** ALL WEEKEND *\*
10 AM - 6 PM each day 2nd Annual NM Renaissance Celtic Festival Wildlife West Nature Park, 87 E. Frontage Rd., Edgewood 5 main stages 3 small stage with concerts, shows, jousting, singing and games to play, challenge your wits with the "Quest" or skill with the X-Marks the Spot, Tomato Toss and nail the mean person with a raw tomato, Girl Scouts "Slay The Dragon" Game. 130 vendors, food, crafts, art, jewelry, blades, local breweries, clothing, leather bags, leather wear, bags, specialty teas, coffee, cookies, baked goods, fun games and festival quest, time travelers, pirates, vikings, mermaids, armor fighters, jousting, concerts, comedy, sultry shows, characters, Celtic saint’s stories, sword and belly dancing, and more (tickets and full list of vendors and entertainment lineup)
**SAT 3/25 AND SUN 3/26 *\*
10 AM - 12 PM Flix Junior: Sing Flix Brewhouse, 3236 La Orilla Rd. NW Don’t let fear stop you from doing the thing you love. Gear up for your audition at this family-friendly movie outing! All ages are welcome to our Flix Junior showings. Expect lower volume levels for sensitive ears (tickets)
12 - 1 PM Cultural Dances - Ryedale Largo & Diné/Mescalero Apache Dance Group Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th St. NW Celebrate the seasonal cycles through prayer, song, and dance with our Cultural Dance Program. Dances connect us to our ancestors, community, and traditions while honoring gifts from our Creator. They ensure that life continues and connections to the past and future are reinforced. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is the only place in North America to offer cultural Native American dances every week, year-round. Free for museum members, or with admission. Dance groups and times subject to change (tickets)
** Fri 3/24 *\*
Fri 12 - 2 PM Las Brujas Chicanas Maxwell Museum of Anthropology Courtyard, 500 University Blvd. NE First-come, first-served but registration is appreciated. For more info about the concert series. Experience the poetics, music, dancing, and community of Chicano "son jarocho," which is a musical and dance genre with roots in Veracruz, Mexico, and a history shaped by Spanish, Indigenous, and African traditions. In the U.S., the tradition has gained traction due to its accessible, collective, and often politicized practice. Las Brujas Chicanas is a son jarocho music collective of students, faculty, and community members emerging from the UNM Dept. of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Since 2016, Las Brujas have been cultivating this music through workshops and fandangos on campus and -- since 2022 -- master musician Laura Rebolloso has been teaching the group. In June 2023, the collective will be performing in Paris, France, and this concert is a way for them to share what they are working on. So bring your lunch and join the "fandango," or celebratory communal gathering in which band members take turns singing, dancing, and playing! * This event is sponsored by the UNM Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Latin American & Iberian Institute, Dept. of Music, and LGBTQ Resource Center. It is the first of four performances that comprise the “Maxwell Courtyard Concert Series - Spring 2023," a celebration featuring superb local and regional artists. Please join us for the free concerts and dance party as we transform our intimate courtyard into a unique cultural venue. During these events, the Maxwell as well as its Museum Store will be open and refreshments will be offered
Fri 5 - 10 PM Gin & Jazz: Spring Jazz Edition Tractor Brewing - Wells Park, 1800 4th St. NW We've got a special edition of Gin and Jazz celebrating the onset of Spring! The evening starts at 5 pm with Jazz Traveler playing for the first time ever at Tractor only to be followed by the super talented Bobcats Swing Jazz band at 8pm! Get out your best Jazz outfit and spend your Friday with us!
Fri 6 - 8 PM Ladies' Night Out - A Charcuterie Affair - Part 2 Pinspiration, 6271 Riverside Plaza Ln. NW, Ste D1 Now that you have your own personalized charcuterie board would you like to learn how to create a beautiful display of food to “Wow” your guests at your next party or gathering? Look no further! Join us and learn the art of displaying your charcuterie treats on your board with us. The food (meat, cheeses, fruit, nuts, etc.) and instruction are included in this workshop. Make sure to bring your prepared board you created the Friday before. Can you attend this workshop even if you didn’t make your own board or already have a charcuterie board… of course you can! Workshop fee: $55 per person, a $10 deposit is required to reserve your spot, the balance will be paid the day of the workshop. Limited spots available, so register early! If unable to attend, studio credit will be given for another workshop or crafts. Ladies bring your gal pals, friends and family to join you for an evening of fun! Can you imagine having a party with your friends showing off your personalized charcuterie boards full of visually appetizing food you all made together!
Fri 6 - 9 PM Women’s Social Hour Wild Moon Collective, 309 Rio Grand Blvd. NE, Ste 2 FREE EVENT! Let's get social and connect with other ladies in our local community over Rosé, baked goods, beauty products & permanent jewelry. Also enjoy light bites, refreshments & Giveaways! This Social Hour is FREE and hosted by Trisha w/Wild Moon Collective, Stef Alyssa & Britt McVey w/LimeLife by Alcone, Kay w/Desert Stacks Co., Melissa w/Nini Goods, Michelle w/Meech Balloons & Southwest Statements!
Fri 6 - 9 PM Variety Dance CSP Dance Studios, 1624 Eubank Blvd. NE Welcome to the city's biggest variety dance! We'll be playing all kinds of music: ballroom, latin, country, swing, you name it! $10 cash/check at the door (sorry, no card or Venmo, CashApp, etc.) Welcome lesson from 6:00-6:30pm
Fri 7 - 9 PM Mozart in March Kelly Jo Designs by Wine, 6829 4th St. NW, Los Ranchos Spring has Sprung! Join us for a night of iconic arias in the garden! Mozart has some of the most recognizable music in the operatic cannon and we want share some of our favorites, and maybe even a few you havent heard!
Fri 7 - 10 PM Swing into Spring Dance Escape In Time, 1100 San Mateo Blvd., Ste 21 Swing Dance the night away! $10 per person
Fri 8 - 9:30 PM Studio Night Out! Dirty Bourbon, 9800 Montgomery Blvd. Come join us for a fun night out on the town! Come as you are and get your groove on. Feel free to invite anyone to come join the party. This event is free other than the cover at The Dirty Bourbon. There's no cover if you arrive before 8PM. Let us know if you have any questions at either 505-750-0011 or 520-261-1223
Fri 8:30 PM Comedy Night B2B Garden Brewery, 8338 Comanche Rd. NE Chuck Parker Comedy and Crosslines Media present another killer stand-up comedy showcase, featuring some of the funniest comics in the 505, with another Comedy Night! This month's headliner: Bryan Valencia Featuring Eddie Stevens & Isabel Madley with your hosts Chuck Parker and Sam Alvarado
Fri 9 PM Dark Dance Friday Pop-Up Juno, 1501 1st St. NW Temple of Sound returns with A Goth/90s/Industrial/Alternative Dance Party. Expect a mix of sinister sounds and driving beats from the likes of your favorite artists and some up-and-comers. Red-209 and DJ Suspence will be keeping you dancing all night. Appropriate goth attire suggested but not required. Music starts at 9 / 21+
** Sat 3/25 *\*
Sat 8:30 AM Team Rubicon Special Clean Up Historic Fairview Cemetery, 700 Yale Blvd. SE Team Rubicon unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders to rapidly deploy emergency response teams, providing disaster response around the world, as well as here in the USA. The New Mexico chapter of Team Rubicon will be at Historic Fairview Cemetery to help clear the downed tree limbs that have fallen during our recent wind storms. Our regular volunteers are welcome to join in this special clean up event. Super volunteers Dominic and Renie will bring their tractor to help us make a big dent in the remaining mulch pile. We're focusing on family plots in the southwest area of the cemetery. Please join us! As always, bring tools such as rakes, pitchforks, hoes, and shovels. Wear your long sleeves, sturdy shoes, hats, eye protection, and sun screen. We'll provide water and snacks
Sat 8:30 AM Cars and Coffee Presented by Dub Motorwerks Pacific Rim Food Park, 6901-B San Antonio Dr. NE Our Second Gathering of a New Once Per Month Gathering for individuals and their families to come out and enjoy some cars along with some delicious drinks from Dawn Patrol Coffee Shack and other vendors as the park grows! This is intended on being a Drama/Judging Free Gathering that is simply about enjoying your time and having a good time. We ask for propesafe arrival and departure to and from the location to respect the ownership for giving us this opportunity, also no excessive reving, crazy driving ect in the lot. If you have to question what level is excessive then maybe you should tag a ride if you want to come enjoy. Roll in starts at 8:30am and ends kinda whenever as the later you stay more food option open up. We plan on hosting this every 3rd-4th Saturday of the month with the possibility of it becoming more regular. All Makes, Models, 2 wheels, 4 wheels welcome! We just want to bring back old school quality car gatherings back for those who enjoy the world as much as we do!
Sat 9 AM 30th Annual César Chávez and Dolores Huerta Celebration National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1701 4th St. SW the Recuerda a César Chávez Committee will host the 30th Annual César Chávez and Dolores Huerta Celebration – the only celebration of its kind in the country that honors both great civil rights activists. Join us at the NHCC as we gather in solidarity with others around the country in support of the movement toward nonviolence. Nonviolence is our strength “Sí Se Puede”, “Yes, we can.” (more info)
Sat 9 - 10 AM Montgomery Park Clean Up! 5510 Ponderosa Ave NE Albuquerque is worth the work to keep beautiful! Please join me fellow Burqueños at the Montgomery Park litter clean up! Trash bags and gloves will be provided to you at the 9AM check-in; please meet me in the parking lot by the pool. I also have 4 extra litter pick up sticks to loan for the hour so be there early to grab yours! Please remind your family and friends not to litter!
Sat 10 AM - 12 PM Community Spring Sale Palmilla Senior Living, 10301 Golf Course Rd. NW Find something for yourself and raise money for Alzheimer’s at the same time. Head to Palmilla Senior Living’s front lawn for a community-wide spring sale. Pick up coffee and a breakfast burrito while you shop. Proceeds benefit the Alzheimer’s Association
Sat 10 AM - 2 PM Be My Neighbor Day Explora!, 1701 Mountain Rd. NW Join us for this FREE Event! Be My Neighbor Day is all about being a caring neighbor and supporting families in our neighborhood. Meet Daniel Tiger, Story time, music and hands-on fun, A Community Walk and Park Clean-Up at Tiquex Park at 10:30am, Community Resource Fair, FREE Books
Sat 10 AM - 3 PM MavsterClass - Brew Double White Marble Brewery, 111 Marble Ave NW Learn to brew our beloved Double White with our Production Manager, John Heine. The MavsterClass will include brewing DW from start to finish with John, beer education, lunch, a pint and various tastings throughout the day. For your safety please wear closed toe shoes and full length pants. Open toe shoes are not allowed in the Brewery. Safety glasses will be provided. Must be 21+ to participate. Tickets are $55 per person, and there is extremely limited availability
Sat 11 AM - 2 PM 2nd Annual Renegade Classics & Rich Ford Bike Show Rich Ford, 8601 Lomas Blvd. NE Sponsored by Law Tigers! Preregistration at Renegade Classics. On Site Registration at 10am
Sat 11 - 4 PM Little Big Man's Benefit Car Show & Concert 4 Ramada Plaza Hotel, 2020 Menaul Blvd. NE This year, we will be donating to a new organization called Help Me Grow. 50% of ticket sales will go to the Help Me Grow organization. There will be live performances, great cars, great food and vendors * (Ticket sales will be the day of show only, so don't buy presale tickets from anyone) $10, kids 12 and under free
Sat 12 PM - 5 PM Great New Mexico Food Truck & Craft Beer Festival Balloon Fiesta Park, 5000 Balloon Fiesta Pkwy NE The 7th Annual Great New Mexico Food Truck & Craft Beer Festival features some of the area's most popular food trucks along with dozens of regional and national craft breweries. The Festival will be bringing the ultimate food truck experience with live music, an arts market, and games for the entire family • Food and drink will be sold separately from admission • Family friendly (children 10 and under are FREE) • Leashed dogs allowed • Cash and credit available at gate and most vendors • ATMs available • Lawn chairs welcomed and recommended • No refunds on admission or beer tickets Get your half-off General Admission Tickets ONLINE now! GA Tickets - $5 in advance, $10 at the gate. *Festival is Rain or Shine!
Sat 12 - 5 PM Bunny Ears & Wet Noses Easter Pet Photos Boofy's Best for Pets, 4610 Cutler Ave NE, Ste A Put on your best Easter attire and join us for Easter photos with your pet! All well-behaved critters and humans are welcome to participate. $10 per photo suggested donation benefits the 120+ foster cats and kittens being helped by FAT KATZ
Sat 6 PM Fifth Annual Black & Yellow Bash Electric Playhouse, 5201 Ouray Rd. NW Meet the players! Experience fun, immersive New Mexico United projector games! Enjoy United-themed drink specials and free light refreshments! And, MOST importantly, see our 2023 jerseys for the first time! Doors open at 6 PM, Party starts at 7 PM. Tickets $15, with proceeds benefitting the incredible efforts of the Somos Unidos Foundation
Sat 7 PM Zoso - The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience Sunshine Theater, 120 Central Ave SW Doors 7pm Show 8pm, all ages. Advance tickets - $20 + service charge. Venue VIP packages available Tickets from previously rescheduled dates will be honored!
Sat 7 - 9 PM Sol de la Noche Duet Marble Brewery Westside Tap Room, 5740 Night Whisper Rd. NW Through the lens of Alternative Latin American music Sol De La Noche connects us with sounds of different cultures around the world and invites us to dance
Sat 7 - 10 PM Hook Your Single Friends Up PowerPoint Edition Tractor Brewing - Wells Park, 1800 4th St. NW It's almost Valentines Day! I mean like the next day so, come and hook your friends or self up like the cupid you are! We all think we're the best at selling and talking up our friends to potential romancers, but maybe it's time to put our money with our mouth is. Here's the deal: You make a powerpoint presentation (3 minutes long) about why someone should date your friend. We give you a stage, a mic, and a big screen to project on. Afterwards, your friend will get to do a quick Q & A with the audience, and if someone's interested after, you've done your job! This is supposed to be light hearted, fun, and a great way to meet new people, so be sure to work within those boundaries on your PPT. The link below will let you submit and sign up in advance, so be sure to do so sooner rather than later. See you all there! tinyurl.com/tractorpptdate
Sat 8 - 10 PM TKTWA & Distances (Free Show) New Mexico Hard Cider Tap Room, 505 Cerrillos Rd., Santa Fe (it's not ABQ, but it's FREE) Join us for the first ever FREE METAL SHOW with TKTWA & Distances. 2 bands. 2 hours. 21+ ID required
Sat 8 PM - 1:30 AM Apparition Presents: 2nd Annual Vampire Ball Insideout, 622 Central Ave SW Join us for our second annual Vampire Ball! It’s a deliciously undead experience. Featuring DJs Ren + Batboy + Moonside—the unholy trio. Vampire costume party with prizes. Vampire Photo Booth with professional photographer. Expect delirious goth, industrial, death rock, witch house, dark wave, dark post punk and more. $10 for vampires. $15 without. At Insideout (pending renovation completion—otherwise it will be right next door, upstairs at El Rey Mezzanine). Last year was killer. Let’s make this year even better!
** Sun 3/26*\*
Sun 9:30 PM Chocolate and Coffee Run Washington Middle School, 1101 Park Ave SW Chocolate and coffee runners and walkers—your time has come! Register today. NITRO 5K OPEN: 9:30 AM. RUNFIT KIDS K: 10:15 AM. Brought to you in partnership with the Southwest Chocolate & Coffee Fest, Blue River Productions, and Java Joes, the Chocolate and Coffee Run 5K is a fast out-and-back course in the heart of Downtown, Washington Middle School next to Java Joes. ***All participants will receive a ticket ($15 value) to the Southwest Coffee and Chocolate Fest on April 1 or 2, 2023, as well as coffee, chocolate, and a race t-shirt at the Coffee and Chocolate Run
Sun 10 AM March Craft Fair Lunar Rabbit Metaphysical, 2301 San Pedro Dr. NE Come by and check out beautiful crafts by amazing local folks
Sun 10 AM - 2 PM Community Vaccine Clinic Simply Diego's, 3301 Menaul Blvd. NE, Ste 10 Pawsitive Life Rescue of NM partnered with Simply Diego's. Microchip $25, 1 year rabies $20, 3 year rabies $30 (please bring proof of prior vaccine and sign up in person), nail trim $15, combo vaccines: FREE, Bordatella $20. Sign up here
Sun 10 AM - 7 PM Muzzle Entertainment Presents The Inaugural Muzzle New Mexico Guitar Show Isleta Resort & Casino, 11000 Broadway Blvd. SE The Inaugural Muzzle New Mexico Guitar Show is the area's first and largest guitar show, blending musicians, fans (that's you!), collectors, and celebrities together into one musical extravaganza. With live music performances by local and national artists on the Al Bane For Leather stage. thousands of guitars and musical equipment, over 100 booths, exhibits, and additional special events and activities, the Muzzle New Mexico Guitar Show has more than enough to keep you busy all day!! Join us for some incredible live performances and unbelievable instruments. Get your tickets now ONLY $10.00 General Admission and Kids 10 and under are FREE
Sun 3 - 4:15 PM Holy Week Sacred Music Concert St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church, 5712 Paradise Blvd. NW Experience the serene a-cappella sounds of Holy Week: Gregorian chant, polyphony and contemporary choral music. No tickets required!
Sun 4 - 6 PM Big K! Nexus Blue Smokehouse, 1511 Broadway Blvd. SE What goes better together than soul music and New Mexico soul food...nothing! The Train is pulling into Nexus Blue Smokehouse for a Sunday afternoon R&B party -- get on board!
Sun 4 - 7 PM Music on the Patio: Mineral Hill Canteen Brewhouse, 2381 Aztec Rd. NE Mineral Hill was formed in 2017 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We bring salty Americana, funk, honky-tonk, bossa nova, psychedelia, polka, New Mexico gothic, disco…. Enthusiastic fans have described us as “surprisingly tolerable,” “dork core” and “the house band at the human dog park.” Lauren Addario on drums and vocals, Jonathan Mack on guitar, banjo, and vocals, John Funkhouser on keyboard, vocals, and melodica. Oh, and we all play the kazoo!
Sun 4 - 8 PM Dealers Car Show & Local Showcase Sister, 407 Central Ave NW Dealers has put together a killer lineup of local artists to perform at Sister. Roll through for a spring afternoon of dope music and hit the car as the sun goes down (tickets $20)
Sun 6 - 9 PM Blues Dance Night Juno, 1501 1st St. NW Join us for a blues dance lesson from 6-7 and then dancing from 7-9! This is a free event just make sure to support the bar for their generosity of letting us use this venue. Lacie Forde will be DJing a mix of trad blues and fusion as well as teaching a lesson on connection and rhythmic expression for blues dancing!
Sun 8:30 PM UwU- Kawaii Anime Show Albuquerque Social Club,4021 Central Ave NE Come out for Sunday Funday-- ANIME STYLE! This cast will be bringing there favorite characters and lewks to life! Help us raise money for our coummunity with the ISCNM! Presented by Uncle Jaie Steel! Hosted by the Fabulous Papa Sucia! 21+ event, valid ID required

Intro

Well…it’s official. After a ton of hours of watching and analyzing, 48 posts, linking many moments from YouTube, 2764 individual rankings determined, various calculations, and (most importantly) countless walls of text expressing my opinions…I AM FINALLY DONE WITH THIS SERIES!🥳 And it only took a bit more than a year and 7 months since my very first post regarding this🤪. Though with that being said, I would like to wrap this all up with one final wall of text. It’s worth noting, this is especially long and probably extremely wordy. So I put headers on this post so y’all can skip around. But just to start, I’d like to give a runthrough of my whole experience doing this
Note: Yes, I took various inspiration from u/twofacedflyer and his finale post during the super dope series he did…more than two years ago now (Jesus Christ time flies)

Tangent on this series

Now if you know me pretty well, you’ll likely know almost ever since I got into TD, I really developed this obsession with trying to rank stuff, especially TD characters. I even remember the first days of me trying to make my own tier list ranking every character and had Noah and Cody as my hindsight top 2 (and no, I didn’t ship Noco at the time). However, my opinions have changed a lot throughout, and while I still love both characters, they don’t appeal to me quite as much as before. At this point, I’ve pretty much updated my character tier lists almost countless times. In fact, it even got to a point where I milked the fuck out of tier list posts before. There was even a period of time where I would post an update to the sub every week or two, and chances are I might’ve posted even more frequently if it wasn’t for the tier list trend rule, LOL. And for whatever reason, even to this day, I tend to start getting obsessive and nitpicky about trying to order each character and pinpoint my feelings on them as accurately as possible. There’s a reason why even before I started this series, I had a very nuanced continuous number system to further showcase exactly where each character falls on each category of my ranking system. Though nonetheless, this leads me to the one day where something just sparked within me. Essentially, I was like “Huh, I wonder what my opinions on each TD character would be if I average my opinion on them out episode by episode?”. I figured it would definitely be easier if I laid all of this out on Google Sheets. I originally just planned to try to calculate each average for each character based on a not as specific number scale based on my rankings with them. But after a bit of time, I figured the one way to really make this accurate is by actually making the number scale far more continuous than discrete. And then overtime, I also ran into other factors
There’s no doubt a lot of this series was done very spontaneously. Afterall, it didn’t even start with TDI originally. I wanted to try this whole ranking chart for TDA, and I don’t think I even planned on writing a review about the season either. But as time went by, I just figured “Hey, if I’m rewatching these seasons and trying to make something where I have to look into each episode enough to pinpoint my thoughts on each character there, why not express a bunch of thoughts I have while rewatching?”. And alas, as well as my initial review and rankings for TDA, my rewatch commentary episode by episode was born. After rewatching TDA, I then went back to TDI since at the time, I thought TDA and TDI were the seasons I wanted to rewatch the most. And that’s where I started just writing out various thoughts I had and things I picked up on or saw with more clarity as I rewatched the episodes. Though even then, I didn’t go through each episode that thoroughly at the time. In fact, my TDI commentary was literally only three parts. I did actually plan to make it just two, but then I divided the second part into two parts after some people told me it was too long. Then once TDA came, I divided my commentary into a bit more parts than before and started going through the episodes a bit more thoroughly. It wasn’t till WT and ROTI where I really started making extensive comments on a handful of moments throughout each episode. However, it got to a point where I felt like I was bringing up way too many minor moments that ‘stuck out’ to me in my commentary, and there was a certain point where I realized not much people will care about looking through every minor moment I found funny. So after my AS commentary rolled around (where I really hyped it up as a dark period of time filled with anger and ranting💀), I incorporated this feature where I separately linked moments from YouTube I deemed as more minor that I found amusing, just labeling the link as the name of the character(s) involved in said moment. However, even doing that proved to be too much for me eventually as RR rolled around, and I realized it was taking forever to be done with each episode. I feel like sometimes, I really fell under the trap of being excessively ‘detail-oriented’ and bringing up almost every moment I found even slightly amusing. Thankfully during the 5th part of my RR post, I decided to get rid of the feature of linking minor moments all together after I realized probably no one even bothers going through them anyways. And I just mainly kept commentary down to more major points regarding each episode, although I still took notes on various minor stuff, just for me to reference. I’m glad to say it worked very well, and I was able to power through each episode quite faster and pump out vast majority of the series before my recent winter break was over
Then there’s also the fact I took a huge break from this series for several months on end. As some of you might remember, around this time about a year and a month ago, after finishing up All-Stars, I loosely admitted I had to get my shit together in real life, namely with school. Though even aside from that, I think I was just heavily burned out from doing the series. In fact, it took WAY longer than I anticipated to find the motivation to start it up again. Hell, I even tried to start it back up during the summer, but ironically, I didn’t do so until sometime in fall. Ironically, when I took this extensive break from the series, I was finished with AS and only had two more seasons to go. But given just how burned out I was, it still took me more than a year to completely wrap things up. Though the most important part is, I FINALLY GOT IT DONE! And despite this, I would like to think I didn’t necessarily sacrifice quality a whole lot (despite the lack of planning behind this), even if it’s partially because this series has dragged out even longer than Derrie at this point LOL. If I have to be honest though, this certainly took a surprising amount of work. Like I kinda knew it would be a lot, but I didn’t expect it to be as tedious as it was at times. Even pumping out the very first post (my initial TDA review) was quite a drag and ended up taking longer than I wanted it too, and I remember being relieved when it was done. And that feeling just amplified after every season I tackled. And I can say after releasing this post, there is no other time I feel this as strongly as now. Oh yeah and on a side note, I’m happy to say I’m actually doing marginally better in real life now than before (and now that this series is done, I think I can especially be at a peace of mind and focus even more on other stuff)
With all of this in mind, do I regret doing this series? All things considered, not really. As I said, it got extremely tedious at times, and I definitely got very burned out. And I even admitted during my PI review that I had various doubts or anxious thoughts regarding this series (though despite this still decided to pull through). But I think as of getting this series done, this has solidified my opinions far more, and hopefully I won’t make a bunch of tier list updates in the future💀. On top of this, I did have quite a bit of fun typing out my thoughts at times, especially the rants. That and it was certainly satisfying seeing people appreciate my commentary a lot, especially with my huge SMS tirade I dedicated one single part for XD. With that being said, do I ever plan on doing this again? Absolutely not. Although it’s not necessarily a bad idea to take some notes when you are doing a rewatch if you want to remember more stuff, or actually have a stronger opinion on various things (especially good for when you want to geek out about TD with others, or debate with someone about something). However, I don’t think making a ranking chart is super necessary. Ultimately, I’d say only do this if you have a ton of free time and are super obsessed with ranking stuff, otherwise you will probably end up like me and be burned out from doing this series from time to time. In fact, I think easily the biggest weakness of this series (I reckon a lot of you probably agree with this as well) is how inconsistent I was 'momentum-wise' as far as getting it done. I feel like this would’ve been super great to pump out earlier on while the pandemic was still going. But as it stands, I happened to start this series towards the end of the summer of 2021 back when I was going into my freshman year of college, and unfortunately did not have as much time to pump these posts out super fast. I also have to admit, I do sometimes think maybe if I made it a review series, I wouldn’t have to worry as much about trying to ‘adjust’ and could comment on a lot of specific moments. But I feel like doing episode reviews would be kind of more redundant at this point, and doing it the way I did made things somewhat more efficient. With that being said, I could do an episode review series for once the new seasons come out👀. Aside from this, I realize I probably could’ve also tried to make things more interesting by adding some gimmicks to my commentary, similar to Ultranatic Productions or u/twofacedflyer and u/WOTWUZTHAT back in their respective series’ they did (or ongoing series in Ultranatic’s case). But bigger picture-wise, I’m pretty satisfied with how this series turned out
Overall this was a fun but incredibly long ride. In case I haven’t made it clear enough, I’m honestly extremely relieved to be done with this. But on top of this, I’m also incredibly grateful to everyone who has followed this series. Like I said, I didn’t even expect this to become a full-blown series, but I truly appreciate everyone who actually cared enough to read through my ramblings and comment on them. But with that in mind, there are certain people who has supported me through this series I would especially like to give a shout-out to

Shoutouts

Before I bring up the people who involved themselves in this series, I’d like to give a shout-out to two YouTubers in particular who I took some inspiration from time to time with my commentary, namely Ultranatic Productions and penguinz0 (or as a lot of you might know him as MoistCr1TiKaL), both of who are absolute legends. For starters, there’s Ultranatic Productions (AKA u/Ultranatic on Reddit) who is doing his own series of reviewing every TD episodes, except this time far more thoroughly and intricately compared to me. I mean, I thought doing this series was a lot, relatively speaking. But I can only imagine the work Ultranatic has to do what he does, from not only writing out a script where he articulates all his thoughts and points, but then also records himself saying everything he has to say and then even has to do a bunch of editing afterwards, along with various gimmicks he incorporates in his videos. I’d imagine it’s a ton of work, and Ultranatic’s dedication to this is honestly pretty admirable. On top of this, he brings a ton of really cool points, has a lot of unique and nuanced takes, and incorporates a lot of great gags. Next up is penguinz0, who doesn’t talk about TD, but is a commentary YouTuber I’ve grown to absolutely love. I really love his dry wit, along with his ability to absolutely roast terrible people on the internet. I think quite a bit of my commentary style was inspired by him, and I even took a few pages out of Ultranatic here and there
As for people who participated in this series I’d like to thank

• u/someTDfan1: A fellow MacArthur hater, he’s not all that active on the sub and hasn’t been for a while now, but we are very tight, and he also commented on my first couple posts in this series (and I believe some very occasional other ones), and left some very kind words per usual. He’s also generally a super cool dude who is fun to talk and banter with and he’s even good for boosting my ego, er I meant confidence, at times🤪
• u/chuck_is_dead_vay_aq: A stan of Lightning and Jacques and fellow Chris-hater, while he didn’t comment very religiously, he always had quite a bit of great things to say when he did, is also responsible for coining the awesome nickname “All-Derailments” for All-Stars, and appreciated my nicknames for All-Stars as well as my posts in general (especially my SMS rant💀). Even outside of this, he’s an especially amazing dude, and one of my closest online friends. There are also plenty of times I’ve been convinced I actually share a brain with him lol (seriously, it’s actually scary how similar we are in some ways). And on a side note, I also want to once again really thank him for policing this sub and doing our mods’ work for us half of the time💀
• u/reidstampede2021: A Duncan stan who we also share a handful of common ground as far as opinions go (especially on Duncan’s send-off🤪), despite not being a religious commenter, he gave a lot of appreciation for my massive tirade on Duncan’s send-off, even making multiple comments copying-and-pasting it. He also appreciated some other jokes I made, also incorporating them in some comments of his. And not only do I find that incredibly flattering, but on top of that, he had the courtesy to credit me whenever he did so. And also if you know me somewhat well, boosting my ego flattery is one great way to make me like you😉 (though ofc that is far from the only reason he’s a cool dude)
• u/Ok_Shirt_1574: A stan of Zoey, Cody and Scott, as well as a shipper of Scott x Zoey, he has commented a lot of great points throughout my series, and took various points I made to heart. On top of this, he also appreciated my commentary from time to time, especially my CHFIL rant😉. And aside from this, the dude also makes some pretty dope episode reviews himself where he also incorporates various funny commentary
• u/Glamouriffic: Resident Derrie and Trent stan, she appreciated my posts from time to time, or even even commented on more specific reactions I had that stuck out to her. And she especially appreciated my rants, even being one of the two people to give me an award for my penguinz0-styled rant on Paris Sierra during the third part of my WT commentary
• u/A_Snowy_Vulpix: She barely commented on my series, but is the second person who gave me an award for my Paris Sierra tirade, so thank you
• u/HungryDiscipline882: A Lindsay lover who also has a lot of similar ways of thinking as me, he occasionally comments on my posts. Though on top of this, he also took quite a bit of inspiration from my commentary when stating various points of his, and admitted he liked a lot of the points I brought up, which is ofc flattering😎. And on another note, he also has a lot of great ideas as far as improving canon goes
• u/YourFaveWasDerailed: Everyone’s favorite satire account subreddit user, they sometimes commented some great insight on my posts regarding just how bad the show really is, truly inspiring me to just hate on the show. They also really read me like a book when he asked me “Why do you keep torturing yourself” after I posted my PI reviewlast part being a half-joke as this series really did get tiring at times. And on a more serious note, they even gave my series some appreciation at one point and broke character during his AMA to openly admit they find me cool, even if they did comment on my poll series poking fun whenever I went on especially…passionate rants about things I don’t like🤪. And even aside from this, dude is just simply a legend
• u/Less-Ad-9927: A cinema nerd and major, as well as a stan of Emma, Izzy and Dwayne, she didn’t start commenting till my RR posts. But when she did, she was especially supportive of my series and often commented on my posts bringing up various points she had, all the while acknowledging various points I made. Overall an amazing contributor to the final stretch of my series even despite the very faltering momentum
• u/Uglyfense: A stan of Courtney, Chris and Ezekiel, and widely known for trolling people’s opinions with his “What-if” questions, he has made a handful of great and thorough comments on my posts throughout, even conjuring up a bunch of interesting points as well as unique ways to look at things that push the boundaries beyond things that fans have already said at least 100 times. Fuck, the dude even made some good rebuttals against my review (big euphemism btw💀) on not only my most hated episode, but one of the most universally disliked episodes in the series. And on a random note, he’s also just proof that you don’t need to have a bunch of really strong negative opinions to stick out (dude likes pretty much every character yet still manages to be a very interesting TD discusser)

