There are few negative traits in gameplay of Diablo 4 that significantly lowers quality of the game in my opinion.
1) Lack of content – Im speaking not about the total amount of content in the game(the world is huge, no argue there), but the fact that the vast majority of it is basically copy pasted. If you found a new enemy you gona find it again in 20 nearby dungeons, and those dungeons are , usually pretty much the same in terms of things that happen in them-you just push mob wave after mob wave, with 1-2 special mobs and in the end you fight with VERY healthy special mob, which, in some rare instances may have unique attack\mechanic, but usually don’t, and it leads to the feeling that you did not just cleared 5 different dungeons but one same dungeon 5 times in a row. I think game would benefited greatly if it had half the amount of dungeons , half the size but more unique instead.
2) Leveling system – I think that leveling system is weaker than, for example, of Diablo 2. Lack of ability to pick your secondary stats like dex\str but more importantly auto leveling-which kills your sense of progress. You fought hordes of mobs, leveled up, closed the game, came back and suddenly you deal less damage than you did before log out, to those same mobs in this same location. This is not good when you level up only to find out that mob that you killed in one shot before is now must be killed in 2 shots. Some folks told me just to maxlevel-but then you hit the very same problem but from the other side-game becomes too easy, since you already max level, with good gear and there is almost nothing game can throw at you that you cant deal with, and quite easily deal with. You never feel strong in diablo either not strong enough or so strong that it does not matter. Generally speaking I think auto leveling system can be described only as lazy design.
3) Grind – as a result of first 2 points game is too grindy. I understand that grind is important part of every Diablo game, but It never felt so SLUGGISH in any other Diablo game. Game goes at the same speed all the time, there are no places that you can go in and it felt better\worse suited for one class or another, it’s the same job, all the time, with the same reward of a chance to get better gear. Sometimes game hardens up and throws tough unique opponent that provides challenge but it happens extremely rare. Events also break the vicious cycle of blandness but only for first locations-before you saw all what they can provide and they become another occasional grind.
4) Dailies and battlepass – bane of videogames.
I talk with some people about this and heard mixed opinions. Some people agree with me, some treated those things above not as negative but positive traits. And then I finaly got it – most of the people who agree with me had little or none interest with mmorpg games, and most of the people who did not usually had big investment and love in mmorpg game, specifically with WoW. Diablo 4 as game feels like its designed by and for mmorpg gamers ,not arpg gamers which resulted in those things above and some debatable design choices, like lackluster of wasd movement for example and overall blandness- game is not about things to explore but things to farm. End result: 10% of good main quest and some original dungeons and rest 90% of the game is grind for the sake of grind. Many may say that that what Diablo series is about, and those traits are part of series in general, but personaly I cant say that I play Diablo games for grind, and even if put it that way, as I said before, grind in any Diablo game never felt so sluggish as in Diablo 4 and those negative traits where not as accented. Don’t get me wrong, I generally enjoy Diablo 4, it’s a good game and a good rpg but for me it feels like weakest of Diablo games(excluding diablo immortal, because diablo immortal does no exist in my world of unicorns and rainbows), and personally , im sure, that if issues that where listed before where adressed Diablo 4 would be much better game, not just ANOTHER Diablo game, but BEST Diablo game.

Experience Tranquility and Adventure at River Side Camps in Rishikesh by Pebble Resort
Nestled in the picturesque town of Rishikesh, amidst the serene landscapes of Uttarakhand, lies the Pebble Resort—an idyllic destination that offers an unparalleled experience of river side camps in rishikesh. Rishikesh, renowned as the "Yoga Capital of the World," attracts travelers from all corners of the globe seeking solace, spirituality, and adventure. The river side camps provided by Pebble Resort not only allow you to bask in the natural beauty of the Ganges but also provide a gateway to thrilling outdoor activities that will leave you rejuvenated and captivated.
Located along the banks of the holy river Ganges, Pebble Resort boasts a tranquil and serene ambiance. As you step into the resort, you'll immediately be greeted by the soothing sound of the flowing river, the whispering breeze, and the chirping of birds. The river side camps offer a unique opportunity to reconnect with nature, away from the chaos and stress of everyday life. The resort blends harmoniously with its surroundings, creating a seamless integration between man-made comfort and the raw beauty of the environment.
The river side rafting camp at Pebble Resort are designed to provide utmost comfort and convenience. You can choose from a variety of accommodation options, ranging from cozy tents to luxury cottages. Each camp is tastefully decorated, with comfortable beds, clean linens, and all the necessary amenities to ensure a pleasant stay. The sound of the river lulling you to sleep at night and the gentle sunlight waking you up in the morning will make your experience truly magical.
One of the highlights of staying at the river side camps in Rishikesh is the plethora of adventure activities available at your doorstep. Rishikesh is famous for its white-water rafting, and Pebble Resort offers thrilling rafting experiences suitable for both beginners and experienced rafters. As you navigate the rapids of the Ganges, you'll feel an adrenaline rush like never before. Other adventure activities include trekking, rock climbing, rappelling, and camping under the starlit sky. The resort has expert guides and trainers who ensure your safety while also enhancing your experience with their knowledge of the region.
Beyond the adventure, Rishikesh is a haven for spirituality and wellness. The resort organizes yoga and meditation sessions by the river, allowing you to immerse yourself in the ancient practices that have drawn seekers for centuries. You can also visit nearby ashrams and temples, where you can learn about the rich cultural heritage and spirituality that Rishikesh is known for.
The culinary delights at Pebble Resort are not to be missed. The resort offers a range of delectable dishes, blending local flavors with international cuisines. Enjoy a riverside breakfast as the sun rises, savor a delicious lunch amidst the greenery, and indulge in a candlelit dinner by the riverbank—a truly unforgettable experience for your taste buds.
In conclusion, the river side camps at Pebble Resort in Rishikesh offer a perfect blend of tranquility and adventure. Whether you seek a peaceful retreat in nature, an adrenaline-pumping adventure, or a spiritual journey, this destination has it all. Immerse yourself in the beauty of the Ganges, rejuvenate your mind, body, and soul, and create memories that will last a lifetime. The river side camps at Pebble Resort are waiting to welcome you with open arms.

The structure: a multi-room buried structure filled up with sand and suspicious sand. The first room (without all the sand) contains a crafting table, a furnace, a bed, and 1-2 chests with a little bit of loot. Other rooms may include small mineshaft-like tunnels that don't lead anywhere, other workstation blocks, maybe even what appears to have been a farm for some kind of crop. The suspicious sand loot: 6 pottery sherds, an armor trim, a broken relic from the past (that can be repaired by using an anvil and is used to change random tick speed during the night or whatnot), and some junk like coal, stone pickaxes, stone swords, diamonds etc. The chest loot: some food (like steak), some seeds, wooden tools, enchanted books, cobblestone... The lore: one of the remaining ancient builders built this little bunker on the beach to escape the disaster that ultimately killed the ancient builder civilization. The bunker isn't too modern, it's rather built of oak wood, stone bricks, and cobble, since that's what its builder had on their hands.

I'm usually a creative player, but I've challenged myself to get a survival world going (regular survival, no mods, etc). I'm currently working on an iron golem farm to get myself some easy iron, but it requires 3 villagers, the tutorial I'm going off is this one by Arystotle Gaming.
My concern is that it never mentions spawn/despawn proofing the villagers, the zombie is nametagged, but I haven't heard them say anything about the 3 villagers, is this because they don't despawn if they have a bed? Or is this farm just incomplete.
Sources from other Reddit threads and different sites have conflicting answers, some say they don't despawn at all, but the other might say I have to nametag them, trade with them, and feed them?? Help?
(Edited for grammar)

Here is a possible story in the world of Rimworld:
The crash was sudden and violent. The escape pod had barely managed to escape the burning wreckage of the starship, but it was still damaged by the debris and the atmosphere. It spiraled out of control, heading towards a barren desert planet.
Inside the pod, three survivors were strapped to their seats, praying for a miracle. They were:

• Jade, a 25-year-old female space marine. She was strong, brave, and loyal, but also stubborn, abrasive, and trigger-happy. She had a passion for shooting and melee combat, and a hatred for pirates and raiders. She had a scar on her left cheek from a knife fight, and a tattoo of a skull on her right arm.
• Remy, a 32-year-old male doctor. He was smart, kind, and compassionate, but also nervous, neurotic, and squeamish. He had a passion for medicine and research, and a fear of blood and violence. He had glasses on his nose from poor eyesight, and a stethoscope around his neck.
• Lila, a 19-year-old female pop idol. She was beautiful, charming, and talented, but also vain, spoiled, and naive. She had a passion for music and art, and a love for fame and fortune. She had long blonde hair with pink highlights, and a piercing on her belly button.

They had been passengers on the starship, heading to a new colony on the rim of known space. They had different reasons for leaving their old lives behind, but they shared a common dream of adventure and opportunity.
They never expected to end up on this hellhole of a planet.
The pod crashed into the sand with a loud thud. The impact knocked them unconscious for a few minutes. When they woke up, they saw smoke rising from the pod's engine. They quickly unstrapped themselves and got out of the pod.
They looked around and saw nothing but sand and rocks. The sun was scorching hot, and the wind was blowing dust into their eyes. They had no idea where they were or how to survive.
They were scared and hopeless.
They checked the pod's computer for any signs of life or civilization. They found none. The planet was uninhabited and uncharted. They were alone.
They checked the pod's cargo for any supplies or equipment. They found some. The pod had carried some basic survival gear, such as food rations, medicine kits, weapons, tools, and materials. They also found some personal belongings that they had brought with them from the starship.
They were relieved and hopeful.
They decided to make the best of their situation. They agreed to work together as a team, and to use their skills and resources to build a colony on this planet. They hoped that someday they would be rescued or find a way off this planet.
They were determined and hopeful.
They started by building a shelter out of steel walls and wooden floors. They used some solar panels and batteries to power their lights and appliances. They used some beds and furniture to make their shelter comfortable.
They also built a kitchen where they could cook their food rations, a freezer where they could store their food rations, and a dining room where they could eat their food rations.
They were hungry and hopeful.
They continued by building a farm where they could grow their own food. They used some hydroponics basins and lamps to grow rice, potatoes, corn, and strawberries. They also planted some cotton plants to make cloth.
They also built an animal pen where they could keep some animals. They used some haygrass to feed them. They had found some animals near their shelter that they had tamed or captured. They had two muffalos that they could use for wool and milk, two alpacas that they could use for wool and meat, two chickens that they could use for eggs and meat, two dogs that they could use for companionship and protection, and one cat that they could use for companionship.
They were happy and hopeful.
They expanded by building a workshop where they could make their own equipment. They used some workbenches and machines to craft weapons, armor, clothing, and furniture. They also used some research benches and books to learn new technologies and skills.
They also built a hospital where they could treat their injuries and illnesses. They used some medical beds and vitals monitors to heal faster. They also used some drugs and medicine to ease pain and cure diseases.
They were healthy and hopeful.
They defended by building a wall around their colony. They used some sandbags and turrets to fortify their wall. They also used some traps and mines to deter intruders. They had faced many threats on this planet, such as pirates, tribes, mad animals, giant insects, and ancient killing machines. They had fought them off with courage and skill.
They also built a comms console where they could communicate with other factions. They used some radios and satellites to send and receive messages. They had made some friends and enemies on this planet, such as outlanders, spacers, raiders, and mechanoids. They had traded with them, allied with them, or fought with them.
They were safe and hopeful.
They dreamed by building a spaceship where they could escape this planet. They used some advanced components and materials to construct their spaceship. They also used some cryptosleep caskets where they could sleep until they reached their destination.
They had found a broken-down ship with the help of a friendly AI. The AI had told them that it could take them to a glitterworld, a paradise planet where they could live in peace and luxury. The AI had also told them that they had to defend their ship for fifteen days as other desperate inhabitants of the planet attempted to seize control of it.
They were ready and hopeful.
They started their ship, and waited for the countdown to end. They saw their enemies approaching from all directions, armed with guns, knives, bows, grenades, rockets, and flamethrowers. They heard their enemies shouting threats, insults, and demands.
They grabbed their weapons, and prepared for the final battle. They had rifles, pistols, shotguns, swords, clubs, spears, molotovs, frag grenades, and EMP grenades. They shouted words of encouragement, support, and love.
They were brave and hopeful.
They fought their enemies, and defended their ship. They shot them, stabbed them, bashed them, burned them, and blew them up. They killed them, wounded them, or scared them away. They also healed themselves, rescued each other, or buried their dead. They fought with skill, strategy, and teamwork.
They were strong and hopeful.
They won the battle, and secured their ship. They cheered, cried, and hugged each other. They thanked the AI, who congratulated them on their victory. They boarded the ship, and entered the caskets. They closed their eyes, and fell asleep.
They were happy and hopeful.
The ship took off, and left the planet. It flew through space, and reached the glitterworld. It landed safely, and opened the caskets. They woke up, and saw a new world. It was beautiful, green, and peaceful. They saw friendly people, who welcomed them warmly. They saw advanced technology, that fulfilled their needs. They saw amazing wonders, that amazed their eyes.
They were happy and hopeful.
They lived on the glitterworld, and started a new life. They built a new home, where they could live comfortably. They found new friends, who they could trust and love. They found new hobbies, that they could enjoy and learn. They found new happiness, that they could share and cherish.
They were happy.
The end.
Source: Conversation with Bing, 6/9/2023 (1) RimWorld on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/RimWorld/. (2) RimWorld - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RimWorld. (3) RimWorld - Sci-Fi Colony Sim. https://rimworldgame.com/. (4) RimWorld review PC Gamer. https://www.pcgamer.com/rimworld-review/.

I (16), identify as non-binary. Now, if you don't like that, just scroll. This post is not for you. If you're an ally of the community and non-binary people, feel free to stick around.
I'm going to be a senior next year, and up until now, I've been dreading leaving my household. I think most people think the same way as they're about to leave, especially those growing up in a family like mine. For the most part, I've had loving, caring, and trusting parents. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm spoiled, but my parents have definitely provided my brother (13M) and I with more than we could've even dreamed of. They're not the richest people on the planet, but we have a nice home and have nice things.
Ever since I came out as non-binary (which I'd say was about one to two years ago), I wouldn't say that love, care, and trust has decreased, but the number of fights have. They're petty fights. Usually, my mom misgenders me and I correct her (in a simple way, just by saying "they," when she says "she" or "not a girl," when she refers to me as one), and then she gets pissed and says some bullshit like, "I gave birth to a girl, so you're a girl," which obviously sparks an argument. I don't have this issue with my dad. For a while, my mom stopped arguing back when I corrected her. Then, a couple of days back, she did it again.
It was kinda out of the blue. She was getting ready for a 25th anniversary party we were going to be attending later and I was on my bed as she was picking something out of the closet. She said something (I forgot what), but in whatever she said, she referred to me as a girl. As usual, I simply said, "Not a girl," in response, and she started getting pissed again. At some point she said that since she gave birth to me, she gets to decide my gender, so I said that technically, if anyone were to decide my sex (not gender), it would be my dad. She said, "No, because I have two X chromosomes." Obviously, I responded, "Yeah, so you're going to only be able to contribute an X chromosome. Dad has X and Y, so my sex depends on whether I get his X or Y chromosome." She shut up after that.
I know it's mean to be picking fights with my mom, but then again, it's mean to pick a fight when a person just corrects you on something. I never say anything maliciously. I don't say "I use they/them, idiot, don't you have a brain?" to my literal mother. And this isn't the full reason why.
Today, I was just watching a show on Netflix (on my computer) on our couch downstairs. I was talking to my mom about this guy on Tiktok who has severe internal racism because he keeps shitting on brown girls as if he's not brown (if you know him, you know), and my brother comes up and joins our conversation. Well, not really. He does the usual little brother thing (annoying their older siblings) and my mom walks away. My mom starts talking about how I'm giving the Tiktoker what he wants by viewing his videos, and I responded with, "No, I just showed you like three of his videos, I haven't seen any of his Tiktoks in a while," and of course, my brother has to chime in and start saying some bullshit about how I apparently follow him and shit, so I just ignore him.
At that point, I started watching another Tiktok of this one guy stitching one of the first Tiktoker's videos, and he cusses the guy out in Malayalam, which I thought was funny as hell, and because I guess my brother wanted more attention, he swiped at my screen (I have a touchscreen laptop). I got pissed and I kinda kicked him off the couch (not super hard, but just enough to get him off) and in retaliation, he starts taking one of the big, hard pillows we have on the couch and hitting my feet with it. My ankle was kinda fucked up because of something that happened previously (unrelated), so it hurt and shit, but to be fair, I did kick him, so I kinda just dealt with it.
I eventually moved my feet away, and he continues to hit the couch with the pillow in the same spot where my feet were, but it didn't bother me anymore at that point, because it wasn't hitting me. Then he started talking.
"Why do you care about his videos anyway? You're not a brown girl, 'cuz you're not a girl." I just ignored him and went back to watching my show. Like last time, I forgot exactly what he said, but he referred to me as "she" again, so I asked him, "If you know that I'm not a girl, why do you use she/her pronouns?"
For some reason, he gets pissed, and starts talking about how I rant about him to my friends. I do rant about him sometimes to my friends, so this isn't a false accusation or anything, but I don't know where the hell he was coming from with this, because I couldn't have been ranting about that earlier, as my hands were behind my laptop, and I was watching the show.
At some point, his rant becomes an argument. He starts calling me a crybaby, and I ask him if I'm crying, which he doesn't respond to, because I wasn't. He starts saying things with the intention to hurt me and I know he was doing that, because this has become a recent pattern of his: things don't go his way he starts ranting and getting upset I stand up for myself he gets pissed, calls me a crybaby or sensitive (he almost always says this) he says things to make me feel like shit.
I was fed up with his bullshit, so when he says that I care more about my pronouns than my family, I say, "You don't even act like a brother anymore." And this sets him off. He starts saying more shit and more shit. He finally left me alone after some time, and I quietly walked back up to my room.
At this point, I'm so done with my family. Especially my brother. My mom and dad do their own shit too, like as I said, my mom also misgenders me and gets pissed when I correct her and my dad essentially tells me to just get over what my mom and brother do. I'm so tired of having to deal with this daily. I already get this shit from outside of the house. I'm not out to very many people, but online, I display my pronouns, and yesterday, someone called me the f slur on Twitter. I don't think I deserve to deal with this shit inside my house too.
It sucks that my gender identity has become ammunition for my brother to use to hurt me. Sometimes, I wish I didn't identify the way I did, but if it hurts like this when I identify the way I want to, it's going to hurt more when I don't even have the luxury of sometimes having the correct pronouns used on me.
Now I don't think that when I move away, everyone will be all sunshine and rainbows about my gender identity. I'm just hoping that when I have the ability to live wherever I want with whomever I want, I get to live with someone who respects me and loves me and is willing to use the correct pronouns on me, even if it's not what they're used to.

Here I am, half asleep. It's 12:30am. I'm sealing my bunker and transferring and organizing loot while making sure all doors are shut. Y'know, average rust shit you do right before you log off.
Just got back from a really juicy oil rig run, got 2 airdrops from military crate + elite crates + locked crate. Absolutely filled to the brim with loot.
Now I've been fucking with my neighbors for the better part of the last 3 hours. Stole 2 AK kits from them, killed them farming wood w a chainsaw w a full inventory, etc.
They turned to roofcamping with L96 and that's when things went sour. I started talking shit and calling them roofcamping pussies, basically just run of the mill rust shit talking.
They had their large furnaces pumping for the last hour or two. I knew the raid was coming, but I'm too fuckin tired and need to get some sleep.
As I'm sealing my bunker, I hear ppsh boom ppsh boom. 2 rocketers, 1 on their raid base roofcamping.
I'm pretty fucked, but I make my way to my roof with a SAR kit, making sure to close every single door behind me. Get a quick glance at the raiders, wait for a rocket to get shot, and drop down on to the back side of my base. Silent. Like a ninja.
I drop down to make my stand, I don't have a shooting floor, so gotta take this fight to them. I'm on the ground crouching around and kill 1 rocketer shooting him in the back. Instantly do a 180° and turn around to run around to the other side of my base. Kill the second, but I'm like 5 HP now.
I'm 2/3rds of the way thru winning this raid....then the roofcamper just nails me with L96. I'm fed up.
Killed two, but that fuckin roofcamper. I'm salty as fuck, spawn back in my core, and they're 1 wall away. Still 1 garage door and 1 hqm wall away from bunker core.
I'm silent, just sitting. Watching. Waiting. More importantly, listening. Footsteps all around my base. No signs of counters...yet. My duo partner had just logged, I was not far behind until this raid started.
I was THIS close to just giving up. The bunkers already sealed. I've already been "raided" twice, but they never got into the bunker either time.
I finally hear someone countering, custom smg and SAR shots. The raiders are full metal AK and have a raid base with beds. Counters seemingly win. Chaos breaks out.
Counters get countered, raiders kill a bunch, counters kill some raiders, original counters come back. I'm just sitting in my bunker silently waiting for the right time to make my move.
It's a warzone outside, and it's now or never. I needed to make my move.
I break my twig half wall, busting open my bunker. There's 1 garage door between me and the mayhem outside. I grab a building plan, hammer, and a stack of stone. I open the garage door and hope for the best. Run out but ass naked with a building plan, hammer, stone, and seal the breach.
The raiders are still roofcamping on their raid base, but they were distracted by counters and I was able to have 3 seconds to seal. They immediately shoot my newly placed stone wall.
I built another wall, behind the outer most wall, upgraded that to hqm. Spent the next 5 mins repairing everything, crafted 6 more garage doors to replace the ones that were blown up, and sit around for another 5 mins or so. It's quiet outside.
Ran over to my neighbors base, said ggs. They were so salty. They were blaming the counters. Sure, the counters saved me ass. But I played it clean too. Didn't leave any doors open, sealed efficiently, and killed a few off the rip to buy some more time for counters to show up.
Not really a point to this post, but that was just the most exhilarating moment in rust I've had in a while.
I've only been onlined 3 times in 1.6k hours in rust. It's fuckin awesome, no other game can match the intensity. Heart was beating out of my chest. Mind racing. What a night.
Surely, I'll wake up offlined tomorrow now tho. Drew alooottt of attention to my base, but hey, that's rust. Whoever does choose to offline will have to spend 37 rockets if they raid the most efficient way possible.
If ya made it this far and have any beef with neighbors, give em an online. See what happens. It's by far the most intense and fun gaming experience you can have.

I miss my dog. I miss her everyday of my life. I thought I'd be over her death sooner but I was wrong. Her death anniversary will be coming up in a month, and I've felt like shit. Every night I go to bed and think of the memories I hold with her. I think of hugging her & petting her. I have dreams about seeing her again & giving her a big hug. She was the sweetest dog ever. She didn't really like other dogs, but she loved people. She was friendly & calm, she hardly ever barked, and loved giving & recieving affection. She was a shoulder to cry on when I felt awful. It was if she knew I was sad, so she'd curl up next to me and lick me as if to tell me everything was gonna be okay. It might sound weird but she was more than a dog to me, she was family. She was almost like a human that couldnt speak. She was my best friend. I don't know how I'm still going on without her. I know it might sound silly but she was special to me. I never knew a dog as loving and caring as her, and I probably never will again. There's tears falling down my face as I type this. I didn't get to say a proper goodbye either. She was curled up in my bed with me the night she died, and she must've gathered all her strength to jump off my bed because she was very weak and old. She walked into the kitchen & my mom must've heard her. My mom comforted her through her last moments but I was fast asleep. I woke up to hear my mom calling the vet to tell them she had died, and my heart exploded. I didn't go with them to take her to the vet, I was in too much shock that at first I barely showed emotion over the situation. I still think about this day. I wonder if she left my bed because she didn't want me to see her die. I wonder where she is right now, and I wonder if she comes down to comfort me without me noticing. I hope those rainbow bridge poems and the saying "All dogs go to heaven" are true. Hold everyone you love close, especially your pets.

