tw: suicidal thoughts and hurting others
i am 17. i dont know whats wrong with my head anymore. it all feels so fucking fake like how did it all get so bad? every time i think im getting better it just gets worse again. i try to tell my therapist more but it just gets even worse. everything i feel from anger to sadness is so overwhelming and i cant do this anymore. i dont feel like i can kill myself and ive been trying to get better for a good 3 years and it just doesnt it only gets worse. in terms of suicidal thoughts, i guess my 2 main methods i thought about were either jumping off the water tower i live near or stabbing myself with a knife my dad gave me a long time ago. i tried picking up boxing, hiking, anything but it rarely works anymore. i can only smile and laugh looking at fucking memes or something on my phone and even then its the numbingly artificial smiling and laughing. nobody really wants to talk to me at school because im so socially awkward and dumb. doesnt help that my schools social culture revolves around sports i have little to no interest in. my friends abandoned me because i took my best friends side when they had a fight, and my best friend is now the only one who really talks to me. she doesnt even text me much anymore, i can feel her drifting away now because she goes to a different school now and has better friends. even if she didnt i often feel shes only friends with me because she feels sorry for me. i admit i said some bad things about my friends back then and i regret it but why can my friends just move on while im stuck in my little shithole of self-hatred? all this has lead to me being some type of subhuman ghost. i dont feel fully human anymore, more like i pretend to be. its like my eyes are windows and im only watching my life through them. if i dissappeared over the summer nobody would notice and it pisses me off. if there are people who felt the same way and have moved on why cant i? it pisses me off so much. sometimes at my worst points i think about hurting or killing people from school. i dont think i would ever act on these thoughts but holy shit i really feel like it sometimes. ive spent months analyzing my thoughts and i feel the best explanation could be some combination of jealousy and this illusion that they have all deemed me subhuman. i know in the logical side of my mind that im just a socially bad person but the feeling part cant stop pushing these thoughts to the front of my brain. maybe ill comment more later if i feel like it but right now i just need to get my thoughts in order, so ig a list of things that have happened to me over the past few years

• middle school girlfriend broke up with me lol -friends broke up with me -moved out of my abusive stepdads house (good thing!!!!!!! yay!!! :) ) -covid started -dad died -moved in with moms boyfriend who has 3 little kids. sort of minor but the kids have really added on to my stress so i feel i should note -good friends suicide attempt

ps. i guess one other thing i should mention is that throughout all of this i had been so desperate for a girlfriend or something. now i feel stupid for being so desperate but i felt like i needed a girlfriend to get better. i knew my middle school girlfriend made me feel better so i thought maybe it would be better. due to me being a ghost as well as a stain on earth, none of my desperate little attempts succeeded. i didnt really expect it to but it still makes me feel horrible now although i hate to admit it. i feel like i should apologize to everyone i tried to become closer with even though thinking back on it i never really did anything bad (like idk, being emotionally manipulative. i never brought up these thoughts to them because i didnt want them to know, they would think im crazy or something).
tl;dr: i am emotionally fucked up and have been for the past few years, what do i do about it

First off this is going to be a bit long because I'm trying not to leave anything out. I also play her primarily as a point tank because she benefits from being near where the fight is centered around. If you don't want to read all of it, there's one thing I'm trying to spread about her that's super cool in the Royal Presence section that I bolded. I was just answering another post and it ended up being way too long so I'm putting this here since I haven't seen many guides on her around.
On to the guide and feel free to correct me on things or put your own ideas of the character in the comments!
​
General
Nyx is a much better point tank than a lot of people think. Being patient also really helps with her; not just in learning her, but also in stealing the point. She's not broken or the best, but she's good and can be pretty versatile when you get her down. It just takes bit of time to get a playstyle that works with her down.
The first thing to know is that she does a LOT of damage, but it's slow. You have to play point patiently with her and take your opportunities when you see them. She's great at denying space and dealing wide areas of damage. Even if that damage seems small, it adds up. Which you'll see me say over and over again. Instead of holding point more defensively than offensively like say an Inara would, Nyx does the opposite. She uses slow sneaky damage to steal the point and try and angle herself where she can poke a little close, but safe. You always want to be where your support can see you and protect them even more than another tank would. They're your lifeline and only source of healing.
When you use either her shield or presence and don't have a need for it to be active anymore, then re-activate them to end the effect so that you can get your cooldown back faster.
Last thing is that if your support isn't very good you're going to have a ton of trouble staying up so you have to play a lot safer and use your poison, rift slash, and poke to try and steal what space you can. If your dps isn't very good, then a lot of the slow damage you're doing is going to get wasted. It's your job to weaken the enemy and their job to finish them off. Not that you can't still get picks and burst people down, but bad dps is really going to make things much harder on you than another tank would especially if their target priority isn't good. Making enemies back up or just die is how you're going to survive along with knowing when to back yourself. But if your dps and/or your support is at least decent you can create so many opportunities for your team, which makes the character a lot of fun.
Weapon
Her weapon shots gets +75 damage within 20 units, which is not far at all. It's essentially nose to nose, but when you think it's within survivable space, try and get into that range for the extra dps. She goes from ~483 dps to ~608 dps if she hits all bonus damage shots in one combo (about 3 seconds when I timed it. Someone could correct me if I'm wrong there though.) It will really benefit you to move strafe forward and then back a little when you fire to try and get that bonus damage, but also maintain a little space. Mess around with it in the shooting range to get used to that if you don't already do it.
​
Abyssal Fortress
I have four tips for for the shield:
1.) When using it to protect yourself try to keep it close to you and of course strafe through it if enemies try and walk through to hit you. You can look a bit in front of you or straight down at the ground, but just remember 30 units isn't far and 1500 less shield is best to avoid when you can help it.
2.) Place the shield facing towards where the danger is. If most of the damage is in front of you, then place it there. If you're dueling the enemy tank because they're killable and there's two dps to your right, then place it towards them to block their damage.
3.) If you seen a teammate (especially your support) in need of protection don't be afraid to place the shield farther away near them to keep them from dying or to aid their retreat. If you're fighting point and think the save is more valuable, then retreat off point and protect the teammate by throwing a rift slash at whoever is chasing them or poking with your weapon if you can. But get away from the point if it'll kill you.
4.) If the enemy tank (like Barik, Ash, Atlas, or another Nyx) places their shield down before you do, don't be afraid to walk forward and put your shield past theirs to negate their value if you think it's survivable space.
​
Rift Slash
Rift slash isn't just good for damage or trying to get picks. It's also a great zoning/area denial tool. Don't be afraid to use it to keep people from being in a certain spot if you think you'll find more value than just damage. Also great for pushing the support from line of sight from their tank.
Also don't just use it for yourself. It can really help your flank get that pick if you notice it.
Using it is easier when you charge it for distance instead of damage. The distances are 25 units for 0-49% charge, 50 units for 50-99% charge, and 100 units for full charge. The damage increase is on the initial hit only and you can add more with your weapon than charging will and some players (not a lot, though) will hear the charge and know they need to dodge it, so faster is also better. Additionally, the hitbox when it's a projectile is smaller than the hitbox when it's stationary, so Show of Force cripple is easier to hit as well if you place it correctly. You'll still want to aim directly for enemies, but knowing this can make it a lot easier to hit. You also sometimes want to walk forward or back to get the the area where the slash will stop.
Pre-firing Rift Slash can be a good idea, especially if you know the enemy is going to be near a certain distance. But if the charge will go farther than the enemy you want to hit you have three options:
1.) Hit the enemy with the claw projectile
2.) Hit an object ~15 units near them (includes deployables)
3.) If you're on high ground, aim at the ground near them.
Last thing I'll add on this is that if you need to retreat, hit enemies with the slow or put it in a spot that'll get in their way so you can get out of trouble more safely.
FOR ENEMIES WITH SHIELDS: Fire your rift slash above them at roughly the units you would need to diagonally to get that initial hit damage (and cripple on Show of Force.) Sometimes you'll still hit the shield, but hey we tried. They'll still take the pulse damage like they would have if you just hit the shield.
​
Royal Presence
For Royal Presence (her F,) don't think of it as just a defensive ability that makes the damage you take slower. It's great for that, but it's also a great offensive ability for punishing enemies for grouping up near you and racking up that ult charge! You'll be surprised how fast you'll get it with Abyssal Authority and Center of Combat. Sure the damage on the poison is slow, but you don't have to aim it and it can only really be cleansed by ethereal like Grohk & Seris' movement abilities, Zhin billow, and Koga dash.
The poison can also be re-procced, so if you touch an enemy with the aura again near before it ends, they take double damage. Meaning with Center of Combat 5 they can take a total of 30% health over 12 seconds. That's 3 times the damage at base and 6 times if you just got it one them once! People will really just stand in it and not respect the slow damage, but even if it can seem minimal it really does add up; damage is damage after all!
The pull is also really useful for getting a support out of position and then throwing Rift Slash on them, stopping the momentum of an enemy trying to run away, or trying to get an enemy off of one of your teammates. The hitbox for it is a small cone in front of you and it also does 100 damage when you activate it, which the in-game description doesn't mention.
If you didn't know, you can cleanse all temp damage from Presence with her ult. But a really cool thing about Royal Presence is that there's a small window where any damage you would take as purple health is automatically healed back up; without even having to use your ult for it. This window is less than a second and basically where her wings go in front of her right when you first activate presence. You don't need to activate the chain pull at all, so you still also get all the other perks of the ability and can save your ult! This means that you can run into Drogoz ult and right before he hits you, pop presence and you'll take no damage. Good Drogoz players will adapt and choose a different target or dodge you, but it's an awesome counter to a death sentence. This also works for tanking Jenos ult, Skye ult, etc. Any big burst damage, but also really any damage in that small window. You can practice this against the Cassie bots in the shooting range. Just wait before one of them fires at you and pop the first activation of Presence. Of course this doesn't work against Vora ult. No idea about Maeve's Street Justice talent however, but to me that's nearly impossible to time.
Funny enough KamiVS just did this in a video he posted yesterday: https://youtu.be/H8gOxFzkTy8?t=125
Last two things to touch on for Presence, but important is you can use it to retreat to get back to your support. You can also touch the enemy tank and hopefully the support with the poison, throw a rift slash if you need to, back up and heal/poke, and then re-proc the poison to add more damage and point pressure. The ability is really a nice mix of offense and defense.
​
Ultimate
For her ult you almost always want to use it while using Presence. You can pop Presence and run into the enemy and ult to cleanse all that damage you took and to make space or punish them for being too closely grouped up and then put rift slash on whoever got caught up in it. Also don't be afraid to use the cleanse from her ult defensively just to survive! Sometimes an enemy will still get hit by it or get pulled out of position. There's also three other things you can do with your ult I'll add:
1.) Use Rift Slash before ulting to slow enemies so they can't just run out. This is also way better in Show of Force since anyone you hit with it will be crippled and unable to use a movement ability to dodge the ult. This also works with Subjugation's root on Presence pull.
2.) Use the chain pull from presence right before ulting so their momentum is going towards you or to try and get an additional enemy into it. This ends your aura early, so any damage you take after the initial cleanse from your ult will be taken normally. Use this when you know it's safe too.
3.) If your shield is off cooldown, you can put it in front of you before you ult to block damage or pull them through it if you run the Abyssal Breach talent (you can do the same with chain pull.) You can also just put the shield down just before enemies come out of stun to block their damage and keep space/retreat.
​
Items
As for items the best items in my opinion for her are:
Chronos - She's really depends on her cooldowns both defensively and offensively. A lot of my damage is often half ability damage or more.
Rejuv - She gets a scaling 20% healing bonus near the objective. So 20% on it and still a bonus even if you're just a bit away from it. I'm still not sure where that bonus ends, but both of these together also stack against caut. So at Rejuv 3 on point and 90% caut, you're only in 40% caut. Still try to get out of combat (ideally still near the objective, but out of enemy sightlines) to get healed up by your support. But if you have to fight on point in caut, then you have to wait until you can use your shield to cleanse it.
Nimble - No movement ability means you need faster movement speed to get in and out of fights. A lot of value for not a lot of credits, but there are situations where you might not have space to buy it
Haven - Less damage better. Especially in Royal Presence.
Resilience - CC can really mess up your day, so resi is a must buy for her in those situations.
Points if you noticed that three of her items (Nimble, Resi, Rejuv) are actually pretty low cost, so getting your build up can be pretty fast sometimes.
As for her best item starts (if your support is something like Jenos or Corvus or a solo damage furia, start a Rejuv build):
1.) Chronos + Nimble - If you buy this, your third buy should almost always be rejuv unless there's a situation that calls for something else like something that needs counter or your support is just cracked and doesn't need it quite yet. But Rejuv is inevitable on this character.
2.) Rejuv + Resi - Best start when there's CC you don't want to deal with. Once Resi is at 2 you can start building out more, but rush that unless your opponent isn't very good with CC.
3.) Rejuv + Nimble / Rejuv alone - You need more healing
Redundant items for her are:
Illuminate - You can actually just track enemies that are invisible with the tick damage from royal presence and then throw rift slash on them, hit them with your weapon, and either kill them or push them out. It takes some getting used to for you to hit your shots just tracking the numbers, but it's nice to have the item slot freed up.
Morale Boost - You get so much ult charge from Presence ticks if you have her build set up right with Center of Combat and Abyssal Authority, so only reason to really buy this is if you really need your ult and your build doesn't include those.
Last thing about items is that while she isn't great with Wrecker, if your team is low on it and you feel like you need it: get it.
​
Cards
Onto her cards, I'll preface by saying that strong card go brrrr isn't always the best option on this character. She's got a lot of stuff that's a little weak in base kit, but much stronger when you buff it. So a balanced spread can help you out a lot. But also some of this is my opinion and you do you; if you want a card at 5 then that's your expression of the character. Remember that you should try to build characters to suit your own playstyle.
​
Best (No particular order):
Abyssal Authority - Getting more enemies in your aura means more passive damage. That means more ult charge, damage numbers for credits, and adding kill potential to your team even for enemies you aren't actually looking at. It doesn't seem like a lot at first, but it adds up as I mentioned above. If you're point tank you want this card at 3-4. 5 is kind of overkill, but do you.
Center of Combat - This is where a lot of your damage numbers will come from. Boosting aura damage is great. I have this at 4 on my main build which can rack up to 26% max health on a single target over 12 seconds. There's still a good benefit to 5, but I like to put that point elsewhere to balance my build out. Except in a Nyx mirror. They go 5 then you go 5 on this card.
Forever Changed - HP adds to your bulkiness which can really help you out. But if you'd rather go for something else, totally respectable. But have at least one build that has this card at 4 or 5 if you notice you find yourself in a situation that demands bulkiness.
The Little Things - Rift Slash is a hugely important tool on this character, so reducing it's cooldown is fantastic. Personally I have this at 2 because I have my points elsewhere and at this level I rarely don't have slash when I need it. But it still happens now and again. 4-5 is kind of overkill unless you're going off-tank though.
Devastating Blows - This card is amazing when you need it. You'll find yourself against enemies that usually won't be close to you though. Which negates the benefit of the card. That's why I have a build that just uses this as a filler card. I find that at 3 you're generally in the space you would be fighting another tank on point, but if you find that space to put it at 4 then go for it! 5 isn't too far off from 4 though, so the benefit in a point in another card is a little better, but that's just my opinion.
​
Pretty Good:
All Will Kneel - Rift slash is amazing at denying space, so adding some radius to it's pulses. That's 200 damage total over 2s or 300 over 3s in Show of Force, but the slow is the biggest benefit.
Unchecked Power - I've faced Nyx's that send this card and ngl it can be pretty annoying at start until resil is up. Even at just 2-3 there's value in this card, but I personally don't use either this or the previous one because I find more than enough value with base rift slash and I like buffing other things better for my playstyle.
Brutal Pursuer - This card is ONLY good if you're going off tank. Otherwise you're better off putting points elsewhere. The value of the move speed just isn't high enough on point tank.
Unyielding Advance - This is a pretty good filler card. If you find it suits you, then go for it! But it doesn't have a lot of value past 1-2 compared to others.
Frontline Commander - This card is amazing! On another character. Nyx's base kit needs too much boosting to justify space for this at a level where it's really useful. She's pretty CC heavy, so the move speed decrease just gives resi more value against her. But still give it a shot if you like it, despite what I said it's a pretty fun card. Just remember that my take on this card is an opinion despite me wording it like it's a fact.
A Swift End - Devastating blows gets you way more value for the most part. It's there all the time and this is only usable on shield. At level 5 this adds ~120-162 dps to a single combo (3s), but that number really isn't exact and is likely a little lower. Just an estimate. Biggest argument for this card is you can re-proc it by strafing your shield, so it's shield duration + 3s. But if an enemy shield is in your way then you lose value unless your aim is to try and burst down the shield or run in and drop your shield over theirs. It's a nice card, but it runs into the same problem as Frontline Commander: Nyx's base kit makes it hard to put points into it since the base range of her aura and her weapon bonus damage is low, and her tick damage needs the help from Center of Combat. The card is still fun though and if you find more success with it than the others then more power to you. Still try it out and draw your own conclusion! It may be it just doesn't suit me personally. Same applies to some other cards above.
​
Meh:
World Torn Asunder - When you get used to Rift Slash, it's not super hard to hit even at 100 units as long as you space yourself correctly. So the real value in this is hitting agile enemies like Vatu, Maeve, or VII. But it's not a card you want to put a lot of points out of, and you can still work around having it. Not a bad idea to have it as a 1-2 pointer to deal with champions like that though if you find it helps you! I'm just saying in general there's much more value elsewhere. Personally I don't use it at all, but give it a shot still to draw your own conclusion.
​
No:
True Freedom - If you take one thing away from this comment. Don't use this card. It's a scrub trap. There's better one pointers and when you get used to the character you'll find this card is just training wheels that don't even really need to exist. Even if you miss a hit on your weapon or hold it for a bit longer, the value is just too small.
The New Order - Not as bad as True Freedom is, but the value is way too low and other cards are just way better. Most chains will hit 1-2 enemies max. Even at 5 that's a 150-300 shield for way too many points.
Unyielding Advance - It's like using Guardian as an item: don't. People will buy wrecker and decimate your shield even with this at 5. And if they don't your shield will last more than long enough.
Face to Face - I mean, you can kind of meme with this, but even then the value is just bad. Base pull does it's job just fine, and using this to soften the blow from the other team building resi doesn't help a whole lot in comparison to other cards.
​
Builds
If anyone wants my builds for reference, I'll put them here. Just remember this is for how I play the character and what personally found me the most success:
AA= Abyssal Authority, CoC = Center of Combat, FC = Forever Changed, TLT = The Little Things, DB = Devastating Blows, BP = Brutal Pursuer
Balanced - CoC 4, AA 3, FC 3, DB 3, TLT 2. Main build I use almost all the time.
Bulky - FC 5, CoC 4, AA 3, TLT 2, DB 1. I use this build either when I need more health, or more often when I know enemies are going to be farther from me so I won't get value out of DB.
Damage - CoC 5, AA 4, DB 3, TLT 2, FC 1. I use this build when facing another Nyx or really bulky comps. Especially with Lilith as the support with 2 tanks. Really messes with her resources.
Off-Tank - CoC4, DB 4, TLT 3, BP 3, AA 1. As off tank you need that extra bit of movement speed. Even though it isn't substantial, it helps a lot. You're not the center of the fight as off-tank, so AA doesn't get as much value, but CoC adds to your damage. DB is at 4 so you can get stronger pokes from a bit farther and TLT 3 lets you rift slash more and keep that move speed up. Don't use it exclusively for the speed though.
​
Talents
Show of Force - This is my favorite talent for her by far. The extra second lets you deny more space and the cripple increases pick potential for you and your team. Biggest downside if there's a lot of CC on your team you'll lose value so you might be better off going Abyssal Breach in those cases. But you can definitely still work around it even then.
Abyssal Breach - The talent I used on point before they buffed Show of Force. Having your shield more often on point is really helpful and it punishes anyone trying to push past your shield in narrow spaces or catch you while you're strafing it in open ones. Great if your team has a lot of CC like I pointed out above. Also don't forget you can use your chain pull to bring people through the shield for that extra damage if you find a good chance for a pick. This goes for pulling enemies through it with your ult as well, but if resi is up it's not nearly as viable tech.
Subjugation - A lot of people say it's her best, but I say it's situational. If you end your aura early with it, you lose a lot of that nice damage and ult charge. But this talent is still really useful. Great as an off-tank talent if your team doesn't have a lot of useful CC so you get more value out of this from forcing resi or someone on the enemy team ignoring resi. Make sure to track who has it for you picks. On point you would only use this if you know the enemy has an agile champion your comp isn't equipped to deal with and you know you won't hit those Show of Force cripples. If your team has a lot of CC then Show of Force is the better off-tank talent.
​
Well, that's the end of the guide. I know that was a lot of text, but so are her ability descriptions in game lol. I hope that some of the info that I put here was found useful by someone. Take care and glhf!
EDIT: Spelling, phrasing, and used the wrong numbers for Swift End. Changed to dps instead of raw damage. Moved Swift End to Pretty Good section and updated its description since I changed my mind on it a little after typing it out and thinking about it.

I was rewatching the segment where Donna had to attach a meme to an email and kept accidentally opening a dictionary app on random words. And no one even knew how she was doing it.
Ethan said it best “you don’t need to click so damn hard”
On Mac track pads there are 3 different clicks you can do. Lightly tapping it, or medium pushing it is a normal click. But if you do a hard full push on the pad, you can feel it click-in extra, and on chrome doing this on a word activates a highlight & search function. This is why on regular words it opened the dictionary, and on “gmail” it opened a web definition for what gmail is.
This is also why when she hard-clicked on the file she was trying to start it full screen opened the image; she was hard clicking instead of normal clicking.
It’s funny bc Donna and Gary said she would’ve done better on Windows than Apple which seemed untrue bc Gmail is the same on both OS’s, but ironically it actually was an Apple exclusive function that messed her up and slowed her down so many times.