Now, every one of you involved are great. But I think these two following people have contributed the most

• u/Particular_Being_269: The sub’s resident music nerd, and more or less simp stan of Zoey and Gwen, the dude made a lot of especially nice comments appreciating my posts and commentary. On top of this, he’s yet another one of the people who actually took time to look at my rankings more in detail. Though despite all his positive feedback, along with Fense, he also wasn’t afraid to challenge and question my opinions quite a bit, even making some points that I haven’t considered before. And in retrospect, as a more passive and non-confrontational person who doesn’t usually like debating people a lot (mainly on the spot), this is definitely a trait I admire
• u/Ace_TD: Practically the face of this sub at this point, and the man who truly lives up to his name, the dude not only commented on my series quite often, even at times leaving very in-depth comments regarding my points and even adding onto various points I made in various ways. Though he has also talked about and inadvertently advertised my series to the TD Discord. Plus outside of this, he’s just simply a all-around amazing dude. He preaches a ton of facts on the TD Discord server, and he's just generally very fun to talk to

Aside from them, I’d also like to give a couple honorable mentions to u/twofacedflyer and u/WOTWUZTHAT, both of which have done similar series before mine that consisted of talking about characters. And while I didn’t totally plan for this to become a full-on series, I think they partially inspired me for when it did become a full series if that makes sense. And as I said, the format of this post is pretty inspired by u/twofacedflyer in various ways. And I’ll admit even in general, there were times I referred back to posts of his series whenever I got lost on how exactly to structure various posts of mine (including this one). As of now, they aren’t active on this sub anymore for varying reasons, but I had a real blast with both of them during their time here
And lastly, I’d like to thank this whole subreddit in general. It’s generally filled with a lot of open-minded and accepting people who are genuinely caring and willing to acknowledge other people as they express their thoughts. Now granted, I’m aware Reddit is far from perfect and is a lot of times not usually held in high regard (although it isn’t as problematic as say, Twitter or TikTok). But I think this subreddit is really proof that there is good to Reddit. And the support I got throughout this series is proof of that
And that officially wraps up the very gushy part of this post🤪

Thoughts on Total Drama

If you’ve followed my series or even generally read through enough things I’ve pumped out throughout my time on Reddit, you’ll likely know I’ve typed many rants on various facets of this show. Though despite this…it’s still quite good overall, and maybe even great. Granted, it has a lot of flaws and even some writing decisions that will forever baffle me (one of the most noteworthy examples being the winners losing their money at the end in ironically the widely regarded two best seasons). And I remember binge-watching 6teen a long while back thinking it was overall a lot more clean written than TD, which I think kind of gives the idea that there are probably many better handled shows overall. But at the same time, TD has way too many awesome highs for me to not like it. And outside of the two infamous seasons (AS and PI), I can safely say the positives will always outweigh the negatives. And if anything, even the various flaws the show has just makes it more fun to talk about sometimes. IDK what it is, but I low-key find ranting on things a guilty pleasure. I’ve said this before, but there’s a reason whenever I talk elaborately about something negatively, my walls of text will usually be longer than when I actually write about something positive. And there’s just a certain type of satisfaction I get from trying to find various ways to express and intricately word my distaste for stuff I don’t like, especially when it’s stuff that makes me passionately angry. So IG in a way…I have to give a thank you to aspects of the show like YRBKM, SMS, the Gwent breakup aftermath, CHFIL Sierra, Feral Zeke, MacArthur, Amy, the joke of the winner losing their money or especially PI Chris💀
Now for a runthrough on what I think of every season, Island was a solid start to the show and overall a great season. It isn’t without its problems such as various inconsistent or weird moments, the main antagonist being rather lackluster (mainly in the gameplay department), or especially Gwen’s treatment as a finalist and the fact it’s one of the two seasons with easily one of the absolute worst “jokes” in the entire series. But despite this, it still has many great things about it, and a generally chill atmosphere
Next came Action which was also good overall, but has quite more noteworthy flaws, especially the aftermath of the Gwent fallout, along with Beth’s character-assassinating romance plot. However, it is the best season as far as challenges go, and I happen to prefer the antagonist over the one in TDI…well, at least once Courtney comes into the picture (we don’t talk about Justin). The finalist pairs are also one of the weaker ones overall, but even then, their interactions and the finale itself actually worked surprisingly well, despite the very ending also leaving a fair amount to be desired
Then came World Tour, which at best was a very epic and adventurous change of pace from the first two seasons. And it even implemented musicals as a unique feature of this season (which included a lot of bangers albeit a few flops), and on a side note, introduced this truly amazing piece of background music I really wish there was an extended version of that I could download and listen to for hours on end😭. The antagonist is easily the best in the entire series, both gameplay and character-wise. And the finalist choices were practically perfect narratively, despite both having some more glaring flaws gameplay-wise here and there. And the finale was shaping up to be absolutely amazing…but unfortunately ended on a really sour note. Aside from this, there are a few other controversial plots and writing decisions I don’t like. However, one thing I especially respect about WT is how high the stakes were. This season really feels like you had to actually play the game in order to get far, rather that just being nice. In fact, this might just be one of the best and most intriguing seasons for those who especially care more about the strategic aspect of TD. Overall, I feel like WT is one of those seasons that just went especially ballsy with its writing and actually did really well with the execution at times. Though at the same time, there are multiple areas really lacking in execution and some especially terrible lows. Despite this, it is overall a better season than TDA, but there had yet to be a season that topped the quality of Island
That is until Revenge of the Island came along. After spending 3 seasons getting to know the first generation cast, we then got introduced to a set of new characters, and a really great one at that. Personally, I think this is easily the peak of the series. Generally speaking, pretty much almost every character is utilized really well (barring Staci). And it also has a lot of especially epic moments along with an adventurous feel. The pacing is also really good, and there are many great jokes. Scott as an antagonist is also amazing, even though he also isn't without flaws and doesn't quite top Alejandro. On top of this, I think this season does a great job of balancing both drama and friendships, and handling both really well. There are various conflicts that are surprisingly complex, engaging, or also entertaining. But mixed with that are still a lot of wholesome and interactions. And even generally speaking, it just seemed to be able to handle and balance most aspects of the show really well. That and it also has easily my two favorite episodes in the entire series. Really, ROTI is a masterpiece all-around, and I could gush about it all day if I wanted
Though unfortunately, the very season after ROTI did NOT hold up to its quality, as the worst season coincidentally happened right after the best season😭. I know I’m not being brave when I call All-Stars the worst season. There’s just so many bad writing decisions, and it also has easily two of my least favorite episodes in the franchise, which funny enough both happen to be responsible for screwing over two very prominent characters who had a lot of development potential. And on that topic, it does that a lot. It feels like at least half of the cast loses a ton of brain-cells during their elimination episode…or in various other episodes outside of that too. And part of it ties to what has to be easily my least favorite antagonist yet, who also happens to be tied with probably ‘objectively’ (I used this word loosely tho) one of the worst protagonists in the series as well (Mike vs. Mal). And yeah, on that topic, the main plot is also just atrocious and ends on one of the worst notes possible. But even despite this, it still has its good moments and enough positives for me to not hate it. There are a handful of characters I actually like, and I’d say Zoey was still good this season despite her flaws, and not a bad finalist. Though generally speaking, it’s just such a huge disappointment in many ways and easily the lowest point of the franchise
After this disappointing trainwreck came Pahkitew Island, where the writers decided to go completely balls to the wall with the cartoonish aspects of the show. I will say, it is better than AS overall, but…only because it has better highs (including my absolute favorite character in the series). On the contrary, I think it actually has worse lows. Funny enough, it just so happens that this season has some of the highest highs of all time, but also some of the absolute lowest lows, including my two absolute least favorite season-by-season character appearances in the entire series. It especially doesn’t help that while LCAOBP isn’t my least favorite episode overall, it ends ‘regular’ Total Drama in one of the worst ways possible
Thankfully though, the one spin-off that came after this happened to actually be quite good, and definitely a big step up from the previous two seasons. Not only did it start new with the game format, but it also started fresh in terms of writing-quality. Granted, even then it is far from perfect. There are quite a few glaring flaws for me as far as characters go, especially including the existence of my least favorite protagonist in the entire series (even worse than AS Mike). But even then, the season had the advantage of screen-time being distributed especially more evenly, to where even if some characters sucked, it wasn’t always enough to drag the episode down. In fact, aside from ROTI, it’s the one season that has no full-on bad episodes for me. And the fact I find the host vastly superior and that it’s responsible for the existence of my TD waifu, both especially give it an edge. Overall, I think this season was quite refreshing and satisfying after the previous two seasons, and I’m proud to call it yet another higher point of TD and quite a good end to the franchise
And then lastly there’s Total Dramarama, although I haven’t watched it in a fat minute and don’t plan on covering it as of this series. Though from what I remember from watching it a long while back, I actually liked it for the most part. There were some occasional moments I really didn’t like, and the Chef torture could sometimes go too far for my liking. But for the most part, it’s pretty entertaining and has some plots I really like. All I’ll say is my favorite episode is definitely “Having the Timeout of our Lives”, with my least favorite being “Total Eclipse of the Fart” like many others
So overall, Total Drama is a pretty great and iconic series despite its flaws, and I am proud to call myself a fan of the show. I mean, there’s no other reason I would be this dedicated to talking about it. It would be awkward and a waste of time if I looked into and discussed this show for so long, only for the end result to be that I don’t like it (and I know YFWD would absolutely decimate me LMFAO). Fresh TV, you are awesome, and I really look forward to the upcoming new seasons

Final Show Rankings

Now it’s time for my general ratings regarding Total Drama, and this time on a scale of 100. I should also say, I’ve always had a hard time fully deciding my season rankings, so I figured I’d make a more intricate attempt to gauge my exact opinions on each season. And through this, I made a ranking table, where I rate multiple different facets of the show from 0 to 100. Now it’s worth noting I made more specific calculations for the episodes and character portion, and some rougher calculations for the romance and finalists categories. I also based the finale category mainly on my ranking of each episode of said finale. And the rest are more rough estimates. And on a last note, I stuck with the 147 season-by-season character incarnations when determining the scores for the characters category (so no background characters, cameos, or Mike’s personalities other than Mal). So these are likely not 100% accurate, but considering I’m mainly just using this to try to order my seasons, I don’t think it’s too big of a deal. Not to mention the scores are rounded by 0.5 increments
Season ranking chart
NGL, the Reddit table feature is kind of pain to use, so instead, I opted to just put the table in another Google Doc for me to link here, along with an explanation of how it works
Just a couple additional factors I included for seasons (adds or subtracts 35 on the 700 scale)

• Winner loses money: -5.0 points
• Contains a top 5 season-by-season character incarnation: +5.0 points

Overall ratings
Seasons

• TDI: 77.0 - 5.0 + 5.0 => 77.0/100
• TDA: 59.5 + 5.0 => 64.5/100
• WT: 71.0 - 5.0 => 66.0/100
• ROTI: 91.0 + 5.0 => 96.0/100
• AS: 37.5 => 37.5/100
• PI: 45.0 + 5.0 => 50.0/100
• RR: 69.5 + 5.0 => 74.5/100

Each facet of the show in general

• Drama: 60.0
• Friendships: 76.0
• Finalists: 71.0
• Finales: 46.0
• Characters: 70.5
• Episodes: 65.0
• Romance: 61.5

Final Season Rankings
#7: TDAS
#6: TDPI
#5: TDA
#4: TDWT
#3: TDPTRR
#2: TDI
#1: TDROTI
My personal rating of the show
Actual average: 3256/4900 => 66.5/100
Tho wait, ROTI exists (and ofc the show is super fun to talk about and look into in general😉)
Final rating: 75/100 => 7.5/10

Other stats and a bunch of Top 5’s

Now that I showcased my general thoughts on this series, we are one step further before I reveal all my final rankings. But beforehand, I want to showcase a list of a bunch of mini rankings (yes once again, this is inspired by u/twofacedflyer). It’s also worth nothing the HM’s/DHM’s are not necessarily in order
Funniest Characters
#5: Noah (WT)
#4: Izzy (TDA)
#3: Lightning (AS)
#2: Dwayne (RR)
#1: Spud (RR)
HM: Max (PI), Owen (WT), Owen (RR), Harold (TDA)
Best character arcs
#5: Gwen (TDI)
#4: Cameron (ROTI)
#3: Zoey (ROTI)
#2: Emma (RR)
#1: Shawn (PI)
HM: Dwayne & Junior (RR), Heather (WT), Brick (ROTI), Lindsay (TDA), Spud (RR)
Best lines
#5: "I work best under pressure. Hah! Get it? Water pressure" -Harold (Masters of Disasters)
#4: (Chris: "The camper...) "...who does not receive a marshmallow must immediately return to the dock of shame catch the boat of losers and leave, can't we just get this over with?" -Gwen (Paintball Deer Hunter)
#3: “Of course you can, you’re an EXPERT at turning people off!” -Alejandro (Planes, Trains, and Hot Air Mobiles)
#2: “No one can touch my tomatoes!” -Lindsay (Million Dollar Babies)
#1: “I love Chef because he is very very very very very very very…” -Duncan (Basic Straining)
HM: “There’s no nice way to say this…I’D RATHER GET EATED BY A ZOMBIE!” -Shawn (This is the Pits), “Last time I thought zombies were here, I was too scared to try and save Jasmine. I’M NOT MAKING THAT MISTAKE AGAIN. NOT AGAIN!” -Shawn (Hurl and Go Seek), "🎵THIIIIIS SUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!🎵" -Duncan (Walk Like an Egyptian Part 1), “You’re like Albert Einstein, with better hair, and ✨girly bits✨” -Harold (The Sand Witch Project)
Best couples
#5: Ozzy (TDA)
#4: Nemma (RR)
#3: Duncney (TDI)
#2: Aleheather (WT)
#1: Shawsmine (PI)
HM: Samkota (ROTI), Aleheather (AS), Gidgette (TDI), Zoke (ROTI), Ryphanie (RR) and Ozzy (TDI)
Best rivalries
#5: Duncan vs. Courtney (WT)
#4: Brick vs. Jo (ROTI)
#3: Duncan vs. Alejandro (WT)
#2: Gwen/Leshawna vs. Heather
#1: Zoey vs. Scott (ROTI)
HM: Duncan vs. Alejandro (WT), Geoff vs. Blaineley (WT), Lightning vs. Jo (ROTI), Cameron vs. Lightning (ROTI) and Duncan vs. Harold (TDI/TDA)
Best friendships
#5: The Rockers (RR)
#4: Gwen & Leshawna (TDI)
#3: Harold & Heather (TDA)
#2: The Surfers (RR)
#1: Zoey & Cameron (ROTI)
HM: Gwen & Geoff (TDI), Noah & Owen (WT/RR), Owen & Kitty (RR), Owen & Gwen (TDI), Harold & Heather (TDA), the friendship trio (ROTI), Gwen & Cameron (AS), Ryan & Carrie (RR), Lindsay & DJ (WT), Duncan & Zoey (AS), and Jasmine & Sammy (PI)
Best moments
#5: Zoey riding the mutant goats (S4E10)
#4: Kitty’s payback to the Cadets and Ice-Dancers (S7E24)
#3: Harold saves everyone’s lives (S2E10)
#2: Kitty making it back up to the surface with her mad breath-holding skillz (S7E25)
#1: Shawn goes full giga-chad on the Chris bots (S6E10)
HM: Lindsay cursing Heather out (S1E18), Surfers in the Dude Buggies challenge (S7E19), Heather’s (implied) clam-chowder soup prank on Alejandro (S3E10), Duncan’s essay to Chef (S1E12), Iron Cam (S4E13), any moment Chris gets his ass kicked, and many more I’m too lazy to list
Worst moments
#5: Feral Zeke vs. Heather (S3E26)
#4: Gwen having her money taken against own will after her ending (S1E27)
#3: Courtney’s sendoff (S5E11)
#2: Duncan’s sendoff (S5E8)
#1: The ending of the finale in general, though with a big emphasis on Chris’ departure… (S6E13)
DHM: The Cody and Sierra subplot resolution (S3E9), MacArthur taking advantage of Brody (S7E26), the Reset Button (S5E13), CamCourtney (S5E9/S5E10), and the intern “gag” in general
Worst derailments
#5: Courtney (S5E11)
#4: Gwen (S3E16)
#3: Jasmine (S6E8)
#2: Duncan (S5E8)
#1: Cameron (S5E9)
DHM: Beth (S2E10 & E23), Trent (S2E26-E27), Scott (S5E9-E10), Leshawna (S3E7), and at least half of the AS cast in their elimination episodes
And now, here are my top and bottom 30 episode by episode appearances for each character throughout the series and no im not dedicated enough to make a ranking of EVERY episode by episode appearance. It’s worth noting, some of the scores are the exact same. Usually to determine which goes higher, I decided by which appearance had more relevance that episode. Though there are even some cases where multiple appearances have both the exact same score and relevance. In that case, I just went with my gut feeling on which I prefer ever-so-slightly
Top 30
#30: Gwen (S2E27) - 17.55
#29: Gwen (S1E5) - 17.55
#28: Heather (S3E25) - 17.55
#27: Emma (S7E25) - 17.55
#26: Shawn (S6E9) - 17.60
#25: Gwen (S1E21) - 17.60
#24: Spud (S7E14) - 17.60
#23: Cameron (S4E11) - 17.60
#22: Alejandro (S3E25) - 17.60
#21: Noah (S7E11) - 17.60
#20: Owen (S7E11) - 17.61
#19: Geoff (S7E17) - 17.65
#18: Duncan (S1E12) - 17.65
#17: Heather (S3E26) - 17.65
#16: Cameron (S413) - 17.65
#15: Alejandro (S3E11) - 17.70
#14: Kitty (S7E19) - 17.70
#13: Harold (S2E27) - 17.75
#12: Brody (S7E19) - 17.75
#11: Heather (S3E10) - 17.75
#10: Zoey (S4E12) - 17.75
#9: Gwen (S1E19) - 17.75
#8: Heather (S3E20) - 17.80
#7: Geoff (S7E19) - 17.80
#6: Lindsay (S1E18) - 17.80
#5: Zoey (S4E10) - 17.85
#4: Kitty (S7E24) - 17.90
#3: Harold (S2E10) - 17.93
#2: Kitty (S7E25) - 17.95
#1: Shawn (S6E10) - 17.97
Total amount of top tier episode by episode incarnations: 92 (34 of them being 17.5 or higher)
Bottom 30
#30: Katie (S2E12) - 0.80
#29: Chris (S5E11) - 0.80
#28: Chef (S6E11) - 0.75
#27: Chris (S6E6) - 0.70
#26: Izzy (S3E11) - 0.70
#25: Amy (S6E5) - 0.70
#24: Beth (S2E10) - 0.65
#23: Chef (S3E26) - 0.60
#22: Sugar (S6E6) - 0.60
#21: Heather (S1E9) - 0.55
#20: Chris (S6E7) - 0.53
#19: Chris (S6E5) - 0.53
#18: MacArthur (S7E19) - 0.50
#17: Amy (S6E2) - 0.40
#16: Chef (S3E2) - 0.35
#15: Chris (S3E26) - 0.35
#14: Chris (S1E26) - 0.30
#13: Chris (S3E2) - 0.30
#12: Mal (S5E13) - 0.30
#11: Chris (S6E8) - 0.27
#10: Sierra (S3E9) - 0.25
#9: Chris (S6E10) - 0.21
#8: Chris (S3E14) - 0.20
#7: Chris (S6E11) - 0.19
#6: MacArthur (S7E26) - 0.18
#5: Ezekiel (S3E26) - 0.15
#4: Chris (S3E13) - 0.15
#3: Amy (S6E1) - 0.10
#2: Chris: (S1E27) - 0.03
#1: Chris: (S6E13) - 0.00
Total amount of bottom tier episode by episode incarnations: 37
And that wraps up the long wall of text along with all my mini rankings. I figured this post would be too long if I included all of this just in one post, so I decided to make this 2 parts. Next part is the real deal, where I show off a few different ranking lists, and then finally my character rankings (you can find it via this link)

Hello! I just wanted to let you all know that we'll be having an Irish dance event at the Miami Township branch library tomorrow, Saturday 18th, from 2pm-3pm. This program is open to all ages, although it's ideal for elementary age kids and their families because they'll get to see this unique dance form, learn a little bit about Ireland and the history of its dances, and try some basic steps.
Please register to attend if you're interested! The branch is located at 2718 Lyons Rd. Miamisburg OH 45342 (behind the Dayton Mall).

"'What you can see, but cannot see.' It's friendship. I learned that after meeting Yugi, and I'm going to beat Yugi in order to prove that friendship to him, as a true duellist would! That's what my duelling is all about! It's my Battle City! I'm different from you, who thinks it's all over just because of one loss."
Joey Wheeler was a complete newcomer to the world of Duel Monsters, his only tournament placing by the time of Duellist Kingdom being a top 8 in a regional. Despite this, Yugi gave him one of his two star chips when he came to support him in the tournament, allowing him access to the ship taking them there and letting him participate. And despite both of those things, he found himself consistently winning, beating the likes of the second best duellist in Japan at the time and the former U.S. champion, getting all the way to the finals before finally losing to Yugi. From here on, carrying a deck filled with luck-dependent cards and prized monsters of his opponents, he would go on to be one of the strongest duellists of the era. While he would never truly reach the levels of fame of Yugi Muto or Seto Kaiba, Joey would nevertheless duel alongside them, whether to save the world from the Orichalcos or to unlock the nameless Pharaoh's memories.

Duel Mechanics and This Thread

Duellists tend to have many cards but only use a certain amount in their deck. As such, this thread will only cover cards actively played by Joey (and excludes cards put in his deck while mind controlled that he wouldn't ordinarily play). Additionally, effects can be rather fluid both within the anime and compared with their real world counterparts. This thread will cover the effects as they appear in the anime, only having their real world effect used when a card's in-universe effect isn't mentioned.
Attack and defence points are largely irrelevant from a feat perspective, due to how easily they can change and how often monsters simply shatter or simply disappear on being destroyed. Only physicals where something objective is shown (such as a sword wielder cutting an enemy in two) will be used, in addition to any effect a card may have (even if it is only affecting a monster's stats).
Cards will be separated by type, then by level if a monster card, and then alphabetically. Due to space, this thread will not go into the rules of Duel Monsters (such as phases and different card types), but an overview can be found in the official rulebook seen here.

Legend

Unmarked - Yu-Gi-Oh!
[VR] - Come from a virtual reality game, either Legendary Heroes or Noah's Virtual World
[GX] - Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

Physicals

Strength

• Punches the Pharaoh back
• Uppercuts a man slightly off the ground
• [VR] Jump kicks a person through the air and through a door
• [VR] Kicks a large hole in a wall, revealing a door behind

Durability

• Punched back by Tristan
• Mai drops onto him from a height, though this takes him down for a short while
• Dives from a tall ship into the sea
• Falls into a pitfall
• Falls out of a car speeding across uneven terrain
• While in a shadow game which makes him feel the pain his monsters feel, Ra uses an ability which burns his monster to ash, with Marik fully expecting the experience to kill him. After the attack, Joey is still standing, and is able to draw and play a monster, almost getting it to attack before collapsing

Regular Duel Durability
Duel disks can 'simulate combat damage', though it's unclear exactly to what degree this is. As such, any notable feats from being hit by monster attacks while they're purely holograms are listed here.

• Struck back by an insect
• Sent flying back through the air by a punch

Other

• Catches his cards as they blow away in a strong wind
• [VR] Presumably the one to throw a mask a great distance into someone's face

Duel Monsters

Normal Monsters

3

• Baby Dragon
• Battle Warrior
  • Causes a person to skid back
  • Knocks back a duellist in a joint attack with Swordman of Landstar
  • [VR] Flies or leaps high
• Brigadier of Landstar
• Grappler of Landstar
• Hero of the East
• Knight of Landstar
• M-Warrior #1
• Rock Ogre Grotto #1
• Swordman of Landstar
  • Knocks back a duellist in a joint attack with Battle Warrior
  • With its attack increased and the opponent's attack decreased, slices through an enemy
  • [VR] Flies

4

• Alligator's Sword - Can swing energy blades
  • [VR] Flies or leaps high
• Armoured Lizard
• Axe Raider - Cuts through a notable portion of Dragon Zombie
  • Releases a ranged 'air cutter' that cuts through a dinosaur
• Kojikocy
• Masaki the Legendary Swordsman
• Tiger Axe
• Tiny Guardian
  • In the end phase, can be swapped from attack to defence mode
  • [VR] Flies

5

• Cyber-Tech Alligator
• Flame Swordsman - Imbues his sword with flame
  • [VR] Cuts Dragon Zombie in two
  • [VR] As a deck master, can give portions of its own attack to other warrior monsters, giving a knighted Dark Magician a sword in doing so
• Garoozis - Slashes through Clown Zombie in multiple places
  • Cuts through Pendulum Machine
  • Cuts through Spider Launcher
• Giltia the Dark Knight
• Leogun

7

• Thousand Dragon - Summoned when Baby Dragon is on the field and Time Wizard successfully enacts its Time Roulette

Effect Monsters

1

• Neko Mane King - When destroyed by a card effect, ends the opponent's turn

2

• Parasite Paracide - When flipped face up can send itself into the opponent's deck, but requires a sacrifice to do so
• Sasuke Samurai - Instantly destroys any face down monster it attacks
• Time Wizard - Through its ability, has a 50/50 chance of advancing time a thousand years, aging Baby Dragon and Harpy Lady Sisters to make them Thousand Dragon and much weaker respectively
  • Rusts a machine monster
  • Ages Red-Eyes Black Dragon millions of years, turning it into a fossil which crumbles
  • On failing, all of Joey's monsters are sent to the time dimension while he takes half their total attack in life point damage
  • Can apparently trap opposing monsters in a time warp to defeat them
  • [VR] Sends the area around Joey 1000 years into the past, causing ruined buildings to be rebuilt

3

• Fiber Jar - When flipped face up, both duellists shuffle their hands, graveyards, and field back into their decks before re-drawing
• Hayabusa Knight - Can attack twice
• Marauding Captain - When summoned allows Joey to summon a level 4 or lower warrior monster from his hand

4

• Blue Flame Swordsman
  • Can transfer his attack points to another monster
  • When destroyed, lets Joey special summon Flame Swordsman
• [VR] Cyber Harpy - Chosen in memory of Mai and not out of personally having it, its name is treated as Harpy Lady on the field
• Gearfried the Iron Knight - A knight made of iron and steel which can't be equipped with any card
• Goblin Attack Force - Gets set to defence mode after attacking
• Mad Sword Beast - Sends a giant bat flying up, and deals the difference between its attack and a monster's defence to the opponent's life points
• Panther Warrior - Requires a monster to be tributed before attacking
• Rocket Warrior - Can attack in a certain mode, piercing through a monster and decreasing their attack by 500
  • Damages a hole in the Fairy Box
  • Blasts through Red-Eyes Black Dragon's wing

5

• Copycat - Copies any card played on the board, including opposing spell cards
  • Played as a trap card
• Lava and Swamp Battleguard - Two monsters which increases the attack of the other while on the field
• The Legendary Fisherman - Cannot be targeted by attacks or spell cards while Umi is on the field

6

• The Fiend Megacyber - Can be summoned without tribute if his opponent has two or more monsters than him, and uppercuts a Harpy Lady into the air slightly while attacking it
• Jinzo - Destroys all face up and face down traps on the field when summoned
  • Destroys traps which became monsters
  • Clashes punches with a duellist in monster armour, cracking the armour on the fist and causing it to be destroyed
  • Attacks with psychic energy
  • Releases black electricity-looking energy from his eyes
  • Made of a special metal which never rusts, rendering him immune to Time Wizard's aging
• Maximum Six - When tribute summoned, rolls a die and gains attack equal to the number times 200

7

• Gearfried the Swordmaster - An unbound Gearfried the Iron Knight, said to be capable of splitting the sea, tearing the skies, and destroying the land with a single sword swing before he restricted himself
  • When equipped with a card, can destroy one monster on the field
• Insect Queen - Gains attack for every bug monster on the field, and needs Joey to tribute a monster on his field to attack, but creates a bug type egg on his field every time she destroys a monster
• Sword Hunter - Gains 200 attack for every monster it destroys

8

• Gilford the Lightning - Can be summoned with 3 tributes, with doing this destroying all monsters on the opponent's side of the field
  • Sends a duellist flying back with a direct electric attack

Fusion Monsters

5

• Alligator's Sword Dragon - Made of Alligator's Sword and Baby Dragon

6

• [VR] Dark Flare Knight - Made of Dark Magician and Flame Swordsman, can attack the turn it's fusion summoned and takes no battle damage. When destroyed, it brings out Mirage Knight

9

• Black Skull Dragon - Made of Summoned Skull and Red-Eyes Black Dragon
  • Spits meteors which shatter on a foe, their attack making a large explosion

Spells

Normal

• [VR] Arduous Decision - Draws the top two cards from his deck, and makes his opponent pick one. If it's a monster, it gets summoned, otherwise both cards are sent to the graveyard
• [VR] Block Attack - Forces an attack position monster into defence mode
• Foolish Burial - Allows him to send a card from his deck into his opponent's graveyard, allowing him to bring it back with Graverobber
• Giant Trunade - Sends all spells and traps on the field back to the hand
• [VR] Harpie's Feather Duster - Chosen in memory of Mai and not out of personally having it, destroys all of the opponent's spells and traps
• [VR] Knight's Title - Makes a monster warrior-type
• Landstar Forces - Lets Joey special summon all level 3 and lower Landstar monsters from his hand
• Monster Reborn - Joey can special summon a monster from either player's graveyard
• Pot of Greed - Draw 2 cards
• Question - If his opponent can't say which of his monsters are at the bottom of his graveyard, he gets to special summon them
• Release Restraint - Turns Gearfried the Iron Knight into Gearfried the Swordmaster
• Roll of Fate - Draws cards equal to a die roll, before discarding that same number from the top of his deck
• Roulette Spider - Attaches itself to the strongest monster on the field, before making it spin between all other monsters and the two duellists. On the opponent's command, it stops, and attacks whatever it's pointing at
• Shield & Sword - Swaps the attack and defence stats of all monsters on the field
• Star Blaster - Tributes a monster before rolling a die, if Joey has a monster in his hand with a level equalling that of the tributed monster plus the rolled number, he can special summon it
• The Warrior Returning Alive - Returns a warrior from his graveyard to his hand

Continuous

• Dangerous Machine Type-6 - Generates a number each of Joey's standby phases before carrying out an effect, with a 3 letting him draw an extra card
• Fairy Box - Places a monster inside where they repeatedly stick their head in and out, making them difficult to hit

Equip

• [VR] Burning Soul Sword - By tributing a monster, adds its attack points to the wielder of the sword
• Dragon Nails - Increases the attack of a dark dragon by 600
• Gust Fan - Increases a wind-attribute monster's attack by 400 while decreasing their defence by 200
• Landstar Shot - Increases Landstar Brigadier's attack by 600
• Legendary Sword - Increases the attack and defence of a warrior by 300
• Lightning Blade - Increases a monster's attack by 800
• Premature Burial - Pays 800 life points to summon a monster from the graveyard equipped with this card. When the card is sent back to his hand, the monster remains
• Salamandra - Increases a fire monster's attack by 700, giving Flame Swordsman a ranged fire attack

Quick-Play Spells

• Angel Dice - Targets a monster with 500 or less attack, then multiplies their attack by the number rolled
• Energy Drain - Sets an opposing monster's attack to 0
• Hyper Refresh - When he has no monsters on the field and his opponent's monsters have an attack greater than his life points, this card doubles his life points
• Scapegoat - Creates four sheep tokens to defend Joey
  • Seemingly attract attacks to them
• Skull Dice - Divides an opposing monster's attack by the number it rolls

Traps

Normal

• Aura Armour - When he takes direct damage with 2000 or less life points, he halves his life points, negates this damage, and special summons a monster with attack and defence equal to his life points which he wears like armour
• Celebration of Creation - When a monster is special summoned, ends the opponent's turn
• Chasm of Spikes - Destroys an attacking monster while hitting his opponent's life points with a quarter of the monster's attack
• Compensation Mediation - Joey's opponent takes two cards from their graveyard and shuffles them with this card. If Joey picks which of the three is this card, their battle phase is forced to close, but his opponent can put both their chosen cards on the top of their deck in any order
• [VR] Drop Off - Forces a duellist to discard the card they just drew
• Double Magical Arm Bind - Tributes two of his monsters to take control of two of his opponent's
• [VR] Gamble - When Joey's opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand while Joey has 2 or fewer, can flip a coin. Calling correctly allows him to draw until he has 5 cards, while a wrong call makes him skip his next turn
• Graverobber - Steals and uses a card from Joey's opponent's graveyard
  • Steals and summons a monster
• Kunai With Chain - Increases the attack of a monster by 500 while being used to hold an attacking Wall Shadow still
  • [VR] Propels itself from the card to latch onto a monster, forcing it into defence position while also providing the attack bonus
• Magic Arm Shield - Grabs a monster and makes it the target of an opponent's attack
  • Can convert a monster's shield
• Metalmorph - Increases a monster's attack and defence by 300, and when attacking a monster they add half of the target's attack points to their own
• Nutrient Z - When the user takes 2000 or more damage, gives them 4000 extra life points before inflicting damage
• Silver Dollar - When a monster with under 1000 attack is attacked, prevents the monster from being destroyed and negates all battle damage for the attack
• Take One Chance - Randomly picks one card from his graveyard and uses it
• [VR] Trap Hole - Creates a large pitfall, which can destroy a monster summoned with 1000 or more attack
• Vow of Tribe - When both players have the same number of monsters, neither can attack

Other Cards

• Claw of Hermos - Fuses with a monster on Joey's field to create an equip spell
  • Full RT
  • This card disappeared at the end of the arc
• Knight of Dark Dragon - Summoned through the ritual spell Descent of Dark Dragon using monsters equalling level 4 from his hand or field, and can be sacrificed to special summon Red-Eyes Black Dragon from his hand or deck
• Lord of the Red - Summoned through the ritual spell Red-Eyes Transmigration with a Red-Eyes and a warrior monster from his hand or field, and takes the form of a suit of armour due to the warrior monster used being armour Joey was wearing
  • If two spell cards are used on the same turn, after the latter is used he can destroy other monsters on the field, enshrouding him with fire which creates a large fiery explosion when clashing with another attack

Other

Duel Disk

• An arm-mounted device which scans the data of cards placed on it, passes it through a KaibaCorp satellite, them materializes holograms of cards and monsters to duel anywhere
  • Launches two or four holographic projectors from it to create a duelling field
  • Somehow creates a duel field on top of a moving train
  • Can create an incredible amount of light on the summon of a god card
• Creates a hologram map highlighting a specific area when six locator cards are placed on it
• Recognizes illegal moves and doesn't create a hologram of the card if attempted
• Has a limiter which prevents illegal cards being played
• Simulates combat damage to the user
  • Kaiba states this is not set to a fatal level
• Has a folding section for field spell cards
• Detaches from an arm with a button press
• Can plug into duel arenas
• In the Pharaoh's memory world blocks a sword swing, but this could be due to the unique nature of the world rather than being a property of regular duel disks

Other

• In general, duellists appear to be able to talk as much as they want and have time to activate cards after an attack's launched before its effects resolve
• Outside of duels, duellists can summon monsters and use spell and traps without concern for their usual summoning or activation requirements
• [GX] Pegasus ranked him as the third greatest duellist he had met
• Is noted to be extremely lucky, being able to do things such as pick one card in his shuffled graveyard that he needs to survive in the duel
• [VR] Makes a trained lawyer buckle under his poker face, causing him to swap his decision to the answer Joey wanted
• Presumably won a duel against Yugi to earn his Red-Eyes Black Dragon back

"You're pretty tough. Allow me to end my turn, but I doubt you'll be able to fight for much longer with the state your body's in. What'd you say to giving up and making it easier on yourself?" "Who...? I said this from the start, didn't I? That I ain't runnin'! No matter how bad the situation may be...I never give up until the very end! I'm still rarin' and ready to go! My turn, draw! This is where we start the battle for real!"