I'm worried about my cat. This morning he didn't wake me up for his breakfast (abnormal) but I overslept a lot and assumed my roommate had fed him. He stayed under my bed most of the day and came out when I opened a can of his food for dinner but never ate it. I tried feeding him some of the squeezable cat treats and he did eat those and he will drink water but he ended up throwing up the cat treat. He also will go to the litter box, try to poop for maybe a minute, but nothing comes out and he leaves. It doesn't seem like he's in pain when this happens but he has been avoiding sitting on his butt, and his butthole has liquid poop on it but I've seen no poop in or outside of the litter box.
My main conflict is that I don't have a car and would need to ask for a ride to take him to the vet and im unsure if I should wait longer before I tried a vet anyway. I wanted a second opinion before I did anything else anyway.

Wrote some stuff down in a Google Doc every night, so it ended up being super long and rambly. Hopefully I was able to cut it down at least a little bit. I wasn't sure if I could leave references to individual businesses or Airbnb experiences in, so please let me know if I need to remove those.
I planned this trip 2 weeks before I had to leave, so I was in a huge rush. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without everyone’s help here and on the Discord! It was my first time traveling solo, so I was a little more neurotic about it than usual. Also I don’t know how accurate the steps/distance on iOS is, but I figure there’s enough internal consistency to compare between days.
Some personal highlights
Tokyo

• Check out some listening bars if you’re down for a low key night with more of a focus on listening to music than socializing: Grandfather’s, Bar Martha, Bar Track, Ginza Music Bar
• Yoshikami is a pretty interesting (albeit pricey) place for dinner. It’s apparently been there since the 1960s and has a nice diner vibe.

Kyoto

• Otagi Nenbutsuji, Adashino Nenbutsuji, and Nanzenji were my personal favorites.
• Fu-ka near Ginkakuji for fantastic omurice.

Osaka

• I loved Osaka in general for its mixture of being laidback with big city vibe
• Izakaya crawl with Taka was amazing (https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/1018635). It’s true that you can plan a night of izakayas for free, but honestly I found the cost pretty worth it. Taka was a really cool guy and made for an incredibly memorable night.
• Okonomiyaki Chitose for okonomiyaki. Great food and great staff.

Monday, May 29 - arriving in Tokyo

• 3pm - Haneda Airport arrival. Withdrew money after immigration, picked up Suica card, then traveled to Ueno Station (close to hostel) to pick up JR Pass due to 1 hour line at airport. In hindsight, I obviously should’ve gotten the JR Pass the following day, but I was jetlagged and exhausted and wasn’t thinking. When I arrived at the hostel, I ended up falling asleep and decided to just start my trip officially the following morning.

Reflections If you’re an anxious planner or traveler like me, definitely don’t plan anything specific on the first day. There’s a good chance your plans will get derailed. The JR Pass line at the airport is often super long and if you can, try to stop by an office close to where you’re staying or near one of your stops.
Walked: 6540 steps / 3.1 miles
Tuesday, May 30 - Tokyo (Akihabara)

• 7am - Yoshinoya for breakfast (Random, but I wanted to try all 3 of the big gyudon places by the end of the trip just because. Even as a big completionist, this wasn’t worth it at all.)
• 8am - Walked around Ueno Park, then Ameya Yokocho.
• 11am - Gyukatsu Motomura for lunch at Ameyoko, which was absolutely incredible.
• 12pm - Walked around Akihabara and checked out the “Weird vending machines” on Google Maps. It was definitely weird. Would recommend if you’re kind of drawn to weird shit, and the hostel staff found it super entertaining when I showed them everything.
• 3pm - I ended up moving through Akihabara pretty fast (I have a bad habit of not being able to take my time with these things). I decided to stop by some places in Ginza, like the Sembikiya flagship store and the Okuno building (Room 306).
• 6pm - I was still pretty jetlagged, so I ate some dinner with people at the hostel and hung out with the hostel residents and staff.
• 10:30pm - Stopped by a convenience store to grab something for breakfast the next morning.

Reflections
Having a list of restaurants or specific foods (e.g. tempura, okonomiyaki) to pull from can be super helpful in being slightly flexible/spontaneous but also settling some of your (my) neuroticism. I had planned to check out Gyukatsu Motomura elsewhere but since it’s a chain and I had no idea what to eat, it helped me make a decision for lunch.
It can be a good idea to have an “overflow list” of things to do in certain areas. I thought I’d spend more time in Akihabara but I think I was still getting the hang of traveling/exploring without rushing around.
Walked: 27728 steps / 12.9 miles
Wednesday, May 31 - Kyoto (Nishiki Market / Department Store food floors / Kiyomizu-dera) * 7:30am - Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto * 10:15am - Walked to hostel and suitcase wheels ripped off on the way there (still left it there for storage). Original plan was to wander Nishiki Market and the food floors for Takashimaya Department Store and Fujii Daimaru, which I did for a bit. Then got a new suitcase at the large tax free store a block down, and walked back to the hostel to put my suitcase there. * 3pm - Check in with a new suitcase and head to Kiyomizudera. Three hours was more than enough time for me to wander around Sannenzaka, Ninnenzaka, and Kiyomizu-dera. I’m also not someone that is great at lingering to stop and smell the roses, though. * 6:30pm - Try to line up for Menya Inoichi. The line was already closed for dinner, so I stopped by Nakau for some fast gyudon/tonkatsu instead.
Reflections
Have backup plans for your meals, list out some ideas in the area but expect some of those to be derailed.
You might need an eye mask even if you splurge on a private room in a hostel. The blinds were paper thin here so I woke up at like 4-5am.
Walked: 26290 steps / 12.2 miles
Thursday, June 1 - Kyoto (Arashiyama / Ginkakuji / Philosopher’s Path / Eikan-do / Nanzenji / Gion) This was the day I was prepared to walk the most because of the itinerary. It ended up being pretty packed, but I think it worked out decently well. Both of these things would’ve been better off unrushed as maybe 2/3 of a full day, so I would’ve split this up into 2 days if I could have.

• 7am - Breakfast at a convenience store, then taxi to Otagi Nenbutsuji at 7:30am (opens at 8). It isn’t the cheapest option, but there also isn’t a great alternative. It was pretty empty and a great place to start the day.
• 9am - Walked to Adashino Nenbutsuji, which was also fairly empty but had a beautiful bamboo area that honestly was basically as good as the Arashiyama grove for pictures.
• 10am - Walked to Tenryuji, which included the Saga-Toriimoto Preserved Street along the way, then did the Arashiyama Walking Tour from Inside Kyoto, which was a great way to see a little bit of everything (https://www.insidekyoto.com/arashiyama-bamboo-grove-guide-walking-tour).
• 12:30pm - Walking tour led me to Togetsukyo Bridge, where I could easily bus over to the Ginkakuji area.
• 1:30pm - Grabbed lunch at Fu-ka, which was a small restaurant run by some very sweet people. The omurice there was amazing, and I would definitely love to go there again someday.
• 2pm - Ginkakuji -> Philosopher’s Path -> Eikan-do -> Nanzenji -> Gion. I was definitely not prepared for how much stuff there was to do at Nanzenji in particular! I definitely could’ve spent 2-3 hours there even rushing around. I ended up not being able to check out the inside of Nanzen-in and the big gate because I ran out of time. Upstairs from the Nanzenji arches there is a great walk to leave Nanzenji when you’re all done (Nanzenji Suirokaku). It takes you past a power station, and then down some abandoned railroad tracks.
• 5:30pm - Went to check out Gion and Pontocho. I couldn’t figure out what to eat for dinner, so I thought I’d give Menya Inoichi another shot. It was pretty early but the line was closed again. There was an amazing fried chicken place nearby called Loco Chicken (would definitely recommend too!)
• 7pm - Checked out Yasaka Shrine and Gion again now that the sun was down. It was nice but admittedly underwhelming after all the amazing temples I had seen. I was originally going to go to an izakaya for the night or experience some nightlife, but I was pretty tired and decided to call it a night.

Reflections
Even if you’re a rusher like I am, Nanzenji especially can take some time. Otagi Nenbutsuji and Adashino Nenbutsuji are a little out of the way, but definitely worth it. The preserved street isn’t all that exciting, but it is along the way from Adashino Nenbutsuji to Tenryuji.
Menya Inoichi apparently closes pretty damn early wtf, possibly due to running out of their limited supply of wagyu. Loco Chicken was suuuuper good though. I guess there see a lot of great food options and planning meals in advance should only be if there’s a restaurant I really want to stop by (e.g. Fu-ka).
Walked: 33577 steps / 16.4 miles
Friday, June 2 - Kyoto / Nara / Osaka

• 7am - Got up to go to Fushimi Inari Taisha. We were on the edge of a typhoon (apparently the landslide zones of Kizugawa were being evacuated?) so it was pouring rain, which meant it was really empty on the actual walk to the summit.
• 10am - Kintetsu train to Nara Park. It was pouring there too, but the deer were still out and about to get their food from visitors. I was a little tired at this point since my feet were soaked through, so I went to check out Todaiji and only took a brief walk around Nara Park before heading to my hostel in Osaka, so I could get my shoes washed and dried at a nearby laundromat.
• 8pm - I did an Airbnb bar crawl (https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/4388157) in the Dotonburi area which was awesome as a solo traveler because I got the chance to meet other people much more easily and check out some local spots I realistically wouldn’t have gone to (or at least navigated easily). The guide was fantastic and fun, and it was a really nice way to get an introduction to Osaka nightlife. I would definitely recommend doing this on your first night if you want to spend some time in Dotonburi! You can find the listing for that one here: . One of the places we stopped by was called the Misono building, which had a bunch of interesting and quirky bars.

Walked: 27023 steps / 12.4 mi
Saturday, June 3 - Osaka (shopping streets and Dotonburi)

• 10am - Took a look around Denden Town and all the different streets in Osaka near Dotonburi (Kuromon Ichiba, Hozenji Yokocho, Ebisu Bashi-Suji, Shinsaibashisuji). I also stopped by the Ebisu Tower Ferris Wheel, which was nice but also not something I’d consider a must-do activity. I imagine it might be even cooler at night when the lights are all on.
• 6pm - I did another izakaya crawl here, and it was AMAZING (https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/1018635)! The guide, Taka, has lived all around the world and has some incredible stories to tell about his life. He worked on farms in remote places in Australia, for instance, that even the Aussie guests were astounded to hear about. The vibe was definitely a lot more chill and not super conservative, if that makes any sense. It was the kind of environment where all the guests felt comfortable asking him how to swear in Japanese after the first round of drinks. If you’re not super uptight about stuff and want the feeling of local nightlife with some friends, this is a must-do in my opinion! Taka was such a cool guy and this was an unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime experience. We stopped by to do some karaoke at the end, which I felt was mandatory since we were at its birthplace.

Reflections
Taka brought us to one of the streets that I completely missed in my research, which was Tenshinbashi-sushi. It’s supposedly the longest shopping arcade in all of Japan, at 2.6km long. Definitely something to check out!
Walked: 25782 / 11.8 miles
Sunday, June 4 - Osaka (Shinsekai, Abeno Harukas)

• 10:30am - Was starting to get pretty tired by this point so I slept in again, and got to Shinsekai around 10:30. I realized how much I loved the vibe of Osaka, which seemed much more laidback than the other big cities. I remember there was an adorable off leash puppy walking around one of the shopping streets, and a bunch of old people pulled out their phones and started chasing it down to take cute pictures. I might be totally off the mark from my few days’ impression of other big cities, but that just felt kind of unique to me.
• 11:15am - Lined up outside Okonomiyaki Chitose so I could get food there when they opened. Fantastic okonomiyaki, and the owner and staff were super great as well. They chatted with me a bit and joked around with each other while making the food in front of us. Great experience.
• 1pm - Went to Tsutenkaku to look around and check out the viewing area. It also had this big slide that you could pay to go down, which was quite fun too.
• 2:30pm - Walked over to Abeno Harukas to check out the observatory here. The view was fantastic and they also had a fun little VR bungee jump station where they put you on a tilt table and simulate a jump from the observatory area. Didn’t have time to check out the helipad because I had a timed ticket for the aquarium (which didn’t end up being necessary, it wasn’t super busy at this time).
• 4:30pm - Osaka Aquarium! I honestly considered skipping this and I don’t think it was absolutely unmissable, but it was a fun time. I really tried to take my time here but it only took 2 hours.
• 6:30pm - Grabbed dinner at nearby Tempozan Marketplace, then went on the Tempozan Ferris Wheel (waited for one of the clear bottom carriages). Another fun activity that I wouldn’t categorize as a must-do, but definitely worth it if you’re in the area.

Walked: 20954 / 9.6 miles
Monday, June 5 - Hakone This is the part of the trip that I embarrassingly botched, but considering I had less than 2 weeks to plan the whole thing while working full time, I’m trying not to give myself too much shit for it.

• 10:30am - Arrive at Odawara Station and leave luggage in locker there (packed a day bag). Transfer to the train that will eventually take me to Gora Station
• 12pm - Gora Station. Grab a quick lunch at some random cafe and walk over to the Open Air Museum.
• 2pm - Realized I spent too long at the museum and rush to continue the loop. Spend about 30-45 minutes at Owakudani.
• 3:50pm - End up waiting at Togendai until 4:25pm for the next pirate ship.
• 4:50pm - Arrive at Motohakone and decide I’ll do the quick walk to Hakonemachi and catch a cab to my ryokan (checkin before 6 if I want to make it in time for dinner). My big mistake here was not noticing that the taxi stand was empty already by this time.
• 5:10pm - Realize I’ve screwed myself at Hakonemachi and decide to take the Tozan Bus to another major stop to get a taxi. Yunnessen seemed like a good bet but the taxi stand was once again totally empty. Ended up wandering around for about 20 minutes and managed to flag a stray taxi.
• 6pm - Check in and realize my dumb ass accidentally booked without the dinner option and that I could’ve taken the long way to the ryokan after all.
• 7pm - Stop by a nearby kaiseki place for dinner. They seemed a bit wary about having me eat there and really emphasized that this was a set menu that took a long time (probably had bad experiences with tourists in the past?).
• 8pm - Get cleaned up and head to the onsen before bed

Walked: 17975 / 8.2 miles
Reflections If you really want to stay in Hakone for only one night and one day, I would recommend checking into your hotel/ryokan the night before and relaxing there, which gives you the next full day for exploring the city. YMMV of course since I did get to Hakone in the late morning, but I think doing the loop then ryokan will inevitably feel like it’s cutting into ryokan time.
Even though the Hakone transportation system is great, things like the Tozan Bus line can have long lines and alternative/workaround routes like in the big cities don’t really exist. Tight schedules are tough to stick to, and I nearly got stranded because I stood at one of the taxi stops around 5pm and it became clear that no one was going to be coming by.
Booking.com has a lot of ryokans listed as minimum 2 people (I just bit the bullet and decided to splurge), but the staff at Senkyoro were confused about why I paid for 2 instead of 1. Could be good to try to check with the ryokan directly in case you can save some money when booking.
Tuesday, June 6 - Tokyo (Shinjuku, Shibuya)

• 6:30am - Leave for Odawara Station because I had to meet with a relative in the morning (like I said, definitely could’ve scheduled this better). Definitely misplanned this leg of the trip, and didn’t maximize my time in Hakone at all.
• 10:30am - After dropping off luggage at Asakusa Station locker near my hostel, met up at Shinjuku Gyoen, then walked around and grabbed lunch at Omoide Yokocho. Also stopped by Kabukicho and Golden Gai just to look around.
• 1:30pm - Originally planned to spend more time at Shinjuku and go to Shibuya the following day but I realized I didn’t have anything left to do. Walked to Shibuya and checked out the Hachiko Statue and Harajuku. Stopped by Iyoshi Cola. Shibuya Sky tickets were sold out so I had to come back the following day for my original reservation.
• 5pm - Hang out at Grandfather’s before dinner. Great place for people interested in listening bars!
• 6pm - Head back to my hostel (K’s House Tokyo Oasis) to check in, then swing over to Sensoji and Nakamise-dori to check out at night.
• 7:30pm - Grab dinner at Yoshikami, a Japanese style Western restaurant. Had a really good beef stew and cream corn potage. Went here in passing but would definitely recommend stopping by if you’re in the area.

Walked: 27632 / 12.8 miles
Wednesday, June 7 - Tokyo (Shibuya Sky, Akihabara, Bar Martha/Track) I spent a good chunk of my life in Shanghai, China, so I think the appeal of the big city stuff was a little lost on me (not a huge big city guy). In hindsight, I definitely didn’t need to allocate this many days for Tokyo. I definitely should’ve gone further to other areas for day trips that were recommended on the Discord, like Shimokitazawa, Jiyuugaoka, Koenji, Kamakura/Enoshima, Honmonji Ikegami, Yokohama, Nikko, or Fujikamaguchiko.

• 10am - Slept in and explored Nakamise-dori a bit after. Grabbed an early lunch and headed over to Shibuya for my Shibuya Sky reservation.
• 12:40pm - Shibuya Sky for a little over an hour. I wouldn’t consider a must-do, but it’s definitely a nice spot to get a good view of the city. Pretty similar vibe to Abeno Harukas (Harukas 300).
• 2pm - Headed to Akihabara to mess around for a little more and get some gifts for friends. Checked out all the different arcades and peeked at some rhythm gamers in their element.
• 6pm - Headed to Ebisu to grab dinner. Found a Japanese style Italian restaurant called “Uncle Tom” (Google translated name), used Google Lens to translate the photos of the menu and just pointed and ordered.
• 7pm - Stopped by Bar Martha, which was one of my personal must-sees. Some of the reviews online were pretty scathing, and I’m not sure if the staff have just mellowed out in recent years or the reviewers lacked self-awareness, but it was a great experience. You’re not allowed to talk too loudly or otherwise be disruptive (or take photos), but that’s really just your typical listening bar. The Tannoys sounded fantastic!
• 8pm - Went to Bar Track to check it out as well. A little bit more laidback than Bar Martha but with the same rules. Also a great spot.

Walked: 21181 steps / 10.3 miles
Thursday, June 8 - Tokyo

• 10am - Stopped by Tsukiji Outer Market to check it out. There was a fruit stall that sold a cup of Shine muscat grapes for about 2000 yen (super expensive but worth it just to try - they really were pretty amazing). Ended up meeting up with someone on the Discord for lunch, and we wandered Ginza for the Uniqlo and Muji flagship stores.
• 3pm - Split up with Discord buddy because he wanted to head to Shibuya but I had dinner reservations at 5pm. Wandered around a bit more and checked out Kabukiza and then went to Mantensushi Hibiya for 5pm omakase.
• 7pm - Went to Ginza Music Bar. A little difficult to find but very much worth the visit. It was relatively empty but it was a fantastic spot to round out my listening bar visits. It had a little more of a typical bar-like atmosphere but the music and sound system were just as amazing.
• 8pm - Head back to hostel to pack. Grabbed some last second ramen at Asakusashoten on the way back. Needed to be a little more intentional about cash usage here because I wanted to use it all up before leaving. After factoring in my subway and Skyliner costs, I ended up with 210 yen in my pocket and 7 yen in my Welcome Suica (I really should’ve just gotten a regular one) the next morning before my flight, and spent 200 yen at one of the massage chairs in Narita.

Walked: 19530 / 8.9 miles
Thursday, June 9 - Flight out from Tokyo

I really liked how he stepped up in S2 E9. He really came through because of his regard for Misty. I really though they we going to end up together at the Bed & Breakfast. I think sparks are at least starting to fly there. I read a lot of the posts here and I feel like people don't like him or don't want to see Misty/Walter (Malter? Mister?). Am I the only one hoping for them to happen? I think Misty deserves some happiness. She's so loyal even considering what she did to the blackbox.

If you recognize my username and play in my group, stop reading now.
Hey everyone! So I'm in a bit of a pickle here and could really use some help! I'm a fairly new DM but ive read through both the PHB and DMG.
A while back i found this thread about a monster under the bed.
https://www.reddit.com/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/rkvi4w/the\_monster\_under\_the\_bed\_a\_frightful\_fey\_packed/
I loved the theme and really wanted to work with it one day so i saved it and moved on with my life. Now recently in my first ever campaign im DM'ing we had two people interested in joining the group on a semi pemanent basis which would bring the PC count up to 7. Hefty number i know, a misstake i know., I'm getting to that hold on for a sec.
To introduce them to the group we decided to do a shorter adventure during the groups "downtime" between quests to introduce the new people to the group. Everyone was level 4 with the plan to reach lvl 5 after the day was saved. A perfect opportunity to save some kidnapped children and beat the monster under the bed i thought!
Anyhow, my first challenge was to pump up the CR of the bedmonster from 1 into something more apropriate, but how do you balance an encounter with 7 lvl 4s, cant be that hard i thought to myself. Off to Kobold fight club, find something apropriatly deadly since its a fight after a long rest. Add a dash of Fey based creature for the flavour. Autumn Eladrin seems like a good choice. CR10 with a medium difficulty.
The plan was to stop the monster from kidnapping a new child, the monster escapes, and then the group follows the monster into a well to save the quest child. Where they find a crying child, and run into the monster, slightly hurt from the previous scuffle. Enter the plottwist, the crying child turns into a second monster. Boom, Deadly fight. Very deadly fight. Boom, the group struggles but comes out on top in the end. Saves the children. Boom, the players are super satisfied with their achivement and that their grit and hard work payed off and they won a great victory. Boom, great session with great reviews of me. Everyone is happy.
Day of the adventure. The plothook sinks in deep, everyone is invested. They feel for the children. They end up at an orphanage where a child has already gone mising and a little 9 year old girl is putting on a brave face defending her adopted siblings from this monster with nothing but a wooden sword and a toy wolf. She pickpocketed gold from one of the adventurers a few days earlier to be able to equip all the kids with protective toys and wooden weapons. The girl is the monsters next target. The party has no idea what the monster is, all they know is that he has told the girl he is after her and that is enough for them to come for him. It's no longer about the money.
They all hide under blankets (Except the Goliath barbarian, they park his bum outside because he cant fit in a childs bed). While waiting they hear the monster taunt and try to lure Lily away from her blanket. He wants to play with her, give her candy, give her toys, the missing boy/brother misses her so much because she abandoned him, he calls for her in his sleep, he misses her so much that he cries every night. The table is shaking right now. Lily screams, everyone throws off their blankets in true super hero fashion witnessing Lily heroicially standing on her bed, wooden sword just dripping with the freshly cut smokey substance the monster is made of. By her side, her toy wolf Wilbur has grown in size and come alive, with buttons for eyes and yarn for fangs he growls at the monster while protecting Lily with his body. The monster, creaming in pain and reaching a panic from all the "grown ups" in the room.
Que an epic battle.
https://imgur.com/GJp1vVA
Monster statblock
Yeah nope. First on initiative, the wizard. Spawns a bloody Flaming Sphere right on top of the Monster, lighting him up and instantly discovering his weakness to light. Second on initative, the Goliath Path of the Giant Barbarian charges through the door like the Kool Aid man, frothing at the mouth with full rage on and grown to large size rushes the monster while screaming incoherent obscenitys and grapples the monster to the ground. The next two rounds concist of the barbarian pinning the monster to the ground while everyone else takes turns kicking the ever loving darkness out of him while the rest cheer them on.
The image is best portrayed by one white die surrounded by 6 black dice. Those who know they know. The monster did a total of 0 damage those two rounds. He took 116. I mean i know, action economy yadda yadda but jesus christ I did not expect this. This wasn't epic at all, it was a light warmup after breakfast. I made sure the damage output would be enough to down the casters in one hit and the tankier ones in two. With 2 attacks and the fear aura i was hoping to at least put some fear into them before skeddadling away with or without the poor child.
After the two rounds a few people had to run and we called it. The following 4 weeks were canceled due to scheduling conflicts before we gave up and went back to the original 5 players. Please help me make this a memorable experience.
This is the party as it stands
Path of the Giant Barbarian with GWM and dreams of becoming a Luchadore.
Banneret Fighter with 19 AC whose greatest joy is to hear my childlike waaaaaaaah as I miss.
Draconic Sorceror with 16 AC and Silvery Barbs ready to ruin every crit i get on the reckless barbarian.
Circle of the Moon druid who likes Bear form.
and finally a Evocation wizard who seems to always light things on fire by misstake.
So my plan right now is that the the wizards lights the orphanage on fire. Thats right, i prefer them to feel terrible over feeling bored. While everyone is trying to contain the fire she has started, again, the monster slips away.
Now, how the hell do i make this memorable. I have a few ideas.
1: Raise str or dex to escape grapple, possibly inherent disadvantage due to being actual darkness.
2: Give him a few lair actions when he retreats to his cave
- Summon smaller shadowmonsters to even out action economy. Im thinking kobold statblock or something similar with pack tactics so a few of them can take down the casters if left unattended
- An action that snuffs out all light sources
- Spellcasting once as a free action
3: Legendary actions
- Succeed a saving throw
- Envelop the room in darkness. Blind everyone and can only see him when adjacent for X turns. Can only be done once (Despite there being 2 of the monsters)
4: Make the lair cave larger with a few fights vs smaller shadowmonsters to drain the party of their resources.Twisted statues coming alive as crooked figures. Twisted paitings with deranged characters in them stepping out to attack the adventures. (I know this is the most reasonable choice but i would prefer not to make the lair a 3 session ordeal, and even then i would need your help to balance him)
5: Higher AC? Higher HP? Just prolong it long enough to get a few hits in and make them work for it?
6: Do nothing because there being 2 of them would be hard enough for 5 level 4 PC?
7: Base him off another monster entirely?
Please help me put the fear back into them =(

April 9 - April 26: Tokyo - Nanyo - Hakone - Kyoto - Osaka - Koyasan
We had two main goals for this trip to Japan: eat great food and see cherry blossoms. We had the best of both in the city of Nanyo in Yamagata prefecture. It's not a place that I've ever seen mentioned on Reddit or the western internet, so I wanted to share it with you all here.

