MIAMI

• RHOM’s Marysol Patton Shares Her Guide to the Perfect Cocktail (Ernesto Macias for Interview Magazine)
• Alexia Nepola Shades Jen Shah: ‘I Didn’t Care’ To Hear About Her While Filming ‘RHUGT’ (HollywoodLife exclusive)
• Alexia Nepola: Leah McSweeney Was a ‘Snooze-Fest’ and ‘Boring’ on ‘The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip’ (US Weekly exclusive)
• ‘RHOM’ Star Marysol Patton Is Crystal Clear Where Her Relationship With Adriana de Moura Stands — ‘I’m Never Going to Be Her Friend’ (Showbiz CheatSheet exclusive)

NEW JERSEY

• Bravo Issues Gag Order to Melissa and Joe Gorga Over RHONJ Season, Find Out What They Said About Season 13 Being “Different” (Melissa Gorga On Display podcast/Reality Blurb)
• Dolores Catania Reveals If She Wants Future Wedding Filmed For RHONJ (Up & Adam! podcast/Screen Rant)

ORANGE COUNTY

• Merritt Wever-Led ‘Midday Black Midnight Blue’ Acquired By Good Deed; Coral Peña, Nicole Byer Board ‘Thelma’; More – Film Briefs (Deadline exclusive)

Eric Roberts (Babylon) and Taylor Armstrong (The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) have taken on roles in the upcoming feature Guardians from State 46 Films.
The drama currently in production, with Rick Walker at the helm, follows two women (Cherish Rodriguez, Mackenzie McIntyre) facing life-threatening situations until one of them reluctantly finds her way to Reverend Willis’ (Roberts) church and the transformation begins. Roberts’ character is described as a charismatic preacher who can teleport members of his congregation back into the biblical time on which his sermon is based. Armstrong plays Dr. Renee Kennedy, whose path crosses with the two girls one night after a horrible incident lands them in the ER at her hospital.
Walker penned the script and is producing alongside Kennady Ritter and Chad Lunsford, with Noble McIntyre serving as executive producer. Roberts is repped by Sovereign Talent Group, Imperial Artists Agency, Miles Anthony Associates, Empire Agency and Scott Carlson Entertainment.
ATLANTA

• Porsha Williams Planned Her 'RHOA' Exit 'Long Before' She Met Her Husband: 'I Wasn't Running Away' (People exclusive)
• Porsha Williams Talks Growing Family with Simon Guobadia, Shares Update on Daughter Pilar (People exclusive)
• Porsha Williams Is Back On Reality TV And Dishing On Married Life, Postpartum Depression, And Yes, Those Rumors (Dominique Fluker for Essence)
• LAMH Drama: Tiffany Whitlow Offends Sheree Whitfield + Martell Holt Calls Her Out (Urban Belle)

NEW YORK

• Luann de Lesseps Sizzles in a Teeny Yellow String Bikini on a Tropical Getaway (Luann de Lesseps Instagram/Bravo)
• Inside Carole Radziwill's house flip! RHONY star lists luxe retreat for $999k after transforming the upstate New York property with her girlfriends (Daily Mail)
• Bethenny Frankel Used “Dollar Store Color” on Her Hair: See the Results (Bethenny Frankel Instagram/Bravo)

BEVERLY HILLS

• Teddi Mellencamp takes kids to dad John Mellencamp’s concert (Teddi Mellencamp Instagram/Page Six)

POTOMAC

• 'Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip' star Gizelle Bryant addresses controversial 'no Spanish' comment to Alexia Nepola and Marysol Patton: 'I respect that's a part of who they are' (Insider exclusive)
• Candiace Dillard teases where she stands with ‘demon’ Gizelle Bryant after ‘RHUGT’ (Page Six exclusive)
• Candiace Dillard Bassett On Her Marriage, Mental Health And Motherhood: 'I Know I Want To Be A Mom, Just Not Right Now' (Kiara Byrd for Essence)
• Why 'Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip' star Candiace Dillard Bassett was 'apprehensive' about going to Thailand with Porsha Williams, and where they stand now (Insider exclusive)
• Candiace Dillard Bassett Reacts to Juan Dixon Losing His Job (Ricky Cornish for PRIDE)

BRAVO

• Meet Pepsi, the Breakout Star of ‘Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip’ Season 3 (Lawrence Yee for The Wrap)
• Calamari, Prawn Tempura And French Fries? Where the Ladies Dine on Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip (Bravo Style & Living)
• Dive into Delicious Thai Food and Learn About the Gorgeous Restaurant in RHUGT Season 3's Premiere (Bravo)
• Andy Cohen Opens Up About His Past And Future With 'The Real Housewives' Franchise (TheThings exclusive)
• The Real Reason to Watch ‘Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip’ (Kevin Fallon for The Daily Beast)

Links to this week's episode discussion posts:

• RHOM S5E18🍹
• RHUGT S3E1 S3E2 S3E3 ✈️
• VPR S10E7 🍸
• RHONJ S13E7 🍝

Hi all!
Been trying various options to connect my Korg XE20 keyboard to my Acer laptop so that I can record music.
I purchased a 6.3mm to USB-A wire which was meant for electric guitars, which has led to a puzzling issue as my laptop can detect the keyboard, and on the sound settings page can even detect the sound, but once I try to use it with Audacity, no sound is recorded.
Any ideas as to what the issue may be?
Connecting that same 6.3mm port to my laptop through the 3.5mm jack as a line-in does work, so it's not the port that is the issue.
The manufacturer (Elecon) claims that the cable should work plug and play for guitars into laptops, and I see no reason why it should not be working for my keyboard.
Again, when connected, if I go to "Sound" and click on "Microphone (USB device)", if I play notes I can see the sound level move in response. Once I fire up the default sound recorder, Audacity, or MixPad, none of the above three will pickup any sound at all if I start recording and play music, with Microphone (USB Device) selected as the recording device.
Any thoughts as to possible solutions?

