
⭐FRIDAY
🎯 EU Drill - 3pm EST / 7pm GMT / 8pm BST
🎯 NA Drill - 8pm EST / 12am GMT / 1am BST

⭐SATURDAY
⚔️ EU Battle - 3pm EST / 7pm GMT / 8pm BST
⚔️ NA Battle - 8pm EST / 12am GMT / 1am BST

⭐SUNDAY
⚔️ EU Battle - 3pm EST / 7pm GMT / 8pm BST
⚔️ NA Battle - 8pm EST / 12am GMT / 1am BST

Interested? Just join our Discord:
https://discord.gg/d5VDpsEf2W

submitted by RedizeYT to RegimentFinder [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 23:48 RedizeYT NA and EU fellas looking to join a reg? I got you. Join the 59th!

Join the 59th New York! (Pro gamers fr fr)

While we are a newer regiment to the community, our staff is experienced with some of our highest ranking members dating back to the earliest alpha days. We have companies to accommodate both NA and EU players! We do not require attendance but during events we will try to stay as professional as possible. Out of events we are very laid back and will play other games together fostering a community that's more than just a WoR regiment.

The 59th New York was historically a brand new regiment coming into the Maryland Campaign. They unfortunately were apart of Sedgwick's Division as it entered the disaster in the West Woods. The regiment would bounce back and for the remainder of the war they would become a prime example of valor with three of its members earning the Medal of Honor. Today the regiment has three monuments dedicated to it with two being located at Antietam and one located in Gettysburg.

Here is our most up to date schedule!
⭐FRIDAY
🎯 EU Drill - 3pm EST / 7pm GMT / 8pm BST
🎯 NA Drill - 8pm EST / 12am GMT / 1am BST

⭐SATURDAY
⚔️ EU Battle - 3pm EST / 7pm GMT / 8pm BST
⚔️ NA Battle - 8pm EST / 12am GMT / 1am BST

⭐SUNDAY
⚔️ EU Battle - 3pm EST / 7pm GMT / 8pm BST
⚔️ NA Battle - 8pm EST / 12am GMT / 1am BST
Any questions? Leave a response or PM me.
Better yet, just join our Discord:
https://discord.gg/d5VDpsEf2W

submitted by RedizeYT to WarOfRights [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 23:05 For2ANJ 2 Weeks Ending 5.30.23 Media Coverage on Everything Guns in New Jersey

Here is a listing of all the media articles, for the past 2 weeks on anything gun related that related to New Jersey:
Note: Articles on the recent PI ruling have been omitted as covered in separate post (Link at bottom)

Note: Articles on the recent PI ruling have been omitted as covered in separate post here:

https://www.reddit.com/NJGuns/comments/13k6wym/media_meltdown_media_coverage_on_judge_bumbs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Road Rage Incident - Still no proof / reports he had a PTC:

submitted by For2ANJ to NJGuns [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 22:06 4668fgfj The Ironic Case For Nazbol

I am specifically referring to National Bolshevism as the term was originally coined, rather than any group of people who may have labelled themselves "National Boshelviks" since. The term predates even the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, let alone any other 20th century regime. The term was originally used by Karl Radek to describe two member he was expelling as "National Boshelviks". What these people wanted to do was align the revolutionary movement in Germany with that in Russia in mutual opposition to both the treaty of Versailles and the treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
I am specifically defending the prospect of this strategy in particular rather than specifically any person who might have been or could have been advocating for it and any ideas they might have had otherwise, not because it is national, or even bolshevik, but rather because I think it conforms with the idea in the Communist Manifesto of the role of Communists in relation to Proletarians where the Communists do not form separate political programs of their own and instead are supposed to align various proletarians movements together across nationality with respect to the current stage than any of those movements may find themselves in.

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

Therefore the irony of this position I am defending is that it was the one advocated for by people labelled National, which would clearly seem to be contrary to being independent of nationality, and Bolshevik who would seem to be sectarians seeking to mold to proletarian movement. The other irony is that for it to have been possible it would have required overcoming proletarian movements in different nationalities operating independent of one another, in addition to overcoming the sectarianism emerging between all the differing "Communist" movements. In other words this is another call in an endless stream of "stop infighting!" coupled with "everyone except for me is wrong" which just contributes to the infighting by creating a new sectarian divergence but there is very little that can be done about that. Mostly this is just an excuse to discuss a particular moment I find interesting and inner contrarian in me just wants to make the seemingly most insane position seem the most reasonable as a challenge.
Lenin was not in favour of this so it was a bit of a non-starter. In "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder he criticizes people who refuse to recognize the treaties, but in addition to the tendencies of so-called National Bolsheviks, he also criticized the Left-Communists that Karl Radek and the other German Revolutionaries were often members. Here we can start to see a problem emerging as you clearly have two different revolutionary movements in two different countries who are having difficulty working with each other (with the problem of the treaties between these countries not even being the main issue they were squabbling over). Indeed while not around long enough to have become officially a Left-Communist herself, Luxembourg is associated with them as her writings are cited as a major influence on the tendency, and she is notable for criticizing Lenin's Bolshevism.
There was a lot of confusion in this period and numerous tendencies diverging from one another, the reason being is that in the wake of the Russian Revolution and the end of the First World War there was a period of revolutionary activity across the entire world. While Russia and Germany are often the most focused upon due to the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany being our core 20th century players and many seeing these revolutions as the origin points of these things with a compare and contrast analysis being done to understand while one failed and the other succeeded, in the light of understanding the world revolution as a wave, looking at just these two revolutions becomes parochial, as there was clearly one singular revolution going on across the world in the same way as during the Revolutions of 1848 where the Communist Manifesto was published.
Indeed Marx and Engels viewed that as a singular revolution and would have viewed the similar wave of revolutions that peaked in 1919 but spanned from 1917-1923 as a singular revolution. While differing in severity there was revolutionary activity in numerous countries ranging from the Two Red Years in Italy to the much less impressive sounding Red Week) in the Netherlands. Even as far away as Canada, Australia, and South Africa there were labour revolts in this period. The case of Canada is a bit emblematic of the obscurity of the scale of these events, as while the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 is well known, much like with only Russia and Germany beings discussed, the strike wave nature of the events in Canada just as in the world tends to fall out of discussion, as for instance this wave actually started with a general strike in Vancouver that was crushed by the military.
In the Preface to the 1882 Russian Edition of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels even suggested in the wake of the assassination of the Tsar Liberator that the impending Russian (bourgeois) Revolution would serve as a signal for the Western proletariat to have their Revolution, and that the Russian Revolution could end up being communist alongside the West.

And now Russia! During the Revolution of 1848-9, not only the European princes, but the European bourgeois as well, found their only salvation from the proletariat just beginning to awaken in Russian intervention. The Tsar was proclaimed the chief of European reaction. Today, he is a prisoner of war of the revolution in Gatchina, and Russia forms the vanguard of revolutionary action in Europe.
The Communist Manifesto had, as its object, the proclamation of the inevitable impending dissolution of modern bourgeois property. But in Russia we find, face-to-face with the rapidly flowering capitalist swindle and bourgeois property, just beginning to develop, more than half the land owned in common by the peasants. Now the question is: can the Russian obshchina, though greatly undermined, yet a form of primeval common ownership of land, pass directly to the higher form of Communist common ownership? Or, on the contrary, must it first pass through the same process of dissolution such as constitutes the historical evolution of the West?
The only answer to that possible today is this: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development.

Now 1882 didn't turn into a revolution in Russia and there were several false starts like in 1905, but eventually it did finally happen. However seemingly with Lenin's New Economic Policy, both scenarios discussed ended up needing to happen. The Russian Revolution was both Communist and they felt it impossible to transition straight into Communism and thus had to allow some kind of bourgeois property relation to develop, and then later on had to eliminate this thing they created themselves in a rather unfortunate series of events. Additionally while the Russian Revolution did prove to be a signal for the Western proletariat to have their revolution, the proletariat revolution failed. In the spirit of this discussion I'm going to be argue that these were not separate incidents but rather the failure of the western proletariat's revolution is why Lenin implemented the NEP in 1922, in part because of internal rebellions calling for these things and because the international revolution seemingly failed resulting in a loss of hope that the western proletariat would in some way save them, which had to result in some kind of proletarian vanguard party lead bourgeois state emerging on the fly. Stalin would later have to undo this both these consequences in the events he is most criticized for, as in addition to reversing the NEP with collectivization, he undid the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk when as Molotov said "One kick from the German army and another from the Soviet Army put an end to this ugly product of Versailles" in regards to Poland. Polish independence being quite the unfortunate sacrifice here considering how supportive of it Engels was in the 1892 Polish Preface the the Communist Manifesto.

But the rapid development of Polish industry, outstripping that of Russia, is in its turn a new proof of the inexhaustible vitality of the Polish people and a new guarantee of its impending national restoration. And the restoration of an independent and strong Poland is a matter which concerns not only the Poles but all of us. A sincere international collaboration of the European nations is possible only if each of these nations is fully autonomous in its own house. The Revolution of 1848, which under the banner of the proletariat, after all, merely let the proletarian fighters do the work of the bourgeoisie, also secured the independence of Italy, Germany and Hungary through its testamentary executors, Louis Bonaparte and Bismarck; but Poland, which since 1792 had done more for the Revolution than all these three together, was left to its own resources when it succumbed in 1863 to a tenfold greater Russian force. The nobility could neither maintain nor regain Polish independence; today, to the bourgeoisie, this independence is, to say the last, immaterial. Nevertheless, it is a necessity for the harmonious collaboration of the European nations. It can be gained only by the young Polish proletariat, and in its hands it is secure. For the workers of all the rest of Europe need the independence of Poland just as much as the Polish workers themselves.

