Fashion Nova Haul 2025

... going to Eastern Canada (Halifax/Nova Scotia). As I researched the... me to BOS. In usual fashion, people began to line up... beverage orders. In my usual fashion I skipped the welcome aboard... movies that I watched in 2025. About an hour after takeoff... the short haul First Class flights that I have taken. 2025 A Week...

Dress: The New Arrivals by İlkyaz Özel - Cocoa in Myrrhe Mystère submitted by /u/grenadierp to r/whatthefrockk [link] [comments]

Hiya! 👋🏾 I got a lot of questions on my last post regarding my journey so I wanted to share the answers here along with some pictures of how I tracked on my calendar, some old pictures that I took weekly, and how my loose skin looks on my stomach, arms and thighs How long was/is my journey? What was my starting weight and what is my current weight? How old are you? How tall are you? I started my journey July of 2023. My SW was 256 lbs, my CW is 117 lbs. I am 33 years old. I am 5'0" Did you workout and diet? I was a type 2 diabetic. I decided that I wanted a lifestyle change and I wanted to view Mounjaro as a tool, and only a tool. I began working out daily. I started out walking, using apple fitness+, and riding my at home foldable stationary bike. I then transitioned to going to Planet fitness everyday. After awhile I outgrew that gym and opened a membership at Anytime Fitness. There I started strength training and weightlifting. I did a lot of Romanian dead lifts, used the smith machine, etc. I really started burning a lot of fat and calories weightlifting, more than when I did cardio. The more I worked out the more it became a natural part of my life. It got to the point where if I did not workout, I felt off. My mood and sleep were so much better as well as my energy simply from working out. There's science behind this as your body releases feel good endorphins when you are physically active. I did not diet or track calories. I just started making better food choices and watching my portions. I did not calorie count because it is too meticulous and would frustrate me. So I just kept a loose running tab in my head of what I ate and the calories. i.e if I ate a granola bar that was 150 calories, I just mentally stored that in my brain. I increased my protein and water intake by a lot. I started eating a lot of fruits, boiled egg whites, trail mix, nuts, sunflower seeds, protein shakes, smoothies, and juices. I still ate the things I liked such as pizza or snacks, just not overindulging. Plus I didn't have the desire to eat those bad things anymore. If I wanted a snickers I allowed myself to have one. If I restricted myself, I risked the chance of overindulging when I finally got it. I juiced a lot of fruits and veggies. What dose did you take and are you on a maintenance dose? I started out at 2.5 mg and went up about every month and ended at 15 mg. I stopped taking it consistently in about April or May of 2024. I started getting sick in January and my doctor wanted to rule out Mounjaro being the issue. Turns out, Mounjaro was NOT the problem, it was actually undiagnosed lupus causing my stomach issues. I was still consistently losing weight without taking Mounjaro as I was still working out some and eating better. I started back taking Mounjaro towards the end of 2025. I ONLY take Mounjaro 15 mg now for gut inflammation caused by my lupus. Mounjaro reduces the inflammation and improves my gut motility. I only take one shot about every 3-4 weeks — so a box lasts me close to 4 months. Right before I started Mounjaro in 2023, I was also diagnosed with ADHD. A lot of my eating habits stemmed from undiagnosed ADHD and snacking for dopamine. Once I was diagnosed and adequately medicated, this issue dramatically improved which also helped with me losing weight and sticking to my exercising habits. How tall are you and do you have loose skin? I am 5'0" I have some loose skin on my thighs and stomach. I do not have loose skin on my arms. I am very grateful to not have had a lot of loose skin due to the elasticity of my skin. Working out and strength training also helped this. I've included pictures of my stomach, arms, and thighs. I was approved through my insurance which is a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan plan for loose skin removal surgery on my stomach which is called a Panniculectomy. The requirements were: 1. Losing 50-100 lbs 2. Maintaining the weight loss for at least 6 months 3. Keeping the weight off. Since the loose skin pulls on my frame it also causes some lower back issues and the rubbing skin between the hanging stomach and thighs can cause chafing. So the procedure is considered medically necessary. What advice do you have? The biggest thing is that you have to have patience with yourself. This is not an overnight quick journey. It takes time. You cannot rush yourself or the process. If you stay diligent, you will see the work. DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS. Looking at transformations such as mine should be seen as motivation and encouragement, NOT as a means of comparison or failure. All of our journeys are unique and our own. You have to focus on your own journey. You also have to remember (especially if you are just starting out) that looking at changes like mine is over a THREE YEAR time span. This isn't something that happened fast. View Mounjaro as a TOOL. While you will see weight loss by just taking the medicine alone, you should not solely rely on it. It can be taken away at any time meaning that you need to establish habits that will stick and provide progress whether or not Mounjaro is in the picture. You can't expect extreme results if you don't change your mindset and habits. I promise that pairing exercise and better eating will truly take you a long way. DO NOT PUT SO MUCH STOCK INTO THE SCALE NUMBERS AND TAKE PICTURES AND MEASUREMENTS! This one is extremely important. The scale number is just a small portion of the picture. There are so many factors with the scale. If you are strength training and weight lifting, you are burning fat but building muscle. Muscle is more dense than fat meaning that the scale may show a higher number or not move at all because your muscle mass is increasing but your fat is decreasing. This is a good thing and does not mean that you are not making progress. Take pictures every week. I took pictures of my back, sides, and from the front weekly. The scale sometimes wouldn't show significant changes, but those pictures showed them. I'd see a back roll smoothing out, or my stomach profile flattening. The visual pictures and changes were my biggest motivators along with measuring. I measured my waist and stomach weekly as well and wrote the measurements down on a calendar. Each month I'd write my starting weight and measurements and my goal for the month i.e lose 10 lbs at the top of the calendar and then weekly I'd put my weight and measurement. Watching the numbers go down was constant motivation for me to keep going. I used an amazon scale from VeSync which has an app. The scale showed my BMI, metabolic age, visceral fat, subcutaneous fat, fat free body weight, etc. This helped as well. It allows me to track my progress and see visual graphs and trends. BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF I had to be honest with myself. Am I doing the best that I can? Am I putting in all of my effort? Am I really being as physically active as possible? Am I eating better? If you are not honest with yourself and continue doing what you've always done, you will not be able to tap into the potential you truly have. This was the biggest thing for me in terms of really starting my journey. I'd push myself on days when I really didn't want to go to the gym. But if I missed the gym or ate something bad one day, I wouldn't beat myself up over it. That does not help. Be honest but be kind with yourself. Give yourself grace. All of these things helped me to get to where I am at today. It was not an easy journey, but it was so fulfilling. Doing these things catapulted my weight loss. I lost way more weight and body fat in such a short amount of time than the average Mounjaro user. This is because of the things I mentioned above. I did the work. You have to put in the work and the effort to see the results you truly want. You deserve it for yourself! and it's achievable! I never believed I could do this, but if EYE can do it YOU can do it! Although in the midst of my journey I was diagnosed with lupus which made my gym journey take a backseat, I still feel so much healthier than ever before. I am smaller than I was when I graduated high school. I am no longer diabetic. My asthma is fully controlled. I am more physically capable than I was before. My mental and emotional health has improved immensely! I do still struggle with body image issues such as buying clothes that are a bigger size or looking at clothes thinking they are too small because I am still envisioning myself as bigger than what I am, but this is a continuous work in progress that gets better each day. I also started my loc journey at the same time which helped. I was able to watch my hair transform and grow at the same time as my body! I am happy to answer anymore questions that anyone may have. Please feel free to DM me or comment on the post. I am wishing you all amazing success! 🫶🏽 EDITED TO ADD: Someone in the comment made a great point about ADHD meds causing “weight loss a lot! So if you aren’t seeing the same results that’s something to think about” is valid for sure. But weight loss as a result of my ADHD meds, was NOT the case for me. When I said I was diagnosed with ADHD right before I started Mounjaro that “right before” was actually 6 months prior in January of 2023. So while the medication did help with my binge eating for dopamine, I was not losing any weight whatsoever. I had NOT begun working out, nor had I changed my eating habits at all. I was more aware of and mindful of snacking and eating out of boredom and dopamine seeking, yes, but that was the extent to which I changed at that point. I didn’t make any of those changes until I started Mounjaro in July of 2023. If the medication was contributing to my weight loss, I would have lost a lot of weight or at least some in the first 6 months and I didn’t. Had I been losing weight and my A1C coming down as a result, I don’t think my doctor would have prescribed Mounjaro as I was already on Metformin which wasn’t doing anything. But that was not the case. I wanted to add this because that is a valid statement and if you’re taking stimulant medication for ADHD (all ADHD meds are not stimulants and do not cause weight loss FYI) there is a significant chance for weight loss. But that wasn’t the case for me. It was me making those lifestyle changes along with taking Mounjaro and my ADHD meds giving me the ability to stick to routines and habits. Plus, I don’t want it to appear as if I’m not being genuine and leaving out a portion of my journey that drastically impacted my weight loss. submitted by /u/aryastark2626 to r/Mounjaro [link] [comments]

