I live in a town with generally great coverage, including 5G and 5GUW (mid band).
However, there’s a large portion of town with excellent reception, but no data connection. Calls work fine, data not at all. It seems to have started some time around the 5G cutover a couple of years back. Sometimes it will come back, but then stop working altogether again a few days later. It’s been out completely the last two weeks. Many people in town have complained to Verizon, and they won’t do anything. There’s clearly something very wrong at this specific cell site if everyone’s phone won’t work anymore.
Is there any way to submit a network trouble ticket directly? I can’t seem to get tech support to do anything at all, and they seem absolutely clueless: “you should have great coverage there! 🤔”
What can we do?

Hello! I have a few questions.

1. I just want to ask if I can send my SSS number slip to my employer? I don’t have an E-1 Form as I have only applied online.

For context, It is my first job as a fresh graduate. I have also received an email from SSS containing this: “We are pleased to inform you that your uploaded documents have been processed and approved. Your SS Number has been tagged with "Application thru SSS Web/Mobile App - with approved supporting documents".”
I can’t register through the SSS member portal as I have no date of coverage yet.

1. As a newly hired employee without a Philhealth number yet, Will I only send my accomplished PMRF to the HR?

Thank you for answering in advance!

Hi all! I am travelling from Toronto to Vancouver because I am relocating for work. My gf would like to come with me on the trip. However she works from home and would need cell service for internet. How is the cell coverage along the interstate and is there any spotty areas/ deadzones? I am planning on getting a prepaid T-Mobile simcard for her. I plan on leaving on the evening of the 10th and arriving around the 14th the latest. Thanks!

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I have been playing winger these days but now I feel I could be a better centre attacking midfielder. I am playing for the B team where the ball isn’t really going up very much despite me playing winger so I don’t really get much opportunities nor get fed very much. In my past I was also a very good CAM who made good through balls to my teammates. At the same time I want to have a spot in the A team as well but they are oversupplied on forwards - thus I’m thinking of switching to midfield where they have less supply so I have more of an opportunity to be called up. So can you help me pick a position ?
Here are my pros and cons.
Pros:

1. VERY good at 1 v 1’s. Great technical ability. During 5-aside/small sided games in training I have been able to weave through the opposing A team easily. I do feints, cuts and step overs really well. Also very agile and can dribble/get out of tight spaces. Hence I thought winger was best for me, however truthfully in 11 vs 11 matches I’ve noticed that I quite literally never had any opportunities to use my dribbling skills in these 1 v 1’s as 90% of the time I am just passing and receiving and hold the ball for 60-90 seconds the entire match. As well as this the ball doesn’t really go up much in the B team.
   
2. I’ve also been good at pressuring defenders, and coaches in the A team like this about me. I’m good at making defenders nervous due to my high energy despite being small. Thus I can tackle the ball or jockey very well. I’ve been called up to be a striker in the A team simply because when the defender received the ball from a goal kick I could pressure them so well that they fumble and sometimes can take the ball of them.
   
3. Amazing Passing and vision. When I was younger like 14, and played attacking midfielder I was known for having amazing vision and making dangerous through passes constantly to the wingers and strikers that created many opportunities. I was a good playmaker, however this was way back in the day when I was in youth league and since then the competition has become much harder. I noticed I am still doing this to some extent even as a winger.
   
4. First touch relatively better than most of my teammates.
   
5. My playing style is more mobile where I am small, high energy and move around a lot rather than being stable in a certain place like a holding midfielder.
   

Cons:

1. Short and small. I’m quite short, small and fragile compared to my teammates so I can easily be knocked over. It usually also means in corners I won’t be the best at headers as I can’t jump as high. I’ve never scored off a header in my life, and in corners I already know I'm not gonna score off a header.
   
2. Relatively fast but not that fast in terms of a sudden burst of speed. I’m relatively fast but not super fast. There are quite a few people in my team who are much faster than me. Some of my teammates have an amazing burst of speed when the time calls for it - like if ball gets booted upwards I am not the fastest one out of the forwards to reach the penalty box.
   
3. Not as fit/lack of stamina. I decided to take a year off from soccer master and the year before that there was Covid so this is my first time playing high level football in 1.5 years lol. My fitness has improved significantly since the beginning of the year but I still think I can improve a bit more in terms of stamina but I've reached a point where I meet the standards of the game.
   
4. Alright at finishing. I am also decent at shooting and finishing crosses however I wouldn't say it's my best asset - I think I was better when I was the one making the cross or make the through pass. Looking back at my past I never really score much in games even when I was in attacking positions like attacking midfielder in the past. I'd average like 1 goal per season in the past as attacking midfielder.
   

So which position should I play - winger or attacking midfielder?

