Gutter repair near me

Hicmdrs.
im on xbox looking for people for a wing as well. I am near cubeo not far from sol. You can add me of you too.
my gamertag is Kcg1982
See you later. Commanders 😁

I'm not sure if this matters or not, but I'm very new to adobe after effects. I wanted to try and start animating some of the D&D maps (still maps with smoking chimneys, waves in the water etc) and took some lessons to get the basics down. I'm now at a point where I know the steps required to animate my maps, but I'm nowhere near being familiar with the software.
Last Friday morning I finished my first map and started exporting it to MP4. It started out with an estimated duration of about 3 hours. Throughout the day it kept going, and the "time remaining" went up to 8 hours by the end of the day (after already 8 hours of exporting). Now it's Sunday, it has been exporting for over 60 hours, and it still says it has 8 hours remaining, though it has been saying that since Friday afternoon.
I read online that exporting may take very long, even for shorter videos, but this seems ridiculous to me. Is this right, or is there likely something wrong?
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tl;dr: my 5 minute animated image has been exporting for over 60 hours and has been saying it has 8 hours left since two days ago. Is this normal?

So about me, I’m fun , non-judgmental , kind, open minded , responsible, discreet, nurturing, supportive, handsome, caring, trustlworthy , a mentor, flirty with the right people, and respectful. Let's start slow and build trust and get to know each other first. No commitment or pressure. Time will tell as they say. Near by preferred but will talk to anyone all shapes and sizes. Just send me a DM. Picture in profile

I am going to preface this with, yes, we are calling an electrician tomorrow, but I just want to run this through here and see what people think because, honestly, it is Sunday and waiting is making me anxious. Sorry if my descriptions are confusing, I only have a very basic knowledge of electrical wiring aka I am almost nearly useless beyond replacing a receptacle lol. Anyways:
We recently purchased a home built in 1980. All of the outlets are loose, and there is no GFCI protection on any of the kitchen circuits, so we are in the process of replacing all of the original receptacles in the house + adding a few GFCI receptacles (we are having a hard time finding GFCI breakers on hand anywhere for our older GE panel which is why we didn’t go this route. Additionally, our panel is completely full, and both of the kitchen appliance circuits-minus one for the under sink garbage disposal/dishwasher outlet, which is on its own dedicated circuit- are on the skinny THQP 20A breakers, and from what I’ve seen there are no “skinny” GFCI breakers-please correct me if I’m wrong, I would love to be wrong in this case).
Well, in the process of trying to determine which outlet was first in the circuit for GFCI receptacle placement, we discovered this upon opening a receptacle box**Note, the receptacle was removed and wire nuts placed on the loose wires which is why there is no receptacle in the photo-the box was small it was difficult to see what was going on with the receptacle in place: https://i.imgur.com/lroXbwO.jpg
There are three cables going into the box (2x12/2, 1x12/3). All of the neutral wires were pigtailed together and connected to the receptacle, one of the hot wires from a 12/2 and the 12/3 were connected to the receptacle, and the remaining two hot wires were pigtailed.
We have no idea how to proceed. We opened the other receptacles/switches in the area to try and locate any other 12/3 cables. We found two other locations:
1) The garbage disposal/dishwasher https://i.imgur.com/iA8Y1Wa.jpg
There is a single 12/3 cable entering the box and connected to the receptacle. The garbage disposal/dishwasher are on a different circuit from the kitchen appliance line (as previously described).
2) The switch associated with the garbage disposal (which is in the same box as another switch for a light above the sink) https://i.imgur.com/1063SgV.jpg
These switches have three cables entering. 2x12/2 and 1x12/3. All three neutrals are pigtailed. One of the 12/2 hots is connected to the light switch. The other 12/2 hot is pigtailed to one of the 12/3 hot lines and connected to the light switch. The remaining 12/3 hot line is connected to the garbage disposal switch.
Thankfully, this is (seemingly) the only weird wiring mystery in the house, everything else is straightforward.
I guess I'm just trying to figure out if this is something commonly seen in “older” homes/is this unsafe/if so is there anything easy to do to make this more safe? I cant find anything online that will help me understand what is going on here. As previously mentioned I am contacting an electrician to be on the safe side.
Thank you all in advance.

So about me, I’m fun , non-judgmental , kind, open minded , responsible, discreet, nurturing, supportive, handsome, caring, trustlworthy , a mentor, flirty with the right people, and respectful. Let's start slow and build trust and get to know each other first. No commitment or pressure. Time will tell as they say. Near by preferred but will talk to anyone all shapes and sizes. Just send me a DM. Picture in profile

I just graduated college from a school in a big city. Prior to the beginning of my senior year, I basically had a near perfect time in school despite COVID interrupting a big chunk of my college experience. At the beginning of my senior year, my girlfriend that I spent my entire college experience with cheated and then broke up with me for the person she cheated on me with. I was pretty wrecked through it all, but decided that if she could move on, I could too. So I started seeing someone else and like every senior in college started applying to jobs. One was in a city that was far away from everything, still close enough if I wanted to make a long drive to see what friends I still had left, but far enough to maybe distance myself from the bad memories of the nearly three years in the city I used to live in. I was offered the job and since no one else was moving fast enough, I took it. Now I could focus on finishing strong and maybe seeing where this new relationship would take me, the new girl was even open to moving with me. My ex then pretty much gaslight me (which she was amazing at) into breaking up with the new girl and starting things over with her against my friends' advice which alienated me from them pretty much over night. When I realized that they were right I cut things off and tried to mend what I could with all the people I ignored. Towards the end of the year, it became clear to me that I'd be the only one leaving for somewhere new. My friends all said that they'd miss me and the girl that I basically screwed over even said that she wishes I would have stayed because she wanted to at least open the idea of being friends again. My story for pretty much all of my senior year was one big shit show up until the last two weeks, and now that I graduated, I feel like I made the wrong decision and left a city and friends that I loved to go somewhere to get away from it all. Now I've lived in this new place, in an apartment by myself, not knowing anyone, and doing nearly nothing outside of work for about a week. The few chances I've had to meet new people have all pretty much turned into dead-ends- bars, pools, coffee shops, the gym, etc. I took this job to get away from everything, and I did... but now I'm just here, but it feels like my life is somewhere else.

So about me, I’m fun , non-judgmental , kind, open minded , responsible, discreet, nurturing, supportive, handsome, caring, trustlworthy , a mentor, flirty with the right people, and respectful. Let's start slow and build trust and get to know each other first. No commitment or pressure. Time will tell as they say. Near by preferred but will talk to anyone all shapes and sizes. Just send me a DM. Picture in profile

All I wanted to do today was spend some time in the company of a friend or fellow human being. A mix of chatting, listening to music or perhaps binge watch a series. It would be great in person but online would also be fine as we could have streamed the series.
One friend is not feeling well, so that is a no can do.
I check the 3 contacts on my phone. Great, one of them must have changed their number. One is not responding to text messages. The other did reply to my suggestion with just "Nah, cba." (Can't Be Arsed) I insist that you do not try to think of an excuse to let me down gently.
The next option use Reddit to find someone, what a joke as no one is interested in any form of contact with a male my age.
The final option is Discord and one of the servers set up for like minded people looking to make friends. Some of the servers have sections specifically for meeting others and enjoying music or series together with another person or small group.
I started trying at 10 am and it is now very nearly 7:30 pm. In those 9.5 hours I have not found a friend or a human being that is interested in chatting, music, watching a series or any combination of the three.
Is it just bad luck? Is it just bad timing? Is it too shorter notice? or perhaps it is just me?
I.
GIVE.
UP.

Hi All-
I am new to e-bikes and ended up buying two and would like honest opinions, feedback, tip etc.