Does Owl work on Mac? Is it x86 only?
I tried installing owl with opam but it failed to install conf-openblas. I messed around with environment variables and got that to install using:

export OWL_CFLAGS="-g -O3 -Ofast -funroll-loops -ffast-math -DSFMT_MEXP=19937 -fno-strict-aliasing -Wno-tautological-constant-out-of-range-compare" export OWL_AEOS_CFLAGS="-g -O3 -Ofast -funroll-loops -ffast-math -DSFMT_MEXP=19937 -fno-strict-aliasing" 

because Clang doesn't support -march=native and there's no -msse2, of course.
Presumably the next time I opam upgrade that is likely to break because the environment variables will have been forgotten and aren't recorded anywhere?
Owl still doesn't install via opam due to 92 warnings. I guess the code is platform specific?
Is anyone using Owl?

Incase it was missed the original Xbox console is now back online via the free xbox live replacement server called Insignia. There are currently 64 original xbox live games as of my post for online play, and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is one of them.
Website for Insignia can be found here: https://insignia.live/ with all the details to get setup. Insignia Discord is what most of us use to schedule/arrange games can be found here: https://discord.gg/CWkdVdc
Here is one of the few videos I have recorded. The classic Warehouse map: https://youtu.be/dXpYkuxprAU
I have captured game footage and created a spies vs mercs playlist from the times I have played online which can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWptCdmgnT3mpF5m-GPqnFBgAd_tBOEZ9
I had not played this game since the mid 2000's, but it has been a lot of fun game. Hopefully more of you plan to join! Some folks use Discord for voice and others use the original xbox live communicator. Some players also use the computer emulator called xemu but have had mixed results of poor framerate or game freezes.
Long story short, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow is now back online for OG Xbox with the good SvM action!

Hi there, hoping someone can help me. I have a friend who is fluent in another language who has offered to translate some of my English videos into their language using voice over. - My question is what's the best way for them to do this? How do you record an alternative language voice over dub?
Do you let them watch the English video on mute with subtitles and then have them record their own language? - Few problems with that as generally needs to be done in one take to line up the voice over with the action correctly. Also, my translating friend needs time to think after reading the English on what to say in their language. I'm worried about it being too disjointed and difficult to put together.
Your experience much appreciated, thank you

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Hi there, hoping someone can help me. I have a friend who is fluent in another language who has offered to translate some of my English videos into their language using voice over. - My question is what's the best way for them to do this? How do you record an alternative language voice over dub?
Do you let them watch the English video on mute with subtitles and then have them record their own language? - Few problems with that as generally needs to be done in one take to line up the voice over with the action correctly. Also, my translating friend needs time to think after reading the English on what to say in their language. I'm worried about it being too disjointed and difficult to put together.
Your experience much appreciated, thank you

Hi there, hoping someone can help me. I have a friend who is fluent in another language who has offered to translate some of my English videos into their language using voice over. - My question is what's the best way for them to do this? How do you record an alternative language voice over dub?
Do you let them watch the English video on mute with subtitles and then have them record their own language? - Few problems with that as generally needs to be done in one take to line up the voice over with the action correctly. Also, my translating friend needs time to think after reading the English on what to say in their language. I'm worried about it being too disjointed and difficult to put together.
Your experience much appreciated, thank you

Hi there, hoping someone can help me. I have a friend who is fluent in another language who has offered to translate some of my English videos into their language using voice over. - My question is what's the best way for them to do this? How do you record an alternative language voice over dub?
Do you let them watch the English video on mute with subtitles and then have them record their own language? - Few problems with that as generally needs to be done in one take to line up the voice over with the action correctly. Also, my translating friend needs time to think after reading the English on what to say in their language. I'm worried about it being too disjointed and difficult to put together.
Your experience much appreciated, thank you

