Obligatory this happened 9 years ago but I still think about it every day.
It's a long one so buckle up.
(Apologies about the grammar and such, writing is not my forte.)
Me: $D
Friend/Co-Conspirator: $F

This story starts with me, a 'quiet but well liked throughout the school' 17 year old in IT class at my High School in a large suburban, two city public school district. We had one of the best high school IT programs in the country at the time for many reasons. Part of our class (of about 35) involved us going around the school to do basic maintenance on school computers. Although with the exception of myself and $F, our class never touched staff computers.
Myself and $F were the two students always finishing our two week classwork cycle in about two days. So we were always tasked by our IT Teacher with helping the school IT guy (district employee stationed at the school in the IT lab) to go around and fix issues throughout the building while everyone else worked on their classwork. Often, we were loaned the IT guy's keys and district keycard to go around the school and take care of business. (This is important later) Over time, myself and $F became well known by staff around the school for being able to fix "anything" so we eventually gained a lot of trust from our IT Teacher and District IT guy. To the point that we knew passwords we ABOSOUTELY should not have known.
We knew everything from the password to the surveillance system to the master (domain admin) password district IT used to access everything from HR files to grades to mechanical systems. This password literally let us access anything on any computer in the entire district. And before you ask, yes all buildings in the district (including admin) were linked together and no they weren't firewalled off from each other. Now we never used our powers maliciously as we loved our school and never would've done anything to harm anyone or damage any systems.
One day I thought to myself "wow, Information Security (InfoSec) in this district is atrocious, I wonder how easy it would be to test it from a student perspective, then present my findings to the district IT guy". This, would be the beginning of the biggest fuck up of my life.
(I'll try to keep the technical stuff to a minimum)
My mission started one day when I was tasked to grab a computer from a classroom and bring it to the lab. Easy enough. I was given IT guy's 35+ keys and sent off. While walking to the room, I dropped the ring, it took me a minute to find the right key on the ring. When I found it, since I was looking bit harder than usual at each key, I noticed something peculiar about the key he used to open doors inside the school. It was stamped DGM and looked different than the usual *M stamp master key for this one high school building. Not seeing this abbreviation before, I thought, "ok this must be an important key since it works like a school master but looks different".
I opened the (empty) classroom, fired up a locksmithing app on my phone and took a digital impression of the key that gave me the bitting code so I could duplicate it later on, grabbed the computer, went back to the lab and gave the keys back. Curious about what this DGM stamp meant, I started googling on my phone, "DGM [Key Manufacturer]". It came up with GM as "Grand Master", the key above the master key. Nothing with DGM came up in the search. I thought "ok this is just the "grand master" key that opens all three buildings on the school property, NBD. (Main School, Theater, and Aux Gym buildings)
"Ok. but what does that D in DGM stand for? Nothing in the school district starts with a D, except... District. Holy shit, it must mean "District Grand Master. But they can't be stupid enough to make one key that opens doors in all 15 schools. Right?"
I get home and order a key duplicate on the website that built that locksmithing app. A week later it shows up and I bring it to school. Before gym class I tried it on one of the doors in the Aux gym and low and behold, it worked. Great! Part one of my test plan is complete. Someone with this key could cause a lot of damage if they wanted to, but how would they get past the alarm systems in each building? Because it would be difficult to discreetly do a lot of damage if the building was full of people. Naturally someone with ill intensions would carry out their act at night while the building alarms are armed.
I already knew that the alarm systems were controlled by keycards that every staff member in the district had. (It was an antiquated system with flaws known to the IT world) Their cards only worked for the buildings they worked in. So the cards, electric doors, and alarms must be controlled at the school level, not at the district admin office. Right?
So how was I going to get a hold of a keycard long enough to scan and duplicate it onto a new card? It required a laptop and a special piece of equipment that I couldn't just bring to school while everyone was there. I thought "I can't access the security system and lookup badge codes with the IT master password I know, that defeats the whole purpose of this test. Where's the next vulnerability in this system?" Then I realized, there's a gate to the staff parking lot that's opened with keycards, but not their district cards, they had separate cards for the gate. I scanned the entire network for this gate controller, but couldn't find it anywhere. "Good Job school district, leaving your gate system closed circuit. It's inconvenient to program, but definitely more secure."
Okay, so where is this gate controller located? I've got a district master key so when I find it, I can access it locally. I look at the gate itself and see a freshly paved line in the concrete leading from the gate motor to the Aux Gym. "Okay, its somewhere in the Aux Gym."
I wait until Saturday during Football practice, the Aux Gym is disarmed and the front door is open. Everyone's out on the field so no one will see me enter the building. "Hey there's a closet by the front door I'll try this one first." There it fucking is. The gate controller is mounted on the wall. I open up the panel and attach my laptop. "Fuck there's a password, what could it be? It's not going to be the master password, this isn't connected to the network." I look at the circuit board, there's a label with "admin - (name of city school is located in)". Unbelievable, that's the login. "District IT People are paid six-figures to make this shit up? Seriously?"
I accessed the swipe log and I noticed an interesting trend. Half the time someone swipes into the parking lot, there's an access denial that immediately precedes a valid gate card swipe. "They must be swiping their district cards first instead of the gate card!" Lucky for me, this system records badge numbers when access is denied. So I had access to several district keycard codes, protected by a password that is the name of our city. Wonderful. I sift through the logs and notice the names of three district janitors, all three with the preceding access denied messages and codes, followed by their valid gate cards. I remembered these people from my previous schools, so their district cards must open multiple buildings. (Remember when I mentioned that district buildings weren't firewalled off from each other on the network?)
I took one of the codes and encoded it onto a blank keycard with that special piece of equipment that cost me $20 on eBay, walked out the front door and scanned the card. I heard a loud click and the reader light turned green. Holy shit, I now have a DGM key and a keycard that disarms EVERY school alarm system in the district. Nothing is off limits to me. Part 2 complete.
I call up my friend $F who somewhat knew what I was doing, and once nighttime rolled around, we decided to visit almost every school in the district. Just to see if it actually worked. And boy it did. We easily swiped into each school, the alarm automatically disarmed, and the DGM key opened every door in every building we visited. I found myself thinking "Good Lord, security here is even more atrocious than I thought". We had the decency to rearm each building before we left and once we were done, we planned on telling the IT guy on monday when we went to class.
Well, my dumbass decided to try one more school the next day (Sunday Morning), I swiped in and within 10 seconds, the (middle school) principal walked through the door and asked "Who are you?" I could've bolted out the front door, but I wanted to be honest because they were gonna find out on monday anyways. So I told him who I was and what I was doing (very short version).
He took me to his office and had me sit down while he made a phone call. It was someone at the district office. All I heard him say was "I can't distinguish this from my own badge, its a perfect copy but it has his name and photo on it". He hangs up. Asks me more questions and it eventually leads to the DGM key. This especially panics him because he knew what it was but didn't know anyone other than the District Ops manager that had one. He makes another phone call, "This is (principal name) at (middle school) I need someone to come down here now." I'm thinking "Okay, someone from the district will be here to ask more questions, cool."
Boy was I wrong, within a few minutes about six police officers show up and start asking me questions. I'm honest, I tell them my plan and what I did. They all looked utterly confused by the end of my short explanation. They took the keycards and DGM key and asked me to call my parents to pick me up. They search my car and find pot in the trunk (oops). So there's a charge right there. They said they'll notify us later once they talk to the district and I was released into my dad's custody.
A few hours later, my mom gets a phone call from $VP saying I'm not to attend school monday and we will have a meeting that evening at the high school. "Okay, understandable. I haven't been able to explain myself. They're playing it safe."
Whoops wrong again!

IT Teacher: $ITT
District IT Director: $ITLady
Vice Principal: $VP
Cops: $PD
We arrive at the school for the meeting, my IT teacher is sitting in the school office with a disappointed yet very proud look on his face. As we arrived we were called into the conference room, I expected it to be just $VP, lmao no. It was $VP, two cops, and some random district official. My IT teacher was there just to translate the technical terms. I explain my whole plan, being interrupted many times by everyone to ask their questions. At one point $VP says "Jesus $ITT you're not supposed to be teaching this stuff!"
$ITT: $VP, Do you realize the amount of critical thinking and work that went into this project?"
Well, after he says this, there's a knock on the door. "$VP, $ITLady is here"
"Random district official" leaves and $ITLady enters and sits down in front of me"
$VP: $M this is $ITLady, the District Director of IT. She has some questions for you.
$M: Ok
She proceeds to tear into me, asking "WHAT DID YOU BREAK, WHAT DID YOU HACK?!" I could literally see the veins popping out of her head. She was pissed the fuck off.
She couldn't accept that a bored teenage kid that just wanted to see if this was possible, was able to compromise her systems in one week. At one point the officers asked her to leave the room and take a break because she was getting so worked up.
Fast forward to after the meeting, the police took myself, my mom, $VP, and $ITT to my house and seized all of my electronic equipment. Everything from my cell phone, to my laptop, to my WiFi adapter and everything in between. My favorite part was when they were searching my computer bag. The police officer opened it, rummaged around for a bit, taking everything electronic out, then gently and over dramatically pulling a strand of condom wrappers out in front of everybody.
$Mom: *Glares at me* Previously not knowing I was having sex at 17
$Mom's new BF: *Leaves room immediately*
$Cops: *Looks at $VP not sure what to do*
$ITT: *Gently facepalms*
$M: Thinking "Fuck, this is bad"
$VP: *staring at the cops for about five seconds* "Okay well let's move on"
They all leave after seizing basically everything I own.

Fast forward to a few days later, I get a letter from the district saying I have been suspended pending expulsion. Great.
We attend the expulsion hearing, I say exactly what I said in the first meeting with $VP and the cops.
Get another letter two days later, I'm expelled. We appeal to the school board and the district's lawyers. They don't want to hear any of it. Appeal denied. They're pressing full charges. Okay I didn't know what the charges were but they were pressing them. Cool, great.

Two months later I meet with county Juvenile, I again explain to them my story, they're just as confused as the district people but my Juvenile rep is taken back by my calm demeanor and willingness to share all the details. By this point the district has done a through investigation and found no evidence that I stole or caused damage to property or their computer networks. They then Inform me I'm being charged with:
-- 9 counts of Felony Burglary 2
-- 3 counts of Class A Misdemeanor Computer Crime
-- 3 Counts of Class A Identity Theft
-- 1 Count of Poss. Controlled Substance on School Grounds
I'm also ordered not to use any electronic devices until I see the judge. This included something as simple as a TV remote.
Fuck Me

I have a few more meetings with the County Juvenile rep, she was actually a very nice person and was surprised I was assigned to her in the first place because she usually got the murders and rapists. She got to know me and my true intensions with the entire plan over the next month.
Before my first hearing, she (the county) recommended to the school district not to press charges. They felt this could be remedied in-district, since while crimes were committed, I wasn't aware of the crimes and there was obviously no bad intent.
During the hearing, my Juvenile rep and shitty court appointed lawyer explained my side and the district lawyer explained theirs. The judge was extremely confused by the whole situation, saying "we've never seen a case like this before, at this point I don't know how to proceed" The DA also looked equally as confused.
Judge asked the district's lawyer: "How do you want to proceed?"
Lawyer: We'll take this under further review
Judge: $M expect a call from your Juvenile rep this week. Adjourned.

Three days later, we receive a call from Juvenile. The district is pursuing all charges and wants $80,000 in restitution for a new district security system. Wonderful news.
I live in a constant state of panic for the next three months while waiting for the next court date. I end up going to the district's alternate school for a while while attending twice weekly meetings at juvenile.
Went a few more times in front of the judge, my lawyer, Juvenile, and district lawyers doing all the talking, explaining the entire case to the judge. The district still insisting I stole and damaged district property even though I never did and they ever found any evidence.
About seven months into this, the Judge had enough. She didn't want to hear anything more and was going to issue my disposition (ruling) at the next hearing.
She explained that $80,000 in restitution was ludicrous and the district was going to pay for their own security upgrades if they chose to.
She then looked at me and asked me to rise.
Judge: "I have three options here Mr. $M"
"Option 1, I dismiss all of the charges and we'll be done here
Option 2: I drop the marijuana charge, reduce all other Charges to Attempted (Misdemeanors), and sentence you to one year bench probation
Option 3: I send you to jail right now"
I almost lost it right there.
Judge: "Based on what I've heard from our Juvenile rep and read in the police reports, I'd like to go with Option 1 and dismiss the charges. But because of the sheer severity of the crimes on paper, I am unable to do that. So I am going with Option 2. I hereby sentence you to one year of bench probation and order you to pay restitution in the amount of $3,200 for district staff overtime. Good luck Mr. $M."
I don't remember what was said after that because I was so relieved I almost passed out.

After three months of thinking I was going to prison for 20 years, it was all over. I was numb for the rest of the day.
All in all, The whole experience only left me with severe depression and anxiety for a few years but hey I'm not in prison. Great, right?
Actually it ended up better than I thought. I ended up graduating from the alternate school's accelerated graduation program shortly after that. (The district wanted me out of their hair ASAP)
I received a full diploma from my regular High School at the end of my junior year. I got to essentially skip most of my junior and all of my senior year of HS. Ended up working my ass off and got a great IT job at a company I still work for today. And now I have IT Director as my title.
And that is how I royally fucked up by shaming the fuck out of my school district
Shove it $ITLady!

TL;DR I exploited security flaws in my school district's security system. They got royally pissed and tried to send me to prison. Instead the judge gave me a slap on the wrist and I graduated a year an a half early. Now have a great job in IT.

Edit: Some amount of proof that this isn't fake because I forgot people on the internet are asses
Edit2: random internet people, while yes, this story is extremely dumb and sounds extremely false, I swear on my life this story is 100% true. For the techies, I intentionally left out some details because they're boring to most people. If you have a question just ask.

🐦 Hey CD Projekt Red, I think you shipped the wrong config on PC. Here's a guide that shows you how to "unlock" Cyberpunk for possibly massive performance improvements.

Update regarding the 1.05 patchnotes saying this file appearantly does nothing:

Hey all, I had no intention to jebait anybody in any way. I even asked two friends to try this fix before posting it, because it seemed unreal to me a file like this could change ANYTHING. After they confirmed this, I went to post it on reddit and people's responses were huge. I expected this to ONLY maybe help in niche-cases. Only after hundreds of people allegedly confirming that it made noticable diffferences, stability being the most common, reflecting purposefully increased memory pools, I started to collect data and tried to draw a better picture since some characteristics seemed very distinct (for example new Ryzens seeming to be totally unaffected). Maybe I got hit with placebo, but how the hell is it possible thousands of people appearantly did too? This bugs me quite a bit. If I really spread misinformation, I am sincerely apologizing. Obviously it's hard to argue with patchnotes most likely backed by developers or a member of QA, but for me my personal changes were far beyond any deviation that would fall in within placebo limits. (Yes, I am very aware that a game restart can fix a common memory leak issue or can get the game the chance to reorder itself, therefore giving you a few perceived temporary extra fps gains) I am still positive my game ran way more stable (even on higher settings and better resolution) and it recovered a lot better from fps drops. A prominent point were definite improvements in load times. I am not trying to pull something out of thin air for the sake of defending myself, I am being honest.
To the people calling me out for allegedly farming awards or having ill intentions: If there is any way I can refund the awards, for example via staff, I will do so asap. If I can refund Platinum / Gold 1:1 I will immediately do that if I am asked for a refund. I have zero interest in keeping any undeserved rewards. The one person who actually has donated me 4.69$ via PayPal has already been promptly refunded after reading the 1.05 patchnotes. https://i.imgur.com/DY6q0LR.png
I only had good intentions, sharing around what I found to get back feedback on, waiting for people to either tell me this is only in my head and that I am a muppet or responses confirming my assumptions. And I got a lot more from the later.
I would appreciate it if a CDPR dev can reach out to me personally so I have first hand confirmation, but It's definitely hard to argue with an official set of patchnotes claiming this file does nothing.
Again, sincere apologies if I indeed sold you the biggest snake oil barrel in 2020 on accident. It's just hard to grasp for me atm that this thread has tons of posts backing up my assumptions while an official statement states the complete opposite.
>> I have created an updated all-in-one video guide, scroll to 'What we've learned' for it.