What we learned

• Ship your luggage - The airport as well as every convenience store we walked into let us ship our luggage. This made traveling between cities significantly easier, and prices were always very reasonable. For single-night stays, we just packed what we needed for a single day and shipped our suitcases to the subsequent hotel.
• Google Maps is very helpful, but don't trust them for transfer times in public transit. We thought we were transit experts because we live in NYC, but the stations in Japan are even more complicated. Leave early if you need to catch a train.
• Almost all restaurants in Japan are good, but I'm somewhat of food snob. If you're like me, I recommend using Tabelog for reviews to find places that are a bit more special. The scoring is very different from western reviews. In general, anything above a 3.3 is very good. Scores are also significantly biased towards more expensive restaurants, so I'd recommend higher scores for fancier restaurants.
• Fruits and vegetables are relatively expensive and difficult to come by in Japan. We were able to get them at supermarkets, which can usually be found in the basement of any department store. Next time I'm in Japan, I'll consider bringing fiber supplements.
• Cherry Blossoms blooming times are very unpredictable. The Japan Meteorology Agency has a website with up to date cherry blossom predictions of over 1000 locations. Even if it doesn't have the exact cherry blossom site you want to visit, you're definitely going to see something close by. Websites of popular tourist destinations update the status of cherry blossoms as well.
• I recommend that you book hotels within 5 minutes walking distance from well-connected subway stations. A couple of our hotels were 10-15 minutes away from the station we needed to go to, so it was mildly irritating to repeat the same walk so often. In those places, there was actually a closer station, but if we took those, we'd have to transfer to a main station anyways.
• Standard hotel rooms have a double bed, which are about the same size as full sized beds in the US. If you're a move around a lot in your sleep like I do and want your partner to be well-rested, it's worth upgrading to a room that has a larger bed or two twins.
• If you're shopping, don't forget to bring your passport, so that you can get a duty free discount or refund.

Planning

• We booked our Hakone ryokan in January
• In February, we booked 3 fine dining restaurants, hotel in Kyoto, and temple lodging in Koyasan
• Saiho-ji (the moss temple in Kyoto) says that they require you to write an international postcard to request a reservation, and I saw that too late. Fortunately, there was also a Japanese website that let you make reservations, and we filled that out about a month in advanced with the help of Google translate. One of the fields required a Japanese address. We just used a friend's address, but you can probably use a hotel as well.
• Besides that, we booked all our other lodging and a week before our stay or less. A few times this wasn't best decision because our hotels were significantly more expensive this way.
• We left the first week in our trip very flexible, so that we could go somewhere that was in peak bloom during this time. We had a few places in mind, and ended up booking a ryokan in Nanyo the night before our stay there.
• Besides a few bucket list items, we figured that we'd be happy going anywhere. My wife and I made a shared Google map with all the sites that we found interesting without the intention of going to all of them and used that as a guide to choose what was convenient.

Tokyo Highlights

• I bought strawberries from a random department store, and an absurdly priced mango and orange from the Sembikiya flagship store. The strawberries were some of the best I had and worth the price of 1200 yen. The orange was tangier than any other orange we've had. However, you have to peel the thick membrane to fully appreciate it, and even then, I don't think it was worth anywhere close to 3500 yen. The mango was the most expensive at about 12000 yen, and everything about it was perfect. It was fragrant, the skin was thin, the texture was creamy, and it was as sweet as candy. It's hard to believe that this was grown from a plant.
• The real reason to go to Mori Art Museum is the stunning view of Tokyo. The main museum was closed, but we got to see an exhibit of Heatherwick Studio instead, which was more interesting than I expected.
• We loved the garden the Nezu Museum
• We went to Hotel Sara Kinshicho, a love hotel, and it was as fun as it looks on Youtube. The room was both more spacious and cheaper than most of our other hotel rooms. That said, it's a bit out of the way, so you should definitely ship your luggage to your next destination.
• We wanted to go to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant and settled on Kura Sushi. Considering that you're paying $1-$3 per plate, you shouldn't expect the highest quality of fish, but the eel was absolutely incredible. It seemed to be fresh off the grill and it was so saucy and fatty. I honestly enjoyed it more than the eel that I got from a dedicated unagi restaurant.
• The yakitori at New Torigin was amazing, especially the chicken skin. Perfectly charred and crispy.

Nanyo

As I mentioned before, Nanyo was the highlight of our trip. Despite being a small town, it had it's own distinct feeling and cuisine, and I think it deserves more love. I definitely shouldn't have been able to book a last minute ryokan reservation during peak Cherry Blossom season.

• After arriving in Nanyo, we ate some dessert near the station nearby. We then took a train known as the Flower Nagai Line. On the train, you can see cherry blossoms, snowcapped mountains, and pass sleepy villages. We stopped at Koguwa Station.
• There is a famous soba restaurant close by. It was a 30 minute walk, but I was really in the mood for some soba. Unfortunately, we arrived, we found out that the shop is temporarily closed because the owner broke his arms. It was around this time when I think I spotted an eagle catching a snake.
• Fortunately, we still had some sweets leftover and the weather was perfect for walking. We walked to a spot which has a small cherry blossom festival. One of the trees there was over 1200 years old, yet it was still blooming strong!
• We took the Flower line back to Nanyo and checked into our ryokan, Morinoyu. We didn't see any English speakers in their staff, so my wife's basic Japanese was definitely helpful. Service was excellent, despite our communication barrier.
• For dinner, we went to 食楽亭 旭屋, which specializes in beef. Despite going to several more expensive restaurants, this was by far my favorite meal in Japan and one of the top two meals of my life. We had their specialty Shabu Shabu with their local Yonezawa beef. I don't think it was graded A5, but I honestly don't think that mattered as it still had wonderful marbling and melted in your mouth. To eat it, you take a thin slice of beef and wrap it around a bunch of spring vegetables. The mild freshness and crispness of the vegetables perfectly compliments the fatty beef. It's kind of like eating a Korean ssam but in reverse, which is so much better because you primarily taste the beef instead of the vegetable.
• After dinner, we walked around Eboshiyama Park, nearby. It's a hill with hundreds of cherry trees in full blossom. It also features the largest torii made out of a single stone. It was after dark, but they light it up at night which gives the park its own sort of beauty.
• We went back to our ryokan and soaked in the public onsens. The water had a slight sulphurous smell though I think that actually enhances the authenticity of the spring water.
• The following day, we went back to Eboshiyama Park. During the daytime, the park was even more beautiful. It felt like I was walking in Shinkai film. The best part is that there were the perfect number of people. Sometimes, you feel like you have to the park to yourself, but there are still enough to make the atmosphere more lively.

Hakone

• We went up the Hakone Ropeway. Fortunately the sky was clear and we got to see Mt. Fuji on Owakudani. We didn't have time to complete the entire loop, so we turned back from there. If you're in a hurry like us, I definitely recommend taking the bus instead of the train and cable car, which were painfully slow. We barely made it to our ryokan before their last check in time.
• Our ryokan we stayed in was Yama No Chaya. Despite being highly recommended on this sub, I personally would not recommend it. Don't get me wrong. We had fun, and it met 90% of our expectations, but it's fair to expect that extra 10% after spending almost $700. Our meals were rushed, especially breakfast. Our attendant kept on reminding us that check out was at 10:00 am despite having plenty of time. I think they were short-staffed because he always had the expression of being overwhelmed. One of the public onsens had a thin layer of oil in it, which likely came from a guest who didn't shower themselves properly. Our private onsen was beautiful, but they locked the door to the outside because there was construction underneath.
• The Open Air Museum featured a lot of interesting sculptures, and we took the bus there this time.

Kyoto Highlights

• Fushimi Inari is as lovely as it appears on social media. We arrived at 9 am, which we thought was late, but there were fewer people than I expected, especially in the upper area.
• Roketsu is a fun studio where you can make your own indigo textiles. It is much easier than it looks to make something beautiful.
• Saiho-ji is a Japanese Buddhist temple that features a large garden covered in 120 types of moss. Due the limited reservations, our visit was quite peaceful.
• My favorite overall dinner in Kyoto was Soba-no-Mi Yoshimura. They have an English menu, but their Japanese menu has a lot more options, such as the 100% buckwheat soba that I ordered. My wife got the traditional nishin (herring) soba, which was also delicious. The best part was honestly the tempura.
• We had a couple of traditional Kyoto-style kaisekis, and both were excellent. Iharada was a great overall value and service was impeccable. Kiyama was more of a splurge, but also worth the price. Every other tasting menu I've experienced has aimed to present dishes with a wow factor, but each course here elegantly embodied delicacy.

Osaka Highlights

• I've never seen dolphins so active than the ones at the Osaka Aquarium.
• Hajime is a 3 Michelin star restaurant where I had the most exquisite meal I've ever had in my life. Every course was a work of art. I posted a full review on /finedining.
• We had Okonomiyaki and yakisoba at Ajikuraya. It was a tiny fraction of the price of our previous dinner, but equally as memorable.

Koyasan

• Our last stop was Koyasan, a mountain with a Buddhist temple settlement. Honestly, at this point, we were all templed-out, but it still offered a distinct experience from the other ones we've visited.
• We stayed at Ichijo-In, which is a functioning temple and lodging of pilgrims. We aren't religious, but almost all of the other guests seemed to be quite serious. The walls of the temple are quite thin, and it got quite chilly in April, so I'd be cautious if you want to book this in the winter.

I was watching shorts tonight and started feeling real nostalgic. I’m a nurse and about 7 years ago I started my first job working 11p-7a. I enjoyed it but was also very stressed/anxious. I remember coming home each morning, eating a light breakfast/chugging water, brushing teeth, etc. And then snuggling up in my bed, watching GMM and GMMore. During those moments I felt so peaceful and I know that mindset helped me sleep. I still watch GMM every morning but look back on that time so fondly. Curious if anyone else has similar experiences to share? ♥️

If you recognize my username and play in my group, stop reading now.
Hey everyone! So I'm in a bit of a pickle here and could really use some help! I'm a fairly new DM but ive read through both the PHB and DMG.
A while back i found this thread about a monster under the bed.
https://www.reddit.com/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/rkvi4w/the_monster_under_the_bed_a_frightful_fey_packed/
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I loved the theme and really wanted to work with it one day so i saved it and moved on with my life. Now recently in my first ever campaign im DM'ing we had two people interested in joining the group on a semi pemanent basis which would bring the PC count up to 7. Hefty number i know, a misstake i know., I'm getting to that hold on for a sec.
To introduce them to the group we decided to do a shorter adventure during the groups "downtime" between quests to introduce the new people to the group. Everyone was level 4 with the plan to reach lvl 5 after the day was saved. A perfect opportunity to save some kidnapped children and beat the monster under the bed i thought!
Anyhow, my first challenge was to pump up the CR of the bedmonster from 1 into something more apropriate, but how do you balance an encounter with 7 lvl 4s, cant be that hard i thought to myself. Off to Kobold fight club, find something apropriatly deadly since its a fight after a long rest. Add a dash of Fey based creature for the flavour. Autumn Eladrin seems like a good choice. CR10 with a medium difficulty.
The plan was to stop the monster from kidnapping a new child, the monster escapes, and then the group follows the monster into a well to save the quest child. Where they find a crying child, and run into the monster, slightly hurt from the previous scuffle. Enter the plottwist, the crying child turns into a second monster. Boom, Deadly fight. Very deadly fight. Boom, the group struggles but comes out on top in the end. Saves the children. Boom, the players are super satisfied with their achivement and that their grit and hard work payed off and they won a great victory. Boom, great session with great reviews of me. Everyone is happy.
Day of the adventure. The plothook sinks in deep, everyone is invested. They feel for the children. They end up at an orphanage where a child has already gone mising and a little 9 year old girl is putting on a brave face defending her adopted siblings from this monster with nothing but a wooden sword and a toy wolf. She pickpocketed gold from one of the adventurers a few days earlier to be able to equip all the kids with protective toys and wooden weapons. The girl is the monsters next target. The party has no idea what the monster is, all they know is that he has told the girl he is after her and that is enough for them to come for him. It's no longer about the money.
They all hide under blankets (Except the Goliath barbarian, they park his bum outside because he cant fit in a childs bed). While waiting they hear the monster taunt and try to lure Lily away from her blanket. He wants to play with her, give her candy, give her toys, the missing boy/brother misses her so much because she abandoned him, he calls for her in his sleep, he misses her so much that he cries every night. The table is shaking right now. Lily screams, everyone throws off their blankets in true super hero fashion witnessing Lily heroicially standing on her bed, wooden sword just dripping with the freshly cut smokey substance the monster is made of. By her side, her toy wolf Wilbur has grown in size and come alive, with buttons for eyes and yarn for fangs he growls at the monster while protecting Lily with his body. The monster, creaming in pain and reaching a panic from all the "grown ups" in the room.
Que an epic battle.
https://imgur.com/GJp1vVA
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Monster statblock
Yeah nope. First on initiative, the wizard. Spawns a bloody Flaming Sphere right on top of the Monster, lighting him up and instantly discovering his weakness to light. Second on initative, the Goliath Path of the Giant Barbarian charges through the door like the Kool Aid man, frothing at the mouth with full rage on and grown to large size rushes the monster while screaming incoherent obscenitys and grapples the monster to the ground. The next two rounds concist of the barbarian pinning the monster to the ground while everyone else takes turns kicking the ever loving darkness out of him while the rest cheer them on.
The image is best portrayed by one white die surrounded by 6 black dice. Those who know they know. The monster did a total of 0 damage those two rounds. He took 116. I mean i know, action economy yadda yadda but jesus christ I did not expect this. This wasn't epic at all, it was a light warmup after breakfast. I made sure the damage output would be enough to down the casters in one hit and the tankier ones in two. With 2 attacks and the fear aura i was hoping to at least put some fear into them before skeddadling away with or without the poor child.
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After the two rounds a few people had to run and we called it. The following 4 weeks were canceled due to scheduling conflicts before we gave up and went back to the original 5 players. Please help me make this a memorable experience.
This is the party as it stands Path of the Giant Barbarian with GWM and dreams of becoming a Luchadore. Banneret Fighter with 19 AC whose greatest joy is to hear my childlike waaaaaaaah as I miss.
Draconic Sorceror with 16 AC and Silvery Barbs ready to ruin every crit i get on the reckless barbarian.
Circle of the Moon druid who likes Bear form.
and finally a Evocation wizard who seems to always light things on fire by misstake.
So my plan right now is that the the wizards lights the orphanage on fire. Thats right, i prefer them to feel terrible over feeling bored. While everyone is trying to contain the fire she has started, again, the monster slips away.
Now, how the hell do i make this memorable. I have a few ideas.
1: Raise str or dex to escape grapple, possibly inherent disadvantage due to being actual darkness.
2: Give him a few lair actions when he retreats to his cave - Summon smaller shadowmonsters to even out action economy. Im thinking kobold statblock or something similar with pack tactics so a few of them can take down the casters if left unattended
- An action that snuffs out all light sources
- Spellcasting once as a free action
3: Legendary actions
- Succeed a saving throw - Envelop the room in darkness. Blind everyone and can only see him when adjacent for X turns. Can only be done once (Despite there being 2 of the monsters)
4: Make the lair cave larger with a few fights vs smaller shadowmonsters to drain the party of their resources.Twisted statues coming alive as crooked figures. Twisted paitings with deranged characters in them stepping out to attack the adventures. (I know this is the most reasonable choice but i would prefer not to make the lair a 3 session ordeal, and even then i would need your help to balance him)
5: Higher AC? Higher HP? Just prolong it long enough to get a few hits in and make them work for it?
6: Do nothing because there being 2 of them would be hard enough for 5 level 4 PC?
7: Base him off another monster entirely?
Please help me put the fear back into them =(

I'm 24(M). Afab but transitioned FtM as a teen. I have Autism, BPD, and ADHD. I've been suffering from depression from these combined problem since I was 14, though I struggled in life before that. I never got the proper help I needed with my ADHD and ended up getting my GED after dropping out at 16. I never went to college-I don't really see the point for the average person who isn't going into a medical feild or science or academic etc. feild. I wasn't diagnosed with autism until I was 19, and by then it was too late for any intervention to help. I go through life spending so much time masking I hardly know who I am, and I have one friend outside of my mother and grandmother-my cousin. I'm single, very solitary, and thanks to the autism I severely struggle to connect with, communicate with, and even just Meet new people. I'm not the brightest. Sure, I'm self aware and have decent common sense, but when it comes to just about anything that requires a quick wit, good memory, or academic knowledge, I just don't do well. Never have, especially in school. Got my IQ tested and got a lower than average score for a below average processing speed.
My hobbies and passions can be summed up as gaming, writing, drawing, youtube, and cats. I have an okay job, above minimum wage but not very high, full time, night shifts, 40 hour work week. I have a car, its crummy but I have one. Got my license at 23. Smoke weed and drink alcohol to feel good before I go to bed at night, hide the alcohol from my family though. I'm not dependent (yet) but I know I'm heading down that slippery slope, I just can't compell myself to stop.
I never had an idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up, as a kid. After I grew out of the usual responses (I wanna be a wolf when I grow up!) it fell rapidly into a whole lot of... oh... I don't know...
I love animals. Most animal oriented careers though... don't think I've got skin tough enough for that shit, heartbreaking stuff a lot of the time. Heartwarming stuff too, but I could never handle the heartbreaking stuff. I love video games, but I just don't have the brains and skills needed to design or make them. Would never do art as a career, I wanna keep loving it-I know I'd learn to hate it if I had to do it to survive.
I'm what my cousin calls a "Pessimistic nihilist." I follow the concept that in the grand scheme of things there is no such thing as a great cosmic purpose and no inherent meaning to being alive. I know that some people honest feel better knowing that, but I guess that's where the pessimism comes in. For me, it makes it worse, honestly, because I have a hard time giving myself purpose. So the fact that, inherently, there is not purpose to life in the first place just makes it all the tougher to slog along.
I've worked retail, worked on farms, even worked taking inventory for retail companies. My current job is a pretty lazy job working night security for a coprorate building. Mostly just watching cameras, walking around, and watching TV. Pays better than any of the other jobs I've had, ironically...
I don't want to do this forever, though. I want to do something with purpose, something where I can have a house one day.
The thing is... I don't see that happening. I don't see myself as capable of having a purpose. All this time, slogging through the bullshit of life with a permanently malfunctioning brain, I'm tired. I haven't even glimpsed a sense of purpose yet, and I get it. I get that it's supposed to be 'normal at this age.' But I just don't know if I've got it in me. I'm pretty damn skeptical that theres a light at the end of my tunnel. And if there is, and it's just so far away I can't see it yet? I don't know if I have enough Go left in me to make it there. Wherever there is meant to be. A lot of people never find a purpose. I fear I'm one of them. I don't know what to do. Living in my bedroom, in my grandmother's house, lonely, isolate, depressed. I just want to go to sleep and not wake up, I'm just tired of this hopelessness. And it's almost scary, because I don't know what to do anymore. With every step I take in life, I feel further and further away from meaning something to anyone-even just myself. I want to be happy. I want to succeed. But I've worked so hard and got so... not far. I think I'm too slow. Could never keep up with my peers, socially or academically. And it's just getting worse as I get older. I lag further and further behind the people around me, I accomplish less and less, and I'm still practically a kid, as far as most older folks will tell me. And yet I'm exhausted. So I just don't know what to do.
Feels like I'm standing on a rope suspended high in there air, and I can't see anything under me. The only way off it is to jump, but if I jump I don't know where I'm gonna land. Don't know if there's a net, don't know if it'll be a leap of faith or a suicide, don't have the energy in me to walk the rope anymore, though. All turned around, too, so if I did walk that rope I could easily just end up back at square one. Or just fall off anyway.
I need help. I'm on medication, been in therapy since I was a teen. But I'm lost. Seems like it's only getting worse, even with all that help. I don't know what I need... but I need something. Cause sometimes, when I wake up... I find myself hoping there isn't a net under that metaphorical rope, and that if I jump it can just be over. I want to get better. I don't know if I can.

