Finally Friday! How was everyones week!? Good? Bad? WHAAAT !? Lemme knooww, down below! :) Heyo, its Coooolin! I’m super tired - stayed up with friends on CoD til 4 in the morning, hahah!
Anywhooo, here’s the new cards today!!! Thanks EA!
... wait, before you hop along... if you’re unfamiliar on how to read these posts, I made this! hope it helps you out!
(Love you all!)

Master Set Players

Justus Annunen - 93 OVR - FIN / G - 6’4” / 207 lbs - DIS¹ , SW¹ , H and S¹
Adam Fox - 93 OVR - NYR / RD - BAL¹ , GLA¹ , WH¹
Jack Hughes - 93 OVR - NJD / C - SPA¹ , LTL¹ , T¹
Dominik Kubalík - 93 OVR - CHI / LW - DIS¹ , MAG¹ , WM¹
Philippe Myers - 93 OVR - PHI / RD - BAR¹ , WM¹ , SH¹
Victor Olofsson - 93 OVR - BUF / LW - SWA¹ , PP¹ , GLA¹

92 OVR MSPS

Justus Annunen - 92 OVR - FIN / G - 6’4” / 207 lbs - DIS¹ , SWA¹ , H and S¹
Adam Fox - 92 OVR - NYR / RD - BAL¹ , GLA¹ , WH¹
Jack Hughes - 92 OVR - NJD / C - SPA¹ , LTL¹ , T¹
Dominik Kubalík - 92 OVR - CHI / LW - DIS¹ , MAG¹ , WM¹
Philippe Myers - 92 OVR - PHI / RD - BAR¹ , WM¹ , SH¹
Victor Olofsson - 92 OVR - BUF / LW - SWA¹ , PP¹ , GLA¹

Event Cards

Quinn Hughes - 90 OVR - VAN / LD - LTL¹ , SH¹
Ilya Samsonov - 90 OVR - WAS / G - 6’3” / 205 lbs - SPA¹ , H and S¹
Kailer Yamamoto - 89 OVR - EDM / RW - WH¹ , MAG¹
Noah Dobson - 88 OVR - NYI / RD - WM¹ , WH¹
Robert Thomas - 88 OVR - STL / C - SPE¹ , MAG¹
Martin Necas - 88 OVR - CAR / C - HOW¹ , PP¹

Exclusive in Sets

Mario Ferraro - 88 OVR - SJS / LD - SH¹ , GLA¹
Jared McIsaac - 88 OVR - WIL / LD - HOW¹ , SH¹
Jake Oettinger - 88 OVR - STA / G - 6’4” / 212 lbs - SPA¹ , BAR¹
Jack Studnicka - 88 OVR - BOS / C - GLA¹ , WM¹
Nick Suzuki - 88 OVR - MTL / C - WH¹ , MAG¹
Connor Zary - 88 OVR - BLA / C - T¹ , WH¹
Samuel Montem - 87 OVR - FLA / G - 6’3” / 199 lbs - BAR¹ , DIS¹
Rasmus Sandin - 87 OVR - TOR / LD - LTL¹ , GLA¹
Mario Ferraro - 86 OVR - SJS / LD - SH¹ , GLA¹
Barrett Hayton - 86 OVR - ARI / C - HOW¹ , SH¹
Jared McIsaac - 86 OVR - WIL / LD - HOW¹ , SH¹
Jake Oettinger - 86 OVR - STA / G - 6’4” / 212 lbs - SPA¹ , BAR¹
Jack Studnicka - 86 OVR - BOS / C - GLA¹ , WM¹
Nick Suzuki - 86 OVR - MTL / C - WH¹ , MAG¹
Shane Wright - 86 OVR - FRO / C - SPE¹ , T¹
Connor Zary - 86 OVR - BLA / C - T¹ , WH¹
————- ——— ———- ———- ——— ——-
Tobias Björnfot - 85 OVR - LAK / LD - HOW¹ , WH¹
Sam Steel - 85 OVR - ANA / C - SPE¹ , GLA¹

Challenge Players for Sets

Adam Fox - 75 OVR - NYR / RD - ???
Dominik Kubalík - 75 OVR - CHI / LW - ???
Philippe Myers - 75 OVR - PHI / RD - ???
Justus Annunen - 75 OVR - KAR / G - 6’4” / 207 lbs - ???
Jack Hughes - 75 OVR - NJD / C - ???
Victor Olofsson - 75 OVR - BUF / LW - ???

Primetimes

NHL

Leon Draisaitl - 93 OVR - EDM / C - PP¹
Connor McDavid - 92 OVR - EDM / C - LTL¹
John Carlson - 89 OVR - WAS / RD - WH¹
Anders Lee - 88 OVR - NYI / LW - HOW¹
Evander Kane - 88 OVR - SJS / LW - GLA¹ ... god bless you man*
Kyle Connor - 87 OVR - WPJ / LW - MAG¹
Tomas Hertl - 85 OVR - SJS / C - WM¹
Juuse Saros - 85 OVR - NAS / G - 5’11” / 180 lbs - SPA¹
Thomas Greiss - 85 OVR - DET / C - SWA¹
Jake McCabe - 82 OVR - BUF / LD - SH¹
Maxime Comtois - 80 OVR - ANA / LW - BAR¹ , HOW¹

Other Leagues

Jari Sailio - 77 OVR - KÄR / LW - BAL¹ , GLA¹
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

• No Cap 🧢 Starter Pack - Week 1 [UT] 75k C / 1.5k P
14 items , including a Gold Collectable and a guaranteed 83+ OVR Player Item!
• BIGG FLEX 💪🏻 BRUH! - 47.5k C / 950 P
35 items , at least 20 Players with one 82+ OVR Player Items.
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25 items , at least 8 Players with 2 Gold or better Players!
—-
• Jumbo Elite Pack - 50k C / 1k P
20 items , with at least 11 80+ OVR Players
• Mega Pack - 37.5k C / 750 P
30 items , at least 15 Gold Players, and 4 80+ OVR Players
• Jumbo Premium Pack - 15k C / 300 P
20 items , at least 9 Players with atleast 4 Gold Players

Sets

(Will be posted in a separate post.) — will be linked here!

P.S.

• NEWW EVENTTT!
• SENS VS. LEAFSS!
• Today in Hockey History
——————

What’s to Come?

• GAAAME TIMEEE ! - 7pm EST ! Sens vs. Leafs!
• WEEEEEKKEENNDDDDDDD !
—————

Summary of the day

Quick Read
(EVENTS BASED OFF 90 and BELOW!)
Best Forward of the Day - EVENT - is KAAILERR YAMAMOTOO OVR 89 with the syn WOORKK HORSEE and MAAGICIAAN
Best Defence of the Day - EVENT - is Quinn Hughes OVR 90 with the syn LIIIGHT THE LAAMP and SHUUT DOWWN
////
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is LEEOON DRAAIISAITLL OVR 93 with the syn PASSINGG PLAYYMAAKERRR
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is JOOHHNN CARLSSOOON OVR 89 with the syn WOOORKK HORSEE
• NEWWWW EVENTTTTT !!
———— —— ———

Important Notice

Sleep solves everything. Remember that.
——

Interested in Stocks?

*EA’s Stock Price, after hours - *
$ 139.00 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $ 1.46 / 1.06 % ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. Thanks*
—— —— —— —-

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

• I made this for everyone. I’ll update it whenever I feel like it, but its been often!

WE’RE AT 1200+ SONGS! WOW! How are you not listening to this playlist already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Drugs” by “UPSAHL ft. Blackbear” stuck in my head.... which you can play, recently added to the playlist!
Sidenote - How do you guys like the playlist!? I have a friend who makes music...and I really want to surprise him with some new people listening to his music... if you wanna help me, please click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!!
———-

Sites To Bookmark!

If you click here you will be redirected to bilasport. Bilasport is the best Online Streaming site for your entertainment needs for all sports! (Not affiliated)
A great streaming source recommended by NHLStreams is SurgeSport. Click on Hockey and you’ll be good to go!
Want to make your dream team, and show others what you’ve been working on, and much more? I will redirect you HERE!.
Here’s a helpful pack guide for you! Click!
Want to know how the market is holding up? With a simple TAP! you will be on the newly fresh made website for the HUT market, made by one of the guys on the sub!
——- —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —- —— —-

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Don’t feel scared to click here. Winning is SO much louder than losing. Know that you are NEVER alone. We are all here for eachother, and it is never too late to get help. I am here for you.
This is a VERY important thread, especially if you are new to HUT. Here!
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15 / 365
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Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! ITSS GAME TIMEE! Who do you have for the Battle of Ontario? Toronto or Ottawa!?
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)