YOU decide what events should change in the world of pop culture, be it real or ASB (future movie gets shown in the past, an actor does/doesn't die, alternate casting choices, unmade media possibly getting made, media is rewritten, a change in the box office or something new entirely)!
I document what happens in a current timeline of Earth!
We all have fun!
CURRENT TIMELINE:
1818: Mary Shelley's The Modern Prometheus, a novel in which scientist Henry Frankenstein creates a sapient creature named Prometheus is made. Prometheus becomes a stalwart of the monster genre.
1907-1908: A young comedian named Charlie Chaplin refuses to accept the offer of Fred Karno to come to the U.S. He becomes a famous comedian, often incorporating a character he named The Tramp in his stand-up routines.
1912: The Olympic ship crashes upon hitting an iceberg, becoming a memorable event. James Cameron's Olympic (1997) would be the first film to gross $1B, even entering the National Film Registry.
1931: Frankenstein and his Prometheus, an adaptation of The Modern Prometheus starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff as Henry and Prometheus is a box-office smash. It would enter the National Film Registry in 1991.
1941: Fleischer Studios' Mr. Bug Goes to Town is a box office success, saving the studio. Today it is one of Disney's biggest competitors, along with Warner Bros.
1951: Fawcett Comics wins a lawsuit over National Comics for the rights to the characters of Captain Marvel and Superman. While National Comics would die in obscurity, Fawcett Comics would be Marvel's biggest competitor.
1962: Marilyn Monroe doesn't die. She goes into hiding in Las Vegas doing revue shows. Discovered by higher ups at NBC, she signs on to The Marilyn Monroe Show, a sketch comedy show that runs until her death in 1999.
1966: Warner Bros.' Twister comes out, becoming the highest grossing film of the year. It would spawn "Tornado-mania", a series of tornado movies made to copy its success. It would enter the National Film Registry in 1996.
1969: Nixon resigns his presidency the become a talk show host. The Dick Nixon show airs until 1983.
Make America Great Again - written and directed by Mel Brooks - is released. The film stars Ronald Reagan as himself as he decides to run for President after becoming a washed up movie star - promising to “Make America Great Again”. Wacky shenanigans ensue, including President Reagan trying to build a massive wall on the Southern border to stop Soviet influence, claiming that “both sides have very fine people” in regards to the Civil Rights Movement, and him accidentally starting a cult about how hippies are secretly stooges of a global satanic cult run by the elites.
The film is a critical and commercial success and becomes one of the greatest and funniest comedies of all time. It enters the National Film Registry in 1999.
The Dick Cavett Show airs on ABC, becoming the main competitor to NBC's Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. It would end in 1996 to make way for its new replacement The Jon Stewart Show.
Creedence Clearwater Revival release a song about the Civil Rights Movement called Fortunate Son. It becomes their signature song. It enters the National Recording Registry in 2013.
1974: Star Trek: The Continuing Mission, a revival of the original 60s series, airs in syndication until 1981.
1974-1979: Michael John Kricfalusi becomes an anti-Rhodesian mercenary during the Rhodesian Bush War. He becomes a POW by forces from Apartheid South Africa. As a result, he is physically and mentally scarred.
1979: Ozzy Osbourne goes into rehab and continues to play for Black Sabbath, leading to them getting a Beatles-like Renaissance in the 80s, making Heavy Metal one of the 80s most notable music genres.
1980-1981: From February 1980 to August 1981, John Kricfalusi would heal his mental wounds at a mental institution.
1982: John Kricfalusi founds Spümcø, an animation studio that was founded due to John's perceived views on how Hanna-Barbera and Rankin/Bass, two studios he worked at, failed to make good cartoons.
1983: E.T. for the Atari proves to be a very good game, making millions for Atari. This would inspire them to improve their games on their future consoles such as the 5200 and 7800, leading them to become a fierce competitior in the gaming market. The last Atari console came out in the early 2000s.
You Nutzy Rascals!, a short made by John K., is the first to feature prototype designs of Ren and Stimpy.
1985: The War of the Worlds, a film made in collaboration with Disney and Jeff Wayne, based on his musical album adapting the H.G. Wells story, hits theaters. It is a critical and commercial success, cited for starting the Disney Renaissance. Disney and Jeff Wayne would collaborate two more times, making animated adaptations of The Modern Prometheus (1988) and The Time Machine (1992). It would enter the National Film Registry in 2022.
Warner Communications buys Warner Amex-Satellite Entertainment to make Warner MTV Networks.
1986: Ravel's Bolero becomes the theme to The Legend of Zelda. It would later serve to be the theme for the Zelda games in Japan, with a different theme for NTSC releases.
Cliff Burton survives a car crash and continues to play bass for Metallica, helping put thrash metal on the mainstream map.
1987: Morrissey and Johnny Marr become frenemies. The Smiths continue into the 1990s.
1988: During production of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Harrison Ford is shot and killed by a loaded prop gun. This would lead to it being hastily recut in time for 1989. It would lead to a heavy burden on Lucasfilm. The documentary Ford - Spielberg's Right Hand Man would be released in 2008 to great success.
1989: Doctor Who is saved from cancellation by BBC. It remains one of the longest running TV shows.
Sergio Leone dies of old age. He is remembered for his westerns as well as Don Quixote, The Phantom, and Leningrad: The 900 Days.
1990: John K. creates Big House Blues, the pilot for The Ren & Stimpy Show, which is picked up by Nickelodeon.
1991: Eddie Vedder dies in a car crash before the first Pearl Jam album is released. They find a new lead in Chris Cornell, who also sings for Soundgarden until their demise in 1997.
Ren & Stimpy airs on Nickelodeon, along with Doug, Rugrats, Tiny Toon Adventures, Taz-Mania (both this show and TTA would later air in syndication) and Big Beast Quintet (cancelled in 1993). It is currently the longest running American animated series, beating out Matt Groening's The Simpsons, who cancelled the show in 1998 in favor of working on the long-running Futurama which still airs today.
Tim Burton is attached to direct an adaptation of The Addams Family TV show as a movie. It would later spawn three sequels, with Tim leaving after the second movie. The latter two would be critically panned.
1992: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace comes out, becoming the highest grossing film of the year. Episodes II and III would later come out in 1995 and 1998 respectively.
J.R.R. Tolkien dies at 100, finishing The New Shadow and The Silmarillion. He was also known for being war minister of the UK from 1940 to 1945.
Stephen Hillenburg is invited to work on Ren & Stimpy after showing his short film Wormholes at the TIFF.
Cartoon Network begins after Ted Turner merges with Viacom in 1986 and buys the Hanna-Barbera library in 1991.
1993: Spielberg quits directing after doing Schindler's List. This not only cancels plans for a Jurassic Park sequel, but also an adaptation of Supertoys Last All Summer Long.
1994: During filming of The Crow, Brandon Lee survives a shot from a prop gun. He would propel into superstardom. He is now known for playing Neo in The Matrix franchise and Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat (1995).
Kurt Cobain announces the breakup of Nirvana as he goes into rehab. In 2002, the band reunited for You Know You're Right, an album that became a top seller. They still perform to this day.
1995: YouTube, a video sharing site, is released. It would not gain much popularity until 2001, where an influx of YouTubers would bring it to stardom.
Toy Story, a stop motion film, gains critical acclaim due to its incredible scale, becoming the 2nd highest grossing film of the year.
Sarah Michelle Gellar dies in a kayaking incident days before the release of her only film Clueless. This would cause Clueless to become the highest grossing film of the year and become known as one of the best teen films. It enters the National Film Registry in 2005. Bad Boys, a film released the same day as Clueless, would become the 6th highest grossing film of the year despite mixed reviews.
Spotify, a humble music downloading site, releases. In 1997, it would change into a music streaming site, and would often show ads for the latest in music.
Selena Quintalla survives being shot. Jennifer Lopez wanes in popularity.
1996: The Nintendo 64DD comes out in a partnership with Phillips, revolutionising the console industry by introducing CD memory, rising it above the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. One of the top best selling games would be Super Mario 64 2, the sequel to Super Mario 64. The 64DD would serve as motivation for Sega to complete Sonic X-Treme by 1997, which becomes a huge hit. This would give Sega the boost it needed to continue making consoles. Other Mario games made for the 64DD include Mario Takes America and Super Mario's Wacky Worlds.
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which had been under a state similar to the Atari 2600, releases its last two games: Super Mario Legends, a game similar in style to the Mario Land games released by Nintendo R&D1, which becomes a minor hit and Animaniacs, a port of Konami's Game Boy game which got mixed reviews.
Tupac survives being shot while having a drive in Las Vegas. He still has a rap career.
Ren & Stimpy Go To Hollywood, a film released by Warner Bros., becomes the highest grossing animated film of the year, making over $600M. It has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This film would also have one of Ronald Reagan's last acting roles.
NDR Filmes' Cassiopeia gets fame for being the first completely computer-animated film. It gets an English dub for a worldwide release. It enters the National Film Registry in 2006.
After his work on Ren & Stimpy, Stephen Hillenburg pitches his own show to Nickelodeon about a sea sponge.
Rapper and music producer Andre "Dr. Dre" Young is shot and killed by a vengefully spiteful Suge Knight in a drive-by shooting, since Young left Death Row Records after accusing Knight of corruption the month prior. His death leads to tributes from fans and colleagues alike, and his first album The Chronic is praised for being influential. Tupac Shakur, in addition to being a rapper, assumes Dr. Dre's role as a music producer out of respect for his newly deceased friend. After Suge Knight is arrested and imprisoned for life due to murdering Young, Shakur takes over Death Row Records. The Chronic enters the National Recording Registry in 2019.
1997: Reddit, a news and discussion board, is released. It becomes very, very popular.
The Notorious B.I.G. survives a shooting like his friend and collaborator Tupac, and he continues to make music.
Aspiring rapper Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs is killed in a gang shootout in Los Angeles, California; however, right-wing news network Fox News reports the shootout as having happened in New York City, New York (which is untrue). This leads to rapper Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace recording a single dedicated to Combs called "I'll Be Missing You" (which heavily samples "Every Breath You Take" by The Police) which was included as a bonus track on No Way Out, Combs' first and only debut album released posthumously on July 22, 1997. The album became influential in the years since Combs' death, proving that, even in death, one can still have a rap career and be influential. No Way Out would enter the National Recording Registry in 2007.
1998: Neon Genesis Evangelion is unknowingly localized by 4Kids, leading to a HEAVILY censored English dub that makes the show popular during the late 90s-early 00s.
Chris Farley wakes from a coma due to a drug overdose. After deciding to give the role of Shrek to Mike Myers his friend, he gets the role of Doug Heffernan on The King of Queens.
1999: Stephen Hillenburg's SpongeBob SquarePants airs on Nickelodeon. Although it is a hit at first, work complications, problems outsourcing animation to the studio Gainax, and the banned episode Wrasslin' Maniacs where SpongeBob and Patrick beat up Squidward, Hillenburg is fired from the show in 2002.
Tommy Boy's Return, the sequel to Tommy Boy, releases in theaters. It is considered a cult classic today.
2000: Battlefield Earth is released in theaters to be a huge success, ending up the 8th highest grossing film of the year. This would cause an interest in works by L. Ron Hubbard, making the Church of Scientology a rising religion. Battlefield Earth 2 would later release in 2003 to similar acclaim.
4Kids is bought by Warner Communications. As a result, more anime airs on Kids WB.
The Atari Cougar, Atari's final console before being bought by Jakks Pacific in 2002, is released. It is a cult classic console.
Tim Burton's Wizard of Oz gains mixed to positive reviews, and makes the top 10 list of highest grossing films of the year.
2001: Grand Theft Auto III, the third entry in the GTA series is cancelled following 9/11. The game would later redevelop into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which was released in 2004.
Spy Kids, Quentin Tarantino's first kids' film is released in theaters to mixed reviews, but becomes a cult classic. Two more sequels were released in the two years after it, all would get the same fate.
During 9/11, Kevin James dies after being squished by falling debris from the North Tower.
2002: Netflix, the world's first ever online streaming service for film and TV, launches. They release their first Netflix Original - an epic drama gangster film called American Gangster starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott - five years later on November 2, 2007, after buying the distribution rights from Universal Pictures (who were set to be the original proprietors). All of their films and series are also given DVD and/or Blu-ray releases, courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, who owns the home media rights to Netflix Original films/series etc.
2003: Call of Duty, a war shooter game, sells 200,000 copies, making for poor sales. No sequels are planned. The Battlefield series gains from this.
Star Trek: The Original Generation, a Star Trek prequel series, airs for two seasons on Fox before cancellation.
Sony launches the American feed of 24-hour anime channel Animax, which overtakes Adult Swim's Toonami in popularity.
Sylvester Stallone becomes Governor of California until 2011.
TIME names Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as Person of the Year due to being "One of the great dictators of the modern age".
2004: Fallout 3 releases on Windows to high ratings, saving Interplay from bankruptcy. They would later release 2 console games, Fallout 4 and Fallout 5. Many spinoff games would be made.
Hillenburg's company United Plankton Pictures makes the Newgrounds webseries The Motherfucking Patchy the Pirate Show, focusing on the misadventures of Patchy the Pirate.
2005: Minecraft, a web browser game is released by Mojang with the help of a team that planned a game known as Terraria, where it would be very successful until 2009, when a 3D version for Java was released. It is currently owned by Microsoft, who still makes updates for it.
SpongeBob SquarePants is quietly cancelled due to declining ratings.
FOX airs The Office, an American adaptation of the British mockumentary series of the same name, airing until 2013 for nine seasons. It becomes one of the most memorable sitcoms of all time, winning several Emmys. Mr. Blue Sky becomes the theme song.
2006: Warner Communications contacts Hillenburg for an adult-only SpongeBob reboot.
Night at the Museum is released to mixed reviews as it becomes a box-office bomb. With plans for a sequel dead in the water, Fox sells the rights to Sony in 2007 who plans to reboot the series, but also keep the distribution rights for the original film.
Blockbuster buys Netflix, moving the website to Blockbuster.com, and naming it Blockbuster Online. After all of its stores were closed, it becomes Blockbuster+.
2007: Kanye West dies in a car crash before his album Graduation releases, causing him to be mourned. This would lead to many people buying the album, creating a short-lived rap revival that would temporarily mark the end of gangsta rap until 2010.
Owen Wilson commits suicide. In discussions about the "Frat Pack", he is replaced by Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. Drillbit Taylor and Tropic Thunder are both dedicated to his memory. Plans for a sequel to Cars are cancelled by Pixar and Disney.
2007-2011: Identically similar to events in our world, screenwriter Simon Monjack and actress and "Clueless" sensation Brittany Murphy (who still starred in this alternate reality's version of the 1995 film "Clueless", but here she instead co-stars with rising co-stars Sarah Michelle Gellar playing Cher, and Regina Hall playing Dionne) are about to marry back in May 2007, but Murphy calls the marriage to Monjack off at the exact same wedding. This causes a scandal that briefly kills her good reputation, and gets her blacklisted in Hollywood (for a while). In this alternate history, Simon Monjack is put in prison for attempting murder on Brittany Murphy, but here, is killed by a crazed cellmate whilst serving time (said crazed cellmate also happens to be a fan of Brittany Murphy). Brittany Murphy then moves to an apartment complex in New York in 2008, ditching Hollywood for good and starting a musical career.
Natalie Portman, a fairly successful but struggling rising young TV actress, is having a hard time finding work in Hollywood due to the failure of the Star Trek prequel television series Star Trek: The Original Generation. She co-starred in the series alongside Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, and Samuel L. Jackson. While the then 56-57 year old Jackson at least got to have a successful career in Hollywood (due to being a Christopher Nolan regular), Christensen and McGregor were rejected by the industry; Christensen started an indie rock band while McGregor then went on to become a successful UFC fighter, but would then become very scandalous as he suffers from numerous arrests and an intense drug addiction. McGregor would then unfortunately die young from a drug overdose on December 7, 2008. Going back to Portman, she would become an indie darling in independent cinema, however her career would be cut short when she would die in a car crash on July 19, 2009, just one month and ten days after her 28th birthday. She was last seen in a DTV thriller called "Abandoned", which released in March 2010. Her death leads to tributes from co-stars and fans alike.
In December 2009, Brittany Murphy is then offered the lead role in Darren Aronofsky's upcoming psychological horror film "Black Swan", about a troubled ballerina. The film would co-star Melanie Lynskey as the troubled ballerina's rival, and like in our world, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey, and Vincent Cassel. The film released in December 2010 (like in our world), to rave reviews, with critics calling it Brittany Murphy's finest appearance yet. Murphy would then take home the Best Actress Oscar as well as the Best Dramatic Performance in a Movie Golden Globe for her performance in the film in 2011. Murphy would then continue her acting career following a big career boost, as well as her singing/musical career at the same time. In fact, she releases a fairly successful debut album in March 2011 simply called "Brittany", to positive reviews. It would then become the best selling musical album of the year, even winning her a Grammy in 2012.
2008: Bulletman, the highest grossing film of the year, marks the beginning of the successful Fawcett Cinematic Universe (FCU). It would enter the National Film Registry in 2020.
During the premiere of Tropic Thunder, Tom Cruise announces his retirement from entertainment and Scientology. He spends the rest of his life quietly as a Buddhist in England. As Dwayne Johnson takes Tom's place, Paramount announces plans to reboot the Mission: Impossible franchise (though nothing comes from it).
SpongeBob XXX, an adult SpongeBob reboot, airs on AMC alongside Breaking Bad. SpongeBob XXX would be universally panned, airing only 3 episodes out of a made 6 (all were later put on DVD). It is known for being one of the worst animated series of all time.
Iron Age, a film fully funded by UNESCO, is made as the first film of an IRL cinematic universe. It gets nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, like every film in the IRLCU after it.
2009: Adventure Time, a cartoon by Pendleton Ward, airs on Nickelodeon. It becomes one of Nickelodeon's highest-rated cartoons, airing until 2016. Many people would call it an animation trailblazer, leading to Nick approving more "lore-based" shows.
Half-Life 3 comes out, and continues the high ratings of the Half-Life franchise, making games well until 2017 (counting spinoffs).
Some people would compare it to Regular Show, who they saw as Cartoon Network's equivalent to Adventure Time.
Discord, a discussion site, is released, becoming popular with gamers.
Liam Gallagher has a near-fatal drug overdose after the breakup of Oasis. Finding peace with his brother, Oasis reunites in 2012, releasing a new album in 2015. They still perform.
Amy Winhouse retires after a heavy intervention. She still occasionally produces for Adele.
2011: Fortnite Battle Royale by Epic Games is released to the public. It becomes extremely popular, and is still played today.
2012: Pixar's Newt, a film that came due to the cancellation of Wreck-It Ralph (some claim due to the problems of getting permission from game companies) is released and barely breaks even. It would start a dark age for Pixar, which would continue with Brave and Cars 2.
It would also play a key part in George Lucas refusing to give away Lucasfilm, due to Disney's perceived slump.
After Hillenburg's company dissolves, he becomes the cartoon reviewer Stevey Shark for Channel Awesome.
Jim Carrey dies of a heart attack.
2013: Doug Walker leaves Channel Awesome, leaving Stevey Shark to be the new star. Markiplier, MrEnter, and MatPat would later join Channel Awesome among others.
The Freedom Tower is made to replace the original North Tower destroyed in the attack. Memes would arise from the comparison between the towers.
2014: A Day With Patchy the Pirate, a half-hour short made by Hillenburg, airs on YouTube as Channel Awesome's first foray into animation. It has a troubled production due to being funded online, and would be panned upon release.
Robin Williams survives a suicide attempt, and launches his own suicide prevention program. He would then star in the 2016 drama Uncut Gems by Christopher Nolan, playing crime lord Howard Ratner, giving him a Best Actor Oscar.
2015: Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens, featuring Darth Maul and Darth Talon as antagonists, is released, becoming the highest grossing film of the year. Two more sequels were made in 2017 and 2019.
2016: John K. dies from multiple scolerosis. Bob Camp takes over as showrunner of Ren and Stimpy.
2017: Growing Around, a new YouTube webseries made by Stephen Hillenburg & Johnathan Rozanski, about a world where grown-ups switch with kids, is released. Despite gaining positive reviews, both the downfall of Channel Awesome and Hillenburg & Rozanski's heinous acts would result in Markiplier buying the license, airing it on his webseries Unus Annus for one last season, ending in 2020.
Chester Bennington survives his suicide attempt. Linkin Park would make its newest album in December of 2020.
2018: Donald Trump starts The Trump Experience, a very popular podcast.
2019: Season 3 of Gravity Falls comes out to near-universal acclaim.
2020: Chadwick Boseman recovers from his cancer.
2022: Jordan Peele's Nope becomes the highest grossing film of the year. It enters the National Film Registry in 2033.
Presidents of the USA since 1977:
Jimmy Carter (1977-1985)
Walter Mondale (1985-1989)
George H.W. Bush (1989-1993)
Mario Cuomo (1993-2001)
John F. Kennedy Jr. (2001-2005)
John McCain (2005-2013)
Barack Obama (2013-2021)
Jeb Bush (2021-today)
Governors of California since 1947:
James Roosevelt (1947-1953) Resigned) Democrat
Pat Brown (1953-1963) Democrat
Richard Nixon (1963-1969) Republican
Edwin Reineck (1969-1974) Resigned) Republican
John L Harner (1974-1975) Republican
Tom Hayden (1975-1983) Democrat
Tom Bradley (1983-1991) Democrat
Clint Eastwood (1991-2003) Independent
Sylvester Stallone (2003-2011) Republican
Conan O'Brien (2011-2019) Democrat
Gavin Newsom (2019-Today) Democrat