Summary of information found in the 700+ page warrant return information & items they were requesting access to:
Courtesy of a fellow Facebooker on another page (Yes, I checked the rules and the member to see if I could share). Edited also.
1) Yik Yak Account info for Bryan Kohberger from June 1, 2022
2) Moscow PD Forensic Lab - Bryan’s cell phone with data & USB External Hard Drive & Seagate 2TB External Hard Drive (Extracted Raw Data from BK phone)
3) UPS - Delivery Truck Video between Nov. 6 and Nov. 14
4) Reddit - Kaylee’s account info from Jan, 2021
5) Tinder - Account information related to KG from 1/01/2021, 2nd Warrant obtained for 20 profiles linked to her account from 11/03/22
Account information related to MM from 1/01/2021, 2nd Warrant obtained for 20 profiles linked to her account from 03/01/2021-03/31/2021
Account information related to Bryan from 06/01/2022
6) Facebook, Instagram & What’s App account information for Ethan, Xana, Maddie and Kaylee and 3 other redacted.
7) Snapchat account information for MKXE and 3 redacted ppl.
8) Yahoo - Kaylee's account information
9) Dropbox account data for BK
10) DoorDash - Records related to 1122 King Road from 01/01/22
11) Charter Communications - Data from Spectrum Wireless Router & Cable Modem
12) Inland Cellular & AT&T - GPS coordinates 0.50 miles from 1122 King Rd on Nov. 13 between 3am-5am
13) T-Mobile - GPS Coordinates – 0.5 to 2 miles from 1122 King Road, Nov. 13 from 3am-5am & data records for redacted accounts x 2(Possible link to Snapchat)
14) Verizon - data records for 3 redacted unknown Verizon accounts including location & cloud data
15) Umpqua Bank - Exterior camera footage from Nov. 12 at 9:00pm - November 13 at 12:00pm
16) Wal-Mart & Ebay - Records of sales of Ka-Bar 2117S with USMC Sheath's & Ka-Bar full size with USMC Sheath's from January 2022 - present
17) Ebay - Sales of Ka-Bar KA1217S Sheath & KaBar USMC Straight Edge Knife found 3 sold in AZ, 2 sold in WA & OH, 1 sold in ID, PA, OH, WI, NY, TX - Also requested Inventory of KaBar 1217, 1217S, 1218, 9128, 9140, 9169 & 9191 & Distribution information regarding Blue Ridge Knives & 5 redacted company names & Data re: Sales above
18) Amazon - Sale information of KaBar Full Size USMC Straight Edge Knife, KaBar 1217S & Leather Sheath with USMC Logo
19) Blue Ridge Knives - Sales of KaBar KA 1217S & USMC Knife Sheath - Known purchases & quantities: On or about 3/8/22 – 360 Units; On or about 6/24/22 – 480 Units
20) KaBar Knives - Inventory of KaBar 1217, 1217S, 1218, 9128, 9140, 9169 & 9191 & Distribution information regarding Blue Ridge Knives & 5 redacted company names
21) Extreme Networks - Decrypted access to Extreme Networks computer belonging to Kaylee Goncalves
22) Google - Kaylee & Bryan
23) Apple - iPhones for Maddie, Kaylee,Xana & Ethan
24) Financial records for Ethan, Xana, Maddie, Kaylee & 3 redacted individuals from the following companies: American Express, Bank of America, Banner Bank, Idaho Central Credit Union, Block(CashApp), Discover Bank, ID Dept. of Labor, Numerica Credit Union, Umpqua Bank, Wells Fargo, Paypal and Venmo

Summary of information found in the 700+ page warrant return information & items they were requesting access to:
Courtesy of a fellow Facebooker on another page (Yes, I checked the rules and the member to see if I could share). Edited also.
1) Yik Yak Account info for Bryan Kohberger from June 1, 2022
2) Moscow PD Forensic Lab - Bryan’s cell phone with data & USB External Hard Drive & Seagate 2TB External Hard Drive (Extracted Raw Data from BK phone)
3) UPS - Delivery Truck Video between Nov. 6 and Nov. 14
4) Reddit - Kaylee’s account info from Jan, 2021
5) Tinder - Account information related to KG from 1/01/2021, 2nd Warrant obtained for 20 profiles linked to her account from 11/03/22
Account information related to MM from 1/01/2021, 2nd Warrant obtained for 20 profiles linked to her account from 03/01/2021-03/31/2021
Account information related to Bryan from 06/01/2022
6) Facebook, Instagram & What’s App account information for Ethan, Xana, Maddie and Kaylee and 3 other redacted.
7) Snapchat account information for MKXE and 3 redacted ppl.
8) Yahoo - Kaylee's account information
9) Dropbox account data for BK
10) DoorDash - Records related to 1122 King Road from 01/01/22
11) Charter Communications - Data from Spectrum Wireless Router & Cable Modem
12) Inland Cellular & AT&T - GPS coordinates 0.50 miles from 1122 King Rd on Nov. 13 between 3am-5am
13) T-Mobile - GPS Coordinates – 0.5 to 2 miles from 1122 King Road, Nov. 13 from 3am-5am & data records for redacted accounts x 2(Possible link to Snapchat)
14) Verizon - data records for 3 redacted unknown Verizon accounts including location & cloud data
15) Umpqua Bank - Exterior camera footage from Nov. 12 at 9:00pm - November 13 at 12:00pm
16) Wal-Mart & Ebay - Records of sales of Ka-Bar 2117S with USMC Sheath's & Ka-Bar full size with USMC Sheath's from January 2022 - present
17) Ebay - Sales of Ka-Bar KA1217S Sheath & KaBar USMC Straight Edge Knife found 3 sold in AZ, 2 sold in WA & OH, 1 sold in ID, PA, OH, WI, NY, TX - Also requested Inventory of KaBar 1217, 1217S, 1218, 9128, 9140, 9169 & 9191 & Distribution information regarding Blue Ridge Knives & 5 redacted company names & Data re: Sales above
18) Amazon - Sale information of KaBar Full Size USMC Straight Edge Knife, KaBar 1217S & Leather Sheath with USMC Logo
19) Blue Ridge Knives - Sales of KaBar KA 1217S & USMC Knife Sheath - Known purchases & quantities: On or about 3/8/22 – 360 Units; On or about 6/24/22 – 480 Units
20) KaBar Knives - Inventory of KaBar 1217, 1217S, 1218, 9128, 9140, 9169 & 9191 & Distribution information regarding Blue Ridge Knives & 5 redacted company names
21) Extreme Networks - Decrypted access to Extreme Networks computer belonging to Kaylee Goncalves
22) Google - Kaylee & Bryan
23) Apple - iPhones for Maddie, Kaylee,Xana & Ethan
24) Financial records for Ethan, Xana, Maddie, Kaylee & 3 redacted individuals from the following companies: American Express, Bank of America, Banner Bank, Idaho Central Credit Union, CashApp, Discover Bank, ID Dept. of Labor, Numerica Credit Union, Umpqua Bank, Wells Fargo, Paypal and Venmo

Foreword:

We tend to get the same sorts of questions for the same budgets and same scenarios. This is my attempt to codify the good advice I've seen and my own experiences with my own rifles as a long range, non-competitive shooter. These opinions should be largely uncontroversial to the folks who shoot long range.
Prices and ballistics are current as of Mar 12, 2023.

Additional Reading

/longrange
/SmallGroups
Trollygag's Stats on Barrel Length
Trollygag's Opinion on Picking a Barrel Length
On-Paper Cartridge Comparison
Trollygag's Youtube Channel with some parts review and shooting
Trollygag's Noob Guide to the 1000 Yard AR-15
Trollygag's Noob Guide To The Entry-Level Custom, Part 1
Trollygag's Noob Guide to the Entry Level Custom, Part 2
Trollygag's Noob Guide to the 6.5 Creedmoor
Trollygag's Noob Guide to the 6.5 Grendel
Trollygag's Noob Guide to the 308 Winchester pt.1
Comparison between the Athlon Ares ETR, Vortex PST II, and Sightron SIII
Comparison between the Match Pro ED, S-TAC, PST II, Forge
Phildesbois's Ruger Precision Rifle vs Tikka TAC A1 vs Bergara BMP, comparison

Glamour Shots

Super Grendel
Gator Grendel - RIP
One Punch in F/TR dress and in BR dress
Buddy and updated

What you need to know up front

What your budget is.

The budget for the rifle is a start, but a budget for the rifle, optic, and accessories is more ideal. Accessories include:

• Rifle bag or case
• Bipod and/or bag set
• Rails/mounts
• Additional equipment you may need like chronographs or reloading setups

How far you can shoot

This is probably the biggest hurdle to most Americans. Not everyone lives near some place that has enough space and is set up for long range shooting. Pretty frequently we get help questions from people who live in the Northeast where long ranges just aren't that common. It doesn't make sense to spend a bunch of money on a long range shooting rig if your local ranges only go out to 50 yards.
Even at only 100 yards, it is the length of a football field, and you often can't hide one of those easily. Plus there is the NIMBY factor and the danger that most rifle rounds will travel miles before hitting the ground again if they are fired at the wrong angle.
Because of that, long ranges are relatively rare.
What you do have access to can dictate your rifle and cartridge selection.

How much you care about the logistics

What I mean is, how involved do you want to get in the process?
Things like:

• How important is good box match ammo to you? Many long range cartridges are chosen because of the availability of ammo. There are lots of wildcats and special snowflake cartridges (6.5x47L, for example) that lose out to others because of this availability.
• Do you plan to handload? Some cartridges have more, reliable, better load information out there for them than others. Some cartridges have a wider powder selection than others. For example, 6.5 Grendel, 223 Rem, and 308 Win can all use 8208 XBR, a relatively common, premium powder. 6.5 CM really can't. Because of the pressures developed at relatively low volume charges, XBR isn't considered a 'safe' powder in the CM. Varget and some others can be used across all of the cartridges relatively safely.
• Do you plan to stockpile? 6.5CM, for example, really needs a particular powder (H4350) to match the most load data, but this powder is frequently out of stock. It really makes sense to stockpile components, whether it be powder, brass, primers, or bullets, and that can add many hundreds of dollars up front.
• Do you expect Walmart to carry ammo for your rifle? What about Cabelas?

About long range shooting

You don't necessarily need to be familiar with range estimation or how to make a cold bore unknown distance shot factoring in humidity, Coriolis, spin drift, and all sorts of other things...(I sure as hell can't) but you should at least be able to:

1. Shoot a rifle accurately/precisely in the position you will be shooting long range from
2. Know how to arrive at a ballistic solution given your velocity and bullet choice
3. Know how to dial in for elevation and hold off for wind
4. Understand your 'zero', how to arrive at it, how to adjust to it, and have it recorded.
5. Understand the other functions of your optic like parallax adjustment, focus, units of your reticle, units of your turrets, how to convert between them if you need to, and how much elevation you have to work with.
6. Understand the terminology. Understand what a Mil is, what a MOA is, what mirage is, what windage/elevation are, etc.

What makes a good starter long range platform?

There are things that are important for a long range rifle:

1. Comfortable ergos. It can make shooting prone or off a bench for long periods much easier. Part of this is rifle weight. It can be helpful to have a heavy rifle to reduce fatigue over time.
2. The ability to shoot off bracing. This usually means a rigid stock, free floated barrel, so that a bipod or front bags can be used. Ideally, it would have a butt that is shaped either to ride bags or hook into the hand or shoulder. When you are fighting the conditions and the environment, stability and accurate shooting are key.
3. Precision. Not everyone feels strongly about this. Some folks think a 1-1.5 MOA rifle is okay. Personally, I think you should go as precise as you can at close range so that you aren't guessing at what you screwed up at long range. Long range shooting is very difficult to get right consistently. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of learning. Not knowing if you shot a flier or mistaking fliers for bad calls can, IMO, hamper the learning process. I would always prefer to have faith in what I'm shooting on.
4. The ability to zero, make adjustments. There are optics out there that rely more on the reticle than the adjustments, and some people learn on those, but IMO, they are inferior to having a good set of turrets. Good turrets aren't cheap, and it isn't often that a cheap scope has the type of adjustments or the adjustment range for long range shooting. That being said, there are some good options out there for what I would not consider to be outrageous money, and that can get you to any distance you would want to shoot.
5. Capable ballistics. Some folks come from the perspective that you should start with bad ballistics (like 223 Rem) and work your way to something with great ballistics. To me, that is counter-intuitive. It seems like learning to drive on a stick shift, no traction control, no ABS Dodge Viper. IMO, you should give yourself as big of an advantage as you can right out of the gate, and once you've learned the skills, then dabble in something that requires more skill to get shooting well.
6. Ability to handle heat. Rifles can be adversely affected by heat and heat can wear out barrels faster. Heavier profiled barrels can help absorb that heat and dissipate it faster. More heat dissipation means more shooting before you have to break for cooling. It also adds weight, which, as I mentioned before, can be very beneficial. All of the rifles you see me recommend will be heavy barreled.

Expanding on 5, these are the cartridges that I would green light for a beginner to learn on:

• 308 Winchester - High availability of good match quality, tactical type ammo that can reach out to 1000 yards. Federal Gold Medal Match can be had in a 175 gr SMK variant for $1/round or less from Palmetto State Armory. For close range, PMC Bronze at about $0.50/round is great for practicing. For handloading, the 185 Juggernaut, 175 TMK, 155 Palma, and 178 ELD-M are all popular options in this cartridge. Varget, IMR 4064, XBR, H4895, CFE223, BL-C2, Win 748 are all popular powders. Recoil is most stout out of these.
• 6.5 Grendel/6ARC - This is really an option limited to Howa 1500s, CZ 527s, Ruger American Predators, and AR-15s. In the past couple years, availability has gone up. It isn't uncommon to see Hornady Black in gunshop shelves and sometimes even more exotic ammo, like Federal GMB, can be found too. Bulk purchase for $1.50/round for long range shooting, Federal American Eagle or Hornady Gunner for accurate mid-long range, or shoot out to 500+ yards with $0.25/round Wolf steel case. Not anymore. Mild recoil, neat looking, neat shooting cartridge. They are pets of mine. Handloading for this cartridge can be tougher due to availability of load data, die options, and some finickyness with the cartridge, but this is improving all the time and may no longer be true. Typically, 6mm/6.5mm bullets cost as much as 30 cal bullets. Barrel life is longer than any other option on this list.
• 6CM/6.5 Creedmoor - These are the big hot thing for long range. Moderate to high availability of very high quality match ammo, outrageous ballistics compared to the other options in this list. With Hornady American Gunner, you can get high precision 1000 yard ballistics for $0.70/round. S&B also plans to release 6.5CM ammo later this year. For 6.5CM Hornady offers several 147gr, 140gr and 120gr ELD-M options at the $1.40-1.75 price point that are excellent. 6CM, that is a $1.50-1.65/rd 108 ELD-M ammo. There is no super cheap ammo option in this cartridge with entry ammo prices in the $0.85-1 range. Barrel life is also shortest of all of these.
• 223 Rem - This is another option for mid-range shooting, but I would discourage it at very long range if you are shooting box ammo. It goes subsonic at 700-850 yards depending on barrel length and bullet selection, and gets pushed around by the wind a lot. The bullets that are common for ARs are also quite pricey, with match ammo costing as much as 308 Win, 6.5G, or 6.5CM and bullets themselves costing more than the 30 cal Hornady offerings. But in a bolt gun, there are a lot more options for bullets that cost less than the 77gr SMK commonly shot in ARs. Cheap ammo availability is high and there is a wide selection. It, like 6.5G, are great for smaller folks as the recoil is almost negligible. Handloaders can fit very long ogive bullets in the 80-90gr range and extract much better performance from it.

Ammo price comparison - prices are out of date, expect 25% higher prices.
Now, before you get upset that I didn't pick your pet cartridge for the list, realize, there are many cartridges out there that are common or that people love that just aren't good for beginners. 30-06, for example, is a great cartridge with a long history, but is severely lacking in long range match type ammo and therefore does not make the list. For handloaders, it can be great like a 300 Win Mini Mag compared to 308 Win. Same goes for many other cartridges on paper like 7mm-08 or 243 Win. They all have faults on the cost or logistics side that makes them less than ideal options.
For a little further shooting, look into the 6.5PRC, 7PRC, and 300PRC.

Optics

There are too many optic choices to go through so I am going to focus on a few at a few price points and use them for the templated build. You may feel that there are better optic choices out there at a price point, but I haven't been able to handle or shoot on all of them and therefore, I do not include them.
I am going to list fixed, SFP, and FFP models. I do not feel I have gained anything from paying more for FFP scopes vs the SFP versions or the fixed scopes. With the type of shooting I am doing, I typically shoot at measurement magnification.

• $300 ($210 on sale) - SWFA SS 12x42 MRAD/Mil-Quad. Excellent optic. Rugged, accurate adjustments, no-nonsense, great reticle, good glass. There are lower and higher magnifications available. I suggest you stick to the 12x. It is at the sweet spot for magnification and glass quality. There is a MOA-Quad option as well. If you want that instead, then get it. Back in my day there was only a Mil-Quad and Dot, so I haven't played with the MOA model. There is an HD model that costs a lot more. Stick to the one I gave you. There are vari-powered models. Stick to the one I gave you. Its competitors are the Athalon Argos, Sightron S-TAC, Primary Arms 4-14x, and others.
• $450-500 - Bushnell Match Pro - Solid design entry level optic. Good, robust turrets, readable markings, tactile feel, solid internals, great reticle. Illumination costs $50 more.
• $600 - Vortex PST II 3-15x - Good option for illumination and a hunting/crossover form factor.
• $700 - Bushnell Match Pro ED 5-30x - This is the new current meta for scope under $1500. Better glass and features than the PST II at similar money. It's primary competitor is going to be something like the Ares ETR, with the ETR having a little better CA performance but the Bushnell having better resolution (IMO).
• $2200 - Vortex Razor HD III 6-36x - This optic came out as the 'ZCO Killer' with near alpha tier glass and every feature you could want from a high end tactical optic. It isn't quite that, but at half the price if you know where to buy, it is so close that a higher end $3000+ optic can be really hard to justify.
• $4000 - ZCO 420/527/840 - This is about the entry to the alpha glass. As close to perfect as you can get in optics, and a price to match.

Mounts - I don't believe in over-spending on mounts.

• Base for your rifle - If you get the SWFA option, you won't need a canted rail, but if you get some of the other options, you may want a 20 MOA cant. You might as well get it canted because it costs the same. I buy Warne, EGW, and Weaver and have never had a problem with any of them. $35-50
• Rings - I am a big ol' fanboy of the Burris Signature Zee rings for really cheap rings. They don't mar your scope, lock up well, won't bend your scope tube, and either come with or have the option for inserts that let you put a cant on your scope from the rings to add or in replacement for the canted base. - $50-60. For most of the scopes in the list above and most contours, you want the High rings. For the 40-45mm, on lighter profile barrels, you want the Medium rings. If you pick a scope with a 34mm+ tube, you may need to spend closer to $150 to get a set of rings that will work for you. Seekins Precision, Vortex PM, and Hawkins rings are all popular options.

Plan for that combo to be +$100

But my budget is only a few hundred dollars and I can't shoot at 1000 yards anyways...

If you are only going to be shooting a few hundred yards, get a Savage Axis II combo and shoot it to death. You won't have most of the points I make above, but it will shoot and out to 500-600 yards, you won't need a ton of fancy features. Strelok (Not with the state department ban, need to figure out what works here, but you can use shooterscalc in the meantime) can tell you where to hold off based on information you get from the ammo box and ammo selection is wide and relatively cheap. Go shoot.

I saw the title and that sounded like what I wanted!

Template build 1:

• Ruger American Predator for $450. Another great choice. Comes in 308 Win, 6.5CM, 223 Rem, and 6.5G. Get the model that has AICS or AR magazine compatibility, not the rotary magazine model. Throw a Bushnell Match Pro on it.
• Howa Mini Action/1500 - Comes in 308 Win, 6.5 Grendel, 6.5 CM, and many other cartridges for around $490, more with fancy paint jobs. Throw an SWFA SS on it.

My budget is a little higher... I was looking at the Ruger Precision Rifle and...

• Bergara HMR - $950. They come in 6.5CM and 308 Win, and some others I think. They are very accurate out of the box, almost to the level of the entry level customs that you can read about in the guide above. They come threaded, with good adjustable stocks, DBM systems, and aren't super heavy.
• Tikka T3x CTR - $900-950. They come in 6.5CM, 308 Win, blued, and stainless. The actions are really good, the triggers are pretty good too and come with a really high end set trigger option. The barrels are pretty decent. This is a traditional-form-factor competitor to the Bergara HMR and some other rifles and is a great hybrid hiking and target rifle. They come with muzzle threading and DBM, but use proprietary magazines.
• Howa Bravo - $1100 in 6.5 Creedmoor. Pick the optic you want, but takes AI mags, good barrels, threaded, and a decent stock with lots of add-ons available.

But my budget is $2000+!

This category, you should be looking at guns that qualify for PRS Production class. This used to be a $2000 limit, then was changed to $2500, and most recently, to $3000.

• MPA BA PMR
• Seekins Havak Bravo
• Badrock South Fork - $2000-2200
• GAP makes one that you really want but can't buy
• Bergara Premier Competition - $2750
• ARC Rifle - $2500

Rifles in this price point I do not recommend:

• Christensen MPR
• Savage Precision
• DD Delta 5
• Ruger Hawkeye LR

You could also:

1. Dive into the entry-level customs guide at the top
2. Pick a rifle from the previous section and spend more on glass
3. Ask this again in /longrange, check my post history for information about my own builds.

Okay got it... now what?

Go shoot, ya doofus. Don't put long range on a pedestal. Getting good shooting is something that needs to be done with practice, so stop worrying so much about gear and go shoot.

Feedback

Reshp2's option

Kiichi Miyazawa

“My instincts are setting off all alarm bells… because there’s a ferocious beast right in front of me. It’s coming, getting closer. It could kill me with a single blow were I so foolish as to attack. Its strength is absolutely miles above my own.”
Kiichi Miyazawa, commonly referred to by his nickname "Kiibo" is the current and 15th grandmaster of the ancestral martial art known as the Nadashinkage-ryu. As the heir and eventual head of the Nadashinkage-ryu, Kiichi has competed in tournaments and faced martial arts from across the planet to prove himself as the strongest fighter in the world.

NADASHINKAGE

"The Nadashinkage-ryu Style is an ancestral martial art that doesn’t limit itself to simply punching and kicking. It integrates other Chinese disciplines, like the "Shukakkl”, relying on projection techniques; the "Sanda", which concentrates attacks on vital points and joints; or even the "Klishuda-So”, made to face an opponent with a weapon barehanded. In other words, it’s a complete combat method designed solely for killing."
Kiichi also practices other martial arts, specifically:
“Kiichi Miyazawa Style”, this usually refers to a technique he created, often modified from a previous technique. He also actively integrates his opponents techniques as his own.
“Yugenshinkage-ryu”, a style similar to the Nadashinkage-ryu that focuses more on visual illusions and techniques that require tremendous speed. He combined this style with the Nadashinkage-ryu at the end of TOUGH to create the hybrid “Nadashinkamikage-ryuu.”
Series Key 📖
Koukou Tekkenden Tough = [KTT]
TOUGH = [TF]
Tough Gaiden: Ryuu wo Tsugu Otoko = [TGR]

Strength

“Currently, I consider him to be the strongest martial artist among the people known to me”
Objective

• Destroys a motorcycle with kicks [KTT³]
• Strikes a punching bag hard enough that it breaks off its chains and is sent flying into the air while submerged underwater [KTT⁴²]
• [Limit] Suffers from "Boxer's Fracture" after striking a large metal bell [KTT⁴⁴]
• Leaves a crater in a wall from a kick and destroys lockers with his blows [KTT⁵⁵]
• Breaks through a water pipe with a punch [KTT³²²]
• Creates vibrations by stomping his foot [TF⁴⁰⁰]
• Destroys a concrete wall with a punch [TGR³⁸]

Launching People

• Launches Kaneda with a kick to the back of the head [KTT⁶⁶]
• Launches Fujita a few meters with a kick [KTT²⁸⁹]
• Beats up a bunch of karatekas [TF²²]
• Launches a giant man with a punch [TF⁴¹]
• Sends Udo flying by swinging a T-shirt pouch full of rings towards him [TF⁵⁹]
• Sends the Dark Monkey flying down a hall through a window with a double upkick [TF¹⁵¹]
• Launches Seiko into the air with a punch [TF¹⁹⁶]
• Launches Kakugo off the palace porch with a knee to the face [TF⁴¹²]
• Sends Kakugo flying into a lake with a punch [TF⁴¹⁵]
• Launches Dump Matsuki down the hall with a palm strike [TGR⁵¹]
• Breaks Bucky's prosthetic hand with a counter punch and sends him flying off the ship with a second punch [TGR¹¹⁷]

Scaling

• Disfigures a thugs leg with a kick [KTT²]
• Breaks the cartilage in Kanou's nose with a strike [KTT²³]
• Beats down Iron Kiba [KTT¹³²]
• Temporarily knocks out Iron Kiba with a rush of attacks [KTT¹⁴⁶]
  • scaling
• Drops Shinichi Kiba with a punch [KTT³³⁵]
• Dislocates Kengo's jaw with a punch, relocates it back with a second punch that knocks him out [TF⁶]
• Drops Son-O with a punch [TF³³⁶]
• Matches the strength of Kakugo's "Monster Foot" in a direct clash [TF³⁶⁹]
  • scaling
• Knocks out Dump Matsuki with a single blow [TGR⁷⁷]
• Knocks out and breaks Mr. Animals nose with a single punch [TGR⁸⁴]
  • scaling

Grip Strength/Lifting Strength

• Trains by going up stairs doing two finger handstands [KTT⁶]
• Climbs the wall of a building [TF¹⁵⁴]
• Climbs down a steep mountain [TF³⁹²]
• Latches onto crevices while sliding and falling down a cliff [TF³⁹³]

Durability

"Don't tell me you're already out of ammo? Look at me, I'm still doing great!"
Objective

• Is hardly affected after having a cement block smashed on his head [KTT²]
• Takes a kick to the leg from Galhad, the impact was described as sounding like a gunshot [KTT¹⁶³]
• Is unaffected by Gen's drill hand by using the Nadashinkage-ryu technique "Iron Muscle". It is said an expert of this technique would not even be affected by a spear [TF³⁵]
• Jumps down a long waterfall without getting hurt [TF⁵⁰]
• Gets shot with an M72 LAW, is able to stand back up and fight Bruno immediately afterwards [TF¹⁸⁷]

Scaling

• Takes a strike from Kuroda that sends him flying and knocking over tombstones [KTT⁹]
• Takes Kanou's ultimate technique "Yama Arashi" head on and gets up seemingly having taken no damage [KTT²⁴]
• Gets pulled through a wall by Tetsuzan and thrown across a room hard enough to crater the other wall [KTT⁵⁸]
• Takes a direct blow from Kaneda that launches him into the ocean, Tetsuzan notes that the unstable ground reduced the damage by half [KTT⁶⁴]
• Takes several direct attacks from Kaneda [KTT⁶⁵]
  • Kaneda is able strike through bamboo [KTT⁶¹]
• Takes a body slam from the top rope of a ring from Iron Kiba [KTT¹³³]
• Takes a northern lights suplex head first from Iron Kiba [KTT¹³⁴]
• Takes a direct punch to the face from Iron Kiba [KTT¹³⁵]
  • scaling RT
• Takes a punch from Shinichi Kiba that craters his head into a wall [KTT³²⁰]
• Takes a direct blow to the abdomen from Zion while drugged with muscle relaxants [TF¹³]
  • Zion is able to destroy a 1600 kg (3527 lbs) bull with a single blow [TF⁹]
• Takes a barrage of strikes to his guard from Zion [TF¹³]
• Is hardly affected by a low kick from Tadashi, his kick is said to be able to break 5 baseball bats [TF²¹]
• Gets pummeled by several strikes from various angles from Ou, then takes a knee to the face that sends him flying [TF⁶⁹]
• Takes a wind strike directly to the face from Suzuki [TF⁷⁸]
  • scaling
• Takes Seiko's Tiger Paw Strike straight to the head, is able to get back up [TF¹⁹⁴]
• Takes repeated blows to the face from Seiko [TF¹⁹⁹]
  • scaling RT
• Takes repeated punches to the face from Jet [TF²⁶¹]
• Takes a barrage of strikes to the face from Jet [TF²⁶⁹]
• Gets slammed through a wall by Bull Mashida, is left with a visible bruise afterwards [TF²⁷⁸]
• Takes a kick to the face from Taikan that dents him into the side of a refrigerated truck [TF³⁵⁷]
• Takes multiple attacks from Taikan [TF³⁵⁸]
• Takes over half a dozen tackles into the side of a refrigerated truck hard enough to leave dents across the truck, comes out of the truck fully conscious after it topples over [TF³⁵⁹]

Endurance

“The one who’ll inherit the Nadashinkageryu, the art of life and death, will fight until his last drop of blood, until his bones turn to dust…”
General

• Kiichi is able to run for an entire day straight, he's able to do this through reaching the state of "Marathonian's Nirvana", the point where one transitions from passive and active effort [KTT¹²⁶]
• His fight with Iron Kiba lasted nearly 5 hours [KTT¹⁵⁰]
• Survived a 24 hour battle royale and came out in first place [TF⁸²]
• As a child, Kiichi didn't cry after breaking his arm [TF²⁰³]
• Goes through a long bottomless swamp with only a rope for leverage [TF³⁹⁶]

Fighting Through Injuries

• Gets his already broken hand smothered even further by Samon [KTT⁵⁰]
• Strikes Samon with his broken hand [KTT⁵¹]
• Repeatedly kicks Remco despite his leg being injured to the point you can see the bone [KTT⁹⁰]
• Continues fighting Iron Kiba despite having broken ribs [KTT¹³⁷]
• Takes a full weight elbow into his broken ribs from Iron Kiba, then gets repeatedly punched in his already broken ribs [KTT¹⁴³]
• Bleeds from his ribs from Chosho's submission [KTT²⁰¹]
• Continues a submission with a broken arm [KTT²⁰³]
• Throws a palm strike with his broken arm that is on fire [KTT²⁰⁵]
• Gets into a mutual leg lock with Shindo that extends their joints to their limits, the exchange ends with Shindo's ligaments torn first [TF⁴⁷]
• Continues his chokehold despite having Ou's teeth bitten into his flesh [TF⁷⁴]
• Has his ear mangled by a kick from Tomioka [TF³⁰³]
• Continues a submission despite puking blood, bleeding profusely from his ear and having his eye nearly gouged out [TF³⁰³]
• Continues fighting despite being pierced in the abdomen by Kakugo's strike, resulting in blood dripping over the floor [TF⁴⁰⁷]

Fighting Through Internal Techniques

• Is able to stand back up without much issue after Kuroda's "Hashinsho". However, Kiichi implies Kuroda's "Hashinsho" is far inferior to his fathers [KTT⁹]
  • The "Hashinsho" is a palm strike that sends a shockwave that impairs the organs, this shockwave starts from the diaphragm and goes up to the brain [KTT⁹]
• He is able to continue fighting despite taking the "Will-O-The-Wisp" strike head on, this technique causes violent contractions in the diaphragm [KTT¹¹⁰]
• Takes the force of his own "Kaikanken" back towards himself, is able to continue fighting despite having his back flesh exposed from the strike [TF¹⁹⁸]
  • The "Kaikanken" is a technique that allows you to modify the trajectory of a Hakkei shockwave at will, the wave can even be sent to the brain to destroy it [TF¹⁸⁶]
• Gets hit directly by Son-O's "Toshinshou/Palm of Destruction", this is a technique that shakes the brain at a violent pace to the point blood flows out of the eyes and ears, Kiichi is able to stand back up [TF³³⁴]
• Gets hit a second time with Son-O's Toshinshou, is able to continue fighting [TF³³⁵]

Agility

"Oh! Kiibo's leap leaves him suspended in mid-air even longer than Seiko with his Tiger Foot!"