Pre-Story 🐒

Hi, I played Cyberpunk for 14 hours now and was quite bummed from the start.
I have the following rig:

CPU: i7 4790K @ 4.4GHz
GPU: EVGA 1080Ti
RAM: 32GB DDR3
Game on SSD, Windows on a seperate SSD

My rig is normally a ~~monster~~ trusty chap when it comes to performance, I can play the most recent titles on 1440p high on at LEAST 60 fps.

I was shocked that I was only averaging 30 - 50fps (lowest settings possible,1080p, 70fov, no extra jazz) at best depending on the amount of objects I was looking at. For someone that is used to play at 1440p @ 144hz, this was heart-wrenchingly bad performance and half an agony to play. So I took a look at CyberPunk in Process Lasso and noticed that both my CPU and GPU always lounge around at 40 - 60% and that my GPU consumed a humble 100 Watts. Something felt horribly off. It makes ZERO sense that my cpu & gpu barely do anything but at the same time my performance is horse shit.
I was looking on advice on /pcmasterrace, people with similar or worse rigs than mine were shocked how I was basically at the ~~bottom's barrel~~ bottom of the barrel, while they had no issues to play at 1080p @ high or 1440p @ medium. What the heck is going on?

Guide 💡

Since I am a C# developer and very comfortable around configuration files, I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the configuration files. And found something that I didn't believe.

https://i.imgur.com/aOObDhn.png

Please take a look at the above picture. This picture shows the configuration columns for each platform. PC, Durango, Orbis. (Durango & Orbis is what XBox & PlayStation run on).
Now take a look at PoolCPU and PoolGPU. These values are the same as the other platforms. This looks off. So I decided to give it a try and just screw around with this config. So based off my rig I assigned some values that made a little more sense to me.

https://i.imgur.com/xTnf0VX.png

I assigned 16GB (of RAM I guess) to my CPU and 11GB of my GPU's VRAM.
And howdy cowboy, my i7 finally woke the fuck up and started kicking in second gear, now working at 85 - 95% CPU usage. My 1080Ti also now uses 230 Watts on avg instead of a sad 100W.

https://i.imgur.com/fP32eka.png

Booted the game and et voila, I am now rocking a solid 60+ fps on:

High Settings
No Film Grain, No Ambient Occlusion, Lens Flare etc.
80 Fov
1440p

My loading times have gone down from 20 seconds to 2.

I can't put the emotion in words how I felt when I discovered this. It was something between disbelief, immense joy and confusion.

I can confirm GOG patch 1.04 and Steam patch 1.04 have this borked configuration file.
If you need guidance on what to assign in your config:

PoolCPU: Use half of what your RAM is, make sure to leave 4GB for windows tho.
PoolGPU: Google your graphics card on google and see how much VRAM it has. For example my EVGA 1080Ti has 11 GB GDDR5X, so I am entering 11GB.

A fair bit of warning 💀

These changes can possibly crash your CyberPunk and Windows. I do not take any responsibility for any problems resulting from this.
CyberPunk will complain that it crashed, even when you close it. This shouldn't matter too much though.
Mileage may vary. I can't guarantee this will massively improve your performance, I can only say mine did a huge leap and the response from my friends has been very positive.

If anybody is more familiar with the configuration I am touching, please let me know and I will adjust it. I am merely showing this around because it looks like a promising starting point for many who have weird performance issues.

If this helped you, please let us know with a short comment how much your FPS and joystick ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) went up.

Update: What we've learned.

Since this is starting to make bigger waves I decided to create a video compiling a lot of key points of this thread of all sorts. I made a 16 minute long video that should be a one-for-all guide catering all types of users.
>> All-In-One Video Guide <<

If you prefer to go through this in a written version, the agenda i go off on in the video can be found below in prosa.
Timestamps for the video:
General Info: 0:00
Additional Fixes & Troubleshooting: 3:57
Calculating your Values: 6:58
Finding the file: 9:50
Explanations about the File: 10:30
Actually configuring it: 11:58
Zero Config & Theory Crafting: 14:28
Written Version:
TLDR Possible Benefits * strong fps gains (up to 50%) * better stability, less jitter * better load times Condensation * newer processors seem to be already fed correctly, ryzens mostly * older processors seem to benefit a lot more from this, especially the 4th gen i7 / i5 (4790K) * scroll the thread. try to Ctrl + F your proc / gpu, a lot of kind people post references * deleting the file or entering critically low / impossible values will most likely resolved by the engine initializing with defaults * safe tryout can be the 'zero' config * its not placebo, its just possible the changes are very minimal for your setup Troubleshooting / Additional Fixes * VS Code is light & should replace notepad on windows. Treat yourself to a good editor. https://code.visualstudio.com * running 'Cyberpunk 2077.exe' as admin can help sometimes * make sure to run the latest nvidia drivers. * pay attention to formatting in the csv * yamashi's https://github.com/yamashi/PerformanceOverhaulCyberpunk (mentioned by u/SplunkMonkey) * u/-home 's https://www.reddit.com/Amd/comments/kbuswu/a_quick_hex_edit_makes_cyberpunk_better_utilize/ AMD Hex Edit (mentioned by u/Apneal) * if your pc starts to behave strange, lower the Pools, try zero config How To Calculate Values? * Task Manager / Performance * https://www.heise.de/download/product/gpu-z-53217/download for GPU-Z * Amount of RAM / 2 & leave atleast 4GB for windows Examples: 64GB RAM = 32GB 32GB RAM = 16GB - 24GB 16GB RAM = 8GB - 12GB 8GB RAM = 4GB Folder Locations
Steam
X:\...\Steam\steamapps\common\Cyberpunk 2077\engine\config
GOG
Y:\...\GOG Galaxy\Games\Cyberpunk 2077\engine\config
Epic Games
Z:\...\Epic Games\Cyberpunk 2077\engine\config

My personal memory_pool_budgets.csv
;;; ; ^[1-9][0-9]*(B|KB|MB|GB) - Pool budget ; -1 - Pool does not exist on the current platform ; 0 - Budget will be computed dynamically at runtime ; PC ; Durango ; Orbis PoolRoot ; ; ; PoolCPU ; 16GB ; 1536MB ; 1536MB PoolGPU ; 10GB ; 3GB ; 3GB PoolFlexible ; -1 ; -1 ; 0 PoolDefault ; 1KB ; 1KB ; 1KB PoolLegacyOperator ; 1MB ; 1MB ; 1MB PoolFrame ; 32MB ; 32MB ; 32MB PoolDoubleBufferedFrame ; 32MB ; 32MB ; 32MB PoolEngine ; 432MB ; 432MB ; 432MB PoolRefCount ; 16MB ; 16MB ; 16MB PoolDebug ; 512MB ; 512MB ; 512MB PoolBacked ; 512MB ; 512MB ; 512MB
Donations
~~I have been asked by a very small amount of people if there's another way they can send a little something my way besides reddit, so here's my business paypal:~~ Paypal Link removed since 1.05 says this file does nothing. The one person who has donated 4.69$ will be refunded immediately. :)
~~Please feel zero obligation to do so, I greatly appreciate it though if you decide to.~~
Please consider donating money to the people creating performance mods (yamashi for example), creating a codebase like that takes a LOT of time and sending a digital coffee their way can be a serious motivation booster.

r/conservative discusses the results of the Georgia primary... they’re not happy

"Mindmed Forecast/Fundamental Case" [BULLISH] {MMEDF}

The original author's account was deleted, so unfortunately I can't credit them. Regardless, full credit to them. This post was included in the deletion, so it took a decent amount of digging to find and save. Shoutout to u/adamfixeseverything. Enjoy. -

Hey guys,
I thought I’d post about my thoughts on MMED. First of all, please do your own due diligence and do not fall victim to the pump, hype and euphoria. These are highly speculative investments and have significant risk associated. All that said, there have been many requests for fundamental analysis and MMED projections so I wanted to provide my thoughts.
*All figures in USD (market cap, sales) except for my investment holdings. I purchased MMED.NE shares. Source data available as well, but got messy with all the 10-k filings and links in the table.
Entry Point
First and foremost, I want to address the most commonly raised question on this thread: “Is it too late to buy MMED?” Any investment is subject to the risk / reward paradigm. Those that got in at $0.3 deserve every penny they earned as MMED was by definition a penny stock and one of the most risky investments you could own. Since then, it has grown tremendously due to scientific milestones which have pointed to significant progress in the industry.
The milestones MMED has achieved have DERISKED MMED from a penny stock to a small cap biotech company with a very large drug portfolio and numerous future catalysts. I do not expect to make 10x my investment in a week, nor should you. Is there still tremendous upside even at the current valuation of ~$1.5bn? I strongly believe so and will let my position reinforce that.
I entered this space with an average cost of ~$4.9 CAD, holding 311,206 shares, and a book value of ~1.5MM. Yes you read that correctly. Do I panic every day and check the ticker? No. Does my heart beat thinking of the time I evaporated ~$500,000 in unrealized loss when the stock was at $3.4? No. In fact, I continue to pick up shares at what I believe is a discounted valuation. There will be many that look at $4.9 entry point and think that even I got in at the bottom. It’s all relative.

OP's Original Investment
I only invested what I could afford to lose and although $1.5MM is a large sum of money, it is not my entire portfolio, nor would it impact my daily life. If I lost it all it would not impact my ability to service my mortgage, pay my bills, impact my other investments, nor prohibit me from doing the things I love. I continue to hold dry powder and monitor my investment on a monthly basis, while continuing to buy following successful milestones.
This is a very long term play that could fundamentally change the way we treat the body’s most important organ. We are just getting started. I have a very strong conviction on the future outcome of this industry and that is the reason I couldn’t be bothered about short term fluctuations. An important question to ask yourself is whether you believe MMED can reach its next scientific milestone. Take things one step at a time and is there a probability the next scientific update will be positive? Emphasis on science, ignoring NASDAQ, candlesticks, and capital structure (for now).
Institutional Capital
I work in finance (albeit project finance / private equity, and don’t value stocks for a living, so don’t consider me an expert here) but already know of a few moderately capitalized asset managers that are now participating in MMED. The recent bought deals are evidence of sophisticated capital flowing into this industry. I personally qualify as an ‘accredited investor’ and am having conversations constantly with folks in my circles who are investing heavily into these stocks. As more institutional capital flows in, the more stable these stocks become. Of course, this is all relative.
Access to liquidity
As with all brand new industries, the capital requirement is immense in order to bring products to market. What drew me into the space was the fact that MMED did raise capital. Biotech stocks do not have cashflow, thus their only path to fund operations is through equity raises. The fact that MMED was able to raise over $237MM CAD since May 2019 is a positive for this company. Yes it is dilutive, and good job for paying attention in finance 101 class, but bootstrapping a biotech company is not possible, nor is servicing debt.
The path to commercialization of will be full of obstacles, however a strong balance sheet with sufficient capital gives MMED the resources to get there. The current valuation has tremendous upside following scientific milestones and future equity raises and dilutions are a good thing, as it will be at an increased valuation.
There are definitely smaller cap companies out there that may double overnight, however for the risk / reward, I do not feel comfortable owning companies that don’t have a large balance sheet, nor a diversified drug portfolio.
Believe in the Science
I do not feel I am in a position to write original content on the efficacy of these drugs. I have done my research and read a fair number of published studies but anything that I write would simply be regurgitating what others have said.
The biggest investors in this space are those with personal experiences with psychedelics because you have first-hand experience of the profound meaning extracted from one treatment. The ability to dissolve your ego enables you to deal with the root cause of so many problems ranging from depression, PTSD and addition, without approaching the problem by numbing symptoms. Herein lies the inherent value of this industry and will simply take time to prove it through trails. I have the conviction to continue to invest because I believe in the science. The data to reinforce this is on its way, and I personally want to invest now, knowing that the likelihood of very significant catalysts are probable.
Forecasts
This of course is the elephant in the room for early investors, later[er] investors and bears alike. Is a $1.5bn market cap pricing in all of the upside already? Is this a $100bn stock? This company has zero revenues, shouldn’t it be worth zero?
The truth is, no one knows. There is tremendous risk with this company. However, I will not be selling unless we see some significant negative scientific outcomes. Again, less emphasis on stock price, NASDAQ, more emphasis on the science. Everything else will follow.
The various ways to value a company (DCF, sales / earnings multiples, liquidation value etc) all have their issues with an early stage company of this nature. Any sort of bottoms up DCF analysis is just guessing because variables such as patient count, dosage, pricing, market share, market penetration, amongst other have far too much variation to come up with a reliable figure. Discount rates and time horizon can favour your outcome depending on how aggressive / conservative you are.
Thus, the way I like to look at this market is a best case scenario for a single drug, based off historical sales data from one company and one drug. This implicitly takes into account patient dosage, competition, market share, market penetration etc, because one drug from one company has already proven its ability to capture such sales data.