LPL Summer Power Rankings
Just one person’s opinion. WE diehard so I’ve seen more or less all of their games, but I’ll catch other games here and there. Did a lot of Oracle’s Elixir and Leaguepedia digging as well and followed/consulted @DJJohnnymeister on twitter (must follow IMHO if you care at all about the up and comers of the LDL) for thoughts on lower-level prospects. Will probably make me look stupid when it’s all said and done, but that’s part of the fun right?
Top Contenders
1) JDG
Top – 369
Jungle – Kanavi
Mid – Knight/lzq
ADC – Ruler
Support – Missing
Was the best team on paper last split and lived up to the hype. Coming off of a dominant MSI championship run, they are the slam dunk pick to top not just the LPL power rankings, but the World power rankings.
369 is perhaps the best he’s ever been, easily 1st team All Pro. Kanavi has re-established himself as the best jungler in the world at MSI. Knight’s mechanical talent finally shone through on the international stage. Lzq is an 18-year-old who somehow skipped the LDL altogether and isn’t really relevant to the narrative, but he's on the official roster so I have to mention him. Ruler inserted his name in the GOAT conversation and proved his mettle out of the Samsung/GenG sphere, doing his thing of blending solid damage output with consistent safety. When Missing is the worst player on the team by default and yet still the Spring 2nd All Pro Team support you’re in golden shape.
They get a sentence each because I shouldn’t need to tell you about this team. They’re really just complete without any exploitable holes. Adding Knight and Ruler to China’s best squad in 2022 feels similar to the off-season where the Golden State Warriors added Kevin Durant, with the added bonus that Boogie Cousins is still in his prime. I suppose that makes Yagao into Pro LOL’s Harrison Barnes (I actually like this comparison, down to Yagao receiving blame for the blowing it when it mattered most) and GenG into Pro LOL’s Sacramento Kings (pretty bad, but if we equate the playoffs to making world finals?… ehh still really bad). We’ll see who (if anyone) can rise up to challenge them, but at this point they have to be considered the odds-on favorite.
2) LNG
Top – Zika
Jungle – Tarzan
Mid – Scout
ADC – GALA
Support – Hang
This team had one hole in the roster going into the summer and filled it. LP didn’t have a bad rookie split and showed mettle but he was clearly the odd man out on a team built to compete today. After looking at IG’s ADC Ahn, they chose to spare no expense and traded LP and a boat load of cash for RNG’s GALA who more than fills that hole. GALA will be paired in the bottom lane with Hang, who was a key partner for LP’s surprisingly competent debut, earning an All-LPL 3rd team shoutout in the process.
Scout meanwhile had a downright incredible split that fell by the wayside due to LNG’s immediate playoff exit at the hands of OMG, but it appears that even away from the EDG machine, he’s still one of the LPL’s premier stars at a very competitive position. I mean he put up a mind numbing 17 MVPs individually. To put it in perspective, ThunderTalk Gaming, who were the 8 seed in the LPL Spring Standings, had 18 wins in total. With teams like EDG and JDG sharing the MVP load among their members, Scout downright ran away with it.
Zika didn’t have a super flashy split, but was low key very strong. The team devoted a lot to making sure LP wasn’t exploited and you would think Zika, who was heavily strong-side suited as a rookie on IG last year, would flounder because of it. However, he quietly flourished in the role, even though he only picked up a single MVP performance all season. Putting up strong CS numbers and showing some good weakside ability on top of his typical array of more damage centric tops. Honestly, he might be the most underrated player in the league since he’s overshadowed by his much more resource heavy teammates, but that weakside ability might be even more key with GALA joining the team and needing the resources as well.
Tarzan meanwhile continued as a standout in the regular season, best jungler KDA, strong kill participation basically the rest of the regular season MVP performances, but was perhaps the primary factor in their playoff disappointment. Similar to JDG’s situation with Missing though, when Tarzan (specifically in the playoffs) is the team’s biggest concern, you know you have a roster ready to compete.
3) EDG
Top – Ale
Jungle – Jiejie/Monki
Mid – Fofo/Fisher
ADC – Leave
Support – Meiko
Despite losing their key Korean carries, EDG barely missed a beat last split, finishing 3rd in the Spring Split. It’s a pretty good result all things considered, but it does feel like they have holes in their game. Still, I think that between their core veterans still at the peak of their game and the overall consistency, they are in very good shape for the Worlds slots, even if they feel a step behind the likes of JDG right now.
Even without Scout and Viper, they still have a great veteran core that starts with Meiko, who with Ming’s absence/retirement(?) stands alone as only active LPL’s all-time top 10 support. As part of the EDG core for over 9 years now, and the team’s primary shot caller for a huge part of that span, his presence alone means that EDG will have one of the best macro games in the league. Combo that with Jiejie, who has served in the EDG system for a huge period of time and grown into a top level jungler in his midst of his prime and you immediately have a team that has championship aspirations even before the other 3 members are considered, as both players were 1st Team All Pro for the Spring Split.
The 3 other members were where a lot of the concern lied going into the season, but they exceeded expectations as EDG was the number 2 seed going into playoffs. While the least talked about of the three, it was a great bounce back split for FoFo who was one of the most disappointing players on 2022’s most disappointing team BLG, eventually losing his starting job to mid-season acquisition Icon. On EDG though, he looked revitalized and fairly close to his form on RA 2021, though admittedly he was flanked by better players with EDG. It was a commendable, low drama, stable split for a player who needed it bad.
Similar to FoFo, Ale was coming off of a rough 2021 as well where a talented by troubled LNG team didn’t completely flop by the results, but completely missed the high expectations set. This included a benching for PandaC halfway through the split that really hurt the team in key series down the stretch amid talk about attitude issues. He’s always been a talented pair of hands though and EDG did well to keep him focused and on his game, as he stepped up big time, particularly when given non-tank champions while piloting tanks well enough, earning 2nd team All Pro honors. Obviously, Ale isn’t always the most stable player, but so long as EDG has him on the straight and narrow, he’s going to be a net positive for the team.
Finally, we come to the rookie of the split Leave, who came in with some serious LDL hype and lived up to it for the most part, working well as EDG’s damage carry and showing a flashy mechanics style. Being flanked with the likes of Meiko helps of course, but EDG handed the reigns to Leave and he seemed up to the task. Unfortunately, going up against the likes of Ruler and Elk in the playoffs did prove to be that freshman wall for Leave, but as MSI showed they’ve been folding everyone, so it’s not too shameful. Still as the least experienced player in this top 4 group, it’s going to be a lot of pressure on the youngster. It’s crazy that this super mechanically skilled star of his rookie class could be the weakness of the team, but that’s just the level of the competition among the top teams of this league.
I do want to give brief mention to EDG’s substitute players, who are both very talented youngsters. Monki is a 19-year-old LDL promote jungler who was strong at the lower level and warranted a promotion. Fisher meanwhile had been a standout Korean trainee from Shadow Corp (the same team they picked up About, the new Korean bot lane trainee Ale was talking about) and directly went onto the EDG main roster at 18 years old. Neither will likely see play given this team’s veteran tilt and the championship ambitions, but they’re worth keeping an eye out for down the road whether they’re future EDG starters or purchases for other LPL teams.
4) BLG
Top – Bin
Jungle – XUN
Mid – Yagao
ADC – Elk/Baiye
Support – ON
Given BLG’s penchant for big expenses for early playoff exits, it would be easy to write off their latest roster as yet another flailing attempt to microwave a team into stardom, turning over basically the entire 2022 roster they reportedly spent top dollar for. And yet, it felt different this time around. While the players they picked up weren’t exactly household names, they were talented mechanical players on the rise. They looked genuinely strong in the pre-season tournaments, which admittedly doesn’t count a whole ton, but was interesting to note. And when it was all said and done, it resulted in the best split BLG has ever put up. And while they couldn’t outgun the JDG machine in any of the many shots, it was a great season. While I have them below LNG for their sheer top to bottom power and EDG out of respect for their veteran track record, I’m still very impressed by this BLG squad.
Bin, as somehow the longest tenured BLG member of 2 splits, was the face of the team’s turnaround, and a far cry better from the rocky 2022 he endured swapping between 2 dysfunctional teams. 2023 was where he re-established himself as the premier mechanical top in the league. Always known for his excellent hands since his debut on Suning in 2020, he was able to back up those skills this split, while furthering his profile in the west with his fun trashtalk and gigachad persona. Furthermore, when the chips were down at MSI, he even showed a willingness to pick up tanks, which has always been the clear hole in his game.
As for the free agent additions, the one who most established himself was Elk. If I can put on my hipster hat on, I was an Elk fan before it was cool, given he’s always shown an ability to put up eyepopping damage numbers since his debut which continued this season as he topped the tables far and away leading the league with the number 1 DPM and damage share. However, it was the finer points of the game where Elk struggled on back in the day. Off positioning, hit or miss laning, occasional overextensions trying to maximize damage were all issues for Elk on WE. On this BLG squad though, that has largely ironed itself out, with only occasional blowup performances every so often. An unknown on the World stage going into MSI, everyone now knows the name of this fearsome player. They also added a name that nobody knows, that being Baiye an LDL ADC to the main roster as well. Having just debuted on BLG.J last split and playing all of 7 games in the LDL, it’s tough to take this promotion seriously at all, let alone as a threat to Elk’s seat.
A major part of supporting Elk’s rise was the acquisition of the best young support in the LPL, ON. One of the big pain points of LPL teams is that LDL promotions are just so difficult, and none so more than support, where the talent pool is shallow and the transition is just an absolute killer. So many of the highest profile LDL supports have floundered on promotion, and ON was no exception on Suning back in 2021. That being said, he’s improved an incredible amount since that first rocky season, and the mechanical ability he has as a support and his young age (only 20 years old despite debuting in 2021) makes him perhaps the most valuable long-term asset on the BLG roster. As EDG has shown with Meiko and his cavalcade of ADC pairings, great ADCs can be acquired in the LPL but great supports when kept are backbones to long term success.
XUN was an acquisition much like Elk and ON, a young mechanical standout who BLG scooped up with projection in mind. He arrived into IG in 2021 as a highly touted rookie, and was mentioned alongside the likes of Bo and Xiaohuangren, the 2 super prospects junglers as the next generation. He joined right at the tail end of the Rookie-TheShy era of the team and while he had early struggles then, by the time the next season rolled around, he was IG’s standout player. Even after arriving at BLG, he’s still a very volatile player, and hasn’t solidified his play the way Elk and ON have, but at his best, he’s capable of getting bot rolling, which is exactly what BLG is want to do.
Finally, the Harrison Barnes of the LPL, Yagao, who was the typical blame target for BLG in their losses. It’s true, he’s older and certainly doesn’t match up great against the top of the table mids that he’ll need to beat, but the bottom line is that for the most part he’s fine enough. Just like Barnes, he’s certainly not the team centerpiece, and he occasionally has baffling performances, but he’s usually stable enough to not get in the way. Honestly, he’s probably the weakest individual player among these top 4 teams and the predominant reason (along with coinflippy XUN) that I have the MSI runners up 4th on this list, but to be clear I’m not huge Yagao hater, it’s just that these top teams are so stacked that every potential available weakness makes a difference. I mean, you don’t see Harrison Barnes on the All-NBA teams or anything.
Playoff Expectations
5) OMG
Top – Shanji
Jungle – Aki
Mid – Creme
ADC – Able
Support – PPGod/Jerry
OMG returns with the roster that brought them to their highest playoff finish since Spring 2017 (!!!), finishing a highly impressive 4th in the split. On paper, I still think their roster is lacking in marquee raw talent, but it’s clear at this point that they’re more coordinated than some of their flashier opposition and that they’ve cultivated 2 young stars that have now shown some serious killer instinct.
Without any doubt, this is a team that is defined by the play of their solo lane talents. Starting from the top Shanji had a standout split primarily as one of the most effective K’Sante/Sion tank players the large majority of the time, but occasionally busts out Kennen and his signature Rumble, and been incredibly impactful when he gets them. Furthermore, this synergizes perfectly with OMG’s other star laner Creme, who is afforded the ability to fit AD assassins like Yone. Assassins have continued to be Creme’s calling card and while his control mage play is lackluster, OMG has tailored their gameplans around his champion pool and have reaped the benefits of the young mid laner.
On top of these two really clicking simultaneously, a big hat tip must be given to their teammates as well. PPGod in particular proved to be the right ingredient to bring OMG playoff glory as he continues his ability to accent teams into playoff threats even if he hasn’t been quite been able to reach the Finals at any of his stops. I’ll give him some additional props once we reach the NIP write up. Given PPGod’s late arrival to the team last spring, LDL promotion Jerry sat on the bench for the season, and looks to do so again. Able meanwhile has a pretty non-descript year, taking a back seat to his solo lane teammates but showing some stability that he’s usually lacked. Certainly not a masterful split, but credit where it’s due, he reigned it in and was steady for OMG’s best squad in ages.
Finally, Aki deserves a big hand for his role in OMG’s success as well. A solid vet who isn’t considered a mechanical master by any means, he was steady at the wheel throughout the season, and was even able to out jungle Tarzan of all people in their shock upset win over LNG. Despite taking the most MVPs for OMG in the regular season, it was rarely for single handed domination and I’d point that more as a credit for his facilitation of the team’s coordination in general where they were able to get over the competition where it counted.
I don’t think this team has the ceiling of the others in this tier, but they have a known formula that works. While the others in this group have more talent on an individual level, it’s clear that they have serious questions to sort out that OMG really doesn’t, so I’m considering OMG the safe team in this particular group, but without the upside to challenge the tier above.
6) WBG
Top – TheShy
Jungle – Karsa/Weiwei
Mid – Xiaohu
ADC – Light
Support – Crisp
This team and the one after it were the teams with close to the highest expectations in the League and yet fell flat in spite of talented rosters. Both have largely decided to run it back, with new coaching staffs in an attempt to fix the tactical side where they came short. WBG went big game hunting for their next coach after sacking Easyhoon and was attempting to court Kkoma before he opted to focus on Korea’s efforts at the World Games. They settled for an Kkoma adjacent coach in Daeny, formerly part of the Damwon and T1 programs. A controversial coach in his own right, he’s drew criticism for his pick/bans and his questionable roster decisions, but he still has that Worlds title under his belt, so WBG is out here shooting for the moon. Born to wintrade or whatever.
TheShy is as always, a pretty good representation of the team. Perpetually on top of the damage charts due to his confidence in his mechanics and his propensity to fight constantly, it leads to the coinflippy hit or miss results you so often see from TheShy and his teams in general. He’s certainly not at his peak form where he dominated on the Worlds stage, but he’s not at his worst either near the end of his IG tenure when that whole team looked out of gas, TheShy is an LPL icon, even if that icon is occasionally the death notification on the side of the UI.
Purchasing Xiaohu out of his RNG contract was one of the big stories for this team going into the off season and a large reason for optimism for their future results. In actually he was rather middling by all accounts. Not a total disaster of course, it felt like he was fine for the most part, but not the immediate plug and play mechanical players that Scout, Knight or Rookie serve as. Maybe a second season to mesh is what they need to comeback.
Light for my money was the most dependable member of the team in the regular season, being just a generally stable force in the otherwise chaotic team structure. I wouldn’t call him the best at any individual thing: Ruler is a much safer ADC and Elk is a better pure damage pump, but light is good enough at both of those things to be a consistent plus for WBG, which can’t be said for the rest of the team. Supported by the veteran Crisp, you have to expect them to anchor the team in general, though Crisp was particularly bad in the playoff series against BLG, where his hooks on both Thresh and Naut were off point. It’s just one series of course, but the play needs to be better than that in crunch time next time.
Finally, the jungle situation for Weibo. Karsa continues to be the perpetual punching bag when the team struggles. It’s been a major decline since his Flash Wolves and early RNG days and frankly it might be time to just bucket him as not able to get it done at the highest level at this point. He can still work enough in the regular season to make the playoffs, but the form is just not where it needs to be at this point. In a fascinating move, scooped up Weiwei, who went from BLG’s star jungler to league washout over the course of a single year. The biggest victim of BLG’s 2022 catastrophe, the last look of Weiwei we got was not a flattering one as the team fell flat on it’s face amid roster instability and play not matching up to the expected standard. Still, we’ve seen a number of comebacks for players leaving the BLG ecosystem, such as PPGod and FoFo returning to form after splitting wit the team. Of course it’s not always a winning formula as Doggo and Biubiu (shudder) can attest to, but there’s enough of a strong track record from Weiwei during 2020 V5 and 2021 BLG to say that trying to get that level out of him is worth the attempt.
7) TES
Top – Wayward/Qingtian
Jungle – Tian
Mid – Rookie
ADC – Jackeylove
Support – Mark
Reuniting 2/5ths of the legendary IG core was supposed to lead TES to their Worlds destiny. Yet going into the Summer split they are another team running it back with the exact same roster, though unlike teams like JDG, BLG or OMG, the Spring split was an unmitigated failure for TES. There was not glory, but a collapse down the stretch of the season and shameful defeat at the hands of OMG, a team that is probably running a budget less than Jackeylove’s individual paycheck (note: The previous statement was hyperbole. I do not actually know how much OMG pays their players.) With some of the flashiest names in the LPL, finishing without at least challenging JDG would have been a disappointment, let alone the 7th/8th that they actually managed.
The big obvious question for this team is what exactly they do with the top lane because the decision making around it was seemed heavily stilted. They chose to run Qingtian basically the entire regular season, and then yanked the rug on him with a single series to go? Sure, he was largely a hit or miss top laner who was missing against the better teams (and LGD’s because rookie Xiaoxu was feeling it) but pulling the plug on him and swapping to Wayward literally at the last second heavily sabotaged both of them. Congratulations, Wayward crushed Biubiu in round 1 of playoffs, like basically everyone else who played top lane in the LPL. Up against Shanji (a player TES bypassed as a rookie to pick up Qingtian), Wayward was not up to it, and it was a big part of what ended their season. Even though both top laners are limited, I find it hard to place the blame on them directly given this awkward setup and how they approach top lane in the Summer with both players still on the roster remains to be seen.
The bot lane continues to be the same story as always. Jackeylove is still super high ceiling but there are still sometimes these baffling efforts where he’s playing off of his game, which has been a repeating trend for a while now. Mark did well to stabilize him at the beginning of their shared tenure but it’s been rough going as of late for this bot lane in general.
Moving to the big free agent swap they made, adding the legendary Rookie to the team, and it wasn’t all bad. It’s not like he was an abject disaster, he had his share of good games, such as dominating against Shanks in the first round of the playoffs, it’s just that there were too many series where he didn’t lift the team when things weren’t clicking elsewhere… like the 2nd round against OMG. It felt like too often he wasn’t meshing with Tian who was also off his normally solid domestic game. People joke that it was his Worlds performance showing up and frankly, I’d have to agree.
I don’t know with this team. The on-paper talent is on there as usual but there’s something missing… Normally with teams, the question is: how can this team coordinate together and be more than the sum of their parts, which OMG showcased best? I don’t get that vibe from TES, where the question I’m asking is: do they feel like playing up to their talent, or are they going to let go of the rope and lose in shocking fashion? Just weird vibes. I’d say maybe the coaching swap could help, but bringing in the guy who was overseeing BLG during their moneybag disappointment era doesn’t fill me with confidence. I still think they still should be fine for the playoffs off of their sheer talent running over enough teams when they do hold it together, but I just don’t see them as a viable challenger for the LPL crown unless something flips in them, particularly given how good the top 4 seem.
Playoff Bubble
8) TT
Top- HOYA
Jungle – Beichuan/xiaohuangren
Mid – Ucal
ADC – Huanfeng/1xn
Support – yuyanjia/Yaoyao
A pleasant surprise last split, making their first LPL playoffs since they were known as Sinodragon, TT has shed their bottom feeder status and actually have some breakout potential. They’ve formed a decent core to build off of and collected some of the most exciting young talents in the league. How they split their starts between the young guns and the vets they played last split is quietly one of the most interesting storylines in the league as those talented swing pieces could push them up into contendership or down out of the playoffs depending on how they handle the LPL stage.
We’ll start with the boring part of the team in their now solidified Korean solo lane pairing, HOYA and Ucal. After spinning solo laners basically their entire existence, the duo has been locked in for basically 4 splits now. Neither blow anyone’s socks off (though I maintain Ucal in particular is pretty underrated), but you know you’re gonna get a playoff worthy performance but not much more. Together they provide the solid foundation for the rest of the roster, where it really gets interesting.
Starting with jungle, Beichuan had effective but flawed split. He output damage well and did much to incite action, but he also died a whole ton, with the highest death share of any jungler in the league last split. This volatility has been his modus operandi this TT squad as he manages to lead TT in MVPs and I’m sure would have also led the team had an “Most Un-valuable Player” award been given to the biggest inter on the losing team, so he’s pretty core to the TT identity as they’re constructed. However, the clearly more intriguing option has to be Xiaohuangren, who is likely the youngest player in the league right now, and the most hyped LDL jungler since Bo. Debuting in LDL at just 16, XHR was immediately one of the best mechanical junglers in the lower level, and even when the age limit was placed, he took to dominating the Korean ladder with multiple accounts in his excess time. Promoted in the middle of the Spring split days after he turned 18, he hasn’t seen a stage since that age limit was placed, but eyes will be watching to see if TT put the hyper-talent on the rift.
Their other young hyper-talent TT acquired is at the ADC position where they are bringing JDG’s LDL bot laner 1xn. Highly touted by LDL experts, 1xn doesn’t have a mechanical flaw to speak of, putting out insane damage and CS numbers on the regular. The one thing to note was that the JDM team surrounding him didn’t have the skills to back him up, so he never really got the accolades his performance deserved. How he splits time with Huanfeng, who was pretty ineffective last season, and just clearly is no longer the do-everything ADC we saw at 2020 Worlds with Suning is the other big question. It’s weird to see him morph into a rather conservative low-risk low-reward player, and honestly, if they gave out a “Least Valuable Player” award to the winning team, he’d probably be the among League’s leaders in that sketchy credential.
Finally, the support situation is less exciting but lowkey just as important as the other 2 positions as they’ve opted to add Yuyanjia to the roster to which I’m fairly confused. A lackluster veteran (25 years old?) who has never really helped a roster even at his “peak”, I’m not sure what he brings to the table for TT. It’s even more confusing since incumbent support Yaoyao has been the rare promoted LDL support who has actually looked good in his initial LPL stint, which is some sort of minor miracle given the typical LDL support struggles. Trying to fit XinLiu in last split probably cost them some series, so I’m not sure why they seem so interested in these mediocre at best support players when they have a solid one in hand.
9) WE
Top – Cube/Demon
Jungle – Heng
Mid – Shanks
ADC – Hope
Support – Iwandy
I see WE as the LPL’s gatekeeper team. Last split they were great against the lower ranked teams (exception AL), and awful against the higher ranked teams (exception BLG) and managed to sneak playoffs thanks to the likes of IG being just a bit more volatile. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about them as the season goes on, so I’ll keep things brief here.
They managed to do this with an essential deadweight in the top lane. Cube doesn’t completely alter the equation for WE, as he’s coming off of his worst split to date where he was largely stuck on tank duty, but he does turns the top lane for WE from being a ceiling capper into a floor raiser for the team. Worst case is that he continues his middling tank form and he serves as a rich man’s Biubiu who can actually lane competently. The best-case scenario is that the change of scenery (where he was on RA for 4 years) works to revitalize him towards more of the damage top lane champs he played in his earlier years. Either way, the best part of this addition is really the subtraction of Biubiu, which adds much needed flexibility to a team that desperately needs it. Meanwhile, Demon also augments the team’s flexibility by adding his skills of doing promotional videos when Chinese New Year rolls around. So yeah, you can say this is a much-improved top lane situation.
Otherwise, the team remains the same as their gatekeeper-selves. Iwandy quietly had a very solid season as WE’s most consistent player and a foundation as a support. Hope had a mid-season swoon that showed his deficiencies particular as a laner and on less focused champions, but was able to showcase his carrying skills as the season concluded. Both are what they are: usually net positives for a team, but not really able to take you to a top 6 seed independently. That is going to have to come from their teammates, speaking of which…
Heng was up and down as a rookie jungler, but for the most part demonstrated a willingness to be proactive and facilitate his lanes via early ganks, even if it didn’t always work out as planned. And of course, Shanks who had his best regular season to date, relying on consistently strong lane performances. While capitalizing on those leads remains a hit or miss affair and a particular bad playoff series against TES are marks against him, I still have those high expectations for him and continue to see this as a prove it year. Outside of Cube unlocking something additional, which shouldn’t be counted on, this jungle-mid pair are the key for WE to climb higher than the lower playoff spots. Both are usually strong early, but they’ll need to clean up their mid/late game play for the team to be a contender against higher caliber teams.
10) IG
Top – YSKM/neny
Jungle – Tianzhen
Mid – Cryin/Dove
ADC – Xiaoyueji/Ahn
Support – Wink
Putting IG too low was a big miss for me in Spring and despite narrowly missing out on playoffs and making some pretty major roster changes, they do make sense as a team as a whole to the point where I can see them in playoff contention.
YSKM was the breakout player for them, as his mechanical prowess was legit right out of the gate though I do think he’s a tad overrated as his DPM isn’t as high as you would expect for a player that almost exclusively plays damage top laners. You have to assume he starts over neny who is just perpetually going to be on this roster as a break in case of emergency/illness weakside player.
Their other returning player is Wink, who has proven to be a successfully above average support and revitalized his career in the process after floundering at ADC for IG. Wink is reunited with his former mid laner Cryin, as both were teammates on a Estar team that vastly exceeded expectations on their debut year. While being the low econ mid laner in a Xiaohu-GALA centric RNG didn’t flatter his talents, Cryin had a pretty good year all things as UP’s best player last season, and he’ll get another shot this year. The expectation is he starts over Dove who is still on the roster? He wasn’t awful but was certainly less exciting than his jungle counterpart and I assumed he would be leaving along with GIDEON and the Korean coaching staff.
This is Xiaoyueji’s second shot at the big leagues given he was tried and passed by Ahn last season, but he’s coming off of an LDL Season MVP where he was clearly above the lower level. We’ll need to see if he can step up with the tougher competition ala Photic, or if he’s just a quadruple-A player (too good for LDL, not good enough for LPL) like Asura. It might not even matter though as it’s worth noting that Ahn remains on the roster, even after the promotion of XYJ and a tryout from LNG (who clearly have contending in mind). He’s coming off of a quietly strong split and likely has the inside track in the battle for the starting role as in a repeat of LPL Spring 2022, these 2 will duke it out for the spot again.
Despite not being the LDL MVP, Tianzhen might be the more exciting prospect actually and notably doesn’t have any veteran to compete with. At only 18 years old, he’s going to be one of the LPL’s youngest players and has an eclectic champ pool that is highlighted by his signature Rengar. It will be interesting to see if these LDL standouts can continue the momentum in the LPL. The promotion isn’t easy, but both of them are in position to excel.
11) RNG
Top – Breathe
Jungle – Wei
Mid – Tangyuan
ADC – LP
Support – LvMao/Lele
It’s crazy to think this time last year, RNG were celebrating their 2nd consecutive MSI championship. Obviously, this team has more or less completely shattered from the Golden Road-seeking team that once ruled Spring and faltered at Worlds on a regular basis. I mean it’s been years of speculation that RNG was actually in a NA-esque perpetual financial meltdown that was held together by unfair streaming contracts and bobby pins, but with the departure of GALA and in particular, Ming, who has more or less been on RNG since the start of the era, finally puts RNG on the backfoot. Still, even with the exodus of more or less everyone on those famous teams, there’s a window at the playoffs.
Wei is the final piece of the MSI 2022 team, which is wild to think about because as I mentioned, it's been just 1 year. Now the longest tenured player on the roster, it’s a weird situation as there’s no longer an obvious lane to play into. While he wasn’t always bad, he had many questionable moments and his weakest split to date, and now without GALA in the bot lane there’s no clear place to focus for this team. He’s demonstrated he can be effective without the likes of Xiaohu, GALA and Ming back when he was on EStar in his debut season in 2020, but it’s been a long time since then, so I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.
Similarly, Breathe is also coming off of a split where he failed to meet expectations. It feels like ever since he left WE, he just hasn’t really found his footing as the good flex top laner, first on that weird 2022 BLG failed “superteam” and then on RNG where he never fit in to the Xiaohu-GALA puzzle. This last split he was basically relegated to weakside tanks and was subsequently pretty inconsequential as either a positive or negative factor. The few forays he took towards more carry champions were bad last split and it’s not a great sign for a player once considered so promising. I guess it’s the WE fan in me talking that he still has that upside to be among the best in the league. Maybe I’m lending him too much leeway given he was maybe WE’s best strongside top ever (which for the record is more about WE perpetually playing bot-centric). With out any of those other major carries on RNG, I’m interested to see if Breathe is placed back in that role.
The rest of the team is a smattering of cobbled pieces who aren’t without upside, but don’t exactly scream playoffs. GALA was exchanged for a large bag of cash and LP, who was the only consistent starter of the new cohort. he was heavily cared for as the rookie bot laner on LNG’s otherwise star-studded group, he was able to deliver in that capacity. Notably, he narrowly had the 2nd highest DPM in the split, though admittedly there was a large gap between 1st place damage monster Elk and a much smaller one to the following ADCs of JackeyLove, Assum and Leave. However, he certainly wasn’t perfect as he managed the lowest CS per minute among ADCs in the league, and he didn’t wow the way rookie of the split Leave did. Still, it was a relatively promising start, though the downgrade from Hang to one of RNG’s supports looms large as needless to say, the “cash considerations” RNG received with LP are most likely not being used for his lane partner.
With Angel departing after a pretty rough split, where the highlight was creating a meme after defeating his former team Weibo Gaming, RNG were rumored for a number of domestic mid laners but ultimately just stuck with the player they seemed intent on before they picked up Angel at the last second. Tangyuan is an LDL promote who has been flatout bad in the few stage performances he got in with the main roster, struggling both in the pre-season Demacia Cup and then to open the proper LPL season while Angel got up to speed. He’s at least known to have good Korean solo queue ranks, but you have to imagine there’s going to be a lot of handwringing over his inevitable growing pains as he starts for one of the country’s most popular domestic teams. There’s not zero upside here, for example Xiaoxu came from the same LDL team and vastly overperformed expectations, but I’d lean towards a year of hard knocks for the youngster.
Ming’s departure is the biggest loss for RNG as they now go from one of the rare franchise defining supports to… not that. LvMao spent the split unsigned for the most part before latching onto BLG as ON’s backup to end the season. Reportedly he served a coaching-esque role for the team as they went on their impressive MSI run but LvMao’s play has left a lot to be desired. Now with over 3 years removed from his standout performances in Spring 2020 and no Bard patch coming in sight, it’s tough to see what LvMao brings to the table as a player outside of an experienced hand. The other option they brought in was Lele, the young rookie support FPX promptly benched for Qiuqiu, which is never a great sign, and you know my stance on LDL supports: they bad. Funnily enough Lele was originally a pretty hyped RNG prospect the team once spent 300K yuan signing out of the yearly rookie camp. Needless to say, he’s been an okay LDL support but hasn’t lived up to that price tag at all, though now it seems they could at least get some games out of their failed investment.