The opening victim is Christina Carpenter (played by Ana Ortiz). She's at home when a really tense game of cat and mouse ensues between her and GF who taunts her over her failed marriage, affair with Billy and broken relationships with both daughters. GF attacks and kills Christina but manages to make it look like a suicide.
Tara and Sam are living away from Woodsboro (not a big city location but somewhere else) when they hear of their mother's 'suicide'. Sam refuses to return to Woodsboro for any reason whereas Tara refuses to become a victim in any manner and (although this is a bit of a stupid, cliche horror movie decision) agrees to return to Woodsboro accompanied by Mindy and Chad to organize the funeral/collect belongings from her old house.
When the three have returned we have another nice little cameo moment from Martha Meeks. The three return to Tara's house and we have a few 'memory moments' from the opening of Scream 5. A bit like when Sidney was walking through the Stab 3 set of her house in Scream 3.
Sam is still staying put in her new location which has caused friction again between her and Tara. GF attacks and kills Danny unbeknownst to Sam. Everyone is still at this point unaware a new GF is even operating although Sam suspects it due to her Billy visions returning.
Back in Woodsboro Tara, Chad and Mindy are spending the night together at Tara's house. Chad and Tara are full on romantic. Chad is even planning on proposing. That night GF reveals themselves and Tara finds herself alone in the house playing a classic GF game of cat and mouse. GF tells her to turn on the porch lights where she sees Chad and Mindy tied up 'Steve style' and Tara has to choose which one to save. She can't make the choice when GF reveals he was never intending on killing them...not yet anyway. He just wanted them out of the way so he could have Tara all to himself. And he wanted them to watch. Chad and Mindy's eyes widen in shock as GF appears behind Tara inside the house and brutally kills her as they're both strapped to their chairs unable to help. It's a really tragic death hammed up as much as possible.
Tara's death obviously sends Sam on a spiral of pure rage and vengeance to the point where for the rest of the movie she's almost manic/feral. The rest of the action at this point doesn't take place in Woodsboro. Chad and Mindy leave town (being given special permission to flee from Kirby under FBI authority to a safe house along with Sam).
I'd obviously have Kirby returning and Gale too as she's taken on a bit of a maternal role (but maternal in Gale Weather's style) to Sam. I'm actually okay with Sidney not being in this one at all. This needs to be the end of Sam's story.
Obviously Sam would be devastated over Tara's death but with help from Mindy and Chad by the end she accepts Tara never would've blamed her for anything and Tara would want her to live her life to the fullest. This is confirmed in a video Tara specifically recorded for Sam during the events of Scream 6 (little homage to Randy's video in Scream 3) that explains if anything were to ever happen to Tara because of a GF attack she wants Sam to know she loves her unconditionally and that she if she were ever taken down by GF that she'd want Sam to go and put that 'Loomis gene' to good use for her. Sam would finally finish her arc by accepting she isn't a monster, she isn't to blame for all the horrible events since discovering her true identity and she finally gets to rid herself of the Billy visions forever as her, Mindy and Chad walk off together while Kirby and Gale plan on working together to produce a true crime documentary on the Woodsboro murders from Scream 1, 4, 5 and parts of 7.

Tottenham Hotspur are reportedly interested in signing the Sporting CP midfielder Manuel Ugarte at the end of the season. A report from Record (h/t SportWitness) claims that Tottenham Hotspur have been scouting the player extensively this season. Furthermore, the report adds that Newcastle United are interested in signing the player as well. Tottenham have watched … Continue reading Tottenham, Newcastle keen on £53m-rated South American ace

Deep Dish and Jambalaya are a pair of senior dogs in San Francisco that are looking for a new forever home. The two came to Muttville Senior Dog Rescue, located in San Francisco, from Sonoma County Animal Services after their original guardian became ill and could no longer take care of them. “Together, they are … Continue reading Two chubby San Francisco dogs on weight-loss journey are seeking a new home

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Hey honeys!
I’m having a drama😭 I can’t find where I saved an old video that I recorded! I can see it in my vault and wondered if there’s any kind of way I can download from there?
It’s my own fault for not organising content properly. Just praying there’s a way I can get it back somehow!🤞🏻💖

For the past several months the city has not been picking up my recycling. I've had to submit notices to Nashville Hub and call to get the recycling picked up. Earlier this month I finally sent an email to my district rep to complain. He was originally very helpful and put me in touch with the right people and the truck came to pick up the recycling. With the new twice per month policy, my address was scheduled for recycling pickup yesterday and it was missed again, and I followed up with my council rep. This is the reply I received this time.
Out of courtesy, I am not going to reveal the council member or the district.

As everything and every resolute is now focused upon your household, what more can I do for you sir?
IF it would make you happy, I will personally pick up your recycling..
but you have to let me know what you are putting in whatever bins you have.. MOST of us in District XXX do NOT have city services,..including me, and we pay for PRIVATE collection servises.
I pay personally for everything taken from my property.

I understand my missed recyling is not very important in the grand scheme of things, but I also don't think it is too much to expect a city service offered by the government to be performed. I've been polite throughout the entire exchange and only expressed my mild annoyance that this keeps happening. I don't know if I should be embarrassed that I complained or upset at the council person's reply
When the state legistlature decided to unilaterally cut the Metro in half, I was upset as it was another example of GOP overreach and bullying of Nashville. But after this, I'm sort of hoping I get a new representative.
For the record, I only have plastic bottles and cardboard in the recycling bin and it was on the curb the night before it was scheduled to be picked up.

Greetings! This chapter sets the stage, does a bit of worldbuilding, and expands on our absolute cinnamon roll of an alien deuteragonist.
Anyway, as always, I hope you enjoy. :)