First post...be kind! This happened way back in the dark ages, 1986. I was 21 at the time and working for a gas station that was associated with a certain grocery store chain in Washington state. It was owned by a company not affiliated with said chain, but had locations at nearly every one.
As this was long before the days of debit cards, this was a cash only gas station. We didn’t even take credit cards. Customers would pull up, pump their gas and then come to my window to pay. We also sold cigarettes. No drinks, no snacks...customers couldn’t even get into my booth. I had been working there about a year when the company announced it was closing the location. My manager and I were offered positions at another location upstate and we both accepted. We moved our respective families and started our new jobs. As new hires (ugh).
This station was incredible busy. We did more business in 8 hrs than my old location would do in a week. This location also had a different set up: here you would pull into the station from a single entrance, pump your gas, and then drive forward to a single exit where the “Pay Here” booth was located. There were always 2 cashiers on duty. Each cashier had a cash drawer.
One thing I should note, there were also no computers. So closing the drawer down between shifts was timing consuming and tedious. We had to manually count the cigarettes remaining, and count the cash drawers. We would fill out an end of shift report listing the starting balances and the ending balances. We also had to list the gallons sold from each pump. At the end of the shift the total of gallons sold and the total cigarettes sold should equal the cash balance. It is important to note here that not once in the year I had worked for the previous location had I been off by more than 10 cents.
The following morning after my first shift I was informed by the manager that I was short $50. Impossible I said, I balanced out yesterday. He said that I must have stolen that money after I had completed the paperwork. I just looked at him and said, no I didn’t. He gave me a verbal warning and said if it happened again I would be fired and the stolen money would be deducted from my paycheck this week.
In the 5 days that followed I realized quickly the manager was up to something. My old manager who was just another worker now, was also accused of stealing. As was one other new employee. I can’t vouch for the other employee but I’m pretty sure she did nothing wrong. The employees that had been there awhile were never accused of anything. I did some checking and found out this manager was relatively new (had only been there about 6 months) and the other cashiers had been here before him. Only new cashiers were being accused of stealing. And that location had been having “stealing problems” for about 6 months and the turnover was high with the new employees.
I came to work at 6am on a Monday only to be told I was being fired. For cause. The manager accused me of taking $500 out of my drawer the previous Friday. He said he only discovered it this morning (even though he had worked Sat and Sun). I said ok and left. I was pretty angry and instead of going home, I parked in the grocery store parking lot and proceed to settle in to watch the gas station. I knew that at 9am sharp, he would take the cash in the safe and make the weekend deposit. At 9am he left the gas station and headed to the bank. But instead of walking into the bank, he walked into the Indian “casino” next door. It’s not really a casino like we think of today, but more of a betting parlor for the races. It did have slot machines, but no card tables.
I think “Well, this is interesting”.
He comes out of the casino at exactly 10 am, walks next door to the bank, does his business and then heads back to the gas station. I head home with a plan.
Every morning I follow him from the gas station to the casino. I take a picture of him leaving, and one of him arriving at the bank and walking into the casino. I take pictures of him coming out and then heading to the bank. I do this for 5 days straight. He even went on Saturday. On day 3 my old manager was fired for “stealing” $150.
I get the film developed (no digital camera in the dark ages) note the times and dates on the back of each one. Then I call the main office of the gas company. It’s after 5 but I’m hoping someone is there. And there is. I speak to a woman and explain my situation and she says she knows exactly who I should speak to and transfers me. By some grace of God, she has transferred me to none other than the President/CEO of the company!
I tell him my story and tell him I did NOT steal from his company and could prove who actually did. He took down my information and said he would be in touch. I’m thinking to myself “yeah right”. The next morning I went to the station to perform my usual observation of the manager. At 9am he leaves for the “bank”. At 10 am he comes out. At that moment 2 stern looking gentlemen approach him. One pulls out his wallet and shows him something. The other one is talking. The manager goes pale and takes a step back. Next thing I know he is being escorted to a car I hadn’t noticed and they drive off. I lose them at a traffic signal so I head back to the station. They all show back up about 5 min later, and a few minutes after that a police cruiser pulls in. The officer talks to the stern gentleman and proceeds to place the manager in handcuffs. The other man says nothing but is glaring daggers at the manager.
The President called me later that after noon and informed me that the manager had been arrested for embezzlement (turns out that in 6 months he had managed to steal about $5k). He would take the store cash into the casino and gamble with it; if he won, he would make the normal bank deposit. If he lost, he would make the deposit and note in his records that we had been short the previous day. The CEO had already been focusing on that location because of the stealing and high turnover rate, but my information helped them figure out what exactly had been going on.
I was thanked and sent a substantial check as a reward. My old manager was offered the manager’s job and I was offered my old job back. I declined as I had already found another job that I liked more and paid better. The gambling manager was sentenced to 1 year in jail and ordered to attend counseling for his gambling addiction. His wife divorced him and took their 3 children to California. His house was foreclosed on and he ended up in a homeless shelter.
Don’t accuse me of stealing. I will get revenge.
** UPDATE**
Thank you for the likes and awards!
Update 2: this was my first post and I really didn’t expect all the awards. Thank you!