Data
I have broken out annual sales data for various comparable drugs according to MMED’s current pipeline offering. This is the inherent benefit of MMED, is that it has a diverse portfolio covering many underserved issues. Like many of you, I believe MMED’s biggest blockbuster will be Layla, given the problem of Opioid addition plus MMED’s IP rights on 18-MC to corner sales. Suboxone is the current drug on the market due to delayed onset effects ranging from 24-36 hours, compared to someone in withdrawal uses fast acting opioids 3-4 times a day. Suboxone itself however is still addictive and has a long list of negative side effects. Furthermore, it does not correct dopamine dysregulation in patients.
The sales of Suboxone alone are growing at an ~9% CAGR, with sales expected to reach ~$4bn in 2028
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/08/18/2079779/0/en/Opioid-Use-Disorder-OUD-in-8-Major-Markets-2018-2028-Reformulations-of-Buprenorphine-Will-Drive-Growth.html.
The use case for 18-MC however, does not stop at Opioid addiction, and can be applied to alcohol dependency and smoking dependency among others. This means the TAM for 18-MC could be significantly larger than the existing market captured by Suboxone given its smaller demographics relative to 18-MC. Could Layla exhibit sales greater than Suboxone one day? Who knows. Sticking with comp sales for the analysis for now.
Various anxiety, depression and ADHD medication is also shown in the table to show sales potential of Lucy, Albert and the micro dose programmes.
Is there a possibility of a LSD, 18-MC, or LSD compound or derivative achieving blockbuster drug status? Do you think there is an inherent benefit to a psychedelic compared to an antidepressant sedative with side effects such as nausea, weight gain etc?
Your perceived probability and sales outcomes depends on whether you believe in the science. Those that don’t can easily be skeptical of a $1.5bn market cap many years away from profitability.
Those that do, look at the next half a dozen clinical trial outcomes as very probable and thus have applied a less punitive discount to the stock valuation. I have rationalized my decision to invest at $1.5MM because of my own perceived discount rate and confidence in the next 12 months of positive catalysts.
Valuation Multiples
Now, as many of you know, investors pay a multiple for the future earnings of a company, today. If a drug makes $1bn annually, investors will pay a multiple of future earnings expected over the drugs lifetime, discounted by various factors.
There are various metrics to use here, ranging from Enterprise Value / Sales or various types of earnings metrics. MMED is years away from having a real operating company, anything to sell, or even the corporate infrastructure to get it to market. However, the question has always been, how big do you think this company could get?
This is where things can get tricky. We used peak annual sales in the last section to forecast comparable estimates for MMED revenues. Thus, I believe it is appropriate to use mature, large cap trading multiples instead of early stage bio techs, as our revenue estimates were mature figures with stabilized growth. If we were to use companies / drugs earlier in their lifecycle or clinical phases, the trading multiples would be much higher because the market is buying potential future sales. Can’t have it both ways.

Chart
All of the chart data in the graph is specific to the pharma industry. However, there are various subsectors to the industry such as Contract Development Manufacturing and Contract Research Organization. MMED would likely have to partner with each of these types of firms to scale its business, better assess market size etc, but wouldn’t trade at similar multiples given a different business model. Same goes for Packaging and Distribution.
The graph also shows S&P average which is a good rule of thumb.

Other chart
Although the chart gives a good reference point for pharma multiples, I wanted to look at valuation from a more company specific perspective. The chart above shows large cap specialty pharma companies that are publically traded. This will give you an approximate median value of what the market is willing to pay for a company that has a certain amount of sales. As you can see in the green box, industry multiples of EV/EBIITDA or EV/Sales will basically get you to the same place. Median pharma industry EBITDA margins are in the 40% range with EV/Sales at ~4x vs EV/EBITDA of 10x.
Note that the above list of trading comps is stale data, as of Sept ’19. I only want to use public data and have refrained from using Bloomberg, Cap IQ etc. Thus the information I’m posting is merely reposts of info available on Google. As you can see, Allergan is listed in this table as a live trading comp, and has since been acquired by AbbVie. Accordingly, I want to highlight some notable M+A activity:
Amgen acquires Celgne’s plaque psoriasis drug, Otezla $13.4bn: EV / LTM Sales = 7.6x Thermo Fisher acquires Qiagen for $11.5bn: EV / LTM Sales = 7.3x Abbvie acquires Allergan for $84.2bn: EV / LTM Sales = 5.4x Elanco acquires Bayer’s animal health unit for $7.6bn: EV / LTM Sales = 4.5x As you can see, companies are willing to pay a premium in M&A to acquire competitors and drugs, due to synergies, reduction in SG&A etc.
This is a very long winded way of showing that if one of MMED’s compounds hits, and exhibits sales in line with any sort of comparable drug from the table above, this could be a $20-30 billion dollar company (~4bn*5-7x). If several of these drugs reach commercialization, this is potentially a $100 billion dollar company.
Now I agree that these projections are completely outlandish right now. I’m simply doing the exercise you all wanted.
Feel free to guess at your own forecast sales and multiply out enterprise value using the above metrics. Before you rip me apart for the extreme optimism, I understand that I’m using multiples for stable, reputable, large cap pharma. I understand that there is an extreme amount of stigma attached to psychedelics and achieving ubiquity for these treatments is a large uphill battle. There is an enormous amount of work, luck and time from now until sales and this is not to be under estimated.
Do I think MMED is worth $30-$100bn today? No.
Do I think MMED is worth somewhere in between today’s valuation and $30-$100bn?
Depends whether you believe in the science. If you’re reading this, odds are you do. I invested because I believe it too.
So instead, let’s take a lazy man’s approach to valuation and take things one step at a time.
Simpler Approach to Valuation
The exercise above is to show you all the immense potential of MMED’s drug portfolio. Do I think MMED is the next Pfizer, Abbie Vie or Eli Lilly? No. This is not a $500bn dollar company. However, I do genuinely think there is tremendous upside not factored into the pricing for this stock.
Fundamental analysis aside, I think the simplest way to approach valuation is from a catalyst + efficient market hypothesis perspective. Markets are not fully efficient, nor even semi-efficient, but there is some sort of reasoning in believing what the market is willing to pay. The obvious flaws in this are that the market right is riddled with irrational investors and a market of 300m financially illiterate traders isn’t more efficient than an illiquid market of 10 rational ones. As of today’s post there is a discount to the $4.40 price. To me, that’s just more opportunity to continue to scoop up more shares.
I have stayed out of the industry in the early days because truthfully I did not know which stocks to pick. Since then, much smarter people than me have done their diligence and allocated their capital to the companies that they believe are winners. This is part of an efficient market hypothesis.
Sophisticated capital flowed into MMED @ 4.40 / share, with the expectation to make a profit. I also, invested in this company at $4.9/share, with the expectation to make a profit. If we establish this as a baseline, do we believe there will be more positive than negative catalysts in the next year and in the future, such that we will see accretion in the share price? Conversely, if we see negative outcomes in future catalysts, it will cause erosion in the stock valuation. Below are near term events which should have a significant impact on share price:
Project Lucy
Phase 2 readout– Q1 2021 Open IND w/ FDA for Phase 2b – Q3 2021 Project Layla
Phase 2a study– Second half of 2021 Strategic Pharma Partner Potential – Late 2021 Various
Combined MDMA LSD Phase 1 trail – Q1 2021 IV DMT Phase 1 trail – Q1 2021 First ever Phase 2a clinical trial Microdose LSD – Q3 2021 Patent filed for neutralizer technology for LSD to shortestop hallucinogenic effects Game changer for safe, regulated environment for clinical administration Given that Phase 1 studies are focused on safety, what are the odds clinically developed LSD / MDMA fails a safety test?
Given that Phase 2 studies are focused on proof of concept and method, what are the odds the clinically designed process fails the test?
Believe in the science.
Each one of these incremental catalysts derisks MMED, and will bring the valuation closer to ‘blockbuster drug’ status, albeit inches at a time. Just as the bought deal derisked this company for me to participate, achievements in clinical trials will be evidence for more investors to jump in as well. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and guess at how large this company can get. Just think of what is the next step and do your own evaluation as to whether achieving it is realistic. Once we get through the above list, there will be more milestones to pass such as Phase 2bs and 3s. If we establish $4.40 as the baseline currently and MMED has a successful outcome in any of the previously listed catalysts, there should be a significant accretion in valuation.
There is a noticeable omission for most of you, in that I’ve left out the NASDAQ up listing, future dilutions and general capital structuring events. To me, a NASDAQ uplisting is irrelevant. This will add liquidity, although probably more volatility, but changes zero fundamentals about the stock. It should however, add more weight to the efficient market hypothesis and erase the discount I believe this stock is trading at. We’ll see some analyst coverage with price targets that will attract more investors, but the fundamentals of the stock do not change.
With respect to stock price, it is impossible to forecast this because the capital structure of this company is completely unknown. IF we can even get to revenue generation, and this becomes a $30-100bn company, how much dilution will there be from now until then to back out a share price? The point is that there is so much runway in share price accretion from now until then, that I’m not bothered with anything finance related for this company. There is potential for 50-70x accretion in the value of this company. The focus needs to be on the science. MMED has raised enough money to get though its next set of obstacles and fund operations, thus insolvency risk has fallen away for now which is really the only important financial point for early stage biotech.
Let’s take things one step at a time, believe in the science and be patient.
Cash position & Expenditures
As you can see below, the quarterly burn payroll burn rate is quite low for MMED relative to its cash position. It’s hard to discern which items under their historical expenditures are one off versus recurring, thus difficult to calculate their exact run rate. However, the huge positive here the low ratio of payroll relative to its cash.

Data table
Next up we have the projected use of proceeds from their latest raise, net of underwriter expenses. Now that the Over-Allotment has been exercised, MMED has additional capital that it has further allocated to Albert, Lucy, Layla and the Microdose LSD program.
Proceeds Table
General takeaway is that MMED is well enough capitalized to get through its next phase of milestones. I will be keeping an eye on news surrounding the Microdose LSD program. Estimates at this stage for Phase 2a are $3-4m and the results of which will inform capital expenditures required for future phases. A positive milestone in Q3 ’21 should be an incredibly positive catalyst for this company.
Proving that you’ve raised capital and have enough cashflow to get to the next step doesn’t guarantee we’ve picked the winner in the industry. It does however give me confidence that MMED will continue to be a going concern for at least the short term and get to a point when new investors can come in at a much higher valuation. This is a real risk for the penny stocks out there without capital or IP, and that is the reason I chose MMED.
Edit: Did some re-formatting to make it easier to read cause it's pretty lengthy and there's a lot of details. Hopefully it helps.
Edit #2: I went back into the trash compacter and salvaged the original data and charts since some people were asking. The resolution may be questionable, so apologies for that, you might have to zoom in.

Fallout: New Calfornia -- A Dev's Post-Mortem

So, hey wastelanders.
It's been a while.
I hope you are all still doing well out there in the Fallout. Been a little extra radioactive of late, and we're all kinda dodging the flames of another project each of us had a lot of hope for.

This isn't meant to be a distraction from the very unfortunate and disappointing situation with The Frontier. We all know what's going on, and it's heartbreaking, infuriating, and sad all around. There were some unconscionably poor leadership choices made that led to the loss of something I think all of us had the highest hopes for. My heart goes out to those coders, voice actors, artists, and friends affected for the loss of dignity and years of hard work, and the betrayal of ethics and trust we placed in those who ultimately turned out to be the antithesis of the standards we should all hold ourselves to, not just as modders or devs, but as people.
Our projects may not have been connected, but I know people who loved us both and feel this tragedy deeply.
To the users, who found themselves burned and bummed out, I can only offer refuge in knowing the community sees the mistakes, and I hope other devs take a long hard look in the mirror at how they treat others and their teams. Years from now, should anyone revisit this post, I hope it's in better days and we don't even remember what this disclaimer is about.

That said, because my feed is blowing up with refugees from the great meme war coming through Vault 18, I'm getting some reminders that New California, released in 2018, has a mixed reputation here and among some Fallout modding communities.
And you know, that hurts me a little. Not in an emotional way, but more just... I hate letting people down.
Obviously a lot of the criticism we received was fair and rational, and I want to respond to that in a positive and constructive way. We have a lot of love and encouragement of course, but this is more a post about addressing some concerns, and hopefully that helps our supporters as much as our detractors too.
I'm not one to just throw in my hat when I make a mistake or fall short of expectations. Usually that puts me into listening and responding mode where I want to figure out what went wrong and how I could fix it.
So back in 2019, after it became abundantly clear FNC just wasn't going to receive the community support we needed to overhaul our oldest and clunkiest dialogue or add side content to build up the anemic wasteland, I sat down for a number of nights over a couple weeks and wrote this post-mortem:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qZGbmXQ1aqZO4RholmyO9dgPxULLJdRYvsTgUPD2jp0/edit
What you'll find in here is first and foremost a breakdown of our successes and failures.
Be forewarned, it is many hundred pages long. That document only serves as a hub linking to this folder of documents: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11pKvUpZDEzaiBOsCigePZ-pGjty5LxHm
I intended this to be essentially a re-write that would be feasible for any modder with the time and dedication to take what is already there in New California, remove the undesired content, and replace it with this content.
We all have a AAA multi million dollar dream game in our heads. This is not that. This is a "what if, knowing what we know now, and having processed all this feedback good and bad, how would we proceed if we could in fixing its shortcomings?"
The Big Points:

There are few Side Quests after Vault 18 of note
The Story after Vault 18 is a tail-spin of too much combat in an empty space
Undesirable bottlenecks where we had to scope control branching paths
Crashes from New Vegas Engine being overwhelmed with actors & effects
Combat alternatives need to be presented as a main option, not a side option
Performance woes
Quest Breaks and Sequence Breaks (rare)
Confusion in direction in large open spaces that feel too linear, branches aren't obviously branches (see Pinehaven and Wilco's Raiders, people don't thin to shoot on sight, and if they do shoot on sight, don't think to roll back and try talking instead)
Balance in Combat and Loot is skewed to the generous early and crunch later
Too Many NPCs overall, especially waves of enemies in spawners
Bullet sponges even after massive nerfs still bother folks depending on settings (Very Hard is often on in a player's menu and they never look again, combat overhaul mods are inconsistent)
Map is Too Big and Too Empty (\Moar Side Quests* *More Urban Ruins*)*
No way to not be captured by Raiders? I hate that! (Alternate path to join willingly)
Shi being Japanese NOT CHINESE (Nobody cares about the explanations why)
Charisma checks “should” be speech checks (really we just needed more speeches up front to sell the reason why we used SPECIALS & Earned Perks, so people don't feel path locked.)
Kieva joining the Legion (\maximum jimmy rustler*)*
The Father believing the player is a clone of the Vault 13 Vault Dweller is poorly written and not refused in dialogue, only a terminal few read
The Father had no lead up and is seen as a twist rather than any kind of culmination of clues
The Father isn't seen as a threat and is just pushed aside at the end (would have been a cool 3rd faction if that was even remotely possible, which it wasn't unfortunately)
The Star Player being the Courier is HATED, since we all like that blank slate staying blank, but they appreciate starting New Vegas afterwards
General disappointment in the Companions falling off a cliff and being inconsistent in personality, and then just vanishing after a while (resource shortage, content cuts)
Wasteland Outside Vault 18 is hideous (True)
Jokes / rumors about incest are taken as if they are actual endorsement of incest
Crude humor in any form, gets 2016+ people very twitchy. Should just expunge all humor around sex jokes or libidinous characters, as if it doesn't exist
If 1 character has a bad audio take, 15,000 lines of good dialogue around it become irrelevant
The Enclave are given real justice, but most fans wish they just stayed dead with Fallout 2 and never show up again, which is a massive shame as they have so much potential as an exploration of nationalism if given even 5 minutes of rational justification for their actions
We didn't set out to invent a better plasma gun gut the new gear is cool, and people seem to want more of that kind of thing from an Enclave playthrough
More opportunities for Enclave players to use power armor and weapons, less lonely play through (ignore that they are the last of their kind on the West Coast after F2, add a new companion for Enclave players)
Nobody likes teen drama. Cut it and age companions by 10 years of maturity and competence, such as giving them vital jobs and real lives outside their bubble
Update characters that are undercooked but have potential (Raider Warlords, Union City Civilians, Super Mutants, and the Trade & Personality ties between them)
The Vault explodes, though it is a beloved landmark (no resources to keep it around in the story without it being a throw away due to lack of volunteers to justify all those voiced survivors)