• Jumps over Enzo to land a strike [KTT³⁰⁴]
• Jumps across trees to land a kick on Shindo [TF⁴³]
• Jumps up a cage to land a spinning waterfall kick on the Dark Monkey [TF¹⁷⁵]
• Jumps over the Dark Monkey [TF¹⁷⁸]
• Jumps several meters into the air with his version of the "Tiger Paw Strike" [TF²²⁵]

Speed

"He is able to move at such a high speed, that it's as if he is ignoring the rules of gravity."
Attack Speed

• Swats down a swarm of hornets coming towards him [KTT⁸]
• Is described as disappearing by spectators when dodging Kuroda's strike [KTT⁹]
• Blitzes Iron Kiba [KTT¹³²]
  • scaling RT
• Doesn't let a single petal from a tree fall within a two meter radius of him [TF²⁷]
• His hits are too fast for Gen's eyes to follow [TF⁴⁷]
• Outspeeds Kikuta in a short exchange [TF¹⁶¹]
  • scaling RT
• Kiichi's version of the "Tiger Paw Strike" was too fast for Seiko to dodge [TF²²⁵]
  • scaling RT
• Outspeeds Seiko's "Tiger Paw Strike" with his own variation of the kick [TF²²⁸]
  • scaling
• Outspeeds Jet's strike with his "Gentotsu" [TF²⁵¹]
  • See Chi/Mortal Techniques
• Kiichi's ultimate counter on Jet involving multiple movements was too fast to be seen by anyone the audience [TF²⁷⁰]
• Is described as using the "Unseen Fists" while fighting Son-O [TF³³⁰]
• Keeps up with Son-O in combat [TF³³⁴]
  • scaling RT
• Moves fast enough in combat that he is described as having disappeared by spectating fighters [TF⁴¹⁵]
  • scaling
• Kiichi and Kiryu's speed in combat generated enough wind pressure that it was difficult for spectators eyes to stay open [TGR⁵⁰]
• Kiichi's "Sen'inpaku Hakyaku" kick towards Kiyomaru couldn't be seen by anyone in the audience [TGR⁷⁷]

Reaction Speed

• Dodges Samon's strikes [KTT⁴⁶]
  • scaling RT
• Kiichi undergoes training where he dodges baseballs shot from a machine. From a distance of 3 meters and a speed of 130 km/h the baseball reaches its target in 0.08 seconds. Kiichi proceeds to dodge multiple baseballs from a closer distance of 1 meter and a faster speed of 150 km/h [KTT⁶⁰]
• Dodges Galhad's kick [KTT¹⁶⁹]
  • Galhad's kicks couldn't be seen by Yoshiki [KTT¹⁵⁶]
• Possibly avoids gunfire [TF¹⁸]
• Slides a bullet off his head from a close range [TF¹¹¹]
• Lands a kick on the Dark Monkey during his movements through the cage [TF¹⁷³]
  • The Dark Monkey moves too fast for the audiences eyes to follow [TF¹⁷³]
• Keeps up with Jet's speed in a brief exchange [TF²⁵³]
  • scaling RT
• Casually dodges a chunk of bats being kicked towards him [TF²⁹⁴]
• Kiichi disappears when dodging Kakugo's strike by using the "Mourouken" technique [TF⁴¹⁴]
• Is described as disappearing again by Seiko when dodging Kakugo's "Morote Senkouken" [TF⁴¹⁶]
• Blocks all of Seiko's strikes [TGR⁵¹]
• Dodges all of Himeji's spear hand strikes [TGR⁵⁹]
  • scaling RT

Sky Eye

• The Sky Eye/Eye in the Sky is an ability that allows Kiichi to perceive the battle from a birds eye view in slow motion, seemingly "guiding" his body. When in use, Kiichi is able to see Minoru Suzuki's kick in slow motion [TF⁷⁹] (This could also be considered a "Skill" section)
• Sees all of Son-O's strikes in slow motion [TF³³⁵]
  • When Son-O and Kiichi use the ability at the same time, their spirits fight while the damage is transferred to their actual bodies [TF³³⁷]
• Sees all of Kakugo's strikes in slow motion while unconscious [TF⁴⁰⁸]

Travel Speed

• Runs faster than some wolves chasing him [TF⁵⁰]
• Runs up the 200 meter Hoover Dam [TF¹⁸⁷]

Skill

“You have God. I have the Nadashinkage school.”
General

• Is described as having "The Eye", which is to be able to instantly figure out an opponents weak spot [KTT⁵⁰]
• Simulates a fight in his head for nearly 6 hours to outpredict Shingo the Seer [KTT¹⁰⁴]
• Kiichi can keep his balance while riding a bull, this works his balance and reinforces articulation of the knee and thigh muscles for better ground defense [KTT¹²⁵]
• Kiichi is described as having reached the highest of the three level of martial arts training, the state of "Emancipation". He is said to have surpassed Seiko's Nadashinkage and is now perfecting his own evolution [TF²²⁶]
• The "Great Holy Mirror" is a sacred object passed down the Nadashinkage generations with the goal of hitting faster than your own reflection and ridding yourself of your own shadow. By using the technique "Gentotsu" which makes his reach appear to be able to extend, Kiichi is able to pass the test [TF²³⁰]
• Becomes the master of the Nadashinkamikage-ryu, a school that combines the Nadashinkage and Yugenshinkage styles [TF⁴²⁶]
• Taught Himeji Onizuka martial arts [TGR¹²]
  • RT reference

Offensive

• Dodges Kuroda's strike and busts his forehead open with his foot, this technique is known as the "Fusen Kyaku, Swirling Hammer Kick" [KTT⁹]
• Attacks his heavier opponents lower body [KTT¹⁵]
• Strikes Kanou's nose with a swirling axe kick then drops him to the floor with a simple palm strike. It is explained that Kiichi struck Kanou's nose to give him difficulty breathing so he could strike at beginning of the inhalation phase for a maximum shock [KTT²¹]
• Repeatedly knees Kanou's broken nose [KTT²³]
• Circles around Kaneda to find a blind spot to strike [KTT⁵⁷]
• Recognizes his Sumo opponent's weakness is his lower body and focuses attacks in that area [KTT⁷⁸]
• Repeatedly kicks Remco's legs to force him to drop his guard and land a kick to the temple [KTT⁸⁹]
• Outpredicts Shingo the Seer to put him to sleep [KTT¹¹³]
  • Shingo the Seer is said to be able to predict 10 to 20 moves ahead [KTT⁹⁶]
  • See Nadashinkage-ryu and Original Submissions
• Strikes Iron Kiba while mounted on him [KTT¹³²]
• Strikes Iron Kiba in his blind spot to drop him [KTT¹⁴²]
• Creates a cut above Iron Kiba's eye with a Muay Thai style elbow strike [KTT¹⁴⁵]
• Creates a clap to throw off Galhad's vision and land a kick on his leg, this is known as the "Fly Catcher Low Kick" [KTT¹⁶³]
• Uses Muay Thai style middle kicks and knees [KTT¹⁶⁶]
• Hits Galhad with the "Cobra Sword", a counter front kick that draws the opponents attention to the ground and strikes them with a knee created from a dead angle [KTT¹⁶⁶]
• Strikes Galhad with the "Spine Whip", a technique that hooks the opponents foot to land a spinning elbow [KTT¹⁶⁷]
• Lands a strike straight through Galhad's guard, this technique is known as the Nadashinkage-ryu: "Spiral Punch". This technique involves Kiichi twisting his fist to go through his opponent's guard, gaining extra power and breaking the cartilage of the nose that sends an impact straight to the brain [KTT¹⁶⁹]
• Latches onto Azuma's shoulder blade to deliver an uppercut [KTT²⁵⁶]
• Transitions from a Do Mawashi Geri (Rolling Thunder Kick) to a kneebar in one movement [KTT³⁰²]

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

** BOTH Sat 3/11 and Sun 3/12 *\*
Sat 9 AM - 4 PM, Sun 2:30 - 5:30 PM Mommy's Market 3800 Eubank Blvd. NE Thousands of gently used *Maternity *Baby *Kids Items in ONE place for ONE weekend! Local families selling their maternity to kids size 14/16 clothing, furniture, books, toys and equipment. Everything organized by size for easy shopping and clothing on clothing racks! $1 Admission each day. No Diaper Bags or Large Purses Please. We accept cash, Mastercard and Visa! Strollers welcome Saturday and Sunday (Empty-no toys, blankets etc)
12 - 1 PM Cultural Dances: Kaltonaka Dance Group (Chichimeca Mexica Azteca) Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th St. NW Celebrate the seasonal cycles through prayer, song, and dance with our Cultural Dance Program. Dances connect us to our ancestors, community, and traditions while honoring gifts from our Creator. They ensure that life continues and connections to the past and future are reinforced. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is the only place in North America to offer cultural Native American dances every week, year-round. Free for museum members, or with admission
** Fri 3/10 *\*
Fri 10:30 - 11:30 AM MUSIC: Rhythm & Pitch Western Winds Park, 2260 Zaragoza Rd. SE, Rio Rancho Join us for fun, engaging activities learning about rhythm, musical dynamics, and pitch. We will do a craft where the kids will get to make their own rhythm instruments to take home! Open to ages 3-18
Fri 10:45 AM A Morning of Music for Strings Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 114 Carlisle Blvd. SE Roberto Minczuk, Music Director. Grieg - Holberg Suite, Pärt - Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, Pachelbel - Canon in D Major, Tchaikovsky - Serenade for Strings. The NMPhil features its stellar string section in a morning of music for strings. First is Edvard Grieg’s wonderfully crafted Holberg Suite filled with flavors of dance, romance, folk, and even country fiddling! Then it is the continuously building Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten by Arvo Pärt. The concert continues with the much-loved Pachelbel Canon and ends with Tchaikovsky’s homage to Mozart, the Serenade for Strings (tickets)
Fri 1 - 2:30 PM Wine Class Vara Winery & Distillery, 315 Alameda Blvd. NE Join us at Vara for a Guided Wine Tasting with our Wine Educator Jennie Thornton! Taste six wines and learn about our American and Spanish wines. No matter your wine acumen, this will be a fun environment to taste and learn about Vara. $30 includes the flight of six wines as well as a light charcuterie plate. Learn to swirl wine like a pro! Classes are held on Wednesdays and Fridays in Albuquerque. In Santa Fe, classes are Tuesday and Thursday at 11am. We are exploring a weekend option, but for now, these classes are on weekdays. Call (505) 898-6280 to make your reservation
Fri 4:15 - 5:45 PM Men's Class and Men's Night at Bianca Lily Ballet Maple Street Dance Space, 3215 Central Ave NE "Ballet for Butch Dudes" followed by Men's Night! $10 cash or check at the door. Suitable for those with the skill set for an advanced beginner and intermediate ballet class. Men's night will begin at about 6pm or after class. Men's night is a positive space for men of the studio, or male friends of the studio, to enjoy camaraderie and quality time together usually accompanied by food and drinks. We believe in fostering positive masculinity by providing men with an opportunity to grow through the practice of ballet
Fri 4:30 - 5:30 PM All-Levels Yoga Sabrina's Z CREW Fitness, 4619 Lomas Blvd. NE Beginners and advanced students alike will gain greater strength, flexibility, balance, and more, all done to unique electric/indie/dance playlists crafted by your yoga teacher Kat. Bring meditation and peace into your life with a variety of yoga; Vinyasa yoga which connects your breath and movement, Hatha yoga which will slowly stretch you out, Yin yoga to relax and restore your body, and more! Learn and practice yoga with us today! Only $7.50 a class! Bring water and a mat if you have one if not we have some spares. We do not provide yoga props so please bring your own if you want to use them. Wear flexible exercise clothing! (Register here)
Fri 6 - 9 PM Charcuterie, Sip & Paint Tully's Italian Deli, 1425 San Mateo Blvd. NE Enjoy charcuterie and wine while you paint your next masterpiece with instruction by Artist Carisa Otero! Call us at (505) 255-5370 to book, space is limited! $55 per person (does not include tax or gratuity) All materials are included. This is a 21 and over event. Bring your friends and make new ones!
Fri 6 - 9 PM Club Dance Party! CSP Dance Studios, 1624 Eubank Blvd. NE Join us as we celebrate the love of dance with salsa, bachata, cha cha, west coast swing, hustle, line dancing, and 2step. Whether you're part of a couple or flying solo, all are welcome to come show off their moves and have a great time! $10 at the door. 6:00-6:30 Welcome lesson
Fri 7 PM Cabaret Musical Theatre Southwest, 6320 Domingo Rd. NE, Ste B Join us for Musical Theater Southwest rendition of Kander & Ebb’s musical, Cabaret! Don’t miss out on this classic!
Fri 7 - 11:30 PM Poison Ruïn Sister, 407 Central Ave NW Poison Ruïn from Philadelphia are bringing their dark fantasy post-punk faire to the duke city, with support from Nymph and Spectral Decay. Poison Ruïn is a project out of Philadelphia that caught a good amount of attention in 2020 for their unique blend of punk, post punk, and dungeon synth elements. Nymph is a duo that embodies the elegant ferocity of synthwave; weaving gliding melodies between a cadence of industrial clang. Spectral Decay is an antifascist black metal project based here in Albuquerque, with songs that bring d-beat and crust into dialogue with a quintessential black metal sound
Fri 7:30 - 9:30 PM Mariachi Albuquerque Cervantes Restaurant & Lounge, 5801 Gibson Blvd. SE Mariachi Albuquerque has been performing at Cervantes for two years! Come down and join us and our dinner guests. Enjoy our live music with enchiladas or a drink, your choice!
Fri 8 PM Kilting Me Softly Comedy Show Kilt Check Brewing Company, 4814 Hardware Dr. NE Chuck Parker and Crosslines Media present another killer stand-up comedy showcase at Kilt Check Brewing Company with the Kilting Me Softly Comedy Show! This months headliner: Tripp Stelnicki, Featuring Caryn Carson & David Montoya, With your host Chuck Parker
Fri 8 - 11 PM Whirled View: DJs Caterwaul & Luftmensch Spin Global Jammers Tractor Brewing Company, 118 Tulane Dr. SE Broadcasting on the frequency of Radio Free Everywhere, DJs Caterwaul & Luftmensch spin out all-vinyl jammers from a wide latitude of sources. The World is Yours!
Fri 8 - 11:30 PM Goth Night & Dark Market Lepregoths Edition Tractor Brewing - Wells Park, 1800 4th St. NW We're going full dark side for St Patrick's this year, and celebrating these mischievous magical deviants as it was intended to be celebrated, with Goth music. DJ Riff Rat and DJ Ren will be spinning on the ones and twos, Pepe El Monstrito will be providing sound, and Spectral Youth will be featuring some amazing local vendor. Time to break out your Doc Martins, black nail polish, eyeliner, and choker, because we're hosting a night of beautiful music for you dark hearts
Fri 9 PM - 2 AM Kyle Kinch (Dirtybird) Effex, 420 Central Ave Rising from Tampa, Florida KYLE KINCH (Dirtybird) been making big waves in House Music world in recent years and he will be finally making his New Mexico debut on Effex Rooftop. We cannot wait to witness one of his high energy and groovy sets for We House Fridays. Support By Chiddy + Femme.Antics. Doors at 9PM, 21+ with Valid ID, Cover Charge at Door. Groovy. It is the only word that accurately describes Kyle Kinch's music, presence, and persona. With a deep-rooted obsession with jazz and disco, Kyle finesses these influences to blur the lines between house, disco, and techno. Kyle has featured releases on Gorgon City's Realm Records, Sonny Fodera's Solotoko, Low Steppa's Simma Black, and EMI; his undeniable and uncanny sound has been felt at Coachella, Elrow, Sunset Music Festival, and numerous dancefloors across the world. In late 2018, Kyle linked up with powerhouse duo Gorgon City to be the first artist on their label, Realm (other than the duo themselves). The Manchester EP sparked the rise of his signature sound and gained support from heavy hitters such as Camelphat, Fisher, and David Guetta. Following this success, Kyle reached new heights by making the front page of Beatport, features on Forbes, and remixing top-selling artist Duke Dumont. With his productions powering his performances, Kyle Kinch captivates audiences on both the club and festival stages. Kyle creates a unique vibe that few can imitate. This energy brought him to play some of the hottest venues from Printworks to Avant Gardner to Brooklyn Bowl and some of the biggest festivals from Ultra Music Festival to EDC in recent years
Fri 10 PM Fuego Friday Cake Nightclub, 515 Central Ave NW Every Friday. 21+. First Floor: Hip hop, Top 40, and more! Upper Level: Reggaeton, Bachata, Cumbia, Merengue
Fri 10:30 PM - 12:15 AM The Beyond: The Composer's Cut, the newly restored '81 Fulci nightmare swamp crazy mind bender! The Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave NE Check out the trailer. ONE NIGHT ONLY - Grindhouse Releasing has teamed with original composer Fabio Frizzi to present a special "Composer's Cut" of Fulci's horror masterpiece featuring an all-new alternate soundtrack and a stunning new 4K restoration from the original camera negatives, exclusively in theaters! The seven dreaded gateways to hell are concealed in seven cursed places... And on the day the gates of hell are opened, the dead will walk the earth! From legendary Italian horror master Lucio Fulci comes the ultimate classic of supernatural terror. A cursed hotel, built over one of the seven gateways to hell, becomes a malevolent abyss that begins devouring both the bodies and the souls of all who enter in a graphic frenzy of gory crucifixions, brutal chain-whippings, eyeball impalements, sulphuric acid meltdowns, flesh-eating tarantulas, throat-shredding demon dogs and ravenous bloodthirsty zombies (tickets)
** Sat 3/11 *\*
Sat 8 AM Field Clean Up Westgate Little League, 700 86th St. SW Come help us get our fields ready for our spring season!
Sat 8 - 11 AM Annual Pancake Breakfast 2023 Albuquerque Christian Children's Home, 5700 Winter Haven Dr. NW Come out for a fun time and some delicious pancakes, brought to you by Whataburger! The ACCH Annual Pancake Breakfast has fluffy pancakes, hot coffee, and awesome company. Get to meet the ACCH staff and children, ask questions, find out how to volunteer, and enjoy warm company. $5 for adults, $3 for children ages 6-12, young ones eat free! All donations go into the ACCH general operating fund to continue to help at-risk children. Come on down!
Sat 9 AM - 3 PM Spring Vendor and Craft Fling Sabana Grande Recreation, 4110 Sabana Grande Ave SE, Rio Rancho Our spring fling is one of our most popular arts and crafts fairs. Come shop from over 45 local artists and crafters for unique handmade gifts. The perfect place to find items for upcoming birthdays and holidays including St. Patrick’s Day and Easter
Sat 10 AM Moving Garden Boxes Whittier Elementary, 1110 Quincy St. SE Project Feed The Hood is seeking volunteers! We will need assistance moving garden boxes. Please come dressed in appropriate work attire, and bring your own shovel if possible. There will be heavy lifting involved. For any questions or concerns, please contact [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Sat 10 AM - 12 PM First March Market Los Ranchos Art Market, 6718 Rio Grande Blvd NW, Los Ranchos This will be our last market that officially happens in Winter. We don't 'wear our tents' during the cooler months because we are capturing the warmth of the sun. It makes it an even more relaxed market than usual. We've all been making lots of new things for you to check out so bring your friends, family, dogs and kick off your weekend with a little outdoor socializing and shopping. Can't wait to see you!
Sat 10 AM - 12 PM AND 11 AM - 1 PM Willy Wonka FamFest Flix Brewhouse, 3236 La Orilla Rd. NW Enter a world of pure imagination at our Willy Wonka Famfest event. We will have a factory of fun featuring family photo ops and activities before the film (tickets)
Sat 10 AM - 2 PM Cash for Kicks Bosque Martial Arts, 4351 Jager Dr. NE, Rio Rancho Bosque Martial Arts will be holding an open house and fundraiser benefiting Team Pride. Please stop by and say hi and play some games. We are right behind the Valvoline on Enchanted Hills. Through our silent auction you can bid on items such as a balloon ride, doggy day care and many other awesome items. There will be lots of raffle prizes too. Raffle tickets will be a dollar ($1) each. You can use them to buy drinks and snacks, play games and to enter for a chance to win one of the raffle prizes that will be on display. There will be demonstrations and free classes through the event. Team Pride helps at risk and neglected children have the opportunity to learn Taekwondo, leadership and life skills. There will also be a food truck and Girl Scouts selling cookies (more info)
Sat 10 AM - 4 PM March Book Sale by the Friends of the Public Library Main Library, 501 Copper Ave NW There will be a variety of fiction, non-fiction, children and adults books, videos, comic books, maps available. Free for Members - $2 for Non-Members. Free to all after noon. All Sales are held in the Lower Level of the Main Library. Validated parking is available on 5th and Copper, kitty-corner to the library. The Friends of the Public Library is a non-profit organization. All proceeds go to supporting the Public Library of Albuquerque & Bernalillo County library programs
Sat 11 AM - 1 PM Food is Free ABQ Seed Sorting International District Library, 7601 Central Ave NE Bring seeds or sort seeds, or do both! We will be making packages, stickering, and repackaging. We hope to see you there!
Sat 11 AM - 4 PM Kid's Fishing Weekend/Car Show Cabela's, 5151 Lang Ave NE Bring the kids for FREE catch and release fishing. While you're here enjoy the beauty of some awesome vehicles in our car show. Have a nice ride? Be a participant in the car show. All cars, trucks, and bikes are welcome
Sat 12 PM Annual Hero’s Volley Stoneface Tavern, 8201 San Pedro Dr. NE Join us at the Sand Volleyball Tournament to support our First Responders! All proceeds will go to the survivor’s fund and Ten-82. Police vs. Firefighters
Sat 12 - 2 PM Perler Bead Party Color Wheel Toys, 6855 4th St. NW, Bldg D Free make and take Perler bead activity - people ages 4 - 99 can place beads on the grid, and we'll fuse your design with a hot iron for you to take home! Make one or a few - plan a design or make an abstract masterpiece. Drop in between 12 - 2 pm, plan on 10 minutes to 1/2 hour depending on interest and focus
Sat 12 - 5 PM Lucky Charmers St. Patrick's Day Pet Photos Boofy's Best for Pets, 4610 Cutler Ave NE, Ste A Dress up your pets in their finest Irish green for St. Patrick's Day themed photos at Boofy's Cutler location! All well-behaved critters (leashed or crated) are welcome to attend, and so are humans of all ages. $10 per photo suggested donation benefits the 120+ foster cats and kittens of FAT KATZ
Sat 12:30 - 2:30 PM Beginner SALSA Bootcamp with Ritmo Y Tambor Hiland Theater, 4800 Central Ave SE Saturdays are for Salsa! The Beginner Salsa Bootcamp is a two-hour introductory and continually progressive Salsa intensive designed to move your learning along step by step. The Beginner Process is the hardest step. Every Saturday learn foundational and progressive techniques for Salsa social dancing as an individual and partner from Sara and Andre of Ritmo y Tambor with guidance and direction from Con Clave Dance! You'll learn: * Rhythm & Timing * Basic Shines * Leading Technique * Following Technique * Turn Technique * Styling * partnerwork combinations * No partner necessary * Drop-Ins * Dress Comfy * $15, cash, Venmo, CashApp
Sat 1 - 3 PM Pie Palooza Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, 9201 Balloon Museum Dr. NE Pie Palooza is a fundraiser for ORCA (Older Rainbow Community of ABQ, formerly SAGE ABQ) Don't miss out on this opportunity to eat delicious, homemade pie! We'll have a children's activity table, so bring the kids. And we will be offering a Balloon museum tour at 2:30. You don't need a museum ticket to attend the Pie Palooza and our attendees can access the museum. Celebrate pie and pi (3.14) and help support LGBTQ+ seniors. It's a win, win, win! Thank you to the City of Albuquerque for supporting this event!
Sat 1 - 3 PM St. Patrick's Day Tea Dance Holiday Dance Studio, 5200 Eubank Blvd. NE, Ste D Wear your "Luck o' the Irish" green as you enjoy an afternoon of tea and dancing! Delightful snacks and tea will be served as we "tea dance" the day away! $30 for non-members
Sat 1 - 4 PM The Art of Partner-work with Jaime Arôxa JUNO, 1501 1st St. NW The Art of Partner-work – This workshop can be applied to all genres of dance that Jamie teaches, including Zouk, Bachata, Tango, Salsa, and Samba. He will go over the “conversation” between lead and follow. How to communicate with body language, connection/contact, push/pull (convergence vs. divergence), weight, transfers, counterbalance, all different types of connection (visual, gestural, physical) and musical. He will discuss where the lead comes from, and how to be a free, but connected follower, how to be precise, and balanced, yet not lose connection with your partner. He will show you how to stylize movements without losing your connection with your partner. In addition, the following will be covered: * Musicality * Head Movement * Body Movement * Cumbre * Dips. This is a progressive workshop, and will be tailored to the levels in the class. * All levels welcome * No partner needed *$125 early bird for full month (early bird access ends Friday) then, $150/month *$15/hour drop in rate * $40/ drop in for the day rate * Cash preferred, can also accept cash app to $UWDstudios
Sat 1 - 5:30 PM Low Class New Mexico Car Show Tingley Coliseum Gladiator Stadium, 300 San Pedro We’re back in Albuquerque to host another car show! Come out for a great day full of friends & car gatherings! INDOOR ELITE - Outdoor car show - Limbo Contest - 2 Step Comp - Tug of war - Live music - Awards - Cash prices & More (tickets)
Sat 6 PM OR BDR Film Screening with Sandia BMW Motorrad Sunday Service Motor Co, 2701 4th St. NW We are very excited to announce the we will be hosting a screening of the new Oregon BDR film right here in Albuquerque! We're still working some of the finer details, but the current plan is that it will be hosted by Sunday Service Motor Co and presented by none other than Mike Bobbitt of the Motorcycle Relief Project. RSVP's are enthusiastically encouraged and the info for that will be available soon. There will also be a recommended minimum donation of $10 per entry, which will include free refreshments for the duration of the event, with all proceeds going to the Motorcycle Relief Project, a non-profit group that takes veterans and first responders with PTSD and other invisible wounds on therapeutic motorcycle adventures
Sat 6:30 - 9:30 PM March Amilonga - Tango Canteen Brewhouse, 2381 Aztec Rd. NE We will dance on their outdoor covered patio where you can enjoy craft beers, VARA wines and delicious food as you listen and dance to tango music by DJ Fer! Amilonga’s floor will be ready for your dancing pleasure. $5 suggested donations and purchase of drink and/or food followed up with a generous tip for your servers. Seating will be first come, first serve. No reservations will be taken
Sat 7 PM FightWorld 28 Revel ABQ, 4720 Alexander Blvd. NE FightWorld MMA returns for another evening of Professional & Amateur MMA! Be sure to get your tickets to see tomorrow’s stars today! Doors open 6p, first bell 7p, VIP tables available
Sat 7:30 - 9 PM Albuquerque Dance Connect Choreographer's Showcase Maple Street Dance Space, 3215 Central Ave NE The Duke City Swing Dynamites are excited to be performing at the Albuquerque Dance Connect Winter Choreography Showcase! Doors open at 7PM for the silent auction~ front studio only. Seating begins at 7:20 PM. Show starts at 7:30. Price: Donation of any amount. The showcase will feature original pieces in various styles by 6 different dance groups, including the Dynamites. Come out and support your local artists!
Sat 8 PM Hops & Dreams: Disney Villains & Princesses Edition! Tractor Brewing - Wells Park, 1800 4th St. NW The Desert Darlings and Raqzia Belly Dance return to Tractor for a magical night of theatrical belly dance performances! Join us for this free show, enjoy a drink, and dress up as your favorite Disney character if you feel so inclined
** Sun 3/12 *\*
Sun 9 AM 17th Annual NM Shamrock Shuffle Rio Rancho Aquatic Center, 745 Loma Colorado Blvd. NE, Rio Rancho Register today! 10-Miler: 9:00 a.m. (2.5 Hour Cut-off) 10K: 9:30 am. 4-Miler: 9:35 am. Kids K: 10:30 am. Join hundreds of participants as they put their green on! The Shamrock Shuffle offers age group and overall awards, including a great t-shirt and finisher medals for all 10-Miler participants
Sun 1 - 5 PM 3rd Anniversary Party! Open House & Dance Escape In Time, 1100 San Mateo Blvd., Ste 21 Escape in Time is celebrating it's 3rd Anniversary in business! We are excited and want you to join us at our OPEN HOUSE! Food, drinks, tours and conversations with our amazing in house entertainment (staff) (more info)
Sun 2 - 4 PM Cannabis and Canvases ABQ BITE, 3407 Central Ave NE we look forward to seeing all of you at this amazing cannabis friendly paint class. get your ticket now as space is limited and the class will fill up quickly. Tickets include - 16 color acrylic paint set for you to keep - paint brushes for you to keep - 8x10 stretched canvas to paint - one free promotional premium pre-roll from Royal Highness for personal use - 30 minute meet and greet with drinks available - 1 hour canvas painting experience class with instructor - 30 minute cooldown with food and drinks available
Sun 3 - 6 PM Sunday Variety Show Juno, 1501 1st St. NW Music, comedy, poetry, vendors. Performers include Mack & Cheeze, Basilaris Trio, Erin Bent, Kristen Patton (comedy), Liliana Rondon. As seen in the ABQ Journal: Every second sunday, Mack & Cheeze present a variety show at Juno. Music by Mack & Cheeze (hip-hop/triphop), Basilaris Trio (jazz) , Erin Bent, Comedy by Kristen Patton. Special guest: Liliana Rondon. +Vendors, Art. 21+ (minors okay with parents). No cover. Food and beverages (alcoholic/non-alcoholic) available for purchase
Sun 4 - 7 PM Music on the Patio: Hillary Smith and Chillhouse Canteen Brewhouse, 2381 Aztec Rd. NE The members of the Chill House Band bring years of experience performing professionally in NM and TX. The band provides an outstanding musical experience, including popular dance music, smooth/contemporary jazz, soul, R&B, and Blues. Hillary was recently inducted into the NM music hall of fame and Chillhouse was listed in 2021 as one of the top 10 bands in NM by the ABQ magazine.The Band is Glenn Kostur Sax,vocals, and keys, Jim Casey guitavocals, Milo Jaramillo bass/vocals, and JD Davis drums/vocals
Sun 6 PM ABQ Film and Music Experience Night at the Oscars Historic Lobo Theater, 3013 Central Ave NE Join us for an evening of celebration, food, drink, networking, prizes, and the showing of the Academy Awards on the BIG Screen. Dress to impress in your favorite Oscars fashion. Doors open at 5pm. Red Carpet from 5pm to 6pm. Awards from 6pm to 9pm. After party to follow. Suggested donation of $10 to the AFME Foundation (tickets)

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Murtagh

• Cover Art
• 656 pages / 190k words
• There will be eight illustrations drawn by Christopher Paolini. One of these will be Thorn's eye, while the other seven will be new to this book. It seems that six of those seven will be maps, including one map which is really "more of a creative visual interpretation".
• November 7th 2023
• The first print run will be two million copies (same as To Sleep)
• US Edition ISBN: 9780593650868
• UK Edition ISBN: 9780241651315
• Signed Edition ISBN: 9780593805459 (currently available from B&N and BAM)
• German Edition ISBN: 9783570167106
• There will also be a simultaneous audiobook and ebook release. The audiobook narrator is unannounced and the current placeholder length is 18 hours.
• There will be translated editions, including a simultaneous release German edition, and a Fall 2023 Spanish edition.
• Barnes and Nobles is having a sweepstakes for anyone who preorders the book from them (or mails in a postcard)
• Preorder Here
• Murtagh is set after the events of The Fork, The Witch and The Worm. It is recommended, but not required that FWW be read prior to reading this book.
• From Christopher:
  

  So, yeah, I wrote another book. MURTAGH is a full-length, stand-alone novel that picks up one year after the events of the Inheritance Cycle and builds on the story of the original series.
  