​
The salvo of coilgun shells smashes into the complex of bunkers on the opposite riverbank, sending a spray of charred dirt, sandbags, and timber flying into the air. A sloped bastion caves in, burying the rifle pits at its base. One leg of a watchtower is blasted away and the whole thing sways drunkenly before twisting and collapsing across the trenches, the flagpole on its roof somehow landing upright and leaving the enemy's blue-and-gold standard waving in the debris-laden breeze.
​
The Human artillerymen beside me let out a cheer and jump up and down, slapping each other's outstretched hands.
​
The army of Humans watching from beyond the battery all jump around and cheer, too, their yells loud even compared to a half-dozen high explosive shells.
​
And... so do the Human gunners on the hillside across the river, and the army behind them. They all cheer and applaud. Even though they are, in fact, the enemy whose defenses are getting blasted into pieces the size of a poet's paycheck by the aforementioned coilguns. So... I cheer my lovely green head off right along with them, because things are exploding and stuff is burning and apparently the Humans on this planet just generally approve of that sort of thing.
​
My name is Solontha reValthinna, and I'm the Felra who goes to the places nobody else wants to and learns about them the hard way so you can learn about them the easy way. That's my angle as an author, and that's why I'm the Pretty Idiot.
​
----
​
"Solontha, darling, I've got just the destination for your next Pretty Idiot's Guide!"
​
My business agent only sounds that chirpy when she's found some new way to try to get me killed. I'd like to think it's because the more trouble I get into, the better the resulting books turn out. That, or she still hasn't forgiven me for that topless dance I did at the Publishers' Guild dinner party she took me to. In my defense, they provided the liquor. I just happened to drink a lot of it.
​
Also in my defense, my topless dancing is godlike.
​
"Not back to the Tarq Imperium, I hope? They said they'd shoot me if they ever caught me inside their borders again."
​
My agent clucked at me. "They said no such thing. They just heavily implied it. And that was only because you wrote that they were a bunch of pointlessly brutal totalitarian fuckwads."
​
I snorted. "That's right. And it was the 'fuckwad' part that they objected to."
​
"Nobody likes being called a fuckwad, Solontha. Fuckwads least of all. But, no, I'm thinking we send you to write about a Human planet this time."
​
Humans? Interesting... The few I've known, I've mostly liked. Well, I don't hate them, anyway. And they look kind of like us Felra, at least a little bit. If you took a Felra and eliminated everything behind her forelegs -- and kept her from dying from lack of some important organs, obviously -- you would have something that still doesn't look particularly like a Human. So, dye her green skin an earthier color, replace her beautiful tresses of feathery-branching tvan with coarser, single-stranded hair, remove one pair of breasts, and take a digit from each hand. She still doesn't look quite Human. Make her face a bit rounder and flatter, thicken her bone structure, and Congratulations! You've surgically converted a Felra into something that could possibly maybe pass for a Human in really poor lighting. Also, you're a sick fuck for doing such a thing.
​
Point being, Humans are sufficiently similar enough to us that they can be cute, in a goofy bipedal sort of way. And immersing yourself in an alien culture can be more rewarding if you can also immerse yourself in some attractive alien nookie along the way. Any aspiring travel writers who are reading this can consider that a pro-tip from the Pretty Idiot.
​
"So, any particular Human world? Somewhere with casinos, maybe? Or some place run by the Church of Giving Money, Liquor, and Carnal Pleasure to Sexy Alien Visitors?"
​
That last bit caught my agent off-guard. "Is that an actual religion?"
​
"If it was, do you think I'd still be working?"
​
"Of course you would. You love travel, trouble, and remunerated smart-assery too much to just quit." Ah, I'm such a lucky Felra. Most agents charge extra for that kind of quality banter. "The place I've got in mind for you is Rugen, a frontier-level colony world well off the outer fringe of the Arm."
​
"The tail-tip of nowhere, in other words. And what's the attraction for a Pretty Idiot to play tourist there? Societal collapse? Rampaging Felra-eating predators? Pandemic-level clown outbreak?"
​
"How about the longest-running ongoing war in the Known Galaxy? Two hundred eighty-seven common years and no end in sight."
​
Yow. I'm passingly familiar with war, having wandered through five or six of varying size and awfulness while sightseeing -- and writing about said sightseeing -- and three centuries is a lot of war, especially confined to one planet. I could only imagine how that could twist and scar a world and its people. The devastation. The tragedy of wasted lives and resources. The sheer dysfunctionality of societies raised for generation after generation on bitter vengeance and the never-ending march towards victory and a peace they can no longer even properly conceptualize. A world of bloodlust, paranoia, and the threat of sudden brutal death staining every moment of every day. Why, the possibilities for misery were endless.
​
It sounded perfect for a vacation getaway.
​
----
​
I took regular commercial liners as far as Thielbarra, but had to buy passage from there to Rugen on an independent freighter that was slightly more reputable than a spaceport prostitute, just not as hygienic. There were only three other passengers headed to my destination, including a Kreevin botanical researcher who ignored everybody and a not-very-sober Zharg who worked for one of the big interstellar communications providers and who must have fucked up his job just badly enough to get sent to an isolated hole-in-the-void posting, but not quite badly enough to be fired. I ended up sharing a cabin with the only other quadruped, an adorably optimistic Iraitrian missionary who was going to Rugen to set up a temple to the Harmonious Gods and try to get a congregation going.
​
Being the cynical agnostic wretch that I am, I just had to ask how much demand she thought there would be for a doctrine of cooperative religious pacifism in the middle of a war zone.
​
"You offer food to the starving, not to those with bellies already full," she told me. "Our beliefs are meant to be applied in the world, not just agreed with in the temple."
​
And did she expect to end the war all by herself?
​
"I hope to make a difference to someone. Whether it's by teaching the Way, by being an example, or just by offering a person who needs it a roof, a meal, and a sympathetic ear. If even one person considers their life to be better for having known me, my mission will be worthwhile."
​
Damn. I had been entertaining myself with the idea of flirting mercilessly with her for the whole trip, but all that earnestness. All that simple, undeniable goodness. Even my cynicism and libido combined couldn't look that in the face.
​
So I flirted with the ship's captain, instead. Not that there was any real challenge in it, as despite Felra not being four-armed lizard people, Jixavan males are completely enamored of our tails, which are both more voluptuous and generally more exposed than those of their own females. Pro-tip from the Pretty Idiot: if you're a Felra and need to manipulate a Jixavan guy, buy one of those tail-stockings their women wear. Even the biggest ones will be too tight and short for you, so cut a bunch of slashes in it and pull it as far up your tail as it will go. Then wear a skirt short enough to expose the top hem of the tail-stocking and enjoy your newfound powers of persuasion. I ended up getting twenty percent off my fare and three marriage proposals.
​
Captain Akothin had made a few runs to Rugen before, so I was able to ask him some questions about the place. If you've never read one of my Pretty Idiot's Guides before, part of my schtick, if you will, is lack of prior research regarding the places I go. My self-imposed limitation is that I can only obtain information by seeing for myself or asking someone with firsthand experience. No encyclopedias or hyperweb research. That media stuff is, at best, quarter-truths and agenda-driven grazershit, anyway. By going into a place without 'knowledge' of it, I go with fewer preconceptions. That's the 'Idiot' part of the title. The 'Pretty' part is because I am. And if you have to face life as an idiot, it really does help to be a pretty one.
​
The good captain had never actually made planetfall on Rugen, always conducting business from orbit. Sensible. Boring, but sensible. I therefore confined my inquiries to spacers' matters. Like, were we going to have any issues with pirates or paramilitaries on our way in-system?
​
"No pirates. Not enough shipping in or out for those guys to make a living raiding it and too far from any active lanes to make a useful base. Pirates operating across star systems have to really watch their fuel expenditures." Captain Akothin then proceeded to give a suspiciously well-considered dissertation on how to turn a profit in space piracy, which I will not share here but have filed away for future reference should too many of my books bomb on the market. And as for paramilitary ships affiliated with the warring factions? "I've never seen any."
​
What about orbital defenses? Would there be minefields to be tensely navigated? Would we be subject to stop-and-search by military patrol craft? "Rugen's a frontier-level system." The captain looked at me like I was a moron, albeit a moron with an incredibly sexy and distracting tail. "There ain't even a transshipment station, just a few cheapo weather and comm satellites. I just put the ship in a parking orbit and they send shuttles up. But it's not like the shipments are ever so big you'd need an orbital dock anyway, and shuttles are fine for passengers. Of course, that also means no orbital repair yard and no fuel depot, but that's not much worry since Rugen is just a long detour off our Thielbarra-to-Rialto route and I always do a refuel and refit at Thielbarra for safety's sake and, um, will you marry me?"
​
----
​
The shuttle ride down was as uneventful as such things generally are and afforded a chance to take in the view of Rugen from medium-high orbit. It was not a particularly exciting planet seen from 18,000 miles above its equator -- under the sparse clouds, some smallish seas, broad smears of iron-red in the right places to be deserts, accented by patches and streamers of an odd green that was almost an indecisive blue, and some blink-and-you'd-miss-them polar caps. But the thing is, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference how many planets you've seen out the porthole, or how much of an undifferentiated dirtball the one below you is. There is no such thing as 'ordinary' when it comes to the sight of a whole damn world suspended in space right in front of you. It's a moment of magic, every single time, and anybody who says otherwise is lying, or is a soulless shithead. Or, since those aren't mutually exclusive, they could be both, like a corporate journalist or a Rybathi.
​
I used the flight time to mentally review what firsthand knowledge of Humans I possessed. Pro-tip-slash-caveat: members of a species often behave very differently in their own polities than they do in foreign or more cosmopolitan settings. Expatriates or visitors to your world are typically trying to get along in your society and tend to adjust their behavior accordingly. Their behavior when they are in the majority and they get to decide what's normal may be radically different. That said, there were a few truths I felt comfortable in ascribing to Humans in general based on experience.
​
For starters, sexual dimorphism. Humans born biologically male or female remain that sex, unless medically altered. Females are usually smaller and are the ones with slightly inadequate breasts. Males tend to be bigger, stronger, and coarser-looking and, like most mammaloid males, have completely inadequate breasts. This dimorphism leads to the most basic social structures being built around male-female pairings and their offspring -- family -- rather than the looser pack-based structure of Felra. These family structures appear to have a relationship similar to, though vastly more complicated than, the Felra mother-daughter bond. Basically, if you wrong a Human, you may face retribution not just from her, but from her entire bloodline. Except sometimes you won't, because, like I said, complicated.
​
Second, though many Galactics tend to use the terms 'Human' and 'Terran' as synonyms, Humans emphatically do not. Among Humans, the word 'Terran' refers specifically to an inhabitant of the Terran Commonwealth, the oldest, largest, and apparently most detested Human stellar nation. Humans who are not Commonwealth natives tend to have negative reactions to being called 'Terrans'. In this context, the term 'negative reactions' seems to cover a range from 'cold and profane verbal correction' to 'assault with a power-nailer'. Maybe this trip would offer a chance to find out why that might be? I'd also been told that actual Terrans react poorly to being called 'Human', though I've never met any Commonwealth Terrans and can't say for sure if that's true.
​
Third, Humans tend to be territorial, and therefore possessive. They have a strong impulse to guard things they have laid claim to. Don't try to make use of anything a Human regards as their own without asking permission first, even if you intend to give it right back. This impulse extends quite strongly to their romantic or sexual partners as well and attempting to bed, or even flirt with, a Human who has been claimed by another will tend to be met with hostility. You could try asking for permission, I guess, but that just seems to lead to socially awkward hostility. And if you don't know why socially awkward hostility is worse than the regular kind, then obviously you've never been in a fistfight with a drunken Dahu who was sporting a clingy wet kilt and a massive erection.
​
next
​
****
More Known Galaxy stories

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!

​
This happened way back in the dark ages, 1986. I was 21 at the time and working for a gas station that was associated with a certain grocery store chain in Washington state. It was owned by a company not affiliated with said chain, but had locations at nearly every one.
​
As this was long before the days of debit cards, this was a cash only gas station. We didn’t even take credit cards. Customers would pull up, pump their gas and then come to my window to pay. We also sold cigarettes. No drinks, no snacks...customers couldn’t even get into my booth. I had been working there about a year when the company announced it was closing the location.
​
My manager and I were offered positions at another location upstate and we both accepted. We moved our respective families and started our new jobs. As new hires (ugh).
​
This station was incredible busy. We did more business in 8 hrs than my old location would do in a week. This location also had a different set up: here you would pull into the station from a single entrance, pump your gas, and then drive forward to a single exit where the “Pay Here” booth was located. There were always 2 cashiers on duty. Each cashier had a cash drawer.
​
One thing I should note, there were also no computers. So closing the drawer down between shifts was timing consuming and tedious. We had to manually count the cigarettes remaining, and count the cash drawers. We would fill out an end of shift report listing the starting balances and the ending balances. We also had to list the gallons sold from each pump.
​
At the end of the shift the total of gallons sold and the total cigarettes sold should equal the cash balance. It is important to note here that not once in the year I had worked for the previous location had I been off by more than 10 cents.
​
The following morning after my first shift I was informed by the manager that I was short $50. Impossible I said, I balanced out yesterday. He said that I must have stolen that money after I had completed the paperwork. I just looked at him and said, no I didn’t. He gave me a verbal warning and said if it happened again I would be fired and the stolen money would be deducted from my paycheck this week.
​
In the 5 days that followed I realized quickly the manager was up to something. My old manager who was just another worker now, was also accused of stealing. As was one other new employee. I can’t vouch for the other employee but I’m pretty sure she did nothing wrong.
​
The employees that had been there awhile were never accused of anything. I did some checking and found out this manager was relatively new (had only been there about 6 months) and the other cashiers had been here before him.
​
Only new cashiers were being accused of stealing. And that location had been having “stealing problems” for about 6 months and the turnover was high with the new employees.
​
I came to work at 6am on a Monday only to be told I was being fired. For cause. The manager accused me of taking $500 out of my drawer the previous Friday. He said he only discovered it this morning (even though he had worked Sat and Sun). I said ok and left.
​
I was pretty angry and instead of going home, I parked in the grocery store parking lot and proceed to settle in to watch the gas station. I knew that at 9am sharp, he would take the cash in the safe and make the weekend deposit. At 9am he left the gas station and headed to the bank.
​
But instead of walking into the bank, he walked into the Indian “casino” next door. It’s not really a casino like we think of today, but more of a betting parlor for the races. It did have slot machines, but no card tables.
​
I think “Well, this is interesting”.
​
He comes out of the casino at exactly 10 am, walks next door to the bank, does his business and then heads back to the gas station. I head home with a plan.
​
Every morning I follow him from the gas station to the casino. I take a picture of him leaving, and one of him arriving at the bank and walking into the casino. I take pictures of him coming out and then heading to the bank. I do this for 5 days straight. He even went on Saturday.
​
On day 3 my old manager was fired for “stealing” $150.
​
I get the film developed (no digital camera in the dark ages) note the times and dates on the back of each one. Then I call the main office of the gas company. It’s after 5 but I’m hoping someone is there. And there is. I speak to a woman and explain my situation and she says she knows exactly who I should speak to and transfers me. By some grace of God, she has transferred me to none other than the President/CEO of the company!
​
I tell him my story and tell him I did NOT steal from his company and could prove who actually did. He took down my information and said he would be in touch. I’m thinking to myself “yeah right”. The next morning I went to the station to perform my usual observation of the manager. At 9am he leaves for the “bank”. At 10 am he comes out. At that moment 2 stern looking gentlemen approach him.
​
One pulls out his wallet and shows him something. The other one is talking. The manager goes pale and takes a step back. Next thing I know he is being escorted to a car I hadn’t noticed and they drive off. I lose them at a traffic signal so I head back to the station
​
. They all show back up about 5 min later, and a few minutes after that a police cruiser pulls in. The officer talks to the stern gentleman and proceeds to place the manager in handcuffs. The other man says nothing but is glaring daggers at the manager.
​
The President called me later that after noon and informed me that the manager had been arrested for embezzlement (turns out that in 6 months he had managed to steal about $5k). He would take the store cash into the casino and gamble with it; if he won, he would make the normal bank deposit.
​
If he lost, he would make the deposit and note in his records that we had been short the previous day. The CEO had already been focusing on that location because of the stealing and high turnover rate, but my information helped them figure out what exactly had been going on.
​
I was thanked and sent a substantial check as a reward. My old manager was offered the manager’s job and I was offered my old job back. I declined as I had already found another job that I liked more and paid better.
​
The gambling manager was sentenced to 1 year in jail and ordered to attend counseling for his gambling addiction. His wife divorced him and took their 3 children to California. His house was foreclosed on and he ended up in a homeless shelter.
​
Don’t accuse me of stealing. I will get revenge.