That's a lot to unpack.
If New California were an Indie game of its own, we'd have a bright red Overwhelmingly Negative at the start, and Mixed after 2 years.
Obviously, in my career going forward, I'd like to never repeat these mistakes that led there. And I'd like to see other projects learn from my mistakes as well.
I was 22-24 when the overwhelming majority of dialogue was written in Vault 18 back in 2012-2013, and the second part was written almost entirely in 2015, with voice acting recorded in October-November 2015. VERY compressed and hurried, compared to that span of several years.
2012-2018, only Rick and I were committed to the project. We couldn't capture and retain talent. We didn't have a robust community of modders we were a part of such as Nexus or Gun, and the other large mods were openly hostile and transactional with us, only interested in what benefited them directly, such as talent poaching, rather than cooperation. When we did have contributors it was brief and glorious, but limited to specific things, such as animating a vault door or throwing a vault ball.
So large scale re-writes, even when we were acutely aware they were needed*,* were an impossibility without sacrificing forward momentum or causing fatal burnout. That led to a "race to the end" mentality with as few revisions and as little backtracking as possible, and flaws being baked in. Which succeeded in finishing and releasing instead of failing to deliver anything, but at a painful cost.
The final writing for the mod was in 2018, when I wrote Hrafnkel, Atl Irepani, and Vayger. This content, and the voice acting for it, is a radial departure from the cringe early writing. Had the mod stood up to that level, it would have been a cleaner experience over all.
A character like Dakota Ferron, who is a mature adult with her own complex motives and goals, and keeps up the drum beat of intimate dialogue with the player across the mod, would have been a huge success. As well as if the wasteland had been smaller, so criss crossing was limited.
The companion overhaul would help tremendously with the criticisms of the writing, but is complex surgery. And packing the empty space is a massive team effort, not belonging to 1 or 2 of us original devs, but the voices of other volunteers who understand the vision and don't just fill it with jokes and bullshit.
Unfortunately, the reality is, the New Vegas modding community doesn't have a talent pool of skilled modders willing to take on this content. Not because we soured our good will or respect, but because of the stratification of mod teams that have no desire to work together, and over many years of deep investment in their own projects as a hobby, do not want to work on a new project.
In the meantime I have a family to raise and a business to run, so I can't be of much help either except to provide financial and directorial support.
So at the core of this is a feasibility study, and the results are just simple: there's no need to shutter the project, but let it stand. If someone is wiling to volunteer, we will help get the ball rolling and provide any support required.
Until that hero arises however, we have a new IP that is funded and doing very well. We're happy with the way Project Morningstar is shaping up, it pays the bills, and things are looking up.
So lets hope at the minimum you all enjoy the writing left in the 1.0 documents, and what we released back in April 2020, which is the last official update from the Project Brazil team for the foreseeable future.
I know it's dark putting a project to bed guys. I know 2020 was a hell of year, and 2021 has been painful in new ways for us all.
But there's hope.
There are lessons to learn from.
There are new opportunities to rise to new challenges.
Your life doesn't end with failures. That's where you show who you really are. Do you fold? Or do you learn?
Best of luck, to all of you. Whether you enjoyed FNC or not, your feedback as shaped me in a positive way and I hope to provide more content for you to enjoy in the future.
--Thain

I made a couple hundred grand, mostly from upwork clients, last year and am happy to share the knowledge.

Hey all.
No I'm not selling a course and I don't want your money. Just a fellow hacker with some tips & tricks for making money independently with your friends.
Here is a link to most of the materials we used including cold call scripts, upwork guides, estimate templates, our offerings & portfolio (which we attached to all of our upwork proposals.) And a bunch of other goodies!
I've always been good at getting jobs, so I decided to "start an agency" with my friends last year. That way I could "get jobs" as my full time job! It was a fun learning experience. Our goal was to be "a learning company" that gave people a chance to grow their careers working on freelance projects. We prided ourselves on our community ethos.
We called ourselves Arcanium, which is a reference to the Arcanaeum at the bottom of the mage's guild in Skyrim. We wanted to think of ourselves as wizards. We even built an internal system of ranking the wizards according to their skill level with funny wizard titles (I was the archmage tyvm)
If you start an agency, it doesn't have to be crazy big. It can be small. It can be you and a friend. Honestly, you'll have more fun the smaller your agency is. Don't go big! Take your time! Going big is much easier once you have experience and processes.
Our goal was to each make enough to get by. We were happy if all 4 of us made 150k in that year. We exceeded that by far, and ended up working with somewhere around 10-15 people over the year. What a ride!
I did (almost) all of the client acquisition via Upwork. The hardest part was getting clients, but I learned how to do it semi-reliably. There are a couple tips and tricks to earning over 100k as a web dev / agency owner.
How I got clients:

You have to show that you understand business. Every time I reached out to a client, I reached out to them as a fellow business owner. I have tried (and failed) to start a few startups over the years, and I'm familiar with the lean startup methodology. I would explain to them how I applied this methodology to be essentially a lead technical person.
You have to present yourself as a leader. As I said before, I always branded myself as a tech lead. I had 8 years of experience at the time, mostly working for early stage startups, so I knew I could function as a project lead for early stage web apps.
Fancy proposals and a clean website. I branded my agency and spent time building a really great website, marketing materials (PDFs I would send my clients on proposals showing them how we work),My marketing materials are all on Gdrive
I would sell myself but always be sure the client realized my time was valuable and although I was the lead on the project, my agency would be doing most of the work.
I would basically charge for the initial consult (just a plan for how the project would be done), then I would ask them how many devs they want on the project and charge them for that. I would always recommend 2-3 devs. Some low budget clients would ask for 1 dev FT or 1 dev PT. That way we were always setting ourselves up for long term work and the client feeling like they had a "dev team."

Every project's revenue splits followed this general formula:

20% - Agency fee - goes to agency
15% - Goes to person who makes the sale
15% - Goes to project manager
50% - Split between lead developer and other developers in some fashion.

This wasnt the exact split in every case but it followed a similar format.

How I built the agency and got developers to work for me:

I found people who had just graduated from bootcamps or were otherwise new and needed a chance. I offered to give them the help they needed to get up and running. When you believe in people and give them the opportunity to prove themselves, they are really impressive!
I gave them a share of each project (a % of the income) for their position. Also, if I'd hire a senior or lead dev to manage them, I'd give that dev a share. I always did project based revenue sharing because I wanted to always make a profit and to align my interests with those of the team.
I got a buddy who was a non technical guy who worked at a deli to do project management for me. The job changed his life and he quit his job at a deli. He basically just had to make sure the projects were moving along smoothly and talk to clients.
I would create a project plan and start the project from a seed project I had built. I would then deploy the FE/Backend on Heroku or Google Cloud kubernetes + cloudflare and pass the project off to my team.
I would always hire a "project lead" who functioned as the lead developer of a project - there were times when I couldn't be that project lead.
I charged the clients by the hour ALWAYS, not on a project basis. I billed every other week for hours worked. This way clients were always on the hook for paying and if a client didn't pay on time (within 2 weeks), we immediately stopped working. This prevented the serious losses on clients.
I always aimed to charge the client 2x what I was paying my devs. I mostly would do a flat rate. My sweet spot was $75/hour charged to clients to get in the door, but on the higher budget projects we shot for $125/hour.
It really helped the devs to know that I had their back and I was getting them the highest rate possible. I was really just being their advocate.
Having a mission to help the people in your company improve their careers is the only way this worked out at all. If I had been shady about pay or been overly greedy, people would've left me high and dry.

How I (mostly) kept my sanity

I didn't micromanage every project. The revenue sharing was there to give people intrinsic motivation to get the projects done. There was an agency-wide support system if people ran into problems.
I kept my mind on finding new clients and hiring new devs.
I hired some really great people and we kept a positive atmosphere.
I was willing to say no to clients and play hardball on compensation.
I read "Work the system" - highly recommend this. I built a series of internal documentation that laid out all of our processes so we weren't running around pulling our hair out. We used a CRM to track clients and used trello to manage the agency.

Challenges:

Clients are resistant to hiring an agency on Upwork. You have to really prove yourself and sell yourself. It's just a numbers game.
The first $1000 made on upwork is the hardest. When you dont have a reputation you have to lower your rates and do a great job. Good reviews are everything.
I am not a people manager and I didn't end up finding a great CEO cofounder. In retrospect, it would have been 100x better to have a CEO cofounder to manage people so I could manage the tech consulting side.
The mental burden of having people dependent on me (both clients and employees) broke me after a few months and I had to shut down the company.
Getting off upwork and transitioning to cold calling and bigger sales was a quantum leap. I couldn't hack it for the most part. I only got lucky doing this because of my connections - I recommend working with an experienced salesperson if you want to scale up big.

Overall, it was a great learning experience, we changed a bunch of peoples lives by giving them a resume booster, but running an agency is not for me. I'm now happily working as a tech lead on a startup which is successful, and I am so grateful to my boss.
If you want any tips on how to get something going, DM me. I also have a slack group where you can chill with some other entrepreneurial devs.
I have also published all my relevant marketing documents and my estimate documents to google drive which may be useful to you:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Qh-Qe5y7wELz-GpOi0nwcskQKEkWOu3N?usp=sharing
P.S. If enough people are interested in the transparent revenue share model, I was thinking of building an alternative to upwork for building teams to match project managers / salespeople with devs and to assemble these transparent revenue-sharing-based agency teams. This would allow people to build their own agency brands or just work as freelancers for agency brands and get a cut of the revenue, without the bookkeeping overhead that goes into it. The app would handle the billing and automate the payouts and 1099 everyone involved. Food for thought. LMK if that sounds useful or not.

Cosmonaut's Jojo's Video is Wack

Alright Cosmonaut I have no hate for at all, I used to watch his channel and I just drifted away gradually, for no reason really I just did. I checked out this video because I love Jojo's and my god I didn't like this one. I know its been a while since its release but I just need to get my thoughts out there (I think MangaKamen also did a video about it but I haven't seen it yet). There are so many weird things he says, stuff that's blatantly wrong etc. Remember there's no hate here he seems like a cool dude, he just made a bad video imo. I love this series and I am aware of its flaws but I do feel a lot of his points also is shared with a lot of people and I want to disprove many of the ones I think are unfair and untrue to the series and give Jojos its deserved credit as I feel its a much better series than many think. Like people say its overrated and I disagree, a lot of people just kinda see it as a meme series and even a guilty pleasure, it doesn't really have that prestigious aura around it like series like One Piece and Hunter X Hunter.
Parts 1+2 Section:
"I don't like the way Araki writes his side characters. While I love Joseph, I cant say I feel anything for anybody else." Now I don't really mind this statement and this is during Part 2 (he improved massively with each part eventually getting to the point where in Part 5 the main cast was full of memorable and great characters) and I agree that Araki's character writing especially side characters was pretty weak back then aside from a few notable exceptions like Jonathan, Rio Zeppeli, Dio, Wham, Stroheim and Joseph.
Part 3 Section:
"Part 3 is kinda stinky. Its bloated, its very long for no reason" There is a reason though. Its a monster of the week road trip spanning across 50 days and the timeline is pretty much that. But this I also feel is a pretty popular opinion which I heavily disagree with, so many people call Part 3 repetitive and bloated but its a monster of the week and very episodic, its not really meant to be binged especially the manga and for its time it was very creative as anyone could be a threat like a baby, a doll, a dog, etc where many other shonen where if you werent an alien or a martial artist you were useless. Also Part 3 I feel has so many fun fights that are really different from each other to like Ebony Devil's clash with Polnareff, Hanged Man, Death 13, and most of the Egyptian Gods were fantastic like both Darbys, Pet Shop, Bastet and Geb. I feel Part 3 gets too much flak and not many realise just how many good fights are in there.
"There isn't enough traits or characteristics to get me interested in Jotaro as a main character"
Like ok he isn't the most complex or anything but this is underselling him a bit. He's introduced as a seemingly generic tough guy but then you realize he locked himself up just so he wouldn't hurt anyone else because of his stand, notices when his mum is pale and asks about it, goes on a death defying journey for her and actually develops from being really anti social to opening up a lot more. He really seems to become more comfortable with the crew as he goes on as Araki stated that Jotaro doesn't really express much as he thinks other people will just get it from his body language which could explain social awkwardness. And also for most people that watched the anime they missed all the scenes where Jotaro was really expressive in the manga as Star Platinum is smiling all the damn time and shows how pumped up Jotaro is behind his facade and he usually smiles and laughs a ton with them. I honestly don't get why the anime did this. Also he states he didnt care for the side characters again which...alright but i mean I loved Polnareff who I feel is one of Araki's best characters due to his fun personality, development, exciting fights and creativity and has a really tragic end in the part which is weird that Cosmonaut never mentions as I thought this is what he wanted from the previous side characters.
He calls Polnareff a Funny Coward...yeah. The guy who goes out to the world and fights many battles where he will most likely die just to avenge his sister, is shown to be so honorable he would rather let himself burn than stab himself and fights stand users countless times with no fear like when he instantly knew Anubis was following him and was ready to fight. Also the Vanilla Ice fight. Just that whole fight. Both Iggy and Avdol died and Polnareff was wrecked. But what did he do? He got back up and walked to DIO who to his knowledge is way more powerful than the guy that slaughtered two of his friends and almost beat him and he is all alone while doing it. Yeah sorry Cosmonaut but that was a stupid statement and not true in the slightest.
Also he calls Speedwagon a crazy murderer that turns into a funny coward and this is also hilariously wrong. Speedwagon grew up in the roughest part of London and sees a man who is really honorable and actually spares him and so dedicates himself to protecting Jonathan and helping him on his quest against Dio. You know? The journey full of vampires and monsters that Speedwagon never once opted to get out of?
"Character arcs do not exist in this series"
Dio, Wham, Jotaro, Polnareff, Iggy, Koichi, Yukako, Rohan, Okuyasu, Fungami, Abbachio, Narancia, Mista, Bruno, Trish, Jolyne, Foo Fighters, Weather and Annasui and that's just the parts he read.
"Goku and Luffy stay relatively the same throughout but change little bits whenever they encounter different situations and parts of the story" You mean like when Jonathan tried to be nice and a push over to Dio but eventually couldn't take it and beat the shit out of him? You mean like when Joseph started thinking of others other than himself for once after the Wham fight? You mean like how Jotaro becomes more comfortable and open? Also Goku and Luffy are both from very very long shonen where they have way more time to grow than an average Jojo who just has one part
"the only thing you'll get is an evil character becoming nice" Once again my previous listing of all the characters that developed disprove this.
"Most of the characters die unceremoniously. A lot of Jojo deaths are there for shock value"
Ok this was one of the few points that actually annoyed especially since he played Avdol's death while he said this. Every death in Jojos that's important is well important and means something and just because a lot of them happen quickly isn't a bad thing like he states it is. Danny really saddened Jonathan and showed how far Dio would go, George's and Rio's deaths had a profound impact on Jonathan, Jonathan's death even hit Dio quite hard, Caesar goes without saying, Wham had a nice death showing his kinder side and Joseph's respect, Avdol sacrificed himself for Polnareff directly going against his own orders and in his last moments of life chose to let Polnareff live instead of himself. And you got Iggy. This dog who is so selfish and hates that hes forced along this journey, he barely works with them and constantly acts rudely but after defeating Pet Shop in one of the most brutal fights (he lost a paw) of the series is now determined to fight Dio but as the weakens and loses blood Polnareff a guy he fought with constantly chooses to let Iggy go on without him and accepts his death. Iggy then saves Polnareff using all of his energy and for the first time thinks for someone other than himself and realizes that Polnareff has a much better chance at winning and cant let himself live and selflessly sacrifices himself for Polnareff. He made the mature decision to sacrifice himself for Polnareff.
"Atleast in Parts 1 and 2 the Zeppeli's deaths motivated the characters to keep going while in Part 3 they drop like flies" as I stated Avdol and Iggy had a profound impact on Polnareff and motivated him heavily to keep going even against Dio. And Kakyoin's deaths was very important as Kakyoin in his dying breaths gave Joseph the clue to Dio's power (you know, the ability they've been wondering for and desperately wanted the whole time!?) which helped Jotaro.
"the middle section of Stardust Crusaders is goddamn boring. Most of the stands are lame and too simple"
I don't get this either. In the middle of SC you get stands like Justice a fog like stand that controls people through their wounds, Lovers an insect stand that controls your nerves and attaches your pain to your opponent, The Sun which while comedic definitely wasn't boring, Death 13 which is a dream stand that makes you forget its existence when you wake up and is also controlled by a baby, Judgement a literal corrupt genie, High Priestess a small stand that can turn into any metal object like even minerals in the ocean and then you get great ones like Geb which is one of the best fights in the series, Oingo Boingo which was hilarious, Bastet a plug stand that makes you a giant magnet, Set a shadow stand that makes you way younger in like a second and of course Darby which is a fantastically suspenseful game of poker which is some of Araki's best writing ever. He also states that compared to a lot of the villains the mcs stands weren't that creative which alright fine I guess but how the stands were used is why they are great and fun to watch especially Polnareff's fights.
"The end shows that this part didn't need to be so long."
The length and amount of fights and screen time of the characters makes the Vanilla Ice fight and ending hit way harder though.
"In Part 2 everything was there for a purpose. Nothing wasted your time like Part 3" Once again they are different types of story. Part 2 is a serialized story and Part 3 is a monster of the week road trip story. Part 3 isn't meant to be binged, you're just meant to chill and watch each fight and enjoy spending time with their characters on their fun roadtrip.
Part 4 Section:
"Part 4 is the perfect balance of mundane with the strange which is what Jojo's needs"
...Why?
"Part 4 has the most consistent art up to this point"
Yeah its very consistent. Joking aside I still kinda disagree as I feel Part 2 had the most consistent art. Part 1 started out looking really weird and janky but ended looking really clean (late art style) and Part 3 started out with weird designs for Jotaro, Kakyoin and Avdol and grew to be way more clean, stylish and nice to look at (late stardust crusaders + early diu is probably my favorite era of jojos art).