CHAPTER 2

15 minutes ago
——
Y’ggdrasog nervously whistled to himself as he remotely piloted an unmanned stealth drone from his cloaked ship in the upper atmosphere of the alien planet, yet every so often did a happy little wiggle in his seat at the terminal. Despite the danger in what he was doing, he was shaking with excitement and literally glowing with glee (which, if you were curious, happened to be a lovely shade of banana-yellow).
But my apologies, dear reader; I’m getting ahead of myself.
You see, Y’ggdrasog worked as a galactic interplanetary system scout, colloquially known as a “spacer” among the citizens of the Ul’dril Galactic Collective (a governmental alliance between a wide variety of different sapient species that also happened to be his employer). His main function was piloting his personal scout ship to uncharted star systems to summarily un-unchart them.
While in this line of employment, he had been witness to countless wondrous things. He had seen stars go supernova, witnessed space dust forming beautiful nebulas tens of lightyears wide, and caught the frosted trails of comets slinging close enough to a star to off-gas their icy payloads. But nothing even came close to this, to every spacer’s wildest, most fantastical dream discovery:
LIFE! And not just any life, SAPIENT LIFE!
As the drone flew through the sky, descending towards the surface of the planet below, he reminisced on that fateful day approximately six planetary months ago…
He had been scouting the ice and gas giants in this yet-uncharted solar system, scanning their composition with the unmanned probe-drone he used to sample geological deposits, take gas samples and so on to determine if they could be possible new sources of rare elements to harvest for the Collective. He had just finished probing the seventh planet out from the star when he suddenly picked up multiple abnormal readings originating from the ocean-planet of the system. He sighed, figuring it would just be the usual; some leftovers from a solar flare that affected its magnetosphere or some such.
As he listened in through his radiation wavelength analyzer, he expected to hear the meaningless, purposeless static he had heard hundreds of times before. Instead, he heard strange patterns. Hang on, was that… were those- They were! Voices, in a language he didn’t recognize.
He recorded a sample, then pulled up his auto-translator and had his ship’s analytical programs study it, in case it was a distress call from some poor sap who had crash-landed their spacecraft. …But not a single known language was a match.
He scratched his head, puzzled. Could it be a code of some sort? It wasn’t uncommon for smugglers, pirates, spies, and other “off-the-books” types to hole up on uncharted worlds and use coded verbage to prevent detection by Collective authorities. He had the ship analyze it to at least determine what Collective species the vocal cords that produced them were, but again, no matches, not even when he had it scan the audio samples for possible voice-altering.
He sat back in his pilot seat, stumped. Then, he started connecting the dots.
If the vocal cords producing these noises weren’t recognized as a species already included in the Collective, that meant these were the voices of a species unknown to the Collective. An unknown species, but one that was was nonetheless smart enough to use radio waves…
His eyes flew open, and his bioluminescence began to glow the pure white of sudden realization.
…BY THE SPIRITS, IT WAS A NEW SAPIENT SPECIES!
He leapt up from his chair, and would have nearly deafened anyone nearby with the joyfully excited noises he started to make.
…Luckily, however, he was in space. And after all, in space, no one can hear you squee.
It took him nearly an hour to calm down enough to call it in over his quantum communicator and provide the audio samples he had recorded, then another hour to reassure his liaison on the other end countless times that no, this was not a joke, this was not a lie, an elaborate prank or some such- yes, he would be more than willing to testify to the truth of his statements in a Collective court, and yes, this was in fact the once-in-multiple-millennia moment he and most every spacer in the entirety of the Collective always dreamed of:
THIS WAS A NEW FIRST CONTACT!!!
…As Y’ggdrasog left Memory Lane and turned back onto Present Day Boulevard, he let the controls go for a second and proceeded to spin around in his chair in sheer excitement whilst giggling like a madman, literally glowing with giddiness, before swiftly grabbing the control stick again before the drone drifted off course.
HE found a new sapient species! HE did! He’d be in the Collective history archives for the rest of time!
…Months of preparations had to be done beforehand, of course. He had to wait a few long, loooong days on the outskirts of the solar system with his ship in full stealth-mode (so as to avoid attracting attention from the new species until the time was right) before a truly staggering amount of Collective ships arrived, chock-full of top experts in all sorts of social and scientific fields to fill any conceivable role in the analysis of this new species.
While he wasn’t allowed to participate in the work himself or see most of what they were doing, he was nonetheless ecstatic with the knowledge that the work was being done all because of him. Plus, at least he could attend certain intelligence briefings on their main findings as well as look at heavily-redacted versions of some of the results of their endeavors.
Various scientists from the myriad Collective species and dozens more scientific disciplines had gathered together, set up shop within a day and gotten to work. They performed long-distance surface scans, mapped the planetary geography, and analyzed their atmosphere and planetary conditions to determine what Collective species might be compatible for potentially cohabitating with them.
Y’ggdrasog was delighted to learn that they utilized oxygen for respiration just as his species (lumigog) and tens of others in the Collective did, in contrast to Collective species who had to have, say, an atmosphere mostly composed of carbon dioxide, who were out of luck.
Additionally, they drank the same liquid water for fluid regulation in their bodies as his own people did. …Though admittedly, at a much narrower spectrum of salinity than his own species was capable of tolerating. He found that a bit tragic; there was so much water to be found in their homeworld’s oceans. Yet unlike his own people, who could drink from nearly any water on their homeworld, these “humans” could only drink what they called “freshwater.”
However, any sadness he felt about their situation faded when he learned that the gravity of their homeworld was only 1.04x that of his own species’ homeworld; this meant that at least in the case of lumigogs, the answer of cohabitation was a very solid “yes!”
Moving along, the scientists in charge of engineering and military endeavors surreptitiously analyzed the humans’ levels of technology to determine their capabilities, if they were a potential threat to the Collective, and so on; they were deemed, to quote the spokesman of the Collective military, “mostly harmless.”
Y’ggdrasog thought this might be a bit unfair. …That is, until he read the reports, and found yet another reason to pity them. From what little he was able to read of the heavily-redacted documents, the humans were very, VERY primitive. Spirits, they hadn’t even developed fusion yet!
…Still, that was all the more reason to help them; and to do so, they needed a proper line of communication. Countless diplomats, ambassadors, emissaries and representatives of every Collective race were attending seminars on all the sociological experts were learning about the species’ social norms across distinct cultures. And most importantly, the linguistic experts and etymologists got the ball rolling for the true-AI algorithms of the larger vessels (far more complex than his own ship’s operating systems, which only measured in at a few paltry yottabytes) to sort out the languages these “humans” used.
