Free Online Life Of Luxury Slot Machine

Hey guys. Not entirely sure if this is the right place for this post, but here goes.
Since the GameStop short squeeze and the Elon Musk Bitcoin pump happened, there's been a lot on my mind about both Bitcoin and regular stocks and I need to get this off my chest.
One thing above all has really been bothering me and I couldn't put it into words until recently: how rotten the whole system is and how it allows a minority to earn enough money to never need to work again.
Whether it's Bitcoin or speculative stocks, it works out very similarly. People throw money and hope they get lucky, no better than any gambling.
When they win, it's not because they were smarter or did some great service to society. They only had to install an app on their phone, go through some KYC and throw money at their crypto or stock of choice.
Money is a currency used to determine how much access to society's resources someone has. The more money you have, the more resources you can access. This can be better apartments, lambos, yachts, mansions, whatever.
The winners of crypto or stocks are just gamblers, they get a disproportionately high share of society's resources without creating anything of value.
And then there's people like me. I work a day job, working hard every day and trying to improve my skills, hoping to get recognized and achieve some measure of success in life, yet I get a pittance while all these gamblers win big.
To be clear here, I'm not salty because I didn't invest money or lost it. I don't believe in either speculative stock investing or crypto "investing". I realize that speculative investments have a far higher chance to lose money, and losing money can really hurt you and your life prospects.
With both Bitcoin and speculative stock investing, what happens in practice isn't very different. They're glorified casinos and the winners are set for life, and it really grinds my gears because they didn't do anything to earn it, while I'm sitting at a desk day in and day out, working hard yet barely getting anything out of it.
But what's even worse is that the winners' wealth is created through exploitative means. For someone to win money in the casinos, someone else has to lose. Usually a lot of someones. And the losers? They can be drastically affected by their loss.
It's even more sad when you realize that most of them were suckered into playing the game with false promises: "Bitcoin/Gamestop is guaranteed to moon! Invest now and you'll never need to work again!" and so on.
Then when things fail and the hysteria ends, a lot of people are left holding the bag. Some turn to substance abuse, others commit suicie, yet others double down and throw more money at the casino in the vain hopes that they'll win the next time.
And even if speculative investments had a 50% or higher chance of making you a winner, what would that mean for our society?
I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure that our society would start running low on resources as people buy more luxuries they couldn't afford before and this would result in price inflation. Which in the long-term, would nullify the winners' wealth and make everyone else worse off.
It's all so upsetting, and very sad what our society really values.
Sorry if this was too long or rambly, but I really needed to get this off my chest. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Edit: This might not have been clear to some, but I'm not a Bitcoin supporter. I know how it works and why it's terrible.
Edit 2: Well, my free day of shitposting is ending, so I'm wrapping up this thread. Thank you all so much for your responses! There were many interesting discussions, even with coiners. I might respond more tomorrow, but not as much as today.

My players are going to be visiting the palace of a demon lord of pleasure who's more CN than CE. I want to show that despite his title, he represents all forms of pleasure and good feelings, not just sex. Also space in his realm doesn't work the same way as it does in the mortal plane. He essentially has an infinite amount of space to work with and can customize it as he pleases, so there are no size constraints.

1. A casino to feel the thrill of gambling.
2. A dining hall with an endless buffet that visitors are allowed to eat as much as they wish.
3. An idyllic beach with perfectly white sand to relax or play on.
4. An arena where gladiators brawl it out against each other. The point of it isn't to kill each other as much as make the battles look stunning to the audience.
5. A hotel with the most comfortable beds possible. Here anyone with enough money can enjoy a good rest after all the excitement.
6. A beautiful and well tended garden filled with aromatic flowers and sweet fruits.
7. A vineyard where exquisitely-aged wine can be produced just by pressing the grapes. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
8. A petting zoo full of the babies of dangerous creatures. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
9. An opulent concert hall where the best musicians of the realms perform (u/_SovietMudkip_)
10. A small, cozy looking wooden library, with a cushioned bay window where rain gently scatters against the glass and a cup of some hot liquid gently rising with steam. (u/QuietOracle)
11. An owl-bear hugging zoo. Go to sleep in the embrace of their soft down. (u/QuietOracle)
12. The room of sensory experiences. The room itself is fairly plain, with the main feature being long tables running the length of the room. On closer inspection there are fist-sized carved holes, each one holding a small round crystal... (u/QuietOracle)
13. A room with dozens of sacks filled with beans, lentils and grains where visitors can put their hands in and let the contents run through their fingers. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
14. A hag (or any other long nailed creature) giving visitors a scalp massage. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
15. A museum of little-known or long-forgotten art pieces, sculptures, and history. (u/MoonlightMancer)
16. A festival full of colors, music, and drinks. Everyone seems to love you, and you can’t stop laughing. (u/MoonlightMancer)
17. A hallway of endless doors. In each room is someone you know, complimenting you endlessly, sharing every positive, even begrudgingly jealous thought they ever had about you. (u/MoonlightMancer)
18. A room full of bubble wrap. (u/EmmaDrake)
19. A hot spring/spa, with fluffy towels, those showers that are like rain with perfect water pressure, mud baths, and refreshing food and drink. (u/lionesslindsey)
20. A room full of people that constantly give you validation and laugh at all your jokes. (u/CountryJeff)
21. Never-ending line of gold chalices, crystal vases, silver artwork, and other valuables. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
22. People who are “better” than you are marched in a stripped of their superior qualities. Beautiful people are disfigured and turned ugly. Wealthy powerful people are ruined and made to beg you for pennies. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
23. Mass groups of people enter the room and tell you how they admire you and how wonderful you are. They stroke your ego and inflate your pride. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
24. Servants do everything for you. Feed you, give you drinks, wash you, wipe your arse, etc. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
25. You are given a wickedly barbed leather whip. A slave creature is bound to a post and you can whip this creature to inflict your wrath upon them as much as you desire. If the poor soul dies, another is brought in to replace them. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
26. 'Knight for a day'. The full experience; lance, shiny outfit, a squire, a trusty stead, a dragon and a princess/prince to rescue. (u/mr_earthman)
27. The magical equivalent of a holo deck (u/cyber-viper)
28. Wide, flat plain with the fastest vehicles in the multiverse (a good place to use the Avernus vehicles) (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
29. A selection of cities and villages for you to destroy with war machines or your own magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
30. A collection of wand that allow you to test out powerful magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
31. A magical version of a movie theatre, allowing you to watch all manner of stories, true and legendary. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
32. A moderately large pool where small battleships with tiny animated crewmen can be deployed in teams to shell and board each other for the audience's amusement. Honored guests can put their strategic abilities to a test against other players by directly giving orders to their ships, and in certain hours guests may even swim in the pool to live out the power fantasy of being a sea monster. (u/VIixIXine)
33. A colorizer-device that transforms any clothes/armoweapons/other gear to any desired hue you wish (as long as it doesn’t affect the workings of the gear) (u/PaigeOrion)
34. A grand screen, showing a nearly infinite number of (screen)plays from all space and time, including the show with the disgraced human paladin delivering a green baby gnome back to his home land through incredible odds. (u/PaigeOrion)
35. A tiara that allows you to experience the sensory experience of a black cat as long as you wear it and close your eyes. (u/PaigeOrion)
36. A plethora of small, multicolored blocks that will magically interlock with one another to render almost any architectural structure imaginable. (But don’t step on them barefoot!) (u/PaigeOrion)
37. A band of musicians who are the perfect musical backup for any performances. Alone, they are more low key, but no less skilled, playing haunting melodies of unknown origin. (u/PaigeOrion)
38. A massive walk-in closet where you can try in any clothes in any fashion you like. (u/Tezla44)
39. A "schadenfreude" theatre, with shows that rely on slapstick and cringe comedy. (u/Martinus_XIV)
40. A REALLY good chocolate fountain (u/BrokenBanette)
41. A room designed to give you closure. When you enter this room, someone you loved and lost is there, sitting in a couch. The room feels vaguely familiar, but you can't place why. If Detect Magic is used, the room is full of magic (divination, transmutation, illusion) but the person seems like a normal person. You can chat with them for as long as you like. They behave just as you remember them, with the good and the bad. (u/ohsurenerd)
42. A theatre performing the most magnificent tragedies. When you watch the performance, you find yourself completely enraptured: you cheer when things go right, scream when something terrifying happens, and moan and weep at the inevitable horrible ending. When you leave, it feels like removing a backpack full of lead that you'd been carrying for so long you'd forgotten it was there. (u/ohsurenerd)
43. A room where there's a button, there's someone outside and it explains that if you enter there's a 50/50 chance of you dying or not, the room won't actually kill you and it's there just to make you feel the pleasure of near death experience. (u/SupremeGodDictator)
44. A massage parlor with the universes best staff pampering your every need as you receive the most relaxing massage of your life whether it be scalp, back, foot, full body, etc. Has the worlds fluffiest towels and robes to luxuriate in while you wait or if you simply want to sit in a comfy chair and enjoy your ache free muscles. (u/Blue_Mando)
45. An arena where you and your opponents heal near instantly, and you can fight endlessly (u/ellen-the-educator)
46. A reenactment of your greatest failures in life, but this time they turn into your greatest achievements. (u/CountryJeff)
47. A room with the world's finest works of art.... and a myriad of implements you can use to destroy them. (u/redrosebeetle)
48. A torture chamber with mages on hand to create illusions of the people you wish to torture. Or increasingly realistic versions of them, depending on the level of magic you wish to implement. (u/redrosebeetle)
49. A room full of gold and jewels you can roll around in, ala Scrooge McDuck. But woe betide anyone who tries to take a souvenir.... (u/redrosebeetle)
50. As you're walking through the gardens, a person comes up to you. They introduce themselves as an adventurer who's also here on a quest. They seem to be the same class as you, and they're incredibly attractive-- almost exactly your type. You immediately click and end up spending the day together, talking about everything and anything. You tell them things you've never told anyone else before. They understand everything you tell them, almost innately, but they're still impressed by your feats and your stories. The two of you find an empty bedroom and close the door behind you. It's perfect in its imperfections. In the morning they're gone. No matter where you look, you can't find them. (u/ohsurenerd)
51. A room lined with shelves and shelves of bottles and vials containing a crimson liquid flowing slowly (like a syrup), all with small labels on them. As you inspect the labels, you realize they've all got names on them: famous adventurers, kings and queens, great sages. If you drink one, you experience a selection of their memories as they experienced them: battles won, discoveries made, historical alliances and friendships being forged or broken... (u/ohsurenerd)
52. A room that turns anyone that enters it into a child. It is full of every toy imaginable (u/arual_x)
53. A tour of a chocolate factory. Kobolds work there, and the owner, who gives the tour, is a Metallic Dragon in Humanoid form. (u/arual_x)
54. A fortune teller who has a Deck of Many Things with only the good cards. If you in any way offend them, they will sleight of hand vs perception check slip you a bad card instead. (u/arual_x)
55. An island theme park of reanimated dinosaurs. The owner is a level 20 Necromancer called Hamm Johnand. (u/arual_x)
56. A Virtual Reality style game that allows you to battle horrible monsters over and over again without risk of injury physical. But still allows you to gain XP... (u/arual_x)
57. A perfect expanse of thick snowy ground. There is constantly a snowball fight going on. (u/arual_x)
58. A giant room full of mattresses where everyone immediately gets a wonderful massage. (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
59. A room where you get to torture all of your worst enemies (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
60. A room where people applaud you, give you a trophy, etc (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
61. A room where you get something that was denied to you (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
62. A room full of gold and exquisite things, from beautiful furniture to magic weapons (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
63. A seemingly endless room where adventurers can drink a potion to grow wings and flit about to their hearts' delight (u/iriedashur)
64. An ordinary classroom containing the adventurer's childhood friends, enemies, and their most hated teacher. Upon entering the room, the adventurer discovers that they are invisible, and free to pull pranks as they wish (u/iriedashur)
65. A brightly colored room piled high with wrapped gifts, large and small, for the adventurers to open endlessly (u/iriedashur)
66. A purple and black dragon named Ace who cooks you garlic bread and cake. (u/sanorace)
67. A magic pair of goggles/glasses that simulate any “What if” question you pose to them. (u/lewiscann)
68. A magical weather room where you can ask for any weather for your pleasure (I love listening to rain) (u/lewiscann)
69. A room full of lounges with a floating slow burning piece of wood that warms the whole area, the piece of wood is so large you can see the flame spread through this piece of wood forever (u/lewiscann)
70. A room where you can bite your fingernails and they grow back instantly ( so you can bite them some more )(u/razenastie)
71. A room with incredibly weakened versions of powerful monsters. (u/Your_InsideMan)
72. A vast room on wooden sculptures, oil, and torches. (u/Your_InsideMan)
73. A zoo of sentient races (u/Paralytica)
74. A collection of legendary heroes magically transfixed in blocks of ice. (u/Paralytica)
75. Palanquin rentals (u/Paralytica)
76. A booth that will remake your face whilst in the palace (ostensibly to make you more beautiful but it could be used for anything) (u/Paralytica)
77. A magic chair that gives really good back massages (u/TenNinetythree)
78. A playground where the slides and carousels are for adults (u/TenNinetythree)
79. A room where you become a giant and can destroy cities and fortresses kaiju style. (u/Paralytica)
80. Drug Olympics. A room with every drug imaginable to try. Leaving the room cleanses you of their effects. (u/Skitsafrit)
81. No Pauses. A room that has the effect of making all conversations flow perfectly. No silence stretches too long, no one mishears you, and every topic segways perfectly into the next. (u/Skitsafrit)
82. Deprivation Room. The room is so absolutely featureless and quiet, that you can meditate magnitudes better here than anywhere else. (u/Skitsafrit)
83. A games room where you play against your perfect match (u/Nesurame)
84. Similar to the previous, a games room where you're matched against nothing but weaker opponents (u/Nesurame)
85. A smoky, dreamweed hookah lounge (u/reallyenjoyscarbs)
86. A heist simulator where you always get away with the big diamond, chest, etc (thrill of theft) (u/reallyenjoyscarbs)
87. A sauna room with a central pillar. Inside the pillar is a chamber containing a magic stone which can detect the exact temperature preferences of those inside, and making each person feel said preference. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
88. An oval-shaped room with countless glass lotion bottles, with each smelling better than the last. If you look for a specific scent (no matter how rare), you'll certainly find it with the help of a goblin near the back of the room. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
89. A room that consists of A bunch of mortals so utterly jaded from years of plesure seeking that they need the hardest of drugs and the wildest of sensations to feel anything,with lesser demons feeding on their pursuit of euphoria. Think the emperors children from warhammer 40k. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
90. A buffet of the lids of yogurt/pudding cups to lick. (u/Hunter37594)
91. An olfactory room that reads your memories and replicates smells that remind you of your most joyous moments. (u/lecorbusianus)
92. A wildlife reserve for Druids to find new and exotic wild shapes. (u/lecorbusianus)
93. A room with musical instruments that you're able to master immediately. (u/lecorbusianus)
94. Zero gravity obstacle course. (u/lecorbusianus)
95. A cooking class taught by a master chef that always seems to have enough time to guide you one-on-one. (u/lecorbusianus)
96. An enchanter who allows you to relieve the best moments of your life over and over again. (u/lecorbusianus)
97. An illusionary room that brings up past experiences and let’s you make different choices to fix mistakes or win arguments. (u/The_Rhibo)
98. A murder simulator to allow an individual to live out the fantasy of killing that special someone. (u/Brann_The_Kid)
99. A library full of blackmail and secret knowledge regarding historical and political figures. A conniving, plotting character’s dream! (u/MoonlightMancer)
100. A room where you can see colors that shouldn't exist. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
101. A room with a creature in a dark robe sitting at a table covered in maps and dice. He helps you play a strange game where you and your party make up characters that go on adventures while the robed creature acts as all of the other characters and determines new events. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
102. ...

Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard's own SON is helping police investigate his alleged sex crimes By Guy Adams Investigates For The Daily Mail
15 Jan 2021
Link to article
'He has become my arch-nemesis. I no longer regard him as my father . . . He is a monster. I am now here to serve in any way I can, to support survivors and the justice process and also to help expose the people who covered up his crimes.'
Kai Bickle's world came tumbling down one night in May 2019, when he attended a dinner party at a lavishly decorated mansion overlooking the golden sands of Venice Beach in Los Angeles.
The host was his father, Peter Nygard, a Canadian fashion tycoon famed for the hedonistic lifestyle he pursued at a global portfolio of high-end properties, including vast residences in Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal, as well as New York, and, most notoriously, a Mayan-themed 'private luxury resort' in the Bahamas.
Modelling himself on Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, the flamboyant Nygard, now 79, kept a revolving harem of girlfriends. Those caught up (often completely unwittingly) in this web had included actresses Susan Anton and Jennifer O'Neill, stripper-turned-reality star Anna Nicole Smith, and a former Wheel Of Fortune card turner by the name of Vanna White.
His Caribbean parties, meanwhile, tended to attract a better class of A-lister. Past visitors to the island property had ranged from Jane Seymour and Bo Derek to Robert De Niro, , Michael Jackson and Joan Collins, not to mention and , who were photographed there in the early 2000s on an innocuous family holiday.
The 2019 bash, during one of Peter's occasional business trips to LA, was to be a more down-to-earth affair. Roughly 20 guests, including Kai, 38, and his younger brother Jessar (one of roughly ten offspring Nygard has fathered via more than seven women) had been invited for food and drinks, followed by a late-night poker game.
That was the plan, at least. But Kai never made it to the card- table. Instead, he fled the lavish premises in a state of distress, shortly after dinner, believing that he had just witnessed his father attempting to sexually assault an eight-year-old girl.
Details of this ugly development are (it should be stressed) strongly disputed, and we shall examine them later. But the incident would kick-start an extraordinary chain of events that culminated just before Christmas, with the arrest of Peter Nygard on nine charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.
Currently behind bars, with his $900 million (£660 million) business empire in tatters and the FBI poring over his computer hard-drives, the fallen tycoon has now been accused of rape or sexual assault by at least 57 women. Several of Nygard's accusers were children when the alleged crimes took place, and many claim they were drugged.
At least 57 women have accused him.
He will appear in court in Canada next week, seeking bail as he fights extradition to the USA.
It is, perhaps, the most high-profile and shocking sex case since handcuffs were slapped on Jeffrey Epstein. And in a remarkable twist, it turns out that a leading figure in the increasingly public campaign to prosecute Mr Nygard is his aforementioned son, Kai.
Upcoming documentary: ‘Unseamly’ Canadian Designer Peter Nygård True Crime Documentary
Behind the scenes, I can reveal that Kai has spent the past 18 months secretly helping both the U.S. and Canadian authorities investigate his own father's alleged crimes. Keeping his role hidden from Nygard and his associates for several months, he has worked tirelessly to assist victims, and their legal teams.
On the personal front, he has changed his name (taking up his mother's surname to become Kai Zen Bickle) and used his influence over various Nygard companies to block efforts to move his assets offshore, fearing that would allow him to flee. 'We have been engaged in a brutal battle against my father and his enablers,' is how Kai summed things up when we spoke this week.
'He has become my arch-nemesis. I no longer regard him as my father . . . He is a monster. I am now here to serve in any way I can, to support survivors and the justice process and also to help expose the people who covered up his crimes.'
Perhaps most remarkably of all, Kai recently helped two of his younger siblings, one of whom remains a minor, to sue Peter Nygard over claims he 'engineered' the rape of his own sons. In an extraordinary lawsuit filed in August, the boys claimed that their leathery, multi-millionaire father instructed one of his long-standing girlfriends (who was also a sex worker) to 'make a man' out of them.
The first of these alleged attacks (which, again, are vehemently denied by Nygard) took place in the Bahamas 2004, when the son was 15 and the woman was in her mid-20s. The second occurred in Winnipeg in 2018, when the younger child was 14 and the woman was in her 40s. Court papers filed by the boys stated that the unnamed girlfriend was instructed to seduce Nygard's son by showering in his bathroom so that he 'could see her naked'. Then she raped him.
Afterwards, she allegedly told the boy he 'wasn't bad' for a 'baby.' The next morning, Nygard's girlfriend brought him breakfast in bed, kissing him on the lips and announcing: 'Mommy's got you.' Kai says he first became aware of this appalling incident last spring, and was 'sickened' to hear his brothers' claims.
He would often yell and scream at his staff.
'We all spoke and decided the best course of action was to file a lawsuit publicly in the hope that other survivors would feel safe to come forward and also file criminally against Nygard,' he says. 'We were originally going to have me in the suit as my young brother's guardian, but in the end decided not to because it would reveal to Nygard that I was working against him . . . At the time I was [secretly] doing everything I could to improve the odds that he would get arrested.'
To appreciate the extraordinary journey taken by Kai, we must wind the clock back to the mid-1980s, when his father was one of Canada's most talked-about self-made millionaires.
The son of penniless immigrants from Finland, Peter Nygard had launched his empire in the late 1960s, with an $8,000 (£6,000) investment in a struggling fashion firm. By the time he was 30, the company had become one of North America's most successful suppliers of leisure and sportswear, while his flamboyant eccentricities, which included keeping parrots in his office and filling the lobby of Nygard HQ with bronze busts of himself, turned him into an object of public fascination.
In 1987, the party-loving entrepreneur purchased a 4.5-acre patch of the island of New Providence in the Bahamas and set about turning it into a 'dream home' where he could indulge his champagne lifestyle. Over the ensuing years, he built 150,000 sq ft of Mayan-themed buildings, stretching over a dozen 'cabana-style' residences. The buildings at Nygard Cay eventually included a casino, a disco hut (with cameras beneath the dance floor, reportedly to shoot images of revellers from below), and the world's largest sauna, a 6,000 sq ft lodge made from 2ft-thick Canadian pine logs.
In the grounds were fake volcanoes that belched dry ice, a flock of peacocks, stone cobras which hissed steam at sunset, 60 ft towers festooned with hundreds of flaming torches (lit nightly by staff) and giant statues of nude women, purportedly modelled on some of Nygard's favourite girlfriends.
At weekends, he would host lavish parties, which appeared on various TV documentaries, including Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous.
The place became a magnet for freeloading celebrities and, while Kai believes they generally had the most fleeting and brief relationship with Nygard, photos of their visits were then plastered across company literature and websites.
Prince Andrew, to cite one example, was recorded for posterity wandering with the long-haired fashion magnate on the beach, wearing blue shorts and boat shoes.
Born in the 1980s, Kai spent the first three years of his life in the Bahamas until his mother, Patricia, left Nygard, with whom she'd had three children but never married.
They moved first to California and then to the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. Over subsequent years, he had almost no regular contact with the fashion tycoon aside from occasional visits during school holidays, where he met various half-siblings.
'He would have one family weekend per year at his lake cottage, and a few days set aside for Christmas,' says Kai of the somewhat unorthodox arrangement. 'During those times, the days were filled with activities like horseback riding or mini golf.
'He could be a very charismatic person when he wanted to be and the family weekends were very light and brief.'
In the very limited time he spent with his father during childhood, Kai saw nothing that gave him reason to suspect that Peter Nygard was guilty of criminality, though he did have a highly volatile personality.
'He would yell and scream at his staff often, and that always was upsetting to everyone around it, but he would describe his yelling as 'passion' because of his 'high standards',' Kai says.
Nygard's children were further told that he 'lived a consensual, non-monogamous lifestyle,' Kai says. 'He made speeches at dinner to family when we were together to talk about how he hoped everyone got a wonderful partner and wished that he could find that special someone, but that it wasn't the life for him.
'He also had girlfriends that were persistently with him, always two or three, and often they were around for years. He wasn't embarrassed about it. He flaunted it on TV, it was part of his brand, something he showed the whole world. He was proud of it.'
Be that as it may, rumours of predatory behaviour by Nygard —and worse — had occasionally reared their ugly head, only to be quickly suppressed: a relatively easy task before the internet.
In 1980, for example, he was charged with the rape of an 18-year-old, but the charge was dropped when the complainant refused to testify. In 1996, three female employees meanwhile filed sexual harassment complaints in the Canadian province of Manitoba.
It looked like his hand was on her thigh, rubbing.
One, a 39-year-old communications manager, said that, when called into Nygard's office, she would 'find him in a state of undress . . . with his hands down the front of his pants, fondling himself.' He settled by giving the women $18,500 (£13,600) and denied any wrongdoing.
Then, in 2010, a Canadian TV network put out a Panorama-style documentary about Nygard, focusing on alleged sex abuse and harassment of former employees.
It quoted a former stewardess on his private plane who alleged that on one journey — during which Nygard was accompanied by a troupe of topless women — he lost his temper with staff, shouting: 'You are nothing! You are garbage! I am God!'
The programme also alleged that Nygard had engaged in 'inappropriate sexual contact' with a young woman who had been brought to his home in 2003 from the Dominican Republic. Nygard denied that either incident had happened, and sued to stop the documentary being broadcast.
Fast forward to May 2019, however, and those ugly incidents were largely forgotten. Kai, who was by then in his late 30s, had worked for his father's companies for just over two years after leaving college, but quit to pursue a career in activism and health science.
Nygard's trip to Los Angeles afforded them a rare opportunity to catch up, so he attended the aforementioned dinner party in Venice Beach.
As the night wore on, he recalls becoming uncomfortable about his father's behaviour towards an eight-year-old girl, who was attending with her mother, one of Nygard's old girlfriends.
'He's got her sitting right next to him at dinner, which is usually his girlfriend chair. And he's a creature of routine. So I'm already thinking this is weird.
'He's trying to act like the Papa. It was just weird . . . I'm noticing things. I'm noticing that he's telling her little secrets at dinner. Putting his hand close to her ear and going all hush-hush.' At the end of dinner, most of the other 20-odd guests got up to adjourn to the card table. However, Kai adds: 'I'm still watching him. Her chair gets pushed back. He brings her round to him.
'She was on his right side. He brings her to his left side, with his arm around her waist, and I see his elbow change and start moving as if — it looked to me, I couldn't see, but it looked like his hand was on her upper thigh, and rubbing. That's what it looked like to me . . . Everything in my body told me he was doing something terrible.'
'I had a huge adrenaline rush and I immediately told the mother to get her daughter away from him,' he adds. 'I stood up next to him and looked in his eyes. At that moment, for me, it was like all the walls were crashing down around him . . . And I realised that, yeah, he's probably trying to groom that girl.'
Nygard vigorously denied wrongdoing, and even called Kai 'sick' for thinking as much. But Kai was unconvinced.
Then, in February last year, ten women filed a bombshell lawsuit in New York claiming that the fashion magnate had used wealth and status to 'entice underage girls' from 'young, impressionable and often impoverished backgrounds' into his home, where they would be 'plied with alcohol' and (some allege) date-rape drugs, before being taken to Nygard's private quarters, where he would 'assault, rape and sodomise' them. Court papers claimed they were then coerced into joining a globe-trotting harem of sex workers paid thousands of dollars from Nygard's company funds and trafficked around the world on his company's private jet, which reportedly boasts a stripper pole.
One alleged victim, who was just 14 at the time, claimed Nygard raped her and paid her $5,000 (£3,700).
Another said her encounter with Nygard began with him showing her pornography after which he raped her, 'causing her extraordinary trauma and pain', the suit states.
Three of his existing ten accusers were 14 at the time. Three more were 15.
Within days, dozens more alleged victims had come forward. By the summer, some 57 survivors were pursuing legal action — and the number of alleged victims had reached 100.
Kai again confronted his father, only to be told it was all 'lies' and asked to speak out publicly in his father's support. But days later a friend texted Kai to complain about a recent visit to Nygard's house in Los Angeles.
'He said he'd brought a female friend with him, who had one or two drinks and had started to feel very high. Nygard took her up to his room and aggressively had sex with her, not using a condom.
'When I heard that, I knew he was not only as bad as people said he was, but was a dangerous criminal and had to be stopped.' He duly alerted the authorities about the friend's message. In a podcast called Live To Walk Again, released this week, he revealed that he began helping both the police and the alleged victims' lawyers, who he regards as 'heroes'.
Over the summer, Kai also used official positions held in Nygard firms to block two apparent efforts to move assets overseas, amid concerns that the tycoon might flee to evade justice.
PODCAST EPISODE: Peter Nygard Discusses His Father
'Through the course of ten months I also helped several survivors to file criminally against him, and spent countless hours on the phone with survivors, lawyers and authorities,' he says. Last month Nygard was arrested on U.S. charges at a home in the Royalwood area of Winnipeg. He spent Christmas behind bars and has consistently denied any wrongdoing, saying he 'expects to be vindicated' in court.
Kai has renounced his inheritance and is working on 'making the world a better place' by campaigning to close legal loopholes exploited by sex offenders.
'I'm very happy earning my own money, as I have all my life. We've never had a trust fund or an allowance, and since his money has been made through pain and suffering, I won't accept a potential inheritance,' he says.
His father's cash, he says, should instead go towards compensating victims. 'My focus now is to help the healing process.'