• From Christopher:
  

  Murtagh’ is the novel I’ve been waiting to write for over 13 years. It’s a deep dive into the life of our titular character and his dragon, Thorn. Here you’ll find mystery, magic, and revelations as Murtagh attempts to answer some of the deepest questions in the land, as well as those of his own life. I’ve had a ridiculous amount of (sometimes devilish) fun writing MURTAGH, and I can’t wait for readers to experience it for themselves. Welcome back to Alagaësia!
  

• From Christopher:
  

  Dragons, magic, and werecats. A brooding lead character with a troubled past. What more do you need? . . . Oh yes. A big fish. That too.
  

• From Christopher:
  

  As a number of you have guessed, Murtagh isn't the long-awaited Book V that I've planned on writing. However, it IS the fifth full-length novel set in Alagaësia and is a direct continuation of the themes and storylines of the Inheritance Cycle. If you've enjoyed the IC, this is more of the same (and possibly better).
  So why write Murtagh first? Well, as I was working on plotting Book V, I realized that a certain amount of groundwork needed to be laid in place before the book would make sense. Murtagh is that groundwork, and there was no way I could move on to Book V without writing this story first.
  To be clear, Murtagh isn't a spin-off. It isn't a retelling. And it isn't a one-off that won't connect to later events. It's a direct-line sequel to the Inheritance Cycle and an essential and necessary part of what I'm doing in Alagaësia. Also, some of the questions I left unanswered at the end of Inheritance are answered in Murtagh, so don't think I'm just letting all of you hang. That would be mean.
  In a way, this book is great big, 700 page promise to you, the reader, that more is coming. Which means I gotta get back to writing. In the meantime ... Sé onr sverdar sitja hvass!
  

• From Christopher:
  

  Is Murtagh Book Five? The question of questions. Well as I've written elsewhere, Murtagh is the fifth direct inline novel in the World of Eragon but it is not the fifth book that I have planned for so long. What ended up happening was that as I was starting to work out details of Book Five and doing more plotting on it and just thinking about it more in general, I realized that there was a lot of groundwork I need to lay in order for that book to make sense to readers. I mean I could jump in and I could write it and I think it would be a good book, but because it's further down the timeline and there are other stories that need to be told first, I figured I better go and tell them. And that's what led me to writing Murtagh.
  Also Murtagh himself is, I don't want to say I gave him short change in The Inheritance Cycle, but he goes through such an incredible journey that is not shared with the readers and we only sort of get to understand it through hints and little clues and dialogue and this and that through implication, and this novel is is a real opportunity to show people who he really is.
  It's not a rehash of The Inheritance Cycle though, it is set after the Inheritance Cycle and moves forward. But of course who Murtagh is is shaped by what he has gone through, his parents, and his experience with Galbatorix. And all of that is touched on. So that's kind of where Murtagh fits into this world. It is a full-sized entry into the World of Eragon. If you've enjoyed the Inheritance Cycle I think you will love Murtagh just as much, and it serves to move the story and themes forward in a meaningful way.
  

• Synopsis:
  

  Master storyteller and internationally bestselling author Christopher Paolini returns to the World of Eragon in this stunning epic fantasy set a year after the events of the Inheritance Cycle. Join Dragon Rider—and fan favorite—Murtagh and his dragon as they confront a perilous new enemy!
  The world is no longer safe for the Dragon Rider Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn. An evil king has been toppled, and they are left to face the consequences of the reluctant role they played in his reign of terror. Now they are hated and alone, exiled to the outskirts of society.
  Throughout the land, hushed voices whisper of brittle ground and a faint scent of brimstone in the air—and Murtagh senses that something wicked lurks in the shadows of Alagaësia. So begins an epic journey into lands both familiar and untraveled, where Murtagh and Thorn must use every weapon in their arsenal, from brains to brawn, to find and outwit a mysterious witch. A witch who is much more than she seems.
  In this gripping novel starring one of the most popular characters from Christopher Paolini’s blockbuster Inheritance Cycle, a Dragon Rider must discover what he stands for in a world that has abandoned him. Murtagh is the perfect book to enter the World of Eragon for the first time . . . or to joyfully return.
  

Eragon: The Illustrated Edition

• Illustrated by Sidharth Chaturvedi
• Cover Art
• There are "a bit over fifty" illustrations. Some samples can be seen here.
• Map (drawn by Stoneward13)
• November 7th 2023
• Published by Knopf
• ISBN: 9780593704462
• There will be a simultaneous ebook release
• There are plans to do illustrated editions of all four books
• There is a French Edition planned.
• Preorder Here
  
• From Christopher:
  

  And that's not all! 2023 marks the twentieth anniversary of the hardcover release of Eragon, which means . . . that’s right, we’re also releasing Eragon: The Illustrated Edition on November 7th, 2023.
  

• From Christopher:
  

  How is Eragon: The Illustrated Edition different from previous editions with illustrations? So the 10th Anniversary Edition of Eragon has maybe, I forget the exact number, but it's maybe eight or ten full color paintings throughout the book, one of which I did myself - it was a portrait of the character of Brom, and we had a whole bunch of awesome artists work on the different images. The 20th anniversary, the Illustrated Edition, is entirely illustrated by Sidharth, and has I'm forgetting the exact number again, but it's somewhere upwards of fifty-some individual paintings and drawings throughout the entire book. Not only that, the book itself is a wide format book, so the text is in two columns, which means we have a lot more width for these paintings, and some of them are two-page epic spreads of battles and other stuff, and it's it's just an absolutely gorgeous glorious edition of Eragon. And if you are a fan of the series, or a collector, or you just love beautiful fantasy books, I think this is one you're going to want to pick up. I would buy this if I just saw it in Barnes & Noble or some other bookstore. So I'm very very happy with Sidharth's art and everything he's done. He really came to the property as a fan himself and treated it with respect and gave us a beautiful vision and version of Eragon.
  

• From illustrator Sidharth Chaturvedi:
  

  I've been painting up a storm for the last year, I can finally say for what. The 20th anniversary edition of Eragon, illustrated by yours truly. The kind of project I didn't know you could still get. Coming in November!
  

• Synopsis:
  

  Return to the World of Eragon with master storyteller Christopher Paolini in this stunning illustrated edition packed with full-color paintings! Celebrate 20 years of the worldwide fantasy phenomenon Eragon, the first book in the Inheritance Cycle, which has sold more than 40 million copies across the series!
  Prepare for the flight of a lifetime with Eragon as you’ve never seen him before in this dazzling oversized edition with brand-new full-color illustrations throughout. This is the perfect must-have gift for both new and longtime Inheritance fans.
  Soar high above the ground with Eragon on Saphira’s majestic back. Experience narrow escapes from the gruesome Ra’zac. See the wonders of the dwarves’ city-mountain, Tronjheim. Rich detail and painterly strokes make each piece by accomplished fantasy artist Sidharth Chaturvedi feel as if it’s actually moving.
  Fifteen-year-old Eragon believes that he is merely a poor farm boy—until his destiny as a Dragon Rider is revealed. Gifted with only an ancient sword, a loyal dragon, and sage advice from an old storyteller, Eragon is soon swept into a dangerous tapestry of magic, glory, and power. Now his choices could save—or destroy—the Empire.
  In this extraordinary work of art, Paolini’s fantasy masterpiece Eragon is brought to life in an entirely new way through Sidharth Chaturvedi’s brilliant illustrations that accompany the complete original text. This is the ideal book to return to the World of Eragon. Experience the thrill and exhilaration of becoming a Dragon Rider all over again!
  

Full Upcoming Release Schedule

• April 25 2023 - New paperback editions of the Inheritance Cycle with Murtagh sneak peak and "bonus in-world content"
• April 25 2023 - Books-A-Million Exclusive Eragon Special Edition, paperback reusing the 10th anniversary cover art, and including "an essay from Christopher Paolini". This essay will be different from the introduction in the 10th anniversary edition.
• May 16 2023 - Fractal Noise (Fractalverse), prequel to To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
• August 22 2023 - B&N Exclusive Edition of Eragon, paperback with blue stained page edges, "a special letter from the author", and "a color portrait of Brom inside the cover" (probably this).
• November 7 2023 - Murtagh (see above)
• November 7 2023 - Eragon: The Illustrated Edition (see above)
• Unknown Date - Unity print edition (Fractalverse)
• Unknown Date - Tales from Alagaesia Volume 2 (Christopher has said he'd like to do this one next year)
• Unknown Date - Ukraine illustrated edition of Eragon, illustrated by Lilia Doroshenko and published by Nebo Booklab

Touring

• Christopher will be touring for both Fractal Noise (May) and Murtagh (November).
• The Fractal Noise tour will be US based and will include at least one stop in Bozeman, Montana, and at least one stop in Texas.
• The Murtagh tour will include an overseas portion, probably UK and Europe.

With this post, I'll be caught up with myself on HFY! That being said, I'll start posting in both subs at the same time from here on out - this will begin tomorrow with Chapter 10!
First Previous Next
Chapter 9 – A Day For Learning
Last Time: Aiden spoke with the Aganas, trying to figure out more about his strange powers as a Commander. During the discussion, he asked Laran to help him train with the spear, which his newfound companion readily agreed to. After the talking was done, everyone went their separate ways and Aiden, for the first time since arriving in the place he had found himself in, got a moment alone to think. He was able to settle some of the many questions that rattled in his brain and realized how much he had come to value Laran in such a short time. Upon returning to the Agana house, he found Laran and attempted to express the depth of his gratitude. This seemed to have worked, and Aiden went to sleep with a smile on his face.
The morning dawned, and I was in someone else’s bed. It took my sleep-addled brain a few minutes to catch up with my surroundings, but catch up it did.
I was in an unfamiliar world surrounded by unfamiliar things and was myself strange to this unfamiliar world, even by the unfamiliar standards I now had to compare myself to. Whatever life I had before was gone and, possibly, parts of the old Aiden Smith with it. The new Aiden Smith was a Commander and was built like a tank. He was a little taller and a little more athletic and wasn’t a computer scientist anymore. He fought bears and had a dagger and was going to learn how to stab people with a spear.
There was just enough of the old Aiden Smith still present to make me want to stay in the bed for another hour though.
Grumbling, I rolled out of the bed. I could hear movement around the house - it seemed like I was possibly the last one up. I rolled my shoulders and got some good, hearty pops out of them before going to where I had stripped my clothing off last night and dressing again. On a whim, I tried to summon some sort of inventory – who knows, it might work.
“Open inventory.”
Nothing happened, so I continued to put my clothes on. Guess I’d need to get a backpack like a normal person.
The thought made my mind wander to my goals for the day. I should really try and do something useful for the Aganas, but I felt like I had a few other priorities first. I needed more clothes, a backpack, a journal, and whatever I could think of to count as an “adventurer’s kit.” Some of the stuff could wait until I left the Aganas – I still hadn’t planned when I was going to be attempting to do that – but having a baseline amount of stuff would make my day-to-day life easier and would make me feel a bit more prepared.
Following along with that train of thought, I figured I should look at what currency I had. I opened the little bag that hung around the braided belt at my waist and upended it on the bed. A handful of coins scattered out, and I quickly sorted them by type.
There were four distinct shapes of coin on the bed – little triangles, rhombuses, trapezoids, and finally hexagons. The different shapes also seemed to be made of different materials, though unlike what I expected from my experience with American money, the same shaped coin didn’t always have the same material. There seemed to be three materials that I almost recognized – I would call them bronze, silver, and gold – as well as one that I did not recognize. I had exactly two coins of this fourth type which looked like polished seashell – my head wanted to call it abalone – but which still felt like a metal.
As I shifted the coins, I noticed that their sizes corresponded. I could lay two triangles side by side to create one rhombus, or I could do three and get the shape of the trapezoid, or I could put six triangular tips together to make a hexagon. As I looked closer, I could see some of the triangular coins had partial symbols on them as if they had been part of a larger whole that had been broken up at some point in the past. Given that each shape seemed to be made up of triangles, I figured that they were the basis of value – something like the American cent. Since the rhombus and trapezoid pieces could make a hexagon if put together, I figured the hexagon was like the dollar, and presumably the type of material the coin was made of also had an effect on its value.
Sweeping the coins back into my bag, I figured I’d have a chat with one of the Aganas about the value of my coins before I went to buy anything. After a life spent with the realities of online shopping, credit cards, and bank accounts, it felt really strange to have all the money I owned be in a little bag at my hip. The bag made a pleasant little jingling noise though, which I enjoyed. I just hoped I wouldn’t need to defend myself from cutpurses all too often.
Exiting the room and wandering to the kitchen, I found a stoneware plate sitting out with a slice of bread, a few pieces of bacon, and some fruit I didn’t recognize. I sat to get through breakfast quickly and just listened to the house around me, trying to find comfort in the bustle. Picking up the fruit, I bit into it – its skin resisted my teeth for a moment before puncture and sweet juice nearly spilled down my chin. The taste was like a pear but the texture was creamier inside, almost like a custard. It kind of reminded me of a pawpaw, though the taste was stronger. Whatever it was, it was good and refreshing.
As I sat and ate I heard Lorna singing. She spoke in a language I couldn’t understand, the syllables sliding backward and forward in a way that made me think of a ship on the sea. Her voice was high and pure, though every once in a while the lyrics were punctuated by a throaty growl that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a metal song – I wondered if that growl was a feature of the song or a feature of the language itself.
As I thought about Lorna’s singing, it suddenly occurred to me how weird it was that I had been able to communicate with everybody. I had woken up in a field and immediately been able to speak to Barts. Then there was the odd nature of Barts’ accent – it was heavy and I couldn’t call it Southern or Appalachian or anything recognizable – but it was definitely a dialect of English. I doubted British colonialism had managed to expand past my own home reality and got lost in thought trying to figure out how it was even possible that I could communicate with anyone.
My musings were interrupted by Laran. He was walking by the kitchen, seemingly towards the front door, but he stopped short when he saw me. He said good morning, which I didn’t notice until he tried again a bit louder.
“Oh, hi Laran! Morning!”
The elf-goblin, the first ever member of my party, smiled at me.
“Glad you found food! Seems yer a bit of a late riser – which is fine! Anyway, what’re you thinking about? I feel like I could hear you thinking from a room away!”
I grinned back at Laran and tried to ignore the gentle butterflies flitting in my stomach.
“What am I thinking about? Well… how can I talk to you?”
Laran looked confused.
“Uh, with yer mouth?”
“No that’s not what I mean! Like how can I speak your language? What language are you even speaking? I’m speaking English, and if you are too, I have so many more questions.”
Laran’s eyes flashed as he got the implication of my question. He grinned and pulled up a chair at the table. I was beginning to recognize that grin - it showed up whenever I brought up something weird that needed figuring out. Maybe there was some hope that Laran would join me as I journeyed.
“Oh, that makes sense. Well, we speak Corlian here, and from the way I hear it you speak it too. Plus the weird thing in the mirror writes in Corlian, since we could all read it.” Laran stared at me, thinking hard. As we sat and thought, we both heard Lorna’s singing again, still in a language I couldn’t understand. Laran snapped his fingers. “Ah right! That’s Yttrick – her mum’s side has some blood from the South – can you understand it?”
I chewed on my bottom lip, my breakfast suddenly forgotten. Even if I focused on the words Lorna was saying, I couldn’t make heads or tales of them. I told Laran as much, and we bounced ideas back and forth trying to figure things out.
As I focused more and more on our speech, the quality of the sounds slowly changed. If I thought about it really hard, then I began to notice that the shapes Laran’s mouth made as he spoke didn’t really match what I was hearing. The effect was subtle, and I stopped noticing it as soon as I stopped exclusively focusing on it. My best guess was that my brain was somehow filtering Corlian to English, maybe because it was the first language I heard when I arrived here, and conversely changing my spoken English to Corlian. I told Laran as much and he looked interested.
“Do you know any other languages from your home? Maybe try those and see if they match up to something!”
I thought for a moment, trying to summon the scraps of Italian I had studied in college. I had only taken the classes because there was a really cute guy in my computer science program who had talked me into it for two semesters. Things with him went nowhere, but we still used to hang out a bit before we both graduated.
“Ciao, mi chiamo Aiden e ho mille domande.”
The look on Laran’s face was enough to let me know he didn’t understand it.
“Well, I really only know Corlian and a little Yttrick – not as much as Mom, but enough to hold a conversation. So maybe yer speaking a language someone else would know?”
I dispelled the mental image of the disapproving look my Italian professor would have given me had he heard my pronunciation just then and responded to Laran.
“Eh, could be but I don’t think it’s a big deal. I’m horrid at Italian and haven’t practiced in a good few years – language skills don’t stick around forever, even if you’re starting from such a low skill level. I don’t think it’d do me any good even if it did somehow map to a language here.”
Having finished discussing languages, the conversation I had with Laran began to range to other topics. I learned that he had been born in Eightside and had grown up here, as had Barts, but that Lorna came from further afield. I let him know about how my parents met – they both attended Ohio State University, started dating, Mom went to graduate school at Rutgers so they stopped dating, then they both ended up in Dayton randomly and started dating again until they got married and had me. It was a nice, normal conversation, even if I was talking to an elf-goblin, and it made me feel good.
With a bit more conversational meandering, Laran eventually landed upon the topic of my request from the day before.
“You still want me to teach you spears? No time like the present after all – it’s bright, sunny, and nice out currently.”
I suddenly felt nervous. First off, I was learning to use an actual weapon that could hurt somebody. Second off, I could be really, really bad at spears and that might be embarrassing. It didn’t seem like Laran was the sort of person to be cruel, but I did want to keep my dignity around him. Finally, I had no idea what training may look like. With my head full of a thousand movie montages containing a thousand stern masters smacking the ever-living shit out of their pupils, I gulped and managed to agree to Laran’s suggestion.
“Great! I’ll get some staves, you go out t’ the garden and get stretching.”
He sprang up from his seat and scurried away enthusiastically. Meanwhile, I turned to the front of the house and walked out, trying to convince my own mind that it was being stupid and that the spear lessons would be fun. I took a deep breath and felt marginally better – the air was warm, maybe a little warmer than I’d like it, but it felt really good and fresh. Reaching for my toes, I started a basic stretching routine that I half-remembered from marching band in high school.
Laran came out shortly thereafter. He held two staves – one slightly shorter than the other. As he approached, he let them drop to the ground with a clatter and joined me in stretching. He seemed much more confident than I did about what he was doing, so I started mirroring his movement. He noticed and began to count out loud for each stretch, naturally slipping into a leading role like the world’s greenest personal trainer.
After stretching, which felt really good but which had me starting to sweat already, Laran retrieved the staves. He tossed me the longer one and planted the shorter in the ground, leaning against it.
“Go ahead and get ready, I’ll walk you through the basics.”
I hefted the stave in my hands and resisted the sudden urge to spin it like a bad movie ninja and make stupid noises. I was about to assume a ready stance when I had a sudden thought.
It was really warm, and I was already sweating. It sure would feel good to do this all shirtless.
Before my self-consciousness could get the better of me, I whisked my shirt off over my head. I threw it on the ground off to the side and shivered as a slight gust of wind blew over my chest. I was pretty sure I saw a look of slight surprise on Laran’s face, though I wasn’t certain. After a moment’s hesitation, he did the same. I rolled my shoulders as he did, more to give myself something to do than anything else, and got a good look at Laran.
He was muscled, though not in a body-builder way. He was lean and moved gracefully, but there was something in his movements that stopped me from thinking of him as graceful like a gymnast. There was a power in how he moved his feet, a rock solid control of how he shifted his weight, that gave an impression of brute force beneath the grace. I wondered if that might be the effect of his geomancy – people with earth-based powers in shows always tended to be tough and grounded, so maybe Geomancers were something similar here.
Regardless, Laran looked good with his shirt off. I let myself acknowledge I felt that way to get it over with and made the effort to refocus on his stance and instructions. Laran had assumed a ready stance, no longer lounging on his staff. I tried to copy it and felt his eyes rove over me as he checked my form. He reached out his staff and gently tapped my left leg, which I had slightly in front of the other.
“Bend yer legs more or you’ll pass out. Yeah, like that.”
He adjusted my stance a few times until he was satisfied. After that, he had me stand up more normally and relax. He then instructed me to resume the stance. We repeated this a few times until he was satisfied with how my form looked as soon as I dropped into a ready stance. Some part of my mind quietly whined that it wanted to get to the part with the stabbing already, but I figured there was a darn good reason that Laran had started with stance, so I ignored it and kept doing the drills. After a second to stand up and go fully relaxed, he showed me a guard position and stepped back to deliver a lesson.
“One of the important things with spears is that, if you do it right, no one’ll get close to you. Downside is if they get past yer spearhead then you can whack ‘em but you can’t stab ‘em. So, the first thing we’ll teach you is how to keep your spear point on target.”
Laran walked in front of me and locked his eyes onto mine.
“First rule of sparring is that you don’t attack until both people know that something is gonna start. Eye contact’s important for that. Understand?”
I nodded and entered the guard stance he had demonstrated. As I did, I subconsciously deflected the point of the spear surrogate away from Laran. I saw him grin and he reached out and grabbed the tip of my staff.
“That’s no good, I’m right here, just waitin’ to be stabbed. Don’t worry, I trust you. We’ll take it slow and make a spear-fighter out of you yet!”
His tone of voice was soothing, but I still felt my breath hitch a little as he moved the tip of the staff so that it pointed directly at the center of his chest.
“This is where you want to keep the spear point. It’s the biggest target, plus you can change targets to anywhere else in a blink once yer good at this.”
Laran flexed and gently pulled the staff towards himself. I let myself follow the movement, tense but following the gentle force he exerted. My arms extended, and soon the tip of the staff rested directly on Laran’s chest. He let it rest there for a second, eyes still on mine, before pushing it back until I was in the position I’d started in.
“Feel that? You can think of it like there’s a string from yer spear to yer opponent’s chest and someone’s pulling the string from behind them. Again.”
He guided the tip of my staff towards his chest again, and I tried to focus on how it felt in my muscles. I figured if I could remember the sensations I could do it myself, at least to some degree. The tip of the staff rested on his breastbone where it bobbed slightly with his breath. He let go then, letting the hand that had been holding the staff drop to his side. His eye contact was intense – I felt like if I so much as twitched, he would know what I was going to do before I did. I slowly pulled back into the ready stance. Laran grinned and looked at me critically. Finding no fault, he spoke.
“Your turn.”
I slowly extended my staff out until it touched Laran’s chest, repeating the same motions as best I could without guidance. I was so focused that I almost jumped and lost my stance when Laran reached up to scratch his face. He laughed but kept his eyes locked on mine. I drew my staff back. After I was reset, Laran dropped into his own ready stance, though he didn’t level his staff at me.
“Follow me,” he said, beginning to take slow steps in a circle around me, “don’t let that spear point off my chest.”
He slowly circled me, choosing his steps with intent and a smooth motion that belied a fair amount of muscular control. I joined him in the dance, trying to mimic his slow but deliberate movement as I turned to keep the tip of my notional spear centered on him. He led me for a few moments, and I could feel my pulse quickening for a reason completely separate from the physical exertion I was experiencing.
Later, when I next looked at a mirror, I would find the message Aiden and Laran have increased in Bond.
Elsewhere: The interior of the carriage was uncomfortably stuffy as it trundled down the road. As the dwarf had gotten further and further from civilization, and conversely closer and closer to the keep of the Seeing Sisters of Stone, the roads had gotten worse and worse. She had no idea where they were now and desperately hoped the cabby knew. When she had asked him much the same, he had replied that they were close to Eightside, though the name had meant nothing to her. At least there was some relief from the sun she reflected as she settled back in her seat. The forest around the rough road had begun to thicken and the interlaced boughs of the canopy turned golden sunlight into dim, cool, green shade.
First Previous Next