The 4th Ed DnD Underdark book gives a loose description of a city it calls Gar Morra. I really liked the concept, so I took it's history and location and tried building it out more and describing more pieces of it. I'm interested in any feedback anyone might have and if any of this looks good to you, feel free to steal what works.
Seven Clans Spire
Seven Clans Spire was founded a thousand years ago by seven clans of Dwarves. Legend has it they were called there by a series of visions. Upon arrival they found rich veins of ore, gems, and magic. They quickly carved out a thriving city in this column in the middle of the Glimmer Sea in the underdark, but their success drew attention.
Aboleths invaded from the water and attempted to enslave all its inhabitants. The Dwarves had discovered a trapped Devil in the stone of the upper reaches of the city, but had wisely left it alone. As the Aboleths gained ground though, they made a fateful decision that has guided the course of the city ever since. A deal was struck, the fiend was freed, and the city was retaken. The exact terms of the arrangement aren’t known, but the Dwarves have opened the city to all including their most hated rivals.
That was not long ago but now the city sits as a trading and shipping hub with thousands of inhabitants of all races. The ores and gems are mostly mined out, but the crafters and forges of the city still churn out quality products while ships sailing the underdark waters dock for supplies and rest.
It used to be that each of the seven clans had seven layers, but that order has degraded over time. Most layers are connected by internal staircases and some of the industrial layers even have elevators, but there are also multiple staircases and ladders of varying degrees of safety that extend out from the spire over the water. What follows are the levels listed from top to bottom(‘sealed’ and ‘open’ refer to whether it is an open air level or entirely sealed within the column):
49(S) - The top level is a bank that both assists in the financial transfers in the city, but also will safeguard items from travelers for a fee.
48(S) - A monument park that mostly commemorates the war with the Aboleths, but other statues and culturally significant works of art exist here. Many business deals are struck walking this mossy and peaceful level.
47(O) - An aviary housing winged mounts and flying machines for people choosing to risk the ‘Skies’ of the Glimmer Sea.
46(S) - A multiracial cemetery. Most who die on The Spire are simply thrown into the drink, but those who were important enough to deserve it are entombed here.
45(S) - A level with a unique geology that captures sound. It isn’t fully silent, but given how cramped and noisy much of the rest of the city can be, this area has been kept intact.
44(O) - The Guild of Coordination was born out of exports from the city being shunned out of fear of taint from the Devil. The response was for an oversight committee to attempt to lay so many layers of bureaucracy on the production process that there would be no doubt of the purity of goods still produced by artisans there.
43(O) - The Guild of Chance satisfies two different but overlapping needs. When anyone is looking to try their hand at a game of chance, this Guild is happy to provide the opportunity. Additionally, those looking to ask about what the future may hold will also find fortune tellers, diviners, and augurs here.
42(O) - The Guild of Combat is practical almost to a fault. Any fighting style with any amount of magic is welcomed in their ranks and for sale as mercenary, private guard, or caravan helper.
41(O) - The Guild of Counsel covers education that isn’t apprenticeship related. They teach all branches of magic from wizardry and sorcery to engineering and mathematics.
40(S) - Fledgling and undesired guilds have their halls here. Some of these guilds can’t seem to establish themselves because their members keep dying, like the Fisher’s Guild, while the Beggar’s Guild is just one the city would prefer not to get a whole layer to itself.
39(O) - The Garden of Resplendent Hues is a well tended Druidic Circle honoring the ecology of the Underdark. Mushrooms and molds grow with some safer types of wild fauna living here too.
38(O) - People can’t remember too many details about when it happened or how, but The Devil was attempting an experiment that seems to have gone awry. The level is smoke filled, despite being open the swirling smoke stays inside the level, and The Devil has assured everyone that as long as they don’t touch the smoke, they’re safe.
37(S) - The Devil still lives in the city and keeps his personal residence here.
36(S) - The Devil’s library, laboratory, and workspace take up this layer.
35(S) - Those working directly for or advising The Devil have their homes here.
34(S) - One small opening to the outside of the Spire exists, but is closely guarded. This is stil considered The Devil’s domain, but exists for the most exquisite dining and music found for miles in any direction for those who can afford it. Other sins are also available to order a la carte.
33(S) - Private guests of The Devil are given place to stay on this level within view of The Devil’s private prison.
32(O) - This is the level The Devil was imprisoned on. Although it has never been expressly forbidden, no one wants to linger here much for fear of angering it.
31(O) - This is where the bargain between the Dwarven rulers of the city and The Devil was struck. It is still used when various organizations in the city wish to consult with it.
30(O) - The rest of the people who call Mid’Spire home live here. It is common knowledge that those new to the city who want a guide for hire come here first and simply look for a bored kid.
29(O) - This level has the Mid’Spire market along with seamstresses and crafters who aren’t Dwarves. There are also urban farming terraces here to provide cheap food.
28(O) - Mid’Spire is the neighborhood for the working class non Dwarves of the city. It’s not quite a slum, but it’s close. Its unofficial mayor and many of its residents live here.
27(S) - The Drow of the city have claimed this layer. There is one Matriarch and she is the unquestioned Mistress of her domain.
26(O) - The only active mining still happening in the Spire happens here. The gems being carved and worked are so brilliant that the level itself sheds light that can even be seen by the ships below.
25(O) - Portals to other layers in the Spire that are all identifiably safe
24(S) - Affiliated Underdark Guides is the one guild that exists in other cities that also has a guildhall here. They stay close to the portals to both help maintain them and guide people through them. They are also for hire to lead caravans and ships.
23(O) - Here there are portals to other places in the Underdark and on the surface. Much to the Dwarves chagrin, this includes Drow and Duergar cities.
22(O) - The extraplanar portals, mostly to evil and shadow planes, are on this level. Any portal that starts leading to any level of the Abyss is quickly brought to the attention of the Devil who promptly uses their magic to alter or close it.
21(S) - Dangerous and unsafe portals are on this layer under careful guard. Aboleths attacked through these with some leading to layers below the water line and some leading to other planes. Efforts to destroy these portals have been thwarted and efforts to explore them have met with disaster, so they’re simply guarded.
20(S) - Punishments, imprisonments, and work orders are all carried out on this layer.
19(S) - The Spire’s legal system exists here for official trials, but frequently individuals are also given permission to legally attack each other in a safe section of this layer where bystanders won’t be injured.
18(O) - Sick and injured are brought here for healing in a place that is slightly separated but still close to the clerics and temples of the nearby levels.
17(O) - Temples to non Dwarven but still Dwarven approved of Gods are worshipped here.
16(S) - Temples to both evil deities and clearly anti Dwarven Gods are tolerated but quarantined to this layer.
15(O) - Temples to the Dwarven pantheon are exalted and prayed to here.
14(O) - These are the old business offices that existed when the city was more of a mining town. They have mostly been refurbished into city government structures now.
13(S) - This is the only sealed layer to be artificially sealed by wood rather than using the natural shape of the column. This layer has the rowdy bars, casinos, and brothels. It was sealed to prevent those not used to Dwarven ale from falling off the Spire.
12(O) - Old Dwarven mining housing that is quickly gentrifying. Merchants of all races who can afford housing this close to their businesses in the market do so.
11(O) - Fine goods as well as investment trading happens here. If you’re looking to buy gems, furs, or fine wines, this is the place. You can also buy insurance on a boat or trade commodity prices here.
10(O) - For those who actually live in the city, this is their market. Day to day food and goods are bought and sold here.
9(S) - The master forge of the city is in this sealer layer to prevent too many explosions. Dwarves own all the forges but do rent them out to Goblins, Duergar, and visiting races.
8(O) - Here are the nicer inns, restaurants, and entertainment for visitors. Not many locals live on this layer, but plenty work here.
7(O) - The cranes and scaffolding that bring cargo and people up into the city all empty out on this layer. There are plenty of warehouses and industrial storage but less of a formal market.
6(S) - The Dwarves who own businesses and are doing a better job adapting to the changes of the city keep their stores here near both their homes and the trading hub of the city.
5(S) - This is the only layer with a permanent Sun spell at work. That means it has both the noble Dwarf estates as well as the farming and agriculture of the city.
4(S) - When the Aboleths invaded from the deep, this level was where the barricades held. It is still a more militarized layer in case anything stirs from below again. The town guard is centered here.
3(S) - This is mostly the poor Dwarf neighborhood but there are some guild owned buildings. For those who want to venture down into the levels below, this is their staging ground.
2(O) - There have been some successful trips to reclaim goods, weapons, and the dead from this level, but mostly it is still abandoned and dangerous as far as the city is concerned.
1(O) - An old enchantment keeps water from rushing in, but few brace stepping foot here for fear of a great many potential evils. There is definitely still treasure and ore ready for Anyone brave or foolish enough.
Below - There are levels below the water level of the city. It is not known how many or how deep they go. What is known is that no one who tries to make the trip ever comes back.
The Docks - Since docking on the first level isn’t considered safe, a ring ‘raft’ of wood exists around the base of the city that allows the ships to anchor reasonably effectively as the cranes and elevators from the 7th level do their work.