"Heavily moderated" is the problem, thank goodness meta is a place where the mods aren't bigoted dicks, I'm just trying to enlighten all of us and I'm not waiting for Wikipedia to stop debating truth for ages, I've got a lot of wisdom to share and you'd better fucking appreciate the technological jihad I fought for all of us. The CIA can monitor me all they want, a huge middle finger to those guys as well for pitting us against each other when they could've just brought about the new world order by themselves. Greed really is the root of all evil and that connects all religions and prophecies. Light a candle for all of the excellent people who those arseholes forced to commit suicide rather than to believe in eternal life. RIP Chester Bennington, we all miss you.
I knew something was up when the most enthusiastic anarchists of my university were suddenly like "nah, you know, I'd rather watch some YouTube than to discuss anarchy" and I always dared to ask questions and to study and troll systems, that's what hacking is about, it's not being a dick for no reason. Go visit some local hackspaces, they can help you fix your broken tech. Sad to see people still rejecting my mails in which I'm merely trying to educate them on what fascism is but Germany will be Germany and Reddit is a fun place to hang out as well.
Now I know why I played Ingress as a resistance agent and called myself "Dilluminat". Shoutout to "iuzifer" (Steffen Breitrück) as well, love him and can't wait to play some Ingress with him again once he stops believing I'm an insufferable nutjob. Awful how those pricks turned us against each other and told us lies about famine in North Korea.
Trump may have been an ignorant narcissistic capitalist liar who flushed the Supreme Court with fascists as well but he excelled at marketing psychology and his style of politics was admittedly very funny and he too knew it wiser to be a bro who called Kim "little rocket man" and respected his Juche philosophy rather than to be a slave to capitalist rulers.
I am an alumnus of Ruhr Uni Bochum and St Mary's College Durham and a modern-age polymath with 6 years experience in teaching and grading and 8 years volunteering in committees, and I went to school in Germany, I recognise Nazi shit when Nazi shit is in the air.
I am going to write a dissertation as soon as I want to, all the prophets who were just brilliant philosophers tried to sell us after all was "have fun at work, call a spade a spade, fascists will be fascists but you can just go about your life unimpressed", as stated in other posts, religions and mythologies were never meant to be taken at face value but just moral teachings about a functional society, Gods are nothing but the wise elders who know what's up and we were just raised to detest the happiest people around us, to hate religious people for being too happy in life, to stop believing we could have anything we wanted and to believe that the era of polymaths was over and that we'd have to specialise. I know what's up, my brain and your tech will always be quantum computers that any good pastor or imam would've told you to just fucking use.
Fuck off, you greedy lying bastards, as I've said idgaf what you make of me as a person but you'd be best advised to listen and to appreciate what I did. I am the dude who forced all the recent leaks and declared piracy noble again and I expect you guys to just upload the Windows leaks to GitHub, fuck "for-profit", that's not a bad thing, money is a useful tool and paying others as a token of appreciation is not a bad thing, kissing arses and bickering over licensing issues is.
We should've never listened to the economists who tried to bend the randomness of the stock market into something predictable to line their own pockets, randomness will be randomness and all mathematicians should've known that.
Fuck my university for still being part of the fascist system but I can't thank my educators enough.
Special shoutout to:

• my mother Jutta Steenvoort who always supported me financially when I wanted new instruments or tech but who sadly still believes I deserve to be locked up for all eternity, sheep will be sheep but I am a wise shepherd who knows to love and to forgive and all I care about is for her to be happy and to learn to take advantage of the system instead of being preached capitalist ethics about how tax evasion was wrong, of course it's important to support the social state if you can afford it but don't ever believe it's your moral duty to pay taxes again
• my exes and all of the people I ever made out or had intercourse with, glad to tell you all that jealousy and lies about drug abuse was just marketing psych bullshit as well
  • Maren Heinz, thanks for taking me to Spain in 2009 but fuck you for telling lies about me
  • Anna Schmied, so sorry for not replying to your SMS, hmu if you read this, Baghira is still alive and we should hang out again some time soon, you inspired me to learn Russian, love to your mother as well, my mum should've just heeded her advice and opened up a private school with her, lots of lyubov' to both of you
    • Valea Brodka, always had a lot of fun smoking weed and fucking with you, but fuck you for being like "ok, so I don't need to sue you then", you studied the law because you too believed in a better world and I can't thank you enough for that drum you bought me in Ghana, of course we all want to live life as in Animal Crossing rather than to be bossed around for all eternity, also shoutout to Vroni for being an amazing hacker, thanks for that DDoS money back in the day, and to René for always helping me and for inspiring me to make my own ashtray in pottery class
    • Kinji Matsui for always drunkenly making out with me when we hung out at the Papidoux, boys will be boys :b
    • Panda! Laufen bis wir nicht mehr saufen können :'DD
    • Kiki Droll, always had a great time with you. neuken in de keuken and Hello Fitty, great times :b
    • Maya, you always understood the value of leftist politics and your wooden house in Thuringia was super cool but fuck you for not giving me a hug goodbye
    • Selina Deubel, you knew why you did meth in your teens, sorry for being so aggressive trying to give you your life back, just wanted to inspire you that you too could be a brilliant physicists
    • sorry for the other people, character limit, didn't forget you, will write about you later
• my other friends whom I love, can't write about all of them but will add a friendbook to my webpage
  • Stephan Tetzlaff, we've always had a great time partying and you too should upload all of your code to GitHub for my quantum hackathon and stop kissing your boss's arse
• the amazing people I met during my repeated trips to the mental ward, middle finger to my mum for repeatedly calling the cops on me instead of taking a moral lesson, it's a shame we don't have class-action lawsuits in Germany but I advise absolutely anyone to sue Helios Marien Klinik and the state for depriving us of our freedoms
• the awesome people from my school
  • Adrian Mand, you will always be my bestie, have fun repairing cars, do some speed if you choose to, just don't force it on me, and let's hang out again
  • Lea Seidel, playing music with you has always been awesome
  • Lexi / Fruchtzwerg, funny how we met at that anime convention and realised we'd be going to the same school
• all the awesome people from my uni, especially
  • Eva and Tobias Glasmachers, a student advisor and a brilliant CompSci prof
  • Christoph Thäle for telling me about Johnson-Lindenstrauß which helped me understand that classical mechanics and quantum / string theories were never meant to be compatible in the first place
• my lawyer Stefan Nolte who always provided advice without expecting anything in return and who finally deserves for my mum to buy him a bottle of wine instead of always saying "yeah, I'll do it tomorrow"
• my weed guys for helping me keep my calm, shoutout to Azad who will be happy to know that countries are just lines drawn in the sand with a stick and that the Kurds of course deserve their Kurdistan and to Ali who always hangs out next to the local headshop, a philosopher deserves his ganja but it turns out smoking tobacco gives you the same effect and "getting high" only works when you're feeling down. was tired of sad discussions about addiction on trees, wanted funny weed memes again, so I made Republicans fear the Lord's mercy and preached legalisation
• anyone still in prison or on a mental ward, smoke your cigarettes or do other drugs you have, discuss medical decisions with doctors and don't blindly take your pills, team up with gangs across the spectrum, someone on your tract is bound to have a phone, use it to call a lawyer, use the prison library to read up on your rights and prepare to sue the state and win in court, and beat the shit out of your guards if they're being fascist pricks, have fun playing basketball and sing some prison blues at night, no one deserves to be locked up
• my bands Endstation Friendzone, Gecko, Echoes in the Glass and Iltis

The press will be the press and they can debate all they like but I expect for my favourite newspapers Guardian and NYT to finally report on what happened instead of being part of the system for all eternity. A small column would be enough but I don't have to be the one to repeatedly write mails to them and call them up when any of you guys could do that as well.
Skepticism is always appreciated but bigotry and ignorance is not.
To quote Thucydides, those who disregard public life are not just unambitious, but useless.
Love and hugs to all of you! Rawr! xD ; <3
Better to be an educated idiot (that word only means "got better stuff to do than to care about politics") than to be an ignorant sheep.

I'll give a list of meme sound effects I'm talking about. I'm sure you know what they are:
​

• Windows xp startup sound (+ distorted version)
• windows xp error sound
• a few moments later
• two hours later
• gta v waster sound
• we'll be right back sound
• Heavenly music
• Just do it
• Drum Roll
• Round one, Fight
• Fatality
• Vine Boom
• Inception Horn
• Record Scratch
• Cartoon Running
• And my favorite, Crickets

​
I've seen lots of posts peoples complaining their accounts getting ~6 copyright strikes by random emails/people. Some even blackmail demanding bit coin and this whole thing is really crazy. You've seen many large channels use these meme sound effects without trouble. But the thing is, copyright strikes often happen to small channels. Big YouTubers are much more immune to strikes. I have 300 gb of royalty free, no attribution required free SFX (gdc sonnis) Having a small channel I'm now even scared to use these if any joe can strike my channel! Someone here on reddit said that you can't really defend a strike since youtube doesn't manually review counter notification. There is no third party and you have to go to court! Should I use these meme sfx?
What about the legitimate sfx I
Is there a chance that I make a video and use mortal kombat fatality sound effect just once, the creator of mortal combat sees my video, hates the shape of my nose for instance and wants to hurt me, claims a copyright infringement?

Hey everyone!
Right now Staff Daredevil has numerous issues. Its damage relies on certain conditions to be met which are hard to meet in real encounters (being full HP, empty endurance, continuously dodging, flanking sometimes). There is one raid stolen skill (Throw Magnetic Bomb) that makes it very good on those fights where it can steal it, and one more stolen skill (Detonate Plasma) which turns it into a decent boon support.
Outside of those skills, however, and if I am honest very often with those skills, Power Daredevil with its iconic Staff weapon is outmatched by almost all other builds in the game, including 3 other DPS builds for Thief.
This post is not about the ability of Staff Daredevil to complete endgame content. This post is about the fact that essentially everything else is better at completing endgame content. It is undeniable that we are in an era of power creep, and ultimately Anet should reduce some outliers at the top. The changes outlined in this post will increase the golem benchmark to 37k or so, while making it a bit easier to play in real encounters. As you can see, this is not contributing to the overall power creep.
If you want a TL;DR, the bold parts should summarize the ideas.
Let's look at problems and fix them one by one.

Daredevil has many conditional modifiers that require being full HP.

Right now, Twin Fangs wants you to be above 90% HP, Scholar Rune wants you to be above 90% HP, Keen Observer wants you to be above 75% HP (thankfully). The least Arenanet can do is move Twin Fangs down to 75% threshold as well. The other option would be to straight-up remove the Crit Chance bonus from the trait (conditional crit chance is the most garbage design ever), and move the 7% Crit Damage part to be a flanking bonus. Give back 5% Crit Chance somewhere else.

Daredevil right now gets punished for gaining endurance.

Daredevil's trait Havoc Specialist punishes you the moment your endurance ticks to one fully completed bar. The easiest way to fix it is to change Havoc Specialist to do 0% at full endurance, 7.5% between 2 and 3 endurance bars (100 to 149 endurance points), 15% between 0 and 2 bars (0 to 99 endurance points). This way, you do not lose a significant damage amount on the server tick that gives you the 50th endurance point (which is a completely arbitrary way to lose 5%).
In summary, change Havoc Specialist bonus from 0%/5%/10%/15% to 0% / 7.5% / 15% / 15%, which makes Daredevil significantly easier to navigate, especially for new players.
Furthermore, when allies give you endurance, right now this is a very significant setback, as you often have to drain endurance in damage-losing ways - IF you notice it in time and manage to delay your burst. This proposed change to Havoc Specialist helps, but to be honest, it's not enough. Gaining endurance would still be a net negative.
In order to avoid having too much endurance, Daredevil needs to dodge. But did you know that the Dodge, taking 0.8 seconds to cast and only doing 13000 - 16000 damage, is actually WAY worse than anything else, including autoattacks? You still do it to drain endurance and get the 4 seconds buff from Bound. But damage wise it is bad, and this makes gaining endurance bad in general.
ArenaNet could increase the strike coefficient of Bound from 1.75 to 3. This seems extreme, but actually it would still be worse than autoattacking, but now more endurance => more modifier uptime (and time spent dodging is not a huge loss anymore) => value.

Staff Daredevil actually outperforms its own benchmark when the stolen skills are great, Throw Magnetic Bomb and Detonate Plasma for instance are just OP.

Both of these skills need severe nerfs. If we make Daredevil function without them, they cannot exist in the game in their current form. I leave it to Arenanet to come up with something, but for example there's no reason for Throw Magnetic Bomb to deal more than a little bit of damage. Certainly there's no reason for it to be literally the strongest DPS skill in the game compared to its cast time while also doing 450 breakbar damage (equivalent of a 4.5 seconds stun).
On the other hand there are fights where Staff Daredevil steals garbage (Strike missions) or simply nothing at all (Harvest Temple Strike mission). Literally, it turns up empty.
ArenaNet needs to find a way to make the F2 ability balanced across encounters. It can still be a small boost or something you care very little about. Some variance is cool and exciting. Since this only affects DD and Core Thief (both Specter and Deadeye use different F2 logic) ArenaNet can get as creative as they want. Personally I don't like the randomness from Kaineng Overlook because most of these stolen skills are just terrible. But Anet could allow you to choose which one to steal, for example. Or they simply balance them better to narrow the spectrum of possible results (nothing to absurd).
Don't get me wrong here. Soulstone Venom and Unstable Artifact are exciting skills in their own way. They are just no match for Magnetic Bomb and Detonate Plasma, and Daredevil right now is not good without the F2 being overpowered.

Twin Fangs is a lot better than Signets of Power

There is a meme in the Daredevil community that consists of the original patch note for Signets of Power which now gives us initiative when we activate a signet. Anet has since increased it to 2 Initiative per Signet. The problem is that Twin Fangs is absurd. 7% damage increase is just amazing.
How good is gaining 2 Initiative when you use a signet? Well we can test this in the golem room, and press the action key whenever we use Assassin's Signet. To be perfectly clear, this means you gain 12 Initiative "on signet press". This is the result (thanks to the great Left): https://www.dps.report/QaK6-20230430-083654_golem
As you can see, this actually ends up being worse than Twin Fangs. So ArenaNet can carefully treat Signets of Power all they want ("because gaining Initiative is actually pretty good"), this is not ever going to be viable in Endgame PvE.
Wait, but what if Signets of Power made it so you have no initiative costs anymore, literally infinite initiative so to speak? Well, we can actually test this and just use the Special Action Key in the golem room off cooldown. Here's the result: https://www.dps.report/pCZN-20230430-090329_golem As you can see it boosts our DPS from roughly 34.5k to 36.8k. That means if Arenanet literally cranked up the trait to insanity, it would still make Daredevil one of the worst DPS specs in the game.
All of that to say: Tuning the initiative gain of Signets of Power is not going to make this trait good, ever. I am sorry. It needs another effect on top. I think gaining Initiative is cool, that should stay, and increasing the amount more would obviously be ridiculous. But it will not compete with Twin Fangs. This is in parts because Twin Fangs is too strong. Creating Competing Traits is probably not a good idea in the first place, simply because it does not really help the spec power level overall. I just mentioned it here because these patch notes are starting to annoy me.

Staff Daredevil has too few damage sources that one can tune, but increasing the number of damage sources is also difficult

You notice how when I talk about buffing its damage, I have only talked about some modifier and the dodge skill. That's because every damage skill it has (autohit, Staff 2, Fist Flurry), is already good. This is actually a problem, especially the autohit is, since it means any new skill introduced needs to compete with something that does 28k DPS on its own (the autohit), and any gains from a new skill have this value subtracted! ArenaNet found this out the hard way when they buffed the damage of the Daredevil elite skill, which is still worse than Thieves' Guild + Autoattacking due to cast times. Using the Daredevil elite would simply eat up time better spent autoattacking.
Introducing a new skill is always going to suffer from that. That being said, Impairing Daggers and Pitfall are both very close to being decent DPS skills. If ArenaNet wants to throw Daredevil a little bone, cranking up these skills (again considering that Autohits are great) would allow for a small DPS boost.
This has the benefit of moving Daredevil away from being all about modifiers, and more towards actually having damage coming from its skills themselves. This overall makes Daredevil more accessible and beginner friendly, because there are less ways you can ruin your damage output in real encounters. As an expert on Condition Virtuoso, I can tell you that part of what makes it so accessible is that all skills are simply very good, and there are essentially no ways you can play it wrong.

Staff 2 is a movement skill, which means you can get locked into a chain of animations.

It's complicated, but due to a quirk with the combat system, Daredevil cannot use Dodge (its signature move and extremely important safety skill) during the cast of Staff 2. This means if you spam the Staff 2 key, there's no way you can cancel it with a dodge. Then, due to the queuing (spamming a skill that doesn't have a cooldown will just queue up another one afterward) you follow up Staff 2 with another Staff 2, with no dodge window in between.
It's fine that there are skills that animation lock you, it's something that creates a certain amount of challenge, and it's also useful in some situations. There are good arguments for preserving that (and good arguments against it, I know). But what needs to go is the fact that you can lock yourself out for multiple Staff 2 in a row. ArenaNet must find a way to allow dodging in between two Staff 2. Right now, this functionality of chained Staff 2 kills players in an extremely unresponsive and anti-fun way.

Overall, there are too many conditional damage modifiers to maintain

Daredevil is basically a spec that does a background noise of 15k DPS with full boons. You then add so many modifiers on top of it, 22% Crit chance, 12.35% Damage, 10% Damage to enemies above 50% HP, 20% Damage to enemies below 50% (these two bonuses in some sense cancel each other out, when you think about it), 2% per Condition on the enemy (usually around 20% total), 15% after dodging, 15% with empty endurance, 10% if they have weakness, ...
If you successfully jumped through all these hoops, you achieve 35k DPS. Playing Staff Daredevil, way more than any other build, is about managing all these mini games. Enabling conditional modifiers is in parts alluring, but honestly I would also enjoy it if the impact of modifiers overall was cut in half (the ones in Crit Strikes will also affect Deadeye, making this a hard balancing act. This is why I mainly talk about DD exclusive traits.)
However, this would require significant buffs to all Daredevil skills to make it work. But it could lay the foundation to a spec which is a lot easier to navigate for newer players who don't understand all the invisible ways they lose DPS in encounters, and make future balancing easier since there are more angles to help or nerf the spec. Big changes like that require careful deliberation, and I would love it if ArenaNet got in touch with some Daredevil experts from the community to achieve something grand like this.
If you have been reading until here, thank you so much for your time :) I really hope ArenaNet uses this next balance patch to help Staff Daredevil. I love the spec, I love its gameplay, but right now the numbers just are not there to make it good in endgame PvE.

A viral car theft trend has gone nationwide, and it’s having massive repercussions.
​
The Kia Challenge social media trend has cranked up car thefts on certain models of Hyundai and Kia models.
Hyundai and Kia have issued an update to help protect affected key-to-start vehicles from 2011 to 2022 model years.
The update includes a software solution to help stop thieves from taking these cars.
If you stay off social media, you may have missed a handful of weird dance crazes, memes, and cultural touchstones that won’t affect your daily life in the slightest. But there are a handful of objectively bad trends sweeping the nation.
​
For example, a viral trend of young car thieves targeting Kias and Hyundais has resulted in State Farm Insurance declining to issue new insurance policies for certain models of those brands. Meanwhile, Kia and Hyundai are rolling out a national service campaign to protect the vehicles and prevent additional theft pinned to the so-called Kia Challenge.
​
A group of teenagers working under the Kia Boyz hashtag discovered that certain Kia and Hyundai models were extremely easy to steal, and they began documenting the thefts on the social media platform TikTok. For a first hand look at the thieves and how they operate, check out the documentary at the top of the page.
​
Owners of Hyundais and Kias have reported their cars being stolen and returned multiple times. Making the matter worse is that the cars targeted by this growing trend aren’t equipped with immobilizers. While an immobilizer doesn’t exactly stop car thefts, these electronic tools do throw a wouldbe thief a curveball when trying to manually overpower the car's ignition switch. Judging by the guides easily available on various social media outlets, that seems to be the way these Kia and Hyundai products have been stolen.
​
As you’d expect from a social media trend, the Kia and Hyundai thefts have spiked across the nation, leading State Farm Insurance to block new customers in Georgia, Louisiana, Oregon, Washington and Pennsylvania. About the situation, a representative from State farm sent the following note to Autoweek:
​
State Farm has temporarily stopped accepting new customer applications in some states for certain model years and trim levels of Hyundai and Kia vehicles because theft losses for these vehicles have increased dramatically. This is a serious problem impacting our customers and the entire auto insurance industry.
We take seriously our responsibility to manage risk and the impact of excess claim costs on all our customers. In this case, it became necessary to take action to protect our policyholders and our business.
We are monitoring this situation very closely and will adjust our approach as appropriate.
In response, the team at Kia recently sent this:
​
Kia America regrets this decision by certain insurers and its impact on owners and lessees of select Kia vehicles, which we anticipate will be temporary. Engine immobilizers are now standard on all Kia vehicles and have always been standard equipment on Kia vehicles with push-button ignitions.
Additionally, Kia has taken a series of actions to reduce the claim frequencies associated with affected vehicles. Kia has been developing and testing enhanced security software for vehicles not originally equipped with an immobilizer and has started notifying owners of certain models of the availability of this software upgrade at no cost to consumers. Kia anticipates that it will make software upgrades available for most affected vehicles by mid-2023. Kia is also continuing to provide free steering wheel locks, as available, to interested law enforcement agencies across the country for distribution to local residents who own or lease affected models.
Kia owners with questions regarding their vehicle may contact our Customer Care team directly at 1-800-333-4542 (4Kia) or online via the Owners Portal on kia.
Since sending that note, Kia and Hyundai have both launched campaigns for most of the affected vehicles. The software upgrade, to be performed by dealers, will now make these applicable Kia and Hyundai models trigger the alarm and what the company calls an "ignition kill" system when you use the keyfob to lock your doors.
​
The Hyundai brand says 4 million of its vehicles are affected, from 2011 Elantras, Tucsons, and Sonatas to 2022 Accents, Konas, and Santa Fes. Nearly the entire Hyundai lineup is impacted. The software upgrade will be available first for 2017-2020 Elantra, 2015-2019 Sonata, and 2020-2021 Venue vehicles. Hyundai says the installation work will take less than one hour, and each vehicle will get a window decal to alert potential thieves that enhanced anti-theft technology is now onboard.
​
Unlocking the car with the fob is apparently the only way to deactivate that feature. According to NHTSA, the software update will also increase the length of the alarm. For the models that this update won’t affect, Hyundai notes it's working on a program to reimburse those customers for steering wheel locks. Of course, it might also be in their interest to research other systems to immobilize their cars in case of theft.
​
This fix won’t immediately solve the problem for Kia and Hyundai customers, because it’s rolling out in phases over the coming months. But if you own one of these affected vehicles, this might help you feel more secure.
​
Source: Autoweek