“Are you Rob Lowe?” Asks the valet.
“Yes. Yes I am.” Says Frank.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked that question. Hell, he lives off of it. He even has the perfect flattered-for-the-attention expression thing down. So much so that the valet guy reciprocates with the ideal not-sure-what-to-say-next response. “Well…um… here’s your car Mr Lowe.”
“Thank you,” Frank reads the name tag “Leon.” He flashes Leon the perfect Rob Lowe Hollywood smile “Sincerely.” It’s better than a tip. So Leon’s not getting one.
That was a great Rob Lowe Moment, thinks Frank. So he decides to treat himself to a movie montage drive on the way home. He slides into the supple leather seat of the Lambo and cues up Blondie’s Call Me on his phone. The extended mix. The drums kick in as he peels out.
He cruises along Hollywood Blvd and down to Sunset, flashing a Rob Lowe smile at anyone who looks in his direction. He takes Sunset to the PCH, doubles back to Wilshire, then up Rodeo and back along Sunset until he gets to the curvy driveway of a Bedford mansion. He puts the Lambo key in a rose bush pot by the front door and venmos “Ash K” fourteen hundred dollars with an emoji of a car. It’s more than half what he made today but totally worth it for the kind of entrance it gave him.
He walks out of the driveway and strolls the six blocks south to get to his cramped Bedford apartment. Pours himself a reasonably priced bourbon and cheerses to a good day.
10am. Frank wakes up to a text from Ash K “if you don’t gas it up the price goes up bro.” Ugh. F that guy, thinks Frank, he doesn’t look like anyone. The text puts him in a mood. He decides to go out to the busy part of Beverly to cheer himself up with a spotting.
He gets a couple of looks and a smile. Pretty good. But not good enough to bring him back to Rob Lowe level pep. He crosses over to Rodeo where the people are a little more desperate. He’s half a block in when he gets what he wants. An overdressed couple with accents ask to take a selfie with him. He flashes his Rob Lowe Hollywood smile and throws them a rehearsed “Sure. Just one though.”
Things are looking up. He lets them take more than one of course. Four, five, six even. The couple laps it up. Frank suavely commandeers the phone and takes a bunch of selfies with them in the background. Surprisingly nice phone, he thinks, weighty.
“Great to meet you both. Truly.” Frank says “And now I’m heading out with my brand new phone,” he vamps. The couple laugh so he plays it up even more. “Yep. Me and my new phone are out of here.” The couple laugh even harder. Frank feels an uncomfortable amount of distance between him and the phone’s owner. But he likes it. He backs around the corner of Dayton and an unexpected impulse makes his feet move faster. He’s sprinting and already a block away before he hears the overdressed guy with the accent screaming at him “Motherfuckerroblowefuck.” Luckily Frank’s fast on his feet. It’s all that Rob Lowe Body Workout he’s been doing. Before he knows it he’s home. Safe.
His adrenaline’s still pumping. He sits on the couch and grabs his laptop. Googles ‘Rob Lowe phone crime’. There’s nothing. It’s probably too soon. He powers his weighty new phone off and throws it in a kitchen drawer.
Frank Ubers to a late brunch with his friend Baz, a C grade Brad Pitt impersonator. He’s wearing his best Rob Lowe in public outfit: tshirt, jeans, sunglasses and an NFL hat, hoping that the Uber driver will say something. She doesn’t. Maybe that’s even better, he thinks. And that’s why you get the Uber Lux, for complete discretion.
Baz waves at him from a table outside the Ivy on Robertson. The original. He doesn’t love being out with Baz. It curbs the spotting potential. Sure, Baz looks good from a distance. Plenty of people approach him. But they usually stop short, two or three feet away. They get a good look at Baz’s C grade face and think better of it. But he really needs to gloat to someone about his brush with celebrity crime, so Baz will have to do.
“You’ll never read anything about it.” Says Baz after the epic retelling. “They all have people.”
“What kind of people?”
“You know, like PR people. Lawyers. They deal with all that shit.”
Makes sense, thinks Frank.
“Famous people do that kind of shit all the time. You think we’re going to read about it? His people probably buried it already. Bought that guy a hundred phones.”
Franks spots a group of midwestern women excitedly approach and get within three feet of the table. They see Baz up closer and turn away. That’s it. Frank’s had enough of this C grader.
He decides to walk home after brunch. The low carb granola and Greek yogurt bowl that he read Rob Lowe eats at the Ivy isn’t sitting right. He’s halfway up Third when he hears someone shouting his facesake’s name from across the street. He delivers the perfect oh-no-you-spotted-me look. A kid. So brazen, thinks Frank, shouting at a famous person in the street. Maybe he’ll steal his phone too. Teach him a lesson. Frank crosses the street to meet the kid he’s pretending he doesn’t want to meet.
“Hey, Rob Lowe, I love you bro. Can I take a photo with you? I really love your movies.”
“Sure. Just one though.” Frank responds, word perfect.
“Oh cool, let me get my phone ok bro?” The kid opens the door of a nice looking Benz. No wonder he’s so brazen. What is he, seventeen?
He holds the phone out to get them both in the photo. “Cool, just like this. I wanna get my car in it too, ok bro?”
“How about I sit in your car?” Suggests Frank.
“Oh shit shit ok, I love that.” Brazen, thinks Frank.
Frank slides in behind the wheel.
“Oh shit that’s so cool bro.” Brazen.
Frank growls like the car’s revving. And then tries the ignition. The kid left the key right in the cup holder. The Benz roars to life. Frank tingles at the power.
“How about you take one of me actually driving it? Something to tell the guys.” He suggests.
“Oh shit yeah bro” the kid says.
Frank puts the Benz in drive and floors it. Oh, the power. He checks the rear view mirror and can’t tell if the kid is laughing or screaming. Either way, f him.
Frank pulls the car into a quiet driveway a couple of blocks from his apartment. He gets out and leaves the key. Then checks the glove compartment. There’s not much in there. A couple of joints, which he takes. He walks around to the trunk and checks in there too. He finds a couple of jackets that he would never wear. But they look expensive so he takes them anyway. He walks confidently back to his place. No need to run. He knows no one’s looking for him.
Back at his apartment he googles ‘Rob Lowe steals car’. Nothing. He replaces ‘car’ with ‘phone’. Still nothing. Baz might be right, he thinks to himself.
10am the next day. He checks Google again. Still nothing. Shit, Baz is right. Rob Lowe has PEOPLE. A phone is one thing but a car?! His people are good.
He thinks about other stuff he could get away with and googles a few things for inspiration. Where Rob Lowe hangs out. Where he eats. Where he shops. And then psyches himself up to go and pull another job. Or two. Over the few days he gets an armful of books from Book Soup, a couple of shirts from Battistoni, some nice shoes from Neiman’s. He’s not even finished. Each morning he checks to see if there are any stories about his (or Rob Lowe’s) antics. But there’s nothing. He can’t wait to gloat to Baz again at a late lunch.
“Wait, I’ve got an idea.” Says Baz after another epic storytelling. “So, this place is full of us, right?”
“Full of who?”
“Us. You know, people who look like people. If you can get away with it, why can’t all of us?”
Frank didn’t want to burst Baz’s bubble. He’s just a C grade. Maybe. Maybe if it was the right kind of job. And no one had to see Baz. Up close. Sure it might work. He would probably look enough like Brad Pitt on a security cam. Maybe.
“There’s this jewelry store on Beverly. Boulevard, not Drive,” Baz continues “that I know for a fact doesn’t lock all its shit up at night.”
“How do you know?” Questions Frank.
“Sally used to work there.”
“Sally?”
“You know, dead ringer for Winona Ryder.”
“Dead ringer? Yah, ish.” Replies Frank. But he knows who Baz is talking about. Baz keeps going, unfaltering “So me, you, Sally, my friend Riley who looks like Christian Slater and that guy who does a solid Ving Rhames from your imposter class.”
“Impersonator class.” Frank corrects.
“That should be enough people for the team.”
An elderly couple approach to ask Baz for a photo, then take another look and think better of it.
“How come you get to plan the heist?” Asks Frank.
“You know. Because of Ocean’s.” Says Baz confidently.
Baz sets a date and they plan to meet in the back room of the old CVS on Sunset. Sally has a key from when she used to work there too. Over the next week Baz plans and calculates the heist in such minute detail that Frank figures they could actually pull it off. They revel in the fact that they don’t even need to wear masks. They are masks. Living, breathing masks. They were born for this.
The night of the heist, Frank puts together his most Rob Lowe outfit. Tweaks it to be more of a Rob Lowe on a heist outfit. Then tweaks it back to just a regular Rob Lowe outfit. He gets to the back room of the old CVS on Sunset a couple of minutes late. It was worth it for the final outfit. As Baz goes over the plan again it starts to feel like they’re in a real movie. A star studded one. It helps that Baz is playing the Ocean’s soundtrack on his phone. Frank is pumped.
They get to the jewelry store and jimmy the back door. As planned. There’s no alarm sound but Sally said it would be silent. It gives them at least ten minutes before the police would even make it from Wilcox. Ten minutes is all they need. This is a smash and grab. They don’t even have to worry about the cameras because of their million dollar, albeit discounted, faces. Hey, cameras, thinks Frank. He grabs a handful of earrings and throws them in his duffel bag. If this shit ever gets out, he thinks, like past all the PR people, this footage is going to be everywhere. That could be good exposure. He grabs a handful of rings and duffels them. This could be his big moment. He looks up at the corner mounted camera and thinks WIDE SHOT. He commando rolls over a counter and pulls at a display of bracelets, gets a few of them and drops them straight in the duffel. There’s another camera a foot away, pointed right at him. CLOSE UP, he thinks, and gives a pained anything-to-survive expression. Nails it. He spins around and snags an armful of long droopy necklaces and expertly shoves them into the duffel. Another camera swivels to his right. TRACKING SHOT, he thinks excitedly. And attempts a cartwheel in its path but flubs the dismount and drops his duffel. Not his best take but they could probably just use the beginning bit. He drops down to grab the duffel and lifts himself up to come face to face with one more camera. Stares straight down the barrel. Ice cold. Man did he deliver. Baz calls “time” and they slip out with their swag. Frank throws one last look over his shoulder at the corner camera. This would be a great time for a punch in, he thinks. Sirens sound in the distance as he slides through the back door of the old CVS.
When he gets inside he notices the room is deserted. He stage whispers “Baz? Sally?” There’s no answer. He wanders out into the old packing area and spots a small clump of people crowded around a desk in the far end of the huge space. “Hey, I’m pretty sure we said the back room, guys.” He stage whispers. He gets a little closer and realizes it’s not the team he’s expecting.
“Are you Rob Lowe?” Asks Frank.
“Yes. Yes I am.” Says Rob Lowe. “We need to talk.”
“So,” concludes the real Rob Lowe after what seems like hours of railing, “either you sign this document my people put together, saying that you will no longer impersonate me, for illegal or even… legal… pursuits. Or Gino and Reno here will beat that beautiful face of yours or, really, of mine, until no one will ever mistake you for me ever again. Like I said, it’s your choice.” Frank knows what the right decision is. But can’t help but think how much he’d be throwing away. He pauses. Rob Lowe senses his reluctance. “You think you’re the first person to try this?” Rob Lowe questions, “I have to deal with one of you f-ing imposter punks every f-ing day. Make something of your own. Stop living off of my f-ing face.”
Frank sees Rob Lowe’s point and takes the pen he’s handing him. But before he can fully bring himself to sign, a wild idea hits him.
“Wait, don’t you think this would be a neat idea for a movie?”
“No.”
“Ok.”
Frank walks out of the CVS back room and down Sunset. “The Imposter, starring Rob Lowe as Frank Budden.” He ponders. “That is a neat idea.”

Hey folks,
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Last year I reviewed the Blade 17 i7/3070ti/QHD 240hz version to give prospective buyers a better idea of what to expect. I'm back this year with a new purchase hoping that my experiences with it will allow the reader to make a more informed purchase. It's not a purely technical review; I'm not a tech wiz, I'm not even a regular wiz which is frankly a little disappointing. I'll try to follow a similar format to my previous review and touch on the day-to-day aspects that might get overlooked in more technical offerings.
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First off, for clarity, the exact spec of my model is: RB 18", QHD 240hz, i9-13950HX, rtx 4080, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, US Keyboard Layout (More on this later.. let me not get started now or we'll never hear the end of it).
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We'll start off with a list of positives/negatives and some direct comparisons to the RB 17, then give a TL;DR Summary by the end for the tiktok inclined.
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1. The Display: Gorgeous. Big. Vivid. The 16:10 Ratio is welcomed. You really feel the difference in screen real estate when browsing, looking at photos etc. Where it really shines (literally) is it's brightness level which is a massive leap from the relatively dim 300 nits of the RB17, which by today's standards is sub-par. This one is rated at 500 nits, however most reviewers have been getting upwards of that (approx 550 nits). I remember using the RB17 and at several moments during the day, unconsciously tapping the "increase brightness" key and realizing it was already maxed out. There is so much more headroom here, so if you're situated in a brighter room you'll be thrilled. G-sync and fast refresh is here again and it's smooth as butter, especially with the hefty increase in internal beef to make use of the higher fps display. Advanced Optimus is back (save for a week where some nVidia driver fiasco deprived us of that functionality). I will say that changing between optimus and dGPU results in a slight shift in color tone that I'm not a huge fan of. It's ever so slightly greener with dGPU selected, but that is a minor gripe.
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2. The Performance: Stupid performance. Asinine actually. With a standard CPU Undervolt (Yes, it's unlocked now!), I hit 18350 Total on Timespy (18905 Graphics + 15734 CPU). Compare that to just one generation ago, my RB17 pulled a total of approx 11500. Granted it had the 3070ti and not the max 3080ti, but the difference in performance was approximately 10% between the two. Perhaps the 12800H i7 suffered in comparison to the i9 Alder Lake cpu of 2022? Who knows. Either way, the real world difference is huge. Take Battlefield 1 as an example; on max settings the RB17 managed about 130fps average on Conquest - Sinai Desert, the RB18 is pushing 180-190fps. Cyberpunk at maxed settings (RT Psycho etc.) and QHD resolution is playable at 60fps with DLSS on Quality/Balanced. With Frame Generation it skyrockets. I've installed several games that I had on the RB17, rather than leave an exhaustive comparison list, I'll just say, yes, it's a very noticeable increase in performance. And that's last gen hardware. If you're upgrading from say an RB15 2019 model... big ooof incoming. I believe the why isn't solely related to upgraded components but rather a combination of improved...
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3. Thermals: So they've increased the size of the chassis. It's thicker, wider and taller. It's a big boy. The vapor chamber has also increased in size. The result? The CPU is running at the same temperature as the one in the RB17, but rather than sitting at 3ghz (monitored in XTU) under load, it sits comfortably at 4ghz, a full 1ghz faster, without throttling down to a lower frequency. The palm rest never gets hot to the touch regardless of the game played (GPU or CPU heavy). The only part that warms up is the area just above the function keys. Very impressed with how thermals are managed here and I'm glad they've gone with a thicker beefier construction that allows for this improvement. CPU never creeps above 90 degrees celsius, GPU sits at about 73. Bear in mind, more wattage than ever is being pumped in to these components, the GPU I believe is getting fed 150W. You still won't be able to use this on your lap during gaming, unless you're really not planning to have many kids when you're older. Noise wise, it's expectantly loud at full load, not more than the RB17 though. Again, if you're wearing headphones while gaming, this is a non-issue.
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4. Fan Activity: Similar to the RB17, 3x fans providing the much-needed cooling. There is a silent mode which allows you to take this beast into a business meeting and mesmerize everyone there without it screaming and whining over head-of-accounts incessantly. They don't constantly kick in, which is nice. Again though, it is winter time now, summer may sing a different tune due to a large increase in ambient room temperature.
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5. Coil Whine: Of course, it's back! I've never received a blade without it and frankly I'd be heartbroken if it was missing. It makes me feel more connected to my computer to hear it ever-so-quietly screeching and scratching along. It may be a little more minimal than the RB17, but not by much. Definitely a premium feature.
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6. Battery Life: Well, they've increased the battery size, the CPU has more efficiency cores than it knows what to do with, Optimus Prime is efficiency-ising the shit out of your ongoing processes, resulting in ... battery life still is astoundingly poor. In all fairness to it, you cannot expect that components this brutish are going to tread lightly on your energy footprint. How these tests in reviews are getting approx 4-5 hours blows my mind. I'd be lucky to get 2. That is with Optimus/low brightness/60hz display etc. Is it a marginal improvement over the RB17? Yes. You'll get another 25 minutes approximately. It's all a bit pathetic, but again, this is a desktop replacement, not a macbook air, you know what you're getting it for when you press the "Buy Now" button and feel that hot anxiety rush upwards through your system from it's usual place of residence in your belly as you're watching the "Processing Your Payment" miniscreen. Oh God..
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7. Keyboard: Identical to the RB17, still a fantastic keyboard to type on. The keys have minimal travel and yet feel snappy and sound good as well. I see quite a few complaints about the omission of a numpad. I still maintain that the Blade's chief demographic are those who are looking for a gaming beast they can take into a work meeting. Numpads break up the symmetry of the keyboard deck, they also take away space from the speakers (which we'll get to next). I'm not denying they have their place and functionality in certain games, but if that's a deal-breaker you're going to have to look elsewhere. The Blade is vain and cares about it's appearance. And now, on to an issue that is near and dear to my heart. An issue I have commented on last year with the RB17 as well. You may have noticed that I have purchased the US keyboard layout. I live in London, which means I've had to order a unit from the US and pay the necessary customs/vat. But Why? There's one reason for this:
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!!!! The UK and European versions of the Razer Blades (with per-key Chroma lighting) STILL don't have secondary function symbols lit. There is STILL no official word as to why this is the case. !!!!
Why is it that paying customers, who are paying as much if not more due to import charges, are getting an inferior keyboard experience than their American counterparts? It's mindblowing. How exactly do you want the user to know what the hell they're doing while using this laptop in the dark? You want them to commit the symbols to memory? Should they hang up a chart on a nearby wall depicting a keyboard with phosphorescent indicators for reference? And again, like last year with the RB17, the promo shots are very misleading as they all show the US keyboard layout and NOT the gimped UK/European version. Fucking unacceptable; at best lazy and careless, and at worst exploitative and dishonest.
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That being said.. (deep breath).. on the US Keyboard layout, the implementation of RGB lighting is gorgeous with extremely minimal light bleed. It looks very neat and of course it is all customizable to a degree that would make your head spin. It's also very bright.
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8. Speakers: The laser cut grills are back again and look as premium as ever. Have the speakers improved further from the RB17's very respectable offering? Yes. The most noticeable factor is that they are much louder, approximately 1.5x as loud as the RB17. Sound stage is quite wide and has a decent presence, they might still not put out a great degree of bass but the mids and highs shine with a lot of detail. I would recommend tweaking the EQ (there is a companion THX app already installed) to get a sound profile you prefer. Note that if you are only using the speakers, the lower end of the frequency band will be greyed out and inaccessible (everything below 250hz). Another questionable software decision that doesn't make much sense. There is a workaround; plug in your wireless headphone dongle, select your kraken ultimate or whatever you're rocking in the sound output button in your system tray and restart the laptop. When you reopen THX, it will be set to Headphones and offer you the full range of frequency bands, I have found it to make a difference in the bass department. I prefer leaving Spatial audio off though, keeping it in Stereo instead. Alternatively you can use another 3rd party equalizer to avoid the complication. Overall, I've heard them side by side place out on a table, playing the same tracks, at the same volume ratings. I don't know if I still prefer the RB17 sound signature as the RB18 can sound a little more harsh (due to pronounced mids), but the overall volume is a big deal, especially if watching movies/youtube and not having to pull out an external speaker. The sound isn't perfect though, not due to the speakers themselves, but due to latency.. which I will touch on later.
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9. Synapse: It does what it needs to do, and then it doesn't. It sometimes starts quickly when booting and then it doesn't, leaving you without any of your chroma settings. Then clicking the Synapse icon also doesn't open the app leaving you to restart the laptop.. then sometimes it works. Sometimes the light up logo at the back is lit, sometimes it isn't. When it isn't, you have to change it from Static (or Breathing) to Off then back to Static. Then it switches on, so clearly not a hardware issue, but a software bug. Sensing a theme here? Good. Synapse is mixed bag. If you've ever owned a Blade, you know this already. There are improvements though, overclocking and undervolting are now supported directly through Synapse under the Performance tab. Do they all work as intended? Don't know. I use Intel XTU, not willing to take the risk. You will need to switch of Windows Core Isolation though and reboot (decide whether that's worth it for you as that's a core OS functionality and exists for a reason, security I believe, do your research). They've also FINALLY added the ability to use Max Fans during the Custom Profile which is very much appreciated. It's not the slider of yesteryear, but a checkbox. Still a welcome addition nonetheless as that was one of the stupidest design decisions that left many of us scratching our heads. Why wouldn't we want maximum fan output under maximum performance load? Exactly. Another welcome feature; Battery Charge Limitation. You can now charge your battery to a specific percentage of your choosing. If you're late to the party, this helps extend your battery's life span so that it may continue to serve you for a longer period of time. (before unceremoniously exploding as the majority of the razer forums would have you believe).
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10. Bugs/Issues: Ok. In my personal experience (this is my 3rd blade), these are wonderful machines, but always imperfect, as most products are. Let me list some of the issues I have run into:
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- The Synapse implementation of Advanced Optimus is gone; you're just redirected to the nvidia control panel. Not a huge issue, but why add another step? I liked that it all took place within the same interface.
- Synapse in general is still a resource hog, buggy and at times a little convoluted. It's not the worst companion app, but it's not winning any awards any time soon.
- Audio Latency. This is a big one. I have noticed while playing audio using the speakers or having video calls that every 15-30 seconds, the sound will become extremely thin and quiet for a moment then audibly "pop" back to life. Whether I'm listening to music (sometimes this does not occur) or on messenger, it's very annoying. I've run the obligatory DPC Latency Checker and LatencyMon software and boy could those programs not wait to tell me how much my computer was struggling with real-time audio production and how badly behaved my drivers were. Almost instantly, DPC-LC displayed red bars as high as my aspect ratio allowed and LatencyMon wrote me a short novel on why I should have been a more discerning laptop customer. Definitely worse than the RB17, I didn't have this issue last year, at least nowhere near to this degree. If anyone has a solution to this, chime in please, as not being a tech expert when buying a Blade can come back to bite you in the ass. God forbid you're a regular consumer who just wants to enjoy his purchase.
- Sleep Mode being an Asshole. Sometimes you will shut the lid and the computer goes quiet and the lights go off, and sometimes you'll shut the lid and your laptop will attempt to take off into orbit with max fans and a lit up logo so that other spacefaring civilizations know where we're at in our tech development cycle. Seriously, how is this not fixed? How is this not being checked? Does anyone not close the lid once or twice back at the ... factory? .. and go, hmmm we may have a problem? It's not just a windows laptop thing. For example, a friend of mine has a Dell XPS 15 that shuts the hell up when you close the lid almost instantly, so what gives?
- Shut Down takes too long with chroma having a small fit before finally passing out. Identical to the RB17. Great. Things like this are very amateur hour and shouldn't be present on a laptop that's worth about as much as an aftermarket kidney or organ of similar importance.
- When using Optimus exclusively, moving the mouse over certain windows (like Synapse) sees the mouse cursor stutter as if the screen is in 60hz (despite it set to 240hz). Using the dGPU alleviates this. Not crucial, but still annoying.
- A minor gripe; the razer logo on the back of the laptop looks beautiful, I just wish the breathing mechanic wasn't as shoddy as it is. I guess that's a hardware limitation, but it still looks a bit jittery and not very fluid at all when approaching it's dimmest state/switching off.
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11. Touchpad: Back to a few positives, and this is a good one. The touchpad is hyooge which was an initial concern of mine in regards to typing. While gaming, a simple Fn + T will switch it off in game (thank you Synapse, you did good here), but during productivity or office work I worried it would have been an issue. I'm happy to report that the Palm Rejection is now.. existant, and it works 90% of the time. I had countless of frustrating moments on the RB17 skipping lines and typing in the wrong place due to an errant touchpad stimulus. It also feels fantastic. Best touchpad I have ever used. The RB17 also had an issue with the touchpad cursor movement being jittery after startup requiring a "sleep" or restart to get it to run smoothly. I never found a fix for that and holy shit did that piss me off for an entire year. Glad to say it hasn't made a return.
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12. Build Quality: You know what you're getting when you buy a Blade. The best build quality you could hope for with zero compromises. It's returned in an even larger form factor. Almost no flex in the keyboard deck, very little movement in the panel, the 16:10 ratio has now removed the unsightly chin present on the RB17 and other predecessors, the hinge is stiff enough without it being difficult to open one-handed, the usb slots all have the green accents we've grown to love and associate with this brand. It's great. If you've never owned a blade before, it will be a pleasant surprise. I've also gotten multiple comments from friends/randoms about how nice and sleek the laptop looks which further validates it's desirability factor (don't tell Razer this as they'll just keep upping the price). Just make sure to keep any remotely hard object far away from it as even the smallest nick will leave a clear grey mark under the black anodized coat. I kept my RB17 safe for a year by being extraordinarily anal about anything and anyone getting close to it. The result? It's in mint condition.. and I intend to lose just as many friends taking care of the RB18 this year.
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13. Webcam: Probably one of the least important elements of a "gaming" laptop, but this is very much a productivity laptop as well and an improved webcam deserves mention. It's great, probably the best one found on any gaming laptop at 5MP (yes yes I know that's not the whole story), it's still not fantastic in poor lighting situations getting as grainy as a cheap b-roll horror movie, but definitely a good deal clearer than the RB17's offering. Inexplicably, the 16" Blade gets a privacy shutter but this one does not. Shrugs all around. Another questionable decision that my brain doesn't comprehend.
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14. Charger: It has been upgraded to a GAN charger. Larger than the RB17's for sure, but nowhere near as large as it would have been without GAN technology, whatever that does.
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15. Mobility: This is neither a positive or a negative. For some people, an 18" laptop just isn't an option. It's too cumbersome, it can't be opened in an economy flight seat and opening it in a coffee shop feels like a flex.. BUT. It is a desktop replacement, you know what you're getting when you're considering this as a daily driver. To have this much power in such a comparatively small device that you can carry around in a 17" laptop bag (and a 17" sleeve), this feels like a win. It's just not for everyone.
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TL;DR - Don't be ashamed, it's a wall of text up there
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Again, like the RB17, this machine is not perfect but it's closing the gap further than it's predecessor could. The performance is a huge leap and while some other brands might offer even more cpu and graphical prowess by a small margin, they'll also be a good deal larger and more eye-catching - and not in a good way. I personally find the ASUS and MSI offerings garish in comparison.. but I'm also 37 and not quite as fun as I used to be, so there's that.
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Pros (that's us!!)
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- It's beautiful (random passer-bys will gawk in awe and find you super interesting.. you might hate that sort of thing, so beware)
- Stays cool under full load (as do you, king), thermals are a win, minimal throttling
- Performance is truly impressive for such an elegant form factor, the Raptor lake i9 upgrade/4080 combo is sick
- Display is gorgeous with minimal light bleed (Yes it's not MiniLED or OLED), next year folks
- Has fantastic speakers; improved over the RB17 with much more volume output, wider sound stage, punchier audio
- Improved Options/Features in Synapse; Undervolting/Overclocking/Smart Battery Charge/Full Fan Control Option
- Has more ports than a small island that depends on import/export trade to sustain its burgeoning economy
- Build quality is as expected, top notch, minimal flex, attention to detail.
- Webcam is improved, now other people can see you embody your sadness during video calls in more detail than ever before
- Keyboard/lighting - Lighting on the !!US LAYOUT!! is fantastic and flawless. On the US Layout. ONLY. Keys are great as they were last year. Snappy, short travel, feel good.
- Touchpad is the size of a canape evening platter, now you can pinch zoom in on pictures of your ex to see how happy she is with her new partner in one effortless movement, saves time so you can resume grieving sooner.
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Cons
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- Battery Life - Not as pathetic as the RB17, but not a far cry from it either. Lamentable, but expected.
- Keyboard Lighting on anything but the US Version - STILL NOT FIXED - Secondary function symbols STILL don't light up. Brazen and unacceptable. Without any official recognition of this issue either despite it being highlighted by so many reviewers outside of the US.
- Price - Further and further detached from reality year by year. Read the room folks.
- Synapse - Bugs + Unreliability are Synapse's closest friends. They stick with each other year after year and you gotta respect that.
- Coil Whine - I'm starting to believe every laptop with high performance parts has this to some extent, but it should be mentioned.
- 1TB of SSD space is starting to feel a bit stingy considering the price tag. Maybe I'm the only one.
- Audio Latency - Definitely the worst offender on this list. Razer, sort out your drivers or fix the.. audio conflicts (<---not a tech guy clearly). Listening to youtube on a 4000 pound machine should not result in any audio artifacts/popping/cut-outs etc. I know that professional sound engineers/artists looking for a DAW will probably use their own external sound card (which won't have the latency issues) but for the average consumer it soils the experience somewhat, especially when the speakers are this good.
Conclusion:
So should you buy the Razer Blade 18"? If so, which model? Yes, I think you should. It's a fantastic machine. The i9 CPU is a monster. Graphically, I find that the sweet spot this year is the rtx 4080. NOT the 4070 (despite last year the 3070ti being the sweet spot), and not the 4090 (unless money is no object). The 4070 performs very similarly to the rtx 3070ti from last year. Don't believe me, check the reviews on youtube. It's further stripped down from a standard desktop to laptop variant and clearly not outperforming the 3070ti, in some cases losing out to it. The 4080 is a large jump from both the 3070ti and the 4070, approximately 40% of a jump with a reasonable price increase. The 4090 is a further 16% increase in performance.. for a whopping approx 700 pounds (840 dollars) more. Sure, you get another 1TB SSD space (or a separate 1TB drive in the spare slot as some have reported getting, another questionable choice). If you have ample money to spare, by all means, go with the 4090. If you're like some of the rest of us, it's not the most prudent choice, the 4080 is where it's at. A word on quality control; I've only ever had an issue with one of my blade's batteries, the RB Base 15" 2019 model. They were notorious for poor heat management and I believe that to be a major contributing factor. Several people have experienced this as well, regrettably. Swollen batteries suck. There were also tons of people who don't post about battery issues because they didn't experience them, a silent majority if you will. Then you have the beta cucks who take every post opportunity to chime in about "spicy pillows" while secretly salivating all over the laptops they criticize that they can't afford and would rather ruin the experience for everyone else with a self-righteous schadenfreude. You'll see a spectrum of experiences on the forums. Make your own informed decision. Razer offers a 2 year battery warranty and the larger models have far better cooling so the risk of that is lower, so those factors should put you more at ease.
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Again, YES, I recommend this machine. Just know that it isn't perfect, but neither are you and most everybody loves you anyway. If you have any questions, comment down below. Until next year.