(The call for "full autonomy in a nations own house" is probably worth explaining. Nations that should be autonomous are nations which can be autonomous all on their own without international meddling. Engels was notoriously against all the south slavs for their pan-slavism because their independence was necessitated by interference from Imperial Russia, in part because he was still mad about the revolutions of 1848 not working out. He was even still mad at them 34 years later when he reaffirmed Polish independence alongside Irish independence as the most crucial national struggles to support. The reason being that Poland rejected pan-Slavism and was instead independently nationalist. That Poland could stand alone (and more importantly that Polish agitation threatened three reactionary imperial monarchies in Germany, Austria, and Russia at the same time. Ireland being important to screw around with the bourgeois British Empire as Marx and Engels increasingly saw the absentee revenues the British ruling class generated for themselves in Ireland as being the key to their parliamentary political dominance in England against both lower class and anti-imperialist challenges which were often the same thing) is why Polish independence was so supported. Standing alone is important because autonomous nations can switch between the rule of various classes without the risk of foreign interference on the part of imperialist reactionaries putting things back the way they were to protect their sphere of influence. The issue is that Polish independence ended up being a thorn in the side of the revolution when Polish independence was granted through Wilsonian liberal internationalism and during the Russian Civil War the Red Army tried and failed to retaliate against Poland when they joined forces with the Entente Liberal Imperialists in the Soviet-Poland War.
For NATO fans the opposition to NATO comes from this concept of being against spheres of influence, with a preference for complete independence. The Soviets or even Russia joining NATO however transform the institution from an American sphere of influence into just some vague "nobody invade anybody else okay guys thanks" treaty which is what it is sold as. So long as Russia is not included in NATO it fails to fulfill its stated purpose, and it must be opposed because it does not protect the independence of the nations within it, rather it makes them subservient to the United States, and the counter-balance of Russia inside the block is sufficient that the nations within it could seamlessly transfer between spheres of influence, or more importantly, not be in anyone's sphere of influence by successfully playing the US and Russia off each other, which puts each nation in a position to pursue development with little risk of the alliance being used to punish them. In fact if say Luxembourg decided to go rogue it could even use the NATO treaty to argue that anyone infringing upon them should be subjected to retaliation by all the other members, and now they have a socialist Luxembourg in the middle of Europe and they can't do anything about it because the treaty guarantees their independence with multiple dozen moving parts so long as Luxembourg doesn't militarily invade anybody. However if the organization is nothing more that an American political block with US bases every where, clearly the US would be able to pressure people into recognizing the socialist Luxembourg as illegitimate in some way and argue it can be invaded without requiring everyone come to its defense. So NATO good if Russia included and US bases removed, an in NATO Russia still isn't a threat to even Estonia if dozens of European countries are required to defend it, and that isn't even considering a late arrival of the US and Canada when they finally cross the Atlantic. The problem with NATO is that it is clearly an unofficial loosely held US empire, it stops being a problem when it is no longer this)
This whole confused mess could have been avoided had the world revolution not failed. This circles back to the Russian and German revolutions and how they were not united. Therefore the position of those labelled Nazbol is attractive merely for the sake that it would have united these two disparate revolutions. The success of either was reliant on the success of the other. The prior Bolshevik position of Peace Without Annexations or Indemnities would permanently lock in the Russian and German revolutions together in a mutual opposition to the bourgeois treaties, a pact of blood to oppose the pacts signed in ink.
Additionally opposition to the indemnity aspect of the treaty of Versailles would have been in fidelity to the revolutionary history of the Paris Commune which inspired the notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat in 1871, which was prompted in part by opposition to the burden of the reparation payments imposed on France by Bismark in response to Napolean III's failed invasion being placed on the people of France by the bourgeois government that signed that treaty. On a global scale while the opportunity for revolution by the proletariat refusing to enter World War One was squandered by the Social Democrats granting their permission, the proletariat could instead refuse to exit World War One by not granting their permission for acceptance of the bourgeois treaties just as the Paris Commune refused to accept Bismark's treaty.
Indeed opposition to the bourgeois Treaty of Trianon served as the basis for cooperation between the Nationalists and the Communists in Hungary, who unlike the Luxembourgists in Germany, were internationally aligned with the Boshelviks in Russia with the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The alliance however broke down with the establishment of the Slovak Soviet Republic as the Hungarian nationalists questioned why they were participating in the Hungarian Red Army if they were just going to be liberating other countries, this ended up not even being that relevant of a dispute seeing as Slovakia was never fully captured and the Czechoslovak army ended up recapturing it in a month and so the issue only lasted from June 1919 to July 1919. However it exposed the core obvious problem with the alliance between nationalists and communists, as the full Petrograd formula was "peace without annexations or indemnities, on the basis of self-determination of the peoples" so the nationalists opposed to treaties were not going to like it when the second part got implemented later.
Lenin and Stalin ran into a similar issue when Stalin opposed Georgian self-determination in 1922 and wanted them to instead join Russia, with the comical situation of Stalin calling the Georgian Mensheviks "nationalist-socialists" and the Russian Lenin accusing the Georgian Stalin of being a Russian nationalist-socialist in response. We can clearly see that there are vastly differing views on the questions of nationality all over the place and there was no one line being taken, with Hungary and Germany taking vastly different views in regards to the treaties and cooperation with nationalists, to their own unique sets of problems later on with them.
The vastly different ways everyone was handling these issues is why I argue that the best principle would have been to have no principles at all. The only communist principle in regards to nationality is international cooperation. Indeed while you had Communist revolutions in German, Hungary, and Russia, the common thread uniting them of opposition to the bourgeois treaties would have also united them with the liberal Kemalist revolution in Turkey, thus completing the alignment of all revolutionaries in the central powers and Imperial Russia against the rest of the entente attempting to impose the bourgeois treaties, in effect adding Russia to the central powers after the imperialist war had turned into a civil war in all four imperial monarchies. That Turkey was in a vastly different stage of revolution than the other three would be irrelevant as these revolutions would still be mutually supporting of each other, and the Communists could rest assured safely knowing that while differing countries might be in different stages of revolution, they had the advantage over all others in knowing the ultimate end result of all their revolutions even if the people operating in them might not know it themselves.

The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.

As such the notion that one needs to be politically Communist to participate in the revolution is false. So long as a state of revolution remained the stages of the revolution could continue moving forward. If Turkey was not materially ready for it, that need not matter so long as the Kemalists were willing to join in an anti-imperialist block in the mean time, which they were willing to do until the Soviets later started looking at the straights with desire which eventually pushed Turkey into the arms of NATO where it remains to this day. However at the time the Soviets and Turkey were quite friendly despite their obvious ideological differences merely based on this mutual geopolitical interest in so-called anti-imperialism. This anti-imperialism was selective however, with the "Mountain Turks" and "Mountain Russians" being sacrificed for it, but the benefits of not having principles means you don't exactly have to care about that. Ataturk can make poutine out of the Kurds all he wants if he remains staunchly anti-imperialist on an international level. This gross cynical realism while obviously questionable is still consistent with Revolutionary History as all prior revolutions do not stand up to moral scrutiny when they are viewed in this way. In fact at the twilight of the 1848 revolutions Engels himself called for the Hungarians to wipeout the "counter-revolutionary" Slavs, while this is obviously not something we should want to have happened, and we definitely should not ever do this if we ever find ourselves in a position to make those decisions, it is important to understand the reasoning behind why he was saying those things, that it is the continuance of the revolution itself is both the most important thing, and something that is largely out of anyone's control in the Hegelian sense of Historicism.

The Magyar cause is not in such a bad way as mercenary black-and-yellow [colours of the Austrian flag] enthusiasm would have us believe. The Magyars are not yet defeated. But if they fall, they will fall gloriously, as the last heroes of the 1848 revolution, and only for a short time. Then for a time the Slav counter-revolution will sweep down on the Austrian monarchy with all its barbarity, and the camarilla will see what sort of allies it has. But at the first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names.
The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.

A key fact you will observe is that they are often quite over eager in announcing the impending revolution. For instance The Magyar Struggle was published in January of 1849 in Marx's Newspaper, and Louis Napoleon was elected President of France in December of 1848. It seems as if they might have thought that this would have been more significant than it actually turned out to be. This kind of made sense though because Louis Napoleon's main opponent in the election was Louis-Eugene Cavagnac who lead the army to suppress a worker's uprising in Paris back in the "June Days" of 1848. Additionally the Hungarians did not do this, instead they adopted cultural assimilation policies called Magyarization, and late in the revolution into 1849 while the Russian and Austria Imperial armies were barring down on them they adopted minority right protections to try to win them back. However they were ultimately unsuccessful in repelling the Russian invasion regardless of any attempts at outreach.
What I find notable about this is that Engels essentially predicted the sides of the "next world war" (albeit there was a world war in between) that would wipeout entire peoples, but somehow ended up reversing the reactionary and revolutionary sides, as an Austrian German and the Hungarians did engage in a war against the Slavs, but because somehow the "poles of revolution" did somehow invert and head outwards from Russia like Engels said the Slavs supposedly wanted, that war was against the revolution instead of for it.

There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other one or several ruined fragments of peoples, the remnant of a former population that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says, these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution.
Such, in Scotland, are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745.
Such, in France, are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792 to 1800.
Such, in Spain, are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos.
Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but the residual fragment of peoples, resulting from an extremely confused thousand years of development. That this residual fragment, which is likewise extremely confused, sees its salvation only in a reversal of the whole European movement, which in its view ought to go not from west to east, but from east to west, and that for it the instrument of liberation and the bond of unity is the Russian knout — that is the most natural thing in the world.

However a lot can apparently change in almost 100 years. Russia was once seen as the bastion of reaction celebrated by the reactionaries everywhere for having invaded Hungary to put down the 1848-9 revolution, but then became the center of revolution, taking that spot from France which didn't really participate in the Revolutions despite the 1917 mutinies defused in June by Philip Petain by reassuring the soldiers by calling off the offensives that were intended to try to reassure the Provision Russian Government from the February Revolution to stay in the war and who launched the "Kerensky Offensive" in July which prompted the unsuccessful "July Days" Bolshevik uprising before the later successful October Revolution.
The absence of French participation beyond this is remarkable given how much they played a role in other revolutions and also remarkable how it was later Vichy leader Petain himself who basically defused the situation by giving the soldiers what they wanted and ending the suicidal offensives. The difference between Petain and Kerensky here and that the Russian revolution had not yet gone proletariat at this point while France was dealing with its own situation coming up from the soldiers and that the Russian version of this happened only a month afterwards should probably be focused on more here, in addition to how the differing approaches countries took on simultaneous and similar events from 1917-1923 should be analyzed like how I am suggesting (Comprehensive Revolutionary History of World War One when? Honestly I might write it at this point, issue is wikipedia as sources is probably not the greatest, and wikipedia article bouncing is how I'm formulating these connections as it requires an extremely shallow understanding of a lot of things that people with deep understandings of those things would all reject because I'm ignoring intricacies, despite ignoring intricacies being the entire point as intricacies are caused by random eddies and chaotic currents, and so must be ignored if you want to get a sense of the overall direction things are going, although admittedly I feel myself getting a bit schizo when I assert random concepts whole cloth that nobody has ever used by anyone besides me as you will see with the term "global political magnetic field collapse")
Since the Russian Revolution the apparent "pole of reaction" where global reactionaries collect as their refuge that Russia represented seemingly shifted to the United States for the Cold War after the pole reversal and global political magnetic field collapse manifesting in the out of place auroral borealis of the inter-war period and world war 2. It would be reasonable to assume that it would be just as possible for the United States to become a new center of revolution in the way Russia took that position from France despite Russia being the most reactionary power of anyone before that happened.

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2023.05.30 21:59 mrector09 Tickets for weed

Anyone been nabbed in Fargo or West Fargo recently? Like at your house or apartment. Wondering what will go on when you can buy pot in Moorhead. Do cops respond to “my apt halls smell like weed” or “I can smell weed in the backyard” I don’t really drive anymore, though it’s a past time..

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2023.05.30 21:33 R0kkit01 9 years gone wasted on her

My story is quite long. I have been with my gf for about 9 years and I support her 100% financially. She quit working as soon as we moved in together so I had to support her. She also has a 20 year old daughter that lives with us that I also support.
It started when I went to visit my parents for Christmas. She didn’t want to come so I went alone. My parents live on the east coast and I’m currently on the west coast. So she told me she’s going to go to a cabin on Boxing Day with her friends and their kids. I thought this was a little suspicious that she was leaving her daughter on the day after Christmas but I didn’t say anything. When she got the I asked her to send me photos but she was barely texting me and wouldn’t answer my phone calls unless she was outside.
How I found out she was lying was that I knew she had a guy friend that she played an online game with and I knew where he lived. We knew each other’s passwords on everything so I checked find my iPhone and she was in his town and not where she said. I called her right away and told her that I knew where she was and I want her to tell me. She kept lying saying she was at the cabin with her friends. Finally I said to her that I know you’re with him and I want you to admit it. She did admit it but said that they’re just friends. So why lie about it.
Things were horrible when we both got back home. I said if you want us to still be together then he has to go. No more gaming with him or chatting. She didn’t agree with this and kept gaming with him. So things were awful. No sex or affection at all between us at all.
Fast forward to about a month and half later. I had to go out of town for work and would be gone for a few weeks. Still at this point she had no idea how I found out where she was. The day after I left she called and told me was at her best friends house about 30 minutes from our house but I was looking at the find my iPhone app again and she was at an airport close to that guys town. I called her right away and told her we were done. She lied and lied before she finally told me she’s with him again. But she said they’re just friends. I hung up on her and she immediately called me back over and over and started texting me. So I answered the phone and said we’d talk things over when we both got back home. I had no intention of talking about anything with her. I lied this time.
When I got back home she was already there I told her that I was very upset and confused and needed sometime to think. She was trying to hug and kiss me but I wasn’t having it. I packed up all my clothes, movies, video games and computer and stayed with my brother for a couple weeks while I was looking for an apartment. As soon as I got my apartment keys. I blocked her and all her family and ghosted her. Only saw her once after that at a local grocery store where she cornered me and asked me to unblock her and that we needed to talk. She followed me around and wouldn’t leave me alone until I exploded and shouted that I can’t talk to you because you cheated on me and she looked so embarrassed and walked away from me.