• Gazelle Medeo T9-bought this from a local shop near me for long rides all around the sate I live in. Both on bike paths and roads. For exercise and getting around
• Volcon Brat-(in blue)- after buying the Gazelle I saw this online a fell in love. I live part time on a small island and plan to use this more to zip around, have some fun, etc. Not so much exercise based. Probably a crazy splurge to get both but gas is crazy expensive out there and this thing looks cool. Is it a good bike though?

So it’s become obvious to a lot of us that the main cast has become a bit of a mess. You have Olivia (whose characterization has become a bit of a mess), Fin, Carisi and then basically a bunch of newbies. And add to that the fact that Fin and Carisi don’t get as much screen time as they deserve.
Before I start, I’m just gonna say a lot of this is just me riffing on some ideas. So here goes…
But anyways, the point I wanted to make is how the main cast just is generally lacking in well written characters with actors who have at least a bit of chops. Honestly, as far as I can see it, they really had a great track record all the way through probably to Kat. That was the last time I felt we had an addition to the crew who had any dramatic weight behind them.
Every new detective since then has been a half-assed whatever that it’s hard to care about. Velasco is about as interesting as watching paint dry, Churlish was horribly introduced as a character and further appearances have seemed to try to walk back her being a rat, as if they knew they screwed up, and Muncy, hoo boy. Probably the worst written and acted main character in SVUs history. It seemed like watching an amateur. Just an embarrassing character. And Bruno, once again, it’s cute, nice idea, trying to bring some Munch like vibe, but it’s so obvious and the characterization we get of this guy is sketchy at best cuz he’s never around long enough for us to get to know him.
I think Wolf Dick has bought too much into the idear that the cast has to be young and pretty. Everybody on the cast is good looking. Compare that to the earlier years. Don Cragen and John Munch were grizzled cops, even Stabler, dude looked like a father of four with issues. Yeah, you had Mayhem as the babyfaced younger guy and Olivia was Olivia, but still.
Why not bring some more grizzled, experienced cops into the group?
Hey Wolf Dick, stop being so cheap and bring in Donal Logue as a main character, fuck….bring back Danny Pino. Bring in somebody like Jeffrey Donovan, who has done a fabulous job as a long time cop on the mothership. Even Jason Biggs showed some promise when working with the team, why wasn’t that pursued. Plus that woulda been interesting: “from American Pie to SVU.”
It doesn’t even have to be people from the Law & Order universe, just actors with some chops who would work on a show like this. People like those mention in the paragraph above. Maybe at one time people who were movie stars or at least character actors who have been around and could give some grit and experience to the squad. Somebody would actually be interesting to watch without having to rely on Mariska to make the show keep moving. It could be an actor that’s near or over 50. It’s okay Wolf, we don’t watch a police procedural for all the hotties. We’re not at an NSYNC concert.
Or we can just have Wolf Dick just pick out whoever he thinks is the new prettiest girl to replace which female he thinks is aging out of the show.

As the title mentions I'm an advanced-novella RPer looking for GMs or offering myself as a GM for various text-based RPs. I've provided a sample down below and will ask the same of anybody that reaches out. Outside of writing I tend to spend most of my time on games like Knights of the Old Republic 2, New Vegas, and, indeed, the Hobocop Game. I'm an Associate at Amazon with an otherwise unimpressive social life, occasionally leaving the house to play WH40K Tabletop.
Discord is more-or-less required for me to be interested; sample incoming.
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The boar is not dead, though to all the other hunters’ senses it is. It lays motionless on its side within the sled, tied down by rope with two arrows sticking discordantly out of its hide like seams of broken bone. Frozen blood pools in the cracked stomach of the sled, collecting rather than leaking now that red ice has sealed the wood. Poison leaching out of the arrowheads keeps the boar docile, and its breathing so light that only Trapper can see. An ovate in too-thin robes shivers as she ties a garland of rosemary around the beast’s neck, murmuring prayers to the ancestors that they might find the kill worthy.
Winter has seized the land in its vise, its unending waves of cold and snow having transformed the Barony of Marlas into a crueler scape, one Trapper doesn’t quite recognize. Tranquility abounds along the driven snow, all through the clearing, hiding the buried world and the woes of man but unable to snuff them out. Trapper knows well what a mirage it is, the oppressive winters of his homeland no less savage than the bloodletting summers. The numbing cold does not soothe his aches, for he knows they’ll be worse come morning, come the thaw. Too soon this clearing will melt, its river gone from white to red, the whole Septima Line thrust back to war.
Baron Orys refuses to yield to midnight season, to accept its peace, and so from his great warhorse’s saddle he brazenly belts out a mixture of drunken lyrics and commands, determined to master this hunt even if he does not partake. An entourage on horseback spreads out in his orbit, ranging from eager young footmen to grizzled junkers, all in varying states of inebriation at his command. Their braying is nearly louder than the hounds’, who hungrily stalk between the sled and the hole they pulled the boar out from. Teased by the hunt but yet unrewarded, they’re too unruly to be kept in check by the kennel master.
On foot slog the unfortunates who actually have to take part in the hunt, Trapper among them. They huddle into their hemp canvas cloaks, glancing up at the moody afternoon sky threatening to crack open with another snowstorm. Dark clouds sweep in low from the south like a riptide, a single vast current swept in from the mountains already menacing the Oldwoods. Its furthest gales reach them as tongues of vengeful cold, flecks of whipped-up snow biting into Trapper’s exposed skin.
By the boar’s nest leans a typical Mallean, one of Trapper’s two erstwhile comrades. Sigorn is tall, pale, broad, with the close-set, wide-boned features of a commoner, and a shock of red hair grown out to protect against the elements. Beneath his cloak he proudly bears his blood-flecked armor, each dent a Darkman put into it a point of dear pride. He’s not the only one, either, the clearing filled with dozens of youths whose first blooding ended in victory amid a blizzard. Baron Orys, deep into his cups after six days of nonstop celebration, saw a break in the storms and gladly called a hunt. When informed he could not go on account of his shattered knee - he simply grinned, and ordered himself tied to his saddle.
Trapper remembers the moment his lord fell from the saddle, burned into his nerves. The screaming of horses, skidding hooves catching on the frozen ground. On the edges of his vision a rider smashes into a branch in the din, others don’t move at all for fear of the blizzard. His spurs dig, his borrowed steed whines, and he races for his lord - only for another to reach him first.
“What a woman.” Sigorn sighs beside Trapper, craning his neck to look at one of their lord’s companions of honor. Susannah Oye, junker unlike the others, a pretty, willowy noblewoman well into motherhood, with the lean, ruthless look of a ranger. Her two poisoned arrows are what struck the boar down, and her pride curls off her body like steam. Sigorn’s face cracks into exaggerated appreciation, and then he turns to their lord’s other honored companion. Another woman, this one as young as they are, haughtily-built and leering with none of Susannah’s refinement. Many of those looks are reserved for Trapper, forced to slog on foot as just another hunter. “Anya too. I think she fancies you, eh?”