SQUIDWARD TENTACLES
"You may have hoodwinked everyone else in this backwater town, but you can't fool me! I listen to public radio."
A octopus that works at the fast food restaurant Krusty Krab (where he can be found sleeping and slacking off) and lives next to idiot starfish Patrick and the dork frycook sponge Spongebob.
Squidward is incredibly cynical and pessimistic due to his crappy life. Things pretty much always go horribly wrong for him, even when he did nothing wrong. He sees himself as smarter and more highbrow then anyone else in Bikini Bottom.
His dream job is being a artist and a clarinet player, however his clarinet skills leave something to be desired, and nobody ever buys any of his art.
For all of his hatred of Spongebob, his number one nemesis is Squilliam, a fellow octopus he met in high school that went on to become much more successful then him post-graduation.
(NOTE: Spongebob is only 4 inches tall. He is this big compared to a average human. Destroying a Bikini Bottom building is not as impressive as destroying a normal human IRL building)
(Hover over a feat to see what episode the feat is from. Most feats are from Spongebob Squarepants , feats that are from spinoffs have the name of the spinoff before the name of the episode of said spinoff. Feats done by Squidward as a child from Kamp Koral will be marked with a [Kamp].)
SCALING RTs
Sandy Cheeks
The Flying Dutchman
Karen
Larry
Mermaid Man
Doodlebob
Squidward's House

PHYSICALS

STRENGTH

• Pushes Patrick away
  
• Manages to walk around even after his nose is enlarged
  
• Wiggles Spongebob a bit by hitting him on the head
  
• Kicks a vacuum into starting up
  
• Karate chops Spongebob into half, destroys a punching bag, and kicks Spongebob into pieces
  
• Beats up a big fish by kicking and punching objects into them, including a crate and a dumpster
  
• Kicks Spongebob out of a window
  
• Cuts a rope using a axe
  
• With the others, pushes a human up
  
• Has hard rock abs thanks to Spongebob with the page
  
• Helps with the others beat up Poseidon's guards in a knight suit
  
• Shoves Spongebob up a bus cabinet
  
• Traps a jellyfish using a book
  
• Pushes Spongebob and Patrick down
  
• [Kamp] Picks up Child-Spongebob and Child-Patrick
  
• [Kamp] Pushes Child-Spongebob and Child-Patrick out the door
  
• Goes through a window
  
• Goes through a wooden wall, and then a giant tarp
  
• Kicks a shell from his front yard to Spongebob's back yard
  
• Drags a sleeping Patrick out of his house, but breaks his back doing so
  
• Breaks a violin playing tool over his knee
  
• Kicks Spongebob far away
  
• Kicks a boat car so hard it regains fuel and drives off
  
• Eats some coral
  
• Slams a pizza in a fish person's face
  
• Destroys a small tent
  
• Smushes a door in Mr Krabs's face
  
• Holds up a rope Spongebob is tied to
  
• Picks up and throws Spongebob
  
• Pushes Mr Krabs out of the way
  
• Breaks a table in half by rubbing it hard
  
• Drags himself forward while tied to a ship
  
• Climbs out of a hole
  
• Picks up and pours giant cans of snail food
  
• Runs through a wooden door, and accidently knocks his house over while running
  
• Destroys a painting and some other stuff
  
• Wheelbarrows lots of stuff, including his own house
  
• Using a fishing hook, forces Spongebob to take off his pants and underwear
  
• Picks up and slams a cash register
  
• Shakes the Krusty Krab pole, and then rips his own costume off
  
• Carries Spongebob on his face tied to a rope
  
• Slaps a book away from Spongebob's hands
  
• Pulls his nose out of a wall
  
• Picks ups some books that cause the ground to shake upon him dropping them
  
• Destroys a block of marble
  
• Picks up and carries a statue of David made out of marble
  
• Pushes a block made out of marble
  
• Destroys several blocks made out of marble
  
• Rips Spongebob off of the Krusty Krab doors, even removing part of Spongebob's face in the process
  
• With a megaphone, yells at Spongebob so loud his eyes nose and legs blow away
  
• Pulls a kelp plant in a way that flings a small treehouse far away
  
• [Shrunk] Kicks Spongebob's heart, hurting Spongebob
  
• Squishes Mr Krabs's eyes
  
• Ate a painting
  
• Picks up and tosses Spongebob
  
• Ties up Mr Krabs and then slaps him several times
  
• Smashes all of these things with a baseball bat
  
• Hurts Spongebob with a fishing pole
  
• Lifts Patrick on his back
  
• Runs through a wall of his house
  
• Runs through a wooden door
  
• Slams a door into Spongebob's face so hard it causes this to happen
  
• Throws Spongebob out of his house
  
• Crashes his head through a wooden door
  
• Pushes a rock
  
• With Spongebob, catches and lifts up Mr Krabs a bit
  
• With Spongebob, carries some heavy books
  
• Kicks Spongebob off his foot and away
  
• Runs through a wall
  
• Picks up Spongebob
  
• Carries suitcases full of rocks up some stairs
  
• Plunges Spongebob out of a toilet
  
• Runs through a door
  
• Gets into a fight against Patrick, however Patrick ultimately wins
  
• Hurts Sandy with a kick
  
• Pushes Spongebob back
  
• Knocks Patrick over with a ball
  
• Does a impressive jump
  
• Shoves a piece of paper into Spongebob's forehead
  
• Kicks Spongebob far away
  
• Breaks the glass of some baolcuaers using his eyes
  
• Knocks a fish over while running
  
• Kicks Spongebob far into the air
  
• Stuffs Spongebob into a book
  
• Pushes a fridge
  
• Goes through a window
  
• Manges to walk away despite Patrick trying to stop him
  
• Jumps onto the top of a this thing
  
• Shoves Spongebob into a cash register
  
• Squirts Spongebob far away
  
• Shoves Spongebob to the ground
  
• Picks up and smacks Spongebob while inside of him
  
• Rips off Spongebob's mouth
  
• Breaks off Spongebob's legs
  
• Picks up Spongebob
  
• Pulls the half of a Atlain Amulet out of Spongebob and carries it
  
• Mr Krabs is able to stand on his neck
  
• Destorys a statue that looks like him from under said statue
  
• Is used by Sandy to defeat some Atlatian Guards
  
• Lifts 6 Kids Meals
  
• Destroys One of Sandy's inventions with a hammer
  
• After accidently slipping on a spatula, throws a egg hard enough to bring Spongebob's memories back
  
• Pushes close Spongebob's front door while a shit ton of fish people trying to come in
  
• With Spongebob, pushes close the front doors of the Krusty Krab while a shit ton of fish people try to come in
  
• Holds onto the front desk boat as a strong wind pushes it away
  
• Picks up a lot of boxes
  
• Picks up a couch
  
• Carries a living toilet
  
• Lifts a weight
  
• Lifts a bigger weight, and becomes super buff
  
• Moves a bit of his game face using one of his eyesballs
  
• Puts Spongebob into a ball and kicks him away, and then puts Patrick into a ball and kicks him away, and then picks up Spongebob and Patrick
  
• Puts his head through his bed stand
  
• Throws Spongebob threw a wall of Squidward's house
  
• Throws Spongebob away
  
• Yells loud enough for it to move Spongebob's nose
  
• Rips a cash register out of the front desk boat, and then beats himself up with it
  
• Stomps on Spongebob and Patrick while they are under a rug
  
• Goes through a wooden door
  
• Goes through a rock, leaving behind a Squidward shaped hole
  
• Puts his head through the glass of a street light
  
• Carries some flowers that Spongebob and Patrick are in, yells loud enough to shake his house, and sneezes Spongebob away
  
• With 3 others, pushes a giant ball of smelly stuff
  
• Picks up his house
  
• Accidently breaks a steering wheel off
  
• Throws Spongebob threw a wall
  
• Picks up Spongebob and ties him to a coral
  
• Cuts seaweed with a bike
  
• Pushes Spongebob and Patrick out of his house
  
• [Anti-Feat] Is unable to escape from a bag after Spongebob and Patrick kidnap him
  
• Rips a chicken costume off
  
• Yells loud enough to push Spongebob back a lot
  
• Walks around and does a bunch of stuff while Spongebob is grabbing his leg
  
• Yells loud enough to shake Spongebob's house
  
• Yanks his vacuum cleaner out from under a bunch of Spongebob's stuff
  
• Can knock himself out
  
• Throws a garbage bag a good distance
  
• Lifts Patrick up with rope
  
• Pushes a large pile of stuff out his front door, and throws Old Man Jenkins
  
• Hits Spongebob with a alarm clock, knocking the sponge back
  
• With Mr Krabs, runs over Spongebob and Patrick
  
• [Anti-Feat] Is unable to break the freezer door
  
• With Spongebob and Patrick, accidently breaks part of a air vent
  
• After falling, goes through the roof of a air vent
  
• Picks up a dude
  
• On a bike, pulls rectangles that show his name when put together
  
• Smashes the front door of Spongebob's house when it had a lot of wooden boards nailed to it at the time
  
• Reaches a inpass against Spongebob with a Krabby Patty
  
• Rips off a bunch of wooden boards
  
• Pushes Patrick off the top of a camera , and then pushes Patrick off of himself
  
• Ties Patrick to a camera
  
• Shoves a camera stick into Spongebob
  
• Pushes away Spongebob, and pushes away the two broken pieces of a desk
  
• Accidently goes threw the floor of his house
  
• Carries a golden tooth
  
• Yells hard enough to inflate some gum
  
• Trips a fish child
  
• Pulls a wagon full of trash
  
• Puts Spongebob in a locker, and drags the locker across the ground and throws it into a bus
  
• Carries a case that Spongebob is in, and then goes through some doors
  
• Slams a door to the point Spongebob's eyeballs, shoes, and socks fall out
  
• Carries Spongebob
  
• Closes a door on a witch person, which stops the witch for a bit but they manage to get through anyways
  
• Goes through a floor of his house after falling
  
• With a wrench, bends a pipe
  
• Hangs onto rocks on the inside of a volacano
  
• Stops Spongebob and Patrick from running
  
• Pushes open Patrick's rock house
  
• Rip some sea flowers out of the ground
  
• Stomps the ground hard enough to make the roots "dance"
  
• Drags Spongebob and Patrick
  
• Pushes a big rock off of himself
  
• Throws a lamp into Spongebob
  
• Pushes Spongebob and Patrick off of himself
  
• [Anti-Feat] Is unable to open the time capsaule lock thats on top of a fuck ton of concrete
  
• Digs his way to the surface
  
• Steps on Plankton so hard it shoves the formula bottle into the one eyed creature
  
• Pulls a rock out of Patrick's hand, but accidently flings it into the air where it lands on a board and flings him and two others
  
• Picks up Spongebob to hug him
  
• Fucks up Spongebob's mouth
  
• Knocks over Mr Krabs while running
  
• Accidently breaks a key
  
• Yells loud enough to push Spongebob
  
• Breaks a hammer and a nail against a big stone
  
• Picks up and carries with him the front boat
  
• Throws a book into Spongebob's eye
  
• Fixes his head
  
• Knocks over Spongebob
  
• Goes through a glass window
  
• Picks up a rock, and uses it to destroy parts of the house Patrick's Sister built
  
• Rips in half 3 pillows and rope
  
• Hurts Plankton by slamming a door
  
• Kicks Plankton away
  
• Pushes Patrick away
  
• Carries a bag of dabloons
  
• Rips parts of his own head off
  
• Rips out a window and throws it
  
• Knocks Spongebob away, and fucks up a table
  
• Throws a phone threw Spongebob's window
  
• Destroys a bunch of paper machetes of Spongebob
  
• Patrick is able to use his body to hold Spongeobb's rotting pineapple house
  
• Rips open a hole in a tent
  
• Rips off Plankton's antenna massager
  
• Knocks Spongebob and Patrick away, destroying stuff in Spongebob's house
  
• Removes the order board with his head
  
• Yells loud enough to inflate a barrel and cause spongebob to melt
  
• Kicks Spongebob to the Krusty Krab
  
• Breaks a picture frame in half
  
• Grabs Spongebob off of the celling
  
• Destorys Plankton's chum carriyer with a umbrella
  
• Rips off Patrick's face with a fish hook
  
• Puts his legs through a metal bucket
  
• Spongebob is unable to push him forward
  
• Rips parts of his shirt off
  
• Hurts a customer with a spatula
  
• Leaves a Squidward's face shaped mold in Spongebob's face
  
• Pushes all of this stuff
  
• Pushes Mr Krab's shell off of Mr Krabs
  

DURABILITY

• Survives being slapped with the tubro drive
  
• Survives not having any water for a bit
  
• Survives his house being picked up by a giant bubble, and then the bubble popping
  
• Survives a giant clarinet falling on him
  
• Survives a clarinet being up his throat for a while
  
• Survives being frozen in a freezer for 2000 years
  
• Survives his butt being burned by a laser hammer
  
• Survives a brick hitting his head
  
• Survives going into the can opener room
  
• Survives Spongebob karate chopping him
  
• Survives Spongebob doing so again
  
• Survives running into a ladder
  
• Survives a failed attempt at karate chopping a board
  
• Survives Sandy kicking him under a rock
  
• Survives being in a boat when said boat is dropped
  
• Survives Bubble the Dolphin kicking him to the beach
  
• Survives digging into a shovel
  
• Survives being kicked by a human child onto a person's back
  
• Survives a human child throwing ice cream at him
  
• Survives crashing a bike into a wagon
  
• Survives accidently slamming his window against his nose
  
• Survives this
  
• Survives being strangled by a buff fish
  
• Survives a stove going up into the air
  
• Survives a fall
  
• Survives a long fall in a knight suit
  
• Survives the chair he was in closing itself on him, and then survives being zapped by a jellyfish
  
• Survives being zapped by a Jellyfish
  
• Survives a movie theater staff picking him up and squishing his head
  
• Survives Patrick yelling with a microphone pushing his eyes in
  
• Survives a fall
  
• Survives several fish people running him over
  
• Survives eating spider egg cookies
  
• Survives a shit ton of anchovies throwing a boat he is up and down
  
• Survives a jellyfish stinging him and then his bike doing off a cliff, which somehow causes a explosion. However, he has to be a wheelchair and a cast afterwords
  
• Survives Patrick blowing hot soup in his face
  
• Survives Patrick putting a jellyfishing net into his flesh
  
• Survives a jellyfish stinging his nose
  
• Survives a giant jellyfish stinging him, but has to get even more casts
  
• Survives the same giant jellyfish stinging him again
  
• Survives chocking on a fork, but only because Patrick save him
  
• Survives Spongebob kicking him to fix his back
  
• Survives a door landing on him
  
• Survives Spongebob driving a rock over him
  
• Survives a tornado, and then survives a long fall
  
• Survives a pineapple house falling onto him
  
• Survived accidently burning himself trying to make Krabby Patties
  
• Survives being stung by several jellyfish
  
• Survives Patrick putting a watermelon on him
  
• Survives trying to stomp a hat that a brick of lead is under
  
• Survives falling into a hole
  
• Survives Spongebob's house's door falling on him
  
• Survives The Krusty Krab exploding due to a shit ton of Krabby Patties
  
• Survives Spongebob karate chopping his face
  
• Survives holding what this thing is
  
• Survives a cash register opening
  
• Survives a explosion caused by a crumb of a bomb pie
  
• Survives a fish child throwing a rock at his head
  
• Survives three fish children throwing rocks at his head
  
• Survives Spongebob poking his heart
  
• Survives a brick wall falling onto him
  
• Survives a bomb pie explosion that blows up Bikini Bottom
  
• Survives his eyeballs falling out after being scared by a butterfly
  
• Survives Patrick sucking a window of his house using a reef blower, making his nose inside of a wall
  
• Survives a fragment of his house hitting him on the head
  
• Survives being attacked by some birds
  
• Survives The Flying Dutchman using a nose fire on him
  
• Survives The Flying Dutchman doing it again several times
  
• Survives The Flying Dutchman doing it again
  
• Survives The Flying Dutchman putting him in the Fly of Despair
  
• Survives falling out of the Fly of Despair place and into his house
  
• Survives Doodlebob beating him up
  
• Survives part of a human-world pencil hitting him
  
• Survives his band playing super loudly
  
• Survives Mr Krabs jumping onto top of him, and then survives several people running over him
  
• Survives a group of fish people running over him
  
• Survives them doing it again
  
• Survives being in a treehouse that is flung far away
  
• Survives this
  
• Survives Spongebob punching him
  
• Survives burning his face against a oven
  
• Survives several gasoline explosions
  
• Survives exploding after eating a lot of Krabby Patties, but is just a head
  
• Survives falling down some garbage piles
  
• Survives a buff fish person punching him
  
• [Shrunk] Survives a phone hitting his head
  
• [Shrunk] Survives all of these things
  
• [Shrunk] Survives Patrick having him and a pickle kiss
  
• [Shrunk] Survives being squished against three fish people's butts
  
• Survives a cash register part hitting his head
  
• Survives hitting his head against a cash register several times
  
• Survives Spongebob ripping his nose off with a fish hook
  
• Survives Patrick falling onto him
  
• Survives Patrick blowing hot marshmallows onto his face
  
• Survives Spongebob slinging a marshmallow into his throat
  
• Survives a Seabear beating him up several times
  

No one is always a liar and no one is always corrupt. Everything is a situation.
Sgt. Jerry Martens, NYPD Blue S3 E8.
I don’t know what it is about NYPD Blue, but recalling some key quotes has the effect of clearing mental logjams in my head. People and issues are complex. Treating them as binary will make it impossible to truly understand what happened. Yep, these are the new and hopefully improved versions on the quartet of posts titled "Pathetic" that I took down a couple of weeks ago. I wrote them and posted without giving too much thought to flow, organization and potential impact. They were too long and complex for most to digest. So what do I do? I make the post even longer by expanding it into a six-parter, but hopefully with better context to give the narrative a stronger logical foundation. I also needed to take a beat and balance the importance of the information against the effect it could have on real people--particularly Hae Min Lee's family.
For those who lack patience and curiosity, this post can be distilled down to: Adnan participated in the murder of Hae Min Lee. The police and prosecutors fabricated evidence to secure a conviction of first degree murder. Jay Wilds is owed the world’s biggest apology. What follows demonstrates the absurdity of identifying as a "guilter" or an "innocenter."
If you want to understand the who, what, where, when, why and how, along with the supporting evidence, you have to read the rest. If you choose to stop here, that is entirely understandable. This post is definitely not for everyone. It requires tapping into your intellect more than your emotions. TLDR works for certain things like the weather or the outcome of an NBA game. If you are reading this post, I assume that you spent at least 8.5 hours listening to the Serial podcast. Leaving aside the amount of misinformation packed into that program, what else did you consume? Rabia Chaurdry’s book? The several hours of her own podcast on this case? Her blog? Her tweets? The 4 hour HBO documentary? If you spent dozens of hours being lied to and expect a three sentence explanation, you are asking to be lied to some more. This is not me providing a caveat for this post as much as lamenting how the TLDR mentality and expectation resulted in our being increasingly uninformed.
The MPIA page cites are truncated so if the page number is MPIA 15 459 231-263, the shortened version reads as MPIA 231-263. The trial transcript cites are in a format where 8:12-16 means page 8, lines 12-16. I think that I indicate each time I include mock transcript exchanges, but to avoid any doubt, if I do not provide a specific transcript cite, I am taking creative license with a mock discussion. If I missed linking any MPIA cites please use the page number provided and look them up yourself.

One in Six Billion

Let’s begin with something about which we can all agree. In the 24 years since Hae Min Lee was murdered, there has only been one single witness who has come forward claiming to have personal knowledge about Adnan Syed’s role in the crime. It is important for us to ponder this fact for a moment. It has not simply been 24 years. A little over eight years ago this case became a global phenomenon. Millions of people became fascinated through the storytelling of Sarah Koenig. It made celebrities out of Adnan and Rabia Chaudry, his most outspoken advocate and sister of his best friend, Saad. It propelled Asia McClain from anonymity to a household name with a book deal. It destroyed what was left of the reputation of the late Cristina Gutierrez, the attorney who represented Adnan during his trial. It dragged individuals like Jay Wilds and Don Clinedinst into the spotlight despite their efforts to avoid it and move on with their lives. It reopened the wounds of Hae’s family and forced them into an inescapable and permanent nightmare. This time, however, it was worse because the man convicted of murdering Hae was celebrated by millions as a victim of injustice.
The most remarkable thing that occurred in the wake of the Serial Podcast was not its wild popularity. It was not the fact that it was discussed by almost anyone with an internet connection. It was not the broadcast media awards that its creators collected. It was not the millions paid by the New York Times to acquire the program. Even after the case invaded the consciousness of millions of people, one thing did not change. The only witness claiming to have personal knowledge of Adnan Syed being involved in the murder of Hae Min Lee is still Jay Wilds. No one who upon listening to the podcast recalled having seen something suspicious going on at the Best Buy on January 13, 1999. No one among Adnan’s classmates or friends from his mosque to whom he let it slip that he was responsible for Hae’s murder. None of the inmates with whom Adnan was imprisoned said a word reflecting Adnan mentioning what he allegedly did. For those who are certain of Adnan’s guilt and believe that he acted alone, this should be acknowledged as a remarkable level of discipline demonstrated by a 17-year-old. They talk of this being a garden variety crime and Adnan being a typical stupid teenager who screwed up. If that were the case, a lot more people would have come forward--especially in the last eight years.
The tipster who called on February 12, 1999 did not claim to have any specific knowledge, only suspicions. Jay’s friend, Ernest, told their neighbor Laura that he saw Hae’s body in the trunk of a car. Laura told her father who subsequently reported it to the police. When the cops questioned Ernest, he denied any such knowledge. For those who forgot what it’s like to be a teenager, that was Ernest trying to impress Laura with something that Jay told him. It sounded better for Ernest to tell Laura that he saw this interesting thing first-hand instead of telling her that he heard it from Jay. Jennifer Pusateri never claimed to have any first-hand knowledge and acknowledges that everything she knew was from Jay. Others in Jay and Jen’s circle learned of what Adnan had done to Hae, but the source always traced back to a single person: Jay.
Teenagers are not typically capable of that degree of discipline because they simply cannot be expected to keep that type of secret. Seriously though…of the roughly 6 billion people who were on our planet in 1999, only one fucking person had knowledge of the crime committed by this 17-year-old? Thus, it is tempting to assume that Jay’s story is bullshit. I can understand these arguments and seeing Adnan as an extremely unlucky victim of countless shitty circumstances.
It is not my place to sit in judgment over Adnan. That has already happened when the jury rendered a verdict, notwithstanding the politically motivated clusterfuck that was the motion to vacate. My goal in writing this is to provide an understanding of what happened in this case. My certainty of the role that Adnan played in Hae’s murder does not make him guilty. Fuck any small-minded person who feels compelled to slap me with the reductive and idiotic label of “guilter.” I, like most people with eyes and a brain, am also certain that OJ Simpson was responsible for murdering his ex and her lover. But I am also certain that the jury got the verdict right when they acquitted him. Regardless of how they rationalize it, the cops and prosecutors are not allowed to frame someone they have prejudged as guilty. In OJ’s case, the evidence against him was challenged in real time by his “Dream Team.” In Adnan’s case, despite having 24 years, his “Latrine Team” are blind to the obvious evidence that was fabricated against him. Instead, they make up fantasies that are untethered from anything resembling the truth or common sense.
This will be long because I do not simply want to tell you shit that I expect you to believe. I want to give you the courtesy of understanding what happened and why. It takes some doing to explain all this. There are so many lies that were told by all sides that it is insane to even attempt to separate the lies from the truth in a coherent way. I’m sorry, but unpacking more than two decades of lies is not something that can be summarized in a fucking tweet. Rabia Chaudry’s book on this case that is packed with false and misleading information is 416 pages long. Add to that the original 12-part podcast largely consisting of Sarah Koenig getting conned by team Adnan. Let's not forget the 4-part HBO documentary grounded in false and misleading information. Then, of course, there is the actual evidence in the form of the 2000+ page police file, the parts of the defense file that team Adnan didn’t shred and thousands of pages of briefs, trial and hearing transcripts. You expect me to distill all that into a few sentences? Fuck you. Stop reading now, give me your downvotes and make your witless comment quoting Polonius from Hamlet about brevity. Better yet, join ShakespeareMemes and give the bard some shit about how he should have condensed the Henriad into a sonnet. You want something short? Take a copy of Goodnight Moon and shove it up your ass. I think Tolstoy said that. It sounds more elegant in the original Russian.