The Defense Mechanisms Episode, Part I

So, the way that the Defense Mechanism are often presented rather exemplifies one of the things that often annoy me about enneagram literature, which is that you often just get shown a table or list of traits listed under each type without any real definition of what it is, elaboration on how it’s meant, or an explanation of the how and why or how it’s connected to everything else.
Maybe it’s a Ti vs Te thing?
In any case, just having a term thrown at you isn’t really helpful unless your goal is to win an argument by accusing the other person of doing it. Being able to recite what term goes with what number only gets you so far.
I would figure that the goal is to eventually be able to spot those mechanisms operating in yourself for greater self-awareness and whatnot, and for that I’d reckon that one needs a substantial, tangible idea of what’s meant by it so you can begin to connect and map your intellectual understanding of the process to your actual lived experience of your thoughts and emotions.
It’s one thing to read a description of a rose and another to see/smell/hear what goes with the words, and yet another to have the linkage of the two, spot the theoretical symmetries there should be in the petals in the actual flower and know what it means and how it connects to its history and makeup.
IDK, but as they say: If you’re complaining you’re just part of the problems and: If it doesn’t exist yet, you have to create it yourself.
So, you might be familiar with those listings of one defense mechanism per type, and have heard that it goes back to Naranjo – once in a while you could come across an author that has one of the swapped out or a longer, also unelaborated list.
In truth Naranjo didn’t actually assign a 1:1 correspondence but discussed multiple ones for each type (though they are often ultimately related in nature), and of course in the exty years since his day, numerous other authors have had a go at it & had arguments about it & whatnot (Lukovich, Condon, Rohr etc.) but often its just psychobabble words being thrown around and looks to an outsider like a theological argument of a religion they don’t believe in.
So, uh, let’s start with the basics.
What is a (Psychological) Defense Mechanism?
The basic idea goes back to Freud, who probably came up with it by observation, just from noticing seeming distortions or knots in the thinking of his clients.
In life, we can’t always get what we want, and we are sometimes confronted with facts that we don’t like.
What does a toddler do in such cases? They throw a tantrum.
Why do they throw a tantrum? Because they are experiencing distress. They want the thing and they can’t have it, or, they’re upset about what they’ve been told. They don’t like it. It’s experienced as aversive and dysphoric. Do Not Want.
Why is an adult different?
Because an adult has a more mature ego, a pattern according to which to filter, sort, interpret & deal with their experience, to reconcile both their animal drives and social expectations/ideals with a reality that sometimes won’t give them that and hence triggers distress.
You can’t cry, kick and scream every time you don’t get what you want – it doesn’t help you get it, and it will probably get you scolded.
Having a way to make sense of or cushion the negative experience, to mitigate the distress, is crucial to being able to cope with adversity, mitigate distress, regulate the self and act in some self-directed goal-oriented manner as an emergent independent entity rather than just reacting to whatever stimulus comes along.
This is why defense mechanisms are a part of the ego (means of self-organization) and characteristic of which ‘flavor’ of ego you have: They are a part of the mechanism of how it is maintained, how you don’t mechanically do or accept whatever someone else tells you but have some mechanism for rejecting some suggestions, ideas and criticisms but act as an independent entity with consistent behavior.
So one takeaway here is that using a defense mechanism doesn’t immediately mean you’re in denial about or refusing to face something or “refusing reality” – what is reality even, or ‘right and wrong’? How would you know it when you see it? ‘Self deception’? Based on which “truth”?
Some things are relatively clear like the earth being round but many don’t have a correct answer like which opinion is correct on some complex argument.
Resisting something doesn’t mean that it’s secretly true and you’re just in denial. If I go to you & say ‘youre a fucking idiot’ you are not going to like that regardless of your actual idiocy because it’s a hostile action & humans are wired to dislike this. It’s an attack on your feelings & self-image.
Even if you shrug it off totally, that is because some process happened to dismiss it & protect you from feeling pain.
A small child would be hurt if you’re randomly mean to them; You, an adult, can dismiss it because you have defenses. They are a part of self-control – particularly when you consider that they don’t just ”defend” against outside imput but also unwanted thoughts & feelings from within.
Maybe you want to throw a tantrum and hit me if I say youre an idiot & point & laugh at you, but, punching me might bring consequences you don’t want, or it doesn’t fit your self-image.
So you must diffuse this urge to punch somehow, or else Mommy is gonna punish you for being mean to your siblings.
Another, third function that defense mechanisms can serve (besides defending against unpleasant input and controlling yourself) is to justify yourself to others. If your tell your mom you should get the toy instead of your sibling because you want to she probably won’t accept it. So you need to come up with a reason. Your parents are already using rteasons to tell you why you should do what they tell you to do, so eventually the child copies them, taking in those justifications and beginning to form their own superego.
You might internalize that fairness is important so when your sister had her turn with the toy you will insist that its now your turn, because of fairness.
Again it’s important not to look at this as deliberate trickery or “secret true intentions”, but rather the nuts & bolts of the machinery that produce your very real, very sincere subjective experience.
In the “fairness” example with the toy, the child isn’t deliberately using fairness as a pretext to get the toy, they really believe in fairness. (though claiming to believe in fairness when you dont and justifying this to yourself might be another, different strategy)
But let's assume the genuine belief for now: The black box machine of the ego takes ‘wanting the toy’ and ‘social belief in fairness’ as imputs and produces the subjective experience of believing in / arguing about fairness.
Causes (when you look at a person like a complex machine of biology) are different from intentions. (the personal experience of feelings & wants)
You evolved to crave sweet food because it is full of energy, but you don’t think “Oh, sugary food, gotta get that energy!” you eat it cause its tasty & makes you feel good.
You explicitly aren’t consciously calculating about the energy, or you would stop wanting sweets when you consumed enough calories for the day.
Under the hood in your body there is a regulatory network going on, signals between your brain & liver etc. but that’s a blind process with no conscious will ‘keeping track’.
Thinking of subconscious mechanisms as ‘secret intentions’ is not only incorrect, it lacks validity as, if its by definition a secret intention from yourself, anyone could claim that you ‘secretly want’ anything as long as they could come up with a semi plausible ‘just so story’ for your behavior.
It also leads to a startling lack of empathy or invalidation of ppl’s subjective struggles & suffering of the ‘the wife totally wants to be beaten’ variety.
So it’s better to think of it as consistent patterns of emotions and reactions that have a cause in the “machinery” of your mind. Your conscious experience is what’s on the desktop & the defense mechanisms are like the guts of the computer.
However, while keeping in mind not to see it as an invalidation of your subjective experience, it is of great usefulness to know how the machine works under the hood, however, because what your ego & its defense mechanisms certainly are doing is dismissing or filtering out unwelcome information and possibly suppressing, deprioritizing or distinctly coloring aspects of inner or outer reality -
and this goes doubly if you don’t realize they are operating and don’t even know that you rejected an idea.
It creates “unknown unknowns”, things you don’t know you filtered out. For example someone might argue based on ‘fairness’ but be unaware how their own wants might be influencing them.
Also, the interpretation of the world that your ego is creating may be more or less sustainable, more or less congruent.
For example, if you believe that you are totally fine & okay after the death of a loved one but are constantly confronted with things that remind you of them, which triggers an emotion of grief, you have to expend energy to filter out the grief, trying hard not to think of it is still focussing it & might still ‘reinforce it’ so it doesn’t lead to the desired outcome.
The incongruence you experience between ‘Im ok’ and the experience of grief is going to cause more distress in the long-term than it averts.
Or you might believe you’re always right & never wrong, but then what do you do if stuff explodes in your face or people do not validate that self-image? You can rationalize it away but you have to expend energy to do it, and you won’t really get what you want if that involved the other people liking you.
In both cases, you move closer to being like the toddler rather than the 'mature adult' in the first example (less able to deal with distress, get what you want & so on), though it might be due to too much or too rigid interpretation of what you see rather than its absence this time. Either way an overly rigid, low congruence ego doesn't do its job very well.
So I hope that by now it’s clear that it’s a bit nonsensical when you see ppl try and type themselves by saying which defense mechanism they “relate to”, as there is a very good chance they don’t know it’s happening. It’s rather part of what you want to learn from finding your type so you know what to look for.
Some people might know already – if they’re very introspective, previously did work in therapy, had others point it out, learned from bitter experience etc.
This information is observable, how else would the people who came up with it have figured it out?
But as Dunning Krüger is a thing, it’s very dangerous to start out assuming right out the gate that you’re in the more enlightened 20%. You might be, its totally possible, but don’t bet on it.
Find your type by other means and then you’ll see how much of it you were already aware of or not.
After all, even if you are very aware of your inner processes themselves, you could be wrong about what psychobabble word it best maps to.
The Role Of The Primary Defense Mechanisms
Another thing to realize is the difference between any ol’ defense mechanism or psychological process, and the ones that have a special role in maintaining your ego.
We all use lots & lots of them cause our brains are roughly similar. Even for the most unique person it’s a pink fatty jelly thing with lotsa wrinkles, right?
6s aren’t the only ones who project things, that is, explain other’s actions through disowned thoughts & motivations that we have labelled as not-self. Condon talks a lot about how for many types it’s related to the lines of connection. (which are, after all, qualities & parts of the human experience that can be blocked or labelled not-self)
4s aren’t the only ones who introject things – 6s for example tend to have strong mental impressions of powerful figures in their life.
3s aren’t the only ones that identify with things or try to keep congruency with a desirable self-image.
But it has a special role for them.
Take projection.
Most people can be liable to projection when they’re wondering about the intentions or motives of someone they don’t understand. It baffles you, & you want an explanation, and in trying to come up with one you more easily think of explanations that, in some way, seem “natural” to you.
Now what’s so special about 6? They are very concerned with people’s intentions.
It’s one of the main features of their attention pattern: What are they thinking?
You can tell a song was probably written by a 6 (or someone with a strong 6 component) if they’re telling the love interest what they are probably thinking. Or the authority figure or ex they’re mad at.
Are they gonna take advantage of you? Are they going to abandon you? Very salient information if you wish to be prepared for whatever might happen.
So it’s rather easy for projection to sneak in if you’re thinking about other people’s intentions all the time. Tempting, too, since it ‘defends’ you both from the chaos/uncertainty of not knowing what the person can do, and by relieving the distress of self-doubt. (“I’m not aggro, they’re aggro!”)
And hey, sometimes it actually works! They are a human just like you, so they might well have inner mechanics similar to yours! But not always.
So it makes a difference is you know what you’re doing. Without self-awareness you might take that perception as fact: This is definitely totally 100% their motivation. They can’t fool you!
Or you might be aware that it’s a perception: “This might be their motivation, or maybe I am thinking it for a reason that comes from me. Let’s look closer & see which one it is.”
The “Obvious Temptation”
In the literature you often see the types explained in 2 ways, one beginning from the weakness or deficiency – that you start with your fear & then compensate with your desire to make up for it, framing all as being just illusory cope for our wretchedness etc. whereas others (incidentally, often frustration types) start from the inspiring vision of the ‘essential aspect’ and so on & how you lose you way chasing after that ideal.
But in the end it’s sort of a chicken & egg situation because whether you start from coping for weakness or the corruption of a strength, there is going to be a self-sustaining loop.
Because, if you ever find yourself strapped for copium you are likely going to end up going for a method that is easy for you to do, leaning on what strengths you have (not a strength as in anything exceptional, but just the best one you have)
Conversely, if you start relying on a skill for psychological “survival” that’s one heck of a motivation to practice.
So did our baby 7 get good at seeing silver linings or talking their way out of tricky situations as a way to soften the blow on harsh situations, or are they more tempted to explain away their problems because they are so good at seeing multiple options or talking their way out of difficult situations?
Is there even a hard objective distinction between a genuine silver lining and a fake one?
There are probably similar emotions involved, its the same basic mechanism – it’s all the same strategy that sometimes works & sometimes doesn’t, uncomfortable as it may be that ppl we find admirable and ppl that we really really disapprove of may actually be functioning on fairly similar basic premises.
This isn’t to say that the existence of a grey zone is an excuse not to be honest with oneself when you know in your heart the primary motivation behind what you’re currently doing is to make the ouch go away, but rather to illustrate that it isn’t always obvious.
It’s not so simple as to say “ah, those 2s don’t actually care about helping ppl it’s all just an evil trick”, “Those 1s don’t actually care about justice its all hypocrisy” or indeed “those 5s don’t actually care about understanding the world its just for cope”. In a way, it would be easier if that was that case cause then it’s all black & white.
I don’t think it’s all just cope, if only because doing those things actually does simply feel intrinsically satisfying.
The types are also programs of ‘this feels rewarding, this makes me feel good about myself, this other thing makes me feel not so good’ which also comes down to survival reasons at the causal level but as we said before, causes and subjective intentions are different.
I would still want all the nerd facts even if I had zero problems or insecurities whatsoever to “defend from”, if not for any noble high-minded talk of values then simply because reading & theorizing is fun and other things aren’t.
But the temptation is naturally there, that, if I’m going to be preoccupied with or analyzing stuff anyways, that it might serve as a nifty convenient excuse to be conveniently preoccupied, focussed on something else or have a “buffer” of mental distancing going on when I feel like avoiding a challenging situation.
I’m not tempted to use the flavor of cope that a 2 or 9 might not because I’m too good & pure & wholesome for it but simply cause I lack the necessary skills and/or temperament to get away with it. Anticipate what they need & what their feelings are? How? Just don’t think about it too much and enjoy this ice cream? Easier said than done. Look on the bright side? Ah, but every silver lining is but evidence of a dark cloud.
And analogous for the other types.
Confused Intuitions
Which brings us to another great reason why learning to spot your defense mechanisms at work is really useful. It’s a way to “clean your lens”.
Remember when they thought there were canals on Mars because the astronomer had actually seen the shadows of the blood vessels in his own eyeball?
That’s what happens if you can’t separate what comes from you & what comes from someone else.
Note that the issue is not that the blood vessels exist, but that the guy thought that they are on Mars.
Seeing the blood vessels could have been a worthwhile observation in & of itself – they are not simply in the way, they are info about the human eye.
The human eye isn’t “bad” but if we don’t account for it being there, we won’t get an accurate picture of Mars.
In the end there is no way to completely do away with subjectivity because any perception involves interpreting and labelling. But if you look around you there are obviously people who are more discerning than others and being in that category sure sounds like the preferable, more dignified option.
Your go-to defense mechanisms are potentially interfering with your greatest strength, the most practiced parts of your discerment that you tend to trust. So they lead you to be wrong in an area that matters to you & get in the way of you using your intuition/strength to its greatest effect because there’s all this icky bias gunk on your “lens”.
Or well, it presently acts as icky bias gunk but it could instead be valuable insight about yourself, important information that could help you make well-informed decisions that feel congruent and make you happy.
For example, say you’re a 2. You’re pretty confident in & proud of your ability to know others’ feelings & what will make them happy. It’s important to you. But what if some repressed desire or fear of yours is interfering with what, and rather than really seeing ‘whats best for them’ you’re seeing what you want to be best for them so that they will need you.
If you act like it’s the person’s real need, the worst case is that they could end up thinking you’re a self-absorbed narc who doesn’t care about their feelings. Not what you want at all, right? Whereas if you learn to realize when it’s your own repressed desire at work you not only get a better understanding of other’s feelings that isn’t clouded by bias, you also learn what your desire is. You can now do something with that information. There is probably a better way to grant the desire than to tell them what you want their feelings to be.
Of course, the elephant in the room, and the reason why people don’t just do it if it’s so great, is that the reason you yeeted that desire out of consciousness to begin with is that it once provoked distress and/or felt incongruent with your conscious self.
In the above example with the 2, the person might be afraid that it’s ‘bad’ or ‘selfish’, or that it will expose them to being powerless (cause the request to have the desire granted might be denied)
There was some pain, threat or incongruence involved that now hangs as an ‘or else’ over the prospect of admitting that fact into consciousness.
You might be afraid that, if you admit the feeling or desire, it will mean something about yourself, or that it means you’ll have to act on it and do something that is contrary to what you consciously want or aspire to (maybe that one fear’s a competency triad thing?)
But actually that’s not true! Acknowledging it doesn’t mean you have to change how you think about it, that you have to act based on it, or that you’re “bad”, it’s just a feeling.
You can acknowledge it & be aware of it without doing something.
You might decide to do something in the light of all the information (for example, maybe you can think of a way to grant a desire without compromising your values?), but before you eve consider that, let it sink in that no one’s gonna make you.
Indeed, just acknowledging the feeling, letting it be heard, may lead it to resolve & dissipate.
Although, if this leads you to realize that there is something that’s repeatedly touching you off and causing the distressing emotion to reappear, you might want to feature that in into calculations as to which courses of actions are realistically sustainable or conducive to happiness.
Even if you choose that your feelings don’t matter on this account you’ll at least make an informed decision & not be blindsided by it. And maybe there’s some comfort/outlet you can find.
It’s against my principles to ring the bell for humiliation o’clock without going first, so I’ll confess that there’s times that I probed & introspected & felt into something & like Did Techniques (thanks to the person who recommended that Gedlin Focussing thing), and the result I got is that… [tw: barf cringe blegh] sometimes… somewhere… there’s a teeny tiny part of me… that kinda sorta wants to cry and whine and get held & comforted and have somebody come in and sweep aaall those pressing, overwhelming problems away & take care of it for me.
Consciously I don’t want this – at all.
It’s not in the least compatible with my values, will & life-plans.
If ppl ask me if they can help with it I tell them no.
I would vehemently reject it, protest against it, even fear it.
Even fear it to an irrational degree. Which is silly & distressing on its own, but it’s a silly distress that I apparently allow into consciousness no problem because it’s not a threat.
Because it’s quite congruent with my belief/understanding that the problem in question isn’t something anyone can help me with. It’s up to me and I’ve arranged it so that it’s up to me because I’d rather it’s up to me than any of the alternatives.
But ‘snot like my inner mammal gets that. It doesn’t understand the logical reasons – of course not, its like a tiny mammal. Might as well imagine one of those tiny Lemurs with big googly eyes 🥺
It’s pre-verbal. That’s probably the no-bullshit way to say it. Monke no speak English.
Also, is the sky gonna fall if I go hug a plushie, or a family member? Or if I maybe casually mention this to a living soul?
Nope.
I have this option available, right? That’s something to be grateful for, not everyone has those.
It is gonna solve the problem? The one that I’ve intellectually ruled unsolvable? No.
But it might just solve the feeling, cause my inner mammal is really quite dumb & doesn’t understand the intellectual complexities of the problem anyway… It just feels houded, right? But you know what it does understand?
Hugs.
Also, none of yall know where I live so its not like you can come after me. xDDD
Sooo… in the interest of self-awareness and self-transparency, it might be worth asking yourself...
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1. Is this really the best way to do this, or is it a justification for doing it your way?
2. Is that the other person’s feeling, or is it your desire?
3. Is this what you really feel, or what you think a smart/sucessful/dominant/[insert desirable trait] person would feel in your place?
4. Is that a deep insight about your life, or does what just happened actually have nothing to do with you personally?
5. Do you really not want or care about this thing, or are you scared of what might happen if you did? Is it really settled what is going to happen, or are you avoiding action?
6. Is that really the other person’s intention, or is it your fear of what their intention could be?
7. Is that a real solution, or are you explaining the problem away?
8. Does it really not hurt, or are you blocking out the pain?
9. Are you really fine & content with things as they are, or are you giving up?