​

Before I call my property manager again, I thought I would see if anyone had any advice for me.
On Friday at 9am, I discovered a massive leak at the water meter. I contacted our city water department and my property manager. Within an hour, the city was out and shut off the water at the meter. There is a pipe on our side of the meter that has come unattached. The city person advised me that it would be an easy fix and cost a few hundred dollars but since it’s on our side of the meter he can’t touch it.
I contacted the PM back again and let them know that the water was off but I needed someone out ASAP to fix the pipe. This is a nationwide company so I’m just talking to reps in a call center. I stressed to them that we are a family of four, including 2 young children and 2 large dogs, we live in the desert and it is summer and we have absolutely no access to running water in the home. They assured me they would get someone out. I called every hour on Friday. Finally at 3:30pm, someone showed up but they were told to shut off the water, they were not authorized or equipped to do any repair. I called the PM again and asked about hotel accommodations as we could not even flush toilets. I let them know that I would have to bring in water from the pool to fill toilet basins so we could use the facilities. They forwarded my concerns and assured me again that someone would call me back. Again, no call back.
Saturday, I called again at 8:30 am. Same thing. Forwarded my concerns and said they would see about scheduling someone to come out. At 10:30, they said they had posted the job on a job board and would let me know. At 3pm, I booked a hotel room for us and emailed the PM and said I would be deducting the amount from Next months rent as the home is uninhabitable. They advised me to check with my renters insurance for coverage and let them know. Funnily enough, they administer my renters insurance policy so I let them know that and have heard nothing back.
Today….nothing. No phone calls, emails or texts from the PM. We have the hotel booked for tonight as well so I’m hoping they will get someone here tomorrow to fix it.
I’d just like to know, am I in the right here that they should pay for the hotel? Every time I google it it talks about hot water but I haven’t found anything about running water. To me, they should pay. I can guarantee that if I called plumbers I could get someone out here within the hour. They just don’t want to pay the higher weekend rates.
State is Nevada.
Thanks!

My wife said she saw a bowtie made from solid mahogany. She said she nearly bought it for me but she didnt think I would wear it. I replied Wooden tie?

​
Before I dump on the game, let me mention a few of the places that were actually clever:

• The bit with Camelus where you had to raise the bridge and shoot into it from below.
• Figuring out there was a path under the bridge that the ice block blocked.
• Figuring out that you could get up on the ice block from the other end of the crane.

I found the game to be disappointing and frustrating, all down to three reasons:

• The lack of interaction modes. Everything is a doorknob.
• The lack of characters, plot, conflict, and motivation.
• An inability to suspend disbelief, made even more absurd by the ending.

Let's look at these, along with contrasting to early Cyan games, and notice how combining all three together makes for a poor experience.
Essentially, the only mode of interaction available is turning a knob. While this is not necessarily a game killer (Myst, for example, only has clicking something) in Firmament it is completely treated as turning a knob. That is, every time you use the adjunct, you're interacting with a manufactured bit of machinery to control power to one or the other function of what you're connecting to. This leads to a sparse range of puzzles that can be included, essentially none of which progress the narrative. And it leads to the requirement for a technical instruction manual at the start of the game.
There's no "let the water out of the chest then close the knob again so it'll float when you fill the pool." There's no compass rose or turning mirrors. There's no locks to find the combination to (fortunately, given the plot). There's no sorting of singing monkeys. There's no tempting of birds with seed pods. There's no catching of Squees. There's no summoning of Wharks. The steam generator and pipes to fill the Voltaic airship actually work logically, and there's a reason they're puzzling, unlike the steam pipes in Curievale. (I had to actually look up which world the steam pipes were in just now, which shows you how well-integrated that puzzle is.) Also, each puzzle is independent of all the others; there's no foreshadowing of what you need to know, nor cleverness of relating one puzzle to another, as was common all through Exile for example.
Almost all the puzzles (including the most frustrating) involve trying to find the next doorknob to turn; or, having found it, trying to figure out how to reach it with the one and only tool available. Occasionally there's the "let's see if I can find the hidden pathway." Almost none of them involve figuring something out based on the environment or the world building. When stuck, I found myself walking around with the adjunct out looking for some hidden doorknob to light up, or wandering into unobvious corners and walking around the edge of the playable area seeing if I missed a hidden pathway. This is compounded by the huge amount of nonsensical consistency-busting designs. (Watch any first-time playthrough and you'll see the player running all over the place looking for the next clue.)
Granted, once you figured out the solution, it was often clear in hindsight what you were supposed to have been doing.

• You could realize the conservatory is symmetrical and has rubble blocking the way so you need to climb across the planters.
• You could figure out that there were controls under the sulfur you couldn't see the first time by looking at the diagram, if you could figure out what the diagram was saying without extensive exploring to start with.
• You could figure out that the goal in the battery field was to connect the one wire to the other (and not stringing batteries from the outside inwards) once you realize there's exactly two wires leading out from the lake and the error is "no connection".
• You could figure out what order the sockets get concatenated in by looking at their orientations. (Granted, they tried to teach you that during "verification.")
• Once you've drained the first reservoir, it becomes clear the odd structures sticking up were walkways.
• Often you progress a ways through a puzzle and then you can see the exit.

The lack of characters, living people, conflict, narrative, etc also left the game feeling lacking. There's nobody you can interact with, almost no direction is provided as to what you should do (and no, just saying "start the Embrace" doesn't help given you have no memory of what that means), and no motivation for doing it other than some ghost tells you. The real reason you work at it is you know you're playing a game. The fact that the world is terribly inconsistent with the story, and the mentor wants you to do things she won't reveal, just compounds the problem.

• One of the first things she tells you is she'll lie to you, which kind of gave away the "you are Turner" ending.
• You're the only person alive/awake, you're vital to the completion of the project, and your mentor can tell you what to do, but she doesn't.
• In Myst, Riven, Exile, you're given ongoing plot, and you know your motivation from the start, and why there's nobody helping you.
• The ending is an unsatisfying info dump. The beginning is the same. There really wasn't a sense of accomplishment, especially since "Hey, you got to the end, no go away, everything else is automated."

The entire time I was playing, I was saying to myself "Why would this be like this?" It made the entire experience tremendously gamey. Myst and Riven didn't make you think "why would anyone do this?" Exile and Portal both had reasons for being full of puzzles, as well as a motivation for your opponent to be setting up the puzzles and for making them solvable. But Firmament should have been 10x as easy to navigate, except that wouldn't make a good game, so artificial barriers that make no sense are set in your way. This, for me, destroyed the suspension of disbelief. Especially when the ending reveals that even the things you might have thought were accidental were designed that way. Even the constructed places were designed like puzzles rather than somewhere you want your workers to be effective at working.

• Why would your mentor set things up that you needed to work so hard to make happen what she wanted?
• Why are there even locks on the doors, given only keepers and crew are there?
• Why would any giant door only have a doorknob on one side, especially when there are other doors you can enter?
• Why wouldn't there be a path around the skiff engine so you could couple either side?
• Why is there even a cargo skiff stuck to the side of a building that has stairs at the top and bottom of its range? That's like making a handicap elevator that opens onto a staircase landing. What are you moving on the skiff?
• Why would you install steam pipes zig-zagging all over under the water?
• Why would you install the gangways zig-zagging all over under the water?
• Why would you install steam valves that block the path when turned on? Why not turn that bit so they stick out over space?
• What does turning on the steam even do, other than clearing the way to the spire? It's not powering anything at the exit. Why are the pipes and heaters even there except to make a puzzle?
• Why do the electric heaters need steam power?
• Why do pressurized steam pipes glow green, except to make the puzzle possible? Why are electric lights shining out from inside the steam pipes?
• Why wouldn't you provide all the modes of running the crane on top of the crane? Why can't you raise the hook from on top of the crane?
• How is Juleston the only place that needs special electricity? Where do the other realms get their electricity that this realm couldn't?
• Why does the conservatory have collapsed columns blocking the way that aren't anywhere else in the building? There's no place for them to have fallen from. They're not symmetrical with the other half of the building.
• Why wouldn't the walkways around planters go all the way around? How are you supposed to care for or harvest the contents on the sides without walkways?
• Why wouldn't the controls for rotating the planters be more easily accessible? There's 6 or so controls to raise and lower each planter, and one control to rotate them that you wouldn't even be able to access on foot.
• Why do you need to ride the ice block to get to the factory? Did OSHA approve that? How come the protective gear described on the sign isn't available?
• Why did the walkway in the ice processing center that the moving bridge fills collapse, and where did the collapsed floor go? There are no broken plates on the floor.
• Why is there even a movable room in the ice processing center? Why not just finish building the bridges and walkways?
• How did whoever put the moving bridge there leave? You can only reach it standing on top of an ice block.
• Why is the green pipe valve hidden behind a bunker? Wouldn't it be easier to build stairs?
• Why wouldn't you build stairs all the way to the ground instead of having to walk along the crane to an ice block to reach the stairs?
• Why are there blocks of ice all over outside the processing center?
• How did all the ice blocks get around the base of the crane? Why not grind those up instead?
• How did the block of ice block the pathway, then the bridge get closed, except intentionally?
• Why not put all the controls for the sulfur mixer in one socket?
• Why is there a giant door requiring three sockets to get connected? The tracks don't go through, and there's nothing to be moved from one side to the other, and no vehicle nearby. Why is it there, and who closed it for that matter?
• Who would build a vehicle where the part you need to line up can't be seen from the steering wheel? Camelus' back door is not visible from the steering wheel. The first ice crane has to be automated at each end because you can't see what's happening. The alignment of the second ice crane is invisible from inside the crane, requiring the platform out the side.