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Chapter 9 – A Day For Learning
Last Time: Aiden spoke with the Aganas, trying to figure out more about his strange powers as a Commander. During the discussion, he asked Laran to help him train with the spear, which his newfound companion readily agreed to. After the talking was done, everyone went their separate ways and Aiden, for the first time since arriving in the place he had found himself in, got a moment alone to think. He was able to settle some of the many questions that rattled in his brain and realized how much he had come to value Laran in such a short time. Upon returning to the Agana house, he found Laran and attempted to express the depth of his gratitude. This seemed to have worked, and Aiden went to sleep with a smile on his face.
The morning dawned, and I was in someone else’s bed. It took my sleep-addled brain a few minutes to catch up with my surroundings, but catch up it did.
I was in an unfamiliar world surrounded by unfamiliar things and was myself strange to this unfamiliar world, even by the unfamiliar standards I now had to compare myself to. Whatever life I had before was gone and, possibly, parts of the old Aiden Smith with it. The new Aiden Smith was a Commander and was built like a tank. He was a little taller and a little more athletic and wasn’t a computer scientist anymore. He fought bears and had a dagger and was going to learn how to stab people with a spear.
There was just enough of the old Aiden Smith still present to make me want to stay in the bed for another hour though.
Grumbling, I rolled out of the bed. I could hear movement around the house - it seemed like I was possibly the last one up. I rolled my shoulders and got some good, hearty pops out of them before going to where I had stripped my clothing off last night and dressing again. On a whim, I tried to summon some sort of inventory – who knows, it might work.
“Open inventory.”
Nothing happened, so I continued to put my clothes on. Guess I’d need to get a backpack like a normal person.
The thought made my mind wander to my goals for the day. I should really try and do something useful for the Aganas, but I felt like I had a few other priorities first. I needed more clothes, a backpack, a journal, and whatever I could think of to count as an “adventurer’s kit.” Some of the stuff could wait until I left the Aganas – I still hadn’t planned when I was going to be attempting to do that – but having a baseline amount of stuff would make my day-to-day life easier and would make me feel a bit more prepared.
Following along with that train of thought, I figured I should look at what currency I had. I opened the little bag that hung around the braided belt at my waist and upended it on the bed. A handful of coins scattered out, and I quickly sorted them by type.
There were four distinct shapes of coin on the bed – little triangles, rhombuses, trapezoids, and finally hexagons. The different shapes also seemed to be made of different materials, though unlike what I expected from my experience with American money, the same shaped coin didn’t always have the same material. There seemed to be three materials that I almost recognized – I would call them bronze, silver, and gold – as well as one that I did not recognize. I had exactly two coins of this fourth type which looked like polished seashell – my head wanted to call it abalone – but which still felt like a metal.
As I shifted the coins, I noticed that their sizes corresponded. I could lay two triangles side by side to create one rhombus, or I could do three and get the shape of the trapezoid, or I could put six triangular tips together to make a hexagon. As I looked closer, I could see some of the triangular coins had partial symbols on them as if they had been part of a larger whole that had been broken up at some point in the past. Given that each shape seemed to be made up of triangles, I figured that they were the basis of value – something like the American cent. Since the rhombus and trapezoid pieces could make a hexagon if put together, I figured the hexagon was like the dollar, and presumably the type of material the coin was made of also had an effect on its value.
Sweeping the coins back into my bag, I figured I’d have a chat with one of the Aganas about the value of my coins before I went to buy anything. After a life spent with the realities of online shopping, credit cards, and bank accounts, it felt really strange to have all the money I owned be in a little bag at my hip. The bag made a pleasant little jingling noise though, which I enjoyed. I just hoped I wouldn’t need to defend myself from cutpurses all too often.
Exiting the room and wandering to the kitchen, I found a stoneware plate sitting out with a slice of bread, a few pieces of bacon, and some fruit I didn’t recognize. I sat to get through breakfast quickly and just listened to the house around me, trying to find comfort in the bustle. Picking up the fruit, I bit into it – its skin resisted my teeth for a moment before puncture and sweet juice nearly spilled down my chin. The taste was like a pear but the texture was creamier inside, almost like a custard. It kind of reminded me of a pawpaw, though the taste was stronger. Whatever it was, it was good and refreshing.
As I sat and ate I heard Lorna singing. She spoke in a language I couldn’t understand, the syllables sliding backward and forward in a way that made me think of a ship on the sea. Her voice was high and pure, though every once in a while the lyrics were punctuated by a throaty growl that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a metal song – I wondered if that growl was a feature of the song or a feature of the language itself.
As I thought about Lorna’s singing, it suddenly occurred to me how weird it was that I had been able to communicate with everybody. I had woken up in a field and immediately been able to speak to Barts. Then there was the odd nature of Barts’ accent – it was heavy and I couldn’t call it Southern or Appalachian or anything recognizable – but it was definitely a dialect of English. I doubted British colonialism had managed to expand past my own home reality and got lost in thought trying to figure out how it was even possible that I could communicate with anyone.
My musings were interrupted by Laran. He was walking by the kitchen, seemingly towards the front door, but he stopped short when he saw me. He said good morning, which I didn’t notice until he tried again a bit louder.
“Oh, hi Laran! Morning!”
The elf-goblin, the first ever member of my party, smiled at me.
“Glad you found food! Seems yer a bit of a late riser – which is fine! Anyway, what’re you thinking about? I feel like I could hear you thinking from a room away!”
I grinned back at Laran and tried to ignore the gentle butterflies flitting in my stomach.
“What am I thinking about? Well… how can I talk to you?”
Laran looked confused.
“Uh, with yer mouth?”
“No that’s not what I mean! Like how can I speak your language? What language are you even speaking? I’m speaking English, and if you are too, I have so many more questions.”
Laran’s eyes flashed as he got the implication of my question. He grinned and pulled up a chair at the table. I was beginning to recognize that grin - it showed up whenever I brought up something weird that needed figuring out. Maybe there was some hope that Laran would join me as I journeyed.
“Oh, that makes sense. Well, we speak Corlian here, and from the way I hear it you speak it too. Plus the weird thing in the mirror writes in Corlian, since we could all read it.” Laran stared at me, thinking hard. As we sat and thought, we both heard Lorna’s singing again, still in a language I couldn’t understand. Laran snapped his fingers. “Ah right! That’s Yttrick – her mum’s side has some blood from the South – can you understand it?”
I chewed on my bottom lip, my breakfast suddenly forgotten. Even if I focused on the words Lorna was saying, I couldn’t make heads or tales of them. I told Laran as much, and we bounced ideas back and forth trying to figure things out.
As I focused more and more on our speech, the quality of the sounds slowly changed. If I thought about it really hard, then I began to notice that the shapes Laran’s mouth made as he spoke didn’t really match what I was hearing. The effect was subtle, and I stopped noticing it as soon as I stopped exclusively focusing on it. My best guess was that my brain was somehow filtering Corlian to English, maybe because it was the first language I heard when I arrived here, and conversely changing my spoken English to Corlian. I told Laran as much and he looked interested.
“Do you know any other languages from your home? Maybe try those and see if they match up to something!”
I thought for a moment, trying to summon the scraps of Italian I had studied in college. I had only taken the classes because there was a really cute guy in my computer science program who had talked me into it for two semesters. Things with him went nowhere, but we still used to hang out a bit before we both graduated.
“Ciao, mi chiamo Aiden e ho mille domande.”
The look on Laran’s face was enough to let me know he didn’t understand it.
“Well, I really only know Corlian and a little Yttrick – not as much as Mom, but enough to hold a conversation. So maybe yer speaking a language someone else would know?”
I dispelled the mental image of the disapproving look my Italian professor would have given me had he heard my pronunciation just then and responded to Laran.
“Eh, could be but I don’t think it’s a big deal. I’m horrid at Italian and haven’t practiced in a good few years – language skills don’t stick around forever, even if you’re starting from such a low skill level. I don’t think it’d do me any good even if it did somehow map to a language here.”
Having finished discussing languages, the conversation I had with Laran began to range to other topics. I learned that he had been born in Eightside and had grown up here, as had Barts, but that Lorna came from further afield. I let him know about how my parents met – they both attended Ohio State University, started dating, Mom went to graduate school at Rutgers so they stopped dating, then they both ended up in Dayton randomly and started dating again until they got married and had me. It was a nice, normal conversation, even if I was talking to an elf-goblin, and it made me feel good.
With a bit more conversational meandering, Laran eventually landed upon the topic of my request from the day before.
“You still want me to teach you spears? No time like the present after all – it’s bright, sunny, and nice out currently.”
I suddenly felt nervous. First off, I was learning to use an actual weapon that could hurt somebody. Second off, I could be really, really bad at spears and that might be embarrassing. It didn’t seem like Laran was the sort of person to be cruel, but I did want to keep my dignity around him. Finally, I had no idea what training may look like. With my head full of a thousand movie montages containing a thousand stern masters smacking the ever-living shit out of their pupils, I gulped and managed to agree to Laran’s suggestion.
“Great! I’ll get some staves, you go out t’ the garden and get stretching.”
He sprang up from his seat and scurried away enthusiastically. Meanwhile, I turned to the front of the house and walked out, trying to convince my own mind that it was being stupid and that the spear lessons would be fun. I took a deep breath and felt marginally better – the air was warm, maybe a little warmer than I’d like it, but it felt really good and fresh. Reaching for my toes, I started a basic stretching routine that I half-remembered from marching band in high school.
Laran came out shortly thereafter. He held two staves – one slightly shorter than the other. As he approached, he let them drop to the ground with a clatter and joined me in stretching. He seemed much more confident than I did about what he was doing, so I started mirroring his movement. He noticed and began to count out loud for each stretch, naturally slipping into a leading role like the world’s greenest personal trainer.
After stretching, which felt really good but which had me starting to sweat already, Laran retrieved the staves. He tossed me the longer one and planted the shorter in the ground, leaning against it.
“Go ahead and get ready, I’ll walk you through the basics.”
I hefted the stave in my hands and resisted the sudden urge to spin it like a bad movie ninja and make stupid noises. I was about to assume a ready stance when I had a sudden thought.
It was really warm, and I was already sweating. It sure would feel good to do this all shirtless.
Before my self-consciousness could get the better of me, I whisked my shirt off over my head. I threw it on the ground off to the side and shivered as a slight gust of wind blew over my chest. I was pretty sure I saw a look of slight surprise on Laran’s face, though I wasn’t certain. After a moment’s hesitation, he did the same. I rolled my shoulders as he did, more to give myself something to do than anything else, and got a good look at Laran.
He was muscled, though not in a body-builder way. He was lean and moved gracefully, but there was something in his movements that stopped me from thinking of him as graceful like a gymnast. There was a power in how he moved his feet, a rock solid control of how he shifted his weight, that gave an impression of brute force beneath the grace. I wondered if that might be the effect of his geomancy – people with earth-based powers in shows always tended to be tough and grounded, so maybe Geomancers were something similar here.
Regardless, Laran looked good with his shirt off. I let myself acknowledge I felt that way to get it over with and made the effort to refocus on his stance and instructions. Laran had assumed a ready stance, no longer lounging on his staff. I tried to copy it and felt his eyes rove over me as he checked my form. He reached out his staff and gently tapped my left leg, which I had slightly in front of the other.
“Bend yer legs more or you’ll pass out. Yeah, like that.”
He adjusted my stance a few times until he was satisfied. After that, he had me stand up more normally and relax. He then instructed me to resume the stance. We repeated this a few times until he was satisfied with how my form looked as soon as I dropped into a ready stance. Some part of my mind quietly whined that it wanted to get to the part with the stabbing already, but I figured there was a darn good reason that Laran had started with stance, so I ignored it and kept doing the drills. After a second to stand up and go fully relaxed, he showed me a guard position and stepped back to deliver a lesson.
“One of the important things with spears is that, if you do it right, no one’ll get close to you. Downside is if they get past yer spearhead then you can whack ‘em but you can’t stab ‘em. So, the first thing we’ll teach you is how to keep your spear point on target.”
Laran walked in front of me and locked his eyes onto mine.
“First rule of sparring is that you don’t attack until both people know that something is gonna start. Eye contact’s important for that. Understand?”
I nodded and entered the guard stance he had demonstrated. As I did, I subconsciously deflected the point of the spear surrogate away from Laran. I saw him grin and he reached out and grabbed the tip of my staff.
“That’s no good, I’m right here, just waitin’ to be stabbed. Don’t worry, I trust you. We’ll take it slow and make a spear-fighter out of you yet!”
His tone of voice was soothing, but I still felt my breath hitch a little as he moved the tip of the staff so that it pointed directly at the center of his chest.
“This is where you want to keep the spear point. It’s the biggest target, plus you can change targets to anywhere else in a blink once yer good at this.”
Laran flexed and gently pulled the staff towards himself. I let myself follow the movement, tense but following the gentle force he exerted. My arms extended, and soon the tip of the staff rested directly on Laran’s chest. He let it rest there for a second, eyes still on mine, before pushing it back until I was in the position I’d started in.
“Feel that? You can think of it like there’s a string from yer spear to yer opponent’s chest and someone’s pulling the string from behind them. Again.”
He guided the tip of my staff towards his chest again, and I tried to focus on how it felt in my muscles. I figured if I could remember the sensations I could do it myself, at least to some degree. The tip of the staff rested on his breastbone where it bobbed slightly with his breath. He let go then, letting the hand that had been holding the staff drop to his side. His eye contact was intense – I felt like if I so much as twitched, he would know what I was going to do before I did. I slowly pulled back into the ready stance. Laran grinned and looked at me critically. Finding no fault, he spoke.
“Your turn.”
I slowly extended my staff out until it touched Laran’s chest, repeating the same motions as best I could without guidance. I was so focused that I almost jumped and lost my stance when Laran reached up to scratch his face. He laughed but kept his eyes locked on mine. I drew my staff back. After I was reset, Laran dropped into his own ready stance, though he didn’t level his staff at me.
“Follow me,” he said, beginning to take slow steps in a circle around me, “don’t let that spear point off my chest.”
He slowly circled me, choosing his steps with intent and a smooth motion that belied a fair amount of muscular control. I joined him in the dance, trying to mimic his slow but deliberate movement as I turned to keep the tip of my notional spear centered on him. He led me for a few moments, and I could feel my pulse quickening for a reason completely separate from the physical exertion I was experiencing.
Later, when I next looked at a mirror, I would find the message Aiden and Laran have increased in Bond.
Elsewhere: The interior of the carriage was uncomfortably stuffy as it trundled down the road. As the dwarf had gotten further and further from civilization, and conversely closer and closer to the keep of the Seeing Sisters of Stone, the roads had gotten worse and worse. She had no idea where they were now and desperately hoped the cabby knew. When she had asked him much the same, he had replied that they were close to Eightside, though the name had meant nothing to her. At least there was some relief from the sun she reflected as she settled back in her seat. The forest around the rough road had begun to thicken and the interlaced boughs of the canopy turned golden sunlight into dim, cool, green shade.
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Hi all, I found the trip reports here really helpful when planning my own first Vegas trip, so decided to write one up. For background, I moved to Reno last year and took up low stakes gambling as a hobby (because there’s nothing else to do in Reno). Male, single, early 30s. I’m mostly a pai gow poker player but don’t mind blackjack or craps if I’m in the mood. I do most of my gambling at the independent casinos up here, but I’ve also established myself as a low tier player in the Caesars ecosystem, so they offer me discounted rooms in Vegas. I had some time off work over Presidents Day weekend and decided on an impulse to drive down and check things out. I arrived Sunday afternoon, stayed Sunday and Monday nights, and left Tuesday morning. I came with a $500 gambling bankroll that I was willing to stretch to $700 if things went badly.
Arriving on Sunday:
I won’t go over the drive, except to say that central Nevada can be beautiful but man is it E M P T Y. Left Reno around 6.30am and made it to my hotel, the Horseshoe, at 2.30pm. Here I had my first Vegas experience of nickel and diming. Checkin didn’t officially open until 3… but the lady at reception informed me that, for my convenience, I had the exclusive opportunity to purchase early checkin for only $22. (She didn’t actually use those words but that was the general tone.) I noped out of that and rolled my suitcase over to the bar, where I had my second experience of nickel and diming. Stuck $20 into a bartop, played some hands of video blackjack, and discovered to my horror that they’d disabled the options to split or double. I think that produces a house edge roughly five times regular blackjack. Ridiculous. Promptly lost my $20, but hey, it was still cheaper than early checkin and I got a bourbon and coke out of it too. Then I jumped in the queue to check in. Was hoping for an upgrade, but they really push you toward the checkin kiosks so didn’t get the chance to sweet-talk the front desk.
Thoughts on Horseshoe:
I had the lowest tier room at the Horseshoe (a Resort King room), with a view facing away from the Strip. It was recently renovated and… fine. It’s a few days later and I’ve already forgotten it. It reminded me of a Marriott - a reasonably sized room, comfortable enough bed, inoffensive decor, but very bland and not somewhere you’d be actively excited about staying. More broadly I guess I don’t see the point of Horseshoe. Like, if you’re not staying in the hotel, what’s drawing you to it? The other center strip casinos have cool attractions or an interesting theme to bring you in - Horseshoe doesn’t have any of that, but it also doesn’t have good gambling to make up for it. The minimums and rules are the same as the other low tier Caesars casinos and the gaming floor isn’t that big or interesting. Plus, even though it’s at the center of the strip, it’s kind of hard to get into from the street. Unless you’re like me and just happened to score a cheap room, I don’t see why you’d make an effort to spend time there.
Sunday afternoon/evening gambling:
I got to my room, changed clothes, moved my car up to the Venetian for the free parking, and made my way slowly back down the Strip. The Venetian is BEAUTIFUL and, despite the ridiculous theme, somehow doesn’t feel kitschy. I then dropped into Caesars Palace, which is cool but such an insane labyrinth that it was hard to feel comfortable there. I played some stadium baccarat and came out even, put a bit of money into a slot and won $11, and grabbed a burger at the food court. But I was itching to get on a table, so I started my quest to find cheap pai gow anywhere at a Caesars property. The best I could find was a single $15 table at Harrah’s, but it was packed solid and nobody was moving. I hopped to the other side of the pit and played some Roll To Win craps instead. Now this was fun. There was a group of three guys about my age on the other end of the table. It seemed like one of them knew the game and was teaching his boys how to play. The beginner’s luck was in full effect and both of the newbies got well above 20 rolls; if I’m remembering correctly the first guy got something like 38. I was playing 3 point molly so didn’t take full advantage of the hot table, but cashed out with a $40 profit. Thanks fellas! (The drinks service at Harrah’s sucked though. My bourbon and coke was 80% ice, 20% coke, and probably a scientifically undetectable amount of bourbon. Likewise my vodka red bull was pretty much just a red bull. Unfortunate.)
The pai gow table was still full, so I went across the road to watch the Mirage volcano show. Ridiculous dumb fun, highly recommend everyone sees it before Hard Rock scraps it. Went back over to Harrah’s and pai gow was still full. I realized if I wanted to play I was going to have to stretch myself to a $25 table - green chipping for the first time ever (!). But I sure as hell wasn’t doing that at boring Harrah’s, so I wandered down to the Cromwell and set up at $25 pai gow there. Now the Cromwell is my kind of vibe - a bit quieter and more laid back, nice decor, feels a bit like an upscale bar. As a pai gow player I’m a connoisseur of pushes, and I had an amazing run. Pushed every single hand for the first ten minutes, and probably more than 90% of hands for the hour that I was there. It was a nice feeling to be playing at a somewhat uncomfortable level but not actually be losing any money. The table cleared out and I played heads up for most of the hour; the dealers were super friendly and we had some good conversations. Drinks service was good too - had a Moscow Mule with a big punch of ginger, not watered down at all. Cashed out up $25. Bounced across the road to see the Bellagio fountains (spectacular), took a spin around inside the Bellagio, but by this time I was so wiped out from the drive and Vegas overstimulation that I needed to go to bed. So I went back over to Horseshoe, lost another $20 on a slot machine (dumb), and then headed up to my room.
Monday morning gambling:
Up bright and early in the hope of finding a cheaper pai gow table - I didn’t feel like green chipping again so early in the day. Went down to the floor at Horseshoe and the pai gow table was already at $25 at 8am. Ridiculous. So I started a crawl up the Strip to try to find lower limit pai gow at a Caesars property. Cromwell: all pai gow tables closed. Flamingo: one $15 table, but already full. Finally I got to the Linq and found an open chair at $15. This was a fun table. Lots of friendly middle Americans from, I think, Minnesota just having a grand old time playing low limits. It helped that I was also winning, though because I mostly don’t play the bonus I missed out on some good wins from straights, flushes, and a full house. What’s the deal with the Linq, though? It’s like they rented office space in a suburban business park and stuck some tables in there, no atmosphere at all. Cashed out up $30, headed down to the Cromwell and played a bit of $15 craps, but wasn’t really feeling it.
At this point I made a decision. I was planning to focus my play on Caesars properties in the hope of improving my room offers for a future visit. But after visiting the majority of their properties I realized I didn’t want to stay at them. With the exception of CP and the Cromwell, they all seemed tired, dowdy, and in need of a full renovation, much like the Caesars resorts in Reno and Tahoe. I know I’m not a big enough gambler to get good offers for CP or Cromwell, so I decided to try out some non-Caesars properties and try to generate some bounceback offers instead.
So first I went up to the Venetian to play some more pai gow. I was comfortable with a $25 limit now, so I slotted in at a table and played green. Another really good run - more than an hour with mostly wins/pushes and only a handful of losses. The Venetian had super attentive drinks service and a really nice pit boss hanging out at the table, who even let me reset my hand when I misplayed a winning hand for a push. (I had a pair plus two potential straights with a joker, and was so busy working out how to split it all up that I didn’t notice I also had a flush.) What a great property. I doubt my hour of $25 pai gow is going to get their attention even as a new player, but if they want to send me a room offer, I’m interested. Cashed out up $100.
Monday afternoon:
This was my time to get off the Strip. I picked up my car from the Venetian garage, grabbed lunch at White Castle, and headed to the Neon Museum. This is a cool little place that deserves more visitors, though the admission price is high for the size of the museum, which probably turns people off. It’s kind of a melancholy feeling seeing how the icons of old Vegas are now sitting in what’s basically a junkyard, and thinking that the current big attractions will probably end up here too. I took a drive through downtown, though didn’t have time or inclination to stop, and then went down to Ellis Island. I did all the things you’re meant to do your first time at Ellis - signed up for the player card, cashed out my free play (only $5, lame), played some cheap BJ and craps, got my steak special at the café. I didn’t like it as much as I expected, though. I appreciate the idea of having a cheap, unpretentious casino right off the strip, but it was so unpretentious it almost felt dingy. Plus my steak was tough and chewy. To be fair my mood was also affected by losing at both BJ and craps, my only table losses for the trip. Overall, I see why people like Ellis, but it’s not for me.
Rolled back up to the Venetian, lost a bit of money in a slot to boost my theo in case they want to send me an offer, but by this point I was getting tired of gambling. I decided to just walk around the Strip and check out some things I hadn’t seen yet. In particular I wanted to see the Wynn because the gambling podcast world is obsessed with it. I guess I… didn’t really like the Wynn either? I mean, it’s immaculate and beautifully presented, but unlike my favorite themed properties (Bellagio and Venetian) it just felt a bit unhinged, with all the floating umbrellas and enormous fake French curtains and all the rest. Steve Wynn’s fantasyland of aggressive whimsicality. I’d probably play here for a few hours and give it more of a chance if I had the budget for it, but I found the aesthetic a bit cloying. So I headed back down the Strip to watch the fountains again. Wandered through the Bellagio, got some gelato, and just felt completely wiped out by 14 straight hours of walking, gambling, and drinking. So it was time for bed.
Tuesday morning:
My original plan for Tuesday was to go down to the MGM Grand and spend a few hours there before starting the drive to Reno. The weather had other ideas, though. A big snowstorm was brewing in northern Nevada for the afternoon, and I needed to get home before the highway closed. But I still wanted to get into an MGM property quickly, to open an account and hopefully generate some offers with them too. I checked out of Horseshoe, grabbed my car from Venetian, and drove down to the Bellagio around 7.30am. I was hoping to play some more pai gow, but discovered they only had one table open, with four players and a $100 minimum (!!). It was weird, because they had a ton of mostly empty blackjack tables open, with minimums down as low as $15 for 6:5, plus a bunch of baccarat tables, also mostly empty. All that, but only one pai gow table on the entire floor? I’m not a big enough fish to ask them to open a table for me, so I just went and played some slots and, as usual, lost. It was a disappointing end to the trip, but it was good to spend some more time in that beautiful property, and I’m sure I’ll be back. At this point I headed out and made the long, long drive back to Reno.
Conclusions and other random observations:

• This will make me sound like a hick, but I couldn't believe how big everything in Vegas is. I've seen photos and movies and everything, but I still drove in onto Flamingo Rd and was just blown away by the sheer scale of Caesars Palace and Bellagio. I've traveled to a lot of countries but the Strip ranks high on my list of the most spectacular places I've been.
• Overall profit of $22 on my $500 bankroll. On tables, net profit of something like $139. On slots/VP/electronic games, net loss of something like $125. (Yes I know that doesn’t add up perfectly. I scribbled down notes every night in my room but must have missed something somewhere.) In conclusion, slots are terrible and you should never play them.
• As mentioned above, I thought the Caesars properties I visited were well below the quality of other strip properties. To be fair, I only quickly poked my head into Planet Hollywood and Paris. But I didn’t encounter one Caesars property that I’d be excited to go back to, except maybe the Cromwell. Even Caesars Palace didn’t have the classy vibe of Wynn, Venetian, or Bellagio.
• HATED driving in Vegas. I thought Reno drivers were bad but Vegas drivers are even more erratic and needlessly aggressive. Feared for my life multiple times. The little studs in the road instead of proper lane markings are also stupid annoying.
• I was surprised to see so many kids in Vegas. Between the mobile billboards for prostitutes and strippers, the showgirls, and the language used by some of the rappers on the Strip, I would never take kids there. I thought the prostitution ads were particularly grotesque and would love to see the city clean that up.
• Vegas is so much fun. I usually hate crowds, expensive food, and tourist traps, but Vegas somehow makes that all tolerable. I enjoy Reno casinos for their low minimums and generous comps, but in terms of overall experience, Reno doesn’t even compare. I will 100% be back.

Thanks for reading! Hope this is helpful to someone.

** Fri 2/17 *\*
Fri 4 - 10 PM Karaoke and Game Night Lobo Anime & Comics, 1016 Juan Tabo Blvd. NE, Ste D Dark Honey Productions presents Karaoke and Family Game night at ABQ golf and games! Kids get free snacks with good grades! (Free snack pack with a recent A or B) Free entry to karaoke guests. $10 game play during karaoke
Fri 5 - 8 PM RuPaul’s Drag Race Watch Party Sidewinders Bar and Grill, 4200 Central Ave SE Join us EVERY FRIDAY, to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race! Get here early for a seat! Projected on our big screen. Show starts at 6pm! Happy hour until 7pm! NO COVER
Fri 5 - 8 PM S’mores Campfire Pacific Rim Food Park, 6901-B San Antonio Dr. NE A winter-y version of Friday night lights! Stop by after work on Friday for dinner from one of our food trucks followed by s’mores for around the campfire. Bring the whole family! Kid-friendly dinner options and a lots of room for them to run around in the park! @ DawnPatrolCoffeeShack will be open and serving hot cocoa & hot / cold sweet coffee drinks too!
Fri 6 PM No Chaser Live Gold Street Pizza and Brew, 3211 Coors Blvd. SW, Ste H1 No Chaser back in the South Valley bring some of the Country and Western tunes. cold Beer Awesome food Local Spirits ft. Taylor Garret Whiskey
Fri 6 - 9 PM Prix-fixe Friday Fine Dining La Luna Eatery & Events, 7600 Jefferson St. NE Join us for Prix-fixe Family Fine Dining experience with paired beverages music by Jazz Travelers! (tickets)
Fri 6 - 9 PM Bike Night - First one of 2023 with MANY MORE TO COME! Lizard Tail Brewing Industrial, 3351 Columbia Dr. NE YOUR Rebels want to start off 2023 with a bang. Lent starts on Wednesday, February 22 so let's get our partying in before that. Okay, it's just another reason for all of us to get together. We call it a Bike Night however all modes of transportation are allowed (bikes, cars, trucks, skate boards, hover boards, surf boards, feet, etc...), we won't discriminate. lol. Family, Food and Fun. Drawings, Prizes and much more! We will see you there
Fri 7 - 10 PM Mardi Gras Carnival and Masquerade Ball Holiday Dance Studio, 5200 Eubank Blvd. NE, Ste D Wear your green, gold, and purple for the Mardi Gras revelry at Holiday Dance! Enjoy a Polka lesson at 7pm followed by open dancing and performances at 8pm. $30 for non-members. Masks are optional
Fri 7:30 - 9 PM Comedy! Chris Calogero Dry Heat Comedy Club, 521 Central Ave NW, Ste G The man of a million movie characters brings his most authentic self to the Dry Heat stage! Kick off your weekend by checking out Dry Heat Comedy Club: Albuquerque's only dedicated comedy club! We are so excited and proud to welcome Chris Calogero who, along with a lineup of local favorites, is gonna bring you a comedy show you'll love. Chris Calogero is a comedian and writer in Brooklyn. He’s been featured in The New York Times, Funny or Die, Vice, Fusion TV, Paste Magazine and AOL’s 2 Point Lead web series and has performed in the Cape Fear Comedy Festival, What a Joke National Comedy Festival, The Brooklyn Comedy Festival, and More. Chris hosted a podcast called "Mourning Coffee" where he discusses grief, loss, death, and mourning with other comedians. He is also the co-host of "Not Quite Midnight" a hybrid stand-up comedy/late night show that has been featured in the New York Times (tickets $15)
Fri 8 PM Brazilian Carnaval Juno, 1501 1st St. NW Juno and the ABQ Brazilian community present Carnaval 2023. Music, dancing, food and drinks. Doors at 8:00 pm. Music and dancing with DJ Darly from 9:00 pm to 12:30 am, with lots of samba, forro, funk. Special Brazilian food treats will be served. Caipirinahs. Buy $5 presale tickets to ensure your spot (some people had to be turned away last year), $7 at the door. $40 VIP packages available with reserved seating (click link for tickets)
Fri 8 - 10 PM Magic & Comedy Night Tractor Brewing - Wells Park, 1800 4th St. NW Dave Grimm is New Mexico's favorite bearded, balded, fake shaman-man! The night will feature his interactive close-up bar magic and a stage show where he will make you think he can read your mind (can he?). Joining Dave will be two of Albuquerque's top comedians: Carla Vasquez and Bryan Andrew Lambe! This is a show you don't want to miss!
Fri 8 - 11 PM Southwest Synth Wave Night w/ DJ Ren & Moonside Tractor Brewing Company, 118 Tulane Dr. SE Get your turquoise studded Doc Martins ready because we got a full night of Synth Wave spun by the absolutely talented DJ Ren! (aww, thanks, Jeremy!) DJ Ren + Dj Moonside are teaming up to spin synthwave, synthpop and darkwave (new & old). Wear your best simulcarum of 80s, 90s and now fashion
Fri 8 PM - 2 AM XOXO - Arietta Electric Playhouse, 5201 Ouray Rd. NW Calling all lovers and Ravers! UKO Records is excited to be pairing up with Pirate Radio at Electric Playhouse to bring you our favorite annual Valentine's Day event! Expect Live DJs, old school candy trading, chocolate, games, and silent art auction! Proceeds for the silent art auction will go to East Gate Kids Foundation and APS. Phoenix, AZ based DJ and producer Arietta is known to provide infectious broken beat dance grooves with an uplifting presence, but never afraid to go too deep into her emotive musical selections. Her 15 years of classical/jazz training as a multi-instrumentalist and composer translates into sets where she infuses a sense of musicality to tell a story through her mixes. Arietta was the host of the longstanding BASS Movement radio show on dnbradio.com, and is the founder of the music blog bmvnt.com. Arietta has independently released an EP, Coded Dreams Vol. 1, various singles, and provided remix support. She was the winner of Hospital Records Inaugural ‘Women in Drum and Bass’ DJ Competition and has been featured in several national and international blogs. She remains active in performance scenes across the US, and periodically travels internationally. She’s hard at work on her first solo Drum and Bass album guaranteed to show her passion and purpose through sound. 21+ With a valid ID. $10 Early Bird. $15 Second Tier. $20 @ Door, or $15 with a non perishable food item or clothing item donation (tickets) (click event link for full lineup and schedule) (I have an extra ticket if anyone is interested)
Fri 9 PM - 2 AM XbLyssid & Friends Effex, 420 Central Ave XBLYSSID & FRIENDS w/ Special Guests: Apotheca, Diyalect, El Gueróó, Las Borrachas. Don't miss all the fun going down on the Effex Rooftop. Come out & meet us on the dance floor!
** Sat 2/18 *\*
Sat 10 - 11:30 AM Mural Loop Interpretive Walk Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, 7851 2nd St. SW Join Refuge Ranger Dakota for an easy 1-mile guided walk along our Mural Loop trail with presentations on the refuge's history and our plans for environmental restoration. It's a great opportunity to ask questions and learn what makes an urban wildlife refuge special. Program meets at 10 AM by the visitor center amphitheater and will return to the visitor center by 11:30 AM
Sat 10 AM - 3 PM Discover STEAM Day 2023 National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, 601 Eubank Blvd. SE The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History invites families to the museum to explore STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) through experimentation and engaging, hands-on activities directed by local engineers, physicists, and technicians from organizations such as the local Tuskegee Airmen Chapter and the University of New Mexico. On Discover STEAM Day, engineers and scientists from across the city will engage families and Scouts through hands-on activities designed to spark interest in the scientific fields of STEAM. There will be activities that allow children to engage and interact in the most exciting and meaningful ways. All STEAM activities will be fun and kid-friendly. Participation in the interactive activities will also be rewarded with a custom button at the end of your visit!. The event is included with museum admission, and all museum members are free. Admission can be purchased in advance online (regular, daily admissions apply) or at the door on the day of the event. For more information, please contact our Education Director at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) (tickets)
Sat 11 AM FamFest: Shrek Flix Brewhouse, 3236 La Orilla Rd. NW Once upon a time, in a far away swamp, there lived an ornery ogre named Shrek... Bring the family to this fairy tale classic featuring family photo ops and activities before the film (tickets)
Sat 11 AM - 2 PM ALMA Tile Making and Story Collection Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, 7851 2nd St. SW Join our partners at ALMA for a tile making workshop that will be featured on this summer's new mosaic sculptures here at Valle de Oro NWR. We are also inviting neighbors, community members, and friends of the refuge to share their stories about the land to be incorporated into the sculpture designs. This event is free and open to the public
Sat 12 - 1 PM Cultural Dances: The Pueblo Dance Group (Laguna, Acoma, Zuni, Hopi) Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th St. NW Celebrate the seasonal cycles through prayer, song, and dance with our Cultural Dance Program. Dances connect us to our ancestors, community, and traditions while honoring gifts from our Creator. They ensure that life continues and connections to the past and future are reinforced. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is the only place in North America to offer cultural Native American dances every week, year-round. Free for museum members, or with admission (this is also on Sun 2/19)
Sat 12 - 1:30 PM Instrument Petting Zoo and Mini Concert Color Wheel Toys,6855 4th St. NW Stop by to touch and try real instruments! Music instructors from Crow Studios will be on hand to gently guide and answer questions. This is aimed at kids 0-10 but any age of person is welcome. Drop by for just a bit or stay awhile, depending on interest. The musicians will perform a mini concert at 1 pm-ish, so stay for some groovy tunes!
Sat 12 - 4 PM Monthly Pinball Tournament Sister, 407 Central Ave NW All levels and players 21+ welcome! Sign up starts at 12 noon; play starts at 1 pm. 3rd Saturday of the month (mostly). Typical entry fee is $5 + coin drop. Tournaments take about 2 hours to complete
Sat 12:30 - 2:30 PM Beginner SALSA Bootcamp with Ritmo Y Tambor Hiland Theater, 4800 Central Ave SE Saturdays are for Salsa! The Beginner Salsa Bootcamp is a two-hour introductory and continually progressive Salsa intensive designed to move your learning along step by step. The Beginner Process is the hardest step. Every Saturday learn foundational and progressive techniques for Salsa social dancing as an individual and partner from Sara and Andre of Ritmo y Tambor with guidance and direction from Con Clave Dance! You'll learn: * Rhythm & Timing * Basic Shines * Leading Technique * Following Technique * Turn Technique * Styling * partnerwork combinations * No partner necessary * Drop-Ins * Dress Comfy * $10, cash, Venmo, CashApp
Sat 1 - 2:30 PM Love, Berlioz & Chocolate Cathedral Basilica Of St Francis Of Assisi, 131 Cathedral Pl, Santa Fe (it's not ABQ, but it's FREE) Please join Maestro Guillermo Figueroa for an intimate lecture taking you behind the scenes of Hector Berlioz's epic symphonie dramatique, Roméo et Juliette! Maestro Figueroa will present an extensive background on the composer and this epic work at the iconic Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in downtown Santa Fe. FREE! This special event is open to the public and includes sweet delectables for your indulgence as we celebrate this timeless love story, great music, and Valentine's Day
Sat 2 - 4:30 PM Galaxy Saguaro Class Kelly Jo Designs by Wine, 6829 4th St. NW, Los Ranchos We’ll be painting on a 12×24 black canvas for this celestial scene! FOOD TRUCK is serving up a delicious limited winter menu of green chile stew and nachos, Thurs-Sat. Outside food is permitted. (NO outside beverages allowed due to NM liquor laws) Award winning wines, beer and mimosas available for purchase (tickets)
Sat 4 - 5 PM Salsa Class with Jacqueline Bequette Alley Kats Tap Company, 222 Truman St. NE Salsa/Mambo, Footwork, Shines, On 1, On 2, Body Isolations, Partnering, Styling. SPIN TECHNIQUE include Spin Drills Spotting, Faster Channe Turns in Slot with and Without a Partner, Dizziness Prevention, Head Whips, Arms and Anchors
Sat 4 - 7 PM 506 Central Grand Opening Fundraiser 506 Central Ave SW Join us in celebrating this momentous occasion and honoring those that made it happen! We have worked tirelessly to repair and restore this 100 year old building dedicated to Flamenco art. Revitalizing 4,200sq ft is no small feat. Now, we need your support more than ever to activate and sustain our new building. This Grand Opening will launch our $35,000 fundraiser. Get your tickets, make a donation, eat delicious food, and celebrate with us! We have **limited capacity and expected high attendance, so get your tickets in advance!** If you can not make it, please consider making a donation in honor of this huge moment! (more info)
Sat 4 - 9 PM Sneakers Black Wall Gallery Boutique and Events, 2125 San Mateo Blvd. NE Calling all sneaker heads! Artists, do you love sneakers? Open call to art related to sneakers/sneaker culture, and sneaker heads. Join a round table discussion about sneaker culture and hip hop music from 4-6 pm and the main art show from 6-9 pm
Sat 5 - 10 PM Beer & Jazz on the Hill Tractor Brewing Company, 118 Tulane Dr. SE We're bringing you a full night of brews and Jazz. That's right we got TWO Abq Jazz Bands for you in one night! Zoltan will open things up at 5:00pm with Basilaris Trio shutting things down at 8pm!
Sat 6 PM Mardi Gras Party! Brew Lab 101 Beer & Cider Co., 3301 Southern Blvd. SE, Rio Rancho Mardi Gras is alive and well at The Lab! Join us for beads, masks, food trucks, beer, Jell-O shots, drink specials, and live music!
Sat 6 PM Mardi Gras Phlocking at the Prez' House! 3901 Bay Hill Loop SE, Rio Rancho (I think this is someone's house?) Hosted by Parrot Heads of NM. Grab your beads and dress up in your best purple, green, and gold for an old fashioned Mardi Gras Phlocking. King's Cake has been ordered, so we just need you to show up and kick off this year's slate of parties. The party is BYOB and bring a snack. We will be mixing up some Hurricanes to help lubricate the phlock. We are partying with a purpose, so clean out your closets of all those jeans that you will never fit in again, and bring them, as well as other clothes, and we will donate them to some local shelters and other charities
Sat 7 - 10 PM Sweetheart Soiree El Vado ABQ, 2500 Central Ave SW Join us for live vinyl DJ tunes, delicious hors d'oeuvres, a build-your-own bloom bar, permanent jewelry experience (by appointment only), and a photobooth by Light House Studio! Tickets are $39 for singles and $69 for couples. Ticket cost includes all of the above except permanent jewelry booking (Book here with Love Weld)
Sat 7 - 11:30 PM Mardi Gras Madness Women's Dance Hot Flash ABQ, 4821 Menaul Blvd. NE Join us for the largest women's dance in New Mexico.... Mardi Gras Madness. $15 Cash at the door, food and drink specials, silent auction. We'll be Supporting All Faith's Children's Advocacy Center (click here for list of items the organization needs)
Sat 7:30 - 9 PM Comedy! Emily Winter Headlines Dry Heat Comedy Club, 521 Central Ave NW, Ste G The author of One Day Smarter comes to make Albuquerque one show funnier! Come check out Dry Heat Comedy Club: Albuquerque's only dedicated comedy club! We are so excited and proud to welcome Emily Winter who, along with a lineup of local favorites, is gonna bring you a comedy show you'll love. Emily Winter is a comedian, writer for the Nickelodeon show That Girl Lay Lay, and author of the trivia book ONE DAY SMARTER. Emily has also written humor for The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR's Ask Me Another, E!, TV Land, Fusion TV, Glamour, and The Barnes & Noble Review. She's an NBC Late Night Writers Workshop script judge and alum, and her standup comedy plays on SiriusXM. Emily has performed at SF SketchFest, HBO’s Women in Comedy Festival, Laughing Skull Comedy Festival, The Limestone Comedy Festival, and many others. She hosts an annual, 64-comedian joke contest called ONE LINER MADNESS in New York as well as around the country. And like every insufferable comedian, Emily hosts podcasts. Specifically COMEDIANS WITH GHOST STORIES and the short series HOW TO PRODUCE LIVE COMEDY. Emily’s work has been profiled on/in The TODAY Show, NPR, The AV Club, the TED WorkLife with Adam Grant podcast, Buzzfeed, Lifehacker, The Miami New Times, The Brooklyn Paper, Bustle, someecards, The Boston Globe and others (tickets $15)
Sat 8 PM Flashback 80's Music Video Dance Party Sister, 407 Central Ave NW See all your video favorites from the 80's. Hosted by “Flashback 80’s” with DJ Brad Cole. The Flashback 80’s Music Video Dance Party returns! BE prepared to sing your heart out and dance all night long to the nonstop 100% of the best 80's party music! Expect to see hear all the greatest videos from the 80’s in all their glory playing on all the big screens! “Put on your red shoes and dance the blues” Glam, Punk, Wave, Metal, & Pop from artists like A-Ha, B52’s, David Bowie, Devo, Madonna, Prince, Soft Cell, Violent Femmes, Dead or Alive, Rick James, Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Rick Springfield, Cyndi Lauper, Modern English, Joan Jett, and so many more! Get there early. Cover $12 (cash only)
Sat 8:30 PM Electric Valentine w/RZRKT Historic El Rey Theater Mezzanine, 622 Central Ave SW RZRKT brings a mixture of electronic sounds that have landed him at massive festivals such as Lost Lands and Bass Canyon. This is one not to miss. 21+ (tickets)
Sat 9 PM - 2 AM So Tuff So Cute Electric Playhouse, 5201 Ouray Rd. NW We love college, especially when Mija + GG Magree are in town. Don't miss So Tuff So Cute take over Electric Playhouse (tickets, V-Day Special BOGO $7.50, GA Adv $20)
** Sun 2/19 *\*
Sun 10 AM - 4 PM Community Day at the Garden! - FREE to NM residents & students! Santa Fe Botanical Garden, 715 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe (it's not ABQ, but it's FREE) Community Days are the Garden’s way of spreading cheer throughout the year and encouraging our New Mexico neighbors to visit. Admission is free to New Mexico residents and students with ID. Please check in at the Visitor Center when you arrive. You will need a credit/debit card if you wish to make a purchase in the Garden Gift Shop. (more info)
Sun 11 AM - 12:30 PM 3rd Sundays Jazz Brunch Buds & Beans ABQ, 119 Gold Ave SW No cover, plenty of room to dance, good eats, yummy drinks, and sweet swing jazz with the Burque Jazz Bandits! Come early and shop at our weekly Sunday Market featuring some amazing local artisans and their gorgeous wares! Sunday Markets start at 9am
Sun 12 - 1 PM Cultural Dances: The Pueblo Dance Group (Laguna, Acoma, Zuni, Hopi) Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th St. NW Celebrate the seasonal cycles through prayer, song, and dance with our Cultural Dance Program. Dances connect us to our ancestors, community, and traditions while honoring gifts from our Creator. They ensure that life continues and connections to the past and future are reinforced. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is the only place in North America to offer cultural Native American dances every week, year-round. Free for museum members, or with admission (this is also on Sat 2/18)
Sun 12 - 2 PM Sunday Serenatas with Gilbert Uribe Bike In Coffee, 949 Montoya Rd. Award winning singer-songwriter Gilbert Uribe performs a vibrant blend of Acoustic Latin & Soul Music he calls “Sabrosoul”. Hailing from New Mexico, Gilbert combines elements of Reggae/Rocksteady, the feel-good vibes of Classic Soul and R&B, and the rhythms of Cumbia and Salsa to create a unique musical experience
Sun 2 - 3:30 PM Capra cu trei iezi Southwest Film Center, University of New Mexico Student Union, 1016 The University of New Mexico 1 Directed by Victor Canache, With: Maia Morgenstern, Marius Bodochi, Razvan Ilina, Antonio Gavrila, Silviu Corbu. Based on a famous children's tale by Romanian classic writer Ion Creangă (1837-1889), The Goat and Her Three Kids is not a film for children, but a psychological thriller following a single mother who fights to protect her son after losing the other two to a killer. PG-rated - not recommended for viewing by people under the age of 12 without guidance from parents, teachers, or guardians. (Watch the Official Trailer) (RSVP here)
Sun 4 - 6 PM Veils & Valentines Belly Dance Show Fusion Theatre, 700-708 1st St. NW New Mexico Belly Dance and Amaya Productions invite you to come share the love as we celebrate Valentine's Day and raise money for New Mexico Belly Dance. On this enchanting evening, some of New Mexico's best belly dancers will steal your heart at The Cell Theatre. Enjoy refreshments from Novel Point Coffee in The Cell Lobby. Funds raised will help support scholarships and educational opportunities for belly dance in New Mexico (tickets $15)
Sun 4 - 7 PM Love Raqs: A Red-Hot Dance Gathering Juno, 1501 1st St. NW Valentines' themed Dance Performances, Lessons, and a DJ. Tango, Rumba, Goth-stuff. Live dance performances by The Jewels Tango Rouge Troupe Crimson Rose Student Dancers. DJ Ren will get you on your feet dancing to the beat after the performances. Free Rumba Mini-Lesson. Free. Singles, Couples, Groups all welcome (21+ please). In the Gallery. Kitchen and bar will open purchases
Sun 4 - 7 PM Mardi Gras Celebration with Partizani Brass Band Canteen Brewhouse, 2381 Aztec Rd. NE The Partizani Brass Band Brings the excitement of New Orleans Street Music! We bring the most incredible street level brass band show in New Mexico. Chicken Gumbo, king cake, beads, masks, amazing music and a good time!
Sun 5 PM Chatter Cabaret Albuquerque Museum, 2000 Mountain Rd. NW Gerald Finzi Five Bagatelles for Clarinet and String Quartet, W.A. Mozart String Trio in B-flat major, K. 266, Adolphus Hailstork Three Smiles for Tracey, Jean Françaix Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet. James Shields clarinet, Emily Cole, Elizabeth Young violin, Joyce Huang viola, Felix Fan cello. Doors open at 4:15pm :: Open seating - first come, first served. Food and drink to purchase will be provided by Slate :: wine by the bottle or the glass, charcuterie, and cheese plates (tickets)
Sun 5 - 8 PM Marvel Trivia Night! Boxing Bear Brewing Co. Bridges on Tramway Taproom, 12501 Candelaria Rd. NE Do you like drinking local beer, winning prizes and supporting a local rescue? Boxing Bear is donating $1 per pint to PLR and we will be playing Marvel trivia!
Sun 7 - 10 PM S.O.S - Salsa On Sunday Dance Social 505 Spirits, 105 Harvard Dr. SE Salsa On Sunday Dance Social *With guest DJ's *Latin Dance Performances *The Occasional LIVE Music Performance *And Always... Social Dancing! salsa timba bachata merengue. ***What is it about a Social*** The essence of a Social is for the dance community to get together and dance. Socials offer a relaxed night of dancing. Socials continue to draw dance enthusiasts who get lost in their salsa “addiction” by dancing and enjoying the music. Socials offer something for every level of dancer at any age. Bands and DJs have more freedom to play sets which appeal to the dance-centric crowd. It's about the music. It's about the dance. If you want to have an alternative to the club, are underage, or simply want to get in some good dancing - check out a Social, you might be surprised at how much fun you have