Sometimes the answer will, in fact, be the first half!
Don’t fall for masochistic ontology. The truth may hurt but not everything that would hurt if it were true is the truth.
Constantly assuming the worst of yourself isn’t gonna help either. Indeed that’s probably some kinda misfiring defense itself, punish yourself first before others have the chance to keep a sense of control, maybe?
Rather, when you catch yourself doing the thing, use your defense powers for good & frame it in a way you can live with. Like you might see it as feedback or information, as a sign to know to improve yourself, as an invitation to apply self-compassion.
Maybe it helps to think of it as an ‘inner child’ or ‘inner animal’ or some such concept.
Would you be mad at a child or a pet for wanting something silly, or avoiding something painful?
No, you’d direct them towards a healthier outlet wouldn’t you?
Or at least, if it’s really not feasible, you’d comfort them about it.
So yeah.
(So the ‘preliminal explanations’ turned into an essay. But, I did promise “what the individual mechanisms actually mean”, “how to actually spot them” and “putting together the Best Of from the authors”, and that I plan to deliver in Part II without any further ramblings. But first I have to ‘recharge my imagination battery’, as a wise sponge once put it, that is, get some sleep.)

Timeline and Zeldian Metaphysics (Totk Zelda is/becomes SS Hylia?)

“What’s happened happened.”
The big question is the placement of TOTK memories, which may exists pre SS, Post SS/Pre OOT, or post OOT. Here are the contradictory facts:
SS sealed temple seems to have fall onto existing Zonai ruins (suggests pre-SS).
The Zonai ToT appears in same place as Oot ToT (This is the big one, suggests Pre-Oot).
However, Hylia statue appears in Zonai ToT, (suggests post-SS, post OOT)
Solutions:
Zonai built from underneath and behind the fallen sealed temple.
Hylia Statue placed in Zonai ToT post-Rauru
Other Problems:
The Cloud barrieFirmament appears intact and above the Sky ruins, so the sacred realm is sealed, the triforce and hylia are also mysteriously absent. There is also a Dark World, which other games have suggested is a corrupted sacred realm (meaning you could only have one or the other, ToTK has both, setting up a traditional dantean hereunto-for-unseen physical heaven-earth-“hell”model of Zelda’s universe, before heaven =/≠ hell conditional on heart of beholder, now hell in/under heaven out/over earth between).
If Zonai = SS ancient robots/Twili (generally, Angelic precursor races) and Skyloft was created when the Zonai ruins were first raised then….. actually I’d be very happy with this and wish this was the case. It also resolves the following problem:
Zelda/Hylias Light aspect of their synonymous “Light/Time” power seems to have been lost in the past at some point - reappearing with Rauru and the Zonai. Sonia, called a hyrulean not hylian, does not seem to be an incarnation of Hylia like Zelda. Even if the memories occur at the end of the fallen timeline, this fact effectively retcons Zelda’(and the hylian races) origins as a mortal god incarnate (chosen people, Jesus), to that of demigods (god by virtue vs god by blood, before Hylia “chose/happened/was” to incarnate specifically as Zelda Princess of Hyrule :: “Zelda as a reappearing symbol (incarnation) of hylia. Now, Zelda Princess of Hyrule is a literal angel/human hybrid, “Hylia” “light/time” power is manifested through genetics (time=mortality=Hyruleans, light=“godhood”=zonai) and then she becomes a literal god by becoming eating a secret stone (angelic artifact triforce stand-in) and becoming the immortal Light dragon.
Does BOTW take place before or after ToTK, meaning are BOTWs circumstances/events the cause of ToTK? Or an effect? I lean towards cause - we see the real origin of the time loop. Meaning that the light dragon was not present in Botw until totk, Rauru alludes to the presence of a timeline before Zelda’s warning from the future, which is BOTWs timeline. Zelda’s warning also didn’t change the events of the past (this can both alternatively suggest that past events are immutable or that the past (Zelda’s warning) already happened - so this can be for or against my position).
There are others like the Rito/Zora but personally I can chalk this up to developer aesthetic preferences, but I am similarly dissatisfied by this answer so I can understand resistance to just ignoring the fact. But they wanted to have the Rito and Zora in one game, so what? Saw someone write that these are “river” not “ocean” Zora - more than enough to satisfy me.
Conclusions:
1: Post SS, Post OOT Rauru. If Raurus Kingdom is merely an iteration of Hyrule, then we must accept that the Zelda/hylia(n) line is somehow broken post-SS (alchemically separated) resulting in Sonia /“Hyruleans”, which are then combined with Zonai to RECREATE the Hylians (weird)- without a causal explanation. It seems very out of left field. Zelda has always equaled Hylia, why the elemental separation? now Zelda = Sonia(Mortal/Time) + Rauru (Angel/Light). Archeology also makes less sense in this timeline as well, Zonai ToT is built over Oot and then raised to the sky(revealing OOT ToT for BoTW), map structure is built behind existing SS sealed temple.
2: Pre-SS Rauru If Raurus Kingdom is the original then Hyruleans worship the triforce pre-Hylia, despite this the triforce is not used to seal Ganon - not a huge leap considering elemental stones and sacred tears have often been used as stand-ins for a “broken,separated” triforce. This timeline is also more consistent with the archeology, If this were true, I’d propose:
The Ancient Zonai Kings (BoaOwl/Dragon) descend from above the cloud barrier. The ancient Hyruleans learn about the Golden Goddesses and the Triforce from them the Zonai are seen as God-like and worshipped.
The Zonai develop the depths using the secret stones and nausicaa inspired lightroot technology. The primordial Light aspect of the (later) Hylia God Time/Light Power is capable of generating life (lightroot activation animation) and sealing the darkness (said in memories). Secret Stones amplify their users abilities, Zonai Abilities Include Light, Spirit, and 3 others I will discuss next. (But the point is that the same 7 stones don’t have to be the same 7 elements, and that the elements are likely racially bound (zora=water etc) hence “secret” stone”).
The Ancient Zonai Kings undergo draconification using 3 unseen secret stones (Zelda’s secret stone mysteriously appears in her hand when she travels to the past so I’m allowing this), and become Farosh, Naryu, and Dinraal (king stones are regional/geopolitical/socius(Forest/Earth/(“Sky”(its blue)Ocean)≠elemental(Fire/Wind/WateLightning)≠Universal (Spirit/Light/Time) - Draconification is forbidden/Zonai begin to die out.
Time passes and a Hyrulean woman - Sonia - awakens with a secret stone (1/7 original in mural), and an inborn ability to reverse entropy. She weds the Zonai Rauru King of Light, whose sister is Mineru the Sage of Spirit - and together are the last of the Zonai.
The events we see in the memories of TOTK occur without Zelda’s intervention:
Rauru and the sages fail to seal Ganondorf (only possible with Zelda), and Hylia intervenes directly, leading skyward sword and so forth until BOTW at the beginning of a converged fallen timeline.
Totk Zelda travels back in time, Totk memories occur proper. Totk Zelda undergoes alchemical transformation into rebus (next post) and becomes Hylia/Light Dragon. Timeline occurs again. The closed loop encompasses whole timeline and not just Botw/totk.
Assumptions here are that Rauru (without Zelda intervention) fails completely to stop or seal Ganon Pre SS, Hylia intervenes as “Hylia,” and SS events magically fit into place after.
Totk Zelda retroactively intervenes as Zelda, who is interpreted as Hylia by SS Zelda when she receives “Hylias” memories
Hylias memories ("omnipresence" is the result) are the memories of the light dragon across time from the future delivered to the past from future by Zelda who is/becomes Hylia.
Hylia is the First/Last Zelda, TotK is the story of the birth of Hylia. The dragon symbol isnt an ouroborous, its two dragons cycling each other (zelda forward through time (all zeldas) and zelda backwards through time(ie light dragon feedback loop via witnessing history) . Time is not a flat circle, its a upwards spiral (reference the scene where rauru seals ganon and any shrine - this is how time works, Raurus arm = light root, depths = ganon). (cue that fckn sax and link jumping off a cliff to zelda saying he wont).
"I am the first and the last, and apart from me there is no God."

Multi season diamond player here. 1) There’s too much bs going on with 5 characters on each team with small maps 2) Something’s going wrong with matchmaking and the skill discrepancy and sheer number of enemies/characters make it substantially harder to climb. The fact that a diamond player is losing in a bronze lobby is ridiculous. I can only do so much on carry characters vs jabali sindri and iris shitter combo abusers.(on top of having damage to back them up) It doesn’t help if I have multiple clueless or afk pigs on my team. 3) I don’t know if this is something I’m missing but I can’t access my second ultimate ability on certain characters 4) What the hell are these little abilities. Where would you find information on them. Why is everything just so confusing now.

Oh yes, guys and gals, we're back at this! And when I say "this" I mean: Strategy theses and infantry shananigans (if that happens to be how this word is spelled).
Before we jump in, two additional info sources here.

• Longswords counter Knights, but you need to micro them correctly.
• Former thesis where I put down many thoughts about when and how to apply a Longswords-opening in Castle Age.

With the recent buffs to infantry and also a specific meta evolution, I think I figured out a strong way to apply infantry (rather: Longsword) plays.
^{Disclaimer: That stuff is rather supposed to be thought provoking than 100% true and I'll go for some clickbaitish headline now and then to get the discussion rolling. So, feel free to give your opinion and don't be too angry about me. Also I want to add that my view will, in some cases, not translate into top-level-meta because the time-windows and their use is tighter up there, but with a current Elo of 17xx, my experience should be somewhat applicable for 99% of the player base.}\***)*
So, here's the deal. First of all: This is mostly a strat for strong infantry-civs against strong cavalry-civs. (I got quite comfortable wins with Teutons against Poles and with Slavs against Persians, both players were as strong as me.)

Skirm-Opening into Supplies

The strat is to go up 19 pop, open Skirms, focus on eco and then transition into Infantry from there. With Skirms, you are safe against Archer plays while you can skip the Mining Camp. You have the economic advantages of a scout opening without similar risks and you "force" your opponent to skip ranges or at least don't produce many Archers.
Then you can pressure a bit with some [email protected] and Skirms in late Feudal - which can be actually terribly effective, because this is hard to fight and kills buildings decently fast.
And you get a fairly quick Castle Age behind that while already massing your Infantry, so that you hit Castle Age with a big numbers advantage over their Knights and hopefully already good momentum, pushing their base with some Skirms and [email protected].
From that point, they have to decide if they still do the Crossbow-switch, in which case you can just double down on Skirm-production. Or they try to beat you with Knights - people still think Knights win against Longswords, which is the opposite of true if you play it correctly.
I am sure this can be beaten, probably by playing defensively with good Siege micro or even tower defense, but it's far from trivial. (If you want, you can check my games here and here.) You can very easily be surprised by a bunch of 10-20 Longswords, opening your wall in a few seconds and raid under your TCs. If you don't full wall and don't happen to scout the [email protected], your Castle Age transition quickly becomes super messy - with the potential for some game-ending damage right away.