NCR 5 dollar bill is only worth 2 caps
Legion silver Denarius is worth 4 caps
That's 2 more of the base value of what the NCR 5 dollar bill can afford. Now lets check the highest.
NCR 100 dollar bill is only worth 40 caps.
Legion gold Aureus is worth 100 caps.
That's 60 more of the base value of what the NCR 100 dollar bill can afford.
Unlike Legion currency however, the NCR has a third denomination of a 20 dollar bill which is worth 8 caps. Still, the ceilings of both of their highest currencies available to the markets edges in favor of the Legion over the NCR dollar with the Aureus having a higher purchasing power in regards to commercial activity.
sources;
[By 2281, the NCR dollar is valued at about 40% of a water-backed cap[6] and only 10% of a silver Legion Denarius.](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/NCR_dollars)
[Legion currency](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Legion_Denarius)
[NCR currency](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/NCR_dollars)
Dialogue points from merchant or merchant adjunct entities to substantiate probable currency values decided by the Wasteland market;
>Dale Barton: "Hell, I don't even need to travel with guards most of the time in Legion territory. All the bandits are dead or run off."
​
>Dale Barton: "Between having to hire protection and getting slapped with taxes, it's more profitable to stick to Arizona and New Mexico."
​
>Rose Sharon of Cassidy: "Some caravans deal with the Legion now because the security. If towns could get the same protection? A lot more tempting than you'd think. Bunch of people would be willing to side with the Legion to not have to worry about Fiends and Boomers and Powder Ganger attacks."
​
>The Courier: "You don't get paid in Caps?"
>Chomp Lewis: "Nope. The NCR's been trying to switch over to using paper money, like in the Pre-War days. Trouble is that the exchange rates ain't exactly fair. For example, a hundred bucks in NCR money is valued at roughly half that in caps around here. Seems like a rotten deal for us, but work is work."
​
>The Courier: "What can you tell me about New Vegas?"
>Chomp Lewis: "I've been there once, and I don't recommend it. It's just a way to burn through a month's pay in five minutes*. I've seen a lot of folks come through here thinking they'll have the easy life once they get there. It never happens."*
From one of the developers:
>J.E Sawyer: "And this is discussed in-game: BoS raided NCR's gold reserves until NCR could no longer generate gold coinage nor back their paper money. They abandoned the gold standard and established fiat currency, which is why its value is inflated over both caps and (especially) Legion coinage. (...) People in eastern NCR and the Mojave Wasteland lost faith in the NCR government's a) ability to back the listed value of paper money and b) stability overall. If you're living in Bakersfield, staring at a piece of paper that says "redeemable for value in gold" and you have no faith in the government's ability or willingness to do that -- or if you see that the government has changed the currency to say that it is not able to be exchanged for a backed good -- you may very well listen to the strong consortium of local merchants offering to exchange that paper note for currency backed by water."
​
The Tops Vegas Casino exchange rates for in-house playing Chips;
Note: With a double check, all the Casino cashiers in Vegas have the same exchange dialogue, barring the type of greeting they give depending on the chosen locale. That means the exchange rates for all Vegas Casinos are standardized and consistent.
NCR
2 chips for 5$ NCR
8 chips for 20$ NCR
40 chips for 40$ NCR
Legion
4 chips for 1 Legion Denarius
20 chips for 5 Legion Denarii
40 chips for 10 Legion Denarii
80 chips for 20 Legion Denarii
100 chips for 1 Legion Aureus or 25 Legion Denarii
​
Source: Geck dialogue files, vDialogueCasinoCashier; Topics
EDIT: To even nip this in the butt further, some comments here say that Precious Commodities don't have intrinsic value. If that is the case in regards to the NCR being discussed here, why by the time of FO2 was the lowest denominator of their currency, 1$ dollar, was in Gold Coins?
​
$1 NCR - The Fallout Wiki (fandom.com)
​
The NCR never or had any contingencies to shore-up their currency to a fiat one at all if the most basic unit of their internal monetary exchange was Gold Coins. If that were the case they would've had pure paper money to begin with without these Coins being in circulation in Fallout 2; with all Gold being in their reserve purely being for backing only, but this isn't the case as we observe.
With the absence of their most basic unit of exchange being gone and the 5$ paper note being demoted to the new basic unit of their currency, that's a huge amount of unaccounted inflation off the bat; inflation they could've never prepared for since they valued Gold enough as a natural unit of exchange at such a base level to be circulated. They didn't expect the BoS to hit them that hard or anyone to do so with their perceived control of their core territory; nevermind the facts that its very unstable and unlucrative to deal in with raiders they can't hunt down with lack of dedicated manpower and poll taxes.
​
Precious vs Fiat currencies have staunch differences that can't be reconciled in the context of the Fallout universe and a general post-apocalypse. Precious Commodities are backed by simple human consensus of its natural properties being of worth and desirable for a monetary unit of exchange.
These can be traded and exchanged easily with a readily agreed upon value along with Caps because they are accepted by almost every post-war Tribal group, Wasteland settlement, independent Traders, and most other polities across America. Its supply is also naturally in nature, not manufactured artificially with Fiat money note printing.
(In the Fallout series, we see some form of international travel is still somewhat possible with characters such as Alistar Tenpenny and in Fallout 4 with multiple characters from other continents. Take Gold from the US and bring it to the British Isles, it will still have ready value no matter what. Take simple Fiat bank notes of a faction in the US to say, the Fallout version of West Africa. It would absolutely have no value because the issuer of that tender back in North America literally has no economic influence to back its money in this region miles away; there is no Demand or recognition for it. Conversely with Gold taken from North America and traveling to Fallout West Africa, it has tradeable value no matter what because Gold is a natural unit of exchange from its recognized natural value by humans.)
Fiat currency is only as strong as a nation-state can legitimize and maintain it. The only Fiat currency at the time of New Vegas taking place is NCR currency, which is doing badly from the aforementioned factors of the top of this post. The NCR IS a nation of some sort, but it isn't in the league of pre-war society statehoodship.
It doesn't have the financial instruments or development of robust monetary institutions to handle Fiat when they've have been on a Gold economy all this time and the value of the NCR dollar has plummeted due to lack of Demand with its sudden absence. The only reason why the NCR dollar had high worthiness was due to the inherent value of Gold they had on reserve in a post-apocalyptic society that has an extremely high assessment of value it.
With the Gold-backed era of the NCR (supported in FO2 with Gold Coins directly in circulation and being exchanged), Caps were practically worthless in the NCR territory as comments here note. Now with Gold out of the equation as we can observe with direct evidence, the highest focal point of NCR currency isn't even worth 40% of Cap currency by the end of the NCR-BoS war.
Double Edit: The whole reason why the resource wars in the Fallout universe happened because the main natural mineral resource, Oil, was almost all depleted entirely- in an international society where almost all the pre-war Nations were Oil based economies. Without Oil we see in numerous cases in Fallout in the post-war landscape with products with exorbitant prices due to rampart inflation with money that had no value.
[This](https://www.reddit.com/Fallout/comments/3x9cqj/how_inflated_was_the_prewar_economy_some_of_the/cy348gl?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) comment here from 4 years ago from the main Fallout subreddit goes into the context of the universe.
In the very intro of the first Fallout game, we see on the TV in the ruined building that is still running- a common non-luxury car is worth 200,000 dollars.
Regular Gas in pre-war Fallout America was 1450.99$
Premium Gas was 8500.99$
To note, America was only one of the nations still with a minutiae of Oil left, but here are the prices.
Source: [Gas Prices](latest (293×291) (nocookie.net))
The Mechanical Pony toy seen in Fallout 3 costs 16,000$.

Posted this in Persona 5 and it kept getting auto removed for whatever reason, i spent a long time writing it so here it is!
Sae Niijima is the best part of Persona 5 (spoilers)
I'll start by just noting that I'm going to be talking about Makoto a decent amount also, although mostly in relation to Sae.
I'm not here to convince you that Sae Niijima should be your personal favorite part of Persona 5. I'm not even here to convince you that you should her if you don't; part of the beauty of her character is that she isn't always all that likable anyway. What I am here to do is explain to you why, from a writing standpoint, Sae is absolutely one of the very best parts of the story.
Persona and the Absence of Parent/Child Relationships
I read a great reddit post a while back regarding Makoto's character that went into a lot more depth on this issue than I'm going to, and I've also seen a number of other people comment on the positive change that the Sae/Makoto relationship made in this regard, so I doubt that my perspective on this will be particularly new for anyone reading (I am going to find that reddit post and provide a link in the comments after writing this, btw). However, I do think it's a key factor in what makes Sae so effective, and so I'm going to talk about it anyway. In a series full of teenagers with little to no notable parental influence, Sae and Makoto's relationship manages to bring family life to the forefront of the story. While Sae is Makoto's older sister, and not her mother, the significant age different between them and Sae's role as guardian colors their dynamic with parent/child overtones. The game does not half ass the exploration of this relationship; many scenes and lines of dialogue are dedicated to fleshing it out and exploring it. Through it, we are able to experience a new type of conflict in a Persona story: loyalty to family versus the goals of the group. As I noted earlier, most parents in Persona games are absent, and therefore cannot provide any sort resistance to a character's goals. The pull that Makoto feels towards her sister even as she actively goes against her by working with the Phantom Thieves is constant and palpable, even allowing her to serve as a red herring for the traitor (not a very convincing red herring, mind you, but a red herring nonetheless). The scene where Sae receives her calling card and Makoto breaks down crying, declaring that she is "on your [Sae's] side" is heartbreaking. It serves as the culmination to the mental and emotional conflict that Makoto has been experiencing the entire game.
I think it's also important to note the complexity of this dynamic: it is simultaneously very loving and yet filled with lingering resentment. I think this is something that is lost on many people, and the game could have done a better job portraying it at times (my most significant critique would be that there is no scene depicting their reconciliation after Sae's palace). Yet, I don't think it can be questioned that there is clearly a deep love between them. As I already discussed, Makoto's feelings are obvious, since the loyalty she feels to Sae acts as her primary source of conflict throughout the entirety of the game. Sae is a more complicated case. Her acting as Makoto's guardian and providing for her is the most obvious sign that she cares. I don't know the details of the custody system in Japan, but I highly doubt that Sae was "required" to take Makoto in, nor was she automatically given custody. She probably had to petition for it. The pressure to provide for another person is clearly a contributing factor in her unhealthy obsession to succeed at her job. The fact that her confidant actually begins following the revelation that Makoto was part of the Phantom Thieves is also very notable, as it marks the beginning of her really trying to listen to/believe the protagonist's story.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention *that* scene, and you all know which one I'm talking about. It has spawned A LOT of Sae hate and a lot of admittedly very funny memes. The scene where Sae lashes out at Makoto is one of the most brutal in the entire game, with many fans claiming that her actions in this moment are utterly unforgivable. While I do understand this sentiment, I would counter with the idea that most people, at some stage in their life, have said something horrible to somebody that they love. This is part of what makes Sae such a wonderfully human character: she isn't perfect. Far from it. She fucks up and does bad things, just like people do in real life. I think her immediate response after saying this speaks volumes. She apologizes immediately, and yes, it's an awkward, shitty apology, but it's clearly an apology coming from someone who knows they did something really wrong and has no idea how to fix it. Anyway, I've been on this topic for a while, so let's move on.
Plot Relevance and the Structural Backbone of Persona 5
I think the only character that you could reasonably argue has more plot relevance than Sae is Akechi, and that is mostly only because of his role as the protagonist's "rival" character. Despite Akechi being the detective that is pursuing the Phantom Thieves, I actually think Sae feels far more like a detective that is pursuing the Phantom Thieves. This is due in large part to the fact that her job requires investigation as well, but regardless, my point is that she feels like more of an active threat. Her obsession with them is brilliantly escalated; while she does view them as criminals and disagrees with their methods from the start, it isn't until they take down Kaneshiro that she truly fixates on them. In her mind, they stole her chance at a promotion, and that makes things personal between them. She is an important source of information on the mental shutdowns, as she is revealed to be secretly investigation them on the side. Unbeknownst to her, this also means that she is acting against Shido and the SIU for the entirety of the game, which makes her one of their targets and prompts them to assign her to the Phantom Thieves case. This is an active effort to set her up for a loss, and her desperation as the weeks go on and she continues to make little progress is palpable.
She also serves as the structural backbone of the game, which I absolutely love but has also spawned a lot of memes online (someone must have wiped your ass when you took a shit, who was it?! Tell me!). The very first shot of the game is the front of her casino, with the statue of her out front holding the judgment scale in her hand. The structure of the game from that point on, all the way to the end of her palace, is centered around the main character convincing her to believe him, and side with the Phantom Thieves. If you miss a deadline for one of the palaces, you will get a game over, because the inaccurate recount of events has failed to convince Sae Niijima to save your life. This is the crux of the Phantom Theives' master plan to trick Akechi, and is their greatest gamble. They are banking on the idea that, at the end of the day, Sae is a good person. Returning to that opening shot of her casino later in the game when you are finally ready to traverse her palace always gives me chills, as it is a clear sign that this is the moment the game has been building towards.
Towards the end of the story (Sae's palace onwards) she serves as a kind of "inside man" for the Phantom Thieves. While they continue to change things in ways that the law can't, she fights for progress from within. When the group sets Shido as their last target, Sae vows to make him face justice in a court of law after they change his heart. This drives home the idea that the Phantom Thieves simply cannot do everything all on their own, and they must work with adults in order to achieve lasting change. In many ways, Sae is the missing piece, and their partnership with her is what makes the team truly complete.
A Life Outside of the Protagonist
I want to start talking about this topic by noting that Persona 3 is my favorite persona game. I've played it four times, and will probably continue to replay it until the day that I simply can no longer hold a controller. One of the things that I love most about the cast of Persona 3 is that you never get the sense that the protagonist is the end all be all; without him, the characters would still likely be experiencing the same triumphs and hardships that they experience throughout the actual story, albeit in a slightly different way or at a different pace. The formation of SEES is not tied to him and the development of the characters does not rely on him. I love the dynamic between Sae and Makoto for many of the same reasons. Their relationship and the issues that go along with it are completely separate from the main character, and even the Phantom Thieves in general. The post about Makoto that I am going to link in the comments also talks about this idea. Without the protagonist, they would still have the same troubled, complicated family dynamic that they have throughout the story. This helps give the sense that there are things that are simply bigger than the main character. While some players may like when the main character feels like the end all be all because it always for a sort of wish-fulfillment self insert, I personally don't prefer it, and so this entirely separate dynamic is very welcome. Sae is also given many scenes dedication to her, whether it be her with Makoto, or her with Akechi, or just her by herself (or with NPCs). The point is, they are scenes completely absent of the protagonist, which is notably different from the rest of the game.