And then you get to the end, and it becomes even more absurd, given that everything you've seen was intentionally designed and built.

• Why would the crane be constructed to run into the cliff? Put it farther out like the bubble car, or don't put rocks jutting out to block its path.
• Why would the sulfur need to be mined? It's not really a planet. Why not stacks of sulfur bricks? Why are there geysers in space?
• Why would you build the bubble car rails where they'd get frozen by ice? There's no seasonal run-off making waterfalls so you had to know that would happen.
• Why pretend you're mining coal? Why launch your coal supply from the ground in rocks instead of extracting it on Earth?
• Why are you wasting coal melting ice anyway? Just use the water before you freeze it. Why build the heat-powered power plant in the coldest realm?
• Why not build the steam furnace downhill from piles of coal and a big pool of water?
• What were you planning to do with a bunch of mountains in orbit when you got to your destination?
• Lots of puzzles block you from turning them off once solved. Why? And how'd they even get in that state in the first place? Nobody is working against you, and nobody has more authority to make changes than you do.

And many more I don't remember the details of.
Given Cyan's track record, one might ponder some of the inconsistencies in implementation and wonder whether they have a deeper meaning. I couldn't find any.

• The first double-bridge you come to, you have to navigate around to cross; the second double-bridge you can just reach the adjunct across; the bubble car there (I think) is positioned in a way that the last person to leave couldn't set up.of mentor dialog or books or something.
• Only one bunker has an alternate exit.
• Only one bunker has a hibernation bed. Did she drag that there? Her monologue doesn't sound like it.
• It seems like a bad idea to have the Juleston bunker close you in when the power goes off.
• Places blocked by rubble have nowhere above for the rubble to have come from.
• Collapsed floors that need to be bridged have no broken flooring or rubble under them, nor is there any reason for them to have collapsed.
• The first double-bridge you come to, you have to naviate around to cross; the second double-bridge you can just reach the adjunct across; the bubble car there (I think) is positioned in a way that the last person to leave couldn't set up.
• The moving bridge near the ice grinder for sure could not have been left that way (unless someone got ground up). Otherwise riding the ice wouldn't be a puzzle.
• The first place you need to connect three sockets, and there's only one order they connect in.
• The second place needs four sockets connected, but still shows "1/3" when you do the first one.
• When there's some option not currently available for a socket, you're not given that option. Or maybe it goes "Doink". Or maybe just nothing happens. Or maybe it's dimmed out. Or maybe it starts and then immediately reverts.

Compare to Myst: Myst was surreal, magical. It's expected in such situations that there will be weirdness. Nevertheless, essentially every puzzle was reasonable in its environment and grounded and somewhat predictable. Things like getting the key to the lighthouse was grounded in basic physics; things like resetting the spaceship after a mistake, or figuring out how to deduce the stoneship symbols, or raising the channelwood tree, were based on wide-spread cultural references. Where there were other puzzles, the end-goal was shown in advance, with you almost always running across the lock before being presented with the keys. The rare maze allowed you to (mostly) see where you were going several steps ahead and also told you the destination before you found it. The pointers to the story were left in conspicuous places (the note on the grass, the blue and red books). Also, the weird crap was explained in extensive world-building (heh) books in the library. Nothing (almost) was hidden just to make a puzzle harder. The solution to each puzzle was presented while you're in the puzzle trying to figure out the solution, if only you were clever or observant enough to understand it. If you wanted to get into the spaceship, you followed the wires. The elevator trick in Mechanical Age wasn't hidden; you just had to think about why the elevator didn't start right away. The most hidden thing there was the secret panels, which were secret, but still had a target drawn on them. Every place you were stymied by a lock, the lock was intentionally put there to keep natives of the land away from the books, or to keep others from using the books on Myst Island (i.e., the places of protection).
Contrast with (say) the greenhouse puzzle: first you have to figure how to get to the entrance riding the skiff, because that made so much more sense than another flight of stairs or a ladder; thank goodness the vines didn't quite close off every path. Then you have to figure out that the place you're trying to go is the other side of the planters on the same level (and not to the thing that looks like a lift or ladder), even though you can't see the other side. Then you ride the things around a while, trying to see the walkways above and below you, before realizing there's another doorknob down at the bottom; good thing they all have distinctive lights on them, eh? That doorknob can only be reached from where you're far from your goal, and from a limited number of puzzle states, then you have to work your way all the way back up, and then if you're lucky you'll have figured out how to turn the planters so you can dodge across. Sometimes you can cross on the diagonal, sometimes it's a fraction too far. And your knees don't bend, so you can't get over the foot-high plank lying on the floor. Or look at the steam pipes and heaters. You need to turn them on, and oh goody, they light up when you do. But some of the doorknobs don't glow; other sockets on the pipes aren't doorknobs they just look that way. Some of the pipes go above the surface, and you can't tell where they come back down. You then can turn on electric heaters using steam, somehow. You have to go down to turn one on, then melt some ice, then coming back up requires turning that off again. Several times you have to turn it on, then turn it off again because the valve was installed in a way that blocks the walkway. There's a valve hidden behind a grate for some reason, but fortunately your other tool can go through grates and the walkway passes by quite close. Then you have to turn on a valve, loop around to go two levels down, turn on the second valve that you can't get to because the steampunk builders thought it was a good idea to install valves that block the pathway, come back up far enough to turn on the third valve, go back down to turn on the heater, come back up and turn off the first valve, then you can progress. And when you've worked the steam power all the way to the end, what do you get? A steam-powered machine? No, just the same electric lift as in every other realm. Good thing, because you had to turn the steam off again to get to the other side of the path. The only reason for the steam pipes is to make a puzzle that somehow runs electric heaters off steam pressure, with electricity at both ends of the path already. Oh, and there's a hundred meters of gangway in loops and ramps in the water, instead of, you know, a path from one side to the other.
Compare to Riven: Riven is grounded like Firmament. It's not particularly supernatural. The stuff is mechanical, not magical. If someone disappears from a one-door room, there's probably a hidden switch. Granted, "fire marbles" aren't explained, and why there would even need to be clues to get into Tay is unclear story-wise, but OK, combinations to locks need to be written where you can find them. And the mine cart going under water was just Rule Of Cool. Everything else makes sense. Secret passages are only secret from one side. Doors are locked between where Ghen moves and where natives move, and locked on the side where Ghen is. When there's a "hidden" passage that's hard to see, the people who created it leave a pointer (usually a dagger). When there's a hidden door, you can see into the adjacent room so you know to look for the door. There's no case of "wander all over the level holding the 'show me interaction points' control, trying to figure out if there's a button that enables some other part of the level to work." There's no wondering whether you need an upgrade to even start working on this puzzle. If there's a hidden button to make something work, you can follow the wire to it (the fan), or see the pathway over there, or see the room through the window (book assembly island dome), or notice from where you start there's only one other path of many open (the lake sub), or etc. Look at the design of the wood pulp boiler vs the sulphur mixer. And again, the reason for all the locks are explained in-game. Riven is a masterclass in adventure game design because the puzzles all make sense in the context and story of the game, all of which we see before we need to know it, and there's almost nothing arbitrary about the puzzles.
Contrast with Firmament: Firmament looks realistic, but is surreal in detail. The entire place acts like one giant puzzle, with a dozen unintuitive steps to get from each place to the next. It has knobs that can control things remotely, but uses that capability to put things out of reach instead of making things easier, even tho the only people with adjuncts would be people who are supposed to be working the machines. It has machinery on rails constructed too close to other features to let the cars pass (like the first crane blocked by rocks, the second crane blocked by ice, the bubble car blocked by the ice, etc), which is even more silly when you find out the cliffs aren't natural either. It uses complex machinery of all different kinds to accomplish the same ends; the skiff vs the first crane vs the second crane vs the sulfur trains; the conveyance pods vs the bubble cars vs (cripes) riding blocks of ice and hopping off hopefully before you reach the shredder blades. There are places where simple stairs or bridges could be built, but instead there's a half dozen baroque processes to get from one place to another place a literal stone's throw away (see "riding blocks of ice" as well as the pointless skiff and the pointless steam pipes and ....). There's several kinds of power supplies which have to be turned on, each of which powers only the bits of puzzle blocking your way. There are innumerable doorknobs placed in cages where you have to be at the right angle to fire them with no obvious reason for the cage walls to be blocking you from there (see "riding blocks of ice"). Even at the end you have to walk entirely around the axis twice to unlock a door you're 20 feet from when you come out into space.
Compare to Exile: Exile is surreal, but this time it's intentionally designed by its creator to be surreal. Each age has a purpose and a theme, and it looks designed (unlike Myst's ages). The design of each Age gives you clues to the solutions of the puzzles, and then plays into the endgame. You have an ongoing story that tells you the motivations of the people involved. You have a reason you're suddenly thrown into the situation alone. (As in Myst and Riven, for that matter.) No need for the cliche loss of memory or untrustworthy narrator (both features of Firmament, both described in the opening monologue). There's a reason the puzzles are more difficult than you'd think necessary. The same reason is why there are clues how to solve them scattered about. And you're shown the ways in which the puzzles were made more difficult, which helps tell the story; nothing is randomly broken by accident. When you solve an age, you get a beautiful reward of getting to see the age laid out before you to admire. The ending is fulfilling, and in your hands, left to you to figure out how to bring about some solution or the best solution.
Contrast with Firmament: No setup other than a monologue telling you "you remember nothing, I might lie, go do puzzles I mean maintenance work." The puzzles are arbitrary-progress-blockage puzzles. There's very little where you have to think about what the world is like to make things work. The ages don't feel any different from each other, because every one is "figure out where the path is, where the goal is, and then try to find where you can reach the doorknob from." There's no puzzle having to do with ice on Curievale (other than the heaters, which are just different forms of doors). There's no puzzle having to do with plants on St. Andrew. Even places where you might have figured it out, it was tedious rather than clever; for example, the batteries were painted colors. Imagine how it would have been if you could see into the water and each post had a different number of batteries wired to it? I don't really want to spend time doing linear algebra to figure out puzzles during my gaming hour. And when you do solve a puzzle, half the time you're inside a building or vehicle where you can't see what's happening; the shutters only open once, the bubble cars obscure most of the view, engaging the Embrace doesn't make it obvious the doors are opening in the spire, etc.
How could I have done better? Well, I don't design games for a living, but I've been playing adventure games since they were coded in FORTRAN and printed their text on paper. There are a few obvious places the puzzles could have been made more enjoyable.