Hello, and welcome to my destash! Selling off the majority of my Poesie FS & sample collection, as well as a bunch of Arcana FS discontinued and current catalog scents. I also have a couple dozen Arcana Craves available for decanting! And as always, hundreds upon hundreds of other perfumes from almost any house imaginable!
🎈 From now until end of day Sunday 6/11, get free US shipping on any order $55 and up! Will also deduct equivalent cost from international shipping for folks outside the US!🎈
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Click here to view my spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P7e9eQaZ8zfztiYp1_ZHSmXC7yN3xbKDNkGQ328HWKs/edit?usp=sharing
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IMPORTANT INFO AT A GLANCE:
-There are 3 tabs on my spreadsheet:
Indie FS and House Sample Perfumes;
Custom Indie Decants,
Niche/Mainstream Perfumes
-Shipping to the US is a flat $4.25, while shipping to CAN and EUR will be quoted but usually ranges from $14-$16. I usually ship within 3-4 days, and will pack your perfumes with much love, care, and bubble wrap!😊
Spreadsheet link again — https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P7e9eQaZ8zfztiYp1_ZHSmXC7yN3xbKDNkGQ328HWKs/edit?usp=sharing
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DECANT DEALS:
- 5mL rollerball decants of Wylde Ivy EDPs for $10 (choices include Chasing Dreams, Honeysuckle Sun, Mist & Moonlight and Lovesick & Undead)
- 5mL rollerball decants of Solstice Scents EDPs for $16 (choices include EDPs of Foxcroft and Witch/s Cottage)
- 5mL rollerball decants of Haus of Gloi EDPs for $9 (choices include Forest Rain, Haus Amber At Midnight, Haus Birthday, Hearth, Pumpkin Eater, Red Roan, Real Coal, Snow Wolf, Silver Bells)
- 5mL rollerball decants of Alkemia Alcohol-free EDPs for $13 (choices include Frondescence and Fireflies in the Garden)
- 5mL rollerball decants of CocoaPink EDPs for $8 (choices include Lipstick Stains in SMAT strength)
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A note about decants: Accuracy and cleanliness are my highest priorities when decanting. I ensure that every single decant is filled to the correct volume – not even a drop less! My decants will generally come in screw top jars with a reducer and printed, easy-to-read labels. The following brands will come in vials instead of jars (unless you get 2mLs or more, in which case they’ll come in jars): Alpha Musk, Death & Floral, Possets, Haus of Gloi, and Hexennacht. I decant with disposable, single-use 1mL pipettes and check my work with a scale to ensure accurate fill.
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Here is just a small sampling of what is available, there is so much more on the spreadsheet! For most updated availability, please check the spreadsheet first, as that is updated regularly & is most accurate!
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Poesie (FS and house samples):
Ada Lovelace FS
Aditi FS
Anne of Cleves FS
Artemis EDP (Parfum Extrait) FS
Borrowed Sugar EDP (Parfum Extrait) FS partial
Boudicca FS
Brooding Wings FS
Castle Dracula FS
Crowned FS
Cybele FS partial
Cybele EDP (Parfum Extrait) FS partial
Danann Fein FS
Daydreams EDP (Parfum Extrait) FS
Demimonde FS
Desert Goblin FS
Fan Dance FS
Folly of Love FS
Georgia O Keefe FS ⭐️
Headmaster FS
Illuminated FS
Just Like Heaven FS partial
Marie Curie FS
Medusa FS
Mysterious Fossils EDP (Parfum Extrait) FS
Perfect Happiness FS
Poison Pen Lane FS
Radiant FS
Rentimei FS
Ritual EDP (Parfum Extrait) FS partial
Scholomance FS
Shield Maiden FS
Strawberry Party FS
The Empress FS
The Perfect Tree FS (2 available)
Thought & Memory FS
Tiny Phantom FS
Titania FS ⭐️
Two Dances With Darcy FS
Winter Idyl FS
Young Romantics FS ⭐️
A Thousand Warriors (labelled as Tomoe Gozen) 2mL ⭐️
Alice Ball 2mL
Byronic Hero 2mL
Christmas Magic 2mL
Clara 2mL
Curiouser and Curiouser 2mL
Daydreams 2mL
Dessert First 2mL
Desert Goblin 2mL
Embrace 2mL
Fan Dance 2mL
Gingerbread Kittens 2.3mL chonk
Green Knight 2mL
Hygge 2mL
Knightley 2mL
Lagniappe IX 2mL
Lagniappe VIII 2mL
Magnolia Black Tea 2mL
Morning Mayhem 2mL
Nutcracker Prince 2mL
Opening Chapter 2mL
Opening Chapter 2mL
Plaid Shirt 2mL
Queen Bee 2mL
Queen of Hearts 2mL
Seelie Court 2mL ⭐️
Strange Unearthly Thing 2mL
The Perfect Tree 2mL
Tomoe Gozen (A Thousand Warriors) 2mL ⭐️
Waltz of the Snowflakes 2mL
Watson 2mL (2 available)
Year Without Summer 2mL
Black Cat Cuddles
Boudicca
Daydreams
Demimonde (2 available)
Elizabeth
Glowing
Hoyden (2 available)
Jo
Poison Pen Lane (2 available)
Lush
Northmen
Shire Yuletide (2 available)
Something Fierce
Tempus Fugit
Windsor
Woman Triumphant
Worth a Stare
Yet to be Written
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Alkemia FS and house samples:
Amour Conjure FS
De La Foret FS
Forest Rose FS
La Sirena FS partial
Vanille Vert (Vintage Reserve) FS partial
Yuletide Blessing FS
Evil Temptress
Hearthstone
La Flamme
Sea Goddess
The Sybilla (Ultime)
Vixen (beautifully aged batch, long discontinued)
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Alkemia decantables ($4/mL):
ALL FULL SIZES LISTED ABOVE CAN BE DECANTED, plus the following
Fireflies in the Garden (alcohol free EDP)
Frondescence (alcohol free EDP)
June Rainbow Alchemy
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Alpha Musk FS and house samples:
Amber Rose FS
Aretha FS
Baby Hairs FS
Beastress FS
Celestial Musk FS partial
Cristille FS
Dreaming of the Past FS
Fling FS
Hard Luck FS
Madame Moustache FS
Orange FS
Orange Blossom to the Tune of Jo Mo FS partial
Ovary FS
Pass The Jug FS
Stone Musk FS
The Noble Sloth FS
Velvet Fir FS
Whispers at the Altar FS
Rose Myrrh Musk Soda Pop 2mL dram
The Naked Witch 1.5mL dram
After Dinner Mints
Alice in Her Uniform
Bubbly Amber
Cheery
Cup of Tea Musk
Flustered
Hair Flip
Idle Ideals
Poe
Stone Musk
Sweet Dreams
Vroom
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Alpha Musk Decantables ($3.50/mL):
ALL FULL SIZES LISTED ABOVE CAN BE DECANTED, plus the following:
Greige
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Alchemic Muse FS and house samples:
Gillyflower FS
Temptation FS
Phantasm
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Andromeda’s Curse FS and house samples:
Firefly Hollow FS
Hex FS
Unicorn
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Arcana Wildcraft FS and house samples:
Note that any FS can be decanted at $5/mL!
Aquila FS ⭐️
Black Sand FS
Crossing FS
Forest Witch FS
Gideon FS
Grainne Mhaol FS
Hooded Lady FS ⭐️
Jinx FS
Love FS
Maman Brigitte FS
My Heart Was Like The Weather When You Came FS ⭐️
Nott FS
Persephone’s Flowers FS 10mL
Skookum FS
Waterfall FS partial
Delicatus
Herne
​Spark
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Arcana Wildcraft decantables ($5/mL):
ALL FULL SIZES LISTED ABOVE CAN BE DECANTED, plus the following:
Cascadian Mermaid
Trust
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Arcana Craves FS and samples:
Note that all FS listed below can be decanted at $5 per mL!
Apples Crave Leafy Seadragons FS ⭐️
Apples Crave Peaches FS ⭐️
Black Musk Layering Note FS
Blueberries Crave Garden Parties FS ⭐️
Caramel Layering Note FS ⭐️
Honey Craves Festivals FS
Moss Layering Note FS
Pumpkins Crave Wraiths FS
Pumpkins Crave Viola FS
Strawberries Crave Nyx FS partial
Strawberries Crave Summer FS
Vanilla Craves Sparkly Dresses FS ⭐️
Honey Craves Sunshowers ⭐️
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Arcana Craves decantables ($5/mL):
ALL FULL SIZES LISTED ABOVE CAN BE DECANTED, plus the following:
Apples Crave Flora
Apples Crave Leafy Seadragons
Apples Crave Peaches ⭐️
Apples Crave Resins
Apples Crave The Tropics
Blueberries Crave Garden Parties
Fresh Coconut Layering Note
Honey Craves Fairy Rings
Honey Craves Hungry Ghosts ⭐️
Honey Craves Paradise
Lemon Shortbread Layering Note
Peaches Crave Mambo
Peaches Crave Mermaidcore
Peaches Crave Rainbow Starfish ⭐️
Pumpkins Crave Quietude
Pumpkins Crave Bacon ⭐️
Red Lipstick Layering Note
Vanilla Craves Forest Rituals
Whipped Cream Layering Note
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Astrid FS and house samples:
Chalet FS
Dreaming of October FS partial
Merci 26 FS partial
Nostalgic FS partial
Trinkets and Feathers FS
Rouge Fumee
Woods Whispering About You Fondly (2 available)
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Astrid Decantables ($4/mL or $7 for 2mL):
ALL FULL SIZES LISTED ABOVE CAN BE DECANTED, plus the following:
Tea Time
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Balefire Apothecary FS:
Valkyrie
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Black Baccara FS:
​Conifer Farm FS partial
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Blooddrop FS:
A Multitude of Stars on a Hot Summers Night
The Restless Mare
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Blood Moon Botanica FS and samples:
Samhain Night FS
Autumn Camp
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BPAL FS and house samples:
V’al Hanissim Yule 2019 FS
Anubis
Cleric (RPG Series) ⭐️
Delight
Eclipse
The Ghost
Ut Ameris, Amabilis Esto
White Rabbit
Yemaya
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CocoaPink decantables:
Lipstick Stains EDP 5mL rollerball decant
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Darling Clandestine FS bottles:
Monstre Delicat (2022 formula)
Serpentina
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Deconstructing Eden 5mL bottles and house samples:
Cross My Heart 5mL partial
It Can't Rain All The Time 5mL rollerball decant
Pisces 5mL partial
The Bride 5mL partial
The Nice List 5mL partial
Solace
Under The Mistletoe
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Deconstructing Eden Decantables ($6.00 for 2mLs):
In The Gloaming
It Can't Rain All The Time
Pumpkins Revenge
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Death & Floral FS and house samples:
Decomposing Roses For A Decomposing Romance (rice bran oil base) FS
Deer Deer Deer FS
Yellow Rose EDP FS
Coconut Chia Seed Pudding (discontinued)
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Death & Floral Decantables ($5.00 for 2mL):
Swamp Elixir EDP
The People You Love Become Ghosts EDP
Yellow Rose EDP
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Fantome FS and samples:
Madame d’Esperance 10mL roller
Coyoacan (2 available) ⭐️
Koschei the Deathless ⭐️
Kupala ⭐️
Lycanthorpe ⭐️
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Fyrinnae FS and house samples:
Isle of the Dead FS
Jungle Cat FS
Danse Macabre
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Haus of Gloi FS and house samples:
Black Musk, Red Ginger, & Clove FS
Ferntree Gully FS partial
Hearth FS
Iced Resin FS
Lumps of Coal FS
Mama’s Haus FS
Nag Champa FS
Precious Resins and Snowy Fir FS
Iced Resin FS
Priestess FS
​
Haus of Gloi Retired Catalog Decantables ($4.00/mL):
ALL FULL SIZES LISTED ABOVE CAN BE DECANTED, plus the following:
Iced Earth
Portland Rain
Winter Rain
​
Haus of Gloi EDP Decantables ($3.00/mL or $9.00 for 5mL roller):
Come Hither EDP
Depravity EDP
Forest Rain EDP
Haus Amber At Midnight EDP
Haus Birthday EDP
Hearth EDP
Pumpkin Eater EDP
Real Coal EDP
Red Roan EDP
Silver Bells EDP
Snow Wolf EDP
​
Hagroot FS and drams:
Haunted Rose 3.7mL dram
New Orleans 3.7mL dram
​
Hexennacht FS and house samples:
Black Musk FS
Fougere Accord EDP (Parfum Extrait) FS
Espiritismo 4mL square dram
Strychnine 3.7mL dram
Green Musk
Killer Queen (2 available)
Morphine
Prehnite
Rhubarb & Custard
Take Me To Church ⭐️
​
Moonalisa FS bottles:
Cranberry Spiced Cookie
Sugared Forest
​
NAVA FS and samples:
Amethyst (Studio Limited) FS partial
Artemisia Crypta Obscura Half Bottle
Avatar FS ⭐️
Bastet's Potion Studio No. 113 FS
Bewitched Crypta Obscura Half Bottle
Breath of Gods: Ra Crypta Obscura Half Bottle 🌸
Cardamom & Anise Tea Crypta Obscura Half Bottle 🌸
Crimson (Studio Limited) (Aged batch) FS partial
Crystalline # 7 Crypta Obscura Half Bottle🌸
Dragon’s Eye FS partial
Ederra FS partial
Eternal Cairo FS
Eternal Nile FS
Hat en Tjhenu FS
Isis FS
Krimson FS
Magnifique FS
Mr Belgraves FS
NAliday Tree 2021 FS
Neon Vampire FS
Purple Musk FS ⭐️
Shield FS
Strength FS partial
Sucre Crypta Obscura Half Bottle 🌸
Yulunga FS
Bastet’s Caramel Swirl 2mL house sample
Egyptian Musk & Santalum Deux 2mL house sample
Eternal Aswan 2mL house sample
Hadean Eon 2mL house sample
Heliotrope Crystalline 2mL house sample
Ice Cream and Summer Rose 2mL house sample
Jack o Lantern 2mL house sample
Nikolav 2mL house sample
Nut & Geb (Meditations W The Gods) 2mL house sample
Papaya White Santalum 2mL house sample
Ptah 2mL house sample
Royal Sandalwood: Jasmine 2mL house sample
Solaris 2mL house sample
Symbiosis 2mL house sample (partial)
Tibetan Santalum 2mL house sample (partial)
Vetiver & Woods 2mL house sample
Amethyst (Studio Limited)
Amulet
Bastet Amber Solar Summer
Bastet's Bewildering Contessa Biscuit
Beauty’s Where You Find It
Blue Topaz (Studio Limited)
Crimson Elixir
Crystalline # 2
Dionysus
Envie Exclusif - Saphir Soir ⭐️ 💎
Envie Exclusif - Saphir Indira ⭐️ 💎
Eternal Ankh Rose de Mai ⭐️
Forest Musk
Go Halainn
Hat en Tjhenu
Indigo (Studio Limited)
Indigo / Crystalline Deux
Loveasaurus
Orchid Yellow
Pink Lemonade Tropical Fish
Pink Quartz (Studio Limited)
Purple Musk
Royal Sandalwood Jasmine
Royal Sandalwood Rose
Smoked Tea and Amber Resin
Solaris
Sommeil l'Ete '22
Tobacco Musk
​​
PULP Fragrance FS and house samples:
An Accidental Interloper FS 10mL roller bottle
Cathedral of Trees 4mL roller
Embrace 4mL roller
Fortune Favors 4mL roller
Hauntology FS 6mL amber bottle
Luna Violacea FS 10mL roller
Mark of the Moon FS 6mL amber bottle
New Snow Moon FS 10mL roller bottle
Sanctuary FS 4mL roller
Still Life FS 4mL roller
When What to My Wandering Eyes FS 4mL roller partial
Accidental Interloper
Hallowed Ground
​
PULP Fragrance Decantables ($4.5/mL):
ALL FULL SIZES LISTED ABOVE CAN BE DECANTED in smaller 1mL units as well!
​
Sixteen92 FS and house samples:
Erineyes FS partial
Ex Tenebris Lux (from original release) FS partial
Lafayette Cemetery No 1 FS
The Island of The Dolls (From original 2016 release) FS partial
Wise Blood FS
Aquila
Be Careful What You Wish For
Blanket of the Dark (From original 2016 release)
Bridget Bishop (Premium)
Laudanum (Premium)
Les Fleurs de Mal (Premium)
Really Most Sincerely Dead! ⭐️
​
Sixteen92 Decantables ($4.50/mL):
All of the FS listed above are decantable, plus:
Gryla
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes EDP
​
Solstice Scents FS and house samples:
Coquina ⭐️
Devils Milhopper FS partial ⭐️
Farmhouse in Summer FS ⭐️
First Flush FS
Flowers Nocturnal FS partial
Gulf Breeze FS
Monarch FS 10mL ⭐️
Night Watcher FS
Outpost FS partial ⭐️
Riverside Hayride FS 10mL ⭐️
Rose Leather FS
Solstice Kyphi FS
Heart of the Night
Manor EDP
Old Havana
​
Solstice Scents Decantables ($4.50/mL)
Special deal! Buy a 5mL decant rollerball of any EDP for $16!
ALL FULL SIZES LISTED ABOVE CAN BE DECANTED, plus the following
Foxcroft EDP
Witches Cottage EDP
​
Stereoplasm FS and house samples (pocket rollers and screw top vials:
Lasseiz Faire FS (4.5mL) ⭐️
Monster Frog FS (4.5mL) ⭐️
Golden Hour FS (4.5mL)
Blue Magpie
Comet Corn
Dark Dark
Mogwai
Tamias (Chipmunk)
The Green Ribbon
Venusian Moon
​
Strange Fire & Fumery FS bottles:
Swallow
​
Sucreabeille FS and samples:
Atlantis FS
Azrael FS
Chthulu (Elder God) FS
The Kraken FS
​
Wylde Ivy FS and samples:
​Chasing Dreams 5mL decant
Barefoot in the Garden (Perfume oil version) FS roller
Honeysuckle Sun 5mL decant
Lovesick and Undead 5mL decant
Mist and Moonlight 5mL decant
Pumpkin Ambre
​
Whisper Sisters FS:
Cellar - LE discontinued
Dominula
Gamayun
Smitten Kitten
The Witch
Winter Rose
​
Spreadsheet link again — https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P7e9eQaZ8zfztiYp1_ZHSmXC7yN3xbKDNkGQ328HWKs/edit?usp=sharing

So I've been thinking for a while if I should document some of the history I had with my ex who I was with for almost 10 years. Partially to shed a light on warning signs that I was too naive to notice and also to ask advice on how others got over their experiences and deal with any problems in new relationships that bring back those feelings.
For record I did go to my GP who referred me to counseling sessions. Unfortunately those were only 12 free sessions on the NHS and the therapist I was assigned just kept referring me books to read and "homework" such as saying out loud 3 things I'm happy about in my life before bed... Often she just talked about the lack of funding from the government and such.
So I finally left my ex in 2016 ish, I was on antidepressants, occasionally beta blockers for the panic attacks and birth control, all of which made my mood go up and down like a rollercoaster. I was absolutely miserable and one day it just kind of hit me that I have to leave, it's me or this forever?
We started dating when I was 20/21 and he was 5 years older than me. We met because of an online game and he worked with my older brother. My brother gave me his in game character name incase I needed help. I started chatting to him in the game and he came to see my character, he showed me around and it started like that. I was going away for a weekend to a youth group camping event and he joked wasn't I going to ask for his number to keep talking and so I did. During the weekend I met someone my age at some of the events and had a lot of fun with, we had similar jokes and I thought he was really attractive. We added eachothers emails to keep in touch and so I texted the game friend to say I was sorry but I met a really nice person I was interested in. He instantly replied some comments about how it was just a crush, did I even know if they liked me back. Was I just going to throw away what we had for a guy I met over 3 days. I thought about it and I felt so guilty. I decided to stick with him and have minimal contact with the other via email. Years later when Facebook became a thing he did add me there and I accepted thinking nothing of it. We still didn't message or anything. One year he wrote "Happy Birthday Hope you are well!" To which my guy wrote a very rude/sarcastic response something like "she's great I'll tell her you said hi", so he deleted his post didn't message again.
When I got back from camp we arranged to meet up in person for the first time ever and we went for food/coffee the usual. I will mention that I was pre warned by my brother and wasn't really supposed to be talking to this guy outside of the game, so for the first few months of our dating we kept it hidden until I was found out resulting at an angry brother waiting at the train station for me and telling off my guy in public saying he should know better and was told to stay away from me.
I told my mum about it later that day and honestly she didn't really care, and said it's normal for my age, and so we began to date properly not hidden. This guy was my first proper boyfriend and my first everything really.
In the beginning it was fine, we had good times. I did have to deal with his ex who was trying to become my best friend and go out shopping/partying with which I thought was too strange so obviously never did. I then found out she was calling him in the middle of the night crying asking him to take her back. So he ended up telling me that they used to be Engaged and how she cheated on him and so he broke everything off. Now the first red flag, he told me for his revenge everytime she would start dating a new guy he would get in contact with her, ask how she is, act really caring and charming. He would convince her to come over and then sleep with her so that she would feel so guilty she would tell/end her relationship. She thought they would get back together but instead he laughed in her face and tell her to get lost. Apparently this happened multiple times before we met.
Over time I came to realise because of this he could be very jealous, paranoid and had a bad temper, he would throw and smash plates, punch walls. Second red flag he "accidentally" locked me in his house while he went to work one day. I didn't really have anything to do or eat. In the past he did joke with me that if it was allowed he would lock me in his house and never let me leave. I never was sure if this was some sort of joke or a genuine accident.
His ex lived in the countryside and enjoyed the thrill of outdoor sex because no one was really around. Because of that he also enjoyed it. And so when we started getting a bit more serious he would force that on me. Once he met me early in the morning before I had work, it was a nice walk but then he got very handsy. It was ok as we were behind a lot of trees, but then he brought me to a bench and got me to sit on his lap with his hands down my trousers/pants, all while people were passing by. I kept my eyes closed the entire time and thought for sure someone would tell us off. A few times he would touch me on busy trains/buses, we went to an abandoned warehouse and a house. Sometimes there were kids hanging around spray painting or breaking things. In the house he told me to give him a blow job, I tried to laugh it off and say no thinking he must be joking. Instantly this made him angry, he didn't talk to me for a few minutes and then started to tell me things like "a good girlfriend would do this for her boyfriend" and so I ended up absolutely sobbing but doing what he wanted. A different time in the warehouse he wanted to do anal, and again I said I didn't want to, and again the guilt tripping and saying he would be really quick and no one would see, and feeling guilted I gave in. He finished inside and we left. I didn't realise till I had a shower later that day that because of being outside and not having access to lube I was very tender and sore in the area. This basically went on, and sometimes I would lie and say that I really needed to pee just to get out of having sex in public. Even at home he would often pressure me to doing things I didn't like, I have a bad gag reflex so honestly didn't enjoy going down on him, plus often I didn't like his smell or taste. If I asked him to wash it he got very angry at me and would say how it loses sensitivity and doesn't feel as good. Over time he withdrew going down on me because I wasn't "being a good girlfriend" and honestly I didn't mind.
Around 4 years or so into the relationship I made a new friend in work and she invited us to her birthday in a room booked in a night club. It was supposed to be couples and masquerade themed. My guy didn't want to go with me because it seemed boring and he had no interest in meeting my friends. He went out of his way to arrange our gay friend to go with me so I wouldn't be alone and would have a guy with me. On the night of the party the friend came over while I was getting ready and we had some drinks, my ex then changed his mind and decided to come. This wouldn't be a problem but he also said it was ok that his scummy brother comes along (that's another story) he had promised me that the brother wouldn't be in the booked room and he would stay downstairs in the main club with him. But in they came. I was annoyed because his brother was being really inappropriate with my friend, saying he would take her in the bathroom and show her a good time. He was taking photo's up girls dresses/skirts and asking for girls numbers everywhere (he had a gf and I was also warned by my ex not to be alone with him) my guy ended up not speaking to me for the night because I was annoyed that he wouldn't remove him. When we got back to his house he wouldn't let me go home and told me to shut up and go to bed. I sat on the bed sobbing that I just wanted to go home and he laughed and laughed in my face pointing at me. When I tried to leave he lifted me by my coat, breaking the buttons and my necklace and threw me against the wall. In anger I lifted a photo frame of us and smashed him over the head, in retaliation he punched the wardrobe right beside my head and broke his little finger, I ran out of the apartment. I sat on the curb outside crying because I didn't know how to get home. After maybe half an hour he came out and took me back inside. He told me to please go to sleep and just leave in the morning. After that event we broke up for maybe 5/6 months. I started to feel lonely and stupidly started talking to him again.
After this we moved in together. We rented a house where he was originally from but was much further for me. It resulted in me having to get a train and bus to work everyday or come home. His reasoning was there were no houses for rent where I lived. At this time I worked a pretty crap sales job, I made minimum wage and only worked 16 hours a week. So giving half of my money to him to cover rent/food etc and buying my train and bus ticket left me with £10 a week to my name. I was further away from my friends (who he didn't like me spending time with, they were bad influences) I had a male friend that I grew up with and I viewed him like a brother. He told me I had to cut contact with him as I wouldn't like it if the role was reversed (even though he had several close female friends) he spent his time trying to get me to be friends with his friends, and I didn't get them, they were all older and we had nothing in common. Once he asked one girl to spend the day with me shopping or just anything because I had no friend's. I was so embarrassed when he told me. The fact I couldn't go see my actual friends when I wanted and was alone already made me feel sensitive. It also didn't help that early in our relationship he told me he had only ever slept with his ex before me, I then found out he had actually slept with a few of these other female friends for various reasons. One had a fight with her bf and got into his bed wanting a hug and crying which apparently escalated. One apparently climbed ontop of him while he was sleeping when his house mate had a house party etc. One was single at the same time as he was and they thought why not see. That's what I was told anyway.
The town where he lived was dying and had very little going for it. Apart from the nice scenery walking my dog I had nothing to do. With this going on I began to fall into a slump. I worked, came home and slept. He began getting irritated if was sitting/sleeping on the sofa after work as his pc was in the living room and he said he felt like I was always watching him. I made the small room upstairs into my own little space with my computer to play games on and sometimes he would sneak really quietly into the room to try and see if/who I was talking to online. I ended up going to my GP to talk to someone and that turned to my first experience of antidepressants and beta blockers for my panic attacks. This cut down my sex drive immensely, and he would often argue that I "just lay there" or wouldn't do anything for him. I was applying for jobs with no luck. I went to speak to an advisor and they actually said "have you ever considered getting pregnant?" I ended up taking 2 weeks holiday in my job so I could adjust to the pills as I was feeling ill. I temporarily moved back home to learn to drive as maybe that would help me. I ended up getting a new job in a kitchen in the city centre, meaning I was getting my first full time job and would only have to get a train now. My ex told me to stop the driving lessons as I no longer needed them, and just move back as I had money now. And I did.
In my previous job all women worked in the store. In this new job it was a lot more mixed, I was the only female chef but I got a long with mostly everyone. I met my best friend here and we were in a small friend group of 4, our manager jokingly named us the breakfast club because we were all so different. My female best friend, our gay friend and a Romanian guy who was still learning English. We became really inseparable and would often plan day trips, cinema, dinner's and nights out. We had a group chat and constantly talked and sent memes. I felt happy having friends again. Over time my guy became extremely paranoid, he didn't want me working or spending time around other guys. He told me men are like hungry wolves and you can't trust them, and how he had worked in McDonald's when he was young and everyone slept with everyone etc. I finally had money and friends and he wanted me to quit. I loved the job and the people and often if anyone had to go home sick/hurt I always offered to stay to close. This also didn't help with the paranoia. It got to a point that I had to send him my new work schedule every week and had to have a "good reason" for doing overtime.
As time went on he started to accuse me of cheating on him. If I went out with my friends or even to visit my parents he would tell me (if you're fucking anyone tonight then don't bother coming home). This got more and more frequent and he began smoking and drinking a lot more. Often I would come home from work late at night and instantly be yelled at. There was another incident where he punched the wall again re breaking the finger, he couldn't play guitar anymore and said it was my fault. At this point he was roughly 31 in our relationship and began a friendship with a work colleague who was 18. I never met her once, and he would often go on nights out with her and her friends. The few times I woke up in the night and he wasn't home I rang him panicked thinking is he ok. He would answer "what?" When he came home that would be another argument that he's a grown ass man and can look after himself and I shouldn't be worried about his safety. This continued and some nights I began sleeping on the sofa because I couldn't stand the smell of the smoke and I was afraid to be yelled at while he was drunk. He came home once with every button on his shirt broken that I bought him for a birthday and said a guy did it for a joke and leave it at that. One night he blew up at me resulting in me having a panic attack and I actually felt like I would die. I couldn't breath and my face started to change colour. When he noticed he finally stopped yelling and started slapping my back and squeezing me. I sat on the floor and sobbed and said I was going back home. We didn't talk again properly for about a month, and then he sent a message saying he needed to talk/apologize. I went back to listen to what he had to say and somehow by the end he was saying he loved me and I need to come home. I didn't get a word in before it turned to him taking off my clothes to have "make up sex" and before I knew it I was back. We planned a holiday away for a week, to reconnect and try and have some dates again. It was mostly really great. We did have a minor argument because he was actively telling me how hot this very young looking Spanish girl was, and during one of the days he made me have sex by the glass doors leading out to the pool at our apartment. But when we returned home it was just as aweful. In our time together I learned he hated having his photo taken and put on social media. So I only took 3/4 photos, a few nice ones of him standing looking out at the beach etc. But that was suddenly an issue that I hadn't plastered his holiday pictures all over my Facebook etc. We went straight back to the old routine, being accused of cheating.
At this point we'd been together a long time. Constantly family members asking when we would marry and all my friends starting families. Maybe it was the fear of missing out but suddenly I wanted the same. I spoke to him about marriage and he was very clear it's something he doesn't ever want (you don't need a piece of paper with permission to be with someone) one night I got home from work and he had hand written and framed his own wedding certificate saying Mr and Mrs such and such and said "there you go!". The talk of a baby was also quickly shut down with the reason being "if you have a kid then you always have to be a part of that person's life if it doesn't work out".
At this point I don't even think it was entirely the antidepressants. I didn't even want to touch him. He made me uncomfortable, always walking on eggshells. He stank of cigarettes and beer. I constantly had to clean the house. Around his desk there would be piles of beer tins and used tissues... We were eating take out everyday apart from my 2 days off work. I started putting on weight and he was wanting more money towards rent and food etc. He was still going out with 18/19 year old girls to parties etc. This went on for another 5 months until one day it hit me that "this is it" and if I don't leave something bad will happen . My friend group at work generally noticed I wasn't ok. My best friend started to tell me that I'm being gas lit among other things. And that I needed out, and finally I was able to tell him it was over. We cried a lot and parted ways. It was hard because I had to go back to gather my stuff in multiple taxis or a van. Sometimes I needed his help as I had given the key back or items were heavy. On one occasion he asked how I was and then touched my belly saying I had lost a lot of weight...His eyes started watering and he went to the garden to smoke. About 20 minutes after this as I was gathering my stuff the younger work colleague came by (apparently they had plans to order pizza and watch a movie) this is also the first time I ever saw her and didn't even get a hello or anything, I guess it was an awkward first meeting.
He didn't tell his family I left him. Some months later his brother saw me at a club with my work friends and text him along the lines of he'd finally caught me cheating. He then told the family and his mother was apparently very disappointed. I doubt they know how everything went though. He did also message me to tell me this and asked me to tell him truthfully had I cheated/had I slept with any of the work guys since breaking up..
He moved to live in another country. Sold all of his items on gumtree etc, including some of mine. I had a large gas BBQ that my mum gifted for our house, when I asked for it back he tried to say I already had it, then said it must have been stolen.
He also messaged me a year afterwards trying to say he had made a huge mistake and would I be willing to move in and try again... Of course I said no. Again in 2020 ish he messaged saying he had a weird request. He wanted to become friends again as apparently no one knew him like I and he stupidly pushed me, his best friend away. He didn't want me to remain angry at how he treated me etc. Again I declined saying I don't know if that would ever be something I would feel comfortable with and also that I'm dating someone and that's not fair on him.
I haven't had any contact since then.
I'll never truly know but I honestly feel like he cheated on me because of how hellbent he was that I was doing so to him. The whole thing has left me with some bad trust issues. I don't want to be the paranoid girlfriend not allowing partners to go out or have female friends etc.
Apologies for the lengthy post and thank you to anyone who takes the time to read. I do feel like I've forgotten some things, or a bit too personal for here and I feel like this is so long already!