"Rotten Adults" and Unavoidable Hardship
An idea that I think Sae's character is very important in presenting is the notion that sometimes, life just doesn't really allow you to rebel or "stick it to the man" the way that the Phantom Thieves do. When Sae lashes out and expresses that Makoto could never possibly understand her struggles because she isn't a provider, she isn't exactly incorrect. The vast majority of their father's responsibilities did fall on her shoulders upon his death, simply because she was the eldest. So, where Makoto has the freedom to act out and "rebel," Sae does not have the same luxury. Her portrayal always gave me the sense that she was person with a very strong sense of justice, who entered the field of law because she hoped that she would be able to do some good and make positive change. However, when she got there, she quickly grew disillusioned with it all when she realized that "justice" didn't actually matter at all. This is in part due to her father's death while on duty, which contributed to her budding belief that justice is meaningless, and in part due to the fact that justice is quite literally meaningless in her job that is supposed to be all about upholding the law. She was stuck in her job, however, because she had to provide for another person and therefore couldn't just quit because she was unhappy with the system in place. So, she ultimately adhered to the idea that winning is all that matters, not the concept of what is lawful or unlawful. It's quite a classic case of "person that initially hated the system ultimately grows to perpetuate it."
I think this perspective is important because the game is very fond of throwing around terms like "rotten adults" (looking at you, Ryuji). Sae's character presents the idea that some people who grow do bad things aren't evil, they have just been dealt a bad hand in life and are ultimately beaten into submission due to their circumstances. The fact that she manages to change her own heart rather than having the Phantom Thieves do it for her furthers this idea, because it demonstrates her innate goodness even though it had been hidden for a long time.
Anyway, I think that's it for my rambling. If you actually read this far, I really hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading! I'd love to hear any thoughts that you have in the comments.

RR link
Previous chapter (RETRO COSMOS)
​ #2 - THE TWISTED HEIST ​
A star had just gone out in the distance, sending its entire system, planets and moons, into oblivion. So, what was a simple life compared to a sun? Did the human existence that earthlings highly cherished in the past deserve so much fuss?
I would say no, of course, because I’m a cat. Our condition to us felines will never have to pale in front of a shiny astronomical object. Mine specifically, don’t you think?
Oswald Avery was merely a Homo sapiens. A retired buccaneer, fermenting his adulterated wine on the carcass of a drifting supercargo; all under the remodeled features of a former Galactic Trade Company’s pilot. Alas, regardless of the genetic disguise, the FID rarely lied. It hadn’t fooled us and the masks had fallen off. Just like him.
I’m such a poet.
Anyway… Avery had had a long life of crimes and adventures. He was full of energy in his youth. And as in the universe, nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed, this energy was reincarnated in a nice amount in our bank account once the old picaroon flatlined.
“We finally got it! And it was a traditional Martian contract. Payable remotely, on condition that the FID is validated. How about that?”
“God… Lee … you’re talking to yourself and it’s only 8 a.m.,” Ali grunted behind me.
My couch potato of an associate had her head still stuck in the cereal box she was nibbling before falling asleep binge-watching Captain Caveman on ABC.
“To begin with, it’s 8 p.m., Martian Time. And we do have a positive balance in our bank account for the first time in months! Do you know what that means, partner?”
“Shopping, bitches!” she shouted as she hurled herself into the void, gliding to the bathroom in the weightlessness.
With the cardboard box on the top of her head, this sugar bishop was swimming after the remnant cereals that floated on her path like Ms. Pac-Man.
“Hell! Have I just opened Pandora’s box?”
The liner Danaë and its forty-eight post-nuclear Baltimore-XVIII heavy reactors made its annual cruise from Lunapolis to the suburbs of Ceres, in the belt. Its figurehead with the effigy of the Greek princess was a two hundred meters long, green ceramic statue. The size of the ship exceeded some inhabited asteroids’ diameter so it possessed its own substantial gravitational field.
“It’s quite a symbol of the decline of humanity,” I said to Ali, pointing with my chin at this unique work of art.
“Why?” my partner asked without caring whatsoever. “Spill the beans, Plato.”
The Kitty had obtained permission to dock and began its approach. I concluded then:
“Humanity no longer erects great and beautiful things without turning them into a shopping mall.”
The gold and ivory Danaë was one of the most luxurious epicenters of human decadence in the system; comprising hotels, casinos, megastores and amusement parks spread over a dozen centrifugal rings. There was something for everyone’s wallet, ready to be emptied, whether one was welcomed at the port or had joined during the crossing.
And to my great regret, the cape of the Danaë was just passing by us that week.
“I believe we should keep our savings for the maintenance of the Swallow. The dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree. Some parts need to be changed…”
“You’re such a bore with your adult talks,” my partner said as she left the fitting room of a luxury chain overlooking the main deck. “What do you think of that? Sexy as fuck, right?”
Her camisole didn’t hide a single inch square of flesh and I subtly pointed it out to her:
“It’s a bit of a back-alley Sally.”
I took a blow on the nose which, this time, was amply justified.
“There’s nothing chicer than Borderline. You don’t know anything about fashion. It’s crazy!”
She was furious. It was entertaining. But she was right. The human female fads were way over my head and I wasn’t a good adviser. Mostly because I didn’t care. At all.
Fortunately, the upscale shopping mall where we were staying had provided us with a free assistant who was even more servile than a decerebrate canine. As usual, the robot carrier that accompanied us did the job by flattering her with its unbearable honeyed tone:
“I find you charming, Madame. Here we have the latest fashionable lingerie on Mars. It’s an ephemeral collection that appears to have been specially made to mold your discreet curves, which seem to have been sculpted by the seraphim.”
Ali gave me a satisfied look that I pretended to ignore. Then she backtracked into the fitting room to put her black suit and pink jacket back on.
I took the opportunity to climb on the shoulders of this silly robot, servant of our servants and last link in this hierarchy whose origins go back to Ancient Egypt.
“One more move like this and I’ll turn you into a gum dispenser.”
The automaton apologized before my partner’s head emerged from behind the silk curtains which were far too fragrant for my taste.
“I just checked; it’s too expensive anyway. I ain’t buying it,” she announced. “Can you order a taxicab to take us to the hotels’ ring? You’d be a sweetheart.”
Happy to leave this irascible human with her robotic slave, I proceeded to the nearest service terminal. By the time I requested a vehicle, a flying cigarette dispenser could light me a Lucky.
“It’s forbidden to smoke in our store, Monsieur.”
The customer attaché, in his blue silk suit with elephant legs, had appeared out of nowhere. Yet, with such a shiny tie, this punk should have dazzled me from the Kuiper belt.
“Please be kind and get me a Pepper Coke instead of ruining my eyesight…” I grumbled in response.
I was in an awful mood. I definitely hated shopping. And people. Yet the pedestrian avenues of the Danaë had a very exceptional population density. Perms were making a strong comeback, as were neon tattoos and overly open flowered shirts. Under the false UVA/B sun, it was a true dance of flesh, steel and plastic bodies with assumed nudity. Implants and surgery erased the hazards of the genetic lottery for better or worse. It was so superficial. So futile. So human.
“Hello, handsome!” Ali cried out, a large smile across her face. “Lee? You didn’t tell me you knew Christophe Lambert! You know I'm a huge Highlander fan!”
My partner had just joined me, arms loaded with bags massive enough to live in it, start a family and park my chromic Pontiac Firebird. All were filled with C$400 t-shirts and sneakers that she didn’t need and would only put on once.
“No smell. Hologram,” I conclude by throwing my cigarette butt through the smiling ghost.
“Shame!” Ali sighed.
She then looked at her terminal, and continued:
“Do you think I have time to grab a watch module? There are sales in the Japanese aisle! I saw some GD-8 that would go well with my new Game Pocket! This boat is fucking rad!”
Ali could not stop humming Who wants to live forever. I had to rub my temples to avoid a migraine before the arrival of our taxicab five minutes later.
These were miniature limousines with double fake leather benches, facing each other at the back. There was a minibar with expensive multicolored drinks and sugar-soaked snacks, the sapiens’ primary source of calories and high Gs space travel drug. For the sensitive, the smart-fridge provided diet sodas with aspartame, but no one took it. Finally, there were free Gauloise cigarettes next to the ashtray on the armrest. And even Tylenol!
“What a time to be alive!”
Right after leaving the fashion district, a soft voice of a young woman, who appeared to us through the armored porthole separating her from her customers, finally emerged from the cockpit:
“Good evening! I’m Miss Meera. At your service. Hotel de Saint-Malo, correct?”
I nodded. She smiled at us. She was beautiful with her incredibly dark night metal skin that contrasted strongly with her silvery-white hair. She also had charming ivory eyes with absolutely no reflection. They were a mesmerizing void of light.
In fact, it was so rare to deal with a real person, and not an AI, that we engaged rapidly in a lovely and honest discussion with Meera. We were mostly talking about life on the Danaë. As she stated, the rules on board were very strict, even military. All was done to make sure that the customer had the most pleasant time at the expense of everything else. Finally, according to her, her condition wasn’t the most to be pitied in the cosmos. And she was fully satisfied with this precarious semi-nomadic existence.
“And what about you? Are you here on vacation or in transit for work?” she eventually asked. “What do you do for a living?”
Should we have told her that we were executing infamous people so Ali would collect expensive t-shirts and I could fulfill my nicotine addiction?
“Don’t get me wrong but I saw that you had a gun. Are you in the police… or are you pirates?”
It wasn’t the first time someone asked us this question. Although weapons were allowed on most ships and stations, it wasn’t wise to display them unless you were looking for trouble. Unfortunately, hiding such a large caliber under such a tight vest was a Herculean task.
“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone”, simply quoted Ali, her forehead against the window covered with scented stickers.
Meera laughed before continuing:
“Very well, Al Capone. I understand that you’re not the type to let yourself be taken advantage of.”
The taxicab entered the central expressway after the water park then suddenly swerved violently to the left.
“What is going on?” I gasped.
After crushing the safety railing, we fell from one rotating bridge to the other in a frantic cavalcade. Judging by Meera’s swear words, this ride wasn’t part of the show.
Avoiding the stalls of an art market and a group of children coming out of an arcade, the driver finally managed to recover in extremis. It was about time, because within seconds we were passing through the transparent protective wall of the hotels’ deck.
“A thousand apologies! Another one of those mor… clients from the Middle System who doesn’t know how to use a rental car,” she shouted through the window. “Are you guys hurt?”
“No, thanks to you,” I replied, my tail spiked over my head, taped to Ali’s neck now decorated with bloody scratches.
Although my human forehead now had a bump on it the size of a golf ball, it was true that Meera had just saved our lives. This young girl had unsuspected driving talents despite taxicabs’ lack of handling. She didn’t belong here, playing the steward in a yellow circus uniform. This woman should have been a fighter pilot; or a NASCAR driver on Canyon Creek.
“In any case, here you’re almost in front of your hotel,” she replied. “You don’t have to pay anything, and I apologize again for the scare.”
From the outside, the taxicab now looked like a can of nutrigel after going through a crusher. Yet, it still worked. May God Darwin bless Venusian steel.
After thanking her, we wished Meera a good day. But the cockpit window suddenly went down on the passenger side. The smile of the driver had faded. She had tears at the corner of her white eyes.
“Wait!” she asked. “This weapon… do you really know how to use it?”
So, life on the Danaë wasn’t so sweet. As Meera explained to us in a secluded alleyway, a trio of criminals had come to threaten her a few days earlier, after finding she was a bodacious driver. They were preparing a heist in one of the flying city’s fifty casinos. The young woman was now ready to pay the price to settle the case.
“What is your opinion about this whole situation?” I asked Ali, once in our room, a small yet cozy suite whose glass walls overlooked the vacuum of space.
My human had applied a brownish ointment on her hump, which disappeared soon after, leaving only a slight pinkish hematoma.
“Meera said she would provide us with more details tomorrow. However, if she ponies up the cash, I don’t see why we would refuse. We ain’t mercs but these three guys must have a bounty on their heads. Let’s do our job, right?
“Indeed…”
All we had to do was wait for more instructions. Fortunately, it had been months since we had been able to take days off except on miserable gas stations full of drug addicts, implants scavengers and prostitutes.
After another morning of shopping, Ali went to the thalassotherapy center of the neighboring hotel. Her main occupation? Overeating sushi made by 3D nutrigel printing while getting massages.
Alas, I didn’t have the time to bask under the false sun of the lakeside resort and get my belly stroked. As a good captain, I had to go to the maintenance to fix the numerous damages of the Kitty. As always, the bill would be higher than expected.
Everything was orchestrated so that we would never hold a positive balance in this corrupted system. We had to chain contract after contract.
But Meera’s gig didn’t sound right. There was something I didn’t like and I couldn’t catch it yet. All my cat sensors were in the red. Unfortunately, the bounty hunter’s ones only saw the green of the bills.
Don’t judge me.
The young taxicab driver had finally contacted Ali again by holoconference in the early afternoon, shortly before I joined her at the exit of the tanning booths. Or as I called them: human toasters.
“Have you finished roasting like a Thanksgiving turkey?” I asked her as she plunged into the icy water of the adjacent basin, under the lustful gaze of a group of cadets from the Marine Academy.
“Meera will pick us up with a new taxicab in the hotel parking lot,” she whispered once back to me. “Alongside her, we will meet two of the criminals at the burglary location, shortly before midnight.”
“Go on.”
“We take care of these guys and we catch up with the last one: the band leader, in the storage cavities of the hangar reserved for the ship’s logistics. Below the last rotating ring.”
In Eve’s costume, Ali came out of the basin, not without deliberately drenching me. The water had a nasty chemical taste from being filtered day after day.
“Do you have any intelligence on these jokers?” I insisted while lighting a cigarette.
“The Broadway Gang. Three brothers. C$45,000 for the trio. We will also be able to recover at least C$10,000 of Techno-federal tax on their ship depending on its condition. Easy cash with the dollar credits that Meera promises us…”
Now sitting on the ledge, my partner splashed her feet to demonstrate her eagerness to head back swimming.
“Excellent! This will pay for the maintenance and allow us to save some money on our way to the belt.”
“Can I go now?” she asked, sliding back into the water.
“You may,” I had concluded before seeing her leave for her absurd wanderings that would fill her afternoon.
I myself was very busy making eyes at the wealthy guests of the hotel restaurant to glean a few pieces of Peking duck or juicy crabs. They were real farm animals from Mars. Not nutrigel. It was worth abandoning a little dignity aside.