• Make the batteries in Juleston visible through the water, with different pylons having different numbers of batteries visibly connected. Then you don't have to do linear algebra and experiments to figure out what's going on, and the fact that the final step is also providing power would be obvious. This would leave open the possibility for the people who want to do linear algebra. (Sort of like how the sound direction clues in Mechanical Age let you navigate in Selentic Age even though there were adequate clues if you went to Selentic first.)
• Keep the steam pipes underwater, so you can follow where the next valve is.
• Actually require the player to mix the sulfur with the sulfur mixer, just for realism. And don't just have the computer tell the user what the next step is. "Door crusted." "Too much acid." "Pool full." Show, don't tell, like with the crusted lock at the start. Maybe make it so you can look into the pool before you add sulfur and see that there are controls down there, and locking lugs, and crusty stuff.
• When a machine finally turns on, make it obvious why you needed that machine in the first place. The whole "turn on steam" in Curievale was there to clear the way of ice in your way (with electric heaters, no less), while the builders could have just put a walkway over or straight through the water there. They could have made the lift at the end obviously running on steam pressure, which might have even made sense in the context of the steampunk origin story. The whole "turn on the batteries" in Juleston was there to power a half dozen machines while other machines all over already had power. Why does the Juleston bunker (you know, the place holding all the maintenance supplies) need battery power to be accessible and the others don't? (Oh, that's right, achievements.) Why did you have to send power to the bunker in order to open the giant doors? And again, the sulfur didn't need mixing (can you tell I'm traumatized?).
• Put some puzzles in that have to do with the age. Require a puzzle where you have to know ice floats, like drop a giant floating ice cube in the resevoir to get across. Require a puzzle where you have to fertilize or poison (with sulfur?) or electrocute (after powering up Juleston?) plants to progress through St Andrew. Let the player pick up a battery to locally power puzzles in Juleston (due to broken wires?) instead of just declaring that this lift lacks power but that lift works fine.

Anyway, that's my rambling. Hope you enjoyed. :)

https://imgur.com/a/7EJAeqN
Shipping included. US residences only. If more pics are needed, please let me know. Willing to discount if you buy multiple items!
Sealed Annihilation Conquest brand new $160
In great condition but spine appears to be slightly sun faded. The Marvel omnibus logo on the spine is not super red. But pretty minor IMO. See pics.
X-Men Chris Claremont Jim Lee volume 2 $105
Used copy, in good to very good condition
Sealed Daredevil Brubaker volume 1 brand new $50
Werewolf By Night 1-3 $230 near mint
Tomb of Dracula 1-5 $325 near mint
He-Man Newspaper Comic Strips Collection $50 (slightly bumped top corner, see pics)
Life and Times of Martha Washington $40 very good condition
Hellblazer volumes 21-23 $125 very good condition
Star Wars Gillen omni $85 (slight blemishes see pics)
Batman No Man’s Land TPB 1-3 $35 this is the one with the BOLD printing on the spines

Hi guys, yesterday I was throwing boomerang fro the first time in my life (31yo).
I've printed one with 4 blades on my 3D printer and went to a near field. It was so much fun, I made the boomerang return to my hand few times after 1-2 hours of throwing.
Today I made It return multiple times and really getting hang of it. I feel like I'm doing really good. Now I would like to buy a proper one (not 3d printed) and try some different shapes and models.
I hope this will stick with me as it is awesome feeling to throw it and see it return.
Can you guys recommend me some of your favorite models and brands? I'm total noob in this. I'm also located in Europe. Thank you so much.