NARRATOR: (Black screen with text; The sound of buzzing bees can be heard) According to all known laws of aviation, : there is no way a bee should be able to fly. : Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. : The bee, of course, flies anyway : because bees don't care what humans think is impossible. BARRY BENSON: (Barry is picking out a shirt) Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. : Ooh, black and yellow! Let's shake it up a little. JANET BENSON: Barry! Breakfast is ready! BARRY: Coming! : Hang on a second. (Barry uses his antenna like a phone) : Hello? ADAM FLAYMAN:
(Through phone) - Barry? BARRY: - Adam? ADAM: - Can you believe this is happening? BARRY: - I can't. I'll pick you up. (Barry flies down the stairs) : MARTIN BENSON: Looking sharp. JANET: Use the stairs. Your father paid good money for those. BARRY: Sorry. I'm excited. MARTIN: Here's the graduate. We're very proud of you, son. : A perfect report card, all B's. JANET: Very proud. (Rubs Barry's hair) BARRY= Ma! I got a thing going here. JANET: - You got lint on your fuzz. BARRY: - Ow! That's me!
JANET: - Wave to us! We'll be in row 118,000. - Bye! (Barry flies out the door) JANET: Barry, I told you, stop flying in the house! (Barry drives through the hive,and is waved at by Adam who is reading a newspaper) BARRY== - Hey, Adam. ADAM: - Hey, Barry. (Adam gets in Barry's car) : - Is that fuzz gel? BARRY: - A little. Special day, graduation. ADAM: Never thought I'd make it. (Barry pulls away from the house and continues driving) BARRY: Three days grade school, three days high school... ADAM: Those were awkward. BARRY: Three days college. I'm glad I took a day and hitchhiked around the hive. ADAM== You did come back different. (Barry and Adam pass by Artie, who is jogging) ARTIE: - Hi, Barry!
BARRY: - Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good. ADAM: - Hear about Frankie? BARRY: - Yeah. ADAM== - You going to the funeral? BARRY: - No, I'm not going to his funeral. : Everybody knows, sting someone, you die. : Don't waste it on a squirrel. Such a hothead. ADAM: I guess he could have just gotten out of the way. (The car does a barrel roll on the loop-shaped bridge and lands on the highway) : I love this incorporating an amusement park into our regular day. BARRY: I guess that's why they say we don't need vacations. (Barry parallel parks the car and together they fly over the graduating students) Boy, quite a bit of pomp... under the circumstances. (Barry and Adam sit down and put on their hats) : - Well, Adam, today we are men.
ADAM: - We are! BARRY= - Bee-men. =ADAM= - Amen! BARRY AND ADAM: Hallelujah! (Barry and Adam both have a happy spasm) ANNOUNCER: Students, faculty, distinguished bees, : please welcome Dean Buzzwell. DEAN BUZZWELL: Welcome, New Hive Oity graduating class of... : ...9: : That concludes our ceremonies. : And begins your career at Honex Industries! ADAM: Will we pick our job today? (Adam and Barry get into a tour bus) BARRY= I heard it's just orientation. (Tour buses rise out of the ground and the students are automatically loaded into the buses) TOUR GUIDE: Heads up! Here we go.
ANNOUNCER: Keep your hands and antennas inside the tram at all times. BARRY: - Wonder what it'll be like? ADAM: - A little scary. TOUR GUIDE== Welcome to Honex, a division of Honesco : and a part of the Hexagon Group. Barry: This is it! BARRY AND ADAM: Wow. BARRY: Wow. (The bus drives down a road an on either side are the Bee's massive complicated Honey-making machines) TOUR GUIDE: We know that you, as a bee, have worked your whole life : to get to the point where you can work for your whole life. : Honey begins when our valiant Pollen Jocks bring the nectar to the hive. : Our top-secret formula : is automatically color-corrected,
scent-adjusted and bubble-contoured : into this soothing sweet syrup : with its distinctive golden glow you know as... EVERYONE ON BUS: Honey! (The guide has been collecting honey into a bottle and she throws it into the crowd on the bus and it is caught by a girl in the back) ADAM: - That girl was hot. BARRY: - She's my cousin! ADAM== - She is? BARRY: - Yes, we're all cousins. ADAM: - Right. You're right. TOUR GUIDE: - At Honex, we constantly strive : to improve every aspect of bee existence. : These bees are stress-testing a new helmet technology. (The bus passes by a Bee wearing a helmet who is being smashed into the ground with fly-swatters, newspapers and boots. He lifts a thumbs up but you can hear him groan) : ADAM==

• What do you think he makes? BARRY:
• Not enough. TOUR GUIDE: Here we have our latest advancement, the Krelman. (They pass by a turning wheel with Bees standing on pegs, who are each wearing a finger-shaped hat) Barry:
• Wow, What does that do? TOUR GUIDE:
• Catches that little strand of honey : that hangs after you pour it. Saves us millions. ADAM: (Intrigued) Can anyone work on the Krelman? TOUR GUIDE: Of course. Most bee jobs are small ones. But bees know that every small job, if it's done well, means a lot. : But choose carefully : because you'll stay in the job you pick for the rest of your life. (Everyone claps except for Barry) BARRY: The same job the rest of your life? I didn't know that. ADAM:

What's the difference? TOUR GUIDE: You'll be happy to know that bees, as a species, haven't had one day off : in 27 million years. BARRY: (Upset) So you'll just work us to death? : We'll sure try. (Everyone on the bus laughs except Barry. Barry and Adam are walking back home together) ADAM: Wow! That blew my mind! BARRY: "What's the difference?" How can you say that? : One job forever? That's an insane choice to have to make. ADAM: I'm relieved. Now we only have to make one decision in life. BARRY: But, Adam, how could they never have told us that? ADAM: Why would you question anything? We're bees. : We're the most perfectly functioning society on Earth.
BARRY: You ever think maybe things work a little too well here? ADAM: Like what? Give me one example. (Barry and Adam stop walking and it is revealed to the audience that hundreds of cars are speeding by and narrowly missing them in perfect unison) BARRY: I don't know. But you know what I'm talking about. ANNOUNCER: Please clear the gate. Royal Nectar Force on approach. BARRY: Wait a second. Check it out. (The Pollen jocks fly in, circle around and landing in line) : - Hey, those are Pollen Jocks! ADAM: - Wow. : I've never seen them this close. BARRY: They know what it's like outside the hive. ADAM: Yeah, but some don't come back. GIRL BEES: - Hey, Jocks! - Hi, Jocks! (The Pollen Jocks hook up their backpacks to machines that pump the nectar to trucks, which drive away)
LOU LO DUVA: You guys did great! : You're monsters! You're sky freaks! I love it! (Punching the Pollen Jocks in joy) I love it! ADAM: - I wonder where they were. BARRY: - I don't know. : Their day's not planned. : Outside the hive, flying who knows where, doing who knows what. : You can't just decide to be a Pollen Jock. You have to be bred for that. ADAM== Right. (Barry and Adam are covered in some pollen that floated off of the Pollen Jocks) BARRY: Look at that. That's more pollen than you and I will see in a lifetime. ADAM: It's just a status symbol. Bees make too much of it. BARRY: Perhaps. Unless you're wearing it and the ladies see you wearing it. (Barry waves at 2 girls standing a little away from them)
ADAM== Those ladies? Aren't they our cousins too? BARRY: Distant. Distant. POLLEN JOCK #1: Look at these two. POLLEN JOCK #2: - Couple of Hive Harrys. POLLEN JOCK #1: - Let's have fun with them. GIRL BEE #1: It must be dangerous being a Pollen Jock. BARRY: Yeah. Once a bear pinned me against a mushroom! : He had a paw on my throat, and with the other, he was slapping me! (Slaps Adam with his hand to represent his scenario) GIRL BEE #2: - Oh, my! BARRY: - I never thought I'd knock him out. GIRL BEE #1: (Looking at Adam) What were you doing during this? ADAM: Obviously I was trying to alert the authorities. BARRY: I can autograph that.
(The pollen jocks walk up to Barry and Adam, they pretend that Barry and Adam really are pollen jocks.) POLLEN JOCK #1: A little gusty out there today, wasn't it, comrades? BARRY: Yeah. Gusty. POLLEN JOCK #1: We're hitting a sunflower patch six miles from here tomorrow. BARRY: - Six miles, huh? ADAM: - Barry! POLLEN JOCK #2: A puddle jump for us, but maybe you're not up for it. BARRY: - Maybe I am. ADAM: - You are not! POLLEN JOCK #1: We're going 0900 at J-Gate. : What do you think, buzzy-boy? Are you bee enough? BARRY: I might be. It all depends on what 0900 means. (The scene cuts to Barry looking out on the hive-city from his balcony at night) MARTIN:
Hey, Honex! BARRY: Dad, you surprised me. MARTIN: You decide what you're interested in? BARRY: - Well, there's a lot of choices. - But you only get one. : Do you ever get bored doing the same job every day? MARTIN: Son, let me tell you about stirring. : You grab that stick, and you just move it around, and you stir it around. : You get yourself into a rhythm. It's a beautiful thing. BARRY: You know, Dad, the more I think about it, : maybe the honey field just isn't right for me. MARTIN: You were thinking of what, making balloon animals? : That's a bad job for a guy with a stinger. :
Janet, your son's not sure he wants to go into honey! JANET: - Barry, you are so funny sometimes. BARRY: - I'm not trying to be funny. MARTIN: You're not funny! You're going into honey. Our son, the stirrer! JANET: - You're gonna be a stirrer? BARRY: - No one's listening to me! MARTIN: Wait till you see the sticks I have. BARRY: I could say anything right now. I'm gonna get an ant tattoo! (Barry's parents don't listen to him and continue to ramble on) MARTIN: Let's open some honey and celebrate! BARRY: Maybe I'll pierce my thorax. Shave my antennae. : Shack up with a grasshopper. Get a gold tooth and call everybody "dawg"! JANET: I'm so proud. (The scene cuts to Barry and Adam waiting in line to get a job) ADAM: - We're starting work today!
BARRY: - Today's the day. ADAM: Come on! All the good jobs will be gone. BARRY: Yeah, right. JOB LISTER: Pollen counting, stunt bee, pouring, stirrer, front desk, hair removal... BEE IN FRONT OF LINE: - Is it still available? JOB LISTER: - Hang on. Two left! : One of them's yours! Congratulations! Step to the side. ADAM: - What'd you get? BEE IN FRONT OF LINE: - Picking crud out. Stellar! (He walks away) ADAM: Wow! JOB LISTER: Couple of newbies? ADAM: Yes, sir! Our first day! We are ready! JOB LISTER: Make your choice. (Adam and Barry look up at the job board. There are hundreds of constantly changing panels that contain available or unavailable jobs. It looks very confusing)
ADAM: - You want to go first? BARRY: - No, you go. ADAM: Oh, my. What's available? JOB LISTER: Restroom attendant's open, not for the reason you think. ADAM: - Any chance of getting the Krelman? JOB LISTER: - Sure, you're on. (Puts the Krelman finger-hat on Adam's head) (Suddenly the sign for Krelman closes out) : I'm sorry, the Krelman just closed out. (Takes Adam's hat off) Wax monkey's always open. ADAM: The Krelman opened up again. : What happened? JOB LISTER: A bee died. Makes an opening. See? He's dead. Another dead one. : Deady. Deadified. Two more dead. : Dead from the neck up. Dead from the neck down. That's life!
ADAM: Oh, this is so hard! (Barry remembers what the Pollen Jock offered him and he flies off) Heating, cooling, stunt bee, pourer, stirrer, : humming, inspector number seven, lint coordinator, stripe supervisor, : mite wrangler. Barry, what do you think I should... Barry? (Adam turns around and sees Barry flying away) : Barry! POLLEN JOCK: All right, we've got the sunflower patch in quadrant nine... ADAM: (Through phone) What happened to you? Where are you? BARRY: - I'm going out. ADAM: - Out? Out where? BARRY: - Out there. ADAM: - Oh, no! BARRY: I have to, before I go to work for the rest of my life. ADAM:
You're gonna die! You're crazy! (Barry hangs up) Hello? POLLEN JOCK #2: Another call coming in. : If anyone's feeling brave, there's a Korean deli on 83rd : that gets their roses today. BARRY: Hey, guys. POLLEN JOCK #1 == - Look at that. POLLEN JOCK #2: - Isn't that the kid we saw yesterday? LOU LO DUVA: Hold it, son, flight deck's restricted. POLLEN JOCK #1: It's OK, Lou. We're gonna take him up. (Puts hand on Barry's shoulder) LOU LO DUVA: (To Barry) Really? Feeling lucky, are you? BEE WITH CLIPBOARD: (To Barry) Sign here, here. Just initial that. : - Thank you. LOU LO DUVA: - OK. : You got a rain advisory today, :
and as you all know, bees cannot fly in rain. : So be careful. As always, watch your brooms, : hockey sticks, dogs, birds, bears and bats. : Also, I got a couple of reports of root beer being poured on us. : Murphy's in a home because of it, babbling like a cicada! BARRY: - That's awful. LOU LO DUVA: (Still talking through megaphone) - And a reminder for you rookies, : bee law number one, absolutely no talking to humans! : All right, launch positions! POLLEN JOCKS: (The Pollen Jocks run into formation) : Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! LOU LU DUVA: Black and yellow! POLLEN JOCKS:
Hello! POLLEN JOCK #1: (To Barry)You ready for this, hot shot? BARRY: Yeah. Yeah, bring it on. POLLEN JOCK's: Wind, check. : - Antennae, check. - Nectar pack, check. : - Wings, check. - Stinger, check. BARRY: Scared out of my shorts, check. LOU LO DUVA: OK, ladies, : let's move it out! : Pound those petunias, you striped stem-suckers! : All of you, drain those flowers! (The pollen jocks fly out of the hive) BARRY: Wow! I'm out! : I can't believe I'm out! : So blue.
: I feel so fast and free! : Box kite! (Barry flies through the kite) : Wow! : Flowers! (A pollen jock puts on some high tech goggles that shows flowers similar to heat sink goggles.) POLLEN JOCK: This is Blue Leader. We have roses visual. : Bring it around 30 degrees and hold. : Roses! POLLEN JOCK #1: 30 degrees, roger. Bringing it around. : Stand to the side, kid. It's got a bit of a kick. (The pollen jock fires a high-tech gun at the flower, shooting tubes that suck up the nectar from the flower and collects it into a pouch on the gun) BARRY: That is one nectar collector! POLLEN JOCK #1== - Ever see pollination up close? BARRY: - No, sir. POLLEN JOCK #1:
(Barry and the Pollen jock fly over the field, the pollen jock sprinkles pollen as he goes) : I pick up some pollen here, sprinkle it over here. Maybe a dash over there, : a pinch on that one. See that? It's a little bit of magic. BARRY: That's amazing. Why do we do that? POLLEN JOCK #1: That's pollen power. More pollen, more flowers, more nectar, more honey for us. BARRY: Cool. POLLEN JOCK #1: I'm picking up a lot of bright yellow. could be daisies. Don't we need those? POLLEN JOCK #2: Copy that visual. : Wait. One of these flowers seems to be on the move. POLLEN JOCK #1: Say again? You're reporting a moving flower? POLLEN JOCK #2: Affirmative. (The Pollen jocks land near the "flowers" which, to the audience are obviously just tennis balls) KEN: (In the distance) That was on the line!
POLLEN JOCK #1: This is the coolest. What is it? POLLEN JOCK #2: I don't know, but I'm loving this color. : It smells good. Not like a flower, but I like it. POLLEN JOCK #1: Yeah, fuzzy. (Sticks his hand on the ball but it gets stuck) POLLEN JOCK #3== Chemical-y. (The pollen jock finally gets his hand free from the tennis ball) POLLEN JOCK #1: Careful, guys. It's a little grabby. (The pollen jocks turn around and see Barry lying his entire body on top of one of the tennis balls) POLLEN JOCK #2: My sweet lord of bees! POLLEN JOCK #3: Candy-brain, get off there! POLLEN JOCK #1: (Pointing upwards) Problem! (A human hand reaches down and grabs the tennis ball that Barry is stuck to) BARRY: - Guys! POLLEN JOCK #2: - This could be bad. POLLEN JOCK #3: Affirmative. (Vanessa Bloome starts bouncing the tennis ball, not knowing Barry is stick to it)
BARRY== Very close. : Gonna hurt. : Mama's little boy. (Barry is being hit back and forth by two humans playing tennis. He is still stuck to the ball) POLLEN JOCK #1: You are way out of position, rookie! KEN: Coming in at you like a MISSILE! (Barry flies past the pollen jocks, still stuck to the ball) BARRY: (In slow motion) Help me! POLLEN JOCK #2: I don't think these are flowers. POLLEN JOCK #3: - Should we tell him? POLLEN JOCK #1: - I think he knows. BARRY: What is this?! KEN: Match point! : You can start packing up, honey, because you're about to EAT IT! (A pollen jock coughs which confused Ken and he hits the ball the wrong way with Barry stuck to it and it goes flying into the city) BARRY:
Yowser! (Barry bounces around town and gets stuck in the engine of a car. He flies into the air conditioner and sees a bug that was frozen in there) BARRY: Ew, gross. (The man driving the car turns on the air conditioner which blows Barry into the car) GIRL IN CAR: There's a bee in the car! : - Do something! DAD DRIVING CAR: - I'm driving! BABY GIRL: (Waving at Barry) - Hi, bee. (Barry smiles and waves at the baby girl) GUY IN BACK OF CAR: - He's back here! : He's going to sting me! GIRL IN CAR: Nobody move. If you don't move, he won't sting you. Freeze! (Barry freezes as well, hovering in the middle of the car) : GRANDMA IN CAR== He blinked! (The grandma whips out some bee-spray and sprays everywhere in the car, climbing into the front seat, still trying to spray Barry) GIRL IN CAR: Spray him, Granny! DAD DRIVING THE CAR: What are you doing?! (Barry escapes the car through the air conditioner and is flying high above
the ground, safe.) BARRY: Wow... the tension level out here is unbelievable. (Barry sees that storm clouds are gathering and he can see rain clouds moving into this direction) : I gotta get home. : Can't fly in rain. : Can't fly in rain. (A rain drop hits Barry and one of his wings is damaged) : Can't fly in rain. (A second rain drop hits Barry again and he spirals downwards) Mayday! Mayday! Bee going down! (WW2 plane sound effects are played as he plummets, and he crash-lands on a plant inside an apartment near the window) VANESSA BLOOME: Ken, could you close the window please? KEN== Hey, check out my new resume. I made it into a fold-out brochure. : You see? (Folds brochure resume out) Folds out. (Ken closes the window, trapping Barry inside) BARRY: Oh, no. More humans. I don't need this. (Barry tries to fly away but smashes into the window and falls again) : What was that?
(Barry keeps trying to fly out the window but he keeps being knocked back because the window is closed) Maybe this time. This time. This time. This time! This time! This... : Drapes! (Barry taps the glass. He doesn't understand what it is) That is diabolical. KEN: It's fantastic. It's got all my special skills, even my top-ten favorite movies. ANDY: What's number one? Star Wars? KEN: Nah, I don't go for that... (Ken makes finger guns and makes "pew pew pew" sounds and then stops) : ...kind of stuff. BARRY: No wonder we shouldn't talk to them. They're out of their minds. KEN: When I leave a job interview, they're flabbergasted, can't believe what I say. BARRY: (Looking at the light on the ceiling) There's the sun. Maybe that's a way out. (Starts flying towards the lightbulb) : I don't remember the sun having a big 75 on it. (Barry hits the lightbulb and falls into the dip on the table that the humans are sitting at) KEN:
I predicted global warming. : I could feel it getting hotter. At first I thought it was just me. (Andy dips a chip into the bowl and scoops up some dip with Barry on it and is about to put it in his mouth) : Wait! Stop! Bee! (Andy drops the chip with Barry in fear and backs away. All the humans freak out) : Stand back. These are winter boots. (Ken has winter boots on his hands and he is about to smash the bee but Vanessa saves him last second) VANESSA: Wait! : Don't kill him! (Vanessa puts Barry in a glass to protect him) KEN: You know I'm allergic to them! This thing could kill me! VANESSA: Why does his life have less value than yours? KEN: Why does his life have any less value than mine? Is that your statement? VANESSA: I'm just saying all life has value. You don't know what he's capable of feeling. (Vanessa picks up Ken's brochure and puts it under the glass so she can carry Barry back to the window. Barry looks at Vanessa in amazement) KEN:
My brochure! VANESSA: There you go, little guy. (Vanessa opens the window and lets Barry out but Barry stays back and is still shocked that a human saved his life) KEN: I'm not scared of him. It's an allergic thing. VANESSA: Put that on your resume brochure. KEN: My whole face could puff up. ANDY: Make it one of your special skills. KEN: Knocking someone out is also a special skill. (Ken walks to the door) Right. Bye, Vanessa. Thanks. : - Vanessa, next week? Yogurt night? VANESSA: - Sure, Ken. You know, whatever. : (Vanessa tries to close door) KEN== - You could put carob chips on there. VANESSA: - Bye. (Closes door but Ken opens it again) KEN: - Supposed to be less calories.
VANESSA: - Bye. (Closes door) (Fast forward to the next day, Barry is still inside the house. He flies into the kitchen where Vanessa is doing dishes) BARRY== (Talking to himself) I gotta say something. : She saved my life. I gotta say something. : All right, here it goes. (Turns back) Nah. : What would I say? : I could really get in trouble. : It's a bee law. You're not supposed to talk to a human. : I can't believe I'm doing this. : I've got to. (Barry disguises himself as a character on a food can as Vanessa walks by again) : Oh, I can't do it. Come on! : No. Yes. No. : Do it. I can't.
: How should I start it? (Barry strikes a pose and wiggles his eyebrows) "You like jazz?" No, that's no good. (Vanessa is about to walk past Barry) Here she comes! Speak, you fool! : ...Hi! (Vanessa gasps and drops the dishes in fright and notices Barry on the counter) : I'm sorry. VANESSA: - You're talking. BARRY: - Yes, I know. VANESSA: (Pointing at Barry) You're talking! BARRY: I'm so sorry. VANESSA: No, it's OK. It's fine. I know I'm dreaming. : But I don't recall going to bed. BARRY: Well, I'm sure this is very disconcerting. VANESSA: This is a bit of a surprise to me. I mean, you're a bee!
BARRY: I am. And I'm not supposed to be doing this, (Pointing to the living room where Ken tried to kill him last night) but they were all trying to kill me. : And if it wasn't for you... : I had to thank you. It's just how I was raised. (Vanessa stabs her hand with a fork to test whether she's dreaming or not) : That was a little weird. VANESSA: - I'm talking with a bee. BARRY: - Yeah. VANESSA: I'm talking to a bee. And the bee is talking to me! BARRY: I just want to say I'm grateful. I'll leave now. (Barry turns to leave) VANESSA: - Wait! How did you learn to do that? BARRY: (Flying back) - What? VANESSA: The talking...thing. BARRY:
Same way you did, I guess. "Mama, Dada, honey." You pick it up. VANESSA: - That's very funny. BARRY: - Yeah. : Bees are funny. If we didn't laugh, we'd cry with what we have to deal with. : Anyway... VANESSA: Can I... : ...get you something? BARRY: - Like what? VANESSA: I don't know. I mean... I don't know. Coffee? BARRY: I don't want to put you out. VANESSA: It's no trouble. It takes two minutes. : - It's just coffee. BARRY: - I hate to impose. (Vanessa starts making coffee) VANESSA: - Don't be ridiculous!
BARRY: - Actually, I would love a cup. VANESSA: Hey, you want rum cake? BARRY: - I shouldn't. VANESSA: - Have some. BARRY: - No, I can't. VANESSA: - Come on! BARRY: I'm trying to lose a couple micrograms. VANESSA: - Where? BARRY: - These stripes don't help. VANESSA: You look great! BARRY: I don't know if you know anything about fashion. : Are you all right? VANESSA: (Pouring coffee on the floor and missing the cup completely) No. (Flash forward in time. Barry and Vanessa are sitting together at a table on top of the apartment building drinking coffee)
: BARRY== He's making the tie in the cab as they're flying up Madison. : He finally gets there. : He runs up the steps into the church. The wedding is on. : And he says, "Watermelon? I thought you said Guatemalan. : Why would I marry a watermelon?" (Barry laughs but Vanessa looks confused) VANESSA: Is that a bee joke? BARRY: That's the kind of stuff we do. VANESSA: Yeah, different. : So, what are you gonna do, Barry? (Barry stands on top of a sugar cube floating in his coffee and paddles it around with a straw like it's a gondola) BARRY: About work? I don't know. : I want to do my part for the hive, but I can't do it the way they want. VANESSA: I know how you feel.
BARRY: - You do? VANESSA: - Sure. : My parents wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor, but I wanted to be a florist. BARRY: - Really? VANESSA: - My only interest is flowers. BARRY: Our new queen was just elected with that same campaign slogan. : Anyway, if you look... (Barry points to a tree in the middle of Central Park) : There's my hive right there. See it? VANESSA: You're in Sheep Meadow! BARRY: Yes! I'm right off the Turtle Pond! VANESSA: No way! I know that area. I lost a toe ring there once. BARRY: - Why do girls put rings on their toes? VANESSA: - Why not? BARRY:

• It's like putting a hat on your knee. VANESSA:
• Maybe I'll try that. (A custodian installing a lightbulb looks over at them but to his perspective it looks like Vanessa is talking to a cup of coffee on the table) CUSTODIAN:
• You all right, ma'am? VANESSA:
• Oh, yeah. Fine. : Just having two cups of coffee! BARRY: Anyway, this has been great. Thanks for the coffee. VANESSA== Yeah, it's no trouble. BARRY: Sorry I couldn't finish it. If I did, I'd be up the rest of my life. (Barry points towards the rum cake) : Can I take a piece of this with me? VANESSA: Sure! Here, have a crumb. (Vanessa hands Barry a crumb but it is still pretty big for Barry) BARRY:
• Thanks! VANESSA:
• Yeah. BARRY: All right. Well, then... I guess I'll see you around.
  : Or not. VANESSA: OK, Barry... BARRY: And thank you so much again... for before. VANESSA: Oh, that? That was nothing. BARRY: Well, not nothing, but... Anyway... (Vanessa and Barry hold hands, but Vanessa has to hold out a finger because her hands is to big and Barry holds that) (The custodian looks over again and it appears Vanessa is laughing at her coffee again. The lightbulb that he was screwing in sparks and he falls off the ladder) (Fast forward in time and we see two Bee Scientists testing out a parachute in a Honex wind tunnel) BEE SCIENTIST #1: This can't possibly work. BEE SCIENTIST #2: He's all set to go. We may as well try it. : OK, Dave, pull the chute. (Dave pulls the chute and the wind slams him against the wall and he falls on his face.The camera pans over and we see Barry and Adam walking together) ADAM:
  
• Sounds amazing. BARRY:
  
• It was amazing! : It was the scariest, happiest moment of my life.
  

ADAM: Humans! I can't believe you were with humans! : Giant, scary humans! What were they like? BARRY: Huge and crazy. They talk crazy. : They eat crazy giant things. They drive crazy. ADAM: - Do they try and kill you, like on TV? BARRY: - Some of them. But some of them don't. ADAM: - How'd you get back? BARRY: - Poodle. ADAM: You did it, and I'm glad. You saw whatever you wanted to see. : You had your "experience." Now you can pick out your job and be normal. BARRY: - Well... ADAM: - Well? BARRY: Well, I met someone.
ADAM: You did? Was she Bee-ish? : - A wasp?! Your parents will kill you! BARRY: - No, no, no, not a wasp. ADAM: - Spider? BARRY: - I'm not attracted to spiders. : I know, for everyone else, it's the hottest thing, with the eight legs and all. : I can't get by that face. ADAM: So who is she? BARRY: She's... human. ADAM: No, no. That's a bee law. You wouldn't break a bee law. BARRY: - Her name's Vanessa. (Adam puts his head in his hands) ADAM: - Oh, boy. BARRY== She's so nice. And she's a florist! ADAM: Oh, no! You're dating a human florist!
BARRY: We're not dating. ADAM: You're flying outside the hive, talking to humans that attack our homes : with power washers and M-80s! That's one-eighth a stick of dynamite! BARRY: She saved my life! And she understands me. ADAM: This is over! BARRY: Eat this. (Barry gives Adam a piece of the crumb that he got from Vanessa. Adam eats it) ADAM: (Adam's tone changes) This is not over! What was that? BARRY: - They call it a crumb. ADAM: - It was so stingin' stripey! BARRY: And that's not what they eat. That's what falls off what they eat! : - You know what a Cinnabon is? ADAM: - No. (Adam opens a door behind him and he pulls Barry in)
BARRY: It's bread and cinnamon and frosting. ADAM: Be quiet! BARRY: They heat it up... ADAM: Sit down! (Adam forces Barry to sit down) BARRY: (Still rambling about Cinnabons) ...really hot! (Adam grabs Barry by the shoulders) ADAM: - Listen to me! : We are not them! We're us. There's us and there's them! BARRY== Yes, but who can deny the heart that is yearning? ADAM: There's no yearning. Stop yearning. Listen to me! : You have got to start thinking bee, my friend. Thinking bee! BARRY: - Thinking bee. WORKER BEE: - Thinking bee. WORKER BEES AND ADAM: Thinking bee! Thinking bee!
Thinking bee! Thinking bee! (Flash forward in time; Barry is laying on a raft in a pool full of honey. He is wearing sunglasses) JANET: There he is. He's in the pool. MARTIN: You know what your problem is, Barry? (Barry pulls down his sunglasses and he looks annoyed) BARRY: (Sarcastic) I gotta start thinking bee? JANET: How much longer will this go on? MARTIN: It's been three days! Why aren't you working? (Puts sunglasses back on) BARRY: I've got a lot of big life decisions to think about. MARTIN: What life? You have no life! You have no job. You're barely a bee! JANET: Would it kill you to make a little honey? (Barry rolls off the raft and sinks into the honey pool) : Barry, come out. Your father's talking to you. : Martin, would you talk to him? MARTIN:
Barry, I'm talking to you! (Barry keeps sinking into the honey until he is suddenly in Central Park having a picnic with Vanessa) (Barry has a cup of honey and he clinks his glass with Vanessas. Suddenly a mosquito lands on Vanessa and she slaps it, killing it. They both gasp but then burst out laughing) VANESSA: You coming? (The camera pans over and Vanessa is climbing into a small yellow airplane) BARRY: Got everything? VANESSA: All set! BARRY: Go ahead. I'll catch up. (Vanessa lifts off and flies ahead) VANESSA: Don't be too long. (Barry catches up with Vanessa and he sticks out his arms like ana irplane. He rolls from side to side, and Vanessa copies him with the airplane) VANESSA: Watch this! (Barry stays back and watches as Vanessa draws a heart in the air using pink smoke from the plane, but on the last loop-the-loop she suddenly crashes into a mountain and the plane explodes. The destroyed plane falls into some rocks and explodes a second time) BARRY: Vanessa! (As Barry is yelling his mouth fills with honey and he wakes up, discovering that he was just day dreaming. He slowly sinks back into the honey pool) MARTIN: - We're still here.
JANET: - I told you not to yell at him. : He doesn't respond to yelling! MARTIN: - Then why yell at me? JANET: - Because you don't listen! MARTIN: I'm not listening to this. BARRY: Sorry, I've gotta go. MARTIN: - Where are you going? BARRY: - I'm meeting a friend. JANET: A girl? Is this why you can't decide? BARRY: Bye. (Barry flies out the door and Martin shakes his head) : JANET== I just hope she's Bee-ish. (Fast forward in time and Barry is sitting on Vanessa's shoulder and she is closing up her shop) BARRY: They have a huge parade of flowers every year in Pasadena? VANESSA: To be in the Tournament of Roses, that's every florist's dream!
: Up on a float, surrounded by flowers, crowds cheering. BARRY: A tournament. Do the roses compete in athletic events? VANESSA: No. All right, I've got one. How come you don't fly everywhere? BARRY: It's exhausting. Why don't you run everywhere? It's faster. VANESSA: Yeah, OK, I see, I see. All right, your turn. BARRY: TiVo. You can just freeze live TV? That's insane! VANESSA: You don't have that? BARRY: We have Hivo, but it's a disease. It's a horrible, horrible disease. VANESSA: Oh, my. (A human walks by and Barry narrowly avoids him) PASSERBY: Dumb bees! VANESSA: You must want to sting all those jerks. BARRY: We try not to sting.
It's usually fatal for us. VANESSA: So you have to watch your temper (They walk into a store) BARRY: Very carefully. You kick a wall, take a walk, : write an angry letter and throw it out. Work through it like any emotion: : Anger, jealousy, lust. (Suddenly an employee(Hector) hits Barry off of Vanessa's shoulder. Hector thinks he's saving Vanessa) VANESSA: (To Barry) Oh, my goodness! Are you OK? (Barry is getting up off the floor) BARRY: Yeah. VANESSA: (To Hector) - What is wrong with you?! HECTOR: (Confused) - It's a bug. VANESSA: He's not bothering anybody. Get out of here, you creep! (Vanessa hits Hector across the face with the magazine he had and then hits him in the head. Hector backs away covering his head) Barry: What was that? A Pic 'N' Save circular? (Vanessa sets Barry back on her shoulder)
VANESSA: Yeah, it was. How did you know? BARRY: It felt like about 10 pages. Seventy-five is pretty much our limit. VANESSA: You've really got that down to a science. BARRY: - Oh, we have to. I lost a cousin to Italian Vogue. VANESSA: - I'll bet. (Barry looks to his right and notices there is honey for sale in the aisle) BARRY: What in the name of Mighty Hercules is this? (Barry looks at all the brands of honey, shocked) How did this get here? Cute Bee, Golden Blossom, : Ray Liotta Private Select? (Barry puts his hands up and slowly turns around, a look of disgust on his face) VANESSA: - Is he that actor? BARRY: - I never heard of him. : - Why is this here? VANESSA: - For people. We eat it. BARRY:
You don't have enough food of your own?! (Hector looks back and notices that Vanessa is talking to Barry) VANESSA: - Well, yes. BARRY: - How do you get it? VANESSA: - Bees make it. BARRY: - I know who makes it! : And it's hard to make it! : There's heating, cooling, stirring. You need a whole Krelman thing! VANESSA: - It's organic. BARRY: - It's our-ganic! VANESSA: It's just honey, Barry. BARRY: Just what?! : Bees don't know about this! This is stealing! A lot of stealing! : You've taken our homes, schools, hospitals! This is all we have! :
And it's on sale?! I'm getting to the bottom of this. : I'm getting to the bottom of all of this! (Flash forward in time; Barry paints his face with black strikes like a soldier and sneaks into the storage section of the store) (Two men, including Hector, are loading boxes into some trucks) : SUPERMARKET EMPLOYEE== Hey, Hector. : - You almost done? HECTOR: - Almost. (Barry takes a step to peak around the corner) (Whispering) He is here. I sense it. : Well, I guess I'll go home now (Hector pretends to walk away by walking in place and speaking loudly) : and just leave this nice honey out, with no one around. BARRY: You're busted, box boy! HECTOR: I knew I heard something! So you can talk! BARRY: I can talk. And now you'll start talking! : Where you getting the sweet stuff?
Who's your supplier? HECTOR: I don't understand. I thought we were friends. : The last thing we want to do is upset bees! (Hector takes a thumbtack out of the board behind him and sword-fights Barry. Barry is using his stinger like a sword) : You're too late! It's ours now! BARRY: You, sir, have crossed the wrong sword! HECTOR: You, sir, will be lunch for my iguana, Ignacio! (Barry hits the thumbtack out of Hectors hand and Hector surrenders) Barry: Where is the honey coming from? : Tell me where! HECTOR: (Pointing to leaving truck) Honey Farms! It comes from Honey Farms! (Barry chases after the truck but it is getting away. He flies onto a bicyclists' backpack and he catches up to the truck) CAR DRIVER: (To bicyclist) Crazy person! (Barry flies off and lands on the windshield of the Honey farms truck. Barry looks around and sees dead bugs splattered everywhere) BARRY: What horrible thing has happened here?
: These faces, they never knew what hit them. And now : they're on the road to nowhere! (Barry hears a sudden whisper) (Barry looks up and sees Mooseblood, a mosquito playing dead) MOOSEBLOOD: Just keep still. BARRY: What? You're not dead? MOOSEBLOOD: Do I look dead? They will wipe anything that moves. Where you headed? BARRY: To Honey Farms. I am onto something huge here. MOOSEBLOOD: I'm going to Alaska. Moose blood, crazy stuff. Blows your head off! ANOTHER BUG PLAYING DEAD: I'm going to Tacoma. (Barry looks at another bug) BARRY: - And you? MOOSEBLOOD: - He really is dead. BARRY: All right. (Another bug hits the windshield and the drivers notice. They activate the windshield wipers) MOOSEBLOOD== Uh-oh! (The windshield wipers are slowly sliding over the dead bugs and wiping
them off) BARRY: - What is that?! MOOSEBLOOD: - Oh, no! : - A wiper! Triple blade! BARRY: - Triple blade? MOOSEBLOOD: Jump on! It's your only chance, bee! (Mooseblood and Barry grab onto the wiper and they hold on as it wipes the windshield) Why does everything have to be so doggone clean?! : How much do you people need to see?! (Bangs on windshield) : Open your eyes! Stick your head out the window! RADIO IN TRUCK: From NPR News in Washington, I'm Carl Kasell. MOOSEBLOOD: But don't kill no more bugs! (Mooseblood and Barry are washed off by the wipr fluid) MOOSEBLOOD: - Bee! BARRY: - Moose blood guy!! (Barry starts screaming as he hangs onto the antenna) (Suddenly it is revealed that a water bug is also hanging on the antenna.
There is a pause and then Barry and the water bug both start screaming) TRUCK DRIVER: - You hear something? GUY IN TRUCK: - Like what? TRUCK DRIVER: Like tiny screaming. GUY IN TRUCK: Turn off the radio. (The antenna starts to lower until it gets to low and sinks into the truck. The water bug flies off and Barry is forced to let go and he is blown away. He luckily lands inside a horn on top of the truck where he finds Mooseblood, who was blown into the same place) MOOSEBLOOD: Whassup, bee boy? BARRY: Hey, Blood. (Fast forward in time and we see that Barry is deep in conversation with Mooseblood. They have been sitting in this truck for a while) BARRY: ...Just a row of honey jars, as far as the eye could see. MOOSEBLOOD: Wow! BARRY: I assume wherever this truck goes is where they're getting it. : I mean, that honey's ours. MOOSEBLOOD: - Bees hang tight. BARRY:

• We're all jammed in. : It's a close community. MOOSEBLOOD: Not us, man. We on our own. Every mosquito on his own. BARRY:
• What if you get in trouble? MOOSEBLOOD:
• You a mosquito, you in trouble. : Nobody likes us. They just smack. See a mosquito, smack, smack! BARRY: At least you're out in the world. You must meet girls. MOOSEBLOOD: Mosquito girls try to trade up, get with a moth, dragonfly. : Mosquito girl don't want no mosquito. (An ambulance passes by and it has a blood donation sign on it) You got to be kidding me! : Mooseblood's about to leave the building! So long, bee! (Mooseblood leaves and flies onto the window of the ambulance where there are other mosquito's hanging out) :
• Hey, guys! OTHER MOSQUITO:
• Mooseblood!