With a full belly, I finally joined Ali in the middle of the evening. Arriving in the corridor of our suite, I crossed the group of cadets noticed near the swimming pool. They seemed tired but blissfully smiling as they just discovered the nirvana. And I knew why…
“Ali? Are you ready?” I said as I walked through the half-open bedroom door.
Her dressing gown had been thrown on the floor. Her gun and badge were resting on the bedside table against a giant bottle of Koala Springs soda and a pyramid of little Yoyo Mints.
To be honest, I expected a bigger mess.
“Gimme five minutes,” she replied while in the shower.
An hour later, we met Meera in the staff parking lot behind the recycling stations. Without further discussion, we joined the expressway in the taxicab. Between two noisy info-ads, the radio played Sweet Transvestite then the rest of the mythical Rocky Horror soundtrack.
“I wonder what Tim Curry’s up to these days,” asked Ali while browsing the intraweb on her implant.
“Being legendary as usual,” I answered.
Afterwards, the casino was in sight. But once on the forecourt illuminated by the gold and silver bulbs, we heard gunshots and screams. My partner and I quickly realized that this was a violent robbery rather than a modest heist.
“What the fuck, Meera?” Ali asked, turning to the porthole that separated us from the cockpit.
There was a hint of irritation in her voice.
Meera remained mute, her hands on the wheel and her gaze forward. In the rear-view mirror the young woman looked panicked.
The right door of the vehicle suddenly opened and two men sat down in front of us. They were wearing theater masks: the first was Melpomene, the sad grimace of tragedy; the second, Thalia, the twisted smile of comedy. Each brigand carried a huge metal block under his arm; drawers that were sure to be full of cash. On the other hand, they held their still smoking ZeG-4 machine guns even more firmly.
When they saw us, they both gasped, in unison:
“What the fuck, Meera?”
One… two. One… two.
Four holes in their faded tuxedo. Four bullets as big as a cat’s eye that silenced them forever, before slowly repainting the bench in red.
“What the fuck was that? You killed them!” Meera shouted this time, as she started the electric engine. “You had tasers at your disposal, you psychos!”
She had finally turned around. Her voice was quivering. She was no longer panicked, but angry.
The tasers must have slipped between the seats because I hadn’t seen them. My partner raised her eyebrows and it made me realize that their use had never been in mind.
“We’re bounty hunters, not 9 to 5 social workers!” continued Ali. “Now, you gotta motor, otherwise the cops will shoot our ass on the spot before we could even meet the third dude!”
Meera put her foot on the pedal and one could almost hear the noise of the thrusters melting the white asphalt.
“I can perceive the sirens, Ali,” I concluded before Meera entered the ring's external road reserved for logistic transport.
We then had the shortest car chase we had taken part in. The Danaë security forces may not have had the best elements in the system, but Meera’s talents didn’t give them a chance. We had crossed half a dozen rotative bridges to the rhythm of Take on Me, zigzagging between expressways and maintenance tunnels to arrive before the song ended at the deserted logistics hangar.
It was similar to a huge supermarket with honeycombed shelves. Each of these garages, dimly illuminated by red LEDs, housed a delivery or transport vessel. There was the most impressive fleet I had ever seen.
In one of the first level’s cells stood, between a set of clamps, a Swift-0 scout, from Peugeot Corp, with wings spread. The Swifts were small and very high-end single-seaters. They could be modified to integrate weapons systems, but their primary characteristics were velocity and evasion.
Leaning on the flank of the mono-turbine, the last of the three criminals, a tall blond man with a “Chevy Chase” prominent chin was looking down on the approaching taxicab.
“Were they planning to escape on that ship? The three of them?” I remarked when the vehicle stopped a few meters from the small vessel.
But Meera ignored me.
“Hand me the money, I’m going out. That was the agreement.”
The porthole opened at its base, allowing us to pass the steel cash drawers. Once the taxicab’s ignition was turned off, only their holographic numbers glowed in the dark.
“It’s all over if his cronies don’t stick their noses out of the car,” Ali replied, finally giving the second drawer away. “He’s going to figure out that it went south. He will kill you!”
Outside, the man was getting impatient. Blinded by the taxicab’s headlights, he came closer before exclaiming:
“Zéphyr, are you there? Where are my brothers? Security is closing all the departure modules. We will be stuck here, for fuck’s sake!”
He now had a gun in his hand. A machine gun identical to those of his companions currently bathed in their blood, nailed to the seats.
“Zéphyr? Wait… I know that name!” I meowed to myself.
The doors and portholes of the taxicab were locked. Ali and I were now stuck in the back with the two flatlined and most wanted criminals on the ship.
“Sorry guys, but I’ll handle the rest.”
Miss Meera, alias Zéphyr, smiled at us through the armored glass just before leaving the cockpit by the driver’s door.
“What a fucking piece of shit… Lee? Do you have a plan? I think the windows are bulletproof. I don’t feel like testing. Especially if it’s bouncing around with us inside, we will be turned into ground beef!”
“Did you forget who I am, my dear?”
I was already crawling under the seat, between a pair of Méduse shoes and half nibbled fried rat wings. It was time to demonstrate all my infiltration skills learned from Ninja Gaiden. Unfortunately, both the crab and the duck slowed me down and my belly remained for a few seconds stuck under the driver’s seat with my head on the brake pedal. How outrageous!
From the porthole, I saw Ali watching what was happening in front of us, near the ship. Our eyes met for a brief moment and I could read on her lips: “diet kibble”.
“Better off dead!” I shouted.
My paw reached the bottom of the dashboard, activating the mechanical opening of doors and windows. And, accidentally, the loudest horn in this dimension.
“My bad!”
My sapiens immediately jumped outside, pointing her gun to Zéphyr. Surprised by the thunderous din, her target pivoted towards us, uncovered, turning her back to the human with the magnificent chin and his ZeG-4 who yelled:
“What in the whole universe is that? Wait! I know her! Did you bring us bounty hunters? You were clearly planning to double-cross us!”
The man shouted and his gun produced a rain of bullets. It first hit the windshield of the taxicab, passing through the conductor compartment where I was. The rounds bent the windscreen, but it held. This wasn’t, however, the case for the hood, protecting the engine and the reservoir full of coolant, which ended up covering the seat and my face.
Fortunately, the sticky alcohol allowed me to escape from this trap and jump out of the vehicle through the window I had previously opened. But, once again, a fire ring enveloped the ZeG-4’s cannon.
“This is how I die…” I meowed, eyes closed.
I was violently tackled and hit the ground. Zéphyr had saved me at the last moment, just before bullets obliterated the front of the taxicab.
Other projectiles ricocheted off the metal money drawers on the floor and got lost in the ceiling, activating the fire sprinklers. This incident triggered a silent light alarm throughout the hangar while the mobster prepared a new salvo.
“Don’t hurt my pilot, you narbo!” roared my partner.
Ali, this time taken as a target, retaliated. She fired a single shot towards the rascal with a formidable precision. No one knew how to handle such a heavy gun as she did. She was my human. She was the best in her field: murder.
And I taught her everything. Almost.
The leader of the robbers tried to reload the magazine of his weapon, unaware that his heart had been punctured a few seconds before. Adrenaline was doing its job. But the blood loss caused by the explosion of the aorta at its base, near the ventricles, gradually stopped him in his gesture. His pressure dropped and the bloodstream no longer reached the brain sufficiently. He was already in a coma when his shoulders touched the ground. He was luckier than the average Joe and died a few seconds later.
“Is everything all right?”
My voice was trembling, still in shock from this disaster. I was wet and frozen.
Zéphyr got up with difficulty. Next to us, one of the metal drawers was opened, revealing a bunch of green bills and a much stranger booty: an eight-inch gold diskette with suspicious Chinese symbols.
Well… I couldn’t read them but Chinese symbols on stuff are always suspect, aren’t they?
But there were more important matters. Because my partner, on the other hand, stayed on the ground. Blood was dripping from her black suit and mixed with the clear firefighting fluid that was falling like an endless rain.
I tried to talk to her again but my voice was lost in a groan.
“Why are you whining, you big baby? It’s just blood.”
With her nose in a puddle, my sapiens smiled at me. Her left hand was compressing her abdomen. The bullet had passed through the external oblique muscle, far from the stomach.
It wasn’t that bad after all but she had scared me. And that deserved a scratch on the wrist that made her scream:
“What the fuck?”
“And the medical expenses? Have you thought about medical expenses? We don’t have insurance!”
“God, Uncle Scrooge! I hate you!”
“We won’t be able to fix the Kitty with your heroic outbursts!” I fulminated to mask my joy of seeing her in one piece.
“I will kill you, Muppet! I almost died! I don’t give a fuck about your rusty trash can which flies like a brick!”
It was true that we hadn’t had a fight for a long time.
“Guys…” intervened Zéphyr.
“What?”
Ali and I had spoken together.
“These three ruffians had planned to steal the diskette drive from me once I got back. I needed a hand, so… thank you… I guess.”
“You’re welcome,” my human answered dryly while sitting.
Although Zéphyr saved me, I didn’t share the same kindness:
“Wait, we’re not letting him go! Do you know who he is?”
Zéphyr. Prince of thieves. And yes, he wasn’t much of a princess either. Just an androgynous cyborg. A breakout king wanted throughout the entire system for his affiliation with the Data Brokers’ Guild. With an incredible bounty of C$800,000, she or he… whatever… was the knight of the brokers’ chessboard.
“I think we’ve had enough for today,” Ali said. “Unless you hope to go after him with these big fat guts of yours.”
“By the 79 moons of Jupiter, you shall pay for this, woman!” I meowed, angry.
My ears were backwards and my hairs were spiky. But soaking wet, it just made Ali and Zéphyr laugh.
Disgrace!
“He’s so cute when he’s furious,” he joked.
Now on his knees, the night-skinned androgynous was blotting Ali’s wound with a torn piece of fabric from his driver’s uniform.
“But more seriously, I need to go. With the bounty, you’ll be able to repair your vessel. As for the hospital fees, I will contact a good friend who will take care of you for free. She’s the ship’s chief medical officer.”
“Thank you,” I simply replied as he helped my partner get back on her feet.
“It’s the least I can do. I wasn’t interested in money. More important information is contained in this,” he said as he was picking up the floppy disk.
This golden diskette must have been worth a lot of cash for Zéphyr to play a taxicab driver to ensure coverage. I had perceived that something was fishy!
Then, halfway to his Swift-0, Zéphyr stopped. I witnessed his hesitation.
“There was nothing personal, you know. We’re all just trying to make our way. The best we can…”
And he ultimately left before adding:
“Maybe we’ll see each other again! You seem like fun.”
Before fleeing away, Zéphyr abandoned one of the boxes near the criminal’s corpse. Thus, he validated the theory of a robbery that had gone wrong. When the security arrived a few minutes later, we were the heroes of the day. And with a little bribe, nobody cared about Zéphyr’s missing ship.
This whole story surely left us a bitter taste. A feeling of defeat and humiliation that the swimming pool under the synthetic sun couldn’t make disappear even a week after.
“He undoubtedly played us as we were rookies, with his little face of a young innocent girl in distress,” I said to Ali right after the end of the daily Brett Maverick.
This old show was dispensed on a couple of giant screens suspended by drones.
Until now, Ali had remained silent on her deckchair; with a brick of sour juice stuck between her breasts and a pair of straws between her teeth. Only inaudible grunts emanated from her mouth since the departure of the sexually unclassifiable mugger.
“I wonder what information this fucking cyber-Tootsie could have been looking for in that casino,” my human mumbled as she squeaked her rainbow flip-flops.
“Admit that it’s not really that question that puts you in such a state…” I answered, now well installed on my motorized buoy that I had gotten as a gift in a diet kibbles package.
“You bet! I will have a nasty tan mark on my stomach with these bandages!” she exploded, spitting out her plastic straws with infinite curls.
My float slipped towards the ledge as a robot came to bring us our next glucose overdose.
Ali finally added:
“I swear that if we run into him again, I’ll smack his fucking angel face.”
Back to business!

to keep on pushing.
Many people visit this sub and post after a bad loss. I’ve been there ... we all have. What’s going to happen is after 5-10-20-50 days of not gambling you’re going to feel so accomplished that you’ll have the urge to reward yourself by playing a few hands or betting a couple bucks (or thousands) on the Super Bowl. You need to remind yourself why you are here.
Take control of your future and your finances. When you are gambling the difference between $1 and $1000 means nothing as you are so numb to monetary value. “What’s another $1000 bet considering I have already lost 40 times that?” is something I would say to myself before unloading on another game. I am not a financial advisor, but I have experience in economics, finance, and life and feel I can provide some insight as a recovering addict.
My situation is a bit different so I will give some insight and feel it’s best to explain my situation.
I’m 25 years old and live at home (COVID). I have lived on my own in the Big Apple and have seen both sides of life. One where your parents cover everything and one where you have daily and monthly expenses like rent, utilities, and food. Currently I’m lucky enough where I don’t have expenses, but being the dumbass I was, my expense was paying the bookie. I know many people don’t have the same luxury as I, but it doesn’t mean you can’t still save. I’ve given up the last 2 years of saving and instead gave into this disease.
1) first thing first, personal ban yourself from casinos or online sites. My vice was sports and I had a chat with my bookie and let him know I was struggling. We were able to settle the debt for about half of what I owed. Just ask, it can’t hurt.
2) before you can save you need to pay off whatever outstanding debt you have. Credit cards and fees will continue to build. Once these are at or near $0 you can begin the rebuild. I have (thankfully) never been in debt, but this is certainly where I would start if I was.
3) create a budget. A tight one, to the dollar. Mortgage? Phone? Car? Food? High level looking at the entire month, decide what you can spend and what you can save.
4) CONGRATS!!!! You are debt free. For whats it worth, I will consider phone bills and car payments for what they are, monthly expenses. Factor these into a budget. For some, this step might take 1 month or 10 years. Patience is key.
5) the first exciting part of this whole thing is quitting, the next is clearing of any debts, and now for the grand finale. You can now start to build wealth and add to your future. Depending on your financial security you can decide to add to your savings or opening an investing account (I use Fidelity). Investing in low risk ETFs will continue to gain and gain and gain.
6) if your company offers 401k and match, DO IT. I can’t stress this enough, it’s free money that you can’t touch. Over 3 years of working my 401k has absolutely ballooned. My company matches as well and I can’t withdraw, only add. It’s the perfect scenario for someone still learning how to control their financial future.