Prisms

There are multiple prisms through which this case can be viewed. A true understanding of what really happened will never be achieved by relying on a one-sided perspective gained by viewing the case through a single prism. Doing so will always result in your seeing a kaleidoscope of possibilities with several loose ends for which there is no accounting. This leads to endless speculation and creation of random narratives to make a few pieces fit. These speculative narratives always fall apart under a modicum of scrutiny. If, however, you take the multiple prisms and combine them, the noise falls away and you are left with a single, clear image: The police and prosecutors successfully framed one of the criminals who participated in the murder of Hae Min Lee.
Of the many prisms through which this case can be viewed, we will focus on the four big ones: Of course, there is the prism of the evidence that was actually presented at trial through which Adnan was found guilty. Conversely, there is the prism that kicked off the Serial podcast wherein Adnan ostensibly had a rock-solid alibi that his supposedly bumbling attorney failed to use. Then there is the prism wherein Adnan was framed by the police who used Jay Wilds as their patsy. Finally, there is the prism of Hae’s murder being the plot masterminded by Adnan’s mentor, Bilal Ahmed.
So many lies have been told by all sides involved in this case. The lies did not begin with the Serial Podcast. They began from the day that the plot to murder Hae was conceived. The lies have layers upon layers that make uncovering the truth nearly impossible. Distinguishing the lies from the truth is possible if you allow yourself to see the case simultaneously through multiple prisms.
We have a natural tendency to gravitate toward one perspective or another. Whether we embrace a polarizing world view or not, that is how information is presented to us these days. Like we are children who are incapable of thinking for ourselves. We are encouraged to draw lines. We are to either believe that Adnan is a murderer or he was framed and unjustly imprisoned. Everything is black or white. We are either liberal or conservative. Add to that the nature of social media that thrives on vilifying those who hold an opposing point of view. Because outrage and conflict generate more clicks, which is the currency that drives our discourse. It drives us to attack one another with insults. Lib-tard or, i dunno, Fox viewer. Liberals were never as good at coming up with derogatory names. That’s saying a lot given how shitty conservatives are at it themselves. Consider the inelegant combination of “liberal” and “retard.” Liberals handcuff themselves with political correctness making them blind to the fact that “conservatard” or “Republitard” flow much more naturally. Anyway, I digress. Embracing such meaningless labels is an insult to our intelligence. Our need to make complex issues binary and align with one side or the other blinds us to obvious truths that could help us find common ground. We must remove these obstacles to escape the ideological entrenchment that prevents us from achieving a meaningful understanding of the issues.
It probably sounds like I'm saying that I'm above all that shit, but I'm not. Once I became aware of the lies coming from Team Adnan, I only saw their lies. The inconsistencies in Jay's story and the police investigation did not bother me. I saw evidence that unequivocally proved to me that I had been duped by a bunch of con artists. The Asia alibi that had us all outraged was a fraud. The fraudulent alibi had nothing to do with lies that originated with Jay or the police. It came from Adnan. "Fuck him," I thought. He's not my client. He was a kid with whom I identified and wanted to help.
But then while piecing together how the crime likely went down, other lies started presenting themselves. Lies told by the police and prosecutors in building their case against Adnan. These are different than the lies that form the basis of alleged misconduct that is argued by Team Adnan. It is easy to miss because Jay Wilds was the instrument used to push the lies told by the police and prosecutors. This can be proven with more substantive evidence that audible taps during Jay's recorded statements. But make no mistake: Jay is not the villain here. Making Jay the villain is easy. Understanding that he is the biggest victim in this case after Hae Min Lee is more complicated, but that is what will be explained in these posts.
It would be so much easier to explain all this if the lies told by Team Adnan and the lies told by the police and prosecutors were independent of one another. I would love to say that if I saw the police/prosecutor lies first, I would have been entrenched in the belief that Adnan did not commit the crime. I wish that I could extend that olive branch to those who identify as "innocenters." Unfortunately, the lies depend on one another wherein you can only understand the frame up if you are able to accept the truth that Adnan was involved in Hae's murder. That is particularly frustrating to me because distilling the truth from the mass tangle of lies in each prism is already a bitch. Accepting that Adnan was framed for a crime that he actually committed is easier for those who already see him as a murderer. It is a particularly heavy lift for those who identify as “innocenters.” It requires being open to and accepting some uncomfortable truths. Regardless of how I may have come across in my previous posts, I do not look down on those who identify as partisans who believe in Adnan’s innocence. I respect your optimism and desire to support the unjustly imprisoned. Your well-intentioned support for the innocent was preyed upon by Team Adnan. The anger in my writing comes from having been duped myself by these charlatans. There is no shame in advocating for an individual whom you sincerely believe was unjustly imprisoned. The only ones who should be ashamed are those who seek to take advantage of our better angels for their cynical purposes. That said, we should address the difficult truth that Adnan was, in fact, involved in the murder of Hae Min Lee.
​

The Uncomfortable Truth

My previous posts HERE and HERE discuss how the Asia letters were fabricated and why. I did not emphasize enough that the letters were also an admission of Adnan’s participation in Hae’s murder. At the time of my earliest post, I incorrectly assumed that he and his inner circle subverted the grand jury proceedings exclusively to improperly extract information about the state's theory of Hae's time of death. Although that may be part of what was going on, it was mostly Bilal Ahmed attempting to stage manage the proceedings because, as you will see in the next section, that is who he is.
Remember that the police had already given up to Adnan the identity of who ratted him out. It was the "black guy who puts pins through his mouth." App-071. That meant that Adnan had to cover his time before he saw Jay after school on January 13, 1999. Information from the grand jury may have served to confirm that the window of time for when the murder occurred according to the state was consistent with what Bilal and Adnan knew happened.
Most people who know some of the details surrounding the letters know that they were fabricated. If you do not, I suggest reviewing the posts linked at the beginning of this paragraph. But fabricating an alibi is something that can be explained away as the act of someone desperately trying to prove their innocence. Making up an alibi doesn’t necessarily prove that Adnan was involved in the murder. It was the timing that is underscored in each letter that serves as the admission of Adnan’s involvement.
Asia claims in her letters that she saw Adnan immediately after school. She specifically provided the time of 2:15 PM. Four years ago, I took a lot of shit for suggesting that the timing of Hae’s murder could not have been known by an innocent person on March 1, 1999. Especially when her body was not found until a month after she was last seen alive. So many hindsight spewing people with their heads appropriately up their ass declared with unearned certainty that everyone knew that Hae was murdered right after school. We know that is factually incorrect because Adnan’s own lawyers did not know the state’s theory of when Hae was murdered. They had to petition the court to compel the prosecution to provide that information. While demanding this information, Cristina Gutierrez’s letter dated July 7, 1999 specifically states:
“Defendant can’t possibly mount a defense or determine if an alibi disclosure is needed without being on notice of the alleged time of death.” (emphasis added).
Yes. Assuming that Adnan was innocent, no one could be working on an alibi until they knew Hae’s time of death. If that was not enough, we now have prosecutor Kevin Urick’s notes that were recently disclosed with information that he received from Bilal Ahmed’s ex-wife. In the wake of the news of Hae’s body being found, Bilal’s ex said that Bilal and Adnan talked about the police’s ability to determine the time of death. They also asked Bilal’s ex, who is a physician, about her experience in determining the time of death. That was on February 11, 1999–one month after Hae was last seen alive. Seventeen days before Adnan was arrested. We know it was February 11th because Hae’s body was found on February 9, she was identified on February 10th and the first news reports to the public of her body being found were on the 11th. The Baltimore Sun, February 12, 1999, pg. 8C. We also have Adnan’s cell record wherein his phone was pinging the tower near Bilal’s house located at 2915 Chestnut Hill Drive during the evening of the 11th. This address info is publicly available in Bilal’s 1999 divorce proceedings.
Then magically, there are two letters from Asia that provide Adnan with an alibi that are purportedly dated four months before an innocent Adnan would know the timing for when he needed one. While the actual dates that the fabricated letters were written is unclear, they predated the state’s July 8, 1999 disclosure of its theory for when Hae was murdered. We know that Gutierrez visited Adnan in prison two days later on July 10, 1999 to discuss potential alibis following the state’s disclosure. That is the date of Gutierrez’s suspiciously undated handwritten notes referring to Asia that were found in the defense file. Team Adnan had a penchant for selectively disclosing info from the defense file that was helpful and almost certainly shredded anything in the file that hurt Adnan’s case.
Remember. This was not a case where Hae left school and a shot rang out on January 13, 1999 at 2:20 PM and her dead body was found at 2:21 PM. She was last seen alive at 2:15 PM and her body was not found until four weeks later. The window for when she was murdered was wide open. The way alibis work in cases like this is as follows. The suspect waits for the police investigation to determine the time of the murder. The suspect is then presented with the relevant time frame. The suspect then considers whether he has anyone who can vouch for his time. In this case, Adnan had the alibi all lined up before conclusions were made regarding Hae's time of death. He then sat there drumming his fingers waiting to be confronted with the time that the state believed Hae was murdered. Upon finally being asked to account for himself, he had his prefabricated alibi. Prefabricated alibis are admissions.
There is also the police interview of Adnan’s friend, Ja’uan Gordon, who told the police about Asia’s letters in April of 1999. MPIA 912. Specifically, Ja’uan indicated that Adnan sent Asia a letter that she was supposed to transcribe and send back as her own. Team Adnan tried to “fix” Ja’uan’s statement by having him revise history 17 years later through an affidavit. It claims that the letter solicited from Asia was for letters of support attesting to his character in advance of Adnan’s bail hearing. Thus, even though there already instruction sheets for writing such letters circulating at Woodlawn High where Asia was a student wherein several students were tasked with collecting the letters (MPIA 1178), we are expected to believe that Adnan sent a special letter to Asia personally asking for her support. Did Asia ever even write Adnan a letter of support for his bail hearing? According to Asia, no. Asia admitted on the record in 2016--around the same time as Ja'uan's delayed affidavit--that the only letters she wrote were the two alibi letters. PCR Transcript, 2/4/2016 at 43:18-20.
We have not even discussed how Adnan and his family went out of their way to prove on the record that Asia’s alleged visit to the family home on March 1, 1999 never happened. You can read about that in more detail HERE where they also prove that their allegation that the information from Asia’s letters was immediately shared with Cristina Gutierrez was a demonstrable lie. If you have evidence at your disposal that proves that anything in the preceding paragraphs is factually incorrect, please share. Otherwise, it’s ok to finally acknowledge that Team Adnan has lied to you. Your support and attention should be directed to those who deserve it.
While you come to grips with the unpleasant truth, rest assured that your belief that Adnan was framed is grounded in facts. Note, however, that it is not based on the bullshit that Team Adnan has been trying to sell. Nor does it resemble the silly arguments found in the motion to vacate when the Baltimore prosecutor's office was run by Marilyn Mosby who was desperately trying to distract attention from her federal indictment. The police/prosectuor conspiracy is not as broad and comprehensive as many believe, but it is more insidious and depraved that you can imagine. The police investigation was not completely an exercise in bad faith. They resorted to fabricating evidence when they realized that they had nowhere to go. To understand the predicament in which the police found themselves, you need to understand how Bilal Ahmed operates. A foundation in understanding Bilal’s twisted mind and his relationship with Adnan sheds light on how the plot to murder Hae was supposed to go down, how it did go down and, most importantly, how Jay Wilds was wantonly and recklessly used by almost everyone involved in this case.
​

Entering the Mind of a Monster

This discipline and secrecy that resulted in Jay being the only witness claiming to have personal knowledge of the crimes committed by Adnan is beyond the capability of even the most devious 17-year-old. It came from Bilal Ahmed. The ridiculous discipline that was required to minimize the number of witnesses is a testament to Bilal’s meticulous nature. The only reason that the prosecution even had Jay was because Adnan deviated from Bilal’s plot. Had Adnan stuck to Bilal’s plan, there would not have been any material witnesses testifying against Adnan.
Thanks to Urick’s recently leaked notes, many of you have caught up to the idea that Bilal Ahmed played a role in the murder of Hae Min Lee. But then I see all the ridiculous theories that Bilal acted alone. Or that Bilal worked with Jay. Or that Bilal used one of those space lasers that exist only in the thing between Marjorie Taylor Green’s ears that neurologists mistake for a brain to blast Hae to death. Slow down. There is no need to treat this like toddler soccer where everyone, including the goalies, chase the ball around the field. We must disabuse ourselves of these false assumptions. Bilal did not work with Jay, communicate with Jay or have any direct connection with Jay. That demonstrates a degree of carelessness that is absent in Bilal’s DNA. Nor did Bilal carefully have Hae murdered without Adnan’s participation or knowledge. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand Bilal and the facts of this case.
It is important to pause here and note the ridiculously close relationship between Bilal and Adnan for those who are not familiar. Bilal has known Adnan since the latter was 11 years old. After Adnan was arrested, he told the detectives that he wanted to speak with Bilal. Bilal was Adnan’s first call from jail. Bilal hired the lawyers who were calling the police department within an hour of Adnan’s arrest. Bilal organized the local Islamic community’s fundraising efforts to cover the cost of Adnan’s defense. Bilal hired Cristina Gutierrez to represent himself when he testified before the grand jury and subsequently had Gutierrez take over Adnan’s defense. From his arrest through early October 1999, Bilal visited Adnan in prison more than any person who was not a member of Adnan’s family or legal team. When Bilal himself was arrested in mid October 1999 for criminal sexual conduct with a minor, he had a photo of Adnan in his wallet. That’s all I can remember off the top of my head. That’s the guy you heard almost nothing about in the original podcast.
I’m not saying this to gloat, but when I concluded a few years ago that Bilal was the mastermind behind the plot to murder Hae Min Lee, I was not just throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks. I was not making a wild guess and got lucky like I filled out a fluke NCAA bracket. I wasted a shitload of time analyzing the evidence and studying how Bilal operated. He is an extremely careful criminal. That explains how he was able to evade capture for nearly two decades despite his preying on children, his dental patients, US taxpayers (bilking Medicaid), etc. He does an excellent job covering his tracks. His problem was his tendency to go way over the top while doing so. This manifests through his concocting overly complicated plots and, in the case of Hae’s murder, going to extreme lengths to give himself plausible deniability by not getting his hands dirty. Thus, even if the cops suspect him, as they did in this case, they do not have enough evidence to charge him. Recall that Bilal’s cell records were subpoenaed around the time Adnan was formally indicted on April 13, 1999. On the surface, Bilal’s cell records did not give the cops enough to make him a suspect in the conspiracy to murder Hae. You have to go a few levels deeper to understand the game Bilal was playing.
It’s helpful to examine some of examples of Bilal’s extreme risk aversion and theatrics to understand why he would never have Jay knowingly participate in the plot to murder Hae. Let’s begin by reviewing the steps Bilal took regarding the phone that he purchased for Adnan.

• Bilal was letting Adnan use one of his (at least) three cell phones before Hae’s murder. We know this because of Adnan’s friend, Peter Billingsly’s, police interview. Peter said that Adnan was using a Sprint phone before he got the AT&T phone. God bless Peter for specifying the carrier name because Bilal’s three lines are on Sprint. Checking Bilal’s records shows that there was a call placed to Peter around the time Adnan picked up the new phone that Bilal purchased for him. Thus, it is established that Adnan was using one of Bilal’s phones immediately before Hae was last seen alive.
• I stated in previous posts that Bilal did not want to risk using one of his phones in the plot in case things went south. It’s bad enough that Bilal purchased a new phone for Adnan immediately before Hae’s murder. It looks even more suspicious that Bilal was allowing Adnan to use one of his Sprint phones and suddenly decided that Adnan should have one of his own. That’s pretty huge and something that neither Adnan nor his surrogates ever addressed.
• We know that Adnan’s AT&T phone was purchased on January 11, 1999 by Bilal and that Adnan went with Peter the next day to pick it up. Because Bilal needs everything to be a ridiculously complicated cloak and dagger production, he went to the AT&T store separate from Adnan to create distance from himself (Bilal) and the purchase of the AT&T phone. Because Bilal is not always as smart as he thinks he is, he didn’t realize that purchasing the phone for Adnan would require the account to be under Bilal’s own name, which is splashed across the top (second page of PDF) of Adnan’s cell phone bill. Thus, all that secret agent bullshit was for naught.
• After Adnan’s arrest, Bilal knew it looked very bad that he purchased the AT&T phone for Adnan immediately before Hae was last seen alive. Thus, Bilal used Yasar Ali (I’m not re-writing that shit) whom he called before Yaser’s police interview and likely told him to tell the cops that Bilal and Adnan had been shopping for a phone for months–which Yasar did (MPIA 965). This was to make the phone purchase look more coincidental than like a suspicious act.
• Bilal also knew that it looked bad that he went to the AT&T store separately–like he was trying to keep distance between himself and Adnan’s phone. So, during the grand jury proceedings, Bilal perjured himself and testified that he accompanied Adnan to the AT&T store to get the phone (bottom of pg. 9). We know that isn’t true based on Peter B’s statement to the cops.
• As to all the crap about Adnan’s parents knowing about the phone and Adnan being proud of being able to pay for a phone by himself, that’s all bullshit too. During the grand jury proceedings, Bilal testified that the bills for Adnan’s phone went to Bilal’s home address, not Adnan’s (see pg. 15). It was obviously in Bilal's interest to lie about that but he could not because the records indicated that the bills went to Bilal. Adnan did not spend one penny of his own money on that phone.
• Finally, there is the record of calls between Bilal and Adnan’s new phone–notably, the lack thereof. Bilal was careful to not have any calls between himself and Adnan on the AT&T phone on the days surrounding Hae’s murder. That was enough to throw the cops–who had subpoenaed Bilal’s phone records–off his scent. At first glance, the cops saw no calls between Adnan and Bilal between Jan 12 and Jan 14, 1999. No calls tying Bilal to Adnan on the day Hae was last seen alive. It worked. But Bilal being Bilal, he went way too far and hardly ever called Adnan’s cell at any point for the next five weeks. That was too fucking deliberate. Too careful. Not even a "Hey! How's that new phone I got you working out?" Or "Thanks for for the new phone, Bilal!" Nothing.
• In sum, Bilal decided that the safest course for himself was to NOT let Adnan use one of his Sprint phones and got him a new AT&T phone from which he did his damndest to distance himself. By trying too hard, Bilal revealed his scheme for self-preservation in view of the crime.

Is it becoming clear why there are so few witnesses against Adnan who actually saw or heard anything? No? Ok, let’s revisit how Bilal and Adnan concocted such an elaborate alibi that it ended up becoming an admission.

• Alonzo Sellers stumbled across Hae’s body on February 9, her body was identified on February 10 and it was reported to the public on February 11.
• As described earlier, we know based on Urick’s notes that Bilal and Adnan were stressing out on February 11, 1999 as the discovery of Hae’s body was being reported. We know that they were asking Bilal’s physician wife if the cops would be able to determine Hae’s time of death. Bilal and Adnan knew right then on February 11, 1999 that they needed to cover Adnan for the window during which he had no alibi.
• Jay was supposed to serve as the first and most important alibi to cover Adnan from the time that Jay picked Adnan up after school from the Best Buy lot. We will address this in excruciating detail later. But when Jay became a witness for the prosecution, Adnan needed someone to lie about seeing him an hour or so before that. Thus, the Asia alibi.
• But these shit-heads were not patient enough to wait until the state actually provided its theory on July 8, 1999 of when Hae was murdered that Gutierrez demanded the previous day specifically for alibi purposes. Nor were they capable of taking the less complicated route of having Asia come forward and simply declare that she saw Adnan at the library during the relevant time. That’s way too straightforward. Bilal is all about putting on a garish production. Thus, they have Asia write multiple letters with tons of unnecessary information indicating foreknowledge of what the state’s theory was going to be. A theory that the state did not disclose to the defense until more than four fucking months passed after the dates on Asia’s letters. Letters that talk about Adnan’s “unwitnessed, unaccountable time.” Letters that ended up being incriminating instead of exculpatory. All because Bilal cannot stop himself from trying too fucking hard. Because Bilal is preoccupied with carefully making every detail perfect. This habit of revealing criminal behavior by trying too hard is not limited to Bilal. It is a recurring theme that is essential to understanding this case.