For the past three days I’ve been hearing something screaming ‘help meeee… help me….. aaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhh help meeeee’ on and off.
Everything started the night after my fiancé saw something unexplainably creepy at the skatepark near the woods while walking the dogs. We were walking our two dogs and we planned to go down to the skatepark to train the dogs some more in agility. The park is small only consisting of about 3 medium ramps and one that barely reaches mid shin on myself. The skatepark is down in a sort of valley and we have to go down some steps to get to it and is surrounded by woods on all sides. As I was about to suggest going down I noticed my fiancé stood still staring into the skatepark while mid panic attack and the dogs were in front of them staring on and off with the smaller one fixated and pulling.
They said ‘someone’s down there’ but when I went to look I didn’t see anyone or anything down there and it was dead quiet.
‘No there isn’t, I looked and I can’t see anyone’
‘No seriously there are people down there, looks like a fucking cult or something’ they said half joking and half panicked. ‘We need to go home’
I was confused and thought it was their mind playing tricks because it was dark and still wanted to go down like something was inviting me (that’s what it felt like in hindsight, in the moment something was making me feel annoyed and frustrated at not being able to go down there)
‘No come on there’s no one down there it’s ok we can go and run with the dogs'
‘No no I want to go home…. Seriously please can we just go home’ they mentioned they heard a scream coming from the woods but again I heard nothing. And the second time they heard it they turned and walked off quickly and I followed. For the rest of the night they were really uneasy to the point I was worried for them. They were drawing what they saw trying to make sense of it, while struggling to make much sense themselves. Talking about demons, nuns, deer, goat skull headed man, etc. It creeped me the fuck out and I asked to drop the topic but I knew something wasn’t right. The next day was ok, taking the dogs for a walk the usual amount, feeling better about the whole situation.
Then I heard something.
The first time I heard it, it was around 3am and I heard what sounded like a drunk or heavily injured man screaming for help, nothing specific, just ‘help meee, help me, aaaaaggggghhhhh help meeeeeeee’ and the occasional screaming. It circled our housing complex and got louder near the window right by our bed. I got up to look out of the window and I saw a figure, it looked like a man in a grey tracksuit with his hood up and he was walking away from us about 200m-300m from our window. Staggering drunk or injured but seemingly unbothered. Still screaming help me. The thing is the screaming was completely emotionless and uninterested. It stopped shortly after I saw the figure.
The second time was around 8am the next day the same emotionless screaming circling the house that lasted for about five minutes before cutting off mid scream. I chalked it up to just some drunk kid wanting to scare people or cause a scene. Or perhaps it was someone with mental health issues in an episode. I then heard it a few hours later as I left to walk the dogs coming from the forest that our front door overlooks. Still emotionless and the same words ‘help meee, help me, aaaaaggggghhhhh help meeeeeeee’. There were two men by the road fixing up their bikes and people on their balconies smoking but no one seemed to hear what I was hearing. So I carried on ignoring it. It didn’t stop for the 10 minutes I was out there letting the dogs pee and poo. And carried on even as I entered the house.
It eventually stopped and some family came to visit but when I walked out the house to get a drink from the shop I heard it start up again, it started the second I opened the door and didn’t stop even as I was walking down the stairs to the shop or as I came out of the shop and walked in the house. It carried on for about 5 minutes after I entered the house again just repeatedly screaming help me help me please and screaming.
Now my brain is repeating it like tinnitus the same thing over and over again while my head hurts more and more from the screaming ‘help meeeee help me please aaaaaagggggghhhhhh help meeeeeeee’ the same order just over and over and over and over and over again. I’m getting a migraine while typing this because the screaming just won’t stop and it’s getting louder and I don’t know what it is or why it’s happening or what could be doing it.
Tldr: my fiancé saw something in the forest and now something is screaming for help at all hours of the day and night. It’s started screaming in my head and it won’t stop. It seems to be getting louder and giving me a migraine, making me sick, and driving me insane.

Hi all, Thanks for your patience with and suggestions for a total home assistant noob.
I'd appreciate your ideas for helping me create a temperature monitoring system as part of my appliance repair business.
Project: Bi-annual preventative maintenance program with freezer monitoring service.
Requirements: 1) Ideally under $100 in hardware for each new customer which would be off the shelf, residential grade equipment obviously. (I would like to get a more robust solution later once the business model is proven, similar to a Digi temp system)
2) A system capable of supporting up to 200+ customer homes reporting to a cental dashboard I could then monitor and send alerts as needed.
3) WiFi based vs cellular is preferred as I'm located in a very rural location.
Ideas: An idea I've seen is to use a $20 Inkbird temp/Humidity sensor and $50 Inkbird gateway, reporting to the customers wifi and then feeding in to my dashboard. However, this was up to 4 sensor and not multiple locations.
Is home assistant even a good choice for this level of project?
Thanks for much for any guidance you can give! Andy

Hey everyone, has anyone noticed in the past few months that service has degraded to the point of almost being unusable? I'm in North phoenix and the phone is nearly unusable, I can go down the whole stretch of 7th street and get edge service. I work for a cell company, so obviously I've done all the troubleshooting. I've had them send downloads from the tower, I've changed to esim, factory reset my device even, network reset, changed to 4g even and I'm on an S22 ultra. This is seeming to coincide with the time that t-mobile bought out Mint mobile as well, it's been absolutely atrocious and dear god if I have an emergency and can't get cell service, well let's hope I don't. We might need to band together and get a damn FCC complaint ready. T-mobile has bought out Mint Mobile, bought Sprint and with that got Boost Mobile, have their post and prepaid services as well, is this just at a point where they have too many things under one house? Please let me know your thoughts.

For the past three days I’ve been hearing something screaming ‘help meeee… help me….. aaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhh help meeeee’ on and off.
Everything started the night after my fiancé saw something unexplainably creepy at the skatepark near the woods while walking the dogs. We were walking our two dogs and we planned to go down to the skatepark to train the dogs some more in agility. The park is small only consisting of about 3 medium ramps and one that barely reaches mid shin on myself. The skatepark is down in a sort of valley and we have to go down some steps to get to it and is surrounded by woods on all sides. As I was about to suggest going down I noticed my fiancé stood still staring into the skatepark while mid panic attack and the dogs were in front of them staring on and off with the smaller one fixated and pulling.
They said ‘someone’s down there’ but when I went to look I didn’t see anyone or anything down there and it was dead quiet.
‘No there isn’t, I looked and I can’t see anyone’
‘No seriously there are people down there, looks like a fucking cult or something’ they said half joking and half panicked. ‘We need to go home’
I was confused and thought it was their mind playing tricks because it was dark and still wanted to go down like something was inviting me (that’s what it felt like in hindsight, in the moment something was making me feel annoyed and frustrated at not being able to go down there)
‘No come on there’s no one down there it’s ok we can go and run with the dogs'
‘No no I want to go home…. Seriously please can we just go home’ they mentioned they heard a scream coming from the woods but again I heard nothing. And the second time they heard it they turned and walked off quickly and I followed. For the rest of the night they were really uneasy to the point I was worried for them. They were drawing what they saw trying to make sense of it, while struggling to make much sense themselves. Talking about demons, nuns, deer, goat skull headed man, etc. It creeped me the fuck out and I asked to drop the topic but I knew something wasn’t right. The next day was ok, taking the dogs for a walk the usual amount, feeling better about the whole situation.
Then I heard something.
The first time I heard it, it was around 3am and I heard what sounded like a drunk or heavily injured man screaming for help, nothing specific, just ‘help meee, help me, aaaaaggggghhhhh help meeeeeeee’ and the occasional screaming. It circled our housing complex and got louder near the window right by our bed. I got up to look out of the window and I saw a figure, it looked like a man in a grey tracksuit with his hood up and he was walking away from us about 200m-300m from our window. Staggering drunk or injured but seemingly unbothered. Still screaming help me. The thing is the screaming was completely emotionless and uninterested. It stopped shortly after I saw the figure.
The second time was around 8am the next day the same emotionless screaming circling the house that lasted for about five minutes before cutting off mid scream. I chalked it up to just some drunk kid wanting to scare people or cause a scene. Or perhaps it was someone with mental health issues in an episode. I then heard it a few hours later as I left to walk the dogs coming from the forest that our front door overlooks. Still emotionless and the same words ‘help meee, help me, aaaaaggggghhhhh help meeeeeeee’. There were two men by the road fixing up their bikes and people on their balconies smoking but no one seemed to hear what I was hearing. So I carried on ignoring it. It didn’t stop for the 10 minutes I was out there letting the dogs pee and poo. And carried on even as I entered the house.
It eventually stopped and some family came to visit but when I walked out the house to get a drink from the shop I heard it start up again, it started the second I opened the door and didn’t stop even as I was walking down the stairs to the shop or as I came out of the shop and walked in the house. It carried on for about 5 minutes after I entered the house again just repeatedly screaming help me help me please and screaming.
Now my brain is repeating it like tinnitus the same thing over and over again while my head hurts more and more from the screaming ‘help meeeee help me please aaaaaagggggghhhhhh help meeeeeeee’ the same order just over and over and over and over and over again. I’m getting a migraine while typing this because the screaming just won’t stop and it’s getting louder and I don’t know what it is or why it’s happening or what could be doing it.
Tldr: my fiancé saw something in the forest and now something is screaming for help at all hours of the day and night. It’s started screaming in my head and it won’t stop. It seems to be getting louder and giving me a migraine, making me sick, and driving me insane.