Momentum is Key

What I found before in Infantry vs Cavalry matchups is that you might struggle to get the switch done and actually leave your base and pick fights. When your opponent starts attacking first and you're massing your units at home, then it's hard to ever leave your base, because they can merge with re-inforcements so much quicker and tend to fight with better numbers. They can make a Crossbow-addition any time or annoy you with Siege and Raids. So you might lose the game even when you have on paper the winning army.
With this approach, you take momentum before they make units and keep it up. It's really simple to play, you basically just stream units forward and force them to defend. Even when you get cleared up, you usually get a decent trade and you can reproduce easier. When you can dive their eco just for once, you usually create enough chaos to be ahead in production and then it's comfortable to play.
Important here is that you make good walls before Castle Age hits, which can be held against Knights for a bit at least. Then add just 2-3 Monks at home and you are pretty safe against counter-attacks, so that the Knight's mobility advantage is minimized.
What I just realised: A key advantage is probably that you have map-control in late Feudal which means you have time to set up bigger walls and protect enough space to boom behind. If you don't have the control during the Castle Age transition, you quickly end up in your earlier small walls, don't find ways to expand and run out of farming space or can't access your stone for example. Or your additional TCs are raidable.

How to deal with different openings

A nice side-effect is that you are quite flexible with your Feudal development with this opening. If [email protected] come in, you can start with an Archer and maybe go to Gold quicker, so just play the current standard meta. In the same way you can handle Militias.
In the same way, you are flexible to deal with **Archer-**openings and follow-ups. If you get good momentum against an Archer opening, you may add a few ones yourself to get some damage in. More probable, they will just go into Skirms themselves or add Scouts and in both cases your [email protected] follow-up is a perfect answer.
Against Scouts, you just add 2 Spears in the beginning and you're fine. Maybe wall up early, as your build is not too tight anyway. I guess you might get into trouble against Scout-Archer-plays, it's micro dependend. But then again, you probably can just go into Skirm-Archer and have the more cost efficient comp. (By the way: In both games that I linked before, the opponents opened with Scouts and then went quickly Castle Age, which on paper seems like the best response, but it didn't work out for them.)
So, the logic is basically: If you start by producing Skirms, you can very easily make additions to that which gives you a competitive army. With defenders advantage, you should be able to hold at least and when the [email protected] kick in, then you can push back and take it from there.

The Macro advantage

What I enjoy the most about the build is how flexible and easy the macro behind it is. I explained in the earlier post a bit more, how to control the eco to get there. Tl;dr: You make many farms.
That means that the eco balance is quite easy as it's almost just a booming-eco. You don't need much on gold, which also means that you can easily buy a bit of gold if necessary. (And btw: For Slavs, Teutons and Vikings (also Poles) that is the best way to utilize their eco bonus.)
Longswords requiring similar resources as villagers basically makes it super easy to switch into a heavy boom or a military all-in if necessary. If you have the army advantage, you can easily add a 4th, 5th TC and super boom behind. If you lose the army advantage and get under pressure, add a 4th, 5th, 6th Barracks, stall out vil production for a few minutes and quickly get back to 30, 40 Longswords.

Diving TC's can be cost efficient

A nice thing is that running Longswords under TCs can actually be cost efficient. That was a privilege of Knights before but now with Gambesons it's the same for Longswords. They get the same pierce armor and per price even a little bit more HP than Knights.
I did the calculation before and forgot what was the exact finding, but against Knights it's just slightly cost efficient to garisson a TC and only when you have Bodkin Arrow. Iirc, with just Fletching it's roughly 50-50 and without Fletching it's not cost efficient. (-> You lose more res by idling your vils than they lose res by losing their Knights.) If someone can add the exact math in the comments, I'll add that here.
And that's only when you assume that all your shots land and that there is no overkill and when you ignore that garissoning often only idles your farms which unbalances your eco quite heavily.
So, basically, since Gambesons you can just run anywhere in an opponent base, raid under TC, don't worry, just reproduce. (Exception: Taking big fights under TCs that can snowball against you if losing.) That makes it easier to play again.

Is that good on top-level?

Obviously, idk. Would like to see it or hear pro thoughts about how that would be beaten consistently. At least we know how MbL tends to get good value from Skirm-openings, so that generally might be something which people underrate because it's not quite clear what you get from it.
I think there is more potential for that when it comes to non-top-Civs, because then up-times are not as tight, which gives you a bit more time window for the farms-spamming and to get the [email protected] going in Feudal and such. So, tournament games will have this naturally less often as the civs tend to be fast paced archer civs, not too many straight cav-plays, not too many infantry-approaches. (In KotD, you just don't have Slavs vs Persians or Teutons vs Sicilians, but you have Mayans vs Ethiopians or so.)
A hint is maybe that Viper recently speculated of Slavs potentially being A-Tier while Hera put them into D-Tier. In the same video, Viper mentioned that Longswords have a place in early Castle Age which is something that he showed in KotD with Malay against MbL.
Perhaps a typical way to deal with it is just play defensively with Archers, wall up, snipe [email protected] from behind the walls and go Castle Age quickly. The type of fast paced clean defensive play which is usually hard to execute for the majority of the player base.
Some more strategy theses: ^{https://www.reddit.com/aoe2/comments/x9em1j/strategy\}thesis_of_the_week_gurjaras_are)
^{https://www.reddit.com/aoe2/comments/rs4vvl/strategy\}thesis_of_the_year_idling_village)
^{https://www.reddit.com/aoe2/comments/z1ht7i/strategy\}thesis_of_the_week_never_go_feudal/)
^{https://www.reddit.com/aoe2/comments/webbap/strategy\}thesis_of_the_week_bengalis_are_an/)
^{https://www.reddit.com/aoe2/comments/qoo82j/strategy\}thesis_of_the_week_special_how_good_are/)
^{https://www.reddit.com/aoe2/comments/w82ybo/strategy\}thesis_of_the_week_there_are_two/)

Mariners (29-30) @ Padres (28-32)

First Pitch: 6:40 PM at Petco Park

Team	Starter	TV	Radio
Mariners	Logan Gilbert (3-3, 4.08 ERA)	RSNW	KIRO
Padres	Joe Musgrove (3-2, 4.71 ERA)	SDPA	KWFN, XEMO (ES)

MLB	Fangraphs	Baseball Savant	Reddit Stream	Discord
Gameday	Game Graph	Strikezone Map	Live Comments	Discord

Line Score - Bases empty, 2 Outs, Bottom of the 1st

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E	LOB
SEA	0									0	1	0	1
SD										0	0	0	-

Box Score

SD		AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	BA
SS	Kim, Ha	1	0	0	0	0	0	.250
CF	Tatis Jr.	1	0	0	0	0	0	.256
LF	Soto, J	0	0	0	0	0	0	.248
3B	Machado, M	0	0	0	0	0	0	.234
DH	Sánchez	0	0	0	0	0	0	.259
1B	Cronenworth	0	0	0	0	0	0	.202
RF	Dixon	0	0	0	0	0	0	.227
2B	Odor	0	0	0	0	0	0	.207
C	Nola, Au	0	0	0	0	0	0	.131

SD	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	P-S	ERA
Musgrove	1.0	1	0	0	0	0	18-10	4.58

SEA		AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	BA
SS	Crawford, J	1	0	1	0	0	0	.246
CF	Rodríguez, Ju	1	0	0	0	0	0	.241
1B	France, T	1	0	0	0	0	0	.268
LF	Kelenic	1	0	0	0	0	0	.268
RF	Hernández, T	0	0	0	0	0	0	.241
C	Raleigh	0	0	0	0	0	0	.226
3B	Suárez, E	0	0	0	0	0	0	.211
DH	Ford, M	0	0	0	0	0	0	.167
2B	Wong, Ko	0	0	0	0	0	0	.159

SEA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	P-S	ERA
Gilbert, L	0.2	0	0	0	0	0	6-4	4.04

Highlights

Description	Length	Video
Bullpen availability for San Diego, June 6 vs Mariners	0:07	Video
Bullpen availability for Seattle, June 6 vs Padres	0:07	Video
Fielding alignment for Seattle, June 6 vs Padres	0:11	Video
Fielding alignment for San Diego, June 6 vs Mariners	0:11	Video
Starting lineups for Mariners at Padres - June 6, 2023	0:09	Video

Updated at 6:53 PM.
Remember to sort by new to keep up!

I'm amazed by those that can look at a tower and can identify which carrier is which. I'm very tech savvy, but I can't for the life of me, figure out how to identify cell tower equipment and which carrier is on which rack on a tower. Is there a resource or some tips someone can give to help? I'm a Verizon user in Seattle. Thanks!