after the non-elimination
Ebony: We did it Lisbon!!
Lisbon: Whew, I was scared for a minute but I left my all on that stage.
Unieke: That was a tight ass lipsync, you both deserved to stay!
Ebony CF: I finally landed in the bottom but in a weird way, I feel like it makes me more of a threat to the other girls. They know now that landing in the bottom against me is a one way ticket home. My claws are out and I will do whatever it takes to get to the end. A lot of people are scared, a lot of people are scared.
The Next Day
top five queens enter the workroom
Anthyy CF: It's a new day in the workroom and I am still so gagged that I'm here!! I've won three challenges. And, I'm the only queen left to never be in the bottom two. Nobody took me as major competition when the season started. And they can overlook me all the way until I reach that crown!
Unieke: Jords, how are you feeling after your little moment in untucked last night?
Jords: I'm feeling a lot better! I was beating myself up over it but I think I was just exhausted. I've powered through every challenge to make it here and I'm not stopping now.
Lisbon: I want to apologize for the way I acted towards you in untucked. Those few weeks in the top got to me and I shouldn't have discredited your journey here. You're amazing.
Lisbon CF: Still not winning this season but she's amazing!
Micro walks into the room
Micro: The competition can get so stressful sometimes. To blow off steam, let's play a game! Now, a girl plays with dolls. But a queen? Oh no honey, we play with puppets! Reach into this big black hole and pull out a puppet. Then, you'll have to drag out your puppet and give us your best impersonation of one another.
Anthyy gets Lisbon's puppet
Ebony gets Anthyy's puppet
Jords gets Unieke's puppet
Lisbon gets Ebony's puppet
Unieke gets Jords's puppet
Micro: Let's go!
the queens work on their puppets
Ebony: Can I get another neck to add to this?!
Lisbon: How would I know? Can't you see me giving you a unibrow?!
Micro: And that is time! Lemme get all comfy and cozy and enjoy this mess.
Puppet Show
Anthyy: Lisbon! Hello sis! i see you got your swimming suit on! is that an eye PATTERN? on it and oh amazing.a flag of portugal why that choice?
Lisbon: i have no idea what portugal is i just googled lisbon and put it on my bodysuit.. Oh that explains a lot and what is this rope? around your neck GIRL THAT'S DANGEROUS! Yall were ralkin how i chose the wrong rope so i thought yall meant this one! Oh no....
📷
Ebony: Hi I'm Anthyy! I draw all my own looks! Look at me!!! My designs all have weirdly long necks and long legs!
📷
Jords: so, pu-nieke (puppet unieke), i heard you can rap?
pu-nieke: hm.
jords: would you like to rap something?
pu-nieke starts rapping about panda and then raps panda by desiigner
jords: who would you think is the weakest one here?
short pause
pu-nieke you.
jords: oh wow! well i think you are pretty bad at this.
pu-nieke: that's what your mother said as well while pressing that creature out that answers by your name.
📷
Lisbon: Hi I’m Ebony and I’m the fashion queen this season!!! I slayed that ball so hard I tore my own off.
📷
Unieke: IM A DUTTYY GYALLLLL ……OMG THE CHALLENGE IS ABOUT TO START?? OMG LET ME GO FIND MY LOOKS! OMG LET ME SUBMIT REAL FAST I GOT 20 SECS!
📷
Micro: Damn, y'all have been holding that in! Unieke, you're a winner baby! You have won...nothing. But! You made me giggle and that is a prize!!
Unieke CF: holds up her Jords puppet Dutty gyal yasss she won!
Micro: Now y'all know, we keep the studio cold. Some say it's because of the heat from the lights. Others say it's because I didn't pay the bill. And to that, I say...mind your own business bitch! Anyways, it's cold. So for this next challenge, you need to fire up a roast! The subject? Yours truly. As the winner of the last challenge, Anthyy will be in charge of assigning the order of your sets. And on the runway, freak out in your best "Club Kid" look! Good luck girls, see you on the runway!!
the queens grab their pens and start writing down jokes
Jords CF: We have to roast Micro tonight and after all these bottoms she been giving me?! I am ready!
Anthyy: I am shaking in my boots girls.
Ebony: Are they designer at least?
Anthyy: Yeah. They're designed by some queen with a long neck...ha!
Ebony: Don't look at me! The puppet said it.
Ebony CF: I don't take responsibility for anything that bitch said. I hate her, I hate her! Puppet Anthyy, you will be dealt with.
Lisbon: Anthyy, why are you nervous?
Anthyy: I'm just not a comedy girl. We saw the prison challenge...
Lisbon: I wish I hadn't!
Unieke CF: Usually, I'd feel really good about a roast. I mean, it's my favorite food! But after only being safe for Snatch Game, I'm feeling a tiny bit uncertain. Roast humor is difficult to perfect but I'm trying to shed the nerves and let go.
Ebony: I have been waiting for this challenge! How do you guys plan on balancing a roast without just being a cunt?
Jords: Oh. You're trying to not be a cunt? I was just gonna go up there and insult her.
Ebony: Girl...well actually! Go ahead and do that.
Ebony CF: Now I'm not trying to sabotage Jords. I don't think anyone needs to do that...she's doing it on her own!
Runway
the lights flash as Micro struts down in her look
📷
Micro Episode 11 Look
Micro: Hi flops! Welcome back to the main stage of Micro's Drag Race. Tonight, the heat is turned all the way up in the roast of...wait a damn minute. They're roasting me?! Who signed off on this? Me? Oh...whoops! Well without further ado, let's get into it! First up, Unieke!
Unieke: Welcome, welcome, WELCOME!! To the roast, of Micronesiarain! My names Unieke and if you don’t know or remember me, then you are probably Micro, her old ass finally hit the age where Alzheimer’s are the most common. I mean it’s CLEAR!!! Sis had us prepare for a whole mini challenge..came in to the werk room, no helllo, no nothing! Just immediately, todays maxi challe-…EXCUSE ME!? Had us writing about laws…baby I am BLACK! That is triggering…speaking of black though, we have one of my biggest competition here, THEE Ebony Enchantress!!! Now Ebony….I have a bone to pick with you…HOW IN THE HELL IS YOUR NAME EBONY AND I AINT SEE YET ONEEE BLACK LOOK FROM YOU!! All your looks has been whiter than slice bread and I am APPALLED!!! Channel your Rachel Dolezal or sum…goddamn!!!! Moving onto my second biggest competition, Anthy!! Now sis, to keep it a buck, I didn’t expect you to get this far with the tr you have!!! You’ve showed up, showed out, and showed us how illiterate your ass is!!! Girl i do NOT know what yawsz masma zlay duh hoius doqn bewts mean!!!!!
Now, Lisbon came into this competition claiming to be a icon, super confident, yeah yeah yeah. But Lisbon-honest…an icon, you are not! ICON-not believe that you really fixed your lips to say a such thing!! That’s a lot of nerve for some safe most of the damn season! Speaking of safe, I sure do know Jords wish she was more. She’s been in the bottom more times then Micro has doctor’s appointments a week!! Well- that’s a lie. She actually has one right after this so let me keep this going!! I’m still confused on how she came out as Valentina on the runway, & left it a dutty gyal! Moving onto one of our lovely eliminated queens, the bold and beautiful, OG!! Now, she’s honestly breaking records!!! She’s the only Trans queen and the only queen to be eliminated holds up 2 fingers and whispers into the mic twice! The only person breaking records like that is Micro from how many hours she puts into her podcast “Why Jackie Cox should quit drag and work at Trader Joes”!! Let me stop before Micro falls over from laughing so much and calls for help because “She has fallen, and she can’t get up!!” Bringing out to the stage gags, Lisbon!!
Lisbon: Thank you Unieke for that roast and handing the mic off to me! It was certainly… Unieke. Now let’s get into the meat and potatoes of the roast. Micro! A woman of many talents. Host, comedian, winner, and most importantly… whore. Gurl you get so much dick your like fucking Grand Central Station for twinks! Speaking of which, Jords! You have become very familiar with bottoming this competition, however, every time you top you can’t seem to finish the job. Up next on my cue cards is Miss Ebony. It was a shock having to lip sync against you last episode. What’s less shocking is Micro keeping you around for the finale. Micro, girl, that double shantay was seen coming a mile away. Which is almost as far away as you need to stand for her drag to look good. Anthyy, you are a queen that has not only won 3 challenges, but has also won our hearts. Look how that turned out for Rosé. Y’know we’re gonna go back to Ebony cause you have talked about how you, Anthyy, and Unieke are going into the finals with three wins. I haven’t seen that much delusion since I looked in a mirror during our design challenge. I think I’ve roasted everyone here and covered all my bases. Now I’ll be passing the mic to the incredibly resilient bottom, Jords!
Jords: Thank you, Lisbon! I really felt like i went to Portugal with your performance. But the Portugal where the one woman fell into the alleyway and never came back. Made me wee-wee. Now, Micro, you say that being African is a treat. I mean, we both know. And i thought every african would know.. and then God created a culture vulture called Unieke. She's so crusty, Pizza Hawaii actually makes me hula-hula. Micro, you have so much common with other hosts. You're race is great, even though you expect us to submit faster than you running to the kitchen to get a plate to know you ate on a sunday in underwear. You have excellent taste in challenges, like the ground we walk and talk on, am i the only one. BUT you are one of the worst contestants picker. Look at the elements of your labor. A chunk from Britland who has black friends just to say THE word, and a horny girl that whenever she gets touched, her feet start talking for her. You called yourself Thee Ebony Enchantress, but are more huawhite than a karen on a sunday church. She's also built one, the bad iPhone kind. Then there's the Lisbon, not in fancy Portugal, in crusty Uruguay. And we won't even start with Ant Annie and Aunty Unit. Well, i'm afraid this must be the end of my road. Micro, for Season 2, if that ever happens with the delay your Computer has, don't hit yourself on the door on your way out and close it properly! Now, i must say our next act is blessed by her name, literally cause she looks like one that came out from the Geordie Shore. It also was her rainbow look she gave. Give it up for Ant! That stands for Androgynous Nodding Torture!
Anthyy: Well thank you for this Jords your roast was not roasted it was fracking burned. It will take us all a long time to recover after that. Talking about. Micro you were on this earth for a long time... And you accomplished nothing. if hosting a drag race knock off is peak in your life then I'm sorry. I also don't see much more for you in future cause 1. Your dumb. 2. You've got nowhere to go.. Art.... look at those puppets... Hosting.. Your show it's so bad.. self explanatory. I think you will stick to this... If it will survives season 1 whispers I dont think so. Talking bout will make sure to give me that XDR all winners crown in it... Oh wait.... Let's take a look at your name it is very interesting MicronesiaRain It suits you so well Micro - it describes the size of your brain! Rain - everytime I look at you I have rain of tears in my eyes.
Talking about making me cry... Miss ebony and her looks. Your fashion is something only an accountant would wear. Your also a lawyer (im shocked too while being so dumb you graduated)! and the only difference between an accountant and lawyer is that at least an accountant know they're boring. Let's move over to miss Lisbon You're the wonkiest bro I've EVER met. Oh you don't know what that mean? I'm not shocked you miss every single episode. How's your swimming progress? It cant be worse than your progress in this competition or should I say lack of it.
Now let's go into Jords WOW talk about putting no effort into a race Fleur has competition. I noticed the only thing you care about it winning that nitro... do you remember that is the prize for the winner? Yeah you need to do good to get it!
And last BUT LEAST it's miss Unieke. You say a drag queen. And I noticed micro is a big fan of yours we can all tell after your placements she keeps talking about how she needs you on drag race! Just so you know what micro says is never true. So don't get your hopes too high. Maybe just don't get your hopes at all!
Well that is all! Now coming to the stage a girl which doesn't need to roast because she is a roast herself... EBONY!
Ebony:
Give it up for Anthyy! Wow, that set was rough and needed a LOT of work done to it… kinda like your runways! Anthyy, I love you girl! You are the bonafide queen of designs but next time, perhaps learn how to design yourself a personality? ‘Cus right now it’s still lookin’ a little… Microsoft Paint.
I see we have the rest of the finalists here! Sitting bow-legged like they’re in a queue for an STI check up, Speaking of anal gonorrhea, hey Unieke! Wow, you’ve made such a mark on this competition, haven’t you? Oh sorry, I misread, you’ve made such a skidmark. And girl don’t think we have forgotten your Kung Fool Panda runway! Scat-egory is… somebody call PETA!
Hey Lisbon. Wow, it must be really strange coming into this competition as a queen that we knew very little about... but luckily for you, you’ll be leaving as one too.
Jords is here! Looking like Bobrisky’s ‘before’ picture. Wow you know, runways… comedy… performing… Snatch Game… is there anything you can do? Well, at least you’re skinny! ‘Cus somehow you’ve managed to slip through into the top 5 with no problems!
Anyways, it’s nice to be here, roasting the legendary Micro. I’ve known Micro for years, and yes, Micro is OLD. Older than me, and I’m practically a corpse!
Micro is so old, that when she gets asked her date of birth, she just smiles. Not because she doesn’t want to tell us, but because she’s already forgotten the damn question! We call that a senile in denial.
Micro is so old that when she was asked for a photo of her first time in drag, she had to take a $700 roundtrip to scour a cave wall in Borneo to find it!
To prove just how old a heifer Micro is, I actually found her yearbook! And here it is! Now you can see here, Micro posing with JFK, Micro posing at the moon landing, oh and of course - being the OG Mona Lisa! I guess that explains the unwashed stench emanating from the judging panel.
But all in all, I LOVE Micro and I want to leave on a positive note - y’know I look at you Micro and I think… what do you call a funny, charismatic and iconic hostess with a heart of gold and dedication to her craft? You call her Xtina. Bye!
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Ebony Roast
Micro: On the runway, category is "Club Kid"!
Lisbon: This look is insane. There is so much happening on my body I’m not even sure where to start. Well let’s start with the eyes. I have 5 different eyes visible, each a different color and only two are on my face. I have this giant neon pant leg with these rings on in and a lovely set of dentures too. This look is the definition of club kid. I even have a penis! Haven’t had one of those since the Scared Straight challenge. Over this look is just so extra, and shiny, and bonkers that I’ll let it speak for itself. You see it, I see it. It’s a slay.
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Lisbon Runway
Anthyy: One of the new york's club kids Personality on Joan Rivers show said "It's all about just being yourself and feeling free with yourself!, Club is just anything they wanna be" And that is exactly what i am serving to you tonight on this runway! This is the version i want to ! The loook is me while still keeping the elenments of "classic club kid" look such as mask or the wings/shoulders! This is so me and i feel like i waited to serve you a pant the whole season and this was a perfect moment! i am so happy with this look I LOVE how this turned out i love the colors i love the style i love pretty much every single thing about it! everything is there!
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Anthyy Runway
Ebony: Me and clubs have a long and crazy history. I first picked up a club when I was 7 and I was taught how to kill the family seals who had taken residence on our garden shed. Wait what? This is a look about clubs? Like oontz oontz white women calling me a faggot club? Ohhh! Well in that case... my club kid look is everything I love about drag: it's painful, ugly and you can see my puswatcha! Camel toe no she better did!
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Ebony Runway
Jords: For the runway, i came in as the one-eyed queen i am. Throughout this competition, i have learned what real drag is and that paper drag isn't the only answer. This look is paper drag, but it's still giving Club Kid! I love it, you love it, Your chinny-chin-chinn loves ittt!
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Jords Runway
Unieke: The runway called for club kid and I am serving EXACTLY that!!!! I am slowly scurrying down this runway and right as I get to the middle, I open my skirt, and start to strut fiercely down this runway!!! I am giving you everything you though you need and then some!!!!
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Unieke Runway
Critiques
Lisbon! This was a phenomenal night for you. Your set was short and sweet but packed a major punch. The jokes got better and better and I about peed myself. On the runway?! She’s a server, she loves to serve. This is a top runway of the season. Amazing amazing job
Anthyy! You were nervous about this challenge. And I really don’t think you had anything to be afraid of. You came out of nowhere and knocked it out of the park. All of your jokes were so funny and I mean this in the nicest way, I had no clue you could be so funny! This look. It’s just amazing. You have reinvented yourself on the runway every single week while staying true to your style. The primary color palette is so clean and the silhouette is quintessential club kid. Perfection head to toe.
Ebony! Talk about a perfect night. You owned this from the start. Your roast was killer. It hit every note that I want from a roast. You read everyone to filth but when it’s funny, you get away with it. And you definitely got away with it. On the runway, biiiiiiitch. This is the best you’ve ever looked on this show. Amazing work
Jords! Again, you crushed this performance. Once you hit your stride, it was joke after joke and they all landed. It was totally you. This runway?! Literally the haters can kiss my ass this is so good. This is club kid meets fashion in space on top of the moon. All around, amazing night for you.
Unieke! Omg the cackling! Part of what makes a good roast is not being afraid to go there. And you went there. Making fun of my kidney disease?! I screamed!! Your set was incredibly cohesive and every joke landed. On the runway, this is a look I love. The drama, the concept, it’s so club kid.
Micro: Thank you queens! While I take a moment to think things over, you may head backstage to untuck.
Untucked
Ebony: Look how we ate that shit! And we killed the challenge.
Unieke CF: Chile don't cut to me, I can't explain her!
Anthyy: Does anyone feel like they don't need to learn this song based on Micro's critiques?
Lisbon: Oh I'm definitely learning the lyrics.
Lisbon CF: It is impossible to tell what's happening with this challenge. Everyone got amazing critiques across the board.
Jords: I feel like you could make an argument for anyone winning this week.
Unieke: Do we want to go around and give predictions?
Ebony: Personally, I could see it being a top two where we have to send someone home.
Anthyy: I'm not natural with comedy so I think I may be in the bottom. And maybe with Lisbon.
Lisbon: If we have to lipsync, get ready for me. I'm not going down without a fight.
Jords: It meant a lot to know that Micro liked my work this week. I would love to win but we'll see.
Unieke: I think the win is between myself, Ebony, and Jords. So I guess by process of elimination, that leaves Anthyy and Lisbon in the bottom? I feel so bad saying that but yeah.
Anthyy: Don't feel bad! We are all so strong in our own ways, we have to look at the details.
the queens return to the stage
Micro: Alright. This has been a very hard challenge to judge. You all deserve to make it through but a decision must be made.
u/Lisbon_After_Dark. On the runway, all eyes were on you...all five of them. And in the roast, you brought the heat. But did it pale in comparison? I'm sorry but you are up for elimination.
u/LondynBridget! You broke all the rules, were incredibly offensive, and I loved every minute of it. You're safe.
u/TheeEbonyEnchantress. In the roast, you were on fire. And you smoked the competition. Congratulations you are the winner of this challenge!
u/a_nthyy, u/TycenesUniverse. Tonight, you both left me in stitches. But only one of you can join the safe bitches.
Anthyy, you are safe.
Jords, that sadly means that you are up for elimination.
Micro: Anthyy, Ebony, Unieke, you may head to the back of the stage.
Lisbon CF: Luck just wasn't on my side tonight. I know that I am a phenomenal performer and Jords, you gotta go sis.
Jords CF: I did not survive all those bottoms just to go home looking this damn good. This is about to be a battle.
Micro: Two queens stand before me. Prior to tonight, you were asked to prepare a lipsync performance of "Skate" by Silk Sonic.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CEw-7cMnBDY
Good luck, and don't fuck it up!
"In a room full of dimes You would be a hundred dollars If bein' fine was a crime Girl, they'd lock your lil' fine ass up in a tower The way you move like you do Ooh, it's like you do it for a livin' Do a lil' spin, do it again Shit, look like you playin' for the win, oh, baby"
Jords bounces her body and removes the eye headpiece. Lisbon starts off on the ground and slinks her body across the stage before jumping up and spinning around
"I'm tryna roll, I'm tryna ride I'm tryna float, I'm tryna glide No, no, don't be shy, just take my hand and hold on tight"
Lisbon pops her body and gives attitude in her face. Jords criss crosses her legs and works the flow of her sleeves
"Oh, skate to me, baby (skate) Slide your way on over (slide your way on over) Oh, skate to me, baby (skate) I wanna get to know ya (I wanna get to know ya) Come on Oh my, oh my"
Jords kicks her leg into the air and rolls her arms over one another. Lisbon slides her feet across the stage, feeling the music and letting her hips sway to the beat
Micro: Thank you queens! Now, I've made my decision.
Lisbon, shantay you stay. You may join the other girls.
Lisbon: Thank you so much.
Micro: Jords. Nobody can say you didn't work your ass off to get here. You are a great talent and I'll miss having you here.
Jords: I want to thank you for this wonderful time and opportunity. This has really showed me what i can do and what i'm capable of. Life's not a joyride. Live out there and get it. Thank you blows kiss
Micro: Now, sashay away.
Jords: I have one last thing to say. I AM WHAT? A DUTTY GYAL!
Micro: My final four, congratulations on making it this far. Look to your left and look to your right. Those queens are the only ones in the way of you getting this crown. Now, let the music play!
”Banjo” by BeBe Zahara Benet plays
Next Time on Micro's Drag Race
Micro: This is it! The final challenge between you and a spot in the grand finale.
Lisbon CF: My journey does not end here.
Anthyy CF: I am giving this my all, I am SO close!
Ebony CF: Hand the queen her crown, come on!
Unieke CF: Oh baby I'm not even stressed. You will see me in the end.
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Track Record
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Cast Shot w/ Placements