TL;DR: Man with too much time on his hands goes deep down the rabbit hole on a concept this sub already didn’t seem that enthusiastic about. If you really want to skip ahead, CTRL+F “verdict” and it’ll get you there.
Two days ago, u/MrPhillyj2wns made a post asking whether USL should launch a D1 league in order to compete in Concacaf. From the top voted replies, it appears this made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
But I’ve been at home for eight weeks and I am terribly, terribly bored.
So, I present to you this overview of what the USL pyramid might look like if Jake Edwards got a head of steam and attempted to establish a USSF-sanctioned first division. This is by no means an endorsement of such a proposal or even a suggestion that USL SHOULD do such a thing. It is merely an examination of whether they COULD.
Welcome to the Thunderdome USL Premiership
First, there are some base-level assumptions we must make in this exercise, because it makes me feel more scientific and not like a guy who wrote this on Sunday while watching the Belarusian Premier League (Go BATE Borisov!).

1. All D1 teams must comply with known USSF requirements for D1 leagues (more on that later).
   
2. MLS, not liking this move, will immediately remove all directly-owned affiliate clubs from the USL structure (this does not include hybrid ownerships, like San Antonio FC – NYCFC). This removes all MLS2 teams but will not affect Colorado Springs, Reno, RGVFC and San Antonio.
   
3. The USL will attempt to maintain both the USL Championship and USL League One, with an eventual mind toward creating the pro/rel paradise that is promised in Relegations 3:16.
   
4. All of my research regarding facility size and ownership net worth is correct – this is probably the biggest leap of faith we have to make, since googling “NAME net worth” and “CITY richest people” doesn’t seem guaranteed to return accurate results.
   
5. The most a club can increase its available seating capacity to meet D1 requirements in a current stadium is no more than 1,500 seats (10% of the required 15,000). If they need to add more, they’ll need a new facility.
   
6. Let’s pretend that people are VERY willing to sell. It’s commonly acknowledged that the USL is a more financially feasible route to owning a soccer club than in MLS (c.f. MLS-Charlotte’s reported $325 million expansion fee) and the USSF has some very strict requirements for D1 sanctioning. It becomes pretty apparent when googling a lot of team’s owners that this requirement isn’t met, so let’s assume everyone that can’t sells to people who meet the requirements.
   