The Golden Wind Section: (oh boy)
"Part 4 is still good with bad translations."
Yeah no. That's blind favoritism because you already read the part's actual translations I'm guessing and Part 5 had extremely bad translations where the story and even characters were changed a lot for the worse and were made way less understandable. There is a reason why people used to be so negative on it and now with the anime making it a lot clearer and with much improved translations why the critical outlook on this part has changed.
He calls Fugo a calm cool guy...the guy who stabbed someone in the face with a fork because of him getting a maths question wrong. The guy who beat a professor half to death with a dictionary. The guy who has so much pent up anger that his stand is literally a demon that kills anything that comes near it.
Also Bruno is so much more than a calm cool guy. Thats a really superficial look at one of Araki's best characters. He's a guy who chose his father to live it even though living with his mum would've been way better but did it anyways because he felt bad for his dad and wanted to be there for him. Almost lost that dad to crime which involved drugs and has for his whole life wanted to stop the drug trade but had to keep his head down. Bruno's kindness later went on to help bring in many social rejects like Narancia, Fugo, Mista and Abbachio a previous cop who is now left suicidal and depressed and Bruno accepts everyone of them and they all grow to care about each other. They all actually feel like real friends even when we see them for the first time. They know each other's quirks, have good chemistry and Fugo stabbing Narancia isnt really seen as a big deal which could also show the abuse they have went though in their daily lives. Anyways Bruno wanted to stop the drug trade as it was killing and ruining many innocent families but couldn't find an opportunity until Giorno came and of course you all know what happened afterwards where the man gave up his own life just so Giorno can finish the job.
Narancia and Mista are funny cowards apparently? Of course this is obviously bull. Narancia had plenty of dangerous fights and he was nowhere near scared. Remember when he stabbed out his own tongue against an enemy? Remember when he was literally shrinking and still fought off an enemy straight away and even bloody fought off a big spider? Also Mista is like the bravest dude ever. Dude constantly puts himself out there like did you even read the White Album fight and Kraftwerk?
"Giorno and Bruno should be merged into one character. Giorno has no traits. He is just a guy."
This makes no sense at all. They both serve completely different things to the story of Golden Wind. Giorno is the guy who comes in and inspires the whole gang to become better people and to become braver and move on against Diavolo and sacrifice themselves for the greater good because of his charisma and coolness. Remind you of anyone? DIO! Bruno is one of those who is inspired as he clearly states after his fight with Giorno, his fight against Diavolo and his second death.
"Araki's writing becomes garbage here. He abandons a character because he is too op."
This is also blatantly false. In Bunko Volume 10, Araki explains that the plot originally had Fugo working as a spy for Diavolo that Giorno would have eventually been forced to kill. Having gone through grim feelings at the time, Araki couldn't handle the thought of betrayal of a dear friend and felt that the readers would have been disappointed had he followed through, thus the goodbye scene at the quay of San Giorgio Maggiore happened. This was just one Google search. Would it kill you to research Marcus? And I like the fact that Fugo stays behind. It makes sense for his character who is very logical and obviously wouldn't wanna go on what was essentially a suicide mission against the boss of many powerful stand users who himself owns one. Also Fugo's stand wouldn't have helped matters and would've been killed off first by Diavolo. Purple Haze is nothing to King Crimson, its not because he was op. Fugo staying behind brought more stakes to the story and made the gang's decision feel like even more of a big deal.
"Why is the main villain introduced halfway through the story? We don't have enough time to develop him. Dio is the best villain because he have the most time dedicated to fleshing him out."
N O. Diavolo's whole point was to be a mystery. His birth, childhood, personality, body, even his stand is full of contradictions and its all meant to be creepy and weird. His name means the devil and there have been many theories on what he is (King Crimson coming to life and taking over Doppio? Diavolo is his evil personality? Diavolo is the devil?) and thats the whole point of Diavolo. To make you think and question his existence. His whole point was that he wanted to hide from society, get all the money, live an isolated and lonely existence with no relationships as he would risk heartbreak and other painful emotions like that which goes against the theme of the gang who through their friendship, comradery and sacrifice win against many obstacles and protect Trish. Also his stand shows how he goes against fate and cheats unlike Giorno who uses his fate to his best advantage and inspires everyone to better themselves to achieve something great and that's why the arrow chooses Giorno at the end. Also man that's cool and all that you like DIO a lot but Yoshikage Kira from Part 4 (the part that you really liked) is widely seen as better and Jojo's best villain next to Pucci and Valentine and we didnt even see him until the second half. Sure he had a lot of screen time but he wasn't meant to be as mysterious or as much as an anomaly as Diavolo.
"How many times does Mista die in Part 5?"
Like twice I think? Not even? First time against Prosciutto which I'll give you. He clearly got shot in the head and was treated as a death scene until Mista was surprise revealed to be alive. I agree with you on that. The second time was against White Album when he got shot lots of the times at the end but this one is fine because we clearly see from the last bullet that Giorno saves him. So yeah. 155 chapters and Mista has one fakeout death and a second close call one. It's nowhere near as bad as you say man.
"Why does Polnareff turn into a turtle?"
It was explained? Chariot Requiem makes you switch bodies. Polnareff and Coco Jumbo were both at the Colosseum and were pretty close to each other and...yeah that's it really.
"Its not cute anymore. It's not a feature to be weird, it is now a bug." I mean if you gave a couple of examples your point would be better. All you mentioned was fake out deaths which Mista only had one and Bruno to but he did die he was just kept as a zombie and that was actually explored and added to as it helped him in his fight with Secco when he blew out his eardrums and Polnareff turning into a turtle which was clearly explained. That's it. Are you not going to mention any of the stands maybe? The users? The turtle that has a small room in him? Giorno making infinite Coco Jumbos? The clothes?
"Araki's art takes a nosedive near the end of the part. I can't understand what the hell is going on most of the time"
I'll agree with this actually. Araki's art in this part especially in black and white is pretty messy near the end but he could have shown off better panels to illustrate this point. Like he showed Mista and Ghiaccio shooting each other but that looks pretty clear to me?
"Why should I care about the fights if I don't care about the characters and the story!?"
I mean tbf you generalized the characters a lot to pretty unfair superficial levels. I already explained why Fugo, Bruno and Giorno didn't deserve that and even Mista, Abbachio and Narancia are pretty great. My favorite thing about Part 5 is the main cast. They all have vastly different personalities, motivations, and backstories that greatly explain them like Narancia being abandoned and lonely, Abbachio's idealism being crushed and loss of trust and Mista just guiding through life and trying to find a purpose. All great stuff and even then the fights are at their best in Part 5 for me. The story is really fast paced and each fight is important to the plot. I don't want to get too in depth so I'll be quick.
Giorno vs Bruno - establishes their characters and gets Giorno closer to Passione
Giorno vs Black Sabbath - Giorno gets into Passione and Polpo dies and we see Giorno's kinder side as he wants to avenge the janitor
Bruno and Abbachio vs Soft Machine - establishes Abbachio's character and issue of trust and Bruno's way of leading and makes them realizes that assassins are after them
Mista vs Kraftwerk - shows off Mista's character and quirks and plays with his stand in really fun ways
Narancia vs Little Feet - Narancia having to prove himself, showing how far he'll go to win and not fail the mission and his sheer bravery and of course introduces La Squadra (best villain group in Jojos btw)
Man in the Mirror - establishes Abbachio and Giorno's dynamic better, gives Fugo some shine and they all work together and grow better as a team
Grateful Dead and Beach Boy - I mean this fight is fantastic on it's own. It develops Pesci well as a villain and shows his growth as an assassin, Prosciutto is a really cool older brother and mentor figure, its on a train so its automatically exciting and of course cements Bruno as the leader of the group and his care for them
Babyface - this one isn't too important but it does give Giorno his own fight and shows him develop his ability more as he learns from Babyface who also grows during the fight
White Album - I mean this is one of the series best fights ever. And it also shows off Giorno and Mista's dynamic and actually perfectly encapsulates Giorno's role in the story as he inspires Mista through his resolve which pushes him on to sacrifice himself and win the day
King Crimson - introduces Diavolo and his ability. And it steers the story in the next direction as everyone turns traitor (except Fugo)
Talking Head and Clash - develops Narancia into a braver figure and helps his trust in Giorno
Notorious B.I.G. - gives Trish much needed development and her own stand and crashes a plane
Metallica - this is my personal favorite Jojo fight possibly ever. The two stands at play, Risotto's character, the strategies used and how the stands are used, I love it so goddamn much. It just works and it finishes off La Squadra, shows off Doppio and Diavolo's deal and kills off Abbachio and gives him some nice development before he dies as trusts Giorno to figure out what he leaves behind and meets his partner in heaven
Green Day - shows off how depraved Diavolo's forces are and gets us the 7 page muda.
Oasis - Bruno uses his new zombie powers to his advantage
The Arrow - this is of course the final battle so its obviously important. Narancia dies young and its very tragic as he deserved a better life, Diavolo gets punished for cheating fate as Bruno leaves this world and GER takes care of business.
Rolling Stones - finishes off the story in a really nicely told and themed story and explains why this story was fated to happen and Giorno's impact.
So yeah. Every fight is indeed important and uses the story and characters well.
"Part 5 is basically Part 3 again." HOW!? The only similarity is that its Jojos and its monster of the week but its executed differently. Part 3 is a massive roadtrip, very comedic and each stand user has little to do with each other and are largely seperate while in Part 5 its one long continuing narrative that's really fast paced and the main villains of the first half are a group of assassins are La Squadra and second half is Diavolo and the story constantly changes to keep fresh and its overall much darker, more character rich and more thematically complex than Part 3.
"It ends with some bull Deux ex Machina."
Except GER isn't a deux ex machina. The arrow was built up and explained to give you the power you wanted and needed. Kira got Bites the Dust to protect his identity, Chariot Requiem was to keep the arrow away from Diavolo and GER was to counter Diavolo's time skip. They all are really powerful and get the user what they most want and need.
Ending Section:
He then goes on to say he binged through the series in two months which is a shame since Jojos isnt really a series thats meant to be binged especially after Part 2. If you get burned out, just take a break man. Don't finish a whole part out of spite man. No wonder it turned you off the series. Which is a shame I feel like he's kinda being unfair because he goes on to say he didn't really care about Part 6 and read it when he's feeling bored and exhausted of the series and of course reading it still would ruin your experience and I feel he should've taken a break for a while. Like I love One Piece but eventually you get a bit worn out from a series and take a break (for me it was Fishman Island. Took a few weeks off and came back and continued to love it again) so it will remain fresh as I feel Part 6 is a pretty fun part to. It has a great Jojo, great main villain and a pretty fun story with some creative as hell stands and my favorite ending of any Jojo part.
He then shows a screenshot of a person not liking an anime because of a weird trope and a guy recommends Jojo as well its a pretty unique series and not all anime are the same but Cosmonaut gets the impression that they're recommending Jojos to newbies to anime and even then I don't get the problem. Anime is weird. Jojos is a pretty fun anime. Watch/read it. You might enjoy it.
And thats about it really. And what I find a massive shame is Cosmonaut quitting the series. I mean he enjoyed Phantom Blood, really enjoyed Battle Tendency, really liked Stardust Crusaders from Pet Shop onwards, loved DIU (which is the longest shonen manga part yet complains about SC and GW being too long) and he might really enjoy SBR and Jojolion. Those two are fantastic imo and Araki has really grown and improved as a writer and artist and SBR is genuinely a fantastic manga full of arcs, a good story, great characters and a good ending which is a lot of the stuff that Cosmonaut felt was missing. And hey Part 8 is set in Morioh and is just as crazy and as fun as Part 4 was so he might actually like Part 8 a lot more than most of the other parts. Like the quality of SBR and Jojolion is pretty high most of the time and much higher than the shonen parts.
It would be nice if Cosmonaut saw this (most likely won't though) and tried out Parts 7 and 8 especially 8 i think he'll like that one a lot and its a shame he got really burned out of it and he got turned off by the fanbase which happens to a lot of popular series. Usually fanbases are really annoying and its usually the vocal minority and you shouldn't judge series based on them and I do feel Parts 7 and 8 are a massive improvement and he did really enjoy parts 1+2+4 like I said before.
So yeah, that's it