…Speaking of, just how many languages did they need?! With each additional language that was added to the auto-translator databases, he thought surely this one will be the last, but no! You couldn’t swing around a “noodle” of “spaghetti” (the humans always seemed to choose such silly names for their food) without hitting someone speaking a new language!
But all the pity, sadness and frustration he felt was outweighed by the jubilation he felt knowing that all these countless man-hours of hundreds of individuals per each and every Collective species were happening because of him. All these people were here because HE found them, and he was ecstatic at the impossibly exciting prospect of welcoming this new species into the Collective- or on the off chance they didn’t wish to join them, it was determined that it was safe to at least uplift them technologically so that they could be potential new allies, as well as potentially provide new avenues for trade and commerce of never-before-seen exotic goods. After all, there was hardly any risk in doing so, as they were quite literally outnumbered by over a million to one by the allied races of the Collective.
…And after all that, when they had quadruple-checked everything, then quadruple-checked it again to be absolutely sure, the day of first contact FINALLY came. Everyone brought out the celebratory drinks, snacks and party favors. The diplomats sent out their messages in hundreds of human languages declaring a desire for peaceful contact, promises to assist them in the technological uplifting of their species to a post-scarcity way of life and an offer to join the Collective for the benefit of all parties involved, and THEN…
…
……
…Nothing.
No response…
After a few nervous, awkward hours of sitting alongside the other low-ranking crewmates of the larger vessels, he and all those around him got orders of radio silence from high command and for all the “non-essential” personnel to return to their ships and wait for further orders.
As he remembered the sinking feeling he’d experienced at that moment, Y’ggdrasog unconsciously gripped the drone control stick much tighter than necessary.
…All that waiting, the agonizing waiting for them to greet this new species, the one HE found, and for what?
More. Thrice. Damned. WAITING.
…But this time, there wasn’t even a payoff to look forward to, and no one above would tell him what was going on. He didn’t know why there was suddenly so much smoke in the air of the planet, nor what all those bright flashes lighting up the atmosphere midway through the first day were- and there were certainly no answers coming from high command.
He had to sit there in his spacecraft, and just… wait.
One planetary day passed. Then another. Then another, and so on.
In the downtime, he read and reread the guidelines for first contact back to back over and over again, trying to find out what the possible reason for the wait could be. …Unfortunately, all that availed him was eye strain and an extreme amount of boredom from trudging through all the legalese.
After a week of sitting around, watching the planet slowly spin beneath him while in orbit, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He needed to know what was wrong. He NEEDED to act- if only to silence the creeping dread that had slowly but surely permeated his entire being. A dread born of the worry that something had gone horribly, catastrophically wrong…
And thus, an idea formed: His drone.
He knew the humans’ tech levels; there was a smaller chance they could detect him than the literally astronomically low odds of him finding this species to begin with. …Instead, he was far more worried about the potential ramifications if anyone from high command knew what he was up to.
Long before the radio silence commenced, he was told in no uncertain terms that no, he couldn’t scan the planet, no, he couldn’t act as an ambassador, YES, they really meant it, and NO, it didn’t matter that “he really really REALLY wanted to help somehow, please please pleasepleasePLEASE-” …and after that last bit, they shut down his outgoing comms to high command for a full planetary month.
^…Jerks.
Er- more importantly, he was told that while no, he couldn’t help in the preparation process, after first contact commenced his main function would be to do what he did best. Scouting and scanning to tease out any additional information he could on the planet’s natural resources in order to assist with the technological uplift process.
The thing is, they had given no specific time frame- …just “after first contact commenced.”
Technically, the current time frame satisfied that condition.
So technically, he wasn’t doing anything he wasn’t supposed to, he was just- ^…uh… …t-taking initiative!
They couldn’t court-martial him for just doing a little scanning here and there to get ahead of his own workload, surely.
…And it would just be an entirely coincidental, happy accident if while doing this he managed to find out what in the name of the spirits above was happening.
And so he had slowly, carefully moved his ship in such a way that he was currently orbiting in what he hoped was the blind spot of most of the ships of any higher-ups.
…Purely so as to, uh- better position his drone’s entry point into the atmosphere, yes! Rest assured, he was only motivated by- um… a-avoiding negative weather patterns. ^{…Or something like that.}
Once in position, he released and directed it towards the planetary surface.
If lumigogs had sweat glands, his would have been in nervous overdrive as the drone descended through the atmosphere.
Would he be detected? Would this all be for naught?
He waited, glancing between the ships around him and the drone’s interface on his monitor, but from his readings on the other vessels it seemed like all the command ships’ sensors were focused on the bigger population centers of the planet. He let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He was safe- if only for now.
…He’d have to focus on a rural area. Despite every loophole and excuse he could come up with, he’d still be much better off remaining undetected and not interfering in whatever might be going on in more concentrated pockets of the species. It would likely take much longer to gather information this way than heading towards the larger population centers in search of clues, but he could still poke around on the sly for any information he could tease out from the surroundings.
…And hopefully then he could finally get the answers he so desperately craved.
<“Alter descent velocity. Slow to 50% speed and activate autopilot mode.”>
Y’ggdrasog looked at the aerial scans, deciding that what seemed to be an area focused on harvesting crops with a long road running alongside it dotted with the occasional primitive ground vehicle would be as good a place to start as any.
He highlighted the road with a flick of a clawed finger.
<”Descend to 100 meters above planet surface, then follow highlighted path at 20% speed. Proceed.”>
As the drone dutifully obeyed his commands and traveled along the stretch of paved road for a time, he was surprised at the lack of humans to be found despite the vehicles present. Each and every one had seemingly been abandoned; they all sat still, unmoving. His curiosity piqued, he highlighted a few of them in the control interface.
<“Halt forward momentum. Descend to 50 meters from planetary surface. Scan and analyze condition of marked targets.”>
As he finished his verbal command, the familiar synthesized voice of his drone’s onboard computer blared to life from the speakers of his terminal.