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2023.05.30 21:09 Kitchen-Forever9520 SNAP Q: Going to TN for school with daughter and husband

I'm starting school in TN this fall but I live in NJ. I will be renting an apartment until I'm done with school. I am paying rent for an apartment in TN even though I still live in NJ. My husband and daughter will be coming with me and I was wondering if I should apply for snap here in NJ or when I arrive in TN?

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2023.05.30 20:46 Clunky_Exposition Does anyone live in or is familiar with the various apartment complexes across from Drake's The Barn in West Sac? How are they?

As far as I can tell, they are very modern buildings at a very reasonable price for their proximity to downtown/midtown. It has me wondering what the catch is. Are any of you familiar with these places? What has been your experience with them?
I'm talking about the cluster of apartments that includes The Block, The Foundry, Habitat, 980 Central, etc.

submitted by Clunky_Exposition to Sacramento [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 19:51 SKwiatks Written In the Stars Ch. 14: Bright Morning Stars Part 1

Violet slowly opens her pale green eyes as she slept next to Maya in the fishing shack to keep warm, as well as snuggling and cuddling her girlfriend. Feeling the love she has for her. Violet looks at Maya as the sun was slowly turning the navy blue sky a dull orange and pink. The air was frigid during the night, and Violet couldn't believe Maya slept on her bare skin being exposed to the cold elements. This is the first time they slept close and in an intimate way. Violet never slept or came this close to sleeping and being near someone half-naked.
In fact, if it wasn't for Maya's gift of seeing visions, she would have gotten her first sexual experience and given away her heart and soul to the person she least expect to find true love in. Violet thought that Minerva was the only person she ever found love in, and someone to love her as she always dreamed of finding. But now as Violet eyes Maya sleeping soundly beside her, she is believing that Maya is the one who she is meant to love and share a lifetime of happiness in this hell on earth.
Violet reaches out and tenderly strokes her beautiful rugged native warrior, and runs her fingertips on Maya's side and slowly trails up the back side of her back. Violet pauses as she sees strange markings on Maya's back shoulder she never noticed last night. She pulls the old sheet to gaze at Maya's back and sees she has strange tattoos of something.
One tattoo was on the top of her right shoulder blade as it was a circle of what looked to be teepees, and in the center of the circle was a buffalo. When they officially met, Maya told Violet that she originally came from the Lakota Tribe out west. Violet is curious if the buffalo tattoo is a symbol of her tribe. She notices Maya's tribal jacket has a buffalo skull on the back and wonders if there is a connection there. Or maybe buffalos are a national symbol in indigenous circles and means something important. Violet shakes her head and then looks at the other tattoo on Maya's shoulder just below the circle of teepees and the buffalo.
This one was strange. It sort of looked like a Dreamcatcher but not. Had colors of red, white, yellow and black, and above the circle was a hawk. Maya did mention her spirit animal is a hawk, as it matches the necklace she always wears around her neck. Violet moves her hand and her fingers trace over the hawks wings on Maya's back. Violet looks down and sees four hawk feathers attach to the circle. Inside the feather are the shapes of different animals. Violet sees silhouettes of a deer, a badger, a porcupine, and a lynx. Maya's family's spirit animals. And Maya's spirit animal acts as a guardian of the circle. It is like glancing at Maya's family tree.
She never knew how family runs deep in Maya's culture. She looks at her girlfriend as she was well-loved by her family. It made Violet feel a bit envious of her girlfriend's life before the apocalypse, as she longed to have a loving family who loved her. In another lifetime, Violet only wished she came to know Maya sooner, and her tribe and family would have embraced and loved her the same as Maya did and Violet could have known what a real loving family was like. But those were only thoughts of what could have been. And probably never would have happened as Violet will be here at Ericson being forgotten by her family, and Maya be living her life out in Jackson, Wyoming wherever that was at.
Violet soon felt Maya starting slowly waking up. Violet closes her eyes so when Maya turns to look at her it will be like Violet is still sleeping when she is not. Although Maya probably can sniff out that Violet is not really sleeping.
Maya slowly opens up her brown eyes and glances around the shack. She gets a sense that Violet took her close to Ericson so that is why she got that vision of Violet's past last night. Maya turns her head to gaze down at Violet's sweet sleeping face, as she stays close by her all night. Maya eases her body down and faces Violet as she wants to hold onto this moment a bit longer before making the trip back to her camp.
Maya knows Violet is already awake, as she felt her soft touch on her back. Maya soon leans forward and plants a sweet kiss on Violet's lips and feeling the love and joy Violet's kisses bring to Maya's heart. Maya pulls back but is still near Violet's sweet face as she whispers, "I know you are awake my beautiful sweet Violet."
Violet opens her green eyes and smiles at Maya, "How do you know?"
Maya looks to Violet in a teasing flirting way to her, "I have my ways." Maya giggles as she sees Violet's face go in a bit of a sour look to her. Maya then explains the real reason to Violet, "Actually it was you touching my back and feeling my skin. You are not subtle with your touches." Maya teases her, and felt Violet giving her a playful shove. Maya loves it she can make Violet be playful. Maya soon grew into a serious face, "Sorry about last night and scaring you. I sometimes can't con—"
"You don't have to apologize. This is something new for me to experience and was skeptical at first when you told me of your gift, when we first started to get to know one another, and never knew how powerful it is to you." Violet softly spoke to her lover as she sits up and gently wraps her arms around Maya's stomach, and left kisses on her bare shoulders giving her all the love and support Violet could give.
Maya felt that lover's touch and smiles a warm smile at her. Maya reaches up and clasp her fingers around Violet's forearms and held her. "You do know if my gift didn't disrupt or killed the mood, you would have been the first I have ever been intimate with you," Maya admitted to Violet.
Violet looks into Maya's eyes, and blush is seen on Maya's face. Violet kisses her shoulder and replies back admitting the same feelings, "You would've been mine as well, and I was kind of going that direction when you said all those romantic words to me. I never knew how deep love is, or felt it, until I looked into your eyes last night and my heart just...knew." Violet looks into Maya's brown eyes. And without hesitation now Violet spoke the words, "I love you, Maya."
Maya moves in and kisses Violet and held her neck as Maya's thumbs graze over Violet's jawline, as she felt Violet's jaw move to Maya's strides of kissing her. Maya pulls back and held Violet's sweet face as she places her forehead to Violet's, "I love you back." Maya catches Violet's eyes and notices something special in Violet's green eyes. When Violet is extremely happy, Maya sees a golden ring in her green irises around her pupils that shines the brightest when she is happy. Turning her spring green meadow eyes, into a harvest color. "You know, when you are truly happy, you have a soft golden hue in your eyes."
Violet looks up into Mayas and softly and tenderly spoke, "You make me very happy. Happiness I haven't felt, since...since I don't know how long ago."
Maya smiles to that kisses Violet's forehead and smelling her beautiful golden hair. Violet nuzzles her nose in Maya's neck letting her know Maya captured Violet's heart, and she truly loves her. Violet stayed like that for a moment and then slightly pulls out of Maya's embrace. "I never knew you would be the type of person to have tattoos."
Maya looks away and does her cute scratching of the back of her head when she is nervous about something or she has to explain. "Oh...um..well, I keep them covered up with my clothes, which is why you never saw them."
Violet moves a little to look at Maya's tattoos, "I kind of dig them. Makes you look even more badass and attractive." Violet admitted to Maya she is a bit turned on. Violet reaches out and strokes Maya's bareback where her tattoos are. Violet softly asks her new girlfriend what they mean, "What do they mean exactly?"
Maya peeks over her shoulder at Violet who was interested in the tattoos that Maya had gotten put on when she was 12. "Well the first one which I am assuming you are tracing on my back right now, is my tribe's national symbol." Maya looks at Violet as Violet's finger was tracing the buffalo's body. Maya then casts her brown eyes to look a little bit at Violet but not into her eyes, "Lakota's are known to be bison and buffalo hunters. It was my ancestors' way of life and main food source. So for us to stand out from other native tribes, is the buffalo symbol. And the connection with the buffalo has to my people's culture. That is why it is in the center around the circle of teepees." Maya looks at Violet, who has her eyes fixed on that tattoo. Then her eyes met Maya's and a loving look fell over Violet's face.
Violet then tenderly spoke, "And the second one?"
Maya bit her lower lip a little, "My calling in life or what I was called to be in my tribe. In indigenous circles, the circle of the four colors is known to be the medicine wheel. My grandmother was my tribe's healer, being a Sherman. Apparently, when you are gifted by the spirits of having visions, it is clear who will be the next Sherman in my tribe. They choose me, so I was given the medicine wheel."
Maya pauses as she explains what the four colors are and represent, "The medicine wheel has many different forms of life and what it means. It correlates with the stages of life, changing of seasons, directional, aspects of life, elements of nature and ceremonial plants used for healing." Maya takes a breath before going in-depth with the explanation. "Yellow represents the birth of someone's life. It is the start of something new, like new life that awakes during springtime. The directional associated with this is east. And has the aspect of bringing spirituality to life and being connected to the spirits and the element of earth. Red represents the youth. It is the element of fire, with burning passion and desire to do something, like physical strength in someone, or physical nature in one's self. It usually associates with the season of summer, and it is the direction of south."
"Black represents the season of fall, and it usually goes with someone who enters adulthood. Black is the element of water, which has the ability to change form at any given moment, like someone's emotions, which ties into black being the emotion in our lives. And it is the direction of the west. White represents the last stage of human life which is elder. It is the season of winter, where everything is white with the purity of living a full life. It is someone's mental state and brings the element of air that we breathe. The direction associated with white is north." Maya pauses as she explains to Violet was the four colors are, "And the center is the balance of all four coming together as one harmony. What we all try to strive for in life. Having balance."
Violet was speechless by Maya's tattoos. And she has a new appreciation for this rugged native girl. Violet clears her throat, "Wow, you really are a deep person. And I am falling more in love with you, the more you share with me your culture." Violet smiles at her. She glances down at Maya's medicine wheel tattoo and traces the circle, "I am guessing the feathers on the wheel is your family." Violet moves her green eyes to look into Maya's gaze.
Maya nodded confirming what Violet spoke, "It was optional to have that feature. At the time before I got rebellious, I wanted to have a piece of my family with me always, never to forget who I am or my family. I am now forever grateful for that decision, as I...I lost my kid brother several years ago to a sickness waiting to get inside of a settlement to start a new life when the world went to hell. And a few months after my brother Koda's death..." Maya closes her eyes momentarily and reopens them up as she tells Violet about her parents, "I lost my parents in a blood bath by rogue Delta members. Aniya is the only family I have left."
Violet looked at her lover with empathic eyes and then brought Maya with a surprised expression on her face. Violet leaned over and left tender, caring kisses on Maya's tattoos and held her close. She never knew how tragic Maya's pain was, and in some ways, Violet felt connected to Maya at this moment because they both had deep pain in their hearts and had similar experiences of losing someone they both loved. Violet places her forehead against Maya's shoulder and nuzzles her nose to Maya's body, and holds her.
Maya felt Violet's loving touch and moved to lace her hand to Violet's and brought Violet's hand up to lightly kiss it. Violet pulls back and rests her chin on Maya's right shoulder. Violet glances up into Maya's eyes as she speaks, "One hell of a thing to have in common with the girl I love. I guess destiny has a funny way of bringing two people together." Violet looks down at her hand as she interlocks her fingers to Maya's copper brown ones, "No matter how much horrible shit we both been through and lived through, I am grateful to have you in my life Maya. You make me feel complete and bring meaning in purpose to my life again. You filled the dark hole in my heart and healed me." Violet moves and plants a tender kiss on Maya's lips for a moment and pulls back to gaze upon her beautiful eyes. Violet sighs and can't believe she is going to say this, "I think you are my soul mate."