MOOSEBLOOD: I knew I'd catch y'all down here. Did you bring your crazy straw? (The truck goes out of view and Barry notices that the truck he's on is pulling into a camp of some sort) TRUCK DRIVER: We throw it in jars, slap a label on it, and it's pretty much pure profit. (Barry flies out) BARRY: What is this place? BEEKEEPER 1#: A bee's got a brain the size of a pinhead. BEEKEEPER #2: They are pinheads! : Pinhead. : - Check out the new smoker. BEEKEEPER #1: - Oh, sweet. That's the one you want. : The Thomas 3000! BARRY: Smoker? BEEKEEPER #1: Ninety puffs a minute, semi-automatic. Twice the nicotine, all the tar. : A couple breaths of this knocks them right out.
BEEKEEPER #2: They make the honey, and we make the money. BARRY: "They make the honey, and we make the money"? (The Beekeeper sprays hundreds of cheap miniature apartments with the smoker. The bees are fainting or passing out) Oh, my! : What's going on? Are you OK? (Barry flies into one of the apartment and helps a Bee couple get off the ground. They are coughing and its hard for them to stand) BEE IN APARTMENT: Yeah. It doesn't last too long. BARRY: Do you know you're in a fake hive with fake walls? BEE IN APPARTMENT: Our queen was moved here. We had no choice. (The apartment room is completely empty except for a photo on the wall of the "queen" who is obviously a man in women's clothes) BARRY: This is your queen? That's a man in women's clothes! : That's a drag queen! : What is this? (Barry flies out and he discovers that there are hundreds of these structures, each housing thousands of Bees) Oh, no! : There's hundreds of them! (Barry takes out his camera and takes pictures of these Bee work camps. The beekeepers look very evil in these depictions)
Bee honey. : Our honey is being brazenly stolen on a massive scale! : This is worse than anything bears have done! I intend to do something. (Flash forward in time and Barry is showing these pictures to his parents) JANET: Oh, Barry, stop. MARTIN: Who told you humans are taking our honey? That's a rumor. BARRY: Do these look like rumors? (Holds up the pictures) UNCLE CARL: That's a conspiracy theory. These are obviously doctored photos. JANET: How did you get mixed up in this? ADAM: He's been talking to humans. JANET: - What? MARTIN: - Talking to humans?! ADAM: He has a human girlfriend. And they make out! JANET: Make out? Barry!
BARRY: We do not. ADAM: - You wish you could. MARTIN: - Whose side are you on? BARRY: The bees! UNCLE CARL: (He has been sitting in the back of the room this entire time) I dated a cricket once in San Antonio. Those crazy legs kept me up all night. JANET: Barry, this is what you want to do with your life? BARRY: I want to do it for all our lives. Nobody works harder than bees! : Dad, I remember you coming home so overworked : your hands were still stirring. You couldn't stop. JANET: I remember that. BARRY: What right do they have to our honey? : We live on two cups a year. They put it in lip balm for no reason whatsoever!
ADAM: Even if it's true, what can one bee do? BARRY: Sting them where it really hurts. MARTIN: In the face! The eye! : - That would hurt. BARRY: - No. MARTIN: Up the nose? That's a killer. BARRY: There's only one place you can sting the humans, one place where it matters. (Flash forward a bit in time and we are watching the Bee News) BEE NEWS NARRATOR: Hive at Five, the hive's only full-hour action news source. BEE PROTESTOR: No more bee beards! BEE NEWS NARRATOR: With Bob Bumble at the anchor desk. : Weather with Storm Stinger. : Sports with Buzz Larvi. : And Jeanette Chung. BOB BUMBLE: - Good evening. I'm Bob Bumble. JEANETTE CHUNG:

• And I'm Jeanette Chung. BOB BUMBLE: A tri-county bee, Barry Benson, : intends to sue the human race for stealing our honey, : packaging it and profiting from it illegally! JEANETTE CHUNG: Tomorrow night on Bee Larry King, : we'll have three former queens here in our studio, discussing their new book, : Classy Ladies, out this week on Hexagon. (The scene changes to an interview on the news with Bee version of Larry King and Barry) BEE LARRY KING: Tonight we're talking to Barry Benson. : Did you ever think, "I'm a kid from the hive. I can't do this"? BARRY: Bees have never been afraid to change the world. : What about Bee Columbus? Bee Gandhi? Bejesus? BEE LARRY KING: Where I'm from, we'd never sue humans.
  : We were thinking of stickball or candy stores. BARRY: How old are you? BEE LARRY KING: The bee community is supporting you in this case, : which will be the trial of the bee century. BARRY: You know, they have a Larry King in the human world too. BEE LARRY KING: It's a common name. Next week... BARRY: He looks like you and has a show and suspenders and colored dots... BEE LARRY KING: Next week... BARRY: Glasses, quotes on the bottom from the guest even though you just heard 'em. BEE LARRY KING: Bear Week next week! They're scary, hairy and here, live. (Bee Larry King gets annoyed and flies away offscreen) BARRY: Always leans forward, pointy shoulders, squinty eyes, very Jewish. (Flash forward in time. We see Vanessa enter and Ken enters behind her. They are arguing)
  

KEN: In tennis, you attack at the point of weakness! VANESSA: It was my grandmother, Ken. She's 81. KEN== Honey, her backhand's a joke! I'm not gonna take advantage of that? BARRY: (To Ken) Quiet, please. Actual work going on here. KEN: (Pointing at Barry) - Is that that same bee? VANESSA: - Yes, it is! : I'm helping him sue the human race. BARRY: - Hello. KEN: - Hello, bee. VANESSA: This is Ken. BARRY: (Recalling the "Winter Boots" incident earlier) Yeah, I remember you. Timberland, size ten and a half. Vibram sole, I believe. KEN: (To Vanessa) Why does he talk again? VANESSA:
Listen, you better go 'cause we're really busy working. KEN: But it's our yogurt night! VANESSA: (Holding door open for Ken) Bye-bye. KEN: (Yelling) Why is yogurt night so difficult?! (Ken leaves and Vanessa walks over to Barry. His workplace is a mess) VANESSA: You poor thing. You two have been at this for hours! BARRY: Yes, and Adam here has been a huge help. ADAM: - Frosting... - How many sugars? ==BARRY== Just one. I try not to use the competition. : So why are you helping me? VANESSA: Bees have good qualities. : And it takes my mind off the shop. : Instead of flowers, people are giving balloon bouquets now. BARRY:
Those are great, if you're three. VANESSA: And artificial flowers. BARRY: - Oh, those just get me psychotic! VANESSA: - Yeah, me too. : BARRY: Bent stingers, pointless pollination. ADAM: Bees must hate those fake things! : Nothing worse than a daffodil that's had work done. : Maybe this could make up for it a little bit. VANESSA: - This lawsuit's a pretty big deal. BARRY: - I guess. ADAM: You sure you want to go through with it? BARRY: Am I sure? When I'm done with the humans, they won't be able : to say, "Honey, I'm home," without paying a royalty! (Flash forward in time and we are watching the human news. The camera shows
a crowd outside a courthouse) NEWS REPORTER: It's an incredible scene here in downtown Manhattan, : where the world anxiously waits, because for the first time in history, : we will hear for ourselves if a honeybee can actually speak. (We are no longer watching through a news camera) ADAM: What have we gotten into here, Barry? BARRY: It's pretty big, isn't it? ADAM== (Looking at the hundreds of people around the courthouse) I can't believe how many humans don't work during the day. BARRY: You think billion-dollar multinational food companies have good lawyers? SECURITY GUARD: Everybody needs to stay behind the barricade. (A limousine drives up and a fat man,Layton Montgomery, a honey industry owner gets out and walks past Barry) ADAM: - What's the matter? BARRY: - I don't know, I just got a chill. (Fast forward in time and everyone is in the court) MONTGOMERY: Well, if it isn't the bee team.
(To Honey Industry lawyers) You boys work on this? MAN: All rise! The Honorable Judge Bumbleton presiding. JUDGE BUMBLETON: All right. Case number 4475, : Superior Court of New York, Barry Bee Benson v. the Honey Industry : is now in session. : Mr. Montgomery, you're representing the five food companies collectively? MONTGOMERY: A privilege. JUDGE BUMBLETON: Mr. Benson... you're representing all the bees of the world? (Everyone looks closely, they are waiting to see if a Bee can really talk) (Barry makes several buzzing sounds to sound like a Bee) BARRY: I'm kidding. Yes, Your Honor, we're ready to proceed. JUDGE BUMBLBETON: Mr. Montgomery, your opening statement, please. MONTGOMERY: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, : my grandmother was a simple woman. :
Born on a farm, she believed it was man's divine right : to benefit from the bounty of nature God put before us. : If we lived in the topsy-turvy world Mr. Benson imagines, : just think of what would it mean. : I would have to negotiate with the silkworm : for the elastic in my britches! : Talking bee! (Montgomery walks over and looks closely at Barry) : How do we know this isn't some sort of : holographic motion-picture-capture Hollywood wizardry? : They could be using laser beams! : Robotics! Ventriloquism! Cloning! For all we know, : he could be on steroids! JUDGE BUMBLETON: Mr. Benson?
BARRY: Ladies and gentlemen, there's no trickery here. : I'm just an ordinary bee. Honey's pretty important to me. : It's important to all bees. We invented it! : We make it. And we protect it with our lives. : Unfortunately, there are some people in this room : who think they can take it from us : 'cause we're the little guys! I'm hoping that, after this is all over, : you'll see how, by taking our honey, you not only take everything we have : but everything we are! JANET== (To Martin) I wish he'd dress like that all the time. So nice! JUDGE BUMBLETON: Call your first witness. BARRY: So, Mr. Klauss Vanderhayden
of Honey Farms, big company you have. KLAUSS VANDERHAYDEN: I suppose so. BARRY: I see you also own Honeyburton and Honron! KLAUSS: Yes, they provide beekeepers for our farms. BARRY: Beekeeper. I find that to be a very disturbing term. : I don't imagine you employ any bee-free-ers, do you? KLAUSS: (Quietly) - No. BARRY: - I couldn't hear you. KLAUSS: - No. BARRY: - No. : Because you don't free bees. You keep bees. Not only that, : it seems you thought a bear would be an appropriate image for a jar of honey. KLAUSS: They're very lovable creatures.
: Yogi Bear, Fozzie Bear, Build-A-Bear. BARRY: You mean like this? (The bear from Over The Hedge barges in through the back door and it is roaring and standing on its hind legs. It is thrashing its claws and people are screaming. It is being held back by a guard who has the bear on a chain) : (Pointing to the roaring bear) Bears kill bees! : How'd you like his head crashing through your living room?! : Biting into your couch! Spitting out your throw pillows! JUDGE BUMBLETON: OK, that's enough. Take him away. (The bear stops roaring and thrashing and walks out) BARRY: So, Mr. Sting, thank you for being here. Your name intrigues me. : - Where have I heard it before? MR. STING: - I was with a band called The Police. BARRY: But you've never been a police officer, have you? STING: No, I haven't. BARRY:
No, you haven't. And so here we have yet another example : of bee culture casually stolen by a human : for nothing more than a prance-about stage name. STING: Oh, please. BARRY: Have you ever been stung, Mr. Sting? : Because I'm feeling a little stung, Sting. : Or should I say... Mr. Gordon M. Sumner! MONTGOMERY: That's not his real name?! You idiots! BARRY: Mr. Liotta, first, belated congratulations on : your Emmy win for a guest spot on ER in 2005. RAY LIOTTA: Thank you. Thank you. BARRY: I see from your resume that you're devilishly handsome : with a churning inner turmoil
that's ready to blow. RAY LIOTTA: I enjoy what I do. Is that a crime? BARRY: Not yet it isn't. But is this what it's come to for you? : Exploiting tiny, helpless bees so you don't : have to rehearse your part and learn your lines, sir? RAY LIOTTA: Watch it, Benson! I could blow right now! BARRY: This isn't a goodfella. This is a badfella! (Ray Liotta looses it and tries to grab Barry) RAY LIOTTA: Why doesn't someone just step on this creep, and we can all go home?! JUDGE BUMBLETON: - Order in this court! RAY LIOTTA: - You're all thinking it! (Judge Bumbleton starts banging her gavel) JUDGE BUMBLETON: Order! Order, I say! RAY LIOTTA: - Say it! MAN:

• Mr. Liotta, please sit down! (We see a montage of magazines which feature the court case) (Flash forward in time and Barry is back home with Vanessa) BARRY: I think it was awfully nice of that bear to pitch in like that. VANESSA: I think the jury's on our side. BARRY: Are we doing everything right,you know, legally? VANESSA: I'm a florist. BARRY: Right. Well, here's to a great team. VANESSA: To a great team! (Ken walks in from work. He sees Barry and he looks upset when he sees Barry clinking his glass with Vanessa) KEN: Well, hello. VANESSA:
• Oh, Ken! BARRY:
• Hello! VANESSA: I didn't think you were coming. : No, I was just late. I tried to call, but... (Ken holds up his phone and flips it open. The phone has no charge) ...the battery... VANESSA:

I didn't want all this to go to waste, so I called Barry. Luckily, he was free. KEN: Oh, that was lucky. (Ken sits down at the table across from Barry and Vanessa leaves the room) VANESSA: There's a little left. I could heat it up. KEN: (Not taking his eyes off Barry) Yeah, heat it up, sure, whatever. BARRY: So I hear you're quite a tennis player. : I'm not much for the game myself. The ball's a little grabby. KEN: That's where I usually sit. Right... (Points to where Barry is sitting) there. VANESSA: (Calling from other room) Ken, Barry was looking at your resume, : and he agreed with me that eating with chopsticks isn't really a special skill. KEN: (To Barry) You think I don't see what you're doing? BARRY: I know how hard it is to find the right job. We have that in common.
KEN: Do we? BARRY: Bees have 100 percent employment, but we do jobs like taking the crud out. KEN: (Menacingly) That's just what I was thinking about doing. (Ken reaches for a fork on the table but knocks if on the floor. He goes to pick it up) VANESSA: Ken, I let Barry borrow your razor for his fuzz. I hope that was all right. (Ken quickly rises back up after hearing this but hits his head on the table and yells) BARRY: I'm going to drain the old stinger. KEN: Yeah, you do that. (Barry flies past Ken to get to the bathroom and Ken freaks out, splashing some of the wine he was using to cool his head in his eyes. He yells in anger) (Barry looks at the magazines featuring his victories in court) BARRY: Look at that. (Barry flies into the bathroom) (He puts his hand on his head but this makes hurts him and makes him even madder. He yells again) (Barry is washing his hands in the sink but then Ken walks in) KEN: You know, you know I've just about had it (Closes bathroom door behind him) with your little mind games. (Ken is menacingly rolling up a magazine) BARRY:
(Backing away) - What's that? KEN: - Italian Vogue. BARRY: Mamma mia, that's a lot of pages. KEN: It's a lot of ads. BARRY: Remember what Van said, why is your life more valuable than mine? KEN: That's funny, I just can't seem to recall that! (Ken smashes everything off the sink with the magazine and Barry narrowly escapes) (Ken follows Barry around and tries to hit him with the magazine but he keeps missing) (Ken gets a spray bottle) : I think something stinks in here! BARRY: (Enjoying the spray) I love the smell of flowers. (Ken holds a lighter in front of the spray bottle) KEN: How do you like the smell of flames?! BARRY: Not as much. (Ken fires his make-shift flamethrower but misses Barry, burning the bathroom. He torches the whole room but looses his footing and falls into the bathtub. After getting hit in the head by falling objects 3 times he picks up the shower head, revealing a Water bug hiding under it) WATER BUG: Water bug! Not taking sides!
(Barry gets up out of a pile of bathroom supplies and he is wearing a chapstick hat) BARRY: Ken, I'm wearing a Chapstick hat! This is pathetic! (Ken switches the shower head to lethal) KEN: I've got issues! (Ken sprays Barry with the shower head and he crash lands into the toilet) (Ken menacingly looks down into the toilet at Barry) Well, well, well, a royal flush! BARRY: - You're bluffing. KEN: - Am I? (flushes toilet) (Barry grabs a chapstick from the toilet seat and uses it to surf in the flushing toilet) BARRY: Surf's up, dude! (Barry flies out of the toilet on the chapstick and sprays Ken's face with the toilet water) : EW,Poo water! BARRY: That bowl is gnarly. KEN: (Aiming a toilet cleaner at Barry) Except for those dirty yellow rings! (Barry cowers and covers his head and Vanessa runs in and takes the toilet cleaner from Ken just before he hits Barry) VANESSA: Kenneth! What are you doing?! KEN== (Leaning towards Barry)
You know, I don't even like honey! I don't eat it! VANESSA: We need to talk! (Vanessa pulls Ken out of the bathroom) : He's just a little bee! : And he happens to be the nicest bee I've met in a long time! KEN: Long time? What are you talking about?! Are there other bugs in your life? VANESSA: No, but there are other things bugging me in life. And you're one of them! KEN: Fine! Talking bees, no yogurt night... : My nerves are fried from riding on this emotional roller coaster! VANESSA: Goodbye, Ken. (Ken huffs and walks out and slams the door. But suddenly he walks back in and stares at Barry) : And for your information, I prefer sugar-free, artificial sweeteners MADE BY MAN! (Ken leaves again and Vanessa leans in towards Barry) VANESSA: I'm sorry about all that. (Ken walks back in again)
KEN: I know it's got an aftertaste! I LIKE IT! (Ken leaves for the last time) VANESSA: I always felt there was some kind of barrier between Ken and me. : I couldn't overcome it. Oh, well. : Are you OK for the trial? BARRY: I believe Mr. Montgomery is about out of ideas. (Flash forward in time and Barry, Adam, and Vanessa are back in court) MONTGOMERY-- We would like to call Mr. Barry Benson Bee to the stand. ADAM: Good idea! You can really see why he's considered one of the best lawyers... (Barry stares at Adam) ...Yeah. LAWYER: Layton, you've gotta weave some magic with this jury, or it's gonna be all over. MONTGOMERY: Don't worry. The only thing I have to do to turn this jury around : is to remind them of what they don't like about bees. (To lawyer)

• You got the tweezers? LAWYER:
• Are you allergic? MONTGOMERY: Only to losing, son. Only to losing. : Mr. Benson Bee, I'll ask you what I think we'd all like to know. : What exactly is your relationship (Points to Vanessa) : to that woman? BARRY: We're friends. MONTGOMERY:
• Good friends? BARRY:
• Yes. MONTGOMERY: How good? Do you live together? ADAM: Wait a minute... : MONTGOMERY: Are you her little... : ...bedbug? (Adam's stinger starts vibrating. He is agitated) I've seen a bee documentary or two. From what I understand,
  : doesn't your queen give birth to all the bee children? BARRY:
  
• Yeah, but... MONTGOMERY: (Pointing at Janet and Martin)
  
• So those aren't your real parents! JANET:
  
• Oh, Barry... BARRY:
  
• Yes, they are! ADAM: Hold me back! (Vanessa tries to hold Adam back. He wants to sting Montgomery) MONTGOMERY: You're an illegitimate bee, aren't you, Benson? ADAM: He's denouncing bees! MONTGOMERY: Don't y'all date your cousins? (Montgomery leans over on the jury stand and stares at Adam) VANESSA:
  
• Objection! (Vanessa raises her hand to object but Adam gets free. He flies straight at Montgomery) =ADAM:
  
• I'm going to pincushion this guy! BARRY: Adam, don't! It's what he wants! (Adam stings Montgomery in the butt and he starts thrashing around)
  