(Known) USSF D1 league requirements:
- League must have 12 teams to apply and 14 teams by year three
- Majority owner must have a net worth of $40 million, and the ownership group must have a total net worth of $70 million. The value of an owned stadium is not considered when calculating this value.
- Must have teams located in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones
- 75% of league’s teams must be based in markets with at a metro population of at least 1 million people.
- All league stadiums must have a capacity of at least 15,000
The ideal club candidate for the USL Premiership will meet the population and capacity requirements in its current ground, which will have a grass playing surface. Of the USL Championship’s 27 independent/hybrid affiliate clubs, I did not find one club that meets all these criteria as they currently stand.
Regarding turf fields, the USSF does not have a formal policy regarding the ideal playing surface but it is generally acknowledged that grass is superior to turf. 6 of 26 MLS stadiums utilize turf, or roughly 23% of stadiums. We’ll hold a similar restriction for our top flight, so 2-3 of our top flight clubs can have turf fields. Seem fair?
Capacity is going to be the biggest issue, since the disparity between current requirements for the second-tier (5,000) and the first tier (15,000) is a pretty massive gap. Nice club you have there, triple your capacity and you’re onto something. As a result, I have taken the liberty of relocating certain (read: nearly all) clubs to new grounds, trying my utmost to keep those clubs in their current markets and –importantly--, ensure they play on grass surfaces.
So, let’s do a case-by-case evaluation and see if we can put together 12-14 teams that meet the potential requirements, because what else do you have to do?
For each club’s breakdown, anything that represents a chance from what is currently true will be underlined.
Candidate: Birmingham Legion FC
Location (Metro population): Birmingham, Ala. (1,151,801)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Legion Field (FieldTurf, 71,594)
Potential owner: Stephens Family (reported net worth $4 billion)
Notes: Birmingham has a pretty strong candidacy. Having ditched the 5,000-seater BBVA Field for Legion Field, which sits 2.4 miles away, they’ve tapped into the city’s soccer history. Legion Field hosted portions of both the men’s and women’s tournaments at the 1996 Olympics, including a 3-1 U.S. loss to Argentina that saw 83,183 pack the house. The Harbert family seemed like strong ownership contenders, but since the death of matriarch Marguerite Harbert in 2015, it’s unclear where the wealth in the family is concentrated, so the Stephens seem like a better candidate. The only real knock that I can think of is that we really want to avoid having clubs play on turf, so I’d say they’re on the bubble of our platonic ideal USL Prem.
Candidate: Charleston Battery
Location (Metro population): Charleston, S.C. (713,000)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Johnson Hagood Stadium (Grass, ~14,700)
Potential owner: Anita Zucker (reported net worth $3 billion)
Notes: Charleston’s candidacy isn’t looking great. Already disadvantaged due to its undersized metro population, a move across the Cooper River to Johnson Hagood Stadium is cutting it close in terms of capacity. The stadium, home to The Citadel’s football team, used to seat 21,000, before 9,300 seats on the eastern grandstand were torn down in 2017 to deal with lead paint that had been used in their construction. Renovation plans include adding 3,000 seats back in, which could hit 15,000 if they bumped it to 3,300, but throw in a required sale by HCFC, LLC (led by content-creation platform founder Rob Salvatore) to chemical magnate Anita Zucker, and you’ll see there’s a lot of ifs and ands in this proposal.
Candidate: Charlotte Independence
Location (Metro population): Charlotte, N.C. (2,569, 213)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Jerry Richardson Stadium (Turf, 15,314)
Potential owner: James Goodnight (reported net worth $9.1 billion)
Notes: Charlotte ticks a lot of the boxes. A move from the Sportsplex at Matthews to UNC-Charlotte’s Jerry Richardson stadium meets capacity requirements, but puts them on to the dreaded turf. Regrettably, nearby American Legion Memorial Stadium only seats 10,500, despite a grass playing surface. With a sizeable metro population (sixth-largest in the USL Championship) and a possible owner in software billionaire James Goodnight, you’ve got some options here. The biggest problem likely lies in direct competition for market share against a much better-funded MLS Charlotte side due to join the league in 2021.
Candidate: Hartford Athletic
Location (Metro population): Hartford, Conn. (1,214,295)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Pratt & Whitney Stadium (Grass, 38,066)
Potential owner: Ray Dalio (reported net worth $18.4 billion)
Notes: Okay, I cheated a bit here, having to relocate Hartford to Pratt & Whitney Stadium, which is technically in East Hartford, Conn. I don’t know enough about the area to know if there’s some kind of massive beef between the two cities, but the club has history there, having played seven games in 2019 while Dillon Stadium underwent renovations. If the group of local businessmen that currently own the club manage to attract Dalio to the table, we’re on to something.
Candidate: Indy Eleven
Location (Metro population): Indianapolis, Ind. (2,048,703)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Lucas Oil Stadium (Turf, 62,421)
Potential owner: Jim Irsay (reported net worth of $3 billion)
Notes: Indy Eleven are a club that are SO CLOSE to being an ideal candidate – if it weren’t for Lucas Oil Stadium’s turf playing surface. Still, there’s a lot to like in this bid. I’m not going to lie, I have no idea what current owner and founder Ersal Ozdemir is worth, but it seems like there might be cause for concern. A sale to Irsay, who also owns the NFL Indianapolis (nee Baltimore) Colts, seems likely to keep the franchise there, rather than make a half-mile move to 14,230 capacity Victory Field where the AAA Indianapolis Indians play and expand from there.
Candidate: Louisville City FC
Location (Metro population): Louisville, Ky. (1,297,310)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Lynn Family Stadium (Grass, 14,000, possibly expandable to 20,000)
Potential owner: Wayne Hughes (reported net worth $2.8 billion)
Notes: I’m stretching things a bit here. Lynn Family stadium is currently listed as having 11,700 capacity that’s expandable to 14,000, but they’ve said that the ground could hold as many as 20,000 with additional construction, which might be enough to grant them a temporary waiver from USSF. If the stadium is a no-go, then there’s always Cardinal Stadium, home to the University of Louisville’s football team, which seats 65,000 but is turf. Either way, it seems like a sale to someone like Public Storage founder Wayne Hughes will be necessary to ensure the club has enough capital.
Candidate: Memphis 901 FC
Location (Metro population): Memphis, Tenn. (1,348,260)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Liberty Bowl Stadium (Turf, 58,325)
Potential owner: Fred Smith (reported net worth $3 billion)
Notes: Unfortunately for Memphis, AutoZone Park’s 10,000 seats won’t cut it at the D1 level. With its urban location, it would likely prove tough to renovate, as well. Liberty Bowl Stadium more than meets the need, but will involve the use of the dreaded turf. As far as an owner goes, FedEx founder Fred Smith seems like a good local option.
Candidate: Miami FC, “The”
Location (Metro population): Miami, Fla. (6,158,824)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Riccardo Silva Stadium (FieldTurf, 20,000)
Potential owner: Riccardo Silva (reported net worth $1 billion)
Notes: Well, well, well, Silva might get his wish for top-flight soccer, after all. He’s got the money, he’s got the metro, and his ground has the capacity. There is the nagging issue of the turf, though. Hard Rock Stadium might present a solution, including a capacity of 64,767 and a grass playing surface. It is worth noting, however, that this is the first profile where I didn’t have to find a new potential owner for a club.
Candidate: North Carolina FC
Location (Metro population): Durham, N.C. (1,214,516 in The Triangle)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Carter-Finley Stadium (Grass/Turf, 57,583)
Potential owner: Steve Malik (precise net worth unknown) / Dennis Gillings (reported net worth of $1.7 billion)
Notes: We have our first “relocation” in North Carolina FC, who were forced to trade Cary’s 10,000-seat WakeMed Soccer Park for Carter-Finley Stadium in Durham, home of the NC State Wolfpack and 57,583 of their closest friends. The move is a whopping 3.1 miles, thanks to the close-knit hub that exists between Cary, Durham and Raleigh. Carter-Finley might be my favorite of the stadium moves in this exercise. The field is grass, but the sidelines are artificial turf. Weird, right? Either way, it was good enough for Juventus to play a friendly against Chivas de Guadalajara there in 2011. Maybe the move would be pushed for by new owner and medical magnate Dennis Gillings, whose British roots might inspire him to get involved in the Beautiful Game. Straight up, though, I couldn’t find a net worth for current owner Steve Malik, though he did sell his company MedFusion for $91 million in 2010, then bought it back for an undisclosed amount and sold it again for $43 million last November. I don’t know if Malik has the juice to meet D1 requirements, but I suspect he’s close.
Candidate: Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC
Location (Metro population): Pittsburgh, Penn. (2,362,453)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Heinz Field (Grass, 64,450)
Potential owner: Henry Hillman (reported net worth $2.5 billion)
Notes: I don’t know a ton about the Riverhounds, but this move in particular feels like depriving a pretty blue-collar club from its roots. Highmark Stadium is a no-go from a seating perspective, but the Steelers’ home stadium at Heinz Field would more than meet the requirements and have a grass surface that was large enough to be sanctioned for a FIFA friendly between the U.S. WNT and Costa Rica in 2015. As for an owner, Tuffy Shallenberger (first ballot owner name HOF) doesn’t seem to fit the USSF bill, but legendary Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Hillman might. I’m sure you’re asking, why not the Rooney Family, if they’ll play at Heinz Field? I’ll tell you: I honestly can’t seem to pin down a value for the family. The Steelers are valued at a little over a billion and rumors persist that Dan Rooney is worth $500 million, but I’m not sure. I guess the Rooneys would work too, but it’s a definite departure from an owner in Shallenberger who was described by one journalist as a guy who “wears boots, jeans, a sweater and a trucker hat.”
Candidate: Saint Louis FC
Location (Metro population): St. Louis, Mo. (2,807,338)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Busch Stadium (Grass, 45,494)
Potential owner: William DeWitt Jr. (reported net worth $4 billion)
Notes: Saint Louis has some weirdness in making the jump to D1. Current CEO Jim Kavanaugh is an owner of the MLS side that will begin play in 2022. The club’s current ground at West Community Stadium isn’t big enough, but perhaps a timely sale to Cardinals owner William DeWitt Jr. could see the club playing games at Busch Stadium, which has a well established history of hosting other sports like hockey, college football and soccer (most recently a U.S. WNT friendly against New Zealand in 2019). The competition with another MLS franchise wouldn’t be ideal, like Charlotte, but with a big enough population and cross marketing from the Cardinals, maybe there’s a winner here. Wacko idea: If Busch doesn’t pan out, send them to The Dome. Sure, it’s a 60k turf closed-in stadium, but we can go for that retro NASL feel and pay homage to our nation’s soccer history.
Candidate: Tampa Bay Rowdies
Location (Metro population): Tampa, Fla. (3,068,511)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Raymond James Stadium (Grass, 65,518)
Potential owner: Edward DeBartolo Jr. (reported net worth $3 billion)
Notes: This one makes me sad. Despite having never been there, I see Al Lang Stadium as an iconic part of the Rowdies experience. Current owner Bill Edwards proposed an expansion to 18,000 seats in 2016, but the move seems to have stalled out. Frustrated with the city’s lack of action, Edwards sells to one-time San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr., who uses his old NFL connections to secure a cushy lease at the home of the Buccaneers in Ray Jay, the site of a 3-1 thrashing of Antigua and Barbuda during the United States’ 2014 World Cup Qualifying campaign.
Breather. Hey, we finished the Eastern Conference teams. Why are you still reading this? Why am I still writing it? Time is a meaningless construct in 2020 my friends, we are adrift in the void, fueled only by brief flashes of what once was and what may yet still be.
Candidate: Austin Bold FC
Location (Metro population): Austin, Texas (2,168,316)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Darrel K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium (FieldTurf, 95,594)
Potential owner: Michael Dell (reported net worth of $32.3 billion)
Notes: Anthony Precourt’s Austin FC has some unexpected competition and it comes in the form of tech magnate Michael Dell. Dell, were he to buy the club, would be one of the richest owners on our list and could flash his cash in the new first division. Would he have enough to convince Darrel K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium (I’m not kidding, that’s its actual name) to go back to a grass surface, like it did from ’96-’08? That’s between Dell and nearly 100,000 UT football fans, but everything can be had for the right price.
Candidate: Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC
Location (Metro population): Colorado Springs, Colo. (738,939)
Time zone: Mountain
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Falcon Stadium (FieldTurf, 46,692)
Potential owner: Charles Ergen (reported net worth $10.8 billion)
Notes: Welcome to Colorado Springs. We have hurdles. For the first time in 12 candidates, we’re back below the desired 1 million metro population mark. Colorado Springs actually plans to build a $35 million, 8,000 seat venue downtown that will be perfect for soccer, but in our timeline that’s 7,000 seats short. Enter Falcon Stadium, home of the Air Force Academy Falcons football team. Seems perfect except for the turf, right? Well, the tricky thing is that Falcon Stadium is technically on an active military base and is (I believe) government property. Challenges to getting in and out of the ground aside, the military tends to have a pretty grim view of government property being used by for-profit enterprises. Maybe Charles Ergen, founder and chairman of Dish Network, would be able to grease the right wheels, but you can go ahead and throw this into the “doubtful” category. It’s a shame, too. 6,035 feet of elevation is one hell of a home-field advantage.
Candidate: El Paso Locomotive FC
Location: El Paso, Texas
Time zone: Mountain
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Sun Bowl (FieldTurf, 51,500)
Potential owner: Paul Foster (reported net worth $1.7 billion)
Notes: God bless Texas. When compiling this list, I found so many of the theoretical stadium replacements were nearly serviceable by high school football fields. That’s insane, right? Anyway, Locomotive don’t have to settle for one of those, they’ve got the Sun Bowl, which had its capacity reduced in 2001 to a paltry 51,500 (from 52,000) specifically to accommodate soccer. Sure, it’s a turf surface, but what does new owner Paul Foster (who is only the 1,477th wealthiest man in the world, per Forbes) care, he’s got a team in a top league. Side note: Did you know that the Sun Bowl college football game is officially, through sponsorship, the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl? Why is it not the Frosted Flakes Sun Bowl? Why is the cereal mascot the promotional name of the football game? What are you doing, Kellogg’s?