Maya smiles warmly at Violet and believes the same thing. And maybe her vision of seeing Violet's past had a purpose of showing Maya that Violet is her soul mate as well. Maya glances at the back wall of the shack or small hut of some kind and realized she needed to get back before Bonnie gets suspicious. Shit. Maya with her free hand strokes Violet's face, "I hate to break up this moment with us, and God, I don't want to leave your pretty face, but....I got to get back to my camp before my leader gets suspicious." Maya sights as Violet moves her lace hand to Maya's and places it on Maya's forearm the hand touching her face. "I wish I wasn't in her group and didn't have to be so secretive when seeing you. I wish I was part of your group Violet."
Violet nods and leans to put her forehead to Maya's. "I wish you were part of my group as well. I too wish we don't have to sneak around just to be together."
Maya presses her forehead harder against Violet's, and held it there for a bit longer, as Violet didn't want Maya to leave her just as much. Violet softly whispers, "What are we going to do?"
Maya wishes she knew the answer to that question, but she doesn't. "I wish the hell I knew." Maya rubs Violet's cheek with her thumb and kisses her forehead tenderly. Maya breathes a heavy sigh as she gets up from the old mattress and goes over to put on her clothes that Violet took off of her last night in a moment of passion. As Maya reapplies her clothes, she sees Violet walking up and eyeing her. Maya puts on her father's tribal jacket and smiles bittersweetly at her lover.
Violet, still not wanting to see Maya go, comes to her and places her hand in hers, "At least let me walk you as far to the border of my school goes." Maya looks at Violet in a bit of surprise. Violet glances down a little, then back up at her, "Yeah, I brought you close to Ericson last night. This, here, is where we fish, while another part is where we hunt rabbits and catch game with our traps. I feel you belong here and I trust you, despite what Clementine thinks of you. You prove your loyalty to me last night, and you won't betray or hurt me, or put anyone else I care for in danger." Violet then closes the fishing shack door and laces her fingers to Maya's.
Maya felt honored and softly said, "Thank you." The air was cold as winter was on its way. However, the warmness of Violet's touch made the walk barrable. They walked until they reached the end of the road, where they had to part ways. Maya felt the necklace she made Violet in her jacket that she planned to give to her yesterday but got caught up in her romance with her. Maya takes out the carved necklace and pauses in her step with Violet, "I meant to give this to you yesterday." Maya places the necklace around Violet's neck. "Your very own animal spirit totem. Normally there will be a big ceremony thing that is significant to this moment in my culture, but...due to unfortunate life events of the world turning upside down, I will give you the short version."
Violet looks at the animal that was hand carved to fine detail, and her heart stops as she looks into Maya's eyes. "Maya-"
Maya came forward and put a finger to Violet's lips to keep her from talking, "I made you a panther because the panther speaks to who you are, Vi. Protection, hidden emotions, introspection, caution, careful decision-making, and a representation of dark and light. You, my love, are a panther in this world. Keep it close to you when you find yourself missing me or need strength and guidance. I love you." Maya plants a kiss on Violet's cheek and glances into Violet's green eyes.
Violet looks into her lover's brown eyes and smiles at Maya's gift. Violet moves forward to kiss Maya one last time before they part to return to their groups. Violet kisses Maya as she has never kissed anyone before and tugs on Maya's tribal jacket to make the kiss more meaningful, and as a statement, her heart is bonded to Maya's. After a moment of soft making out, Violet pulled back her lips as she repeated the exact words back, "I love you too, Maya. Stay safe, and come back to me." Violet looks down at her new necklace and then at Maya, "I will keep this and you forever in my heart." Violet clutches the necklace and smiles at Maya.
Maya returns Violet's smile and lightly strokes her face with her thumb. With a heavy heart, Maya leaves the beautiful sight of Violet's pretty face and her damn beautiful green eyes that get Maya's heart pounding every time she looks into those sexy light green pools.
Violet watches Maya leave to go back to her camp and stood there until she no longer sees Maya's figure. Violet sighs as she turns to head back to Ericson with emptiness in her heart of Maya not coming back to her room with her. She reaches for the necklace and held it close to her heart and hearing those words Maya spoke to her, Keep it close to you when you find yourself missing me or need strength and guidance. I love you. Violet said out loud as she walks a slow pace back, "I love you too my sweet rugged warrior. You are the love of my life."
...........................
Clementine slept soundly in Louis's arms holding her throughout the night, and it was a peaceful night between the two of them. Neither one of them woken up to terrible nightmares the other has to try and comfort the other person to help them through the terror they are feeling. Clementine's nightmares of the ranch still get to her but it is not as often as before, now that she is safe in her new home. She still struggles with her new trauma of AJ cutting off her leg, and she needs Louis's help to get her through tough nights, but as far as the nightmares, she rarely gets them. Louis on the other hand still suffers from his trauma of what happened on the boat when rescuing their friends. His first kill of a living person still haunts him even long after the event happened. Clementine wishes she could take his pain away so he doesn't suffer. She wishes he didn't have to be the one to kill for her in order to protect her from harm, but at the same time, she is grateful.
The sun rays shine through Clementine and Louis's bedroom window as a sign that morning has broken. Louis's eyes slowly open to find Clementine on her side facing him and his jacket draped over her waist as she softly breathes in and out of her dream world. Louis smiles big watching her sleep. He couldn't help but put a lock of her hair behind her ears as she twitches a bit from his touch. He knows she is in a deep sleep when she doesn't stir from his touch.
Louis then runs his fingers down her shoulder as he lightly rubs it. Her brand of whatever symbol it is clearly is visible with the sunlight dappling her skin. Louis wonders what her scar means and why. It pains him to see her endure that much. Clementine slowly begins to stir awake and Louis quickly closes his eyes pretending he was not awake.
Clementine slowly opens up her amber eyes as the bright sun was peering through the windows. Clementine then gazes upon Louis and what they did last night and notice some marks were left on his neck. Her smile widens a bit as she gave love bites to him during their most intense moment. Clementine smiles at the memory of him and her being truly intimate with each other and making love. She wants more of that feeling but knows AJ will be coming in soon, and she doesn't want him to see her like this or know what she and Louis did.
Louis then opens his eyes slightly as Clementine doesn't say a word but her eyes spoke for her. Louis caught on to her gaze and moves closer to her lips as she did the same. His hand found hers, as she laces her fingers to his. They were eyeing each other and just when Louis made the move to lock his lips to hers the door handle jiggles a bit. Clementine flung out of her love gaze with Louis and move apart from him so fast he didn't have time to process it. She had just enough time to put on her white undershirt and Louis's jacket and made it onto her bed and under the covers before the door opened up.
Louis had never seen Clementine move that quickly and before he knew it AJ comes through the door. Thank God he is still wrapped up in the sheets, but he saw the look in Clementine's eyes that she didn't want her somewhat surrogate son to see her like that or get any ideas.
"Good morning Cle−" AJ said as he looks at the scene before him. "What did you and Louis do last night?"
"Uh.." Clementine tries to come up with a story without giving away her first sexual experience. She glances at Louis for help.
Louis caught on and then made up a scenario that will not embarrass her. "We had a pillow fort and played Truth and Dare. Clem dared me to sleep on the floor the whole night through and made a bet with me that I wouldn't last 2 hours. I guess I made it all throughout the night so she owns me my night watch." Louis looks at Clementine and winks at her. She is grateful for the made-up kind of lie. "And before you ask what happened to the fort, clumsy me knocked it over doing another one of Clementine's dares. Had to do a headstand. Obviously, it didn't end too well, which cause the demolition of our fort."
AJ looks at Clementine, "You dared Louis to sleep on the floor. That is mean."
Clementine giggles at that and plays along with Louis's little white lie tale, "Yes, well I had to be creative somehow with my dares."
AJ then notices Clementine wearing Louis's jacket, "Is part of the dare you wearing Louis's jacket?"
Clementine smiles and replies, "Yes. I also dared him to not sleep with his jacket on as well."
AJ looks at Louis who is not wearing his green shirt and scans the room until he spots it next to Clementine's denim jean jacket and her white zip-up hoodie. "Louis, why is your shirt off and with Clementine's jacket?"
Panic sets in on both of the teenagers blushing faces. Clementine cannot answer that but Louis is a smooth talker to get out of it, "I got a bit warm last night little man, so I took off my shirt. Clem already took her jacket off early on before we played truth or dare." Thank God he didn't spot both of their pants that is covered up by the sheets.
Before AJ asks any more questions, Clementine then intervenes and speaks to her adoptive son, "AJ can you give Louis and I a moment to get up? "
"But we are supposed to be on watch lookout this morning. Your scheduling remember?" AJ looks at her.
"Right forgot about that." Clementine half curses herself for making plans ahead of time. She then looks into AJ's soft brown eyes; "Can you give me five minutes kiddo, please," Clementine said bargaining with him. "Just five. I promise."
"Okay," AJ said as he turns and walks out closing the door behind him.
Once AJ left the room Clementine heaves a sigh of relief. "Well, that was close."
"Yeah, super close. Hope we didn't scar him too badly," Louis looks at her.
"I don't think we did. He didn't really suspect anything." Clementine answers him. She pauses to look at her boyfriend and smiles, "You are a smooth talker to think quickly on your feet." Clementine said complimenting Louis on his storytelling.
"Had years of practicing, darling with that." Louis smirks, which made Clementine, giggle a little.
Clementine then looks down at the floor as she spoke out loud. "Although I hate lying to him even though it was a little untrue with the details of your story," Clementine said.
"Yeah, but it is only a little lie. AJ doesn't need to know of sex just quite yet, and especially what we.... uh did last night." Louis reassures her a little. She can tell his cheeks are blushing.
"True. But he will learn about it eventually from Willy." Clementine pointed out.
"Well, we will cross that bridge when we get to it." Louis glances up into her golden eyes.
Clementine smiles at Louis then breaks the conversation a bit, "Well, I told AJ five minutes and he will hold me to that, so can you find the rest of my clothes since you are closer." Clementine said as she looks away blushing.
Louis nods to that and reaches for Clementine's sexy jean jacket and her stained white hoodie. He hands her those as he goes fishing under the sea of sheets for her pants and underwear. He found it next to his and the scattered deck of cards. Louis comes back up from underneath the sheets and hands them off to her. Clementine took them face blushing a bit. Louis loves it when she is like this, unsure of herself. He wanted to grab that arm and pull her back down to where he is and kiss her passionately again like last night. Clementine shyly re-dresses herself to be modest again. Louis does the same as he puts on his pants.
When Clementine reaches for her boot to put it on, Louis looks up at her and smiles a lovely smile, "Just so you know, in case we don't have time to discuss this, you were amazing last night."
Clementine pauses in her lacing up her boot looks at him, and blushes a bit more to Louis's compliment, "Thanks." She glances down at the floor for a second then looks up into Louis's eyes, "You were amazing as well. And....would love to do that again sometime with you in the future. Felt amazing and thrilling. And you with your shirt off is making me, a bit crazy."
Louis then looks at her and was about to get up and have a lip lock with her, but she finishes by lacing up her one and only boot. Clem grabs her prosthetic foot and puts it on like a champ with no issues anymore, and soon gets up and goes to the door. She pauses at the handle and turns to look at him, "You know if AJ hadn't come in the way he did. I would have possibly wanted to go for another round....with you." Louis looks at her and his smile grows. She returns the same smile to him, and then she said out loud this time without hesitation in her voice, "I love you."
Louis then returns the phrase back to her, "I love you back, and I too would have as well, especially you wearing my jacket. Makes my heart melt for you." Clementine and Louis share the loving gaze again. Louis then adds in as the last comment, "You know that your face is glowing right."
Clementine giggles and lightly, in a joking matter, replies, "Shut up." Clementine turns to head out of the room where AJ is waiting in the hallway as she approaches him with a big dorky grin on her face.

submitted by SKwiatks to TeamViolet [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 19:32 patchezbruhh Ever used a 2x4x5 tent to grow cannabis?

I got a small kind of apartment so I had to leave my eight footer away for now. I ordered myself a five footer. This will be my first indoor grow in my life I’m 32.
Anybody ever use one of these size tents before I mean I know it’s small and it won’t yield as much because it lights distance away and also because of the west of the plant, but were there any issues people who have use this size tent before I have experience to prepare me a little bit for wits to come?
Should I just completely cancel the order this piece of 💩 is it even worth it?
*griefers not welcome to answer my posts, be a friend or keep scrolling. ✌🏼 ❤️ 🐩

submitted by patchezbruhh to GrowingMarijuana [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 19:11 PritchettRobert506 [HIRING] 24 Jobs in ND Hiring Now!