7) sit back and watch your money grow. Once you see gains in your investing accounts, you will become invested in learning about different ETFs that it will become a low risk way to “gamble”.
Hope this helps. Be patient. The damage is done and the recovery will take some time. Use your new time wisely, you’ll have a lot of it. As someone who constantly bet on sports, I’d sometimes spend 6-7 hours a day watching college basketball games I normally wouldn’t care about or sweating doing research on how to make back the money I lost. Spend this time to learn new things, pick up a new hobby, and apply to new jobs/opportunities to advance your career and increase your salary.
Most of all, be excited. Be excited about a life without lying to loved ones, chasing loses, owing people or institutions money. Be excited for a life of stability, even if it takes years to arrive at that point. Don’t let the past you define your future. It is never too late to recover. There will be a point where you’ve made so much progress you think you can go back as a changed person. You can’t. Use whatever you can to remind yourself.
One thing I want to add. The most difficult part for me is dealing with the constant regret of losing money. My parents certainly think I’m better off than I am and my bank account could look far better. What helps me is thinking about how fast time flies and how fast you can rebuild if you set your mind to it. Another thing is not comparing myself to others. I always think about how far ahead my friends and classmates are, but in reality everyone deals with different vices. I’m not big into buying material things or smoking, but many people do. These cost money. A lot of it. You really don’t know what other things people are dealing with. I look at gambling as an investment gone wrong.

First off I’d like to state that all previous leaks about GTA 6 is a hoax. All of the leaks regarding GTA 6 taking place in any other area than Vice City, is a hoax.
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Grand Theft Auto VI is designed to be the most developed video game in history, and redefine open sand box games, letting the player fully immerse in the world and storyline.
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In Grand Theft Auto 6 the game will take place in Vice City, but the previous storyline leaks etc, is all fake. The plot is completely different,. The game will host 3 protagonists, one being a middle aged white man named Johnathon Brooks, but is often referred to as John. John is going thru a mid-life crisis, and lives on the returning area called Starfish Island. John essentially is a life long career criminal, and exposes the player to a new crime element, fraud. John was born in Carcer City, and moved to Vice City at age 17, after running away from his foster parents, not much is known about his previous life before then, except he was in a very poor family.
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John got into the fraud game in the early 2000’s, and he is 38 in game. he earned his money thru many fraudulent activities like credit card fraud, bank fraud, and did a few small bank jobs, and laundered his money with his own car wash business. He lives in a $1.8m mansion that he bought with his illicit gains, and the FIB are on to him. He borrows money from the local gang in Little Haiti, where fraud is very prevalent, and he starts getting back into his older habits to pay off the gang. The FIB notices this, and he ends up doing dirty work for the FIB, in order to keep his freedom.
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The second character is Samuel “Shotta” Stevens, who is a member of the Haitian gang. He is a black, Haitian based character with more character development, than Franklin from GTA 5. He is 26 in game. The game also focuses more on crime, and the gang element. The player will experience the brutal reality of the gang life in Vice City, in the slums of Little Haiti, from loan sharking and repossessing the unreliable clients, to brokering the sales, that being kilos of cocaine, for the South American Cartel. Samuel lives in a Section 8 apartment, in the Little Haiti Neighborhood with his grandmother, Amy.
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Samuel just wants to move out of the hood, but loves the gang lifestyle, and this gets him caughtup in the FIB drama with John. The FIB cuts him a deal also, if he can snitch out his gang, which the player can choose to cooperate, or refuse. This will change the storyline of Samuel dramatically.
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The Third Character is a man named Xavier Gonzalez. Xavier is a latino man born in Vice City, he is 40 years old, and a cocaine kingpin. He lives in Downtown Vice City in his lavish $1.5m penthouse. Xavier is friends with John from the beginning of the story. Xavier is apart of the story no matter what option you choose, providing cocaine to John to sell, OR, Providing cocaine to both John AND Samuel, to sell together, and to strengthen the gangs funds. The gang system is similar to Red Dead Redemption 2’s system, and also has elements of GTA San Andreas. Xavier is also tied in directly to the nightclub business as well, having stakes in the returning Malibu Club, now run by the Jimenez Family, a latino Mafia, who has ties directly to the South American Cartel.
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Each Character has a different personality and lifestyle, and will be a exceptional experience for the player. Former characters from past GTA’s will be making appearances. Luis WILL be returning, being a manager of the Malibu Club, Stranger and Freaks missions are returning with a more in depth story for every one of them
The map of GTA VI, will be bigger than GTA V and RDR2 combined, having several counties, having Vice City, based on Miami, the Vice Keys, based on the Florida Keys, The Everglades, based on the swampy Everglades in Florida. The game will also feature Orlando, which is named Corlado, and Tampa, named as Gulf Shore City, but downsized a bit. The game will feature sprawling countryside outside of Vice City and Corlado, with countryside towns, named Canisville, Centura, and Sentinel Point, along with towns along the Vice Keys. There is an Air Force Base, based of off Eglin Air Force Base, named Fort Sentinel. The Ocean is the Atlantic Ocean, with more shipwrecks to discover, plants and animals, and more. The game itself has as many animals as RDR2, and the player can hunt if they choose, although this is just a more of a minigame. Vigilante Missions will be back, along with Taxi Missions.
Character Customization will be better, from the belt on your waist, to the socks on your feet. Choose to your liking of luxury watches, rings, chains, earrings, featuring plain jane, to diamonds and rubies, emeralds, and more. Belts can be worn along with hightops, to lowtops and boots, and dress shoes. Pantlegs can be tucked into the footwear you choose, if the option is available. Tattoos will be back, along with hair customization. John is white so he can tan, or be sunburned, and the core system from RDR 2 is back aswell.
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Tattoos will feature opacity and can also fade over time. You will be able to adjust the size of the tattoo. It will be able to be placed on over 10 different area of the body depending the size.
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Since the core system is back, you will have to also bathe, to stay clean, otherwise you may notice changes in your cores.
You will have to eat to replenish cores, so you can cook in your safehouse, or go eat out in a restaurant, whether it be fast food or upscale. All characters can have relationships with women, similar to GTA 4 and GTA San Andreas. You will be able to buy extra safehouses around the map, and the amount of vehicles will be the same amount that are in GTA Online, and more. Every vehicle will be returning, and first person mode will be more enhanced, with more realistic vehicle interiors to immerse the player into every aspect of the game. South America will not be apart of the game, only Vice City and surrounding Areas.
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Skills from GTA V is also being integrated back, along with exercising, to boost strength. Agility is a new added skill, and Strength will affect how hard you punch, kick, or melee in general.
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Special Abilities so far, will not be coming back. This may be tweaked before release, but if they return, it will not be a major part of the game.
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Car Customization is more advanced, different leather trims can be changed colors, along with wood trims and marble trims. You can add satellite radio, which lets you listen to radio stations in Los Santos, and Liberty City, but so far there is only two stations from each of those cities. You can also listen to all the radio stations across the counties. Neon is back, new spoilers and liveries as well, Along with different colors of tint. Subwoofers will be a standard upgrade as well.
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Los Santos Customs is gone, and Pay and Spray is back, along with Viceland Kustomz, and Sentinel Bike Shop. You can also modify certain parts at the car dealerships.
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The drug dealing system from GTA: China Town Wars is also returning, but a bit revamped. This is where the post office system comes in, from RDR2. Pounds of Marijuana sourced from Los Santos delivered by mail, to a post office near you. From weed to tabs of LSD, all the way to meth, heroin, and cocaine, you can reap major profits.
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Casinos will be returning as well, one being a resort, others being small-time casinos. You will be able to rent a room in the casino and resort. The casino is named as the Malibu Casino and Resort.
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Gunplay is improved with new realistic sounds. Interiors are just as detailed as GTA V or RDR2, if not more, I’d say. The insurance system from GTA Online will be integrated into GTA VI’s story mode, so losing a vehicle will not happen.
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There is an abundance of new and old activities, that being over 50 strangers and freaks missions, drug supplying, or drug running, similar to GTA TBOGT’s drug missions. You can hunt, as stated before, but is more of a minigame than a money maker. You can fish as well, as fishing is a very popular sport, in modern day Florida.
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There will be four strip clubs scattered around the map, one of them named Vanilla Unicorn South East, which is owned by Trevor Phillips, who is planned to make a cameo, only to be featured in a cutscene so far.

After 80 hours of playing on PS5, I got my platinum trophy.
Cyberpunk 2077 is really good, albeit pretty buggy, throughout my playthrough on PS5, my game crashed probably 50+ times but I wasn't too mad as I manually saved frequently and any progress blocking bugs were fixed after a quick load of a checkpoint.
I played as a Male Street Kid V and I didn't mind his VO, there were times where he came off as kind of a try-hard tough guy but It honestly felt charmingly dorky because of the moments where V is just being himself and isn't being that dorky try-hard; And while the life-paths ultimately didn't impact anything major, I enjoyed the flavor dialog you get when the life-path exclusive options pop up, some even opened up different way of completing certain quests, which I thought was pretty neat.
The gameplay felt good to me after some tinkering around with the sensitivity options, I mainly just used power weapons and only really used Skippy as a Smart weapon and I really liked how punchy the sound of guns were; melee was fine for an fps game, though I didn't like how magnetized some of the enemies attacks were, so regardless if you dodged, you still risked a hit; parrying felt weird, I feel like it only worked half the time and when it did, it was when I was nowhere near for a good hit; kinda wish there was some kind of grappling to mix things up between light and heavy attacks.
Looting, I felt had issues, I always grabbed something that was way far off to the side of the thing I was actually trying to grab, it was even worse when it was a gun under a body where you had to find a sweet spot to grab it.
I rarely dabbled in crafting if only to get Comrade's Hammer and Overwatch to Legendary but there are things I hope they add in the future, mainly batch crafting for things like ammo and grenades rather than holding square for 10 minutes just to have a decent amount, also a counter to see how much of that item you already have would definitely be helpful for things like ammo crafting.
I REALLY wished this game had more to offer in terms of customization, there was no customization options for vehicles, for guns you only really get scopes and muzzles for things that appear on certain weapons along with mods which are purely for stats, there's so many decent options for outfits but you tend to be forced into having clothes that look bad but have better stats and mod slots and not something that's cool to you, hopefully transmog gets added along with barber shops and plastic surgeons. Also, a little nitpick of mine, but the lack of cloth physics on coats for V was kinda sad, its definitely possible as River and Takemura's coats have physics applied to them, maybe its just a PS4 version issue and it'll be something they might add with the next-gen version but I honestly doubt it.
Cars handled fine for me and I really liked the look and feel of some of the cars, even the more luxurious cars that I tend to avoid in most open world games. In the beginning, the driving felt like a more manageable, better handling version of GTA IV but as I got better with it, it clicked to me, its JUST Saint Row 2's driving which I really liked because I feel like SR2 has the best driving controls in any open world game.
Night City and the Badlands were really masterfully created, each area had their own style that really appealed to me and I look forward to how much better they can look in the next-gen version; I can't say I have any areas that I would consider my favorite as I really enjoyed the map as a whole but there was nothing that really grabbed me like the West End in Vampyr for example.
The story was REALLY FUCKING GOOD! All of the characters felt real and really fit with the character of V, I really liked how much V grows throughout the story from being a cocky street kid to someone who cares about the people close to him but is scared of his situation.
Johnny starts as an obnoxious asshole but you can definitely tell that V changes him to be a better person (at least in my game), and you start to sympathize with his actions and reasonings and he becomes a really likeable and funny character in most of the side missions; And his ending where he takes over V is just sad, loses the guy he was trying to save and Rouge, I interpreted that ending as Johnny getting a second chance at life he didn't want and while he probably doesn't want to ruin this second chance, he's more than likely mentally checked out and is just waiting for his time to come. Keanu did a really good job with Johnny and I honestly can't think of anyone who would have done a better job.
I really like Judy, she such a bittersweet character, she loses Evelyn, who she definitely had feelings for, tries to help the workers at Clouds but gets screwed over by someone with ulterior motives and as an end result decides to leave NC, looking for her happiness, and judging from her texts and ending message, she does. (except the Suicide ending, loses the girl she had feeling for and one of her closest friends both to suicide, even though I romanced Panam, Judy's message hit the hardest and was incredibly sad)
Panam, in my opinion, on top of being a great character in general, has the best romanceable storyline in a video game, with Jack from ME2 being a close 2nd; the whole relationship dynamic between Panam and V felt natural and made you feel invested in the character, from two people reluctantly paired together by Rouge due to similar objectives and keeping things strictly professional even when V awkwardly flirts with her, and you start to get closer and become friends when you help her with Aldecaldo problems, but then "With a little help from my friends" happens, the "follow your impulses" comment that V makes that Panam follows through with later on was an interesting way of V giving her hints on his feelings, the biggest moment that completely sells the relationship, happens during the campfire; early in the mission, V can talk about Jackie to which Panam will say "I'll remember that" AND BOY DOES SHE REMEMBER THAT, during the campfire, you can toast to Scorpion, an Aldecaldo who died earlier in the questline, everyone, including V toast to Scorpion... except Panam who says "to Jackie", that moment sold me on Panam as a love interest, she cares about V so much that she toasted to a guy she never met just off of the basis that V told her how close he and Jackie were and that he missed him, everything before that was nice but that was just the cherry on top, after that everything is just heart warming and cute as they both completely go all in on their relationship, and the Nomad ending reinforces this but I'll touch on that later.
River was really cool, I dug his character and questline (which is insanely fucked up, but really cool), I laughed when his sister was flirting with V and Rivers like "Nope, bro-code", he's also got a SICK coat.
I didn't like Kerry at first, he seemed like a complete douche, gets you to hijack and burn an band equipment van because someone was covering his song, then drags us into helping him intimidate Us Cracks who where just trying to pay homage and respect to him, after the moment where he understood and accepted that, he became a much better character; trashing the yacht was a pretty fun moment too.
Vik was basically the Uncle character, he cares about V but isn't afraid to hit him with reality, I immediately payed my tab as he deserved it IMO, the fact he also gives V a tip during the final Beat the Brat fight was cool given his history in boxing.
Misty is an absolute sweet heart, you bond with her over Jackie's death and you can tell how important she meant to him and vice-versa, getting her to bond with Mama Wells was neat too, her telling you stories about Jackie while your trying to find something for his memorial was really cool.
Takamura was cool, I dug the moments you can tell V's attitude rubbed off on him, even though you can tell that he's 100% Arasaka, I felt that he would accept you as a friend even if you have different opinions on Arasaka than him (he doesn't, tells you to burn in hell). That parade mission was really cool and the selfie he sends you, 10/10.