Hunter or Huntress Chapter 87: Knight In Shining Armor

So then 87 coming out on schedule. I know I'm spoiling you today ;) Time to crank up the wholesomeness possibly beat the shit out of some random guy in the street and generally figuring out what the fuck to do next.
As per usual UnwaveringGrey and TwoFlower68 have done their level best to sanitize the chapter. If I managed to slip one past them do please report it to your nearest execution squad so it may be dealt with properly.
In other news, proper art is officially commissioned and likely due sometime later this month. I'm so excited! But without further ado let's get on with the story.
ko-fi For having a pretty picture commissioned.
Sapphire
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Chapter 87: Knight In Shining Armor
“Wait, she is your only healer?” Tom questioned.
“Yes, they are a rare breed, young man,” The lady replied very apologetically, almost bowing before him.
“No, don't do that,” Tom protested. “You people both suffered and survived, not to mention your son technically saved me and Jackalope. Hopefully, Unkai can lend a hand when he gets here then, ‘cause she is spent,” Tom glanced at the healer who was still sleeping up against the wall where she had been when he woke up.
The Lady looked like she was going to protest until he reached the last sentence. “You brought a healer with you? Out here?” The lady questioned, clearly not believing him entirely.
“We did, yes, in case we found wounded. And that we certainly did. I was just hoping we could have Jacky’s ears looked at, but I guess that will have to wait.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have anything else that can help I’m afraid.”
“I hate not knowing what’s going on,” Jackalope exclaimed, crossing her arms looking at the two of them with a distinctly unimpressed expression.
“I guess I’ll be miming to you for a bit longer. Actually no, I brought the note block. I will be just a second,” Tom replied walking jogging over to his backpack, the confused Jackalope following along.
“You got something that can fix ears in there?” she questioned hopefully. She was getting a bit better at keeping the volume down, though she was still rather loud. Then again, that was pretty standard all things considered.
Tom got out the block to begin noting things down for her. ‘We can't fix your ears, not yet at least. Other people need to be looked at first. Maybe when we get home.’
She did seem a little annoyed after reading that, sighing a bit and looking back up at him.
“So what now, we help clean this place up? Take up watch? Or just sit back and relax?”
“You two sit back for now. I won’t have you risking your lives for our skins and then cleaning up the mess as well,” the old granny replied, trying to speak up enough to be heard across the room. Tom certainly didn’t have a problem with that. He did not really feel like hard work right now.
Jacky was clearly sore and her breathing still wasn’t quite right, so he guessed she could use the rest as well. “Do you have a place we can stay, or… ?”
“Infirmary is full I’m afraid. We do have some rooms,” the old lady replied.
“Actually I think we have a big friend in need of a bit of company when he wakes up,” Tom replied, looking towards Jarix. “We will keep our stuff with us if shit hits the fan.”
“If it does what?”
“Right, uhm… goes south. If bad things start happening,” the lady looked at him more than a little confused, but she relented eventually.
“Yes, we don’t have many people left who could fight. I will bring you something to eat, for the blood loss. I don’t know if it will help for your kind but it couldn’t hurt.”
They made their way to Jarix, who was sleeping like a rock. Tom began taking off the very uncomfortable holsters and belts. He looked like a fucking joke right now. Goddamn Florida Man running around with guns and ammo in his damn underpants. He put down the equipment in nice little piles, rechecking that everything was loaded if he needed it.
He could hear Jackalope getting out of her armor behind him. That stuff wasn't the most comfortable to sleep in after all.
“You okay?” Jacky asked in a rather worried tone after a bit. “After yesterday you’re… you’re not quite the same.” Tom turned around to look at her. She was looking at him with an expression of genuine worry.
‘That obvious, huh?’ Tom thought to himself, shoulders sagging even more. He couldn’t even blame her for catching it. His head just wasn’t in it right now, whether that was because of the fighting, the screaming, the blood loss, bodies flying everywhere last night, the fact they weren’t quite out of the woods yet, or that the ones back home would soon be getting worried. They were supposed to be back tonight after all. He didn't even know what time it was apart from rather early. He was also still tired as fuck despite just getting up. There was just too much to worry about right now.
“Look at me, would you?” Jackalope demanded, a hint of hurt in her voice. Tom snapped up to look her in the eyes, feeling more than a little ashamed of that. “Just like Sapphire said, you worry about everything. You can’t not worry… Well right now, just try not to, okay? It’s gonna be fine.”
Tom did crack a little smile before looking back down at the floor. That was very far from guaranteed, there were still many things which could go wrong. What if this wasn’t the only raiding party? What if Bizmati Keep was a ruin? What if something had found the kids in the forest? What if Jackalope's ears couldn't be fixed? what if…
Jackalope grabbed him by the shoulder, turning him around to face away from her. Then she folded her arms and wings around him, lifted him off his feet, and backed up against Jarix's side. She sat down in the nook of the dragon’s armpit and snuggled up against the dragon while clutching Tom tightly.
“I’m never gonna have a cold night again,” she let out, sounding very content. “And you are in the safest place in the world. Here you're not allowed to worry about everything. You are in a locked-down keep, sleeping with a dragon and if that doesn't do it, Then I will, so relax… please dude.”
“That might be the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Tom replied, not that she could hear it of course. “Well, except for saving my life a few times… you people do that a lot don’t you?.. What did I do to deserve you?” He tried to snuggle up a bit closer to her, even if that was hard to achieve in her current grip. Jarix’s slow steady breathing almost rocking them to sleep.
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“Now I just want to ask you some questions, nothing more, so don’t panic,” Maiko went as they turned the guy around. The guy looked scared shitless to Sapphire. He was a rather short spindly fellow as well, so looked really unintimidating right about now.
“And just in case you think running is smart. I’m possibly the fastest flyer you have met and I won’t be gentle with my prey,” Sapphire added, trying to look menacing and baring her teeth, while Maiko was clearly going for the more friendly approach. The guy just swallowed once, looking at the two of them.
“I was just told to find out what you’re doing, I swear nothing more.”
“So what did you learn?” Maiko asked, still sounding very friendly.
“You go to the inventor's place regularly, you are making something weird, you have been to the Hashaw’s place, and you are staying at the Sweet Dragon.”
“And who are you supposed to give all this lovely information?” Maiko continued.
“I was just paid by some woman, I didn’t know her, I swear. She just asked if I wanted to make a bit of easy money.”
Sapphire opened her mouth a bit, letting out a deep growl. The guy was fidgeting nervously at that as Dakota, Balethon, and Junior trooped up behind him.
“I’m guessing rather fine clothes and perhaps some rather nice jewelry?” Dakota asked, causing the guy to go stiff.
“I mean yeah… she did look rather rich.”
“How were you supposed to let her know?”
“I should meet her at the big plaza in front of the trading guild tomorrow after breakfast.”
“Right, well first off that’s not going to happen,” Dakota went from behind him. “Secondly, if we catch you following us again I’ll let Sapphire here demonstrate why she isn't even allowed to compete in archery competitions. Am I clear?” Her voice was cold and calculating, the guy nodding rapidly. “Out of curiosity, what did she pay you.”
“15 silver.” ‘Well, for tailing someone that was a rather good pay.’ The guy didn't exactly look well off either, so Sapphire could see him taking that offer without a second thought.
“Actually, I think I might have a better idea,” Sapphire Interruptet. “What would we like them to know?” Dakota looked to Sapphire, her face turning into an evil grin.
“What do you say, Maiko?”
“I mean, if this guy doesn’t want to go to jail for disturbing the peace and spying on military matters he might be useful.” Sapphire was pretty sure you could not go to jail for that. Nor was this military matter, in any capacity. “So what do you say, willing to lend the Royal Guard and a few people in high standing with the king a hand, or do I need to get some manacles?” Maiko questioned, looking down at the guy.
“Treworian at your service, sir,” The man responded, eyes wide as the situation he found himself in seemingly hit him like a battering ram.
“Come with us then. We have some things to discuss,” Dakota went, nodding to the others.
They took the guy back to the workshop where Tink was currently busy repairing the damage to the magnet.
“Back so soon?”
“Yeah, we found a nosey little bastard.”
“And you brought him here?” Tink questioned, clearly not happy with that.
“Yes, we did. Now Treworian, may I call you Trewor?” Dakota questioned, turning to the man.
“Yes ma’am, of course,” he responded, eagerly. ‘God damn he’s scared,’ Sapphire mused to herself. They weren’t gonna hurt the dude unless they had to, but it was probably best he didn’t know that.
“As you can see, we are making very dangerous new weapons here, under the authority of the king no less.” Tink looked ready to protest when Junior kicked him in the shin, shutting him up. “Have you heard of the attacks on the outlying keeps?”
Trewor nodded, looking around the room worriedly at all the strange bits and bobs.
“We are looking to put an end to that once and for all. Now the reason I’m showing you all this is because if you tell anyone that is treason, and you know what that means.” ‘Oh you evil genius,’ Sapphire thought to herself, doing a gesture of Trewor falling a very long way down, convincing sounds included. The guy went even paler than before.
“So what I want you to do, is tell the sweet lady who hired you that we are making some kind of invention as a present for the King himself and that it looks very expensive and very complicated. So you can’t possibly figure out what it is. But you did manage to sneak in while we were out and read a very official-looking document, stating who had hired us, and that the present is expected to be done in time for… Anyone know when there is some sort of big event coming up with the royal family?” Dakota questioned looking around.
“One of the princes is graduating from the academy this summer I think,” Maiko responded.
“That will do. A present for the prince in time for his graduation. Can you do that?”
“Sure can, don’t you worry. I ain’t no traitor”
“Very good. Now, remember, if you tell her the truth it’s a long way down okay?”
“A very long way indeed,” Sapphire added, with as much venom in her voice as she could manage. Trewor just nodded furiously.
“Good lad, now run along now, you have work to do,” Dakota continued, letting go of him. Trewor stormed out the door, Junior going over to close it after him.
They all stood there for a second before everyone except Tink broke out laughing.
“You’re all crazy” The inventor finally went in a disapproving tone, Which only caused Sapphire to laugh even harder.
__________________________________________________________________________________
When Tom woke up again, he was greeted by a dragon's head lying on the ground in front of him, staring at him with a sly smile.
“Someone got comfortable?” Jarix questioned, sounding very pleased with himself.
“You're just jealous; no one is big enough to wrap you up like this,” Tom replied from his prison of safety. “What time is it?”
“Hmmph, no clue, it’s getting late though. They brought you something because you decided to spray blood everywhere. Oh and your clothes. The girl tried to apologize for not being able to get them properly clean. That took a bit of explaining.”
Tom chuckled at that. “I’m sure it did... Wait did they use you as a washing line?”
“It looked wet, so why not?” Jarix responded. Tom cracked a proper smile at that.
“The world's most expensive washing assistant.”
“Yeah… Not exactly the world’s best night fighter, that’s for sure,” Jarix let out with a sigh. “I have never had my ass whopped that hard before.”
“Hey! You don’t get to feel sorry about that. You killed all three of those big bastards. And no one seems to know what they were... I never thought I would need to tell you this but be a little proud of that.” Jarix did perk up a bit at that, not much though.
“I only got two, and the last one would have gotten me I think... But I did tell you, you would be great at getting things off my back, hey. Even if that was not quite how I intended it”
“Can’t argue with that. By the way, have your decades of training to become a perfect killing machine told you what they might be?”
“No, I got nothing. Definitely a foul thing. It must have been able to see me approach to land that hit.”
“Yeah, if it sees like a bat then that thing sees using sound.”
“Wait, what?” Jarix questioned. “Can't they just see well in the dark?”
“Nope, they use their ears. That was no ordinary bat though, that is for damn sure.”
“No it was not… I’ve been thinking. My father said the darklings had a ride they kept falling back to when they attacked him… Do you think we just found what it was?”
Tom had to think about that for a bit. “Fuck, it might be… Is that bad?”
“Yes. Very! That means they have a new way of traveling long distances. That’s never good.” Tom felt Jackalope begin to stir as Jarix talking jostled the two of them around a bit.
“No Tom, you’re not leaving yet, this is nice,” she let out still half asleep, squeezing Tom tighter.
“I think for the Time being we need not worry, we just killed three of them there can’t be more around or they would be everywhere”
Jarix looked rather curiously at their arrangement. “Shouldn’t we worry? This could be very bad, we can't just sit here”
“Not much to do except let the people who can do something about it know. We were supposed to scout not fight. So let’s just worry about that and the kids for now. Besides, you aren't going anywhere in a hurry, right?” Jarix looked rather ashamed as he craned his head to look at this own back, expression turning pained.
“No, I am not.”
“Well then, neither am I and neither is Jacky. Unkai is needed here. And we aren’t sending Zarko alone. Even if Jacky or Unkai could find their way back to the keep… Actually, Jacky is deaf so that would be kinda hard… And Unkai might not even know… Well, that settles it then, we aren’t going anywhere 'till you can fly again.”
“Maybe we could get some of these nice people to fly the message. We were sent by the king remember”
“I mean maybe… perhaps at some point. Are my clothes dry yet?”
“They don’t feel cold anymore, so I guess so.”
Tom squirmed a bit to try and get free but Jackalope simply squeezed tighter. Jarix suppressed a snicker. “Uhh, I guess that’s nice to know. Jacky, I know you’re awake… goddammit.” Tom tried, Jarix starting to giggle properly.
“She’s got you now.”
“Well if you didn't want me to leave I don’t think I could either,” Tom retorted looking up at the dragon. “All joking aside, you did fucking amazing out there. I’m just sorry I couldn’t nail that bastard on your back sooner.”
“That hurt like hell. Also, don’t tell her, but I think Jackalope shot me.”
“Jarix, how bad is lead for a dragon?” Tom questioned.
“Don’t tell me they need to dig it out?”
“I mean they don't need to, but it’s in there now. And it’s made from copper and lead.”
Jarix looked over all the wounds strewn over him. The dragonettes had done a good job of patching most of them up, though several of the bandages were leaking fresh blood.
“I think it’ll stay in. Their healer would be done for 10 times over, trying to fix that mess I guess. So much for looking like a million gold.” Jarix seemed genuinely distraught at that.
“Hey think of it this way. You’re the first dragon ever to be shot with a gun. Have you ever heard the expression ‘Knight in shining armor’ by the way?”
“Yeah, like some young prince who everyone wants.”
“Well, would you look at that, a metaphor that transcends worlds? It actually means a man who has yet to be tested. That is why his armor is shiny. He hasn’t seen battle yet.”
“Couldn’t he just get it fixed and polished?”
“Maybe, but his armor would still carry scars of battle and most will leave them undisturbed as marks of experience. Just like you will now. Congratulations. You’ve been tested and you sure as fuck weren’t found wanting, you magnificent bastard.”
“Does that mean I passed a lesson?” Jarix questioned, seemingly very excited all of a sudden.
“With flying colors. Pun intended, not that I doubted you could fight” Tom joked cracking a smile “There are more to go through. And remember chicks dig scars.”
“Why do I want to impress a young chicken?”
“I guess that one doesn’t translate. Girls, Jarix. Girls love scars… Well some of them at least.”
“Ahhh that makes more sense, my back is gonna look wicked in that case… eventually.”
“Just think of Baron. He looked badass, didn’t he?”
“Sure, but most of those are from epic battles in the history books. He’s so freaking cool. I was told stories about him and the other veterans growing up.”
“You don’t think this one is going in there?”
“It’s just some battle for a keep. That happens all the time.”
‘Well, that is a rather depressing thought…' Tom hadn’t gotten that impression from the others though. “I don’t think you’re right, didn’t you say you had no clue what those bat things were? The first one is always remembered. You might be the first to ever kill one and the first to win a battle against them. First are always remembered.”
Jarix seemed to ponder that for a second before he lit up. “You mean I’m gonna be going in the history books for this?” he replied with genuine excitement in his voice.
“Well it’s possible, don’t you think? Besides if that doesn’t cut it, being the first dragon to carry a gun should damn well do the trick. You didn't even think of that?”
“I just wanted to win... “
“Bravo. That’s how it’s done,” Tom was actually genuinely surprised by that and really rather happy. It was clear this mattered to Jarix. Tom guessed he had been used to big battles with colorful depictions of heroes and their deeds. “You need to win no matter what, because history is written by the victor. I’m willing to bet that most of those stories you have heard aren’t really true. War is always a shit show, but if you win you can claim it wasn’t.”
“That is rather depressing,” Jarix responded.
“You remember what I said a while ago? Glory is your reward for doing terrible deeds, not to mention going through hell, hopefully for a good cause. We did that yesterday. That was all for a good cause, and that can’t be taken from you. So again, congratulations, big blue hero.”
“Well at what point are the two little ‘heroes’ gonna move? I haven't moved a muscle for an hour fearing I might squash you.”
“You are gonna have to take that one up with Jackalope,” Tom replied. He didn’t really want to get up, he was perfectly comfortable here, even if he was wondering how Jackalope wasn’t uncomfortable he was literally sitting in her lap and had been for hours by now. He should probably eat whatever was in that bowl too. It didn’t look particularly appetizing though.
__________________________________________________________________________________
“Why haven't we heard anything yet?” Balethon questioned, between bites of dinner.
“Don’t know, might have stayed a little at Deriva? I would. It’s not often we get to see them, and the Lady there is very kind,” Sapphire replied in a hopeful tone. She was not sure she believed that though.
“They have Jarix with them. He could outrun almost anything,” Maiko replied. “If it was bad news, we would have heard from them by now. Likely this morning actually.”
“Unless they were dumb enough to try and help,” Dakota added in, sounding worried.
“I mean, Zarko follows orders, Unkai would likely be too scared, they won’t listen to Jacky. So that puts it down to Tom and Jarix,” Sapphire replied, thinking that over for a second. “Would Tom risk it?”
“I have no idea. Nunuk said he sounded troubled at the notion of even leaving the keep. But dammit if he is one to look the other way,” Dakota answered again before looking to Maiko. “What about Jarix?”
“Oh, he would for sure, but isn’t that what Tom had been trying to teach him not to do? Besides, I think he would listen to Zarko on that front. That and he has orders to follow, from the king no less.” Maiko certainly didn’t seem worried.
“Tom won’t give a shit about those orders though,” Sapphire stated plainly, scoring a double take from Maiko. “But he might decide to play hero, and with Jacky along… And Jarix possibly looking for an excuse...” ‘Fuck they might actually do it,’ Sapphire concluded to herself as she looked around at the others. “What would we do if they tried to help?”
“Not much we can do. We’re stuck here for the time being,” Dakota replied, looking like she had already arrived at Sapphire’s conclusion.
“Well if they don’t return… We would be launching an investigative force,” Maiko replied, clearly not pleased with that notion. “If they engaged, though, there is a good chance they are licking their wounds. I wouldn’t be concerned yet. As I said, Jarix is damn near the fastest flyer around these days. If you don’t need to go too far.”
“So they saw a keep in trouble, lent a hand, then ran away to lick their wounds. Or, they went in, won the battle, and are celebrating merrily with the people they saved. Sounds good to me. As long as too many didn't get hurt,” Balethon added, mouth half full of food. “How long until you send someone to mop up what’s left?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A few days... Maybe a week,” Maiko replied dismissively.
“I say we worry about it then, hey? Besides, as you said, we can’t do anything about it,” Balethon continued, while still eating. “I think we need to be more concerned with the people who might just be trying to kill us.”
Sapphire didn't really like this. In most of the situations they talked about, people would likely get hurt and it might well be someone she cared about. Tom was a good friend, sure. But she had known Jackalope for many years; she might be her closest friend in fact, despite their rivalry. “They better be fine. I've been doing too much praying as of late, and it doesn't seem to be working. I think it’s about time it does”
“Isn’t that something to do with only praying when you need something?” Balethon questioned.
“Well what should I pray for then? That someone got hurt or worse?” Sapphire replied in a rather annoyed tone.
“I think you need to give thanks for what you got. Not done much praying though,” he responded.
“Okay so. Dear Lotek, thank you for our safe journey here. Would you please ask Ishan not to take my friend from me?”
“Don’t say things like that, Everyone is fine. I’m sure.” Dakota demanded, sounding like she needed to convince herself just as much as the others. “Besides, even if they did decide to help a keep, they have both Tom and a damn dragon of the Royal Guard. What exactly survives that?” She didn’t sound entirely convinced of that statement either though. Even if it was one hell of an argument.
“Sorry. I’m just worried, okay?” Sapphire apologized.
“Let’s just give a prayer for everyone to get home safe tonight, and then worry about the things we can do something about.” Maiko interjected, clearly trying to ease things a bit.
When they had made it to bed, Dakota had a chat with Nunuk about what had happened. Even if there wasn’t much to report beyond Trewor. Crucially though, no news from the keep. Everything was as it should be apart from no Jarix and crew.
“Do you think this Trewor guy gonna stab us in the back?” Sapphire questioned after giving Dakota a second to catch her breath after the experience.
“I think he is too scared to try and double-cross us. He wants to live. That was damn clever of Maiko, I damn near believed it myself.”
“Yeah, the guy has a knack for this kind of thing it seems. I’m starting to see why Hashaw sent him. Besides just not wanting him around. And it was brilliant about the weapons. Even if Trewor does betray us, the bitch is gonna be scared shitless anyway.”
“She sure is,” Dakota replied with an evil grin.
__________________________________________________________________________________
So then. The girls in the big city are hitting back, Jacky is doing her best to help her stressed to shit boyfriend and Jarix might have gotten a childhood wish fulfilled. Did you enjoy the chapter if so do let me know down below. Alternatively, let me know just how badly I fucked up.
Until next time Have an awesome day.
ko-fi For having a pretty picture commissioned.
Sapphire
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Hunter or Huntress Chapter 88: Speed, Power, and Teatime