Company Name	Title	City
Tzadik Properties LLC	Maintenance Technician - Part Time	Belfield
Home Instead	In-Home Caregiver (Burleigh)	Bismarck
Tzadik Properties LLC	Apartment Maintenance Technician	Dickinson
Tzadik Properties LLC	Maintenance Technician - Part Time	Dickinson
Tzadik Properties LLC	Make Ready Assistant	Dickinson
John Deere & Company	Electronic Design Engineer	Fargo
MacArthur Co	Warehouse Operations Manager	FARGO
John Deere & Company	Engineering Supervisor, Test Desig	Fargo
Prairie Band, LLC	Physician, Registered Nurse, Emergency Medicine, Medical Support Assistant	Fort Yates
Hankinson Renewable Energy	Associate Merchandiser	Hankinson
Hankinson Renewable Energy, LLC	Scale Operator	Hankinson
Novaspect Inc	PLC Programmer	Mandan
Novaspect Inc	Industrial Technician	Mandan
Noble Casing Inc	Shop Hand	Trenton
MacArthur Co	Warehouse Operations Manager	West Fargo
Noble Casing Inc	Floor Hand I	Williston
Medical Resource Group, Inc.	Licensed Psychologist - Williston	Williston
Noble Casing Inc	Dispatcher	Williston
CHI Living Communities	Medicine Aide	Fargo
CHI Living Communities	Director of Campus Life	Fargo
CHI Living Communities	Immediate Openings Resident Care Manager Riverview Place Fargo	West Fargo
CHI Living Communities	Immediate Openings Certified Medication Aide CMA PT FT Or PRN Riverview Place Fargo	West Fargo
CDR Companies	Pool Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) - Fargo, ND	Fargo
Greendoor	Registered Nurse - North Dakota	Minot

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in nd. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!

submitted by PritchettRobert506 to northdakotajobs [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 18:00 MeisterMama West Hills Area Apartments

Hi there. I’m looking to move to the West Hills area and I would like to spend less than $2,000/month on a two-bedroom apartment—preferably something in a newer complex with an included washedryer and wood/wood-look floors in the common areas. What complexes would you recommend, and which should I avoid? I’m already scheduled to tour Wellesley Park at Deane Hill, so I would appreciate any pros or cons of that one. Thanks!

submitted by MeisterMama to Knoxville [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 17:05 turnontheignition Air conditioning units and the noise!

Hey all. So in many parts of the world, summer is approaching and I need to start thinking about air conditioning. It's already 30° Celsius where I am this week, and my apartment went from a comfortable 23, 24 degrees to around 26 or 27 degree seemingly overnight. Not super ideal.
I'm on the top floor of a two-story building and my windows face east, north, and west, so at least I don't have any direct south-facing windows, but the other problem is that there aren't that many tall trees behind the building. So there's not much blocking the sunlight from beating down on the building's roof.
Anyway, I hate the white noise from most fans. If it's more than pretty much a whisper, I can't stand it for very long. This makes using most air conditioning units, or even most fans, difficult unless they have a sleep setting, which obviously is not extremely powerful. Most window air conditioning units seem to be quite loud. I got one in a prior apartments and ended up using it only occasionally, even though I really could have used it more, because my work desk was next to it and even with my noise canceling headphones on, it was too loud. I even had trouble sitting in my room, which was across the apartment, while the unit was running. I'm thinking of getting a floor unit but I know that many of them still have the same issue.
I suspect that if I really want a good, quiet air conditioner, I'm going to have to shell out quite a bit of money, which would be worth it because then I would actually use it, rather than paying $200 for an air conditioning unit that I turned on like three times during a super hot summer, but I thought I would ask you guys for recommendations on air conditioning units, or maybe certain brands?
I am doing my best to keep the apartment cool by closing the blinds, having my ceiling fan running counterclockwise, using a floor fan, but I have a feeling that as the summer wears on, I'm going to need a little bit more. Also, my cat is chunky and has a lot of fur, and I know that even though I can walk around my apartment when it's 27° inside in a t-shirt and shorts and be relatively comfortable, he is already struggling a bit.
Thanks in advance!

submitted by turnontheignition to aspergirls [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 16:43 giraffesrcoolio830 False alarm / fire alarm

[Located in NJ.]
My apartment building has a lot of false fire alarms. They also have a large retail space below with a grocery store, shops, and a restaurant. Our dog does crazy at the sound so we have to take her to the park whenever the alarms go off.
For example, last week there were 3 false alarms. When we spoke to the firemen during the last false alarm they told us that the building’s fire alarms were malfunctioning. He also let us know that the entire building’s fire alarms are connected. So if the fire alarm in the restaurant goes off, the fire alarms in the apartments go off. One of the false alarms last week came from the grocery store downstairs - of course our fire alarms also went off. Between the 3 false alarms, the building also tested the fire alarms and made announcements that they were being tested. Once again had to take out the pup because she freaked out.
Our lease doesn’t mention anything about fire alarms other than tenants are not allowed to tamper with them. I googled local city laws and they noted after one false alarm the building has to pay $1000 per each additional false alarm.
Do we have any recourse here? I’m so tired of the disruptions and we are stuck here for another year because it’s still the best place to live in the city and we have another year of school before we can move.

submitted by giraffesrcoolio830 to Apartmentliving [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 16:42 ChampionshipClear322 [TOTK] After almost 100 hours and beating the game, here are my thoughts.