My first Raiders game in attendance was in Round 25, 2013 against the Warriors. Prior to this, based on the Raiders form at that point I had told my old man that I would just be happy if I got to see Jarrod Croker kick a conversion. What I got was his first ever career hat-trick, granted it had come after SJ and Vatuvei's hat-tricks so we lost 50-16, but his efforts had solidified a one-sided love affair that has taken up too much of my time than I would like to admit for the last 10 years.
One year later I was back seeing my boys in Auckland again and after last year was confident enough to claim that I was 100% going to see a Croker try, and I got a double by the man himself, albeit at the hands of another 50 point thrashing. In 2015 I was unable to go for a reason that alludes me, but I vowed after then to never miss a Raiders game in NZ again. In 2016 I made my old man drive us 5 hours down to New Plymouth so I could keep my promise to myself and was rewarded with another Croker try, putting him equal 3rd on the Raiders try scorer list and my first time ever seeing the Raiders win in person. However it was a season that ended in heartbreak for me as in the Preliminary Final against the Storm, Edrick Lee had forgotten how to play rugby league and Croker had dislocated his kneecap early on in the contest and was unable to kick the 2 conversions from tries that would have seen him become just the 4th player to reach 300 points in a season. 2017? Another Raiders win and another Croker try for my troubles, as well as the birth of the shortlived JarrodCroker subreddit.
2018 was not a good year, I had intensive-ish spinal fusion surgery which greatly limited my mobility for a while however I managed to haul myself out to see the Croker-less Raiders fail to win without the great man. One bright spot of the year was during my depression one of my good friends from on this website infact managed to hold Croker hostage and get him to record a nice little video for me, although my name was in fact not Stewart. However I appreciated the effort enough that I reached out to Croker via social media to thank him at least for the effort, as he had managed to lift my spirits in what were at the time some of my darkest days and got the most heartfelt and soul-warming response that has ever been sent in human history:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/514377190151028757/1111193652291702835/SmartSelect_20230525_192612_Instagram.jpg
What a man.
2019 we got the win in Auckland for Soliola's 300th (Why would you play a 300th away from home?) as we powered our way to the Grand Final which we 100% won regardless of what the result said. stfu. I didn't know it at the time but as of time of writing is the last time the Raiders played in NZ.
As we know 2020 resulted in the games being played in Australia so no-go for me there. In early March 2021 I had my heart broken (not by Croker) which while it fucked me mentally for the rest of the year, I decided I was just going to throw what mental strength I had left back into supporting the boys all out. 2 weeks later a local cinema decided they were going to show the Raiders vs Warriors game live so I hauled myself out of my mental slumber just to see the Raiders throw away a 25-6 halftime lead to lose in the closing moments, and seeing that on a fucking cinema screen just hits you different.
2021 no games again, and Croker had been limited to 12 games due to his long-troublsome knee starting to giving out on him and I was beginning to lose hope of seeing my boy in lights again. Croker got stem-cell surgery later in the year to try and fix his knee in a bid to fend off medical retirement.
2022 resulted in a lone Croker appearance as upon his return from injury he put his body on the line to stop a late Bulldogs try and dislocated his shoulder, while he avoided surgery initally he put his body on the line yet again in a fearsome attempt to grab his TV remote and redislocated his shoulder, resulting in the need for surgery and reigniting fears of a forced medical retirement. My fears of never seeing Croker play again had reached their highest peak, despite him reaffirming he was going to fight on.
This year he fought off calls from Ricky Stuart early on to retire and wanted to prove he was still up to playing NRL. In Round 6 after a Panthers thrashing the group went to Stuart and pleaded for the return of Croker in the team. And return he did. Against the Broncos who were yet to lose a game Croker put in an all-time performance to lead the team to a hard fought and bloodshed 20-16 win and solidified his return to the top grade.
And just a few weeks later the Raiders would head back to Brisbane to face up against the Bulldogs in Magic Round.
And after 3 long hard years of waiting. I was there.
I had reached out to the absolute legends over at a discord server which is far superior to the NRLPremiumPlus one to see what they were gonna be up to, and lo and behold I was very graciously offered a seat with them for the Raiders game as I would have otherwise been by myself for the opening night. When Rapana scored on the opening set I knew we were gonna be in for a good night. But never in my wildest dreams would I imagine that in the 57th minute, for the first time in 6 years, I would see Jarrod Croker run in a try, proceeding to almost lose my voice in the 30 seconds afterwards. Seeing Croker play again, let alone score was something that at times I thought I would never have the oppurtunity to see again and it was the cherry on top of a perfect Magic Round, although it could be argued that the real memories were the friends I made along the way.
Returning home to Auckland, while significantly poorer I had booked a few tickets for the Raiders upcoming return to Auckland in July, hoping that Magic Round would not be the last time I would see Croker play ball but if it was, I think I would have been OK with it. I missed viewing 80% of Crokers 299th game against the Rabbitohs as I was out for the night but saw the boys hold on to the end and saw Sticky in the press conference saying he was going to rest Croker against the Tigers so that he would be able to run out for game 300 infront of a home crowd with his family and friends in attendance, a heart-warming gesture that shows how much Croker means to the club.
Going home I triple-checked my schedule to make sure I had nothing going on so that I could watch Croker's 300th without any distractions and for the first time in a while my weekend was clear. However the next morning I received a message which changed my life.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/514377190151028757/1113995960113188864/image.png
Aw shit.
As you are reading this I will be getting my affairs in order for a flash-trip across the tasman to head to Canberra for the first time in my life to see my heros 300th game in what will hopefully be a sell-out crowd for my first time at GIO Stadium, if you are around come say hi and more importantly if you know anyway of getting me in the same photo frame as Croker please let me know.
It's been a pleasure to hang around here for more than a few years and share my love of Croker with you all through the highs and the lows and I couldn't pick a favourite person who I have had the pleasure of interacting with since you are all amazing. (Except Aces, Aces is my favourite).
Much love and up the milk,
Goob
p.s Here's some Croker highlights Incredible try saver on RTS Moving to 3rd on the all-time points scored leaderboard Flexing his acrobatic abilities Croker's 100th NRL try Scoring the winning try/conversion in his 100th NRL game Winning the game in golden point Croker and Cotrics celebration after reaching the 2019 GF

“What’s happened happened.”
The big question is the placement of TOTK memories, which may exists pre SS, Post SS/Pre OOT, or post OOT. Here are the contradictory facts:
SS sealed temple seems to have fall onto existing Zonai ruins (suggests pre-SS).
The Zonai ToT appears in same place as Oot ToT (This is the big one, suggests Pre-Oot).
However, Hylia statue appears in Zonai ToT, (suggests post-SS, post OOT)
Solutions:
Zonai built from underneath and behind the fallen sealed temple.
Hylia Statue placed in Zonai ToT post-Rauru
Other Problems:
The Cloud barrieFirmament appears intact and above the Sky ruins, so the sacred realm is sealed, the triforce and hylia are also mysteriously absent. There is also a Dark World, which other games have suggested is a corrupted sacred realm (meaning you could only have one or the other, ToTK has both, setting up a traditional dantean hereunto-for-unseen physical heaven-earth-“hell”model of Zelda’s universe, before heaven =/≠ hell conditional on heart of beholder, now hell in/under heaven out/over earth between).
If Zonai = SS ancient robots/Twili (generally, Angelic precursor races) and Skyloft was created when the Zonai ruins were first raised then….. actually I’d be very happy with this and wish this was the case. It also resolves the following problem:
Zelda/Hylias Light aspect of their synonymous “Light/Time” power seems to have been lost in the past at some point - reappearing with Rauru and the Zonai. Sonia, called a hyrulean not hylian, does not seem to be an incarnation of Hylia like Zelda. Even if the memories occur at the end of the fallen timeline, this fact effectively retcons Zelda’(and the hylian races) origins as a mortal god incarnate (chosen people, Jesus), to that of demigods (god by virtue vs god by blood, before Hylia “chose/happened/was” to incarnate specifically as Zelda Princess of Hyrule :: “Zelda as a reappearing symbol (incarnation) of hylia. Now, Zelda Princess of Hyrule is a literal angel/human hybrid, “Hylia” “light/time” power is manifested through genetics (time=mortality=Hyruleans, light=“godhood”=zonai) and then she becomes a literal god by becoming eating a secret stone (angelic artifact triforce stand-in) and becoming the immortal Light dragon.
Does BOTW take place before or after ToTK, meaning are BOTWs circumstances/events the cause of ToTK? Or an effect? I lean towards cause - we see the real origin of the time loop. Meaning that the light dragon was not present in Botw until totk, Rauru alludes to the presence of a timeline before Zelda’s warning from the future, which is BOTWs timeline. Zelda’s warning also didn’t change the events of the past (this can both alternatively suggest that past events are immutable or that the past (Zelda’s warning) already happened - so this can be for or against my position).
There are others like the Rito/Zora but personally I can chalk this up to developer aesthetic preferences, but I am similarly dissatisfied by this answer so I can understand resistance to just ignoring the fact. But they wanted to have the Rito and Zora in one game, so what? Saw someone write that these are “river” not “ocean” Zora - more than enough to satisfy me.
Conclusions:
1: Post SS, Post OOT Rauru. If Raurus Kingdom is merely an iteration of Hyrule, then we must accept that the Zelda/hylia(n) line is somehow broken post-SS (alchemically separated) resulting in Sonia /“Hyruleans”, which are then combined with Zonai to RECREATE the Hylians (weird)- without a causal explanation. It seems very out of left field. Zelda has always equaled Hylia, why the elemental separation? now Zelda = Sonia(Mortal/Time) + Rauru (Angel/Light). Archeology also makes less sense in this timeline as well, Zonai ToT is built over Oot and then raised to the sky(revealing OOT ToT for BoTW), map structure is built behind existing SS sealed temple.
2: Pre-SS Rauru If Raurus Kingdom is the original then Hyruleans worship the triforce pre-Hylia, despite this the triforce is not used to seal Ganon - not a huge leap considering elemental stones and sacred tears have often been used as stand-ins for a “broken,separated” triforce. This timeline is also more consistent with the archeology, If this were true, I’d propose:
The Ancient Zonai Kings (BoaOwl/Dragon) descend from above the cloud barrier. The ancient Hyruleans learn about the Golden Goddesses and the Triforce from them the Zonai are seen as God-like and worshipped.
The Zonai develop the depths using the secret stones and nausicaa inspired lightroot technology. The primordial Light aspect of the (later) Hylia God Time/Light Power is capable of generating life (lightroot activation animation) and sealing the darkness (said in memories). Secret Stones amplify their users abilities, Zonai Abilities Include Light, Spirit, and 3 others I will discuss next. (But the point is that the same 7 stones don’t have to be the same 7 elements, and that the elements are likely racially bound (zora=water etc) hence “secret” stone”).
The Ancient Zonai Kings undergo draconification using 3 unseen secret stones (Zelda’s secret stone mysteriously appears in her hand when she travels to the past so I’m allowing this), and become Farosh, Naryu, and Dinraal (king stones are regional/geopolitical/socius(Forest/Earth/(“Sky”(its blue)Ocean)≠elemental(Fire/Wind/WateLightning)≠Universal (Spirit/Light/Time) - Draconification is forbidden/Zonai begin to die out.
Time passes and a Hyrulean woman - Sonia - awakens with a secret stone (1/7 original in mural), and an inborn ability to reverse entropy. She weds the Zonai Rauru King of Light, whose sister is Mineru the Sage of Spirit - and together are the last of the Zonai.
The events we see in the memories of TOTK occur without Zelda’s intervention:
Rauru and the sages fail to seal Ganondorf (only possible with Zelda), and Hylia intervenes directly, leading skyward sword and so forth until BOTW at the beginning of a converged fallen timeline.
Totk Zelda travels back in time, Totk memories occur proper. Totk Zelda undergoes alchemical transformation into rebus (next post) and becomes Hylia/Light Dragon. Timeline occurs again. The closed loop encompasses whole timeline and not just Botw/totk.
Assumptions here are that Rauru (without Zelda intervention) fails completely to stop or seal Ganon Pre SS, Hylia intervenes as “Hylia,” and SS events magically fit into place after.
Totk Zelda retroactively intervenes as Zelda, who is interpreted as Hylia by SS Zelda when she receives “Hylias” memories
Hylias memories ("omnipresence" is the result) are the memories of the light dragon across time from the future delivered to the past from future by Zelda who is/becomes Hylia.
Hylia is the First/Last Zelda, TotK is the story of the birth of Hylia. The dragon symbol isnt an ouroborous, its two dragons cycling each other (zelda forward through time (all zeldas) and zelda backwards through time(ie light dragon feedback loop via witnessing history). Time is not a flat circle, its a upwards spiral (reference the scene where rauru seals ganon and any shrine - this is how time works, Raurus arm = light root, depths = ganon). (cue that fckn sax and link jumping off a cliff to zelda saying he wont).
"I am the first and the last, and apart from me there is no God."