MONTGOMERY: Oh, I'm hit!! : Oh, lordy, I am hit! JUDGE BUMBLETON: (Banging gavel) Order! Order! MONTGOMERY: (Overreacting) The venom! The venom is coursing through my veins! : I have been felled by a winged beast of destruction! : You see? You can't treat them like equals! They're striped savages! : Stinging's the only thing they know! It's their way! BARRY: - Adam, stay with me. ADAM: - I can't feel my legs. MONTGOMERY: (Overreacting and throwing his body around the room) What angel of mercy will come forward to suck the poison : from my heaving buttocks? JUDGE BUMLBETON: I will have order in this court. Order!
: Order, please! (Flash forward in time and we see a human news reporter) NEWS REPORTER: The case of the honeybees versus the human race : took a pointed turn against the bees : yesterday when one of their legal team stung Layton T. Montgomery. (Adam is laying in a hospital bed and Barry flies in to see him) BARRY: - Hey, buddy. ADAM: - Hey. BARRY: - Is there much pain? ADAM: - Yeah. : I... : I blew the whole case, didn't I? BARRY: It doesn't matter. What matters is you're alive. You could have died. ADAM: I'd be better off dead. Look at me. (A small plastic sword is replaced as Adam's stinger) They got it from the cafeteria downstairs, in a tuna sandwich.
: Look, there's a little celery still on it. (Flicks off the celery and sighs) BARRY: What was it like to sting someone? ADAM: I can't explain it. It was all... : All adrenaline and then... and then ecstasy! BARRY: ...All right. ADAM: You think it was all a trap? BARRY: Of course. I'm sorry. I flew us right into this. : What were we thinking? Look at us. We're just a couple of bugs in this world. ADAM: What will the humans do to us if they win? BARRY: I don't know. ADAM: I hear they put the roaches in motels. That doesn't sound so bad. BARRY: Adam, they check in, but they don't check out!
ADAM: Oh, my. (Coughs) Could you get a nurse to close that window? BARRY: - Why? ADAM: - The smoke. (We can see that two humans are smoking cigarettes outside) : Bees don't smoke. BARRY: Right. Bees don't smoke. : Bees don't smoke! But some bees are smoking. : That's it! That's our case! ADAM: It is? It's not over? BARRY: Get dressed. I've gotta go somewhere. : Get back to the court and stall. Stall any way you can. (Flash forward in time and Adam is making a paper boat in the courtroom) ADAM: And assuming you've done step 29 correctly, you're ready for the tub! (We see that the jury have each made their own paper boats after being taught how by Adam. They all look confused) JUDGE BUMBLETON:
Mr. Flayman. ADAM: Yes? Yes, Your Honor! JUDGE BUMBLETON: Where is the rest of your team? ADAM: (Continues stalling) Well, Your Honor, it's interesting. : Bees are trained to fly haphazardly, : and as a result, we don't make very good time. : I actually heard a funny story about... MONTGOMERY: Your Honor, haven't these ridiculous bugs : taken up enough of this court's valuable time? : How much longer will we allow these absurd shenanigans to go on? : They have presented no compelling evidence to support their charges : against my clients, who run legitimate businesses. : I move for a complete dismissal
of this entire case! JUDGE BUMBLETON: Mr. Flayman, I'm afraid I'm going : to have to consider Mr. Montgomery's motion. ADAM: But you can't! We have a terrific case. MONTGOMERY: Where is your proof? Where is the evidence? : Show me the smoking gun! BARRY: (Barry flies in through the door) Hold it, Your Honor! You want a smoking gun? : Here is your smoking gun. (Vanessa walks in holding a bee smoker. She sets it down on the Judge's podium) JUDGE BUMBLETON: What is that? BARRY: It's a bee smoker! MONTGOMERY: (Picks up smoker) What, this? This harmless little contraption? : This couldn't hurt a fly, let alone a bee. (Montgomery accidentally fires it at the bees in the crowd and they faint
and cough) (Dozens of reporters start taking pictures of the suffering bees) BARRY: Look at what has happened : to bees who have never been asked, "Smoking or non?" : Is this what nature intended for us? : To be forcibly addicted to smoke machines : and man-made wooden slat work camps? : Living out our lives as honey slaves to the white man? (Barry points to the honey industry owners. One of them is an African American so he awkwardly separates himself from the others) LAWYER: - What are we gonna do? - He's playing the species card. BARRY: Ladies and gentlemen, please, free these bees! ADAM AND VANESSA: Free the bees! Free the bees! BEES IN CROWD: Free the bees! HUMAN JURY: Free the bees! Free the bees! JUDGE BUMBLETON: The court finds in favor of the bees!
BARRY: Vanessa, we won! VANESSA: I knew you could do it! High-five! (Vanessa hits Barry hard because her hand is too big) : Sorry. BARRY: (Overjoyed) I'm OK! You know what this means? : All the honey will finally belong to the bees. : Now we won't have to work so hard all the time. MONTGOMERY: This is an unholy perversion of the balance of nature, Benson. : You'll regret this. (Montgomery leaves and Barry goes outside the courtroom. Several reporters start asking Barry questions) REPORTER 1#: Barry, how much honey is out there? BARRY: All right. One at a time. REPORTER 2#: Barry, who are you wearing? BARRY: My sweater is Ralph Lauren, and I have no pants.
(Barry flies outside with the paparazzi and Adam and Vanessa stay back) ADAM: (To Vanessa) - What if Montgomery's right? Vanessa: - What do you mean? ADAM: We've been living the bee way a long time, 27 million years. (Flash forward in time and Barry is talking to a man) BUSINESS MAN: Congratulations on your victory. What will you demand as a settlement? BARRY: First, we'll demand a complete shutdown of all bee work camps. (As Barry is talking we see a montage of men putting "closed" tape over the work camps and freeing the bees in the crappy apartments) Then we want back the honey that was ours to begin with, : every last drop. (Men in suits are pushing all the honey of the aisle and into carts) We demand an end to the glorification of the bear as anything more (We see a statue of a bear-shaped honey container being pulled down by bees) than a filthy, smelly, bad-breath stink machine. : We're all aware of what they do in the woods. (We see Winnie the Pooh sharing his honey with Piglet in the cross-hairs of a high-tech sniper rifle) BARRY: (Looking through binoculars)
Wait for my signal. : Take him out. (Winnie gets hit by a tranquilizer dart and dramatically falls off the log he was standing on, his tongue hanging out. Piglet looks at Pooh in fear and the Sniper takes the honey.) SNIPER: He'll have nausea for a few hours, then he'll be fine. (Flash forward in time) BARRY: And we will no longer tolerate bee-negative nicknames... (Mr. Sting is sitting at home until he is taken out of his house by the men in suits) STING: But it's just a prance-about stage name! BARRY: ...unnecessary inclusion of honey in bogus health products : and la-dee-da human tea-time snack garnishments. (An old lady is mixing honey into her tea but suddenly men in suits smash her face down on the table and take the honey) OLD LADY: Can't breathe. (A honey truck pulls up to Barry's hive) WORKER: Bring it in, boys! : Hold it right there! Good. : Tap it.
(Tons of honey is being pumped into the hive's storage) BEE WORKER 1#: (Honey overflows from the cup) Mr. Buzzwell, we just passed three cups, and there's gallons more coming! : - I think we need to shut down! =BEE WORKER #2= - Shut down? We've never shut down. : Shut down honey production! DEAN BUZZWELL: Stop making honey! (The bees all leave their stations. Two bees run into a room and they put the keys into a machine) Turn your key, sir! (Two worker bees dramatically turn their keys, which opens the button which they press, shutting down the honey-making machines. This is the first time this has ever happened) BEE: ...What do we do now? (Flash forward in time and a Bee is about to jump into a pool full of honey) Cannonball! (The bee gets stuck in the honey and we get a short montage of Bees leaving work) (We see the Pollen Jocks flying but one of them gets a call on his antenna) LOU LU DUVA: (Through "phone") We're shutting honey production! : Mission abort. POLLEN JOCK #1: Aborting pollination and nectar detail. Returning to base. (The Pollen Jocks fly back to the hive)
(We get a time lapse of Central Park slowly wilting away as the bees all relax) BARRY: Adam, you wouldn't believe how much honey was out there. ADAM: Oh, yeah? BARRY: What's going on? Where is everybody? (The entire street is deserted) : - Are they out celebrating? ADAM: - They're home. : They don't know what to do. Laying out, sleeping in. : I heard your Uncle Carl was on his way to San Antonio with a cricket. BARRY: At least we got our honey back. ADAM: Sometimes I think, so what if humans liked our honey? Who wouldn't? : It's the greatest thing in the world! I was excited to be part of making it. : This was my new desk. This was my new job. I wanted to do it really well. :
And now... : Now I can't. (Flash forward in time and Barry is talking to Vanessa) BARRY: I don't understand why they're not happy. : I thought their lives would be better! : They're doing nothing. It's amazing. Honey really changes people. VANESSA: You don't have any idea what's going on, do you? BARRY: - What did you want to show me? (Vanessa takes Barry to the rooftop where they first had coffee and points to her store) VANESSA: - This. (Points at her flowers. They are all grey and wilting) BARRY: What happened here? VANESSA: That is not the half of it. (Small flash forward in time and Vanessa and Barry are on the roof of her store and she points to Central Park) (We see that Central Park is no longer green and colorful, rather it is grey, brown, and dead-like. It is very depressing to look at) BARRY: Oh, no. Oh, my. :
They're all wilting. VANESSA: Doesn't look very good, does it? BARRY: No. VANESSA: And whose fault do you think that is? BARRY: You know, I'm gonna guess bees. VANESSA== (Staring at Barry) Bees? BARRY: Specifically, me. : I didn't think bees not needing to make honey would affect all these things. VANESSA: It's not just flowers. Fruits, vegetables, they all need bees. BARRY: That's our whole SAT test right there. VANESSA: Take away produce, that affects the entire animal kingdom. : And then, of course... BARRY: The human species? : So if there's no more pollination,
: it could all just go south here, couldn't it? VANESSA: I know this is also partly my fault. BARRY: How about a suicide pact? VANESSA: How do we do it? BARRY: - I'll sting you, you step on me. VANESSA: - That just kills you twice. BARRY: Right, right. VANESSA: Listen, Barry... sorry, but I gotta get going. (Vanessa leaves) BARRY: (To himself) I had to open my mouth and talk. : Vanessa? : Vanessa? Why are you leaving? Where are you going? (Vanessa is getting into a taxi) VANESSA: To the final Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena. :
They've moved it to this weekend because all the flowers are dying. : It's the last chance I'll ever have to see it. BARRY: Vanessa, I just wanna say I'm sorry. I never meant it to turn out like this. VANESSA: I know. Me neither. (The taxi starts to drive away) BARRY: Tournament of Roses. Roses can't do sports. : Wait a minute. Roses. Roses? : Roses! : Vanessa! (Barry flies after the Taxi) VANESSA: Roses?! : Barry? (Barry is flying outside the window of the taxi) BARRY: - Roses are flowers! VANESSA: - Yes, they are. BARRY: Flowers, bees, pollen!
VANESSA: I know. That's why this is the last parade. BARRY: Maybe not. Could you ask him to slow down? VANESSA: Could you slow down? (The taxi driver screeches to a stop and Barry keeps flying forward) : Barry! (Barry flies back to the window) BARRY: OK, I made a huge mistake. This is a total disaster, all my fault. VANESSA: Yes, it kind of is. BARRY: I've ruined the planet. I wanted to help you : with the flower shop. I've made it worse. VANESSA: Actually, it's completely closed down. BARRY: I thought maybe you were remodeling. : But I have another idea, and it's greater than my previous ideas combined. VANESSA: I don't want to hear it!
BARRY: All right, they have the roses, the roses have the pollen. : I know every bee, plant and flower bud in this park. : All we gotta do is get what they've got back here with what we've got. : - Bees. VANESSA: - Park. BARRY: - Pollen! VANESSA: - Flowers. BARRY: - Re-pollination! VANESSA: - Across the nation! : Tournament of Roses, Pasadena, California. : They've got nothing but flowers, floats and cotton candy. : Security will be tight. BARRY: I have an idea.
(Flash forward in time. Vanessa is about to board a plane which has all the Roses on board. VANESSA: Vanessa Bloome, FTD. (Holds out badge) : Official floral business. It's real. SECURITY GUARD: Sorry, ma'am. Nice brooch. =VANESSA== Thank you. It was a gift. (Barry is revealed to be hiding inside the brooch) (Flash back in time and Barry and Vanessa are discussing their plan) BARRY: Once inside, we just pick the right float. VANESSA: How about The Princess and the Pea? : I could be the princess, and you could be the pea! BARRY: Yes, I got it. : - Where should I sit? GUARD: - What are you? BARRY: - I believe I'm the pea. GUARD: - The pea? VANESSA:
It goes under the mattresses. GUARD: - Not in this fairy tale, sweetheart. - I'm getting the marshal. VANESSA: You do that! This whole parade is a fiasco! : Let's see what this baby'll do. (Vanessa drives the float through traffic) GUARD: Hey, what are you doing?! BARRY== Then all we do is blend in with traffic... : ...without arousing suspicion. : Once at the airport, there's no stopping us. (Flash forward in time and Barry and Vanessa are about to get on a plane) SECURITY GUARD: Stop! Security. : - You and your insect pack your float? VANESSA: - Yes. SECURITY GUARD: Has it been in your possession the entire time? VANESSA: - Yes.
SECURITY GUARD: Would you remove your shoes? (To Barry) - Remove your stinger. BARRY: - It's part of me. SECURITY GUARD: I know. Just having some fun. Enjoy your flight. (Barry plotting with Vanessa) BARRY: Then if we're lucky, we'll have just enough pollen to do the job. (Flash forward in time and Barry and Vanessa are flying on the plane) Can you believe how lucky we are? We have just enough pollen to do the job! VANESSA: I think this is gonna work. BARRY: It's got to work. CAPTAIN SCOTT: (On intercom) Attention, passengers, this is Captain Scott. : We have a bit of bad weather in New York. : It looks like we'll experience a couple hours delay. VANESSA: Barry, these are cut flowers with no water. They'll never make it. BARRY:
I gotta get up there and talk to them. VANESSA== Be careful. (Barry flies right outside the cockpit door) BARRY: Can I get help with the Sky Mall magazine? I'd like to order the talking inflatable nose and ear hair trimmer. (The flight attendant opens the door and walks out and Barry flies into the cockpit unseen) BARRY: Captain, I'm in a real situation. CAPTAIN SCOTT: - What'd you say, Hal? CO-PILOT HAL: - Nothing. (Scott notices Barry and freaks out) CAPTAIN SCOTT: Bee! BARRY: No,no,no, Don't freak out! My entire species... (Captain Scott gets out of his seat and tries to suck Barry into a handheld vacuum) HAL: (To Scott) What are you doing? (Barry lands on Hals hair but Scott sees him. He tries to suck up Barry but instead he sucks up Hals toupee) CAPTAIN SCOTT: Uh-oh. BARRY: - Wait a minute! I'm an attorney!
HAL: (Hal doesn't know Barry is on his head) - Who's an attorney? CAPTAIN SCOTT: Don't move. (Scott hits Hal in the face with the vacuum in an attempt to hit Barry. Hal is knocked out and he falls on the life raft button which launches an infalatable boat into Scott, who gets knocked out and falls to the floor. They are both uncounscious.) BARRY: (To himself) Oh, Barry. BARRY: (On intercom, with a Southern accent) Good afternoon, passengers. This is your captain. : Would a Miss Vanessa Bloome in 24B please report to the cockpit? (Vanessa looks confused) (Normal accent) ...And please hurry! (Vanessa opens the door and sees the life raft and the uncounscious pilots) VANESSA: What happened here? BARRY: I tried to talk to them, but then there was a DustBuster, a toupee, a life raft exploded. : Now one's bald, one's in a boat, and they're both unconscious! VANESSA: ...Is that another bee joke? BARRY:

• No! : No one's flying the plane! BUD DITCHWATER: (Through radio on plane) This is JFK control tower, Flight 356. What's your status? VANESSA: This is Vanessa Bloome. I'm a florist from New York. BUD: Where's the pilot? VANESSA: He's unconscious, and so is the copilot. BUD: Not good. Does anyone onboard have flight experience? BARRY: As a matter of fact, there is. BUD:
• Who's that? BARRY:
• Barry Benson. BUD: From the honey trial?! Oh, great. BARRY: Vanessa, this is nothing more than a big metal bee. : It's got giant wings, huge engines.

VANESSA: I can't fly a plane. BARRY: - Why not? Isn't John Travolta a pilot? VANESSA: - Yes. BARRY: How hard could it be? (Vanessa sits down and flies for a little bit but we see lightning clouds outside the window) VANESSA: Wait, Barry! We're headed into some lightning. (An ominous lightning storm looms in front of the plane) (We are now watching the Bee News) BOB BUMBLE: This is Bob Bumble. We have some late-breaking news from JFK Airport, : where a suspenseful scene is developing. : Barry Benson, fresh from his legal victory... ADAM: That's Barry! BOB BUMBLE: ...is attempting to land a plane, loaded with people, flowers : and an incapacitated flight crew. JANET, MARTIN, UNCLE CAR AND ADAM: Flowers?! (The scene switches to the human news)
REPORTER: (Talking with Bob Bumble) We have a storm in the area and two individuals at the controls : with absolutely no flight experience. BOB BUMBLE: Just a minute. There's a bee on that plane. BUD: I'm quite familiar with Mr. Benson and his no-account compadres. : They've done enough damage. REPORTER: But isn't he your only hope? BUD: Technically, a bee shouldn't be able to fly at all. : Their wings are too small... BARRY: (Through radio) Haven't we heard this a million times? : "The surface area of the wings and body mass make no sense."... BOB BUMBLE: - Get this on the air! BEE: - Got it.
BEE NEWS CREW: - Stand by. BEE NEWS CREW: - We're going live! BARRY: (Through radio on TV) ...The way we work may be a mystery to you. : Making honey takes a lot of bees doing a lot of small jobs. : But let me tell you about a small job. : If you do it well, it makes a big difference. : More than we realized. To us, to everyone. : That's why I want to get bees back to working together. : That's the bee way! We're not made of Jell-O. : We get behind a fellow. : - Black and yellow! BEES: - Hello! (The scene switches and Barry is teaching Vanessa how to fly) BARRY:
Left, right, down, hover. VANESSA: - Hover? BARRY: - Forget hover. VANESSA: This isn't so hard. (Pretending to honk the horn) Beep-beep! Beep-beep! (A Lightning bolt hits the plane and autopilot turns off) Barry, what happened?! BARRY: Wait, I think we were on autopilot the whole time. VANESSA: - That may have been helping me. BARRY: - And now we're not! VANESSA: So it turns out I cannot fly a plane. (The plane plummets but we see Lou Lu Duva and the Pollen Jocks, along with multiple other bees flying towards the plane) Lou Lu DUva: All of you, let's get behind this fellow! Move it out! : Move out! (The scene switches back to Vanessa and Barry in the plane) BARRY: Our only chance is if I do what I'd do, you copy me with the wings of the plane! (Barry sticks out his arms like an airplane and flys in front of Vanessa's face)
VANESSA: Don't have to yell. BARRY: I'm not yelling! We're in a lot of trouble. VANESSA: It's very hard to concentrate with that panicky tone in your voice! BARRY: It's not a tone. I'm panicking! VANESSA: I can't do this! (Barry slaps Vanessa) BARRY: Vanessa, pull yourself together. You have to snap out of it! VANESSA: (Slaps Barry) You snap out of it. BARRY: (Slaps Vanessa) : You snap out of it. VANESSA: - You snap out of it! BARRY: - You snap out of it! (We see that all the Pollen Jocks are flying under the plane) VANESSA: - You snap out of it! BARRY: - You snap out of it!
VANESSA: - You snap out of it! BARRY: - You snap out of it! VANESSA: - Hold it! BARRY: - Why? Come on, it's my turn. VANESSA: How is the plane flying? (The plane is now safely flying) VANESSA: I don't know. (Barry's antennae rings like a phone. Barry picks up) BARRY: Hello? LOU LU DUVA: (Through "phone") Benson, got any flowers for a happy occasion in there? (All of the Pollen Jocks are carrying the plane) BARRY: The Pollen Jocks! : They do get behind a fellow. LOU LU DUVA: - Black and yellow. POLLEN JOCKS: - Hello. LOU LU DUVA: All right, let's drop this tin can
on the blacktop. BARRY: Where? I can't see anything. Can you? VANESSA: No, nothing. It's all cloudy. : Come on. You got to think bee, Barry. BARRY: - Thinking bee. - Thinking bee. (On the runway there are millions of bees laying on their backs) BEES: Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! BARRY: Wait a minute. I think I'm feeling something. VANESSA: - What? BARRY: - I don't know. It's strong, pulling me. : Like a 27-million-year-old instinct. : Bring the nose down. BEES: Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! CONTROL TOWER OPERATOR: - What in the world is on the tarmac? BUD: - Get some lights on that!
(It is revealed that all the bees are organized into a giant pulsating flower formation) BEES: Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! BARRY: - Vanessa, aim for the flower. VANESSA: - OK. BARRY: Out the engines. We're going in on bee power. Ready, boys? LOU LU DUVA: Affirmative! BARRY: Good. Good. Easy, now. That's it. : Land on that flower! : Ready? Full reverse! : Spin it around! (The plane's nose is pointed at a flower painted on a nearby plane) - Not that flower! The other one! VANESSA: - Which one? BARRY: - That flower. (The plane is now pointed at a fat guy in a flowered shirt. He freaks out and tries to take a picture of the plane) VANESSA: - I'm aiming at the flower!
BARRY: That's a fat guy in a flowered shirt. I mean the giant pulsating flower made of millions of bees! (The plane hovers over the bee-flower) : Pull forward. Nose down. Tail up. : Rotate around it. VANESSA: - This is insane, Barry! BARRY: - This's the only way I know how to fly. BUD: Am I koo-koo-kachoo, or is this plane flying in an insect-like pattern? (The plane is unrealistically hovering and spinning over the bee-flower) BARRY: Get your nose in there. Don't be afraid. Smell it. Full reverse! : Just drop it. Be a part of it. : Aim for the center! : Now drop it in! Drop it in, woman! : Come on, already. (The bees scatter and the plane safely lands) VANESSA: Barry, we did it! You taught me how to fly!
BARRY: - Yes! (Vanessa is about to high-five Barry) No high-five! VANESSA: - Right. ADAM: Barry, it worked! Did you see the giant flower? BARRY: What giant flower? Where? Of course I saw the flower! That was genius! ADAM: - Thank you. BARRY: - But we're not done yet. : Listen, everyone! : This runway is covered with the last pollen : from the last flowers available anywhere on Earth. : That means this is our last chance. : We're the only ones who make honey, pollinate flowers and dress like this. : If we're gonna survive as a species, this is our moment! What do you say?
: Are we going to be bees, or just Museum of Natural History keychains? BEES: We're bees! BEE WHO LIKES KEYCHAINS: Keychain! BARRY: Then follow me! Except Keychain. POLLEN JOCK #1: Hold on, Barry. Here. : You've earned this. BARRY: Yeah! : I'm a Pollen Jock! And it's a perfect fit. All I gotta do are the sleeves. (The Pollen Jocks throw Barry a nectar-collecting gun. Barry catches it) Oh, yeah. JANET: That's our Barry. (Barry and the Pollen Jocks get pollen from the flowers on the plane) (Flash forward in time and the Pollen Jocks are flying over NYC) : (Barry pollinates the flowers in Vanessa's shop and then heads to Central Park) BOY IN PARK: Mom! The bees are back! ADAM: (Putting on his Krelman hat) If anybody needs
to make a call, now's the time. : I got a feeling we'll be working late tonight! (The bee honey factories are back up and running) (Meanwhile at Vanessa's shop) VANESSA: (To customer) Here's your change. Have a great afternoon! Can I help who's next? : Would you like some honey with that? It is bee-approved. Don't forget these. (There is a room in the shop where Barry does legal work for other animals. He is currently talking with a Cow) COW: Milk, cream, cheese, it's all me. And I don't see a nickel! : Sometimes I just feel like a piece of meat! BARRY: I had no idea. VANESSA: Barry, I'm sorry. Have you got a moment? BARRY: Would you excuse me? My mosquito associate will help you. MOOSEBLOOD: Sorry I'm late. COW: He's a lawyer too?
MOOSEBLOOD: Ma'am, I was already a blood-sucking parasite. All I needed was a briefcase. VANESSA: Have a great afternoon! : Barry, I just got this huge tulip order, and I can't get them anywhere. BARRY: No problem, Vannie. Just leave it to me. VANESSA: You're a lifesaver, Barry. Can I help who's next? BARRY: All right, scramble, jocks! It's time to fly. VANESSA: Thank you, Barry! (Ken walks by on the sidewalk and sees the "bee-approved honey" in Vanessa's shop) KEN: That bee is living my life!! ANDY: Let it go, Kenny. KEN: - When will this nightmare end?! ANDY: - Let it all go. BARRY: - Beautiful day to fly. POLLEN JOCK:

• Sure is. BARRY: Between you and me, I was dying to get out of that office. (Barry recreates the scene near the beginning of the movie where he flies through the box kite. The movie fades to black and the credits being) [--after credits; No scene can be seen but the characters can be heard talking over the credits--] You have got to start thinking bee, my friend! :
• Thinking bee!
• Me? BARRY: (Talking over singer) Hold it. Let's just stop for a second. Hold it. : I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone. Can we stop here? SINGER: Oh, BarryBARRY: I'm not making a major life decision during a production number! SINGER: All right. Take ten, everybody. Wrap it up, guys. BARRY: I had virtually no rehearsal for that.

Heylo! I'll write this post in English, but I'm also fluent in German so feel free to message me in German too :)
I'm turning 23 soon, but technically still 22 ahah.
I'm a second year bachelors student doing math - long story as to why I'm 23 and in my bachelors, but the short version is basically I got into at 16 in my home country but my uni kept shutting down a lot so I relocated to Germany and restarted :) -
I also work part time doing IT support at my uni. When I'm not super busy, I scroll random subreddits 😬 or I hang out with my friends. I also like to learn foreign languages, I'm currently trying my best to keep up with French 😄. I enjoy reading books about random topics, usually non fiction but I can also get into novels and classical lit/historical fiction/dystopian novels are my fave genres. I might get into reading magical realism novels at some point :D
I'm obsessed with discovering new music, and slowly try to learn a bit of music theory whenever I can so I can play the harmonica and make my own funk or jazz fusion instrumentals. I find new music almost on the daily and I am obsessed with sharing and analyzing different songs! If you're also into this, it'd be a great bonus!
I also really really really love animals and I used to have a ton of different pets back home. I plan on working hard enough to one day have a farm! And I just melt whenever I see pets when I'm out and about. I cannot wait till I live in a place that allows pets :') if you have a pet please send pics 😁🧡
I have a lot of random smol hobbies lol but I just do things at random, I like spontaneity but I'd say I'm mainly committed to reading, music, journaling, mental health and language learning. Also if you're into other STEM fields I'd be down to hear about what you do/like, I am also into forensic science, psychology and physics but wish to learn more about them 😬 also I used to love flowers as a kid and specifically all diff kinds of roses.. And I love buying them from time to time or just going somewhere in nature with beautiful scenery. Also clothes with floral patterns and colorful tings are my fave aha.
Now a little bit about my looks and personality:

• I'm black, as I'm from an east African country. I'm technically brown skinned, but you get it haha. I have curly shoulder length dark brown/black hair, and I guess we can exchange pics or video call after we get to know each other :)
  
• I'm quite tall, around 178-180cm(I get a different measurement each time oops) and I weigh about 78kgs but ideally would like to weigh less. I'm actively losing weight as I recover from disordered eating :) and starting in the summer I will start lifting again(I used to lift at 17-19 but I stopped being consistent after a car accident. I also used to jog quite often last year, but have narrowed it down to twice a week). I am not out of shape atm, but not necessarily fit. I'd say I have a normal body type, curvy and not skinny but not chubby.
  
• I'm very goal-oriented, once I put my mind to something I don't care how long it takes me, I will get it done! Once I'm passionate about something and I believe in myself, I won't stop at anything!
  
• I'm quite sensitive and outside of my job or studies lead by emotion, but struggle with openly showing emotions at times. I can come off as very serious and distant in the beginning, but I warm up to people after some time and if I like you, I will unleash my full goofy and happy self around you :)
  
• I have cPTSD. I feel it is relevant to mention because I struggle with depressive thoughts and occasionally anxiety, and I have a lot of intrusive thoughts. I haven't had a good childhood back home, I come from quite an elitest and short-tempered family. It is much better now, but I'd ideally like someone who is aware of this and isn't put off by the fact that my childhood wasn't all flowers and rainbows. I will have some struggles from time to time, but I try my best to not let my mental health issues define me. I also ofc don't judge others for their mental health issues, as long as they're responsible and actively seek help for them. We all have our issues!
  
• I love slightly offensive humor 😬 - think Dave Chapelle or Sasha Baron Cohen - and I like people who know how to have a good laugh and not take themselves too seriously.
  
• I wouldn't label myself as liberal, but I'm not conservative. However I am more left leaning in my beliefs - I'm bi, and I'm agnostic despite being from a Muslim country. I am for the most part on the left but don't subscribe to any one idealogy. However I like to think I'm open and accepting of most things and people.
  
• I'm an ambivert with mostly introverted tendencies/sticking to socializing with people I like, but I'm quite sociable and can get by well in most social situations.
  

What I am looking for:
A genuine nice and hard-working person who truly likes me for me, and who actively works on and takes care of themselves and inspires me to be a better me(and vice versa!). I prefer men my height or slightly taller, but slightly shorter (about 3-5ish cm or so) is fine. I don't have too much of a preference for looks, honestly for me if someone is actively putting in effort and truly cares about me, and has a nice and kind personality then you've already won me over haha. I also don't do well with arrogance or elitism as I'm surrounded by a lot of that in math unfortunately, so I prefer humility in a partner :)
I am a very curious person who is always checking something new out or wanting to ask questions and learn about things, so I would also like this in a partner. So we could always explore together. I'd also slightly prefer a partner who isn't too quiet or shy, but I'm fine with introversion!
While I definitely prefer to take things slow, I also would prefer someone who knows what they want :) if your end goal isn't a relationship, then I'd say I'm not right for you. Of course if it doesn't work out organically that's fine, but I have been led on before and I don't have tolerance for that kind of thing anymore. I find that at the beginning I'm less concerned with a status, but after some time/a few month it should be addressed + I'd just like to mention that I don't sleep around or have sex too early, it is very much dependant on how much I trust the person I'm seeing and if we know each other well enough, so there's that as well!
Feel free to pm me if I've piqued your interest so far😊😁