Obviously, spoilers on the entire game here. For context, I have been playing Zelda since 2014 with Twilight Princess as my first game. Since then I have played Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, Link's Awakening, and I am about halfway through Ocarina of Time. Because of my obvious bias towards more traditional 3D Zelda games (I enjoyed Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess the most) I will try to be as impartial as possible.
I tried so hard to like this game. I had my doubts at the beginning, but after watching the new trailer it sold me on the game. I didn't like some aspects of Breath of the Wild, but after seeing the new enemies and hopefully a return to a more traditional zelda game that people missed while keeping the awesome open world of Breath of the Wild I really thought it was going to be great. And some parts of it were, but some parts of it I did not like.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate Nintendo because the physics relating to the Ultrahand mechanic blew everyone away, including me, and it is clear that Tears of the Kingdom has some of the best physics and building of any video game out there. The amount of creativity that has sprung from this game is mindblowing, and I don't think any of us expected for there to be simply so much to do. Not only are there almost 30 devices you can obtain each with their own unique purpose, you can also combine them with almost anything you can find in the game. Want to make a stupidly long bridge that can get you around the temple of time at the start of the game? Why not? Want to skip the main puzzle in the shrine by haphazardly building a flying machine that just barely makes it to the end? Go right ahead. Ultrahand allows for so much creativity and makes the new shrines ten times more enjoyable than the ones in Breath of the Wild. Because of this, there is an infinite amount of replayability in this game and the community will always be finding new things to do with this. Judging from how you all pushed Breath of the Wild to its limits, I can't wait to see what will be done in this game. Ultrahand gets a 20/10.
Additionally, Fuse and Recall are also insanely fun and useful abilities that add so much to the game. While I miss the Stasis rune in particular, Recall and Ultrahand can be used in a similar way if done correctly, and it's so much more satisfying when you do it correctly. While Recall doesn't have as many uses as Fuse and Ultrahand, the game still finds great ways to use it, such as sending a Stone Talus' boulders back at it, or knocking those horrible Horriblins down from the cave ceiling. Additionally, I am extremely happy with how Nintendo fixed Durability with the Fuse mechanic. While the durability annoyed me less than some of the others who played Breath of the Wild, my main complaint was wasting several of my good weapons on an enemy like a Silver Bokoblin or Lynel that had a huge healthbar, and only getting one (or sometimes none) good weapons in return. However, with the guarantee that you will usually be able to get an equally powerful or sometimes even better weapon after killing an enemy by fusing their horns to any random "sturdy stick", I don't hesitate to fight Silver enemies or Lynels anymore and I feel much more free to do so. Both of these abilites get a 10/10.
My third compliment goes to the game's shrines. I disliked Breath of the Wild's shrines. I found them tedious and annoying to do, and often skipped them or looked up the answers online. Especially when your only reward was a piece of heart or tiny fraction of a stamina wheel, I just clicked on them to save them as a travel checkpoint and moved on. Even their design was ugly to me. However, the new shrines are much better. While they are easier than Breath of the Wild's shrines, the rewards are a little less lucrative to balance it out and they are so much more fun to do because of how they creatively use the new abilites and allow for a multitude of different ways to solve problems. Many people do not like the "Proving Grounds" shrines, but I absolutely love them because they are a real challenge and I don't have to worry about losing 50 bomb arrows or several good weapons for a "Guardian Sword ++" and some ancient screws. Even if I die five times trying to complete them, I still have fun. And aesthetically they are so much better, the look of the temple, the texture of the lights of blessing, even the music feels a lot less claustrophobic and drab like the ones in Breath of the Wild did. 9/10.
Fourthly, the Great Sky Island was absolutely amazing and I loved every second of it. It felt just like it did when I played Breath of the Wild for the first time, being plunged into an unknown and untouched environment and having to learn the mechanics of this new game. The Zonai Constructs don't carry the same fear level as Guardians did, but they were still cool enemies to fight with drops that were actually helpful unlike the Ancient Screws and Springs which only became helpful late-game. I obviously can't go through every part of the island, but the parts I enjoyed the best were crossing the huge lake to the west, climbing the snowy mountain to get to a shrine where I unsuccessfully attempted to craft a hovercraft out of logs, going on Minecarts around the island, and fusing random crap to sticks to make the most ridiculous weapons possible. 9/10.
My last compliment goes to the introduction of Gloom into the game. When it is first introduced, the Gloom is absolutely frightening, and plunging into the depths for the first time was beyond scary. Malice was an annoying obstacle that you just jumped across until you got to where you needed to be and ate a few foods, but you are forced to avoid the Gloom in this game because you know that it will be catastrophic if you walk in it for too long because the only cure is an extremely rare flower that can only be found in the sky. I just wish that the lightroots either weren't so common, or didn't heal your healthbar, because it kind of subtracted the fear aspect a little bit. The way it actually destroyed your heart containers in the final battle against Ganondorf instead of rendering them unusable for a little while was another surprise I did not expect, and killing the Demon Dragon with a single heart was the best moment of the game for me. 8/10.
Some other minor things I liked:
• Gleeoks are amazing bosses, better than any of the bosses in Breath of the Wild OR Tears of the Kingdom apart from the Ganondorf fight, easy 10/10
• While the Wind Temple wasn't my favorite, I did enjoy the Rito Village quest in the beginning and the leadup to the Wind Temple where you flew with Tulin to the very top. 9/10.
• Pizza?! I loved the introduction of Tomatoes and Cheese into the game! Shame you couldn't do more with them. 7/10.
• The Master Kohga battles were very good. While he was still easy to kill once he was stunned, it is another instance of Ultrahand and Link's other new abilities putting a creative and spicy twist on an old fight. Autobuild was also a lifesaver. 9/10.
• The second stage of the Ganondorf bossfight was probably the most fun I've had with a boss since Twilight Princess. It felt actually challenging in a way that could only be compared to the Gleeok Battles. It was so hard to even get a single hit into his massive healthbar when he could dodge more than 90% of your shots and destroy your health bar. Probably shouldn't have gone in without upgrading any of my armor but doing that was so tedious :p 20/10.
Now that I've talked about what was great about Tears of the Kingdom, here is the stuff I disliked about the game. While I think that the people who call this game an "overpriced DLC" are not arguing in good faith, I can see their point. Much of Breath of the Wild's structure was carried over into Tears of the Kingdom and it felt like I was redoing the same things I did in the old game, just with a new texture and a slightly different story.
Because of how insanely complicated it must have been to put Ultrahand in the game, it was clear that that was what Nintendo spent most of their time on when making Tears of the Kingdom, going for a more creative approach rather than a return to the traditional like I had hoped. And while this was a perfectly valid thing to do that clearly made a lot of people happy, it just wasn't what I wanted, and the final trailers for the game feel like they were marketing a different game than they were actually selling. When they went above and beyond with Link's new abilities, it left other aspects of the game such as combat, story, gameplay, and the structure of the game itself lacking and awfully familiar, if not the same, as Breath of the Wild.
Now that I've talked about what was great about Tears of the Kingdom, here is the stuff I disliked about the game. While I think that the people who call this game an "overpriced DLC" are not arguing in good faith, I can see their point. Much of Breath of the Wild's structure was carried over into Tears of the Kingdom and it felt like I was redoing the same things I did in the old game, just with a new texture and a slightly different story.
Because of how insanely complicated it must have been to put Ultrahand in the game, it was clear that that was what Nintendo spent most of their time on when making Tears of the Kingdom, going for a more creative approach rather than a return to the traditional like I had hoped. And while this was a perfectly valid thing to do that clearly made a lot of people happy, it just wasn't what I wanted, and the final trailers for the game feel like they were marketing a different game than they were actually selling. When they went above and beyond with Link's new abilities, it left other aspects of the game such as combat, story, gameplay, and the structure of the game itself lacking and awfully familiar, if not the same, as Breath of the Wild.
My biggest issue with this game is the story. I disliked almost every part of it. We start out with a very solid intro scene where we meet shriveled Ganondorf and Zelda disappears. Then we see her disappear as she steals our half of a master sword at the end of the Great Sky Island. However, the game then leads us into a wild goose chase to find Zelda for almost the entire game until near the end when we go inside Hyrule Castle. This was fine in Skyward Sword because Zelda was much more likable and it only took up half of the game. I felt like "I have to save Zelda. I have to." in SS and in Tears of the Kingdom I was like "Let's just get this over already." Additionally, the Upheaval which is apparently the placeholder of the Calamity in BOTW just feels like not a threat at all. The castle rose into the air and a few meteors came down and crashed into Kakariko village. The mud in the water doesn't seem to be affecting the Zora much at all, the Gerudo seem relatively unharmed by the Gibdos, only retreating into an underground bunker, and we have almost no time to see how the rock roast affects the Gorons before Yunobo is saved. The only place where I felt any sense of urgency was in Rito Village where the town was starving and abandoned the children to their fate because they're the worst parents ever or something. I enjoyed saving Rito village. The others not so much. And let's not even talk about the Sages. 3/4 of them we had already interacted with heavily in the previous games, which was another reason I liked the Rito quest so much. Yunobo is still as weak and annoying as ever, nothing has changed with Riju, and Sidon is so boring and lifeless comparing to the other game. As we go into the dungeons we have four conversations that are, quite literally, copy and pasted into each one voiced by the blandest sages ever.
"Come, Come" (Random Sage)
"Did you hear that voice?" (Yunobo, Sidon, Riju, Tulin)
and when we get to the end of the dungeon
"X, I am your ancestor from a long time ago. I was the sage of x. Descendant you make me proud. The monster you killed tried to stop you from obtaining my secret stone. Once upon a time there was a great war where the Demon King tried to kill us and Rauru gave us all secret stones but he was too strong so Rauru sacrificed himself to seal him away. And then Zelda appeared to me and told me that it was the duty of the x to aid you Link."
"So it's my duty to... help you? Now take my scary ghost form with a useless ability (besides tulin) to follow you around the rest of your journey!"
These cutscenes weren't disappointing. I hated them. As a person who loves the story so much they never skip a single cutscene these I physically couldn't watch. Everything about them was awful. The completely dry, lifeless, unneccesary sages which don't even have a name or a face and talk like NPCs or someone from an awful anime episode and say the exact same thing four times over, the empty void we are surrounded in, the cutscene we have to watch four times over, the robotic responses that come from the sages, everything about it was horrible and it feels like Nintendo was trying to reinsert the champions in the game but these are such a worse downgrade from them. At the end of the game I was like "ok... I give this a 7/10" and then the horrible after-credits scene with the four sages came in where they repeated the robotic speech from one of the memories and if that was supposed to be a meaningful scene it certainly was not.
Zelda's sacrifice probably would have meant so much more to me if the rest of the story hadn't frustrated me so much. But it feels like it meant nothing since the Demon King is such a non-threat compared to Calamity Ganon. Calamity Ganon devastated Hyrule, destroying most of the villages and probably killing half of the people there, and murdering 4 of the best characters in Zelda history who meant so much to their people that statues were built for them. In comparison, Ganondorf levitated a castle in the air and added some poo to Zora's domain. It ruins Zelda's moment so much because it would have been so beautiful if it felt like she was sacrificing herself for something meaningful. It frustrates me to no end because Ganondorf was a villain I was so hyped about and he's shriveled about 90% of the game and only appears three times, once in the beginning, once as a vision in Hyrule Castle, and once at the end, and only one of them is fully revived Ganondorf. In fact, we only see this version of Ganondorf for a third of the final bossfight. We need more Ganondorf! At least add a sixth dungeon to the game below Hyrule Castle where Ganondorf appears after, or maybe he appears before we get the Master Sword. We just needed more of Ganondorf and more of him being a threat to Hyrule.
Another complaint are the sages. I already stated that three out of the four sages had already been fleshed out in a previous game and not much was added to their personalities this time around. Why couldn't we have gotten new people? Maybe make Muzu a sage, we always like having an old man around, or give Barta/Bullaria some importance for the Gerudo and hand over the torch to one of those young Gorons that always follow Yunobo around. It would have been so much fun to have new characters. The sages add absolutely nothing to the experience of this game besides showing up in the awful cutscenes and it just feels like they're trying to repeat what they had in the last game. If they're going to do that, at least do it with someone new so it doesn't feel like I have to replay the game again. We already helped these people with their character growth in the last game. We know that Riju is insecure about her place as the Gerudo chief, and we helped her be more respected after retriveing the Thunder Helm and calming Naboris. We know that Sidon feels a sense of duty to his domain after what happened to his sister, and we spend time with him getting shock arrows, obtaining the Zora armor, and travelling around Lanayru with him until we got to Zora's domain. We helped Yunobo gain his confidence after he accompained us by firing himself at Rudania. These characters went through almost no development except for Tulin (again showing what Nintendo did right with Rito Village) because he's a new character.
Finally, the memories. Why did there have to be memories again. It would have been such an easy shift from Breath of the Wild, to give us a new main quest. While I was not a big fan of the time travel arc that Zelda went through, it was still workable, but there was no reason to have these stupid memories again. We saw so much of past Ganon and so little of present Ganon. I don't care what happened to the Goat Man and how the Kingdom of Hyrule was formed. Half of those memories were not essential to the plot and were just filler content. In particular, the one with Mineru just spoils Zelda's sacrifice altogether. Mineru as a whole just feels like such an annoying character and I would have much rathered a sheikah sage or even a korok.
While I criticize much of this game for remaining the same as BOTW, the story was one of the only aspects where it was a clear downgrade. So much of what was shown in the trailers hyped this game to be an impactful, story-filled game and many of these scenes are from memories, which I absolutely hate, and one of the scenes with Ganondorf wasn't even in the actual game, just a scene melded together from a memory and the speech at the end!
And why on earth did they call them secret stones. It was so cringe. It felt like something I would hear from a ten year old's cartoon show and I don't know why they insisted calling them that when we have a much better name for them that is in the TITLE OF THE GAME.
All in all, the story gets a 2/10.
Another issue I have with this game is Ascend and how it affects our experience in the dungeons. I liked the Lightning Temple, the Fire Temple and Wind Temple were okay, and the Water Temple was just plain awful. I saw a post about someone complaining about the puzzles in TOTK being too hard and I saw someone respond "If they think these puzzles are hard, I can't imagine them playing Twilight Princess." And I wholeheartedly believe that. While I'm not trying to make this review a comparison to Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, games which are completely different from this one, the puzzles in this game were either super easy or required us to do something that no one would have thought of. I was stuck in the Lightning Temple on two different points, one where the mirrors seemed to reflect to nothing in particular (what you had to do was grab a spare mirror from another room and fuse it to the statue so that it would face the right way which was a random solution that I didn't expect but I actually enjoyed) and another where I had no idea how to get to the last terminal and I looked around for 20 minutes until I looked it up online and found that I ascended into a place I wasn't supposed to and I actually had to teleport out of the temple to a nearby shrine, travel back to the temple on foot, go through another entrance I hadn't gone through, go through a really long tunnel to get to the terminal I should have gone to first. In a game which prioritizes open world exploration and being able to do anything you wanted, this haphazard "linearity" inside the lightning temple really ruined the experience of a dungeon I otherwise enjoyed. Which leads me to my point on Ascend. While Recall, Fuse, and Ultrahand add to this game in so many amazing and dynamic ways, Ascend just feels like something they added because they needed a fourth ability and a way to get out of caves. It allows so many dungeons to be cheesed and using it in the Lightning Temple made the experience so much more complicated than it needed to be. Apart from caves, every other place where you needed to use ascend could have been done with Revali's gale (rest in peace) or a bonfire + hylian pine cone, or any of the other devices that came with ultrahand.
The uses made for it in the Great Sky Island and in other places felt forced and the developers could have easily come up with another creative way to do this without ascend. I just wish that Ascend and Autobuild were disabled inside temples because it would have made things so much better. The companions also make the temples much more annoying because half the time all you're doing is waiting for Riju or Sidon to stop standing in a random corner and walk up to you. Especially in the Water Temple where your ability was on a time limit, this was especially annoying. The Water and Wind Temples felt like big sky islands and not dungeons. The Snowpeak Ruins in Twilight Princess and the Sandship in Skyward Sword are both excellent examples about how to turn something unconventional into an excellent dungeon, but these temples fail in so many ways. Not only is it so easy to get around the entire dungeon with a paraglider and Tulin that makes it possible to complete the dungeon in under 30 minutes on your first playthrough, the puzzles were so easy and the Wind Temple's boss in particular was so easy to kill despite it looking so fearsome. The Mud Octorok was actually a great boss that I have no complaints about, but the rest of the temple was really awful, with most of the puzzles simply being chalked up to "redirect this floating water bubble somewhere else so you can get to a terminal." The terminal thing returning was also something that was a huge letdown. There was no reason to continue it from Breath of the Wild, especially when the Divine Beast dungeons were such a huge complaint, when they could have added a system of small keys, miniboss, maybe even a new ultrahand ability similar to the ones we got from the sages to replace having a companion with you that you would be able to use across the dungeon. This would have turned the Lightning Temple from a 7/10 dungeon to an easy 9/10 or even 10/10 and would have improved my outlook on the other dungeons a lot more, particularly the fire temple, which was so great aesthetically but the gameplay and puzzles simply were not. While I liked the Lightning Temple and to a lesser extent the Fire Temple and the bossfights were much better, I found myself enjoying the Divine Beasts more than the Wind and Water Temples, and many of the bosses were such pushovers. The dungeons in this game get a 4/10.
I have a number of other smaller complaints. First is that I really wished there were more food and armor options. A return to the "meat skewers" and "fried wild greens" let me down a bit as I was hoping for more variance on food, especially after they added new items like stambulbs and tomatoes that I thought would replace the existing items. I mean, we had a whole sidequest dedicated to discovering Cheese and there's only three recipes for it! (as far as I know) Additionally, I wouldn't have been upset if they gave us the same effects for armor as before, just with a new name and texture. Like maybe they could have slightly updated the look of the Hylian set like they did with the Champion's tunic, or we could have the full Sheikah uniform instead of the Stealth armor, or a Lightning Helmet that actually looked different instead of one that reused the exact same texture as the thunder helm. New monsters such as Horriblins, Aerocudas, and Boss Bokoblins added some great new fights to the game, and I wouldn't have even cared if they reused the same enemies, but the way they attack is the exact same as in Breath of the Wild, which left the combat a little predictable and I was able to kill a Gloom Lynel first try. The only battles that really challenged me were against the Gleeoks, one of the best bosses in all of Zelda history.
My last issue with this game is that I really don't understand what vibe they were going for. Majora's Mask was twisted and disturbing. Twilight Princess was dark and gloomy. Skyward Sword was bright and hopeful. Breath of the Wild was free and really emphasized nature. But with Tears of the Kingdom, they really seem to be doing five things at once and accomplishing none of them. They try to put an emphasis on the creative aspect by adding things like Zonai Tech to the beginning and adding new technologies like the batteries, factories, skyview towers, and other. Then they also try to make this game dark and scary by introducing some horrifying things like chasms, gloom hands, and underground areas. They made the game seem bright and sunny like Skyward Sword in the beginning with the Great Sky Island and the bright yellow color palette. Then they also try to keep the open-world aspect of Breath of the Wild by keeping this massive open world, but with nothing to do inside it since we've already seen most of the stuff in this game's nature areas apart from the new caves. I don't understand what the developers were trying to make this game feel like, and it feels like they tried to do too many things at once and failed to flesh out all of them. I would have loved to see a restored Hyrule that we could explore and I would have also loved to have a nature-filled world like in BOTW with new plants, foods, caves, animals, and areas to explore, but the Hyrule in TOTK seems like a haphazard mixture of both.
There's no incentive to explore this time around with only 3-4 new plants and animals in the overworld and only a few caves that only have Brightbloom seeds, bomb flowers, and bubblefrogs. I love the caves, but they seem a bit same-y over time and I have no intention to find them all. I can't even ride around Hyrule on a horse like in BOTW or in a car like the developers seem to want us to do because I run into those stupid Zonai rocks that are littered around every 5 seconds for no particular reason. All they do is make transportation annoying and I wonder why they went through the effort to put all of the sky island materials on the overworld by these ugly rocks instead of actually having more sky islands like we wanted. The Great Sky Island was undoubtedly the most solid part of Tears of the Kingdom's Hyrule, so why did they deincentivise sky exploration by having most of the sky materials on these fallen rocks?
All in all, Nintendo outdid themselves with the coding in this game, especially putting a massive title like this on the six-year-old Nintendo Switch. However, it was clear that they spent most of their time coding in these new mechanics and the writers clearly phoned in this time around with the worst story and dialogue I have seen in any Zelda game so far. Maybe putting in a completely new game on Breath of the Wild's massive world was too much to ask, but so much of Tears of the Kingdom either directly copies Breath of the Wild (four dungeons in the exact same lands, the exact same food, combat, armor, and people) or takes the same structure and retextures it (four terminals in a dungeon, memories, shrines, a quest to rebuild a village from scratch, "champions" that pass on their abilities to their successors, and those cursed Korok seeds) that I really found no reason to play this game after 100 hours because there was nothing new left to do besides a multitude of side quests that I didn't feel like doing because I had no attachment to this Hyrule like I did in Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Link's Awakening, and Breath of the Wild. Maybe I would have liked it more if I was a new player and hadn't played BOTW before, but the amount of content that was unnecessarily copied from the last game into this one really ruined the experience for me. All in all, this Zelda is a C+ for me, a 6.5/10. While it was more fun than the linear and small world of Link's Awakening, it couldn't compare with the story aspect of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword or the feel of Breath of the Wild.
TLDR: While Nintendo went above and beyond with the new Ultrahand, Fuse, and Recall mechanics, it ultimately wasn't enough for me to save a game that had an extremely lacking story, underwhelming content and dungeons, and a multitude of side quests that was basically repeating everything you had done in 2017. If you're going to argue with me in the comments, please actually read the whole thing first.