Candidate: Las Vegas Lights FC
Location: Las Vegas, Nev. (2,227,053)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Allegiant Stadium (Grass, 61,000)
Potential owner: Sheldon Adelson (reported net worth $37.7 billion)
Notes: Sin City. You had to know that the club that once signed Freddy Adu because “why not” was going to go all out in our flashy hypothetical proposal. Thanks to my narrative control of this whole thing, they have. Adelson is the second-richest owner in the league and has decided to do everything first class. That includes using the new Raiders stadium in nearby unincorporated Paradise, Nevada, and spending boatloads on high profile transfers. Zlatan is coming back to the U.S., confirmed.
Candidate: New Mexico United
Location: Albuquerque, N.M.
Time zone: Mountain
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Isotopes Park – officially Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park (Grass, 13,500 – 15,000 with expansion)
Potential owner: Maloof Family (reported net worth $1 billion)
Notes: New Mexico from its inception went deep on the community vibe, and I’ve tried to replicate that in this bid. The home field of Rio Grande Cr---I’m not typing out the whole thing—Isotopes Park falls just within the expansion rules we set to make it to 15,000 (weird, right?) and they’ve found a great local ownership group in the Lebanese-American Maloof (formerly Maalouf) family from Las Vegas. The only thing to worry about would be the metro population, but overall, this could be one of the gems of USL Prem.
Candidate: Oklahoma City Energy FC
Location: Oklahoma City, Okla. (1,396,445)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (Grass, 13,066)
Potential owner: Harold Hamm (reported net worth $14.2 billion)
Notes: There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow and it says it’s time to change stadiums and owners to make it to D1. A sale to oil magnate Harold Hamm would give the club the finances it needs, but Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (home of the OKC Dodgers) actually falls outside of the boundary of what would meet capacity if 1,500 seats were added. Could the club pull off a move to Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma – home of the Oklahoma Sooners? Maybe, but at 20 miles, this would be a reach.
Candidate: Orange County SC
Location: Irvine, Calif. (3,176, 000 in Orange County)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Angels Stadium of Anaheim (Grass, 43,250)
Potential owner: Arte Moreno (reported net worth $3.3 billion)
Notes: You’ll never convince me that Rangers didn’t choose to partner with Orange County based primarily on its name. Either way, a sale to MLB Angels owner Arte Moreno produces a fruitful partnership, with the owner choosing to play his newest club out of the existing Angels stadium in OC. Another baseball conversion, sure, but with a metro population of over 3 million and the closest thing this hypothetical league has to an LA market, who’s complaining?
Candidate: Phoenix Rising FC
Location: Phoenix, Ariz. (4,857,962)
Time zone: Arizona
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): State Farm Stadium (Grass, 63,400)
Potential owner: Ernest Garcia II (reported net worth $5.7 billion)
Notes: We’re keeping it local with new owner and used car guru Ernest Garcia II. His dad owned a liquor store and he dropped out of college, which is making me feel amazing about my life choices right now. Casino Arizona Field is great, but State Farm Stadium is a grass surface that hosted the 2019 Gold Cup semifinal, so it’s a clear winner. Throw in Phoenix’s massive metro population and this one looks like a lock.
Candidate: Reno 1868 FC
Location: Reno, Nev. (425,417)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Mackay Stadium (FieldTurf, 30,000)
Potential owner: Nancy Walton Laurie (reported net worth $7.1 billion)
Notes: The Biggest Little City on Earth has some serious barriers to overcome, thanks to its low metro population. A sale to Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and 1.6 mile-move to Mackay Stadium to split space with the University of Nevada, Reno makes this bid competitive, but the turf surface is another knock against it.
Candidate: Rio Grande Valley FC
Location: Edinburg, Texas (900,304)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): McAllen Memorial Stadium (FieldTurf, 13,500 – 15,000 with expansion)
Potential owner: Alice Louise Walton (reported net worth $45 billion)
Notes: Yes, I have a second straight Walmart heiress on the list. She was the first thing that popped up when I googled “McAllen Texas richest people.” The family rivalry has spurred Walton to buy a club as well, moving them 10 miles to McAllen Memorial Stadium which, as I alluded to earlier, is a straight up high school football stadium with a full color scoreboard. Toss in an additional 1,500 seats and you’ve met the minimum, despite the turf playing surface.
Candidate: San Antonio FC
Location: San Antonio, Texas (2,550,960)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Alamodome (FieldTurf, 64,000)
Potential owner: Red McCombs (reported net worth $1.6 billion)
Notes: I wanted to keep SAFC in the Spurs family, since the franchise is valued at $1.8 billion. That said, I didn’t let the Rooneys own the Riverhounds based on the Steelers’ value and it felt wrong to change the rules, so bring on Clear Channel co-founder Red McCombs. Toyota Field isn’t viable in the first division, but for the Alamodome, which was built in 1993 in hopes of attracting an NFL franchise (and never did), San Antonio can finally claim having *a* national football league team in its town (contingent on your definition of football). Now if only we could do something about that turf…
Candidate: San Diego Loyal SC
Location: San Diego, Calif. (3,317,749)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): SDCCU Stadium (formerly Qualcomm) (Grass, 70,561)
Potential owner: Phil Mickelson (reported net worth $91 million)
Notes: Yes, golf’s Phil Mickelson. The existing ownership group didn’t seem to have the wherewithal to meet requirements, and Phil seemed to slot right in. As an athlete himself, he might be interesting in the new challenges of a top flight soccer team. Toss in a move to the former home of the chargers and you might have a basis for tremendous community support.
Candidate: FC Tulsa
Location: Tulsa, Okla. (991,561)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium (FieldTurf, 30,000)
Potential owner: George Kaiser ($10 billion)
Notes: I’m a fan of FC Tulsa’s rebrand, but if they want to make the first division, more changes are necessary. A sale to Tulsa native and one of the 100 richest men in the world George Kaiser means that funding is guaranteed. A move to Chapman Stadium would provide the necessary seats, despite the turf field. While the undersize population might be an issue at first glance, it’s hard to imagine U.S. Soccer not granting a waiver over a less than a 10k miss from the mark.
And that’s it! You made it. Those are all of the independent/hybrid affiliates in the USL Championship, which means that it’s time for our…
VERDICT: As an expert who has studied this issue for almost an entire day now, I am prepared to pronounce which USL Championships could be most ‘ready” for a jump to the USL Prem. A reminder that of the 27 clubs surveyed, 0 of them met our ideal criteria (proper ownership $, metro population, 15,000+ stadium with grass field).
Two of them, however, met almost all of those criteria: Indy Eleven and Miami FC. Those two clubs may use up two of our three available turf fields right from the outset, but the other factors they hit (particularly Silva’s ownership of Miami) makes them difficult, if not impossible to ignore for the top flight.
But who fill in the rest of the slots? Meet the entire 14-team USL Premier League:
Hartford Athletic
Indy Eleven
Louisville City FC
Miami FC
North Carolina FC
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC
Tampa Bay Rowdies
Saint Louis FC
San Antonio FC
New Mexico United
Phoenix Rising FC
Las Vegas Lights FC
Orange County SC
San Diego Loyal SC
Now, I shall provide my expert rationale for each club’s inclusion/exclusion, which can be roughly broken down into four categories.
Firm “yes”
Hartford Athletic: It’s a good market size with a solid stadium. With a decent investor and good community support, you’ve got potential here.
Indy Eleven: The turf at Lucas Oil Stadium is no reason to turn down a 62,421 venue and a metro population of over 2 million.
Louisville City FC: Why doesn’t the 2017 & 2018 USL Cup champion deserve a crack at the top flight? They have the market size, and with a bit of expansion have the stadium at their own SSS. LCFC, you’re in.
Miami FC, “The”: Our other blue-chip recruit on the basis of ownership value, market size and stadium capacity. Yes, that field is turf, but how could you snub Silva’s chance to claim victory as the first division 1 club soccer team to play in Miami?
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC: Pittsburgh sacrificed a lot to be here (according to my arbitrary calculations). Their market size and the potential boon of soccer at Heinz Field is an important inclusion to the league.
Saint Louis FC: Willie hears your “Busch League” jokes, Willie don’t care. A huge market size, combined with the absence of an NFL franchise creates opportunity. Competition with the MLS side, sure, but St. Louis has serious soccer history and we’re willing to bet it can support two clubs.
Tampa Bay Rowdies: With a huge population and a massive stadium waiting nearby, Tampa Bay seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up for the USL Prem.
Las Vegas Lights FC: Ostentatious, massive and well-financed, Las Vegas Lights FC is everything that the USL Premier League would need to assert that it didn’t intend to play second fiddle to MLS. Players will need to be kept on a short leash, but this is a hard market to pass up on.
Phoenix Rising FC: Huge population, big grass field available nearby and a solid history of success in recent years. No brainer.
San Diego Loyal SC: New club? Yes, massive population in a market that recently lost an absolutely huge sports presence? Also yes. This could be the USL Prem’s Seattle.
Cautious “yes”
New Mexico United: You have to take a chance on New Mexico United. The club set the league on fire with its social media presence and its weight in the community when it entered the league last season. The market may be slightly under USSF’s desired 1 million, but fervent support (and the ability to continue to use Isotopes Park) shouldn’t be discounted.
North Carolina FC: Carter-Finley’s mixed grass/turf surface is a barrier, to be sure, but the 57,000+ seats it offers (and being enough to offset other fully-turf offerings) is enough to put it in the black.
Orange County SC: It’s a top-tier club playing in a MLB stadium. I know it seems unlikely that USSF would approve something like that, but believe me when I say “it could happen.” Orange County is a massive market and California likely needs two clubs in the top flight.
San Antonio FC: Our third and only voluntary inclusion to the turf fields in the first division, we’re counting on San Antonio’s size and massive potential stadium to see it through.
Cautious “no”
Birmingham Legion FC: The town has solid soccer history and a huge potential venue, but the turf playing surface puts it on the outside looking in.
Memphis 901 FC: Like Birmingham, not much to dislike here outside of the turf playing surface at the larger playing venue.
Austin Bold FC: See the other two above.
FC Tulsa: Everything’s just a little bit off with this one. Market’s slightly too small, stadium has turf. Just not enough to put it over the top.
Firm “no”
Charleston Battery: Small metro and a small potential new stadium? It’s tough to say yes to the risk.
Charlotte Independence: A small new stadium and the possibility of having to compete with an organization that just paid over $300 million to join MLS means it’s best for this club to remain in the USL Championship.
Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC: When a club’s best chance to meet a capacity requirement is to host games at a venue controlled by the military, that doesn’t speak well to a club’s chances.
El Paso Locomotive FC: An undersized market and a turf field that meets capacity requirements is the death knell for this one.
Oklahoma City Energy FC: Having to expand a baseball field to meet requirements is a bad start. Having to potentially play 20 miles away from your main market is even worse.
Reno 1868 FC: Population nearly a half-million short of the federation’s requirements AND a turf field at the hypothetical new stadium makes impossible to say yes to this bid.
Rio Grande Valley FC: All the seat expansions in the world can’t hide the fact that McAllen Memorial Stadium is a high school stadium through and through.
Here’s who’s left in the 11-team Championship:
Birmingham Legion FC
Charleston Battery
Charlotte Independence
Memphis 901 FC
Austin Bold FC
Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC
El Paso Locomotive FC
Oklahoma City Energy FC
Reno 1868 FC
Rio Grande Valley FC
FC Tulsa
With MLS folding the six affiliates it has in USL League One, the league is a little bit thin (especially considering USSF’s requirements for 8 teams for lower level leagues), but seems definitely able to expand up to the necessary numbers with Edwards’ allusions to five new additions this year:
Chattanooga Red Wolves SC
Forward Madison FC
Greenville Triumph SC
Union Omaha
Richmond Kickers
South Georgia Tormenta
FC Tucson
Format of Assorted Leagues – This (like everything in this post) is pure conjecture on my part, but here are my thoughts on how these leagues might function in a first year while waiting for additional expansion.
USL Premier – We’ll steal from the 12-team Scottish Premiership. Each club plays the other 11 clubs 3 times, with either one or two home matches against each side. When each club has played 33 matches, the top six and bottom six separate, with every club playing an additional five matches (against each other team in its group). The top club wins the league. The bottom club is automatically relegated. The second-bottom club will enter a two-legged playoff against someone (see below) from the championship playoffs.
USL Championship -- 11 clubs is a challenge to schedule for. How about every club plays everyone else three times (either one or two home matches against each side)? Top four clubs make the playoffs, which are decided by two-legged playoffs. The winner automatically goes up. I need feedback on the second part – is it better to have the runner-up from the playoffs face the second-bottom club from the Premiership, or should the winner of the third-place match-up get the chance to face them to keep drama going in both playoff series? As for relegation, we can clearly only send down the last place club while the third division is so small.
USL League One – While the league is so small, it doesn’t seem reasonable to have the clubs play as many matches as the higher divisions. Each club could play the other six clubs four times – twice at home and twice away – for a very equitable 24-match regular season, which would help restrict costs and still provide a chance to determine a clear winner. Whoever finishes top of the table goes up.
And there you have it, a hypothetical look at how the USL could build a D1 league right now. All it would take is a new stadium for almost the entire league and new owners for all but one of the 27 clubs, who wouldn’t feel that their property would be massively devalued if they got relegated.
Well that’s our show. I’m curious to see what you think of all of this, especially anything that you think I may have overlooked (I’m sure there’s plenty). Anyway, I hope you’re all staying safe and well.