I wish we had more time with Jackie, he seemed like a really cool character and experiencing those moments of growth between Jackie and V and meeting Misty and Mama Wells would have been great and really would have made that moment with Panam feel even better had we had more time with Jackie in the beginning as the bond between Jackie and V would have meant more when he does unfortunately die.
The endings vary from absolutely depressing all the way to heartwarming and hopeful.
The suicide ending fucking sucks in the best way, V believing that killing himself is the best way of keeping those he cares about safe and ending his situation with Johnny, but the messages speak otherwise; Misty telling Vik to send a message as a way of coping, Mama Wells praying for you as she probably felt like she just lost two sons in V and Jackie, Judy... fucking hell man, couldn't imagine what was going through her head during that message, Panam's rage at realizing that the man she loved killed himself even though she offered to help him with his situation, River understanding as his previous partner suffered the same fate but also knows its incredibly sad that there's one less good person in NC, Kerry being pissed that V felt that suicide was the right choice as he probably understood as Kerry was in a similar situation and was disappointed V didn't know better and Misty being mournful.
I already touched on the Johnny ending, but I honestly feel bad for Johnny because he didn't ask for a second chance and now he has to live with V and Rogue's deaths on his conscience, on top of probably burning any and all bridges with V's friends and loved ones.
The Arasaka ending is some borderline horror shit, being trapped in space with a corp who's researching your condition with probable ulterior motives, having nightmares because of the repetitive testing, calling your friends who tell you they miss you and to come back home (though, Panam was pissed when I called her) and in the end you have two choices, sell your soul and become an engram for an unknown amount time to Arasaka who probably wont give a shit about you after that or go back to earth and wait out the remaining time you have left.
Become a legend of Night City but ultimately feel you have nothing to lose as you'll die soon anyway and take an offer from Mr. Blue Eyes (Who's incredibly sketchy) to rob a space casino for info he wants.
Nomad Ending is the best ending IMO, not only because I romanced Panam which made the ending even better (and I know that if Female V romances Judy, she joins the Aldecaldo's as well and is also a really good, feel good ending) but also because it left more opportunity for a DLC Expansion than the other endings as well as a satisfying ending to V's story as a whole; the night before the raid was really nice, testing out the new systems on the basilisk with Mitch and the bottle challenge with Cassidy were cool but that's all I could do as the rest of the activities during this were glitched, cuddling with Panam on the overlook was nice, her getting some stress off her chest and V reassuring Panam that he cares about her and will be there for her no matter what was really sweet; the raid was cool, I was hoping Mitch didn't die when he went back to pilot the basilisk solo and I'm glad he didn't die as I grew to like him as basically a Nomad Vik, Saul dying kinda sucked as he seemed to be cooling down his ego and wanting to work things out with Panam for the betterment of the Aldecaldos but Adam stomping his head in was funny, at least Rouge got to blow him up before she dies in Johnny's ending; the moment at the Dam between V and Panam was nice, V saying that he's glad he met Panam and the Aldecaldos and that he has nothing left in Night City, and the moment with them on top of the basilisk was cute; the messages were nice during this ending, though I was kinda disappointed Judy has the same message for all of the non-suicide endings, Misty's Tarot reading message is incredibly important as to why I think Nomad is the best ending, there's already a bunch of threads that touch on that but it definitely says a lot when its the only ending that gives V a shred of a chance that he might cure his disease and survive.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Cyberpunk 2077, I'd probably place it as my second game of the year (with Tony Hawk's Pro-Skater 1+2 being my personal GOTY) due to bugs but I know In due time that the game will be something really great by the end of its life span and i hope that if a Cyberpunk 2 does happen, it'll be even better than Cyberpunk 2077; I haven't been able to get this game out of my head since I started playing it and I cannot wait to do this all over again when the PS5 version and all the DLC's come out.

Hi guys...Two days ago, I won 45 000 USD on online betting site... The same night, I transferred all of my winnings to online casino and fell down to 1000 USD...With only a couple hands left, I won an insane hand which resulted in 50000 USD in my account. I went to sleep feeling like king (this kind of money is equal to 4 years of average salary in my country). I made a decision to place few relatively smaller bets and cashout 45000 USD and start investing the money and treat myself with few luxuries. Next day, I made a bet of 2000 USD with 30000 possible win. All matches went well, and I only had to wait for Cardinals to beat the Patriots... Whoever watched the game knows that the Cardinals lost in most ludicrous way possible, which made me feel so angry and and furious that I once again transferred all my winnings to casino. I started a gambling spree of few hours which resulted in total blowout. After I lost everything, I even put additional 2000 USD from my savings (which I need for some expenses) and, of course, lost them also... This morning I woke up and the feeling was...I can’t even describe it, some of you probably know it... I haven’t made a lot of damage(most of the money is the winnings from day before), but I feel like I have thrown out the only possibility for a better life. I have always excelled in school, nowadays in business (I am an IT architect for a major company) but I always wanted a chance to try making something myself...of course, the money for starting was always the issue, and yesterday I ruined probably the only chance I will ever get. I called in sick today at work, I can not think or do anything... The only thing that I can think about is committing something foolish to myself. Besides the shame and this previously described feeling, I have enormous fear that this feeling will never go away, that it will drive me insane (or at least get me fired for not doing anything at my work). I do not know how to motivate myself to work when yesterday I lost this amount of money in few hours. What is the point? I also fear that this is something that will turn my addiction in something that is incurable... I just needed a place to vent and write things down, sorry guys and nice to meet you

High all! I really recently fell in love with the Fallout Universe, with all its complexities and unique stories. In particular, I very much enjoy the subjectivity of interpretations of the games and their outcomes, and I wanted to create my own personal contribution by writing a story specifically set after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. The Courier is referenced once in passing and there's no mention of a next of kin for the Courier. The story is completely original with entirely unique characters that I've made and it takes place after a non-specific timeline in which Mr House wins the fight for the Mojave Desert. I wanted to share some of my work with my fellow Fallout fans and see what you think. I sincerely hope you enjoy it.
Beginning:
After the guns fell silent during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, the world was forever changed. Mr House’s City State of New Vegas gained full sovereignty and control over the Mojave Desert, and his Securitron Army pushed the exhausted NCR and broken Legion out. In the following years, Mr House rapidly expanded the city of New Vegas, and reignited the production of old Pre-War Technology automobiles, bus lines, and a high speed train line appeared. The Strip itself expanded beyond the Three Families; Strip clubs, pubs, casinos, all you can eat buffets filling the area, with some residential apartments and houses now beginning to be sold to the highest bidder, just as it was in the old world.
The expanded city of Vegas outside the Strip itself however is a slum, crime, inequality, and denigration is all but abundant, and unrest is growing. Following the removal of President Kimball, his Vice President Donald Watson took over and inherited a State in crisis. Faith in the government had rapidly deteriorated, and the economy of the NCR began to suffer as many relocated to the Strip to live a life of luxury and excess. The NCR is now a shadow of its former self, with Military Police now required to keep order on the streets of its towns and cities. The poverty level is rising. In the East, Caesar’s Legion too is changing, and not for the better. With the Western Campaign a failure by all accounts, resources dwindling, questions about the strength of their Leader Caesar are cropping up in the minds of those closest to him.
By 2295, the pieces had fallen into place. The fate of these States and the people who uphold them is uncertain. One thing is for sure. Whatever happens, the Wasteland will be changed unlike it has ever been before.
‘I appreciate your respectful and restrained response to my contact. It is a pleasure to interact with the less agitated members of your State.’
Aminta barely heard Mr House, and instead stared out the windows of the Lucky 38. The skyline of the Strip extended seemingly forever, pushing away the surrounding darkness with neon light. Just beyond the city outskirts, the silhouette of Mr House’s newly created Launch Pad. It was one of five, and she could just see the other four, each slightly further away from the city than the last. She scrutinised them, and was struck by the boundless possibilities of such technology; the opportunities provided. How exciting it would be! Mr House’s voice then cracked her thoughts and brought back to the present. She listened, without comment.
‘Roughly 18 hours ago, a team of five extraordinarily skilled individuals ascended Hoover Dam from the base of the structure,’ The ostentatiously large screen in which Mr House’s face sat suddenly changed to show grainy footage. ‘This was captured by one of our cameras on the perimeter of the dam. I apologise for the bad quality, it has been surprisingly difficult obtaining improved camera lenses, and As you can see, they used some kind of Grapnel Launcher and ascended via the rope.’
On the screen, it was possible to just make out five distinct figures at the base of the dam. They were clearly dressed in dark clothing, though the quality was too poor and the camera was too far away to make out any of the fine details of the material. Aminta scrutinised the footage, watching intently as the five figures used an oblong object, reminiscent of a hunting rifle to fire a rope, or cord up the side of the dam; high enough to catch the top. The operator of the device then disconnected it from the gun, and pressed it into the ground. It appeared to stick. They then ascended the rope. The camera feed then cut to show three of the attackers subdue and restrain two security guards. Due to the light, it was clear that the clothing the criminals were wearing was Recon Armor, though there were no insignia or identifiable characteristics. The two men were then held down by two and clubbed across the face by the third member with the butt of a 10mm pistol. He then turned to the computer and retrieved something from his pocket. Then the screen went black.
‘At this point, at roughly 1:27 am a Trojan was fitted onto the system. It temporarily disabled all the security cameras in the sector. It was one of the strongest Trojans I’ve ever come across, but I was able to get the system back up and running within 15 minutes. Unfortunately we cannot recover any footage from the corrupted data files that detail how the robbers escaped. I hope you can understand why I decided to contact you.’
Aminta pondered to herself. Why would Mr House, a man who controlled Rockets and owned and governed an entire city and it’s enterprises, would need to contact the New California Republic for assistance in a robbery? From where they were standing, he appeared to be in a position any high ranking NCR official would kill for. She didn’t say anything. There had to be more to this meeting than what Mr House was implying. She looked to her left, trying to be casual. Sitting next to her with an overexaggerated grave look on his face was Political Officer Neville Dawson, and next to him was Dennis Crocker, former Ambassador to the Strip. They too were quiet, their faces frustratingly hiding what they were thinking. Not sure where to look, Aminta turned back to the screen Mr House’s caricature face was on. She had to say something.
‘Mr House, why exactly do you think these people targeted Hoover Dam? There are many casinos and places full of money on the New Vegas Strip. Is there anything of massive value at Hoover Dam?’
‘Well Chief Aminta Marr, no, ostensibly speaking, there is nothing there of real value to anyone, unless they have the ability to take and control the Dam and source it’s hydraulic generated electricity,’
‘Then why would someone do this?’ Aminta said curtly. She tensed up, not meaning to sound dismissive.
‘Well Aminta, they did take one thing from what we've deduced,’ Mr House said, appearing to ignore her tone.
‘And what was that Mr House?’ Neville cut in. He was leaning forward, hands clasped tightly together. He was trying - and failing - to ease the tension in the room.
‘Well, before I contacted you Neville, and to answer your question Aminta, I ran through my storage records from 2285 to the present. I had Mr Harvey Shwarze, my ‘Representative in Government’ review them in paper form in our archives. Three things - completely inconsequential things mind you, were missing. Three Platinum Chips.’
‘Three Platinum Chips?’ Neville said concertedly, as if he knew exactly what Mr House was talking about.
‘That’s right. It’s a data storage device, well it was a data storage device. Designed by me before the Great War of 2077. Perhaps once upon a time this would’ve been valuable to somebody, but after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam I had access to all kinds of ruined facilities all over the Mojave to reform to working order. I began reprinting hundreds of Platinum Chips which were variations of the original Platinum Chip. They continuously upgrade and encrypt my software to prevent any outside programmers from accessing my highly sensitive data. I have no idea what a group of hooligans would want with three. I can easily replace them, and since they’re only usable on my systems, well they would simply be useless.’
‘Perhaps they wanted to sell them,’ Aminta proposed. It wasn’t impossible, she thought. People pay top dollar for things with perceived value, isn’t that the cardinal rule of the Strip?
‘To whom?’ Mr House replied. ‘The point still stands. Nobody has any use for them but me.’
‘Well, perhaps they thought they were valuable.’ Dennis remarked.
‘In any case, they will soon learn they are not valuable.’
‘If you have no problems with this Mr House,’ Aminta cut in. ‘Why do you need us here? The NCR has its own problems, big problems, and from where we’re standing, you seem to have everything under control.’
‘That’s precisely the issue!’ Mr House exclaimed. ‘The very fact they managed to steal anything from me at all is deeply disconcerting! I spent days and nights running statistical simulations for all possible scenarios in and formulated the best plans for countering every scenario I came across!’
‘I guess my point is, I do not understand, in any capacity, why you, YOU of all people would need to call us for assistance in a matter that you - whether intentional or not - have spent the last fives minutes telling us it isn’t an issue.’
The room fell quiet. Aminta pulled her hands back from the table and into her lap, and looked down at them, pretending to be occupied analysing them. She had exposed the true, unspoken meaning of this meeting, and they all knew it. She bit her lip. Dennis wiped the sweat off his face. Neville breathed in deeply, as though he was going to speak. But Mr House did first.
‘As I understand it, the NCR has fallen on hard times since the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. My Lieutenant after the battle was admittedly curt in regards to handling our relations, and since then it seems your economy is really struggling with extremely poor unemployment and satisfaction levels,’ Mr House paused.
Neville looked at Aminta with a look of understanding, and regret but he didn’t say anything. Mr House was right. Of course he was right.
‘It just so happens that while it may look from the outset I’m doing well, with the occasional launch of one of my experimental rockets, crime in Greater New Vegas is extraordinarily high. To be clear, the Strip is not, but the extended city state with the newly constructed buildings - those areas are. I want to make a proposition for the mutual benefit of the NCR, and New Vegas. Neville, think carefully about what I’m about to say.’
Neville spoke up. ‘Alright, I’m all ears.’
‘Dennis Crocker here can once again become the Ambassador to the Strip, and the NCR can once again have an Embassy. I will also give the NCR access to some of my technologies to help your state re-stabilize after everything that’s happened. In return however, I would like Aminta here, who is your Chief and Commander of both your military and normal police forces, to assist my Securitrons in patrolling Outer Vegas. Securitrons don’t make the best police, and security guards are in short supply and are not equipped, in any sense, to be police. I also would like your help in tracking down the culprits of this robbery; that being an extension of the aforementioned policing stipulation. Such a breach of security cannot happen again. Neville Dawson, I’m willing to sign a treaty pertaining to these terms, or any terms the NCR may propose, unless of course it does mutually benefit both states.’