submitted by ChampionshipClear322 to truezelda [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 16:39 kalpthakkar241 Looking for an apartment nearby UCF for FALL 23

Hey everyone 👋 I'm looking to take over a lease for an apartment nearby UCF. I've got 4 roommates with me (all pure vegetarian) and we are desperately looking for either 2 or 3 bedroom apartments for FALL 23.
Budget: 800-950 per bedroom
If anyone is moving out please DM me and we will discuss it further.
All accommodation options are welcome, however, our priority is Tivoli, Knights Circle, Pointe at Central, Grandville, Plaza on University, Mercury 3100, Retreat West, Northside Northgate Lakes, and so on.

submitted by kalpthakkar241 to UCFstudenthousing [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 16:33 Narwhals4Lyf 8 Days in Bay Area / NoCal

Thought I would do a trip report for once! I traveled to NoCal area from May 7th to May 15th. I live in America (Pittsburgh) and have not been to the West Coast other than when I was a preteen, so I decided it was time to go explore. I am 26F for context.
May 6th - Flew into JFK, my flight was delayed on the tarmac in Pit, and I only had a 1.5 hour layover. I managed to make my second flight as the doors were closing. PHEWF. Landed in SF around 12:30. I had left my apartment at 2:30 AM EST so I already had been traveling for 12 hours at that point LOL. I then picked up my rental car, drove another 4 hours towards Yosemite. Stopped along the way and did some hikes and site seeing. Got to my airbnb, got dinner and just had a campfire that night. My airbnb was in the Sierra National Forest. It was just beautiful there!
Day 2 : Spent time exploring local hikes in the area. I was near Oakhurst/North Forks. Went to Bass Lake. Went back to my airbnb (which was a cute AF airstream camper) and grilled for dinner and read a book. Very relaxing day.
Day 2 : Went to San Joaquin recreation area and did a hike there. Saw so many wildflowers... like 20 different types. And so many cows. Very little people on the trails, it was beautiful! The river was raging.
Day 3: Yosemite day! It was about a 1 hour drive to the gate, then another hour drive to the Valley. Left around 6am, was at the Valley by 9 AM (stopping and taking my time getting there once again LOL). Got some coffee at the cafe, and then set off for hiking. I did the lower Yosemite Falls trail and the upper Yosemite falls trail. Was a super steep hike, there was still snow on the trail! Yosemite was just gorgeous. I seemingly got lucky as well, because the park was closed the week before, and the weather was calling for it to be 30 degrees, but it was 50. The park was not crowded AT ALL when I was there.
Day 4 : Another travel day! Hit up a few wineries on my drive back towards SF and got to Pacifica around 5ish? Got dinner at the beach taco bell (had to, it is so iconic) and watched the sunset (glad I did, it was the only sunset that wasn't foggy!!!)
Day 5: Decided to roadtrip down to Big Sur and stop along the way! Stopped in Half Moon Bay, did some walking and shopping, stopped along the coast multiple times to site see, hung out near Bixby Bridge for a bit, turned around and met up with an old friend in Santa Cruz and had dinner on the beach and watched the sunset with her!
Day 6 : Tried to go see the Golden Gate Bridge at Bakers Beach but it was foggy af, so I just walked on the beach and people watched for like 45 mins, then took off towards Muir Woods. I stopped at the Golden Gate Bridge view as it was not foggy across the bridge, and got to see it! Then I drove up to Muir Woods to see the redwoods! Hiked around for a bit, but my knee was bothering me a bit that day, so I didn't do any long hikes. More just sketched and took pictures on my polaroid.
Day 7: Time to go into SF Proper. I parked at a BART Station, took the BART in, got brunch at a super cute place near the BART stop, and used MUNI for the rest of the day. I went to DeYoung Museum after, which was amazing. Loved both of their special exhibits. There was a public concert going on, so I hung out there for a bit and watched. Then I went to the Japanese Tea Gardens. Very cute in there. Lots of blooming flowers and plants. After, walked through Golden Gate park to Haigh-Ashbury and did some windowshopping at vintage stores, and came across a local artist market. Went and saw the Painted ladies. Took a bus to dinner, and headed out after that as it was 7pm and I wanted to get back to my car before dark!
Day 8: Travel day! My flight wasn't until noon, so I hung out on the beach in the morning and watched the surfers. Traveled home, no delayed flights. Got in around 1/2am to Pittsburgh.
Overall, it was a great trip! I was very impressed by California, it was just beautiful. I never felt unsafe, as many people warned me that SF was "gross, unsafe, dirty". I didn't share those sentiments at all. It is upsetting to see poverty and income discrepancy, for sure, but I did not have any negative experiences regarding that. It was cold, but I was expecting the weather. I honestly overpacked warm cloths, as Yosemite was calling for 30ish weather, but it ended up being 50!
Very happy I chose this area as my first Cali experience!

submitted by Narwhals4Lyf to solotravel [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 16:27 ChampionshipClear322 After almost 100 hours and beating the game, here are my thoughts on it.

Gleeoks are amazing bosses, better than any of the bosses in Breath of the Wild OR Tears of the Kingdom apart from the Ganondorf fight, easy 10/10
While the Wind Temple wasn't my favorite, I did enjoy the Rito Village quest in the beginning and the leadup to the Wind Temple where you flew with Tulin to the very top. 9/10.
Pizza?! I loved the introduction of Tomatoes and Cheese into the game! Shame you couldn't do more with them. 7/10.
The Master Kohga battles were very good. While he was still easy to kill once he was stunned, it is another instance of Ultrahand and Link's other new abilities putting a creative and spicy twist on an old fight. Autobuild was also a lifesaver. 9/10.
The second stage of the Ganondorf bossfight was probably the most fun I've had with a boss since Twilight Princess. It felt actually challenging in a way that could only be compared to the Gleeok Battles. It was so hard to even get a single hit into his massive healthbar when he could dodge more than 90% of your shots and destroy your health bar. Probably shouldn't have gone in without upgrading any of my armor but doing that was so tedious :p 20/10.