Trip Report- 13 days Tokyo/Kyoto/Hakone/Nagoya (Ghibli Park) /Hiroshima with a 2 year-old toddler. (plus day-trips to Nara and Osaka)
I love reading other peoples' trip reports and thought it might be useful to share my experiences travelling with my wife and toddler in Japan. We used Shinkasens for most of our travel between cities but did rent a car in the middle so that we could drive to a rural Onsen and then to Shirakawa-Go from Nagoya. (We also briefly rented a car to visit 3 plaaces around Hakone, too).
First of all, traveling with a toddler in japan is great. Our kid loves trains and busses and got tons of attention and shouts of "KAWAI!!" from friendly people everywhere we went. She even got a lullaby sung to her by a Japanese grandmother as she dozed on a city bus in Kyoto. She never had to pay for any bus fares or train fares. (technically she was a "lap baby" on the Shinkansens).
We read a book of etiquette before we went and it was very useful to know. I am sure most of these tips are stickied elsewhere , but things like "don't point with one finger, always grasp cups with both hands, don't wipe your face/mouth with the hand-cloth, don't talk loudly in restaurants or on trains, keep yen bills neat and flat and use the trays provided when paying for things," etc, were good to know before we went. We brought and carried a "point-and-say" translation book but only used it once; generally Google Translate worked great for images of menus and signs. (and many restaurants have English versions of menus, or use digital menus on iPad that can switch to English. ) Google maps handled most of our navigation needs without issues too, both via train and car. We parked the stroller outside most restaurants or folded it and brought it just inside the door if the weather was bad.
Prep work --
The only major prep work we did before leaving was to buy our JR pass and alert our banks to the dates that we would be in Japan so that our credit and debit cards would work. We had no problems getting cash from the ATM machines at 7-11 or at the Airport. We reserved all hotels/AirBnB/Onsen/Car Rentals beforehand. Also bought SkyTree tickets before departing. We stayed up until 4am to get a ticket to Ghibli's Grand Warehouse -- fortunately only one ticket was needed since our child was under 4 and my wife wasn't interested. We rented a mobile hotspot device from Sakura Mobile before leaving America and it was waiting for us at our first hotel in Tokyo. We dropped the hotspot and charger in a mailbox in a pre-paid envelope before leaving Kyoto.
Major tips -- no need to pack lots of snacks or water each day , since vending machines and 7-11 stores and similar are ubiquitous. Do pack paper towels/ Napkins and extra plastic bags for carrying wet diapers and trash, as public trash cans are almost non-existant. (and when they do exist, they are often just for aluminum and PET plastic bottles) Throw away trash where you bought it, (for things like satay skewers) or bring it home to your hotel. The "pack-it-out" mindset takes a little getting used to, but the results -- a society seemingly without litter-- are superb. Having a lightweight , easily foldable stroller made this trip much easier. Our child often slept in the stroller, and being able to quickly collapse and carry it was key to getting up and down the many sets of stairs in the train stations. It also occasionally doubled as a luggage cart for us. Packing light is key; we picked hotels and AirBnBs that had laundry options to allow us to carry a minimum of stuff. (and no need to bring laundry soap; the washing machines dispense it automatically) My wife wished she had a Japanese-style suitcase with 4 roller-wheels, but I think we did fine with our backpacks , etc.
In general, we didn't have much trouble finding things for my daughter to eat; she loves noodles and dumplings, and even got really into red snapper sushi one night. (basically she loves anything she can dip in soy sauce). Chicken Karage was usually an easy thing to find and feed to her, as were the egg salad Sandos, fresh fruit, and various rice balls from 7-11. Oddly, she also really loved the "pickle-on-a-stick" things that were pretty common in outdoor markets. (I think we got them in both Kyoto and Osaka)
Flights - we flew JAL to from LAX to Narita outbound, and returned on JAL (operated by AA) from Hiroshima to Haneda to LAX. The outbound flight was great; the JAL service was impeccable and they gave my child a model airplane which kept her occupied for hours. We gate-checked our folding stroller on the outbound flight -- the gate clerk put into a plastic bag for us just before departure,
The return flight (operated by American Airlines ) was a step down, but still fine. Transferring planes at Haneda for the return was a little more of a hassle than we had expected becuase you have to exit one terminal, walk a while, exit the building and then get on a free bus, and then go back through security at another terminal. On the plus side, the Haneda international terminal has a padded play area that my daughter liked near the duty free shops. Becuase our return journey was two flights, gate-checking the stroller was not possible, but instead, after measuring its size, we were able to keep it as a carry-on for both legs. (had it been larger, JAL said they would have met us at Haneda with an airport loaner stroller, something we saw other parents using in Hiroshinma and Haneda)
Highlights from each city (focusing on things that my child loved)
Tokyo -- our first night in Japan was a little disorienting: the Tokyo metro station is like a gigantic multi-layer mall-labryinth, and since none of the maps seem to show the "big picture" finding our way to the correct exit lugging luggage was a bit of a challenge the first time . We went back down that night for our fist meal, and by the next day we were practically experts, and were even able to find our way to Ramen Street (on level B1) for lunch and --after waiting in line for about 20 minutes-- slurp some great noodles.
Our first morning we wanted to visit the imperial Palace Gardens, but discovered it is closed on Mondays. Stil, just seeing its moat and stone walls was impressive. We walked to the Children's Science and Technology Museum near Budokan, and our duaghter loved operating cranes and turning cranks of giant Rube-Goldberg machines. (some with bowling-ball sized steel balls moving around). Most of the exhibits were in Japanese, but the fact that this wasn't a common tourist destination made it interesting to visit. On the way home for naps we ate at a random underground food court under an office building and learned how to order a food ticket from a machine for eating at a restaraunt. (a key skill!)
We next headed up to the Owl Cafe in Akihabara, mostly as an excuse to have a visit to Akhiabara, and found it was closed, but seeing the electronics stores and nightlife of Akhihabara was fun. As you might expect, my daughter loved getting Gacha Balls from vending machines (both in Akihabara and everywhere else )
Our second day we spent the morning hunting for the legendary "Elephant Playground" (worth the hunt!) and then went to the nearby Tokyo Childrens' Toy Museum. This was a fantastic combo, and I would recommend anyone with young kids in Tokyo do both. From there we walked to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which was a wonderful oaisis, full of picknicking families and couples. We explored the tropical greenhouse and then had a well-needed rest under a tree near a tea-house in the traditial japanese garden section Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden also was conveniently close to the Shinjuku rail station, which was imporant because we had Sky-Tree tickets that evening, and we headed there directly. We didn't have time to do any shopping or visit the two museums recommended to us near the skytree (Tobacco and Salt and the Tobu rail museum) But we did have what I consider my favorite meal of the trip: beers and gyoza and molten-lava hot takoyaki at a tiny( 6- seat) izakaya a few minutes south of the Skytree. (i'd recommend it by name but it was completely in japanasese and I am not sure I can now accurately ID it)

The third day we visted the Tusikiji outer fish market -- we got there early and and it was quickly full of tourists and good food. (many different kinds of grilled things on sticks, as well as raw oysters, etc) I was amazed that the public bathrooms there were sparkling clean -- as they were throughout almost the entire trip. My daughter loved getting an ice-cream drink at John Lennon's favorite coffiee shop (Yonemoto). On the way back thorugh Ginza we bought an enormous fig wrapped like the crown jewels from one of Japnan's famous fruit-gift stores. It cost about $9, but was absoulutely delicious. (it was crazy to see $200 watermelons and $170 muskmellons in the same store) 