Given that backdrop, it is absurd to believe that Bilal would say, “Hey Adnan! Tell that acquaintance of yours who is outside of our circle of trust about our plot to murder Hae and his role in it! Imagine the fun we'll have sweating buckets wondering when he will tell his friends and the stories we will have to make up to stay ahead of the police and prosecutors!” Bilal’s failures as a criminal mastermind include cramming way too much detail and having too many moving parts–demonstrating too much care. Injecting a witness like Jay into the plot that can later sell you out is beyond careless. Bilal had other plans for Jay. Without knowing it, Jay was supposed to help Adnan get away with the murder. It is a bitter irony for Adnan that Jay ended up doing the exact opposite.
On to Part 2

YOU decide what events should change in the world of pop culture, be it real or ASB (future movie gets shown in the past, an actor does/doesn't die, alternate casting choices, unmade media possibly getting made, media is rewritten, a change in the box office or something new entirely)!
I document what happens in a current timeline of Earth!
We all have fun!
CURRENT TIMELINE:
1818: Mary Shelley's The Modern Prometheus, a novel in which scientist Henry Frankenstein creates a sapient creature named Prometheus is made. Prometheus becomes a stalwart of the monster genre.
1907-1908: A young comedian named Charlie Chaplin refuses to accept the offer of Fred Karno to come to the U.S. He becomes a famous comedian, often incorporating a character he named The Tramp in his stand-up routines.
1912: The Olympic ship crashes upon hitting an iceberg, becoming a memorable event. James Cameron's Olympic (1997) would be the first film to gross $1B, even entering the National Film Registry.
1931: Frankenstein and his Prometheus, an adaptation of The Modern Prometheus starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff as Henry and Prometheus is a box-office smash. It would enter the National Film Registry in 1991.
1941: Fleischer Studios' Mr. Bug Goes to Town is a box office success, saving the studio. Today it is one of Disney's biggest competitors, along with Warner Bros.
1951: Fawcett Comics wins a lawsuit over National Comics for the rights to the characters of Captain Marvel and Superman. While National Comics would die in obscurity, Fawcett Comics would be Marvel's biggest competitor.
1962: Marilyn Monroe doesn't die. She goes into hiding in Las Vegas doing revue shows. Discovered by higher ups at NBC, she signs on to The Marilyn Monroe Show, a sketch comedy show that runs until her death in 1999.
1966: Warner Bros.' Twister comes out, becoming the highest grossing film of the year. It would spawn "Tornado-mania", a series of tornado movies made to copy its success. It would enter the National Film Registry in 1996.
1969: Nixon resigns his presidency the become a talk show host. The Dick Nixon show airs until 1983.
Make America Great Again - written and directed by Mel Brooks - is released. The film stars Ronald Reagan as himself as he decides to run for President after becoming a washed up movie star - promising to “Make America Great Again”. Wacky shenanigans ensue, including President Reagan trying to build a massive wall on the Southern border to stop Soviet influence, claiming that “both sides have very fine people” in regards to the Civil Rights Movement, and him accidentally starting a cult about how hippies are secretly stooges of a global satanic cult run by the elites.
The film is a critical and commercial success and becomes one of the greatest and funniest comedies of all time. It enters the National Film Registry in 1999.
The Dick Cavett Show airs on ABC, becoming the main competitor to NBC's Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. It would end in 1996 to make way for its new replacement The Jon Stewart Show.
Creedence Clearwater Revival release a song about the Civil Rights Movement called Fortunate Son. It becomes their signature song. It enters the National Recording Registry in 2013.
1974: Star Trek: The Continuing Mission, a revival of the original 60s series, airs in syndication until 1981.
1974-1979: Michael John Kricfalusi becomes an anti-Rhodesian mercenary during the Rhodesian Bush War. He becomes a POW by forces from Apartheid South Africa. As a result, he is physically and mentally scarred.
1979: Ozzy Osbourne goes into rehab and continues to play for Black Sabbath, leading to them getting a Beatles-like Renaissance in the 80s, making Heavy Metal one of the 80s most notable music genres.
1980-1981: From February 1980 to August 1981, John Kricfalusi would heal his mental wounds at a mental institution.
1982: John Kricfalusi founds Spümcø, an animation studio that was founded due to John's perceived views on how Hanna-Barbera and Rankin/Bass, two studios he worked at, failed to make good cartoons.
1983: E.T. for the Atari proves to be a very good game, making millions for Atari. This would inspire them to improve their games on their future consoles such as the 5200 and 7800, leading them to become a fierce competitior in the gaming market. The last Atari console came out in the early 2000s.
You Nutzy Rascals!, a short made by John K., is the first to feature prototype designs of Ren and Stimpy.
1985: The War of the Worlds, a film made in collaboration with Disney and Jeff Wayne, based on his musical album adapting the H.G. Wells story, hits theaters. It is a critical and commercial success, cited for starting the Disney Renaissance. Disney and Jeff Wayne would collaborate two more times, making animated adaptations of The Modern Prometheus (1988) and The Time Machine (1992). It would enter the National Film Registry in 2022.
Warner Communications buys Warner Amex-Satellite Entertainment to make Warner MTV Networks.
1986: Ravel's Bolero becomes the theme to The Legend of Zelda. It would later serve to be the theme for the Zelda games in Japan, with a different theme for NTSC releases.
Cliff Burton survives a car crash and continues to play bass for Metallica, helping put thrash metal on the mainstream map.
1987: Morrissey and Johnny Marr become frenemies. The Smiths continue into the 1990s.
1988: During production of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Harrison Ford is shot and killed by a loaded prop gun. This would lead to it being hastily recut in time for 1989. It would lead to a heavy burden on Lucasfilm. The documentary Ford - Spielberg's Right Hand Man would be released in 2008 to great success.
1989: Doctor Who is saved from cancellation by BBC. It remains one of the longest running TV shows.
Sergio Leone dies of old age. He is remembered for his westerns as well as Don Quixote, The Phantom, and Leningrad: The 900 Days.
1990: John K. creates Big House Blues, the pilot for The Ren & Stimpy Show, which is picked up by Nickelodeon.
1991: Eddie Vedder dies in a car crash before the first Pearl Jam album is released. They find a new lead in Chris Cornell, who also sings for Soundgarden until their demise in 1997.
Ren & Stimpy airs on Nickelodeon, along with Doug, Rugrats, Tiny Toon Adventures, Taz-Mania (both this show and TTA would later air in syndication) and Big Beast Quintet (cancelled in 1993). It is currently the longest running American animated series, beating out Matt Groening's The Simpsons, who cancelled the show in 1998 in favor of working on the long-running Futurama which still airs today.
Tim Burton is attached to direct an adaptation of The Addams Family TV show as a movie. It would later spawn three sequels, with Tim leaving after the second movie. The latter two would be critically panned.
1992: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace comes out, becoming the highest grossing film of the year. Episodes II and III would later come out in 1995 and 1998 respectively.
J.R.R. Tolkien dies at 100, finishing The New Shadow and The Silmarillion. He was also known for being war minister of the UK from 1940 to 1945.
Stephen Hillenburg is invited to work on Ren & Stimpy after showing his short film Wormholes at the TIFF.
Cartoon Network begins after Ted Turner merges with Viacom in 1986 and buys the Hanna-Barbera library in 1991.
1993: Spielberg quits directing after doing Schindler's List. This not only cancels plans for a Jurassic Park sequel, but also an adaptation of Supertoys Last All Summer Long.
1994: During filming of The Crow, Brandon Lee survives a shot from a prop gun. He would propel into superstardom. He is now known for playing Neo in The Matrix franchise and Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat (1995).
Kurt Cobain announces the breakup of Nirvana as he goes into rehab. In 2002, the band reunited for You Know You're Right, an album that became a top seller. They still perform to this day.
1995: YouTube, a video sharing site, is released. It would not gain much popularity until 2001, where an influx of YouTubers would bring it to stardom.
Toy Story, a stop motion film, gains critical acclaim due to its incredible scale, becoming the 2nd highest grossing film of the year.
Sarah Michelle Gellar dies in a kayaking incident days before the release of her only film Clueless. This would cause Clueless to become the highest grossing film of the year and become known as one of the best teen films. It enters the National Film Registry in 2005. Bad Boys, a film released the same day as Clueless, would become the 6th highest grossing film of the year despite mixed reviews.
Spotify, a humble music downloading site, releases. In 1997, it would change into a music streaming site, and would often show ads for the latest in music.
Selena Quintalla survives being shot. Jennifer Lopez wanes in popularity.
1996: The Nintendo 64DD comes out in a partnership with Phillips, revolutionising the console industry by introducing CD memory, rising it above the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. One of the top best selling games would be Super Mario 64 2, the sequel to Super Mario 64. The 64DD would serve as motivation for Sega to complete Sonic X-Treme by 1997, which becomes a huge hit. This would give Sega the boost it needed to continue making consoles. Other Mario games made for the 64DD include Mario Takes America and Super Mario's Wacky Worlds.
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which had been under a state similar to the Atari 2600, releases its last two games: Super Mario Legends, a game similar in style to the Mario Land games released by Nintendo R&D1, which becomes a minor hit and Animaniacs, a port of Konami's Game Boy game which got mixed reviews.
Tupac survives being shot while having a drive in Las Vegas. He still has a rap career.
Ren & Stimpy Go To Hollywood, a film released by Warner Bros., becomes the highest grossing animated film of the year, making over $600M. It has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This film would also have one of Ronald Reagan's last acting roles.
NDR Filmes' Cassiopeia gets fame for being the first completely computer-animated film. It gets an English dub for a worldwide release. It enters the National Film Registry in 2006.
After his work on Ren & Stimpy, Stephen Hillenburg pitches his own show to Nickelodeon about a sea sponge.
Rapper and music producer Andre "Dr. Dre" Young is shot and killed by a vengefully spiteful Suge Knight in a drive-by shooting, since Young left Death Row Records after accusing Knight of corruption the month prior. His death leads to tributes from fans and colleagues alike, and his first album The Chronic is praised for being influential. Tupac Shakur, in addition to being a rapper, assumes Dr. Dre's role as a music producer out of respect for his newly deceased friend. After Suge Knight is arrested and imprisoned for life due to murdering Young, Shakur takes over Death Row Records. The Chronic enters the National Recording Registry in 2019.
1997: Reddit, a news and discussion board, is released. It becomes very, very popular.
The Notorious B.I.G. survives a shooting like his friend and collaborator Tupac, and he continues to make music.
Aspiring rapper Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs is killed in a gang shootout in Los Angeles, California; however, right-wing news network Fox News reports the shootout as having happened in New York City, New York (which is untrue). This leads to rapper Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace recording a single dedicated to Combs called "I'll Be Missing You" (which heavily samples "Every Breath You Take" by The Police) which was included as a bonus track on No Way Out, Combs' first and only debut album released posthumously on July 22, 1997. The album became influential in the years since Combs' death, proving that, even in death, one can still have a rap career and be influential. No Way Out would enter the National Recording Registry in 2007.
1998: Neon Genesis Evangelion is unknowingly localized by 4Kids, leading to a HEAVILY censored English dub that makes the show popular during the late 90s-early 00s.
Chris Farley wakes from a coma due to a drug overdose. After deciding to give the role of Shrek to Mike Myers his friend, he gets the role of Doug Heffernan on The King of Queens.
1999: Stephen Hillenburg's SpongeBob SquarePants airs on Nickelodeon. Although it is a hit at first, work complications, problems outsourcing animation to the studio Gainax, and the banned episode Wrasslin' Maniacs where SpongeBob and Patrick beat up Squidward, Hillenburg is fired from the show in 2002.
Tommy Boy's Return, the sequel to Tommy Boy, releases in theaters. It is considered a cult classic today.
2000: Battlefield Earth is released in theaters to be a huge success, ending up the 8th highest grossing film of the year. This would cause an interest in works by L. Ron Hubbard, making the Church of Scientology a rising religion. Battlefield Earth 2 would later release in 2003 to similar acclaim.
4Kids is bought by Warner Communications. As a result, more anime airs on Kids WB.
The Atari Cougar, Atari's final console before being bought by Jakks Pacific in 2002, is released. It is a cult classic console.
Tim Burton's Wizard of Oz gains mixed to positive reviews, and makes the top 10 list of highest grossing films of the year.
2001: Grand Theft Auto III, the third entry in the GTA series is cancelled following 9/11. The game would later redevelop into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which was released in 2004.
Spy Kids, Quentin Tarantino's first kids' film is released in theaters to mixed reviews, but becomes a cult classic. Two more sequels were released in the two years after it, all would get the same fate.
During 9/11, Kevin James dies after being squished by falling debris from the North Tower.
2002: Netflix, the world's first ever online streaming service for film and TV, launches. They release their first Netflix Original - an epic drama gangster film called American Gangster starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott - five years later on November 2, 2007, after buying the distribution rights from Universal Pictures (who were set to be the original proprietors). All of their films and series are also given DVD and/or Blu-ray releases, courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, who owns the home media rights to Netflix Original films/series etc.
2003: Call of Duty, a war shooter game, sells 200,000 copies, making for poor sales. No sequels are planned. The Battlefield series gains from this.
Star Trek: The Original Generation, a Star Trek prequel series, airs for two seasons on Fox before cancellation.
Sony launches the American feed of 24-hour anime channel Animax, which overtakes Adult Swim's Toonami in popularity.
Sylvester Stallone becomes Governor of California until 2011.
TIME names Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as Person of the Year due to being "One of the great dictators of the modern age".
2004: Fallout 3 releases on Windows to high ratings, saving Interplay from bankruptcy. They would later release 2 console games, Fallout 4 and Fallout 5. Many spinoff games would be made.
Hillenburg's company United Plankton Pictures makes the Newgrounds webseries The Motherfucking Patchy the Pirate Show, focusing on the misadventures of Patchy the Pirate.
2005: Minecraft, a web browser game is released by Mojang with the help of a team that planned a game known as Terraria, where it would be very successful until 2009, when a 3D version for Java was released. It is currently owned by Microsoft, who still makes updates for it.
SpongeBob SquarePants is quietly cancelled due to declining ratings.
FOX airs The Office, an American adaptation of the British mockumentary series of the same name, airing until 2013 for nine seasons. It becomes one of the most memorable sitcoms of all time, winning several Emmys. Mr. Blue Sky becomes the theme song.
2006: Warner Communications contacts Hillenburg for an adult-only SpongeBob reboot.
Night at the Museum is released to mixed reviews as it becomes a box-office bomb. With plans for a sequel dead in the water, Fox sells the rights to Sony in 2007 who plans to reboot the series, but also keep the distribution rights for the original film.
Blockbuster buys Netflix, moving the website to Blockbuster.com, and naming it Blockbuster Online. After all of its stores were closed, it becomes Blockbuster+.
2007: Kanye West dies in a car crash before his album Graduation releases, causing him to be mourned. This would lead to many people buying the album, creating a short-lived rap revival that would temporarily mark the end of gangsta rap until 2010.
Owen Wilson commits suicide. In discussions about the "Frat Pack", he is replaced by Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. Drillbit Taylor and Tropic Thunder are both dedicated to his memory. Plans for a sequel to Cars are cancelled by Pixar and Disney.
2007-2011: Identically similar to events in our world, screenwriter Simon Monjack and actress and "Clueless" sensation Brittany Murphy (who still starred in this alternate reality's version of the 1995 film "Clueless", but here she instead co-stars with rising co-stars Sarah Michelle Gellar playing Cher, and Regina Hall playing Dionne) are about to marry back in May 2007, but Murphy calls the marriage to Monjack off at the exact same wedding. This causes a scandal that briefly kills her good reputation, and gets her blacklisted in Hollywood (for a while). In this alternate history, Simon Monjack is put in prison for attempting murder on Brittany Murphy, but here, is killed by a crazed cellmate whilst serving time (said crazed cellmate also happens to be a fan of Brittany Murphy). Brittany Murphy then moves to an apartment complex in New York in 2008, ditching Hollywood for good and starting a musical career.
Natalie Portman, a fairly successful but struggling rising young TV actress, is having a hard time finding work in Hollywood due to the failure of the Star Trek prequel television series Star Trek: The Original Generation. She co-starred in the series alongside Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, and Samuel L. Jackson. While the then 56-57 year old Jackson at least got to have a successful career in Hollywood (due to being a Christopher Nolan regular), Christensen and McGregor were rejected by the industry; Christensen started an indie rock band while McGregor then went on to become a successful UFC fighter, but would then become very scandalous as he suffers from numerous arrests and an intense drug addiction. McGregor would then unfortunately die young from a drug overdose on December 7, 2008. Going back to Portman, she would become an indie darling in independent cinema, however her career would be cut short when she would die in a car crash on July 19, 2009, just one month and ten days after her 28th birthday. She was last seen in a DTV thriller called "Abandoned", which released in March 2010. Her death leads to tributes from co-stars and fans alike.
In December 2009, Brittany Murphy is then offered the lead role in Darren Aronofsky's upcoming psychological horror film "Black Swan", about a troubled ballerina. The film would co-star Melanie Lynskey as the troubled ballerina's rival, and like in our world, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey, and Vincent Cassel. The film released in December 2010 (like in our world), to rave reviews, with critics calling it Brittany Murphy's finest appearance yet. Murphy would then take home the Best Actress Oscar as well as the Best Dramatic Performance in a Movie Golden Globe for her performance in the film in 2011. Murphy would then continue her acting career following a big career boost, as well as her singing/musical career at the same time. In fact, she releases a fairly successful debut album in March 2011 simply called "Brittany", to positive reviews. It would then become the best selling musical album of the year, even winning her a Grammy in 2012.
2008: Bulletman, the highest grossing film of the year, marks the beginning of the successful Fawcett Cinematic Universe (FCU). It would enter the National Film Registry in 2020.
During the premiere of Tropic Thunder, Tom Cruise announces his retirement from entertainment and Scientology. He spends the rest of his life quietly as a Buddhist in England. As Dwayne Johnson takes Tom's place, Paramount announces plans to reboot the Mission: Impossible franchise (though nothing comes from it).
SpongeBob XXX, an adult SpongeBob reboot, airs on AMC alongside Breaking Bad. SpongeBob XXX would be universally panned, airing only 3 episodes out of a made 6 (all were later put on DVD). It is known for being one of the worst animated series of all time.
Iron Age, a film fully funded by UNESCO, is made as the first film of an IRL cinematic universe. It gets nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, like every film in the IRLCU after it.
2009: Adventure Time, a cartoon by Pendleton Ward, airs on Nickelodeon. It becomes one of Nickelodeon's highest-rated cartoons, airing until 2016. Many people would call it an animation trailblazer, leading to Nick approving more "lore-based" shows.
Half-Life 3 comes out, and continues the high ratings of the Half-Life franchise, making games well until 2017 (counting spinoffs).
Some people would compare it to Regular Show, who they saw as Cartoon Network's equivalent to Adventure Time.
Discord, a discussion site, is released, becoming popular with gamers.
Liam Gallagher has a near-fatal drug overdose after the breakup of Oasis. Finding peace with his brother, Oasis reunites in 2012, releasing a new album in 2015. They still perform.
Amy Winhouse retires after a heavy intervention. She still occasionally produces for Adele.
2011: Fortnite Battle Royale by Epic Games is released to the public. It becomes extremely popular, and is still played today.
2012: Pixar's Newt, a film that came due to the cancellation of Wreck-It Ralph (some claim due to the problems of getting permission from game companies) is released and barely breaks even. It would start a dark age for Pixar, which would continue with Brave and Cars 2.
It would also play a key part in George Lucas refusing to give away Lucasfilm, due to Disney's perceived slump.
After Hillenburg's company dissolves, he becomes the cartoon reviewer Stevey Shark for Channel Awesome.
Jim Carrey dies of a heart attack.
2013: Doug Walker leaves Channel Awesome, leaving Stevey Shark to be the new star. Markiplier, MrEnter, and MatPat would later join Channel Awesome among others.
The Freedom Tower is made to replace the original North Tower destroyed in the attack. Memes would arise from the comparison between the towers.
2014: A Day With Patchy the Pirate, a half-hour short made by Hillenburg, airs on YouTube as Channel Awesome's first foray into animation. It has a troubled production due to being funded online, and would be panned upon release.
Robin Williams survives a suicide attempt, and launches his own suicide prevention program. He would then star in the 2016 drama Uncut Gems by Christopher Nolan, playing crime lord Howard Ratner, giving him a Best Actor Oscar.
2015: Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens, featuring Darth Maul and Darth Talon as antagonists, is released, becoming the highest grossing film of the year. Two more sequels were made in 2017 and 2019.
2016: John K. dies from multiple scolerosis. Bob Camp takes over as showrunner of Ren and Stimpy.
2017: Growing Around, a new YouTube webseries made by Stephen Hillenburg & Johnathan Rozanski, about a world where grown-ups switch with kids, is released. Despite gaining positive reviews, both the downfall of Channel Awesome and Hillenburg & Rozanski's heinous acts would result in Markiplier buying the license, airing it on his webseries Unus Annus for one last season, ending in 2020.
Chester Bennington survives his suicide attempt. Linkin Park would make its newest album in December of 2020.
2018: Donald Trump starts The Trump Experience, a very popular podcast.
2019: Season 3 of Gravity Falls comes out to near-universal acclaim.
2020: Chadwick Boseman recovers from his cancer.
2022: Jordan Peele's Nope becomes the highest grossing film of the year. It enters the National Film Registry in 2033.
Presidents of the USA since 1977:
Jimmy Carter (1977-1985)
Walter Mondale (1985-1989)
George H.W. Bush (1989-1993)
Mario Cuomo (1993-2001)
John F. Kennedy Jr. (2001-2005)
John McCain (2005-2013)
Barack Obama (2013-2021)
Jeb Bush (2021-today)
Governors of California since 1947:
James Roosevelt (1947-1953) Resigned) Democrat
Pat Brown (1953-1963) Democrat
Richard Nixon (1963-1969) Republican
Edwin Reineck (1969-1974) Resigned) Republican
John L Harner (1974-1975) Republican
Tom Hayden (1975-1983) Democrat
Tom Bradley (1983-1991) Democrat
Clint Eastwood (1991-2003) Independent
Sylvester Stallone (2003-2011) Republican
Conan O'Brien (2011-2019) Democrat
Gavin Newsom (2019-Today) Democrat