Aminta felt her twang strike her deep in her heart. For years, the NCR Police Force had been absorbed into the Military Police Unit, and they could barely contain black market dealings of Chems and military grade weaponry on the streets of NCR’s cities. They did not have the resources or power Mr House seemed to think they did. For nearly 3 years straight she had been bombarded with evidence of killings by her own subordinates, illegal incarcerations, and illicit behavior between colleagues within her own chain of command, with no power to rehabilitate or prosecute those involved. Meanwhile, those that had the money to escape fled to New Vegas, desperate to find a life of comfort. It was possible that through re-establishing trade and mutual respect with Mr House, they could rebuild the NCR’s respectability on the international and internal level. She found herself hoping the treaty would be signed.
‘This... is a huge proposition. I hope you can understand the overwhelming nature of what you’re telling us, it’ll take a bit for us to come to a conclusion.’ Neville exhaled, as though he had been holding it for the last minute.
‘I understand.’ Mr House responded.
‘Maybe I ask,’ Donnie piped up. ‘What specific kinds of technology will you provide to the NCR?’
Mr House ran down a checklist. ‘Vehicles. Remade pre-war cars. Excavation machines. Cement mixers. Would provide jobs and improve your infrastructure in the process, whilst also giving me business and improving the situation here. Mutually beneficial for both sides.’
‘I see.’
Aminta struggled to contain her happiness. She had become a police officer to enforce safety and protect those who abide by the law. This was a way back to such operations, in which she could help those in need, rather than sit idly while their situation worsened.
‘I’ll also be willing to give 10% of the electricity produced by Hoover Dam to the NCR. It produces more than I need.’ Mr House offered.
Dennis shifted his weight, and opened his mouth. It was a second before anything came out.
‘15% would be great, if possible.’
‘Done.’ Mr House concluded.
‘Well, we’ll definitely have to confer this back to President Watson. As previously said by Mr Dawson, this is a huge offer.’
‘I understand. Aminta, I can only hope you also support this.’
Aminta smiled. ‘I am willing to establish a NCR Police Force here in New Vegas, and assist in establishing prosperity and stability, for the benefit of both states.’
‘Excellent. I’ll arrange for a Taxi to take you back to the border.’
*****
Nobody said a word in the ride in the elevator down to the entrance of the Lucky 38. There was a perpetual sense of being watched, and listened to, and Aminta supposed they probably were. She sensed from the stiffness of Donnie and Neville’s postures they felt the same way. As the three left through the ground level of the building, the desolate casino indicated a time long past, preserved in pristine condition yet uncannily lifeless; inhabited only by robots. Aminta felt a shiver flow throughout her body, prompting her to hurry outside.
Upon exiting, Aminta was greeted by the fantastic lighting she had seen from the Lucky 38. Buildings stretched high into the now night sky, perpetually lit up and calling for you to spend a few short hours in their luxurious suites and lose all the money you have without knowing it. She had visited the Strip a couple of times before the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. Back then, whilst still grand, its exterior walls felt cobbled-together, layered pieces of steel to preserve what glory the pre-war days had. Now, the Strip felt open, almost a complete return to complete pre-war glory, though there was no way of her knowing what such a time looked like. Polished, beetle like cars with extravagant interwoven pieces of silver and gold making up their hubcaps cluttered the road, filled with nicely dressed young women chattering incessantly.
Boys, ranging from teenagers to old men stumbled around, drunk and happy, their legs falling beneath them as though they were wet noodles. To the left, the Ultra Luxe Casino hotel stood at the far end of the street, intoxicatingly ostentatious and alluring for any hoping to climb the social ladder, despite the many rumors of cannibalism attempting to tarnish the brand. The fountain outside the front sprayed sparkling water into the night air which caught the light of the strip and reflected it like the jewels the building it was in front of was embroidered in. However, Aminta was not taken by the hotel, and watched two NCR troopers, still in their military uniforms be forced to dance in front of a crowd of onlookers. They were pushed and shoved as they struggled to dance, their arms and legs barely keeping to any rhythm as they fell to the ground, vomiting a putrid yellow substance onto the asphalt. She looked away in disgust and embarrassment for the two men.
A man in an expensive looking suit and bowtie greeted the three. Behind him stood a long polished black car.
‘Shall I take you to the crossing point?’
‘Yes.’ Donnie answered. Aminta and Neville followed his lead. He had more experience on the Strip than the majority of the tourists around them. She started the car once they were all inside, the engine barely kicking as it began to drive. Aminta marvelled at its power, it’s sleekness, at the strength and confidence of its movement and the luxury of it’s exotic wood plated interior.
The chauffeur drove to the large South Gate of the Strip, passing multitudinous buildings of similar grandeur and spectacle, all the same though uniquely different, until they all blurred into one mix of different colours and moving forms. The chauffeur leaned out of the side window, showed an identification pass to a Securitron, and the gate opened. Aminta’s car was the only car that left. As the gate closed, the car picked up speed and tore through the rest of Vegas.
Immediately outside the Strip, the buildings were noticeably more dilapidated. Aminta watched as the varied prosperity of the Strip curtailed rapidly into a mess of buildings, barely recognisable as residential or industrial, though they were unmistakably new creations. She almost didn’t notice it at first, but they were all the same. Row after row of buildings with the same geometric exterior, though placed at odd angles to each other, as if a child had been playing with them and haphazardly threw them into where they now stood. As the car moved further and further away from the Strip, lights in these buildings became scarce, and the brickwork became exposed to reveal pipelines and shreds of electrical appliances, some still spitting sparks. When the light of the Strip was nothing more than a flicker of light on the night horizon, the copied buildings were replaced with houses, roofs sagging, walls crumbling. As the car zipped passed, Aminta caught wisps of figures; people moving about the ruins and the darkness like ghosts, until they passed the last house, and all that could be seen was the night sky and desert shrubbery.

"...much has been made about the inheritance and passing down of the blood of the Terrestrial Exalted. Entire books on matchmaking and eugenics. The staple of a mortal woman proving her worth to marry a scion of a Terrestrial family is a popular one of many dramas and plays. So are the elaborate murder suicides of elemental-crossed lovers who's family ties and thin blood meant they could not be together. Entire books on the unfairness, of the perils of inherited power, on nepotism, on how Dragonblooded dynasties lead to corruption, unlike the power of the state invested by Autochthonia.
​
However, those authors often forget one thing. Everyone wishes to pass down any advantage to their family. Whether it's money, healthcare, knowledge, family secrets, thaumaturgy, connections, or whatnot. Everyone works for their children. And amongst the sorcerers, the gods, the Exalted themselves? This effort can go beyond what most mortals dream of, taking a myraid of different forms. Some are sorcerous workings where mutations and blessings are kept into the family bloodline, requiring thaumaturgic treatments to maintain them. Some create spiritual servitors; gods, monsters, demons, servants, who serve their descendants. Sometimes there are artifacts whom only function for a single bloodline. Blessed Manses who's functions only open up for a single family. Sometimes these are secret teachings embedded in the blood or training charms. These are some of the examples:
​
THE SUPERMEN OF NAMIDIA
A tale as old as time. The son of a great sorcerer-warrior Dragonblooded, who upon coming of age, realizes that he is not chosen of the dragons. Despairing, he set out to carve his own niche in the world. He succeeded, conquering a large portion of the scavenger land. Rich and powerful, he mended bridges with his Dragonblooded mother. Of course, like all mothers, she loved her son, and despaired when he took off into the night. And so using her blood, her connection to her child, and her sorcerous skills, she transferred a small portion of her power to the bloodine. Her child and her grandchildren all grew in power, skill, and stature. Their thoughts swift as lightning, never suffering illness or bleeding, and filled with boundless vigor and arete. Not the equal of a Dragonblooded, but certainly a match for a god-blooded or one blessed by the gods.
Requiring expensive thaumaturgic treatments (Resources 4) but only professional expertise to maintain (difficulty 3). A child born of two parents with the full enhancements requires no treatment. But marriage with someone out of the bloodline would require the thaumaturgic treatments at difficulty 3, or risk diluting the power (reduced mutations). If there is no thaumaturgical treatment for a generation, the difficulty jumps to 5.
The supermen of Namidia reigned for several centuries, long after their dragonblooded progenitor had died, their superhuman might, intellect, and long life letting them amass power and wealth. However, their arrogance grew, and a series of poor decisions led them to make war upon several gods and Dragonblooded, ending in a terrible failure that led to their kingdom shattering and reduced to a single city state. There, their attempts to enhance their power by creating more supermen from their own bodies further doomed them. Lacking their previous holdings, the costs of the treatments bankrupted them and led to widespread protests, further weakening their power. The supermen of Namidia, as of this day, have turned to incest, their implants and genetic enhancements weakening over the years. They claim that their blessings protect them from the madness and defects brought about by incest. But rumours speak otherwise.
They are desperately seeking for someone, anyone, to give them their former power back. Even if they have to swear a lifetime of service. Perhaps someone with the appopriate tools and expertise can obtain a clan of superhumans obeying them... or be torn apart by treacherous murderers after he saves them from their own bodies.
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THE OLD MAN
Trust your elders, they say! Respect your elders, they say! Revere the march of wisdom, the knowledge that comes of old age! Well, if you respect your elders, does that apply to a strange being hundreds of years old?
The Old Man, as called by strangers, or the Scribe-assistant of Wan, or Setek, as he liked to be called, is a strange being composed out of ink and scrolls. Hair composed out of slightly long brush bristles. Wrinkled skin that on a closer inspection looked to be made out of wrinkled paper and origami. Clothing that looks more like the cloth covers of a book. Horns on his head tipped with ivory. And eyes that were blazing glyphs, warping and transforming, too fast to read and perceive, yet with a terrible power all the same.
The Scribe-Assistant of Wan came from origins unknown, after the two great disasters, serving a single family. Legend has it that he walked out into a caravan that had long since ran out of food and water, holding a babe. The caravan, long weary and realizing that they were soon dead, did not raise a weapon to his strange appearance. Speaking to them, he told them of a way to save themselves... if only they swore loyalty to him and the babe. Seeing no other way out, they agreed. He then pointed to a rock. A few digs of a shovel, and water bubbled out; a spring, unseen to mortal eyes, and yet to the old experience of the Scribe, obvious as the blazing sun.
The Scribe-assistant of Wan now helps a city-state within the scavenger land, made mighty and prosperous through his help. The babe he had saved from the blazing sun is now the ancestor of the large court, controlling the vast majority of resources. The scribe is the same as ever, and always serves the patriach of the clan, whispering into his ears, dispensing advice and warnings.
Setek is a very old being, from the time of the shogunate. Incredible knowledge, an astute mind filled with wisdom and puts together disparate bits of info to create optimized courses and plans. Setek can serve as a deeply helpful assistant in nearly any endeavour, ranging from blacksmithing to conquest to logistics to performance. A blacksmith may receive a piece of information about metallurgy that makes the metal more durable or easier to craft. A dancer may receive a piece of mnemonic or training that gives her greater coordination. But it is in the arena of Statecraft, Politics, and Planning that he truly shines. Problems are solved before they arise. Plans and preparations are created decades in advance. And the entire machine hums along smoothly. Setek is the wise old statesman, the lynchpin of the Wan Clan, by which their power rests. Without him, their power would be reduced by half.
And so, that's why someones' going to hire you to kill him.
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THE CLAN OF ELMAN
Elman was a sorcerer of great renown. Some say he was a Dragonblooded. Others, a Exigent. The silver pact declares him a Lunar who was especially good at hiding his true nature. Records are spotty for some reason. Either way he was used to be part of a small hat-selling business, when he gained his powers.
His legacy is a single palace-sized manse that has numerous amenities, troops, workshops, and libraries. His clan, now far growing from the tiny family he was born with, lives within in luxury, tended to hand and foot. And most of all, is the blessing.
Once in a while, a child of ELMAN manifests as a prodigy. Their skill in blacksmithing rapidly advances. They learn history, and the study of essence flows, quickly. Their minds swiftly grasp occult principles. This is the blessing of Elman, a sorcerous working he has created, tying it to the manse his clan now lives in. In game terms (especially 2e) there is a xp discount for learning lore, occult, and crafting, and thaumaturgy. All children of Elman are prodigies in the schools of the occult and scholarship. Many are accomplished thaumaturges, capable of matching any non-exalt in anywhere on Creation. And quite a few are sorcerers.
Their job is to beckon elementals, banish demons and ghosts, create alchemical mixtures, transmute gold, and all other things. Specialised workshops in the manse help them carry out procedures and alchemical castings at reduced difficulty, further enhancing their power. Their equipment is always of perfect quality, shielded by talismans, and their home is warded to hell. Powerful, influential, talented, the main power bloc within the city they live in... they are the movers and shakers for hundreds of miles around.
Which is why people want to kill them. Not just kill them, but take over the manse. It appears that the manse only works for them, and whatever effect grants the child of elman effect, it is centered on that particular piece of geography. Those who break from the main group and move elsewhere do not manifest the effect.
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THE BLESSING OF SERENITY
500 years ago, a Sidereal Exalted. Going to heaven, she gazed upon the family she left behind. Weeping, she spun fate and legends for them, warping probability and chance. And so they became rich and powerful. And as a final gift, she granted her descendants the blessing of serenity. Fate and fortune bless them in their attempts to gain power and wealth. Money pours into their coffers like a river. And so the descendants grew proud. They grew vain, and at last, they were slaughtered, their treasure troves looted by jealous rivals, and a single survivor placed within a monstery.
The little girl who grew up was clever. Named 'Beautous gold', she started first at gaining influence with her friends using flattery, candy, and gossip. Then she worked small jobs, using her small size and her appearance to gain help from the nearby grocers. And then she started her own small business, selling flowers and sweets. Whatever business she turned to, she succeeded. And at 18, she left the monastery, much to the consternation of the monks who had never approved her habits, after a sizable donation of land and money.
She now swings form city to city, gaining and losing entire fortunes in a night, gambling, begging, carousing, and sleeping. One moment she sleeps in silken sheets after an evening orgy, content and in bliss. Other times, she chewed on moldy bread while sleeping under bridges. The blessings and bad habits of her ancestors are now in full force, striking her, leading to her to become a consummate spendthrift, expending entire fortunes on fine foods and perfumes, when keeping them for later would be better. She doesn't care. She will always get more.
But trouble is about to come to her. There are debtors she has not repaid. Enraged debtors who are seeking her out, to get whatever they need back. And she is about to go onto Plentimon's casino, where unbeknownest to her, the god of luck and gambling will have an extremely dim view of her using her blessings, whether or not she used them 'unintentionally'.
The Grandmother of Monsters
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