We also took this time in Ginza to do one of the things on my bucket list -- buy an overpriced gift fruit from a fancy Japanese store. We bought the second cheapest thing in there - a single giant fig, and I think it cost about $9. (totally worth it!) . it was just fun to ogle $80 spherical watermelons, and other beautiful, but incredibly expensive fruit.
Later that afternoon visited/saw Shibuya crossing, ate decent and very inexpensive sushi at a 3rd floor conveyor-belt restaurant, and went to Harjuku. (not in that order) Harajuku was chaotic fun, but equally fun was the long peaceful forest walk to visit the Meji Ginku shrine that starts just outside Harjuki station . By now we were experts at tossing coins, bowing, clapping, and praying in the appropriate cycle. (something the 2 year old seemed to quite enjoy). We also knew from our guidebook that we were supposed to walk only on the sides of the path at Meji Ginku -- the middle is reserved for the Gods.
NAGOYA/GHIBLI - We took a direct bus from Nagoya station (cash accepted, Pasmo Cards also accepted) out to the sprawling expo grounds that surround the Ghibli exhibits. Our 2.5 year old loved Studio Ghibli Parks Gand Warehouse, particularly the miniature town where she could run around and pretend to drive a train and serve beer at a drafthouse. There was a furry Catbus to sit on, (of course) as well as another padded Catbus to jump around on for a few minutes with shoes off. Totoro is the only Ghibli character she knows well, and she loved finding hidden Totoros and (and a giant bar-tending one) around the Warehouse.
Arguably, Ghibli park was a little disappointing for us two adults , becuase it was pouring rain when we visited making the long walks between areas less than fun. And despite having moved heaven and earth to get a timed ticket, there still were long lines (~40 min) for areas inside the "Grand Warehouse." It was interesting for me to see the sketches and reference photos a used to make each cell of Ghibli animation realisitic ... but it was annoying and crazy that most areas of the warehouse totally forbad taking photographs. Much of the rest of the Grand Warehouse was just lines for people to take selfies in front of recreated scenes from the movies for posting on social media.
We had watched or re-watched all the Ghibli movies prior to our trip, so we were well prepared, but overall I would say that if you can't get tickets to go to the Grand Warehouse, don't feel bad. (There are many many more magical and wonderful things everywhere else in Japan, and your 2 -year-old will love them just as much. )
HAKONE/SHIRAKAWA-GO/ HIDA (Onsen)
We took a Shinkasen south from Tokyo to Hakone, and spent a day there with a family friend who showed us an ancient tea-house along the old imperial road, a famous Shinto shrine, a deliicious meal, and of course, Mount Hakone with its black eggs, sulfurous fumes, and melty black ice cream. The toddler loved the eggs and the ice cream, of course! For me, sitting and eating tea and mochi in the deep forest along the royal road was like being transported back into a historical Kurosawa film.
If you visit Hakone, I would encourage you to get into the woods and do some hiking. It's a gorgeous area. Apparently the japanese love to drink and tour Lake Ashi on a pair of pirate ships. which added a comic aspect to our visit to the much-photographed Hakone Shrine's Tori gate.
We knew we wanted to visit the truly rural areas of Honshu, so we reserved a night at a remote Onsen near Shirakawa-Go. The drive from Nagoya was stunningly beautiful, traffic was light, and because we had rented a toll transponder along with the rental car, we could just breeze through the toll-booths (which are located at the off-ramps) . Seeing the untouched mountains coexisting with sleek new road tunnels and breathtaking shining bridges made me realize how decrepit American infrastructure has become.
IT was a bit stressful to drive on the left hand side of the road, but conversely, It was great to be able to pull over at will. For example, we could stop at at a small town outside of Nagoya for a delicious prix fixe breakfast at "cafe Pierrot" and again later to see and visit a beautiful riverside Shinto shrine along the road. The car gave us the freedom to and be able to just stop and explore and let our child play in the shallow water surrounded by green hills. Driving in the rural areas wasn't too bad, and doing so let us see a whole other world that we would have missed had we stuck to the trains. For example, we visited a delightful outdoor morning market in the village of Miyagawa and bought fresh produce and some delightful snacks (including fish-shaped custard-filled mini-donuts) from the vendors followed by an impromptu picnic along the riverbank.
On this portion of the trip we also got to experience the Japan's wonderful rest-stop cuisine -- you use a ticket machine to select some items, hand them to a chef behind the counter, and in a few minutes your number is called . We had some delicious Japanese pizza (shaped like a elongated, puffy taco ) fragrant beef curry, and a "Miso Katsu" dish too.
Later we would stop at another rest stop and discover that it had an absolutely epic set of slides and tunnels built into the hillside. You borrow a plastic sled and then slide about 150 feet down a green carpet. It was hearwarming to see how kind and welcoming the japanese children were to our daughter, helping her to slide and showing her how to play and explore the tunnels. Arguably this was my child's favorite part of the entire trip.
Shirakawa Go was great fun for the whole family -- it was definately touristy, but it was great to be able to stroll and relax and learn about Japan's past. (Parking closes at 5pm, though!) We had only a few hours there but I think we would have enjoyed an entire day of strolling and snacking and learning. Interestingly all the parking attendents there seem to be senior citizens.
Our Ondsen was in a small farming comunity outside Hida, surrounded by orchards, mountains, and rice paddies. We were the only non-japanese that we saw there, and it was a little challenging to keep our toddler ccorralled during the formal meals (served in a common area, not in our rooms). As expected, the indoor slippers provided were a bit small for my size-11 feet, but we had a great time in a beautiful, secluded place.
Staying overnight got us a ticket to also visit the large and well-maintained municipal baths just up the road. (each side of which had about 7 pools of various temperatures and medicinal properties) There was a wonderful hiking trail that looped through the deep forest around the town. One of my biggest regrets of the trip is that we did not have more time to hike and explore these lush, pristine mountain woods -- I think I enjoyed our hikes here as much as I did the onsen baths.
The driving portion of our trip ended on the western coast of Honshu, at Kanazawa, but we didn't see much of that city other than a gas station and the rental car return before taking the "thunderbird" train down to Kyoto. (not quite as fast as some shinkasen, but very comfortable).
KYOTO and day-trips:
We had three delightful days in Kyoto, along including day trips by rail to Osaka (to see the market, eat okinomiyaki, and climb Osaka Castle) and Nara (to walk aound and feed the deer in the park and then the koi at a a beautiful botanical garden, stroll through another temple, and to eat the best Udon noodles of the trip while siting outdoors in the forest. In Nara, we also stumbled upon a wonderful Beatles-only vintage record shop called "B-Sels" on an upper floor just across from Nara station, and listened to a street performance of Shamisen music at the station itself. Nara, like Shirakawa-Go, was full of busloads of tourists, but that didn't make it any less of a great experience for us.
Kyoto itself was wonderful to explore on foot -- I won't go into exhaustive detail, but our child loved walking and being pushed in the stroller to various Temples and loved the view from Kyoto tower. (and the Gatcha ball souvenir tower even more!) . She liked the path through the bamboo forest (crowded with tourists) and loved "hiking" through the beautiful and less crowded gardens of Tenryu-Ji temple -- part of which has remained unchanged since the 14th century. We skipped the monkey park.
In Kyoto proper, we walked through Chion-In Buddhist temple , took our shoes off and bagged them, and observed a ceremony -- it was interesting to see how similar it was to ceremonies in America, with the same incense, syllable recitation, and wood-block time-keeping interspersed with bowl-gong ringing .... but on a much grander scale. The size of the wooden buildings is epic, rivaling the stone cathedrals of Europe. Because of the large numbers of steps to get from the massive Sanmon gate to the main building of the shrine, my wife and I took turns exploring and let the toddler play along the paths of the temple's small tea-garden next door.
Hiroshima-
Finally, we spent the last two days of our trip in Hiroshima. It was shocking and surreal to get off the train underground and suddenly be hit with an overwhelming smell of burning -- there was construction work all around Hiroshima station and I don't know if it was from digging pylons down into subterranean ashes, or just from some other more modern aspect of the construction As someone whose worldview was shaped by reading Barefoot Gen as a child, visiting Hiroshima was an important and somber part of our trip.
It was interesting to see that the bulk of the visitors to the Peace Museum visitors seemed to be Japanese school groups. Of course, most of the photos and exhibits museum went "over the head" of our 2/yo child. (she wasn't frightened, just not interested). She did enjoy ringing the peace Bell outside and seeing the collections of paper cranes. We bought books to help share the experience with her again once she is older.
In any event, Hiroshima is a charming city showing no outward signs of being apocalyptically devastated (except at the Peace Memorial Dome) and there is an excellent restaurant district just around the corner from the main train station, with many small restaurants that are open late.
The people and proprietors of Hiroshima seemed particularly kind to us; it's more relaxed there than any of the other cities we viisted. Our chid loved was the "Children's 5-day Science Museum" about a quater mile away from Peace Park that has a lot of hands-on exhibits and two stories of climbing tunnels. We did not do the planetarium there, as it is in japanese-language only and we had limited time.
For us, the highlight of our time in Hiroshima was taking the long ferry to Miyajima directly from Peace Park and then wandering around the narrow streets of Miyajima in the afternoon and evening. It was great to see the oyster beds being worked from the ferry and then later dine on delicious grilled and fried Miyajima oysters.
Our child loved the ferry rides and wandering around Miyajima (there are deer there too) but she also slept for much of our time on the island. The return ferry was part of the JR rail network and so we could use our JR passes for that. (its a short, straighter route).
All in all, Japan was very kid friendly, as long as you can quickly and easily fold up your stroller, and we loved our time in every city we visited. (and could have easily spent much more time in any of them).
Other Thoughts: We bought the Japan Rail Pass, but probably didn't save much money by doing so; My wife estimates that we about broke even with the number of shinkansen, trains, and ferry-rides we used. It was a nice security blanket, though, to know that if we missed a train it wouldn't cost us anything. (but we never missed any trains) . For non JR-line trains, we used a pair of "PASMO" cards. Pasmo cards can also be used at other random retail places as a stored-cash card. When you go through the gates, you must look for ones that say "IC" if you are using a Pasmo card and tap against the NFC pad with it. Using Pasmo is nice because the card is durable (unlike the paper JR Pass) and you can load up enough money for multiple trips on the card.
We use T-mobile, and our plan included 5 GB of "high speed data" while in japan but we weren't sure we would have good service for our rural drive, so we gout a WiFi hotspot from Sakura Mobile. This worked fine -- and its speeds was always faster than T-Mobile's coverage when tested. The hotspot generally would last about 20 hours on one charge. But honestly T-Mobile's Japan coverage was probably good enough that the hotspot was an unnecessary expense; we often used it instead of the hotspot and only came close to the 5GB limit on our last day. If I were on a tighter budget, a shorter trip, or knew I wouldn't be in remote areas, I would skip the Hotspot and just use T-mobile.
TLDR: Tokyo Toy Museum is fantastic for little ones. Ghibli Park (Grand Warehouse) is fine, but our kid probably had just as much fun on many other Japanese playgrounds. If you do choose to drive, don't miss the Japanese rest stops which can be fantastic with fresh food and jungle gyms and slides. Our kid may remember little from the trip except the toys she took home from GATCHA balls, but we have a lifetime of memories gained. Don't miss the Udon in Nara at "Mizuya Chaya", just outside the beautiful Manyo Botanical Gardens.
links:
ELEPHANT PLAYGROUND:
https://www.thetokyochapter.com/tokyos-retro-playgrounds/
RAMEN STREET:
https://tokyocheapo.com/food-and-drink/ramen/tokyo-ramen-street/
Miyagawa Morning Market:
https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/1255/
Udon at Mizuya Chaya in Nara:
https://www.visitnara.jp/venues/D01057/

I have a friend who is retired (76) that asks for financial advice, once in awhile. Right now, he has a $4M portfolio spread across 3 companies (Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and RBS). He's paying about 1.25% for AUM at MS and RBS, less at Fidelity. As you can imagine, the investments are in dozens of different stocks and a few mutual funds. From what I can gather he's wildly over aggressive for his age, it looks like about 70/30 so he's not getting a whole lot of help from his advisors. Now, he's been introduced to another advisor by his attorney, who will do financial planning for 'free' and 'only' charge 1% AUM.
He asked me what I think, he already knows what I thought about his current portfolio. He has severe anxiety and takes Xanax so anything that requires moving from one company to another is insanely stressful. Even moving from Verizon to T-mobile was full of drama and mind changing (almost a dozen times) and he only moved his teenage kids (older dad) but he and his wife are still at Verizon despite paying a lot more.
Moving on to my question, he's also looking at a fee only financial planner because despite his assets (no mortgage, annuities, insurance payouts from accident, disability from SS, etc...) he's deathly afraid to spend money, any money. He is trying to create a budget as he doesn't know how much money he can spend without running out. I know the fee only planner can help with that but how to get an investment plan from fee only planner and have someone else that's much cheaper execute it. Sorry if I'm all over the place, thought wise.
Any advice or insight would be appreciated. In the end, it might be better to leave him to his own devices as he doesn't understand indexing. I also explained how much he's actually losing by paying that much in fees but he can't read a chart and thinks 1% isn't a lot.

My apologies if this post has been done to death, my cursory search didn’t turn up anything.
Last week I got a notification that I had four unspent audible audiobook credits and I decided it was high time that I spend them and then cancel my membership. What I really wanted to find was some kind of contemporary adventure fiction. Something like Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider but in book-form. Strangely, for a genre that is so prominent in film and gaming media, there isn’t really a corresponding breakout literary work from the 21st century; most of the titles people have heard of are from about 1870-1940. Still, I figured that there had to be something recent in this idiom, even if it hadn’t really broken out into the mainstream.
I did some googling and found a few promising titles including The Last Mile by Kat Martin. Something about a young woman hiring a professional treasure hunter to follow a treasure map left to her by her deceased grandfather. So far so good. Where things took a bit of a turn was that, while I thought this was an adventure novel with a romantic element, it was actually a romance novel with some adventurous theming. This wasn’t a problem for me, I like a good love story as much as most people, but I nearly gave up on the book after a couple chapters when it started getting pretty clear that the characters were, uh, loosely sketched. You’d think that a professional treasure hunter and a young woman who always dreamed of accompanying her grandfather on his globe-trotting expeditions would have a lot in common; a shared love of history, language, and culture that could form the foundations of an epic romance. Perhaps differences in philosophy of how to engage with the past could foster conflict? Or maybe a shared understanding of something little-known to laymen could provide a way for very different people to find unexpected camaraderie. Instead we get none of that. Rather these are two unfathomably attractive people who appreciate each other's bodies and… not that much more. And no wonder, they have far fewer identifiable character traits than Edward and Bella did at their very mopiest.
Ultimately, the thing that kept me going was discovering not just how horny and uninhibited the writing was, but how much it seemed to mirror the specifics of everything that I’ve always been told is so wrong about how men try and fail to write women. It got so intense it started to feel like I’d been punked. The heroine of the story can’t put on a pair of jeans without commenting on how well they cling to her toned ass bottom, (you can write insanely graphic sex scenes in this book but can’t say words like “ass,” “boobs,” or “cock.” You need to say “bottom,” “breasts,” or “manhood.”) and she can’t choose a sweater without reassuring the audience that it both accentuates the shape of her breasts while also revealing a devilish amount of cleavage. It probably goes without saying that the hero is over 6 feet tall, built like a Greek god (her words, not mine) and experiences near-constant twinges in his groin.
Now, I absolutely don’t mean to suggest that any of this is wrong per say. People can get their erotic thrills however they want and more power to them, but assuming this is not a wild outlier in the genre, it does leave me feeling like the whole menwritingwomen phenomenon is at least a little unfair. Is it just a genre thing? Like, you can write about boobs if it’s a proper romance novel but not if it's fantasy? Conceptually, I understand what male vs. female gaze is, but at least here it sort of seemed like they came out not being all that different from each other.
Hopefully I’m not coming off too defensive, but I am genuinely struggling to find meaningful differences between what I see here, written by a woman, and what I see in most other contexts dismissed as a level of horny cluelessness that could only have come from the mind of a wretchedly shallow and immature man.

My Bachelor’s is in Film Studies, so this is my thing! I’d love to read all of your recommendations! I’m still catching up on my Rated R media.
My Film Recs:

• Schindler’s List (1993) is a MUST-SEE. If you haven’t watched it, watch it ASAP. I consider it one of the most essential visual educational tools about the Holocaust. The film is based on a true story and one of the best portrayals of life during the Nazi “Final Solution.” The film won 7 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Art Direction. I think teenagers should watch this film at around ~16 years old (depending on maturity) for educational purposes.