He shook his head, puzzled.
<“What happened here…? …Alright, ascend, 300 meters from planetary surface. Continue forward movement following the highlighted path, 15% speed.”>
Farther and farther the road stretched, but he didn’t see a single human upon it, nor in the surrounding area. He sighed and absent-mindedly gazed around at the surrounding environment. He couldn’t help but marvel at how- well, alien it all looked. The taller plant life he saw appeared to be quite complex, their stems covered in thick fiber and their extremities full of- oh, what was the word, “leaves?
…He hadn’t paid all that much attention during the portions of his schooling that covered exotic alien plant life found on feral worlds and the various homeworlds of the other races of the Collective. He figured he’d never really need to interact with much beyond the giant fungal pods, great lichen growths and so on of his homeworld. He was a spacer for spirits’ sake, not a xenobotanist, and-
…Wait, what was that?
<“Halt forward momentum. Reverse 50 meters. Pan visual sensors left, 30 degrees.”>
He squinted at the incoming visual feed. He was right, there was something laying in that ditch! Probably just a random piece of detritus, but better safe than sorry. He highlighted it.
<”Scan target. Assess.”>

<”...Descend toward target, 5% speed.. 2%... halt.”>
His eyes narrowed further as he zoomed the forward visual lens in. Whatever it was, it looked to be a biped, and-
…Wait a minute, he recognized that body structure! Spirits be praised, this had to be one of the members of the new species!
It- they, he corrected himself- had pale skin, long, dark brown fur atop their head, and were wearing clothing covering their torso and legs- though much of it was stained red, running all down the left side of their body.
What were they doing all the way out here in the middle of nowhere? And why were they laying in a ditch, unmoving? …Were they ok?
<”Scan target, and establish connection to ship auto-doc subsystem. Assess physical condition and cross-reference with known anatomical data of species designation: human.”>

Y’ggdrasog nervously swallowed, trying to center himself and focus despite what he had just heard. Well, that certainly answered that; no, she very much was NOT ok. Whatever had happened to her, it really messed her up.
<”Analyze if damage sustained is life-threatening without intervention given circumstances and location.”>

He swore under his breath.
<”...Expand and clarify analysis.”>

<”C-certainty of analysis conclusion…?”>

He put his head in his hands, his bioluminescence flickering between several colors- none of them good. Spirits above... She was going to die unless someone helped her!
…
…But he was in no position to do so…
He knew deep down that he was deluding himself if he thought he could get away with this if he was caught. No amount of loophole abuse and“legitimate” excuses could save him from severe negative repercussions, not when it came to something as serious as first contact.

He was already risking enough as it was…

Maybe he could let someone in one of the other ships know- no, that would give away that he’d been poking around on the sly…

Maybe- maybe someone else would find her in time, and they could save her? Or maybe, despite the odds, she might just get better on her own? Even if it took her past the 1.3 cycle mark to do so, there was still a- his brow furrowed as he did the math- 0.0000028% chance that she could survive, and a chance was a chance! …Right…?

No one would know if he didn’t intervene. It would be so easy- no chance of getting caught, no risk, no danger, just pull the drone-prone back to the ship, return to his original position, scrub the flight logs, and-

…
……
…No.
No, she’s not.
He opened his eyes and spoke, voice full of grim certainty.
<”Descend to two meters above highlighted subject. Very, VERY carefully use stasis field to attach to subject, entangle her matter with an equivalent mass of carbon from the fabricator hold, then return to quantum anchor point with cargo and safely lower the subject prone beside the drone chassis. Proceed.”>

He got up from the terminal and took off for the drone bay as fast as his taloned feet could carry him, one thought repeating itself over and over in his head as he went, a mantra of sorts:

"Justice without force is pow-"

*record scratching sound\*
"Wait, why are you using a quote from some stuffy dead guy when I'm right here?"
Oh. Uhm, right

"Justice is blind, but you know what else is? Me!" -Navya

"Yeah, much better"

Basic Information:

Name: Navya Adelina Rai

• Meanings and stuff-

Navya (Nuv-ya)- A Hindi name, means "New"
Adelina (Ad-el-eena)- After her grandmother, means "Noble"
Rai (Rr-aye)- A Hindi surname that refers to royalty ("Fun fact, it also means "'opinion"' in Hindi!")

• Nicknames/Aliases- Navs, "You may simply refer to me using Navya thank you very much."