Great Scott number! 88 is ready for your enjoyment. can I prevent myself from making time travel jokes? Shit...
Anywho the editors have been hard at work going through this one both past present and future so hopefully, it will resist inspection for all eternity... Okay, I'll stop... for now.
With that out of the way let's get on with the story.
ko-fi For having a pretty picture commissioned.
Sapphire
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__________________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 88: Speed, Power, and Teatime
Tom had managed to wriggle out of Jacky’s grasp, much to her annoyance, as he had gone to fetch his backpack, dragging it over and getting out the phone. Just for fun, he snapped a picture of Jackalope as she stared at him annoyedly, still leaning up against Jarix's side. Looking at the picture he tentatively swiped right to one of the few he had taken of Hylsdal as the others were walking around. He quickly swiped back to Jackalope. He would much rather look at that one and he had sort of promised her to at least try not to worry.
“If you would mind getting out of my armpit, then I can do a little better,” Jarix let out lazily, raising his head off the stone floor. “And you need to eat your bowl of green stuff” he continued looking to tom.
Tom grabbed Jackalope, who refused to budge. He knew that was a tug of war he wasn't winning so he stepped back pointing to Jarix then crossing his arms, shaking his head. “Fine,” Jackalope replied annoyedly before getting up.
Jarix got up doing a bit of a stretch, though judging by his face that was a rather painful experience. Then he laid down again with his two forelegs together in front of him.
“There we go, a seat fit for heroes.” To Tom’s surprise, Jackalope bowed to Jarix.
“Jackalope Furlong, you have reached the top.” She whispered far too loudly to herself, before looking up to Jarix “Thanks dude.” She went over and laid down in the crevasse between Jarix’s forelegs, leaning up against his chest. Tom had to admit it looked rather comfortable.
“Is this like a big deal?” Tom questioned, grabbing the bowl before looking up to the dragon.
“For a dragon to make you comfortable rather than itself?” Jarix asked , looking at Tom like that was the dumbest question ever.
“Didn’t think of that,” Tom had to admit before he held up the phone, stepping back to take another picture. “Smile for the camera.” Jarix did his best to put on a smile, though the result ended up looking more like a very scary reptilian golden retriever. “Goddammit that’s hilarious,” Tom chuckled at the strange sight. The smile on Jarix faded as his ears laid flat against his neck, looking rather offended.
“Oh don’t be such a diva, you just looked funny” Tom tried to console as he walked over to where Jackalope had gotten comfortable. They had been instructed to sit back and relax and so that was what they were gonna do. Tom took out the phone and started going through pictures. Jackalope craned her head over his shoulder, following along.
“Is that your home? looks big.” She questioned as he was scrolling through. He brought out the notepad to scribble something down.
“No, that is a hotel. Like a big tavern,” Tom also spoke out loud so Jarix could hear, holding up the phone for the dragon to see.
“Looks nice. How big is your house?” the dragon answered, apparently having forgiven being made fun of.
“Not big,” Tom answered as he started going through pictures.
“Wait, what’s that?” Jackalope questioned as he passed a picture with some parked cars. Tom got out the pad again.
“Driving machines.”
“But you could fly at home, right?” She responded clearly not understanding.
“That’s expensive and difficult, driving is easier.”
“But… okay… sounds slow and boring, though the quad bike was great fun.” Tom just smiled. She had another thing coming on that front. He did eventually find one of his house.
“Huh… it’s so small. but it’s not in a city right? How many do you live there?” Tom was fairly sure that had been discussed already, but this was Jackalope.
“It's in the countryside, yes, Just me,” He wrote down.
“Damn okay, Jarix look at this.” The dragon craned his head to look down at them again as Tom held up the phone. “He’s the lord of the world’s smallest keep.”
“Not to be rude,but It doesn’t look very dragon friendly. How would you even defend that?”
“You could fit in the barn I think. Would need to get creative with feeding you though. But we don’t need to defend our homes, there’s nothing around to threaten them… Well, short of other humans. But unless you want to stop an invading army by yourself there really isn't much point.”
“That sounds quite nice actually.” Jarix admitted. ‘Yeah not a hard idea to sell around here right now’ Tom thought to himself, trying not to think about yesterday.
“Yes, it’s very peaceful. Now, what was this about cars being boring?” Tom switched to looking for some of the video clips he had put on the phone way back when. ‘Oh that’s perfect’ He mused to himself as he got out the notepad again.
“This is a race with cars called Nascar. Big oval track,” He wrote down for Jackalope, trying his best to write Nascar with Draconic runes.
“So they bumble along like your four-wheeled thing in a weird circle?” Jackalope questioned as the array of colorful cars pulled out into the track. “What the…”
“What is that noise?” Jarix questioned trying to get a look, Jackalope completely enamored by what she was seeing.
“The sound of screaming engines fighting to win,” Tom replied as he let Jackalope watch.
“Shit they are going fast!” Jackalope exclaimed after a shot of the cars going past. “Wait, did you have one of these?!”
Tom put the phone on her thigh so Jarix could watch for a bit, as he scribbled away.
“Sure, not that fast, though still faster than you.” Tom felt a finger claw push slightly into his back.
“Careful now, or you might fall off the next time you can't get anywhere yourself, mister faster than me,” she replied in a playful voice. Tom just giggled as she took the claw away. “I want one though, that looks like great fun.”
“Sure you do. Give me a few decades, it might happen,” Tom noted down.
“Really!?” Jackalope let out excitedly.
“Anything for my little Jackalope.”
The finger claw came back for that one, pressing a little harder. “I’m not the little one here. Whose lap are you in right now?” She questioned with a snicker.
“Jarix’s,” Tom wrote down. The dragon let out a chuckle as Jackalope looked up at him.
“I need to get used to that” she admitted before looking back down to the phone.
“Wow what just happened!” She exclaimed as the clip cut to the obligatory crash fire and debris everywhere. “Are they okay?!” She questioned, clearly alarmed.
“I think so, cars built tough, crash all the time” Tom wrote down. Jackalope didn’t look entirely convinced, especially after the clip just cut to more racing and eventually another accident. which caused her to flinch again as the car hit the wall. This time though the driver got out and promptly proceeded to run around with his arms in the air.
That did calm her down a fair bit even cheering for the guy as he jumped up onto the car. Tom had heard a few stories about accidents from the dragonettes thus far, None of them very pretty. Hell he had even been in two technically, so he could understand her concern.
He showed them a bit more racing, even if he was a little sad he didn’t have any monster trucks on his phone. That would have been awesome. Eventually, he stumbled across a clip of a Blue Angels air show he had saved. ‘Oh, this should be good,’ he thought to himself as he scribbled on the notepad.
“Jet fighters showing off.” That certainly got Jackalope's attention, Jarix also trying hard to see what was on the screen.
“Hey they’re blue, they look fucking cool… oh that’s a lot of smoke… are they gonna do something, or are they just sitting there?” Tom didn't respond, instead letting the video play, as the angels trundled along the runway. Jackalope apparently decided to take up the role of commentator for Jarix.
“No wait, they are rolling slowly along… is that what they do?... Oh no, now, they are moving faster down a very big piece of... what is that? and… da fuck? Okay, I guess they are flying now? What the fuck! How can they do that?!” Jackalope let out as the F18 pulled into a vertical climb, afterburners lit. Tom didn’t answer, just giggling to himself. Jackalope didn’t even seem to mind taking the phone to look more closely.
“Oh look they are flying in formation… It's a bit loose though, but damn they’re fast. What’s with the smoke?”
“Just for show, and they aren't going that fast. They are just having some fun. Remember they can go faster than sound,” Tom scribbled down for her as she continued to watch the show.
“Then why not go faster?” It was a fair question, to be honest.
“Because of the boom of breaking the sound barrier. They aren’t allowed to do it near people.”
“Okay…” Jackalope replied, clearly not sure what to say to that. Jarix was just looking down at the two of them rather annoyed. Tom took Jackalope's hand and held up the phone for the dragon to see as the Angels were performing an inverted loop.
“I… can’t do that,” Jarix admitted, sounding a tad sad. “I can’t even dive that fast… and they are climbing!”
“They are quite something,” Tom responded, looking up at the dragon who was staring in awe. His eyesight must be pretty damn good too, judging by how far away from the tiny screen his head was. Not that Tom had any idea how dragon eyes worked. “That is what defends our sky back home. They fly faster than sound, they can see you and kill you, even beyond the horizon, and turn so hard the pilots pass out.” Jarix looked at Tom with a face that indicated he had quite a few questions.
“Oh look, opposing passes.” Jackalope went excitedly as the Angels continued to show off.
“We’ve got flyers incoming. Looks like the others are back,” a wounded guard shouted weakly into the hall. He appeared to have had both his wings broken in addition to a nasty face wound that had most of his head bandaged up. Looking from his current position Tom felt quite bad that he wasn’t helping out, while that guy had probably been standing guard up in the tower.
“The headcount fits?” Tom questioned as he started to squirm free of Jackalope, but she relented this time though as Tom turned off the phone. Though she did let out a rather annoyed grunt at that.
“Yup, they are all there and two extra,” came the reply.
“Lothal must be flying himself then,” Tom stated, getting up and walking over to his clothes. Even if he likely looked less scary in his underpants that just wouldn’t do even if it was nice and warm. Besides, the kids knew him, so he wouldn’t need to worry about scaring them. He had yet to see any of this keep’s children though, come to think of it.
“What’s happening?” Jackalope protested, not getting up. Tom did his best to impersonate flying, beating his arms up and down before pointing to the big door. That display caused Jackalope to snicker a bit. “You look like an idiot, you know that right?”
Tom just crossed his arms and looked at her, trying to seem as unimpressed as possible, before turning to grab his clothes from the world's most dangerous washing line. Just from gearing up and walking around, he could feel his heart still beating harder than normal, and he found himself breathing harder too. ‘This is going to suck for a while,’ he thought to himself. His dizziness had gotten a little better though, even if that was likely due to him taking it easy right now.
He helped Jackalope get her stuff on. Her ears had stopped bleeding, and she hadn’t coughed up blood for a bit. That might also just be due to not really doing anything for however long it had been now. He wiped her ears clean with a wet rag getting rid of the last encrusted blood, taking the chance to play with them a bit. They were sort of stiff but could move around a lot.
As they made ready to open that gate, Jarix turned around just in case he needed to blast the fuck out of whatever might be coming.
“Hey, Jarix? How long does it take before you're ready to shoot again by the way?” Tom went as he adjusted his shirt.
“I mean if I spent everything, half a day for a big shot... or thereabouts. I do get rather a sore in the throat too after that though.” That sounded perfectly understandable to Tom. Even if it led him to wonder what it might feel like to have lightning running through you without it hurting.
“Oh, that’s not so bad. Not sure I can help with the throat unfortunately.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
They had started the morning with another check back with the keep, but there was nothing to report. The mood at the table was a little dim as the four of them ate breakfast. Haiko poked Sapphire on the shoulder as he sat down next to her at the table. “Got a second?”
“Sure,” Sapphire responded, turning to her brother, still chewing.
“So I had a chat with some of the boys. We got no clue who we are dealing with. Not that you or Draki got much of a look at them. Are we still expecting them to come back?”
Sapphire turned back to the rest of the table, being met by blank faces. Dakota finally responded.
“We don’t know… We have tried to make ourselves an expensive target.”
“I take it that’s why you are here, sir. I must say, it is an honor to have a Royal Guard staying at our inn.”
“Hey, technically I’m at work so don’t put too much into it. I’m being paid to sleep here,” Maiko replied. He was having a laugh about it though, possibly trying to lighten the mood. He had his own room too, so he was hardly uncomfortable.
“Damn I want a job like that once,” Haiko replied, sounding a tad wistful. “Anyway, as I said, we had a chat with some people. We are gonna be getting some reinforcements at night, just in case they do come back.”
“How did you manage that?” Sapphire questioned. People didn't usually work for free after all.
“We stick together around here. If those bastards can bully one place then why not the others? It’s not gonna be much more than a few guys and girls to help scare them off.” Sapphire looked back to the table as they all nodded in approval, some smiles spreading.
“I guess we are gonna turn this place into a keep then,” Balethon joked.
“Then we just need to worry about you not getting killed coming and going,” Maiko continued, still sounding light-hearted. Dakota’s slight smile vanished at that though.
“Would they shoot us in the street you think?” She questioned, switching her gaze around the table.
“I mean, maybe?” Maiko reluctantly admitted after a bit.
“What about at Tink’s workshop? That is hardly well defended.”
“It is a guildhall but other than that no not really,” Maiko replied, clearly starting to ponder the situation. “Are we really that sure they are gonna try and kill you… and in broad daylight? I mean really?”
There was a bit of silence following that. ‘Are we being paranoid here?’ Sapphire thought to herself. What would it even cost to hire someone to try and kill them in the street? Also, there was quite the difference between a mercenary group and an assassin “Don't you think they are just trying to scare us into backing down? You know, a show of force?” She asked, looking at her brother.
“I mean, I sure hope so. They might also try and beat you up, but I’m guessing that isn't gonna end without bloodshed,” he replied, looking at the assortment of weapons they all carried.
“Right, so we keep on going about our business during the day. Making damn sure we aren't followed anymore. Then we make sure to be back here early every day, with a knife under our pillow. Is that the plan?” Sapphire asked.
“Well we can’t just stay here, we have way too much to do. Another day with Tink and he will hopefully be able to keep himself busy without killing himself."
“Saph, you are gonna need to tell me what the fuck it is you are doing at that place some time,” Haiko went, giving Sapphire a friendly nudge to the shoulder.
“I might just keep that a surprise for you,” she replied, hitting back a little harder.
“Oh, by the way, what was the price on the window?” Dakota asked as Haiko got up to go actually do his job for a bit.
“Uhh. Don’t know actually, you want a receipt for it?”
“Yes please, I’m gonna pay for that,” Dakota responded, to Sapphire’s surprise. She didn’t think they had to, nor were windows cheap. The strained expression Dakota got when she received the bill would seem to back that assumption up, even if she didn’t let them know what the price had been.
Following yesterday's round of catch the goose, they hadn’t actually managed to find most of the things they needed. so they had swung by to pick up Junior to show the way, leaving the by now common sight of a sleep-deprived Tink to carry on working.
Following some directions from a smith Junior knew, they had finally found a place that seemed to be a proper mithril smith. It wasn’t a large place nor could you even see the forge, as it was hidden away inside the massive squat building behind the shopfront. Everything was very nice though, gleaming weapons and armor on display for all to see. Even if only a few of the things were actually mithril.
Sapphire's eyes damn near watered at the sight of the prices. Even a hunting knife made out of the stuff commanded an exorbitant sum, so she guessed most things here were probably made to order. Nevertheless, it was on the list, so when they had the money they would be doing some exceedingly expensive shopping.
They had been keeping an eye out for Trewor or anyone else trying to tail them. They agreed chances were good Trewor had just run away after what happened yesterday. In that case, the Flaxens would of course likely just hire someone else.
“Hey that sounds familiar,” Sapphire let out as they passed a small potion shop. “Hold up, we need to go say ‘Hi.’ ”
“Oh yeah, definitely” Dakota responded as they turned to walk into the small potion shop.
“Quinlin’s Potions and Care, how can I he... Oh Dakota! It’s good to see you! Oh and hello Saph, and even Baleboy, it was about time they dragged you in here. Is Essy with you?”
“Sadly not this time,” Dakota replied with a smile. ”Good to see you, Ignis.”
“Oh well, she can’t hog all the travel expenses after all. How’s she doing?” Dakota’s smile did falter a bit at that. Sapphire also grew a more sombre expression despite her best efforts.
“She's getting better, though she has been quite sick,” Dakota replied, looking around the small shop. Content that it was empty she carried on. “She got stabbed with a poisoned blade. We are here to lay a case against the Lady who did it.”
“We call her the bitch,” Balethon added in, as the warm friendly expression of Esmeralda’s sister faded.
“What poison?” She asked tentatively.
“Green dragon,” Dakota replied plainly. “You can thank Colonel Hashaw and Baron that she is still with us. She is getting better by the day though, so don’t you worry.”
“Gods in heaven,” Ignis replied, sitting down on a stool she had behind the counter.
“Don’t worry, we got her in chains and Essy is doing fine,” Dakota reiterated.
”Sounds like you have had an exciting time,” Ignis replied, looking up.
“More than you know,” Sapphire added. Ignis let out a breath before looking up, the smile returning to her face.
“Well, it’s good to hear we didn’t lose her this time either. I see you brought some new faces. Is the Royal Guard for show, or did Sapphire get what she always wanted?” Ignis questioned, looking to Dakota, who did a double-take before she broke out laughing.
“Not funny,” Sapphire stated, looking away. ‘Goddammit, why do her and Essy have to be alike.’
“I’m sorry what?” Maiko questioned, clearly confused.
“Did no one tell you Sapphire used to want to become a Royal Guard? I’m guessing you’re the next best thing,” Ignis continued, also laughing now.
“Uhm… no… wait, what?.” Maiko responded, sounding very confused as he looked at Sapphire.
‘You have got to be shitting me,’ Sapphire cursed to herself. “No, Ignis, I did not score a Royal Guard nor am I trying to! Come on, you know I don’t like that story,” Sapphire interjected, stretching out her arm as if she was going to grab Ignis. ‘Best kind of defense is a good offense,’ Sapphire thought to herself as she turned to look at Balethon, handily avoiding Maiko’s confused gaze. “Balethon scored a trader escort though. Well, more like she found a new boy toy I think.”
“Ha, I can believe that,” Ignis responded, turning her attention to the very miffed-looking Balethon.
“She likes me okay!” He predictably protested. “You're just jealous I’m not giving you the attention you want,” he then replied, pointing at Sapphire.
“Oh come on, we all know that one is a lie,” Dakota weighed in. Junior just stood looking around, utterly bewildered at what was going on.
“Oh, how I missed this. I’ll put the kettle on if anyone wants some tea. Have a browse in the meantime.”
They had all answered in the affirmative as they went about having a look at the selection. Potions were expensive, though it was cheaper in the city than if you had to buy from someone like Vulzan. Still, Sapphire could hardly afford anything in here aside from some medicinal stuff for various ailments.
They had a pleasant talk, conveniently leaving out the fact they might be walking around with a target on their back. It had been over half a year since Ignis had last heard of what was happening at the keep, so there had been a fair bit to talk about. Of course, Tom inevitably came up; Ignis had been more interested to hear about how he dealt with the kids though. All in all, it had mostly been pleasant small talk, which was a nice change from people asking about the battles or Tom. With cups empty and a promise to pop by again later for another chat and possibly buying something for once, they had continued their search for stuff they needed.
__________________________________________________________________________________
So then Jacky got to learn about Nascar and see a jetfighter in action, sort of at least. Hopefully, she and Jarix won't get minority complexes. Sapphire had a fairly nice day for once without being either followed, threatened, or stressed to the point of cracking.
But what did you think? If you enjoyed do let me know down below. Alternatively have a go at shouting at me for the lack of action in this one, or whatever else I might have fucked up with.
Until next time have an awesome day
ko-fi For having a pretty picture commissioned.
Sapphire
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hey google play better now video

Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. “Hey Google” is a phrase I say often. I’ve been using Google Assistant regularly on my phone for a while now, and although I love it, it’s still far from perfect. The software lacks a lot Home entertainment gets better. Listening to music and podcasts is one of the most popular ways people use the Google Assistant, so we’re bringing the Assistant to the Sonos One and Sonos Beam (earlier speaker models will be updated to work with the Assistant). With the Assistant built in, you’ll be able to control your favorite music, podcasts and radio stations from all over your home Google Now is more of a glorified Google search than a true virtual assistant. Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET Google Now is convenient for when you want to use the power of the Internet and your Now, with Your News Update, Google said it's worked with collaborations with publishers from around the globe over nearly two years to help re-imagine "the future of audio news". Google said it "Hey Google, play music for cooking." "Hey Google, shuffle music from Arctic Monkeys." "Hey Google, pause the music" "Hey Google, continue playing" "Hey Google, skip this song." "Hey Google, what artist is playing right now?" "Hey Google, play music on my living room TV." More Google Assistant how-to guides . How to set up Voice Match with music and movie services on Google Home; How to Google created this for celebrating the 132nd birthday of Gideon Sundback, a Swedish engineer credited with helping to develop the modern zipper, with a large Google Pac-Man - elgooG. https://elgoog.im/pacman/ Online Pacman game! The famous Pac-Man Game with Google! Play Atari Breakout - the Hidden Google Game - elgooG. https://elgoog.im/breakout/ Atari Breakout is a Google Easter Egg "Hey Google, play Stranger Things on Netflix." "Hey Google, play House of Cards on TV." "Hey Google, set the thermostat to 21 degrees." "Hey Google, raise the temperature three degrees." "Hey Google, what's the temperature right now?" "Hey Google, turn on all the switches." "Hey Google, lock the front door." "Hey Google, open the blinds." "Hey Google, show me the backdoor camera." "Hey Google How to play Popular Music? Hey Google, play the top hits; Ok Google, play the top <genre> songs; Hey Google, play the top songs from the 80s 🟧 YouTube Music Free will mostly play a station with music similar to what you’ve requested unless you use a display device like Google Nest Hub or request to “play … on” a Chromecast. Google is rolling out a new set up process for Voice Match in Google Assistant to improve its accuracy. The new setup process requires users to say full sentences for better voice recognition.

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Post Malone - Better Now (Clean) - YouTube

🎵 Follow our Spotify playlists: http://bit.ly/7cloudsSpotify🎧 Avicii - Hey Brother (Lyrics)⏬ Download / Stream: http://smarturl.it/itrue🔔 Turn on notifica... The official YouTube Channel of Google Play, the best place for apps, games, movies, music, and more on Android, iOS and the web. Discover more at play.google.com. 🎵 Post Malone - Better Now (Lyrics)⏬ Download / Stream: https://PostMalone.lnk.to/bbYD 🔔 Turn on notifications to stay updated with new uploads!👉 Post Mal... London Grammar perform Hey Now at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Glasgow. For London Grammar's full set head to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/bigweekend It was such a great time making the video for Play That Song. The idea to be on top of the world and have the whole town react to the happiness was super fun... The official video for Martin Solveig & The Cataracs Feat. Kyle - Hey Now. Subscribe to Spinnin' TV : http://bit.ly/SPINNINTVGet your copy on iTunes: http://... Nový singel "HEY NOW" videohttp://www.peterbicproject.comréžia: Martin Hudákhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Peter-Bi%C4%8D-Project/245561327103manager: rosko@p... Post Malone - Better Now (Clean)All Rights Reserved to Republic Records, A divison of UMG.Stream/Download https://postmalone.lnk.to/bbWeFor Copyright Issues:... This is the song everyone likes to listen to Better Now (Official Video) Get The Song Here: https://PostMalone.lnk.to/bbYD Connect with Post Malone: https://www.facebook.com/postmalone https://twitter.c...

How to play music on Google Home - The Ambient

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TIFU by helping a guy hear his wife cheating on him

TIFU by unknowingly committing Nine Felonies and Seven Misdemeanors