Side Note/Soap Box: I believe that watching realistic and accurate Rated-R war films is not immoral or "sinful" in any way (which I love to tell TBM's, because they immediately clutch their pearls). In fact, I would even go as far as to argue that war films that sugarcoat the violence and horror of war do a disservice to those who fought and lost their lives in those conflicts. A PG-13 historical war movie with battle scenes? Not realistic. By sugarcoating violence, especially when it comes to genocides and war, we're basically downplaying how serious those events were, and honestly, I think that's kind of sketchy from an ethical standpoint. I managed to convince a TBM friend of mine through this argument to join me in watching "Schindler's List." Before we watched it, she said, "Why not? I've already read like 40 World War II historical fiction novels." I consider that a win.

• 1917 (2019) is a World War I film that won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography with its strategy of presenting the film in one continuous shot. As I watched this film, I seemed to be running with the two characters as they traveled across enemy lines to deliver a timely message to save almost 2,000 British soldiers. It’s one of the more tame war films, but still intense.
• All Quiet on the Western Front (2022). HOLY FUCK. It’s based on the 1929 novel written by a World War I German veteran. However, this anti-war film is the first (out of 3) adaptations to ACTUALLY be produced by the Germans (the other two were made by Americans and then by Americans & Brits), seeing how this story follows the German characters in World War I.

Another Soap Box: This film is a big deal because, in film theory classes, we discussed the accuracy of media portrayals of different characters and backgrounds versus the creators' identities. Does German filmmakers’ portrayal of Germans in World War I make the story more authentic than if American filmmakers made the same film? My vote is yes. However, you don’t necessarily want to make this argument into an extreme absolute of black and white, or else you can go to extremes and say, “Only LGBTQ+ filmmakers can create stories about LGBTQ+ characters and plotlines,” or “Only white actresses can portray a mermaid, because the fairytale is Danish,” (side-eyeing majorly on that one). Then that pigeonholes filmmakers/creatives into boxes and genres, and we can miss out on some fantastic stories that otherwise wouldn’t be told.

• Back to All Quiet on the Western Front (2022). The film is tied for the most-awarded foreign film in Oscars’ history with Parasite (2019) and three other films I’m too lazy to list. NOT GONNA LIE: I got halfway through this film and couldn’t finish it. I was about to have a panic attack, even though while I watched it, I tried to calm myself down by admiring the special effects, production design, cinematography, etc., but it didn’t last long. I already know the film deserves all of the awards it won. If you can stomach it, I highly recommend watching it. Its extremely graphic depiction of violence is what makes it so staunchly anti-war. I’ll probably be able to watch the second half soon.
• Call Me By Your Name (2017). ANOTHER HOLY FUCK. This film changed my brain chemistry, and it’s one of the first and only films that made me feel like a changed person after seeing it. I used to sit in my film classes wondering what people meant about films being “life-changing,” I finally understood what they meant when the end credits started to roll on this film. It’s a coming-of-age romantic drama that put Timothee Chalamet on the map. He is phenomenal in the movie (as he is in everything he is in), and Chalamet is the youngest man (21 years old at the time) to be nominated for the Oscar’s Best Actor award since 1939. Don’t let the film being “coming-of-age” deter you. It has one of the most beautiful romantic love messages I have ever seen.

My TV recs:

• The Boys on Amazon Prime. If the Marvel/DC formula of superheroes disinterests you or starts getting on your nerves, you must watch The Boys. It’s a new gritty take on what life would actually look like with a corrupt corporation of superheroes. It’s raunchy and surprises you in the craziest ways. I think my jaw was permanently dropped watching the show. They just finished filming Season 4. It’s dark, violent, and satirical, and the show wittily comments on today’s social and political climate. Not to mention the main villain scares the FUCK out of me. The humor is top-notch, and sometimes I feel it should be illegal for me to laugh at their jokes. I highly recommend the show.
• Euphoria on HBO Max (or just Max now?). I started watching it because Zendaya won her first Emmy for portraying Euphoria’s main character, Rue, making her the youngest winner for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. (She won this Emmy Award again for Euphoria’s second season, making her the youngest two-time winner). I started the show for Zendaya, and I was drawn in by the writing and (gorgeous!) cinematography. The show’s portrayal of drug use, sex, mental health, and teenage life is deeply emotional, occasionally disturbing, but draws you into the character’s experiences. When I watched it, I was like, “So THIS is what being a teenager is like for non-Mormons!” (Though, I’m sure not all teenagers’ lives are like the dramatization in Euphoria.) I plan to rewatch the show soon now that I’m officially exmo just to see how different I perceive the show vs when I watched it as a still-believing but PIMO member.
• Fleabag. HOLY FUCK. It is a beautifully written comedy-drama with hilarious fourth wall breaks. There are only 2 seasons, but MAN they are so worth watching! It's such a realistic deep dive in heartbreak, loss, and finding yourself following the woman "Fleabag" who is so chaotic and rough around the edges, but you can't help but root for her. The show was nominated for 11 Emmy awards, and won 6. It's pacing is so refreshing. I need to rewatch it now.
• Edited to add: Narcos. Love that show. It's fast-paced, and NGL I watched it because Pedro Pascal took off his Mandalorian helmet in The Mandalorian, and I thought he was cute so I watched the show. It's based on the true story of the DEA assisting the Columbian government in trying to catch Pablo Escobar. The international politics of it all was SO interesting to me. Very violent (as you'd expect), and another show I highly recommend.

If you lasted this long on my ramblings, thank you! I had so much fun writing this. I’d love it if you took the time to share your favorite Rated R / TV-MA movies and TV shows here with your fellow exmo’s! I’m hoping to watch more comedies myself!

This is the itinerary for this weekend’s conference. It can be found via the link in this tweet https://twitter.com/drstevengreestatus/1657381430190821376?s=46&t=sgWeDqt6G2OewJWFkQAjWw
I’ve seen a lot of hype over this event but don’t see much new information in the topics being discussed. Thoughts?
SATURDAY, JUNE 10TH
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM Presentation by Michael Schratt ET vehicle crash retrieval cases – data and illustrations
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM BREAK
11:00 AM- 12:30 PM Presentation by Michael Schratt Covert manmade craft vs ET craft – data and illustrations
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM Lunch - Attendees are on their own for lunch.
2:00 PM - 3:45 PM Presentation by Dr. Steven Greer Disclosure Project Intelligence Archive Extensive Military, Corporate and Top-Secret Witness list Top Secret Facilities – map and location of facilities around the world State of Disclosure New Top-Secret witness cases
3:45 PM - 4:00 PM SHORT BREAK
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Presentation by Dr. Steven Greer New top-secret witnesses will appear to tell their story with slideshow illustrations Steven Digna, Jr. – U.S. Army witnessed “V” shaped craft at Ft. Irwin produced by Raytheon. Michael Herrera – Marine Corps witnessed covert manmade ARV in Indonesia being loaded with drugs and weapons. DC Long – U.S. Army top-secret facility at Ft. Bragg engineering anti-gravity ET technology.
7:30 PM - 10:00 PM Special FundRaising Dinner Disclosure Project Intelligence Archive Whistleblower project
SUNDAY, JUNE 11TH
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM Presentation by Michael Schratt Select historical UFO cases The Illegal Black Budget
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM BREAK
11:00 AM- 11:20 AM Presentation by Bahman Zohuri, PhD, Professor, Scientist and Author Scalar wave energy – technology and applications
11:20 AM- 12:30 PM Presentation by Eric Hecker, Raytheon contractor witness presentation. Raytheon neutrino light array South Pole
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM Lunch - Attendees are on their own for lunch.
2:00 PM - 3:45 PM Presentation by: Dr. Steven Greer The Architecture of Secrecy Counterintelligence and disinformation Media corruption Tic Tacs/UAPs Weaponizing technologies National Security, Top government officials briefed by Dr. Steven Greer that were denied access (Inverse witnesses)
3:45 PM - 4:00 PM SHORT BREAK
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Ret. Col. Heckert, USAF will present live testimony as a U2 pilot Dr. Greer’s recommendations to the President, Congress and the Pentagon A Call-to-Action what citizens can do to further disclosure Attorney Derek Garcia will discuss RICO (Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act) Plans for a legal task force Q and A Closing
7:30 PM - 9:30 PM Screening of the “Lost Century and How to Claim It”
9:30 PM - Midnight VIP Afterparty

Hi All,
After 13 long years, getting ready to step up from 3rd gen Ivy Bridge to 7 series AMD. Primary use will be heavy photo editing, with some 1440p high-refresh gaming and productivity mixed in. I'd like to run a media/plex server at some point so have gone back and forth on the need for 10gbit LAN..
Since its been so very long since I've built, I could use feed back a on a following parts:
- B650 vs x670e (Asus ProArt) - I do not need the WiFi immediately and am torn if 670e is necessary...
- Cooling - open to AIO suggestions. I've only ever known tower coolers and have come away from Gamers Nexus coverage more confused about AIO vs air. My idea was to re-use my NH D14 and send in to Noctua for the 1700 series mounting kit. Preferred clearance with my chosen case is 145mm (I'd like to make use of the side fan mount if possible.)
- Raid 0 & NVME - redundant?
-Monitors - I have a Gsync 144hz 1440p primary and IPS secondary for photo editing that I'd like to continue to use, so I feel i'm kind of locked in to team green at the moment for GPU.
Appreciate your thoughts. TIA. *edited for readability.
[PCPartPicker Part List](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/YwLG78)TypeItemPrice:----:----:----TypeItemPrice:----:----:----**CPU)
**CPUTypeItemPrice:----:----:----*CPU)\* [AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/WfqPxamd-ryzen-7-7700x-45-ghz-8-core-processor-100-100000591wof) $315.58 @ Amazon
**Motherboard** [Asus ProArt X670E-CREATOR WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/mR2WGX/asus-proart-x670e-creator-wifi-atx-am5-motherboard-proart-x670e-creator-wifi) $459.99 @ Amazon
**Memory** [G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/DgVmP6/gskill-trident-z5-neo-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr5-6000-cl30-memory-f5-6000j3038f16gx2-tz5n) $124.99 @ Amazon
**Storage** [Samsung 990 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FsqPxsamsung-990-pro-1-tb-m2-2280-pcie-40-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-mz-v9p1t0bw) $99.99 @ B&H
**Storage** [Samsung 990 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FsqPxsamsung-990-pro-1-tb-m2-2280-pcie-40-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-mz-v9p1t0bw) $99.99 @ B&H
**Storage** [Samsung 870 Evo 4 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/RBD7YJ/samsung-870-evo-4-tb-25-solid-state-drive-mz-77e4t0bam) $226.97 @ Amazon
**Video Card** [Asus TUF GAMING OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/rdjBD3/asus-tuf-gaming-oc-geforce-rtx-4070-ti-12-gb-video-card-tuf-rtx4070ti-o12g-gaming) $819.99 @ Amazon
**Case** [Fractal Design North ATX Mid Tower Case](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/ybNxFT/fractal-design-north-atx-mid-tower-case-fd-c-nor1c-02) $139.99 @ B&H
**Power Supply** [EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G6 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/QdFbt6/evga-supernova-1000-g6-1000-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-220-g6-1000-x1) $209.99 @ Newegg
*Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* **Total** **$2497.48** Generated by [PCPartPicker](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2023-06-06 17:18 EDT-0400