Age: 16

• Birthday: October 10th ("See? Even my birth date is a 10/10!")
• zodiac: Kan- Libra

Gender: Cis-female

• Presentation: Feminine
• Sexuality: Pansexual ("I think. I've never really been involved with anyone")

Family:

• Mother- Dike, Goddess of Justice, probably really old ("Ah, dear mother whom I've never met. I respect her I guess, since she's the goddess of Justice and stuff, that's about it. Maybe I'll finally meet her someday")
• Father- Rishabh Rai, Criminal Lawyer, dead ("ouch. he was 35 when he died. Apparently grandma wanted to name him Craig, thank god(s) grandpa stepped in")
• Uncle/MentoFoster Father- Elliot Wells, Civil Lawyer, 27, demigod ("He adopted me after dad died, he's pretty neat I guess. He told me about all this demigod stuff and sent me to camp")
• Stepmother- Samantha Wells, Architect, 32 ("She's nice I guess, she used to date dad before he, y'know. She tries pretty hard to be my mom and stuff but... yeah I don't know, let's just move on")

Appearance:

Face Claim: Jade Turner
Picrews: [1] [2] [3]
Features:
"Immaculate, next."

• Eyes: milky white
• Hair: Jet black, slightly curly/wavy, she usually wears it pretty long but knows how to do braids and sometimes wears it in a ponytail, usually keeps it oiled. She puts effort into maintaining her hair.
• Skin: Brown, unblemished. She takes good care of it.
• Physique: Fit, she stays in shape. Lithe

Height: 5'7
Weight: "None-o-ya-damn-business"
Attire:

• Clothing: Appearance and fashion is something Navya cares about alot, but her disability kinda inhibits this, so the simple solution to that, with the help of a clothing store employee and her stepmother, was to make it so everything in her wardrobe goes with everything else. It took a bit of effort but it was worth it in the end. On top of that, with some help she had all her clothes arranged on the basis of colour as well. Her usual attire consists of alot of grays, blues and blacks, not very bright or flashy colours (with a few exceptions, of course) and alot of jeans.
• Accessories: Navya isn't much for accessories, she can occassionally be seen wearing a choker if she wants and if she's feeling fancy, a pair of earrings. When she's not wearing a blindfold, she can be seen rocking a pair of blacked out or mercury sunglasses.
• Make up: "Really?" Navya usually goes without make up, but she enjoys wearing perfume.

Voice: husky, clear, not very loud but catches attention easily. Her accent is a strange mix of New York with a slight hint of Indian.
Additional Notes:
Navya can be described as pretty, beautiful even, and this is something that matterst to her. While her disability often impedes her in maintaining her appearance and fashion, it doesn't stop her from trying ("And suceeding!"). For fashion, she's sorted herself out with making sure everything in her closet goes with everything else, and prefers to not do make up, because trying to do make up while not being able to see shit is usually recipe for disaster ("and also because it's too much effort"). Her way of keeping up her appearance involves taking care of herself in order to look good, which means regular skin care, hair maintenance, etc., it is something she often finds herself doing in order to relax.
What, no comment?
"Nope, you surprisingly got pretty much everything right."

Personality:

"An absolute delight, god(s) this is too easy"
Positive Traits: Just, Kind, bold, strong willed, confident, brave, honest~~,~~ "strikingly beautiful, amazing"
Neutral Traits: Outspoken, sarcasitc, flirty, intelligent, independent, sarcastic
Negative Traits: Prideful, Quick tempered, petty, rebellious, stubborn
"Hmph."
What is it now?
"Nothing, it's just that I would've gone with some.. different words."
Personal Philopshy:
Navya has always been a very kind person, and someone who cares deeply about fairness, part of which definitely comes from her father but even without his influence, she would've turned out to be a fair person. She is prideful and stubborn, and always believes herself to be in the rightm but will concede and accept her fault if you can convince her that she's in the wrong. If she believes she's right or if the cause is right, she will not back down and will be very vocal about it. While most of the time she seems aloof and sarcastic, she will does go out of her way to help people who she believes need it and stands up for them. She has a very strong moral compass and refuses to tarnish it even a little, but she can hold grudges, if she thinks she's been wronged, she will do whatever she can to "set things right", confusing "justice" with her personal vengeance. She's very stubborn and independent, and would rather die than ask for help, despite her disability. In her own wor- "Being blind does not impede my ability to throw these fucking hands.".
Trivia:

• Fluent in both English and Hindi, often insults people in Hindi if she thinks they don't speak it
• Loves spicy food, especially extra spicy instant ramen
• She's a picky eater ("it's not about the taste, it's the t e x t u r e")
• Is weak for cute things, especially of the soft and fluffy variety
• She listens to a variety of music, mostly pop, alt, and jazz, her favourite artists are Sia and Shreya Ghoshal ("Ya like jazz?")
• Can read and write Braille
• Will never admit it, but enjoys romance novels ("do NOT")
• Best way to make her do something is telling her she can't do it

Demigod Bio:

"Ooh, the fun part!"
Godrent: Dike, Goddess of Justice
Claimed: Yes
Powers:

1. Penance: If someone has committed a crime or a wrongdoing, Navya can make them feel the guilt of their actions. This power is easier to use if she is speaking to the target while using it and if she knows what crime they're guilty of. The intensity of the power also depends on the severity of the crime.