My mother's upstairs bathroom seems to have a clog and leak issue. Whenever she flushes the toilet, it backs up the toilet and often comes up the drain of the bathtub as well. It will slowly drain down and you can hear glugging from the bathtub drain. Whenever this happens, the ceiling directly below the toilet also starts to get some water spotting. She hasn't used that bathroom in some time, and the water stains on the ceiling have stabilized. So there seem to be two problems obviously: a clog and a leak. Seems to me it's unlikely there is some random leak in the sewer pipe that happened to appear along with the clog. I'm assuming th backed up water is leaking out of where the toilet is seated on the sewer pipe.
My dad (divorced from my mom) has suggested to me that the joint between the toilet and the drain pipe is not meant to hold standing water, and so that's why it's leaking. I'm not sure if that's accurate. So I'm wondering if the toilet probably needs a new seal at the drain, or whether the problem is likely to completely self-resolve once the clog is fixed.
Does my assessment seem right?
Secondarily: My mother has some mental issues and extreme anxiety about just about everything. She thinks that the problem is way more complicated than it is, and that it's going to involve a major repair. She won't listen to reason and doesn't believe that I could have any idea of what I'm talking about. Consequently, she has left the problem like this for years at this point. She uses an RV toilet she got off of craigslist, rather than get this simple issue resolved. I want to call a plumber while she is at work, and have him fix it while she's gone (I'm 35 years old and do not live with her, but I am able to access the house). I just want to get this over with. How likely is this to piss off the plumber or put him in a tough spot if he finds out that the homeowner is not approving this? My mom is likely to get pissed off with ME and maybe try to abort then process if she shows up home halfway through the work, but she's not going to do anything crazy like call the cops. I'm happy to be liable for all the costs.