Now that I've talked about what was great about Tears of the Kingdom, here is the stuff I disliked about the game. While I think that the people who call this game an "overpriced DLC" are not arguing in good faith, I can see their point. Much of Breath of the Wild's structure was carried over into Tears of the Kingdom and it felt like I was redoing the same things I did in the old game, just with a new texture and a slightly different story.
Because of how insanely complicated it must have been to put Ultrahand in the game, it was clear that that was what Nintendo spent most of their time on when making Tears of the Kingdom, going for a more creative approach rather than a return to the traditional like I had hoped. And while this was a perfectly valid thing to do that clearly made a lot of people happy, it just wasn't what I wanted, and the final trailers for the game feel like they were marketing a different game than they were actually selling. When they went above and beyond with Link's new abilities, it left other aspects of the game such as combat, story, gameplay, and the structure of the game itself lacking and awfully familiar, if not the same, as Breath of the Wild.
My biggest issue with this game is the story. I disliked almost every part of it. We start out with a very solid intro scene where we meet shriveled Ganondorf and Zelda disappears. Then we see her disappear as she steals our half of a master sword at the end of the Great Sky Island. However, the game then leads us into a wild goose chase to find Zelda for almost the entire game until near the end when we go inside Hyrule Castle. This was fine in Skyward Sword because Zelda was much more likable and it only took up half of the game. I felt like "I have to save Zelda. I have to." in SS and in Tears of the Kingdom I was like "Let's just get this over already." Additionally, the Upheaval which is apparently the placeholder of the Calamity in BOTW just feels like not a threat at all. The castle rose into the air and a few meteors came down and crashed into Kakariko village. The mud in the water doesn't seem to be affecting the Zora much at all, the Gerudo seem relatively unharmed by the Gibdos, only retreating into an underground bunker, and we have almost no time to see how the rock roast affects the Gorons before Yunobo is saved. The only place where I felt any sense of urgency was in Rito Village where the town was starving and abandoned the children to their fate because they're the worst parents ever or something. I enjoyed saving Rito village. The others not so much. And let's not even talk about the Sages. 3/4 of them we had already interacted with heavily in the previous games, which was another reason I liked the Rito quest so much. Yunobo is still as weak and annoying as ever, nothing has changed with Riju, and Sidon is so boring and lifeless comparing to the other game. As we go into the dungeons we have four conversations that are, quite literally, copy and pasted into each one voiced by the blandest sages ever.
"Come, Come" (Random Sage)
"Did you hear that voice?" (Yunobo, Sidon, Riju, Tulin)
and when we get to the end of the dungeon
"X, I am your ancestor from a long time ago. I was the sage of x. Descendant you make me proud. The monster you killed tried to stop you from obtaining my secret stone. Once upon a time there was a great war where the Demon King tried to kill us and Rauru gave us all secret stones but he was too strong so Rauru sacrificed himself to seal him away. And then Zelda appeared to me and told me that it was the duty of the x to aid you Link."
"So it's my duty to... help you? Now take my scary ghost form with a useless ability (besides tulin) to follow you around the rest of your journey!"
These cutscenes weren't disappointing. I hated them. As a person who loves the story so much they never skip a single cutscene these I physically couldn't watch. Everything about them was awful. The completely dry, lifeless, unneccesary sages which don't even have a name or a face and talk like NPCs or someone from an awful anime episode and say the exact same thing four times over, the empty void we are surrounded in, the cutscene we have to watch four times over, the robotic responses that come from the sages, everything about it was horrible and it feels like Nintendo was trying to reinsert the champions in the game but these are such a worse downgrade from them. At the end of the game I was like "ok... I give this a 7/10" and then the horrible after-credits scene with the four sages came in where they repeated the robotic speech from one of the memories and if that was supposed to be a meaningful scene it certainly was not.
Zelda's sacrifice probably would have meant so much more to me if the rest of the story hadn't frustrated me so much. But it feels like it meant nothing since the Demon King is such a non-threat compared to Calamity Ganon. Calamity Ganon devastated Hyrule, destroying most of the villages and probably killing half of the people there, and murdering 4 of the best characters in Zelda history who meant so much to their people that statues were built for them. In comparison, Ganondorf levitated a castle in the air and added some poo to Zora's domain. It ruins Zelda's moment so much because it would have been so beautiful if it felt like she was sacrificing herself for something meaningful. It frustrates me to no end because Ganondorf was a villain I was so hyped about and he's shriveled about 90% of the game and only appears three times, once in the beginning, once as a vision in Hyrule Castle, and once at the end, and only one of them is fully revived Ganondorf. In fact, we only see this version of Ganondorf for a third of the final bossfight. We need more Ganondorf! At least add a sixth dungeon to the game below Hyrule Castle where Ganondorf appears after, or maybe he appears before we get the Master Sword. We just needed more of Ganondorf and more of him being a threat to Hyrule.
Another complaint are the sages. I already stated that three out of the four sages had already been fleshed out in a previous game and not much was added to their personalities this time around. Why couldn't we have gotten new people? Maybe make Muzu a sage, we always like having an old man around, or give Barta/Bullaria some importance for the Gerudo and hand over the torch to one of those young Gorons that always follow Yunobo around. It would have been so much fun to have new characters. The sages add absolutely nothing to the experience of this game besides showing up in the awful cutscenes and it just feels like they're trying to repeat what they had in the last game. If they're going to do that, at least do it with someone new so it doesn't feel like I have to replay the game again. We already helped these people with their character growth in the last game. We know that Riju is insecure about her place as the Gerudo chief, and we helped her be more respected after retriveing the Thunder Helm and calming Naboris. We know that Sidon feels a sense of duty to his domain after what happened to his sister, and we spend time with him getting shock arrows, obtaining the Zora armor, and travelling around Lanayru with him until we got to Zora's domain. We helped Yunobo gain his confidence after he accompained us by firing himself at Rudania. These characters went through almost no development except for Tulin (again showing what Nintendo did right with Rito Village) because he's a new character.
Finally, the memories. Why did there have to be memories again. It would have been such an easy shift from Breath of the Wild, to give us a new main quest. While I was not a big fan of the time travel arc that Zelda went through, it was still workable, but there was no reason to have these stupid memories again. We saw so much of past Ganon and so little of present Ganon. I don't care what happened to the Goat Man and how the Kingdom of Hyrule was formed. Half of those memories were not essential to the plot and were just filler content. In particular, the one with Mineru just spoils Zelda's sacrifice altogether. Mineru as a whole just feels like such an annoying character and I would have much rathered a sheikah sage or even a korok.
While I criticize much of this game for remaining the same as BOTW, the story was one of the only aspects where it was a clear downgrade. So much of what was shown in the trailers hyped this game to be an impactful, story-filled game and many of these scenes are from memories, which I absolutely hate, and one of the scenes with Ganondorf wasn't even in the actual game, just a scene melded together from a memory and the speech at the end!
Another issue I have with this game is Ascend and how it affects our experience in the dungeons. I liked the Lightning Temple, the Fire Temple and Wind Temple were okay, and the Water Temple was just plain awful. I saw a post about someone complaining about the puzzles in TOTK being too hard and I saw someone respond "If they think these puzzles are hard, I can't imagine them playing Twilight Princess." And I wholeheartedly believe that. While I'm not trying to make this review a comparison to Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, games which are completely different from this one, the puzzles in this game were either super easy or required us to do something that no one would have thought of. I was stuck in the Lightning Temple on two different points, one where the mirrors seemed to reflect to nothing in particular (what you had to do was grab a spare mirror from another room and fuse it to the statue so that it would face the right way which was a random solution that I didn't expect but I actually enjoyed) and another where I had no idea how to get to the last terminal and I looked around for 20 minutes until I looked it up online and found that I ascended into a place I wasn't supposed to and I actually had to teleport out of the temple to a nearby shrine, travel back to the temple on foot, go through another entrance I hadn't gone through, go through a really long tunnel to get to the terminal I should have gone to first. In a game which prioritizes open world exploration and being able to do anything you wanted, this haphazard "linearity" inside the lightning temple really ruined the experience of a dungeon I otherwise enjoyed. Which leads me to my point on Ascend. While Recall, Fuse, and Ultrahand add to this game in so many amazing and dynamic ways, Ascend just feels like something they added because they needed a fourth ability and a way to get out of caves. It allows so many dungeons to be cheesed and using it in the Lightning Temple made the experience so much more complicated than it needed to be. Apart from caves, every other place where you needed to use ascend could have been done with Revali's gale (rest in peace) or a bonfire + hylian pine cone, or any of the other devices that came with ultrahand. The uses made for it in the Great Sky Island and in other places felt forced and the developers could have easily come up with another creative way to do this without ascend. I just wish that Ascend and Autobuild were disabled inside temples because it would have made things so much better. The companions also make the temples much more annoying because half the time all you're doing is waiting for Riju or Sidon to stop standing in a random corner and walk up to you. Especially in the Water Temple where your ability was on a time limit, this was especially annoying. The Water and Wind Temples felt like big sky islands and not dungeons. The Snowpeak Ruins in Twilight Princess and the Sandship in Skyward Sword are both excellent examples about how to turn something unconventional into an excellent dungeon, but these temples fail in so many ways. Not only is it so easy to get around the entire dungeon with a paraglider and Tulin that makes it possible to complete the dungeon in under 30 minutes on your first playthrough, the puzzles were so easy and the Wind Temple's boss in particular was so easy to kill despite it looking so fearsome. The Mud Octorok was actually a great boss that I have no complaints about, but the rest of the temple was really awful, with most of the puzzles simply being chalked up to "redirect this floating water bubble somewhere else so you can get to a terminal." The terminal thing returning was also something that was a huge letdown. There was no reason to continue it from Breath of the Wild, especially when the Divine Beast dungeons were such a huge complaint, when they could have added a system of small keys, miniboss, maybe even a new ultrahand ability similar to the ones we got from the sages to replace having a companion with you that you would be able to use across the dungeon. This would have turned the Lightning Temple from a 7/10 dungeon to an easy 9/10 or even 10/10 and would have improved my outlook on the other dungeons a lot more, particularly the fire temple, which was so great aesthetically but the gameplay and puzzles simply were not. While I liked the Lightning Temple and to a lesser extent the Fire Temple and the bossfights were much better, I found myself enjoying the Divine Beasts more than the Wind and Water Temples, and many of the bosses were such pushovers. The dungeons in this game get a 4/10.
I have a number of other smaller complaints. First is that I really wished there were more food and armor options. A return to the "meat skewers" and "fried wild greens" let me down a bit as I was hoping for more variance on food, especially after they added new items like stambulbs and tomatoes that I thought would replace the existing items. I mean, we had a whole sidequest dedicated to discovering Cheese and there's only three recipes for it! (as far as I know) Additionally, I wouldn't have been upset if they gave us the same effects for armor as before, just with a new name and texture. Like maybe they could have slightly updated the look of the Hylian set like they did with the Champion's tunic, or we could have the full Sheikah uniform instead of the Stealth armor, or a Lightning Helmet that actually looked different instead of one that reused the exact same texture as the thunder helm. New monsters such as Horriblins, Aerocudas, and Boss Bokoblins added some great new fights to the game, and I wouldn't have even cared if they reused the same enemies, but the way they attack is the exact same as in Breath of the Wild, which left the combat a little predictable and I was able to kill a Gloom Lynel first try. The only battles that really challenged me were against the Gleeoks, one of the best bosses in all of Zelda history.
My last issue with this game is that I really don't understand what vibe they were going for. Majora's Mask was twisted and disturbing. Twilight Princess was dark and gloomy. Skyward Sword was bright and hopeful. Breath of the Wild was free and really emphasized nature. But with Tears of the Kingdom, they really seem to be doing five things at once and accomplishing none of them. They try to put an emphasis on the creative aspect by adding things like Zonai Tech to the beginning and adding new technologies like the batteries, factories, skyview towers, and other. Then they also try to make this game dark and scary by introducing some horrifying things like chasms, gloom hands, and underground areas. They made the game seem bright and sunny like Skyward Sword in the beginning with the Great Sky Island and the bright yellow color palette. Then they also try to keep the open-world aspect of Breath of the Wild by keeping this massive open world, but with nothing to do inside it since we've already seen most of the stuff in this game's nature areas apart from the new caves. I don't understand what the developers were trying to make this game feel like, and it feels like they tried to do too many things at once and failed to flesh out all of them. I would have loved to see a restored Hyrule that we could explore and I would have also loved to have a nature-filled world like in BOTW with new plants, foods, caves, animals, and areas to explore, but the Hyrule in TOTK seems like a haphazard mixture of both.
There's no incentive to explore this time around with only 3-4 new plants and animals in the overworld and only a few caves that only have Brightbloom seeds, bomb flowers, and bubblefrogs. I love the caves, but they seem a bit same-y over time and I have no intention to find them all. I can't even ride around Hyrule on a horse like in BOTW or in a car like the developers seem to want us to do because I run into those stupid Zonai rocks that are littered around every 5 seconds for no particular reason. All they do is make transportation annoying and I wonder why they went through the effort to put all of the sky island materials on the overworld by these ugly rocks instead of actually having more sky islands like we wanted. The Great Sky Island was undoubtedly the most solid part of Tears of the Kingdom's Hyrule, so why did they deincentivise sky exploration by having most of the sky materials on these fallen rocks?
All in all, Nintendo outdid themselves with the coding in this game, especially putting a massive title like this on the six-year-old Nintendo Switch. However, it was clear that they spent most of their time coding in these new mechanics and the writers clearly phoned in this time around with the worst story and dialogue I have seen in any Zelda game so far. Maybe putting in a completely new game on Breath of the Wild's massive world was too much to ask, but so much of Tears of the Kingdom either directly copies Breath of the Wild (four dungeons in the exact same lands, the exact same food, combat, armor, and people) or takes the same structure and retextures it (four terminals in a dungeon, memories, shrines, a quest to rebuild a village from scratch, "champions" that pass on their abilities to their successors, and those cursed Korok seeds) that I really found no reason to play this game after 100 hours because there was nothing new left to do besides a multitude of side quests that I didn't feel like doing because I had no attachment to this Hyrule like I did in Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Link's Awakening, and Breath of the Wild. Maybe I would have liked it more if I was a new player and hadn't played BOTW before, but the amount of content that was unnecessarily copied from the last game into this one really ruined the experience for me. All in all, this Zelda is a C+ for me, a 6.5/10. While it was more fun than the linear and small world of Link's Awakening, it couldn't compare with the story aspect of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword or the feel of Breath of the Wild.
TLDR: While Nintendo went above and beyond with the new Ultrahand, Fuse, and Recall mechanics, it ultimately wasn't enough for me to save a game that had an extremely lacking story, underwhelming content and dungeons, and a multitude of side quests that was basically repeating everything you had done in 2017. If you're going to argue with me in the comments, please actually read the whole thing first.

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