•Drawbacks: The stronger the power, the harder she has to concentrate to continue using it,and overuse (i.e, 5 minutes at max power) will start causing her severe retinal migraines andwill make it so she can't use this power again till she rests

1. Blindsight: While she is blind, she can detect objects around her in a 10m radius (think daredevil)

3.Lie Detection: She can tell whenever someone is telling lies around her, this manifests as herhearing whispers in her head whenever someone lies around her (note: it doesn't specify whoselying if there are multiple people around)
Weapon: A celestial bronze bastard sword, gifted by her uncle. She decided to name it "Judgement"

Backstory:

("Oh boy, cue the sad violins")
Rishabh Rai was a simple criminal lawyer, with big ambitions. He had a natural aptitude for his work and a strong moral compass which his daughter also inherited. Before meeting Dike, he had just started working on a big, and potentially very dangerous case that would've cleaned the streets of some major crime syndicates, and this is when he met Dike, who took the guise of a journalist who wanted to help him out with his case and spread awareness. Rishabh fell in love very quickly, and from their union came Navya, who was almost completely blind from birth.
After Navya's birth, Dike left Rishabh, not having the heart to tell him the truth, she left him with a letter explaining everything. Rishabh did not believe it at first and was left heartbroken, but despite this he still raised Navya and did not speak a single ill word about her mother to her, but he still had alot of girlfriends as she did grow up. At some point she stopped bothering to learn their names and simply started referring to them as "the latest one". Elliot Wells did not exactly work side by side to Rishabh but was still a close friend and was a major part of Navya's life even before her father's demise.
Navya grew up a kind hearted child, always very fair and honestly a bit of a miracle considering how she was able to "see" things around her despite being blind. Her father brought her up to be independent, strong and most importantly, just. She always aspired to be a criminal lawyer like her father ("still do"), though her father wasn't as open to the idea, knowing how dangerous his line of work could get from time to time, but didn't exactly discourage her. As for monsters, Elliot, being a child of Athena, had some suspicion about Navya's divine origins but decided to keep it under wraps, knowing that revealing it would only cause further problems, so most of her encounters with monsters were dealt with by him.
Her father continued his work with that same case that he'd taken when he met Dike for years, of course while doing other ones on the side, and just when he had a major breakthroug- *sad violin music pauses*
What is it now? I'm in the middle of something
"I'm tired of hearing my sob story, don't reveal everything now, save some for later"
Fine, I guess

Now:

"Fuckin finally, here we are"
Navya turned to give one last wave to Elliot, who'd dropped her off and given her the directions to camp as she crested the hill. She set down her suitcase and adjusted her sunglasses. Well, this was it, the place she'd been hearing about so much for the last 3 months. She took a deep breath, the air faintly smelled of strawberries and... cold. This weather was weird, Spring should've started already, Elliot claimed there was some divine fuckery involved. She still couldn't entirely believe all this, if she was being honest, but it would explain alot of things in her life. Well, she didn't mind the weather too much, the cold never bothered her anyway ("Okay, seriously?").
Today she'd decided to wear a simple gray top paired with blue jeans and sneakers, along with a pair of square frame blacked out sunglasses, and she'd fixed up her hair in the car. First appearances mattered, of course, and she couldn't help it. She definitely was a bit nervous, (though she wouldn't let anyone see that), and doing her hair helped her calm down. Steeling her nerves and letting go of a breath she didn't even know she was holding, she finally started making her way down the hill and into Camp Half-Blood.

​
---My Specs---
Ryzen 5 3400G, GTX 1660 6GB, 32GB 3200MHz RAM, B450 M.Board, 2 SSDs, 2 HDDs.
---The Problem---
So I purchased FH5 on Steam and I tried everything but it doesn't launch !!
---Things I tried to fix the issue---
Closed MSI Afterburner and RTSS, Disabled steam overlay, disabled antivirus (bitdefender), uninstalled bitdefender and disabled windows defender, disabled nvidia overlay, disabled super f4, disabled sharex, tried to run FH5 as admin too !!!!
I had also verified integrity of game files in steam and tried repairing the steam library as well. I also have a desktop icon for FH5.
I also updated all visual c++ redistributables, installed the directx websetup, the latest net framework too. Also ran CMD as Admin and did sfc /scannow and the full DISM thing.
---Windows 11 Event Log Viewer Found an Application Error---
"Faulting application name: ForzaHorizon5.exe, version: 1.567.563.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Faulting module name: ForzaHorizon5.exe, version: 1.567.563.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000054251ca
Faulting process id: 0x0x3210
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1D95E7C2AAFE5E3
Faulting application path: E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\ForzaHorizon5\ForzaHorizon5.exe
Faulting module path: E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\ForzaHorizon5\ForzaHorizon5.exe
Report Id: 694cc09f-2444-479d-9449-2d537ec0bc2c
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:"
---DETAILS are BELOW---
"- ](http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event\*\*%22%3E)\](http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event\*\*">\](http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event\*\*%22%3E))](http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event///*///*%22%3E](http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event**%22%3E)](http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event**%22%3E](http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event**%22%3E)))[-](https://www.reddit.com/ForzaHorizon/comments/120lt7f/comment/jdi7eu7/?context=3#) 10000210000x800000000000000017830ApplicationSammy-PC- ForzaHorizon5.exe1.567.563.000000000ForzaHorizon5.exe1.567.563.000000000c000000500000000054251ca0x32100x1d95e7c2aafe5e3E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\ForzaHorizon5\ForzaHorizon5.exeE:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\ForzaHorizon5\ForzaHorizon5.exe694cc09f-2444-479d-9449-2d537ec0bc2c"
---PLEASE HELP---