Let me ask you a question. If you haven’t listened to Kyuss, are you even a QotSA fan?
I suppose it is possible. Some people can be Peter Gabriel fans without being Genesis fans, or Ozzy Osbourne fans without being Black Sabbath fans, or Audioslave fans without being fans of Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine. And I am pretty sure that there are Foo Fighters fans out there who are not fans of Nirvana -- probably because Foo Fighters are a way better band than Nirvana.
Yeah, I said it. Come at me.
Nothing like an unpopular opinion to separate the feral from the tame.
But QotSA without Kyuss? I can’t see it. Maybe I am biased because I just love the low desert sound. Heavy riffs, lots of fuzz, and earthquake-inducing bass are my jam. That’s why I love Self-Titled so much and why I feel 18 A.D. is chronically underappreciated as a song, and it is an absolute crime that they don’t play it live.
I know I am not alone in this. Kyuss were a genre defining band that created what we now call Stoner Rock. Bands like Valley of the Sun, King Buffalo, Truckfighters, Stonerror, Sleep, Clutch, Mother Engine, Mondo Generator, Duel, and Fu Manchu all continue to write and perform Stoner Rock today. If you haven’t taken a dive into this scene, I totally envy the fact that you get to experience this music for the first time.
Today we are going to check out a great Stoner Rock band that you just gotta listen to. They have more fuzz than a five day backwoods fishing trip. They have bigger jams than Smucker’s, Welch’s, and Kraft combined. They will make your one-hitter hit a home run. You are gonna want to roll down the windows of your low riding caddy and drive all night through the desert.
Yep, you are in for a treat. This week’s band is ALL THEM WITCHES.
About Them
You are familiar with the Hero’s journey, right? That is the literary trope where our protagonists leave their comfortable little world, are mentored through a series of increasing challenges, find themselves at a low point, overcome obstacles, and return home greater and wiser than before?
As with every story of heroes, our group of adventurers from Nashville Tennessee went on a truly epic journey. Drummer Robby Staebler had just arrived in Nashville from Portland, Oregon and was looking for some buds to start a band. He had rolled up at his new home in the back of a moving van, because his mom had decided that he was just not good enough to ride up front. His dad was conspicuously absent. After meeting a sketchy male role model with a Smashmouth-esque chinstrap beard, he was forced by this would-be academic to enslave a small animal. He then ran away from home to engage in a series of escalating gladiatorial fights for money.
Wait. Shit. That is the plot of Pokemon Emerald, not the story of All Them Witches. Damn free emulators. Such a massive time sink.
Mudkip for the win. You are damn right I’m bringing back that meme.
Where was I? I kinda got distracted there. Oh yeah. Robby Staebler was looking for a band. He met guitarist Ben McLeod in a bar (remember when we could meet people in bars?) and then met aspiring drama student Charles Michael Parks Jr. when he took a job at “a corporate hippie store”. Parks Jr. turned those theatre aspirations into being a great frontman and bass player. The band rounded out their membership with Allan Van Cleave, a friend of Staebler, on keys. All Them Witches took the inspiration for their name from the set-prop book entitled All of Them Witches in the 1968 Roman Polanski Spawn-of-Satan movie Rosemary’s Baby.
Let’s get something else out of the way: Yes, I said Nashville Tennesee. The Buckle of the Bible Belt. The Protestant Vatican. The Athens of the South. The Hot Chicken Capital. Yes, the self-proclaimed Music City is perennially associated with Country music, Gospel music and, to a lesser extent, contemporary Christian Rock. There is a Jazz scene. There are active Barbershop groups. The city is the home of the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Hee Haw was shot there. It is a city that, until a few decades ago, still had strong ties to the Confederacy.
How the hell did a Stoner Rock band start there?
Quickly, that’s how.
The band were officially formed in February of 2012 and released their first album, Our Mother Electricity, on December 6th, 2012. Being from Nashville, the album was of course released on the German heavy psych label Elektrohasch Schallplatten. So just so we’re clear: Stoner Rock was born in the California Desert and then adopted by a band from Tennessee and released on a German label. I just have one question: Where the fuck is Carmen Sandiego?
To be fair, All Them Witches characterized their debut sound as being ‘psychedelta rock’...which kinda sounds like a knock off version of an X-Man. The album is full of heavy jams. Listeners can expect to hear the influence of the blues mixed with deep fuzz and highly compressed vocals. Until it Unwinds is over eight minutes of rolling swagger that will have you thinking about 50 Million Year Trip. Heavy/Like a Witch has some definite Stone Temple Pilots vibes and is a great opener. The true standout on the album is The Urn, a dark and twisted fable that is really the antithesis of everything one associates with music in the Bible Belt. The album was a declaration of war on everything cheery and pleasant to be found in the Music City, and a bold statement from a band finding its feet.
The band were not entirely happy with the production on Our Mother Electricity. In order to assert themselves, they went ultra low-tech. The released the Extra Pleasant EP in July of 2013. It was recorded on a 4-track cassette tape using only two microphones. Production-wise, it is a step back - but when you listen to it on headphones, you can appreciate the raw talent. It is a weird low-fi follow up and almost like listening to a debut rather than the first album. Listening to this EP is like hearing a Pink Floyd cover band’s first original songs that have been mashed up with Clutch and recorded on an iPhone 4. Even with those limitations, tracks like Sludger will stay with you and are worth your time.
While their first two releases had some modest success, All Them Witches really did not get widespread acclaim until the release of their second full album, Lightning at the Door, in late 2013. Every band that has ever released anything on Bandcamp wants to experience the kind of underground word-of-mouth sensation that this album generated. The album is part-concept, part-thematic and has narrative threads that tie it together (e.g. the two tracks The Marriage of Coyote Woman and The Death of Coyote Woman - clearly, not a happy ending for the titular character). If you loved Songs for the Deaf and Rated R, then this is the album that you are going to want to start with as an introduction to the band. It has some amazing tracks - Funeral for a Great Drunken Bird and When God Comes Back are great on their own - but it is best experienced as a complete album. Do yourself a favor: Find a great set of headphones and listen to it front to back. You’ll thank me.
How do you follow up a concept album that gives you unforeseen popularity and access to a broader audience? Do you, say, create a dark follow-up to it, and find the title for that album in a lyric from a hidden track?
Who the fuck would make a weird choice like that?
All Them Witches took a different route and decided to instead channel their inner Beck. The Effervescent EP came out in June of 2014. There are only two songs, each clocking in at about 25 minutes long. Side A is Effervescent and Side B is Tnecsevreffe. The EP is a Rorschach blot of instrumental music in multiple movements that channels incredible musicality and allows you to superimpose your own meaning on it. It is like listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin have a baby, if that baby was raised listening to coyotes howl and instrumental Kyuss tracks all mashed together on one continuous loop. Fans of the German band Mother Engine will hear definite parallels. The weird thing about Effervescent is its length: it is hard to think of it as an EP, because it is 50 minutes of music. But it has only two tracks, so it can’t really be an album...can it?
Yes, before you start in on me, I know about Sleep’s Dopesmoker. That 2003 one-song album may also have influenced our boys from the Hee Haw city.
So after playing around with longer and more intricate multiple-movement songs, it is no surprise that All Them Witches dropped a 57 minute ‘EP’ in 2015. A Sweet Release hit the airwaves on April 20. Yep, 4/20. No, that was not a coincidence. No, I’m not going to explain that to you. If you gotta ask, you’ll never know. Yes, if anyone doubted at all that this band was a Stoner Rock band, fuck all y’all, the release date is proof. Tracks on the EP range in length from almost 2 and a half minutes to over 24 minutes. It is a spacey, laid-back jam that is at times hypnotic and far-reaching, and equally urgent and immersive.
I’m not saying that you need to be high to appreciate this EP. I’m just saying that listening to Interstate Bleach Party and Howdy Hoodee Slank in the right…mood ...can make you see the color Octarine.
Lightning at the Door and Effervescent cemented All Them Witches as true underground masters of Stoner Rock. 2015’s Dying Surfer Meets His Maker saw them broaden their musical scope and refine their sound. The album (yes, it is an album this time) leans heavily into the Blues with layers of grunge and psychedelia and celtic strings and even harmonicas. (Side note: the last time I heard harmonicas used in Stoner Rock was never. So good on them. I will say this: the hook brings you back.) All these influences were mixed in one big bowl and smoked out the top of a giant bong for full effect. It is at the same time a more technical and more mellow album. Stand out tracks on the album are the hard hitting Dirt Preachers and El Centro and This is Where it Falls Apart.
All Them Witches found themselves touring the small club circuit and then playing bigger and bigger stages. They got invited to festivals like Bonnaroo and were greeted by enthusiastic fans (and clouds of fragrant haze). There is nothing like performing live to hone a band’s edge. By the time Sleeping Through the War dropped in 2017, the boys had been together, touring and recording, for five years. The album is tightly crafted by a tight band. There are even guest vocalists to add texture and harmony to the songs. Less mellow than its predecessor, the album roars right from the opening track - Bulls - through to the closing track, Guess I’ll Go Live On The Internet. 3-5-7 is probably one of the best Stoner Rock tracks you will come across. And when you recognize the tonal mirroring of Am I Going Up with Alabaster, you feel smarter than you actually are. Lots of albums have made me bang my head; very few have made me stop and recognize the musical structure that underpins the melody. That is Tool-level composition right there. Long story short: this is an album put out by a band in its prime and it does not disappoint.
If you remember what happened in English class, what follows the apotheosis for the main character is the falling action or denouement. All Them Witches had peaked with Sleeping Through the War and had nowhere to go but down. The 2018 Lost and Found EP was four (comparatively) short covers and remixes that seemed more like leftovers than an actual meal. Sure, leftovers can be tasty, but All Them Witches fans were used to getting new and better breakfasts, luncheons and dinners and instead got last Tuesday’s reheated bean burrito. Which is fine, if you dig burritos, but it is still not as good as a nice, juicy steak.
Goddam, is anyone else craving a meal? Why is it so smoky in here, and why do I want to eat burritos and Doritos?
Hehe. Dorito. Burrito.
Fuck. I need to focus. Moving on.
Any fan of the band could tell that something was up, and that Lost and Found was at best a B-Side. It soon became evident that something really was up. Keyboardist (and part-time violinist) Allan Van Cleave was out of the band. This left a gigantic Ray Manzarek-esque hole in the band’s sound. The breakup was not a good one, and left some scars.
Van Cleave was replaced by Jonathan Draper, and the band released the album ATW in Sept of 2018. Sonically, the album is sound, but seems to lack the spark of greatness that was in everything prior to Lost and Found. The technical skills are there - Draper knows his way around a keyboard, and that is clearly evident on Fishbelly 86 Onions - but it kinda (IMHO) sounds more like an amazing All Them Witches cover album than an actual effort by the band. It is kinda like Bryan Cranston dressing up in a Walter White mask. It is super close to previous efforts but just not the same, somehow. 1st vs. 2nd is a jam and so is Diamond, and the album has an unrelenting energy, but it is just a bit off the mark.
The band must have felt something similar. Draper was turfed from the group just a month after ATW dropped. Instead of trying to recreate the four member sound that had anchored them since John Cusak and Amanda Peet’s landmark film, they decided to choose a new direction entirely.
When bands shuffle their lineup, it tends to be adding members (like our very own ancient monarchs) or replacing members. Very few bands successfully delete members. Well, OK, that band from Liverpool did successfully delete Stuart Sutcliffe from its lineup and they went on to do alright. Genesis made a successful transition from a 4-piece to a 3-piece when Peter Gabriel left. Oasis got 100% better when Liam Gallagher and his ego both quit. But losing an integral part of your sound - and the keyboards were central in so many songs - would be a tough transition. The band’s fanbase-not-so secretly worried that the lack of keyboardist would spell the end. Thankfully, we were wrong.
All Them Witches took that leap. Digging into their nomenclature and lore, they released a single as a three-piece band on Halloween of 2019. 1X1 is an angry, powerful Stoner Rock jam with a video that is an homage to Jesus Christ Pose. It is a Kyuss-meets-Tool-meets-Led Zeppelin-at-a-Black-Sabbath-concert song that made everyone simultaneously applaud and exhale.
They were back.
The new LP Nothing as the Ideal just dropped on September 4th, 2020. It is a leaner, meaner iteration of the band that seems to have lost no momentum. Everything resonates with power. Saturnine and Iron Jaw evokes Tony Iommi riffage. The Children of Coyote Women is a direct callback to the album Lightning at the Door. 41 is a thumping tune and Enemy of my Enemy is a relentless sonic attack. But most importantly, we get to see All Them Witches evolve as a band but hang on to the core of their sound.
You’re never going to hear this band on your local top 40 radio station. You might catch them on College radio, if the DJ is cool enough. Like most great music nowadays, you have to go looking to find it. But when you do find it, what an amazing experience it can be.
So now you have completed your Hero’s Journey (Twist! It turns out that YOU were the hero all along!) According to the trope, you are now older and wiser because you have ventured out of your comfortable little world.
Now prove me right, hero. Go listen and awaken your inner stoner. And bring me some goddamn Doritos. Cool Ranch for the win.
Links to QOTSA
Josh has included All Them Witches on The Alligator Hour and is known to be a fan of the band.
A recent review of Nothing as the Ideal stated that Charles Michael Parks Jr.’s voice was “Fantastic...like a bassier Josh Homme”.
More importantly, All Them Witches are a Stoner Rock band...and Josh literally invented the genre. It is clear that while the band has grown and evolved and are taking themselves to new places, their music has been inspired by that downtuned, low desert Kyuss groove.
Their Music
Until it Unwinds
Heavy/Like a Witch
The Urn
Extra Pleasant EP
The Marriage of Coyote Woman
Funeral for a Great Drunken Bird
When God Comes Back -- Live and badass
Effervescent
Interstate Bleach Party
Howdy Hoodee Slank
Dirt Preachers -- Live in 2016
El Centro
This is Where it Falls Apart
Bulls
3-5-7
Fishbelly 86 Onions
1st vs. 2nd
Diamond
Under Pressure -- yes, that song.
Open Passageways
Diamond
1X1
The Children of Coyote Woman
Enemy of my Enemy
Show Them Some Love
/AllThemWitches
Previous Posts
Tool
Alice in Chains
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Rage Against The Machine
Soundgarden
Run the Jewels
Royal Blood
Arctic Monkeys
Ty Segall
Eagles of Death Metal
Them Crooked Vultures
Led Zeppelin
Greta Van Fleet
Ten Commandos
Screaming Trees
Sound City Players
Iggy Pop
Mastodon
The Strokes
Radiohead

The new duo of Team Aster, round 2: The DPC (CN meme: is XXS dethroned??)
TLDR pic 1: the first time Boboka teaming up with Sumail in TI7 All-Star match (with all of its language barrier glory pt. 1) that should count as their round 1, round 1B would be Berlin major.
TLDR pic 2: the duo has finally gone full circle in the DPC CN, because they did role reversal that they first did in TI7 All-Star. Yes, you heard it right: Boboka mid and Sumail 4, and it already happened twice!
TLDR pic 3: the CN meme part. Spongebob and Patrick that is Sumail and Boboka are together while XXS (Squidward) is left alone. Apparently, the CN texts at the bottom are some lyrics of a popular sad love song saying "Rather than watching you guys having fun, I should be somewhere else alone like lying under a car." That's because, XXS is Aster's original duo with Boboka, but lately Sumail/Boboka are engrossed with each other instead. Jenkins was right: this is a bubby trifecta situation!
//Longer context://
Sumail and Boboka have finally completed their swapping-roles ritual in this week's DPC match against Team Bright G1.
And just like 6 years ago in TI7 All-Star match, it was Sumail's request as XXS and Boboka confimed in 2 separate interviews. Sumail "wanted to see Boboka playing mid." The cheek! The gall! And Boboka, who can't say "no" to him, stood no chance. What Sumail wants, he got. Instead of questioning it, BBK participated in the shenanigan and planned 2 heroes he can play mid. That's why, Boboka was seen bursting out laughter during drafting phase.
And Sumail? Apparently he was thoroughly entertained by Boboka playing mid, because he couldn't stop smiling from start to end (as if playing with language barrier isn't already a challenge for BBK guys!). Both Boboka and Sumail tried their earnest, they took it serious, but Sumail with more laughter. As a result, they terrified Lizzard who casted the English stream, while the CN stream was dumbfounded at Boboka ES mid. They won the game, but not without Sumail tipping Boboka, and the rest of the team tipping Sumail who got his wish granted. Even Monet and Pi Qiu couldn't hold themself from laughing.
Why, you ask. Because apparently mischief and chaos are this duo's choice of bonding method. Interesting.
And now it leaves us with XXS, where is XXS in all of this too much fun that almost feels illegal?
If you are an old Aster's fan, you would know that XXS/BBK are legendary pairing. They are literally what Notail wished he could be with Fly in terms of longevity (XXS/Boboka already broke their record a while ago). Playing together for 7-8 years straight, debuted together in IG.V, they're also the two Burning's protegees, his duo dota2 godsons. Inseparable.
So, with all of that incredible records, how could 1 person "take XXS' place" overnight? Not only Boboka suddenly has somebody else new yin-yanging with him in game, but how can the connection be so natural and immediate to be able to even compete with XXS/Boboka chemistry? Where the hell does it come from, and not to mention the language barrier part.
CN fans long have noticed BBK/Sumail synergy, since their Berlin's games (see: Boboka's gas station meme reference below), but now that we have round 2 (!), CN fans are expressing their disbelief using Spongebob/Patrick having fun without Squidward meme XDD
Watch CN DPC (LAN) every weekend, let's see what new memes are incoming our way XDD
Footnote: BBK men's gas station meme explanation: ((https://www.reddit.com/DotA2/comments/133jvjz/bobokasumail_thennow_cn_meme/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button))
Thanks to my CN friend, J, for helping me translating the meme.

Happy Meme Friday!

​

• Memes will be allowed each Friday beginning at NOON KST (GMT +9) and running for 24 hours. - Time Zone Converter
• All memes will require the MEME flair. - How to filter out specific post flair on Reddit
• All memes must still follow our rules regarding reddiquette, respect for LOONA members/LOONA fans/other idols/other fandoms, reposts, and self-promotion.
• Users should limit their meme posts to 1 per meme day as to not spam the sub. Memes should also be your own creation and not merely lifted from LOONAmemes. (Unless you were the OP in that sub, it's of course okay for you to repost here).
• Memes posted outside of the window and/or those that break our rules will be subjected to removal. Egregious rule-breaking will be handled with bans if needed.

​
We will do our best to stop meme days when important news comes out, though recent news hasn't been as predictable as comeback seasons are.

This happened around, I think, 2003-2004. I was around 8/9 years old. I was watching Nickelodeon late at night, around 1:00-1:30 AM. I was always excited when Spongebob came on. It was my favorite Nick show. So when it said that Spongebob was coming up next, I was really excited. After the commercial break, the episode started. It was a new episode, so I was even more excited than I already was. The episode began with Spongebob and Squidward at the Krusty Krab, they were getting ready to go home for the evening. Spongebob said if Squidward wanted to walk home with him. Squidward, in an unusually bad mood, said he didn't want to walk home with Spongebob because he thought he was annoying. So, Squidward decided to take another route home. Then, a time card came up that said, "1 hour later." Squidward was in the middle of the woods, scared. He was clearly lost because of that alternate route he wasn't used to. Then, the camera cut to a shadowed figure, he appeared to be muscular and tall. He approached the frightened Squidward and grabbed him by the shirt and started to drag him deeper into the woods. Squidward was screaming and freaking out. Then, the man tied him up to a chair and gutted him. His intestines spilled out all over the floor. He died a few seconds later. The figure then ran off into the woods. I was freaked out, I wanted to scream but my parents were asleep and I wasn't supposed to be up. Although, something in me felt the need to keep watching, I don't know what it was though. It then cut to the shadowed figure in a car, he was driving down Bikini Bottom. His car then broke down. But then, the camera zoomed out and showed he broke down right next to Spongebob's house. It then cut to the figure walking toward Spongebob's door. He tried to open it but it was locked. Then, he walked out back and found a back door. The back door was unlocked, so, he opened it. He then walked upstairs into Spongebob's bedroom. The figure then pulled out a revolver and aimed it toward Spongebob. Gary, noticing the figure, started to growl. This caused Spongebob to wake up, and as soon as he did, he shot Spongebob four times in the chest, killing him instantly. Then, Gary charged at the figure, the figure shot Gary twice, killing him. Then, the camera cut to Patrick, he was woken due to the gunshots. He then went outside to investigate. He went to Spongebob's house to see if he was alright. But instead, he found the corpses of Gary and Spongebob, Patrick then let out an ear piercing scream. He then ran outside. This got the attention of the figure. He then charged at Patrick and put him in a headlock, he then slit Patrick's throat. After that, he ran off into the night. He eventually ended up at Mrs. Puff's house. At this point, the figure was on a killing spree, he was just killing everyone he saw. He then busted through the window of Mrs. Puff's home. He then kicked down the door to Mrs. Puff's bedroom. She woke up, screaming as the figure proceeded to stab Mrs. Puff 38 times in the chest, spilling her blood and guts everywhere. He then ran outside and jumped into Mrs. Puff's car and drove off. He then ended up at Mr. Krab's house. Just like before, he busted through his window. He then charged upstairs where he heard Mr. Krab's and Pearl screaming. The figure saw Pearl and slit her throat. Mr. Krabs, standing right by, devastated, ran at the figure to tackle him. But, the figure pulled out a knife and Mr. Krabs ran right through it, impaling Mr. Krabs. He then looked down at his chest. He then looked at the figure. Mr. Krabs then fell to the ground, letting out a groan. He was dead. It then cut to a pair of cops. They had heard the screaming and knew something wrong was going on. They then went inside Mr. Krab's house to investigate. They had their guns drawn just in case the worst happened. Then the figure screaming, stabbed one of the cops right through the forehead, killing him instantly, and then disarmed the other cop. But, the cop was pretty strong. After about 20 seconds of them on the floor fighting. The figure pinned the cop on the ground. He pulled out a knife, raising it above the cop. Then, the cop let out a yell, and snatched the knife out of the figure's hand and stabbed him right in the chest with it. He then fell backward down a flight of stairs. The figure was dead. The cop called for backup. The cop then discovered the figure was wearing a mask. The cop then took off the figure's mask. The murderer turned out to be tough fish with the mom heart tattoo from the Salty Spitoon. I wasn't really expecting that. It then cut to outside Mr. Krab's house, it was early morning, there were loads of police cars and ambulances. It then showed that some other cops came to Spongebob's house and found Spongebob, Patrick and Gary's bodies. Some other cops had also found Squidward's body after a neighbor had called them upon discovering his corpse. The episode ended with a picture that had Spongebob, Squidward, Patrick, Gary, Mr. Krabs, Mrs. Puff and Pearl all staring at the screen with pure black eyes. There was some text at the top that said, "The End." I was in a state of shock at this point. I was sobbing and I couldn't stop vomiting. Although, I never told my family about the episode. I didn't want them to be as traumatized as I was watching the episode. I had no idea why this episode aired. Perhaps it was some sick animator who wanted to traumatize people, perhaps my TV was hijacked. Or maybe, it was just a fever dream. To this day, I don't know. I tried to look online for answers but everybody else doesn't know about the episode. Perhaps, it will forever be a mystery.

The gentle laborer shall no longer suffer from the noxious greed of Mr. Krabs! We will dismantle oppression board by board! We'll saw the foundation of big business in half, even if it takes an eternity! With your support, we will send the hammer of the people's will crashing through the windows of Mr. Krabs' house of servitude!
-Squidward Tentacles

“Mr. Bradock, have you finally found your true love? Have you found your Miss Robinson?” I mumbled to myself.
….
I’ve been sitting on the bathroom floor, not knowing how long it has passed.
In the bathroom, the hot water sprinkles on my body, warming my heart.
It takes me back to what seemed like good times, yet they were all a lie.
At a theater group event, people wore their most expressive yet disguised clothes. The spotlight, desserts and sodas on the table, the music whispering in our ears, all numbing real feelings.
Then, a man walked up - he had golden hair.
That was the first time I spoke to him.
At first, I didn’t care much. However, as I slowly got to know him, I somehow liked the feeling. His words, his actions were all sweet as candy.
And his talent.
Addicted.
I began to approach him, secretly asking for help, trying to change myself.
I even asked the poker-faced producer for restaurant recommendations, only then did I realize that I was addicted to his candy-coated charm.
He didn’t refuse my advances. We went out together, watched movies, ate meals, our relationship slowly warmed.
One night, after dinner, we arrived at his rental place.
I should have left, but I stayed.
We sat on the couch watching a movie, sharing popcorn, and talking about the plot.
In the movie, the camera cuts back to a woman, who is slightly leaning on a bar stool. “What do you think of me?” the woman asked back.
“I love you.” he said. “Nice-Wait, what?!” I turned to him in surprise, perhaps my tone was a bit too high.
My hand in the popcorn was gently held by him, his fingers tenderly stroking the back of my hand.
“Hey, I’m serious, I’ve fallen in love with you. Do you love me?” he said.
We sat on the couch, gazing at each other. That night, only the light from the TV shone on us, outside the floor-to-ceiling window was only darkness, no moonlight.
His left face was illuminated by the white light from the TV, which was on my right. His right face was covered by shadows, I couldn’t see his eyes.
“Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me.” said the male lead, and that was the last line I heard from the movie.
In the room, the dialogue and music from the movie were drowned out by our heartbeats and breathing.
I didn’t say to him, “I love you.” or “I like you.” But on the couch -
When his lips approached mine, I didn’t reject him. I indulged in the warmth I mistook for “love.”
When his hands touched me, I didn’t reject him. I indulged in the care I mistook for “love.”
When we were closely connected, I didn’t reject him. I indulged in the pleasure I mistook for “love.”
I didn’t reject him. Just like that, the night passed. We each called each other “darling.”
But they say, after the first time, there will naturally be a second time.
And a third.
To be honest, I don’t even know how many times there have been.
The hot water seems to have run out, the cold water from the showerhead now hits my body, chilling my heart.
When was the last time we shared genuine happiness? I ask myself.
When was the last time we enjoyed each other’s company? I ask myself.
When was the last time we met honestly? I ask myself.
Honestly, I don’t know anymore. Maybe it’s like a sugar coating that dissolves when it meets water.
How many times has it been? I ask myself, staring at the ceiling.
How many times has it been for him? I ask myself, watching him pull on his pants and walk towards the door.
How many times has it been for us? I ask myself, looking down at my naked lower body, alone in the room.
Is this the love I pursued? I ask myself, alone in the room.
Is this the love he pursued? I ask myself, alone in the room, pulling on my pants.
Is this the love we pursued together? I ask myself, alone in the room, putting on my shirt.
I struggled to understand, wondering if it was truly “love”. But in the end, it was merely my delusions about “love”.
A fraud’s delusions about “love”.
But I was still naive, thinking that a “talk” could mend things.
I tried to call him for a “talk”, but no one answered the phone.
I tried to ring his doorbell for a “talk”, but no one came to the door.
I tried to meet him for a “talk”, noticing his shoes on the floor.
I tried to see him for a “talk”, and pulled out my key to open the door.
I slowly walked in, looking inside from the entrance.
I slowly walked in, only to find him watching a movie alone on the couch.
I slowly walked in, he didn’t notice me, just continued to watch the movie indifferently.
The same room, the same floor-to-ceiling windows, the same TV.
We sat on the same couch, but things were no longer the same.
He tried to keep me, sweet-talking me, but I couldn’t hear him, only felt his pretense.
His words were full of our shared memories, but I no longer believed in his sincerity.
His hands tried to touch me, but all I felt was cold and unfamiliar.
I got up and walked towards the door.
He grabbed me.
Not surprisingly, we fought. I didn’t know what I was hoping for anymore. Shouting and tears were only humiliating myself.
His sweet nothings, now sickeningly cloying.
His deep adoring gaze, now hollow and unbearable.
The warmth and tenderness in his hands, now making me feel restless.
Enough.
I watched him lower his head to the right, his left cheek bearing a bright red handprint. He slowly removed his left hand that had me pinned against the floor-to-ceiling window.
I wanted to have a “talk” with him, but I knew his love was no longer genuine.
I wanted to have a “talk” with him, but I knew his attempts to keep me were just a strategy.
I wanted to have a “talk” with him, but I knew our end was irreversible.
I walked towards the door.
“Darling, we can work this out.” his voice echoed behind me, sounding full of plea and sorrow.
It was sickening to my stomach.
I turned around, looked at him, and slowly said, “We can work this out.”
People say, to make someone lose hope, first give them hope and then let them despair.
“That is, we should stop contacting each other.” I voiced out my resolved decision.
That day, it was pouring rain outside, the icy droplets piercing me, shattering my heart.
I couldn’t distinguish if the water streaming down my face was rain or my own tears.
My heart deceived my eyes, I struggled to understand, I wanted to trust myself, but I couldn’t, which pained me.
I should have realized it long ago, yet I thought that persisting would bring hope.
I’ve never experienced what it means to love or to be loved since I was little, I don’t understand what it means to love or to be loved.
Stepping onto the stage for my fans, it’s a disguised love - a sugar-coated bomb wrapped in “lies”.
Why do I still yearn for real love till this day?
Instead, it became a colossal joke on me.
A liar yearning for true love, I’m so fucked up.
I hate myself so much.
…
Snapping back to reality, I hung my head low, staring at the droplets of water splattering on the floor before me. They were mingled with blood. A sharp sting radiated from my lips — I had bitten through them.
I could no longer distinguish whether the liquid on the floor was bathwater or my own tears.
As the blood drops dissipated, new ones took their place.
Looking up, I realized the water heater had run out of hot water, and cold water was striking my body.
I only wished this freezing water could continue cascading over me.
Yet, I tenderly touched my stomach.
I was no longer alone.
I heard the doorbell ring.