AO3 Link
These are summaries of what games/events happened in-between chapters 5 and 6. To explain the timeline and make sure you're all on the same page.
11 AS:
​
Sonic CD:
After freeing Stardust Speedway and defeating Metal Sonic 1.0, Sonic heads to Robotnik’s base, Metallic Madness, in order to grab the last Time Stone, defeat the mad doctor, and free Little Planet from it’s shackles. And despite putting up a good fight with his mech modeled after himself, Robotnik is unable to secure his future, and retreats.
Now possessing all the Time Stones, Sonic proceeds to use their power to restore Little Planet to normal, which also sends him and Amy Rose back to Neverlake on Earth. Together, the two watch the small planetoid disappear into the sky, while also leaving behind sparks that shape into Sonic’s face, as if the planet itself was thanking him for his efforts.
So, with a job well done, Sonic reluctantly goes on a date with Amy, which was pretty fun, but the blue blur still wasn’t interested in being her boyfriend. And after saying farewell to Ms. Rose for the time being, Sonic set off for another adventure…
​
12 AS:
Using his Tornado plane, Sonic arrives at Westside Island, where he meets Miles “Tails” Prower. The young fox greatly admires the blue blur, and the two become good pals in no time…
​
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (8-Bit):
While exploring Westside Island, Sonic comes back to the main village, and finds that many animals have been captured by Robotnik’s Badniks and machines. So, he jumps into action and saves as many of them as he can. However, Tails is nowhere to be seen, which worries the blue blur greatly. That’s when he sees a note left behind and written by Robotnik.
In the note, Robotnik states that after arriving here a few days ago and observing Sonic interacting with Tails, he decided to kidnap the two-tailed fox and use him as a hostage for his “new” plan. Force the blue blur to collect the Chaos Emeralds for him, or he’ll never see the young fox boy ever again.
Despite being angry about his best friend getting kidnapped, and worried for his safety, Sonic tries to calm down, and decides to do as Robotnik asks for now. So, he explores 5 zones on the island, before arriving at the doctor’s base, Scrambled Egg Zone. There, he fights against Silver Sonic, who’s much less advanced than Metal Sonic, due to having a lot less development time.
Regardless, Sonic destroys the flimsy robo knockoff, which had the last Chaos Emerald he needed. And with all 7 in his possession, the blue blur is able to get to Robotnik’s TRUE base, Crystal Egg Zone. Then, after a heated confrontation against the doctor, Sonic manages to save Tails, the Chaos Emeralds scatter, and Robotnik retreats for now…
​
Sonic Chaos:
Having managed to get his hands on the red Chaos Emerald, Robotnik uses it’s power to develop more powerful weapons and machines in his quest for world domination. Then, he decides to use them on Sonic and Tails, who are currently exploring the world together after leaving Westside Island.
Sonic and Tails are able to survive the doctor’s attack, along with saving many of the animals and people caught in the crossfire, but much of their surrounding environment was in ruin. So, determined to stop Robotnik from causing anymore destruction, the heroic duo set off to stop him, traversing 5 zones before arriving at the doctor’s Electric Egg base.
Despite the trouble, the two heroes are able to stop Robotnik, take the red Chaos Emerald, destroy all the weapons and machines powered by it, and set the base to self-destruct. So, with the day saved again, Sonic and Tails set off, while Robotnik takes his leave as well…
​
Sonic Spinball:
With the data he got from the red Chaos Emerald beforehand, Robotnik manages to create many duplicate blue emeralds that aren’t as powerful, but still possess tons of energy. And with these fake emeralds, the doctor takes over an unstable volcano that produces a lot of energy via it’s hot magma, making a base called the Veg-O-Fortress.
Using the power of the magma, and the fake Chaos Emeralds keeping the volcano stable, Robotnik is able to turn helpless animals into Badniks at a much faster rate. It doesn’t take long for Sonic and Tails to learn about the doctor’s new plan, and with the Tornado, the two mount an aerial assault.
However, the base’s defenses were much greater than they expected, and Sonic has to jump off of the Tornado, having to go into the fortress on his own and take the fake emeralds out in order to make the volcano erupt, which will destroy the fortress. But Robotnik has set up a “Pinball Defense Mechanism” to make sure the gems don’t go anywhere.
Hence, Sonic traverses the 3 areas of the fortress spinball-style, freeing all the animals and taking many of the fake Chaos Emeralds out. Which leads to Robotnik fleeing the crumbling fortress in a rocket ship with the last 5 fake emeralds, and the blue blur in hot pursuit. Then, after a tough showdown with the doctor, Sonic succeeds in taking out the last of the fake emeralds, destroying the rocket ship, and stopping Robotnik.
This leads to the two adversaries falling from the sky, but Tails swoops in with the Tornado to rescue Sonic, while Robotnik falls into the ocean with some floaties, angry at his defeat and having to call in his Egg Mobile to pick him up and retreat…
​
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (16-Bit):
Using the mechanization of Little Planet as a basis, Robotnik has finally finished his orbital space station, the Death Egg, and launches it into space. With it, the doctor has tons of resources for his different projects, and can produce tons of Badniks and machines at a fast rate. That way, he can take over Earth with not much issue.
However, Robotnik still wants to acquire the Chaos Emeralds, so that he can power up the Death Egg’s laser cannons, which are located on it’s eyes. That way, the doctor can wipe entire continents and any opposition off the face of the planet. So, he sets off to find the gemstones, which leads him back to Westside Island.
As for Sonic and Tails, the two return to the latter’s home island as well, only to find a bunch of Robotnik’s machines and Badniks taking over different regions. Hence, the heroic duo do their thing, and traverse many zones while clashing with the doctor many times, destroying his creations, and collecting the Chaos Emeralds again.
Eventually, the two heroes reach Robotnik’s new base, Metropolis Zone, and after fighting him again, he retreats to his Wing Fortress. This leads to Sonic and Tails taking the Tornado to chase after him in the sky. But once they get there, the Tornado is shot down, while the blue blur has to traverse the battleship on his own.
Then, after fighting again in the control room, Robotnik leaves the Wing Fortress in his spaceship, heading straight for the Death Egg, while Sonic hangs onto one of it’s wings for dear life. Once they arrive at the orbital space station, the doctor heads off, and the hedgehog chases after him again.
This leads to Sonic fighting against another robot based off of him: Robo Sonic. More advanced than Silver Sonic, but still nowhere near Metal Sonic 1.0’s level. Regardless, the machine is quite durable and powerful, but isn’t very quick or agile. So, the blue blur manages to destroy it without too much trouble.
But once Sonic’s able to reach Robotnik, he finds that the madman is piloting a giant mecha that resembles him. The Death Egg Robot. And after one last, tough battle, the hedgehog comes out on top. However, due to the damage from the confrontation, the Death Egg starts to malfunction and fall down to the planet, leading to Sonic escaping with the Chaos Emeralds.
As he falls from the sky, Sonic is saved by Tails in the fixed Tornado, leading to the two of them heading to Westside Island after a job well-done. Though, they don’t know where Robotnik is, and if the Death Egg has been destroyed for good…
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Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (Sonic & Tails):
As the Death Egg falls down, it unexpectedly crashes into something. A floating island in the sky, known as Angel Island. The impact shakes the whole island, and pushes it down into the ocean below, creating a big tsunami. Once having gotten his bearings, Robotnik leaves the Death Egg and explores his surroundings.
That’s when the doctor picks up a strange, but powerful signal from a singular Chaos Emerald, which confuses him. But with this power source, Robotnik can re-launch the Death Egg, so he doesn’t pay it much mind, and gets started on building a base of operations for repairs, while also taking the local wildlife to power his Badniks.
Though, after some time passes, Robotnik is confronted by someone he didn’t expect to come across. A red Echidna named Knuckles, who is the sole protector of Angel Island and everything on it. Immediately, the guardian questions who the doctor is, and where that “giant dragon egg” came from.
Thinking this could be a great opportunity to learn more about the island’s secrets, and keep Sonic and Tails out of his mustache hair for a bit, Robotnik quickly comes up with a lie. That he’s a kind scientist who built the Death Egg to stop those two from misusing the Chaos Emeralds, but failed and almost lost his life to them.
Having not interacted with anyone in a long time, and being quite gullible, Knuckles believes Robotnik’s lies, and decides to help him stop Sonic and Tails, while also providing some resources to fix the Death Egg, and sharing a few of the island’s secrets. However, the Echidna makes it clear that he wants the doctor and his space station to leave once this ordeal is over, and to never come back.
Meanwhile, sometime after the tsunami, Sonic finds a strange stone ring drifting along the shore of a beach he was relaxing at, which had ancient text about the legend of Angel Island and it’s people. Curious, he brings it up to Tails, who has picked up a strong Chaos Emerald signal on his jewel radar.
Interested in learning what’s going on, Sonic and Tails set off on the Tornado towards Angel Island, with the Chaos Emeralds still in their possession. But once they step foot on the continent, Knuckles comes in and cheap-shots the hedgehog and fox, before taking the gemstones, warning them to get off his island, and leaves.
Surprised and angry at how this Echidna just stole the emeralds from them, Sonic and Tails explore a few regions of Angel Island, while running into Robotnik and Knuckles a few times along the way. And soon enough, the two heroes arrive at the Launch Base, where the nearly rebuilt Death Egg takes off.
Sonic manages to reach a platform attached to the bottom of the orbital space station, where he faces Robotnik in two different machines. During the battle, the many structures supporting the Death Egg start to break down from the damage, and once Sonic wins, the space station starts to fall back down onto Angel Island, with Robotnik fleeing.
After this, Sonic and Tails land in Mushroom Valley, and the Death Egg lands face-first into the island’s volcano. So, with their quest remaining unfinished, the two heroes continue to travel across the different regions of Angel Island, and continue to clash with Robotnik and Knuckles throughout.
Eventually, the heroic duo arrive at the Hidden Palace within the volcano, where the Death Egg is. However, Knuckles shows up again, and engages Sonic in a one-on-one fight, where the two prove to be evenly matched. But before either side can prove victorious, they’re interrupted by Robotnik stealing a massive green gemstone. The Master Emerald, which keeps the island in the sky, and possesses more power than the 7 Chaos Emeralds.
Angered at being tricked, and seeing the massive gemstone getting stolen, Knuckles attempts to stop Robotnik from taking it. Only to get electrocuted, and unable to fight at peak efficiency. Now realizing his mistake, and desperate for their help, the Echidna hands the Chaos Emeralds to Sonic and Tails, and leads them to Sky Sanctuary.
Once they arrive there, the three of them see the Death Egg successfully launching back into space. So, Sonic gives chase, while Tails takes Knuckles back to Angel Island, and gets the Tornado ready. And as the hedgehog traverses the sky-bound ruins, he faces many Egg Robo Badniks, and a new Sonic robot: Mecha Sonic.
This one is much more advanced and powerful, but still doesn’t compare to Metal Sonic 1.0, and after a few fights, Sonic defeats this mechanical imposter, while also successfully getting onboard the Death Egg. Eventually, after traversing through more of the orbital space station than last time, the blue blur faces Robotnik again.
Using a Giant Robotnik Robo powered by the Master Emerald, the doctor takes on Sonic in space, but is unsuccessful in defeating him. But before the hedgehog can take back the massive gemstone, the damage from the battle causes the Death Egg to start exploding, allowing Robotnik to escape with it.
With no way of escape, Sonic isn’t sure what to do. However, he then remembers a mural he saw back in Hidden Palace, showing a blue figure in a golden aura fighting a strange being with a mustache. While not certain about what it means, the blue blur thinks he could use the Chaos Emeralds power to give himself a boost.
So, focusing as hard as he can, and thinking about what’s at risk if he fails, Sonic is able to tap into the true power of the 7 Chaos Emeralds, making him transform into Super Sonic for the first time. Amazed at this power, the now yellow, sparkly blur chases after Robotnik in space, while the Death Egg explodes into a million pieces.
Traversing through an asteroid field in his Final Weapon, with the Master Emerald in his possession, Robotnik is shocked to see Super Sonic coming for him, and angered that this hedgehog just won’t leave him alone. But despite everything he does to stop him, the power of the Chaos Emeralds is too great for the doctor to overcome.
Hence, after destroying Robotnik’s machine and sending him down to the planet below, Super Sonic takes the Master Emerald back to Angel Island, where he meets up with Knuckles and Tails, who are amazed to see this power. Once he lands, the hedgehog returns to normal and the Chaos Emeralds scatter, leaving him a little worn out, but mostly fine.
Having gotten the Master Emerald back, Knuckles thanks Sonic and Tails for their help, and the three of them say their farewells for now. So, as the Echidna places the massive gemstone back into it’s altar in Hidden Palace, raising Angel Island into the sky once more, the hedgehog and fox take off on the Tornado, happy to have saved the day once again…
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Unseen Adventures (Part 2)
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