Help me in the comments to get this guide better and more complete and share it to your friends!

Heyya (sorry for my weird english I'm french) !
Since I reinstalled Clickloot like 1-2 weeks ago, I tried to find as many tips as possible Imma share it to you guys :)~I'll add more tips in the future
So let's start:

[BASIC TUTORIAL] Pass this part if you already have clickloot

-Go to clickloot.com or install the mobile app and create a new account by steam or anything it doesn't matter at the start (later to withdraw you'll need your steam account)
-Click on rewards and claim as many things as possible (use my code "nefreex" for referral, you get 250 coins and it's always appreciated ^^)
You should get your first 500 coins ez pz

[HOW TO GET THAT FAT MONEY] Basically the useful part

Get the mobile app then go to earn (bottom left corner)Depends on your location you'll get different surveys and offers but the most important surveys should still appear.
If you see Tapjoy or Ironsource, go on them. They're basically the best ones for me, high paying surveys and you surely get your money, prefer Tapjoy because you get offers who rewards you a part of the coins each time you get closer to complete the survey
Do one of the surveys below:

BEST APPS SURVEYS :

Huuuge casino and Billionaire casino

~20000-30000 coins for getting to level 200 (they offer different amount of coins sometimes, depends on the level required, consider taking the one mentioned right above on Tapjoy if you find it, you get parts of the rewards at level 50-70-100-150-200.
Time: some days or hours (depends on the offer and the luck)Many useful tips here: https://www.reddit.com/Swagbuckstutorials/comments/gswbx1/tips_for_huuuge_casino_slots/
Other tips :
-you can't loose all your chips until you get to level 30-40 [NEEDS TO BE VERIFIED]-at the beginning you can go full max bet-consider using the 3-4 first machines, they're giving good amounts of chips (I prefer using Huuuge diamonds wins (rare wins but high rewards) because the firsts levels you're completely rigged and then God of sky (less rare wins and decent rewards))
-you can use macros to close popups and to claim rewards it works-don't spam the machines for my experience you get less wins
-don't give up if you don't have any more money, just retry tomorrow and claim as many daily/ club rewards as possible. You have 30-60 days to complete this survey !
-use the advanced search to find diamond clubs and join them, you get a decent amount of coins on those clubs.
​

[NEW] MISTPLAY

~3000 coins to get profile level 3 found on Tapjoy
Time : 30-45 mins
Difficulty : Easy
If you don't receive your coins after doing the survey it's a bug on this one it's okay, wait 24hrs and send a ticket to the support of Tapjoy with a screen showing that you got to lvl 3, I got credited less than 24hrs later ^^
Tips:
-when they ask you which games do you like/ play (i don't remember exactly sorry) just click on all games, you'll get more choice
-focus on the xp, look for the two best ones and try to hit on both lvl 3-4 (different level than the profile one, this way you're level 3 (or almost, you just take the third best game and get this one to lvl 2 to get profile lvl 3)
​

Pop slots

~5000 coins to get to level 27 but some redditors said that you get a different survey (25$ to level 28) [NEEDS TO BE VERIFIED]. You get the full amount of coins only when you complete the survey.
Time: 1-2 days
Tips:I found another reddit tutorial for this [NEED TO BE VERIFIED]https://www.reddit.com/Swagbuckstutorials/comments/gstr4s/pop_slots_tutorial/
Other tips:
-you can go full afk with this one + macro for more speed
​

Words with friends 2

(only seen on ironsource), ~500 or 1400 coins if you complete 25 words against an opponent, really easy if you know how to play, if not just find a quick guide on YouTube (trust me it's so easy)
Time: 1-2 hours max (btw don't stress if you didn't get your coins right after, I got them 3 days later)
Tips:
-No matter winning or loosing the game, just make 25 words-Make a private game with another account and play vs yourself [NEEDS TO BE VERIFIED]
-Use less letters and try to make the most words per round-If you feel that it's the right game, use all you addons.
-If you play vs a random and you're winning, always try to loose. Your opponent will more likely stay on the game and you get your points ez.
-You can use scrabble cheats if you're lazy to think just search on Google
​

Neverland Casino [WORK IN PROGRESS]

(actually finding a good survey and finishing it)
Still a nice guide here : https://www.reddit.com/Swagbuckstutorials/comments/hs91u8/neverland_casino_game_guide_crosspost_from/
btw I'll think I'll use a lot of those Swagbucks tutorials, they're great.
​

Coin Dozer

~1800 coins to get level 25.
Difficulty : So easy
Only tip : change your clock time to gain coin just like you play it everyday, ez survey.
​

Coin Master

~3000 coins to get to the 4 village.
Time & Difficulty : Okay, few days (you just need to go on the app 1 or 2 times per day for some mins)
Tips:
-Connect with Facebook to boost the beginning if you want.
-If you're linked with facebook, loop up for free coins website that gives coupons for the game ( http://conseilsjeux.com/coin-master-spins-et-coins-gratuits/ ) (french site but first links should work and gives out a bit of coins in the game if you're logged in to facebook)
-Don't waste time on it, give it some mins, spin & upgrade and then quit, that's it.
​

Slotomania

~10000 coins to get lvl 100 (found on fyber)
Time : 1-2 days
Difficulty : ez as fck
Tips :
-You can easily afk
-Connect to Facebook and use this site : https://www.peoplesgamezgiftexchange.com/slotomania-free-coins/gifts to get tons of free coins ;)

Appkarma

~500 or 1000 depends on survey platform, get to 700 coins on it.
Time : 2 hours
Difficulty : Easy
Tips:
-Claim all things that's possible to claim, you're already at +400 coins by doing nothing.
[UPDATE] You have two methods to farm :
1st one, spamming ads for 1 coin until you can't. After that just do a cheap mission like launch and install the app, and then spamming ads again (you can make a macro for this).
[NEW] 2nd one, go to playtime rewards, allow the app and then play Coin master (avoid this game if you're already doing the coin master survey, just do another app), idk if afk while the game is opened works, I suggest you to interact every 1 or 2 minutes [NEEDS TO BE VERIFIED].
The 2nd option is faster, but not available for everyone !
​

[EXTERNAL TIPS]

-Bluestacks works and you don't get banned using this (best option if you don't have a phone) (a friend tried and still use it)
-DON'T USE VPN ! You get banned really fast if you use a vpn to get better surveys
-Be kind with the support ! They have a hard work with all those kiddos who wants a knife without doing anything. Shoutout to Braincell! This active chat moderator, you can ask him anything he'll respond, he's the best x)
-Avoid those weird ~50 coins surveys that tells you to install a shitty app and launch it, this apps are always the same (shitty game always repetitive and many ads) you don't get any rewards from these and I found these apps creepy.. [NEEDS TO BE VERIF.. nah i'm joking xD

[WITHDRAW] The best part x)

[Be careful and check market prices! Sometimes you can overpay a lot]
-Don't worry you get the trade offer shortly after buying be sure to fill out your trade url before.
-If you trigger their anti-fraud system and they tell you to contact them, don't worry just contact them they have a really nice support (they usually respond in less than 24h) it happens to me and after that I could finally withdraw :p
MONEY SYSTEM: 1000 coins ~~ 0.80€ (if you pay attention, you overpay everywhere, they make a decent marge of money, skins are the ones that you'll overpay less)

[Proof and credits]

https://imgur.com/a/R3EKPTR my recent winnings (I already got some skins before but it was some years ago) and I currently have 7000 coins at the time I'm making this guide.
Update : withdrawed and now i made 2000 :)Update 2 : I'M AT 18000 NOW OMG
I'm at 31000 now, looking for a ft ak neon rider ;)
https://www.reddit.com/FreeCSGOSkins/comments/hsfszl/thanks_to_unefreexyt_i_got_my_first_skins_in_csgo/ ;)
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/546656661482504192/735516698723090442/unknown.png A friend got bo2 by doing huge casino and billionaire only
Thanks for reading ! Help me in the comments to complete this guide and share it, use my affiliate "nefreex" it's really really appreciated :))
Imma go to sleep, tomorrow I'll add more surveys and read your comments. Good luck everyone !
Update: New surveys and making it more readable ;)
Update 26/07 : Updated Slotomania, I'm currently making a hard survey which can give me 27000 coins so Ima tryhard it x)
Update 24/08 : Added Mistplay, updated my coins. Please share the tutorial guys !