Just wanted to know does fashion nova ship here? I was ordering from them for a while before my packages would get stuck in Santa Fe and just never make its way here. submitted by /u/Smart-Salary49 to r/guam [link] [comments]

TLDR: Despite Cygames giving away lots of pulls, they're just barely enough for survival thanks to Umamusume's highly predatory game design that drains dedicated players' time and wallets through a hyper-competitive, PvP-focused endgame. For a game where the appeal comes from the characters, you have to pull them in order to experience their stories. However, in order to have a smooth career experience, or have a chance in PvP, the game requires multiple MLB support cards acquired through archaic JP gacha system with severe lack of universal Support card LB resource, and accelerating powercreep that will eventually make old units obsolete in PvP. Then, Torena-san must spend lots of hours going through a brutal, RNG-heavy grind just to get "1 bottle of Uma glue" every 30 minutes. Rather than improving the RNG for free, Cygames monetizes player frustration by selling QoL subscriptions which, combined, cost much more than an MMO subscription, while offering less content than an average MMO. While casual fans can enjoy the game partially as a free, high-quality visual novel, the deep parasocial relationship fostered by cute horse girls & excellent storywriting, combined with Cygames' freebies, further reinforces tribalism, with many players using "fun" as an argument to silence criticisms from dedicated players who got burned out by a time-consuming, expensive, and highly P2W endgame loop. (Disclaimer: English isn't my first language, and my knowledge of the JP servers comes from internet search rather than firsthand experience.) (EDIT: Here are the reactions from r/UmaMusume ) 450+ hours spent making Uma Glue. Perhaps I'm addicted to horse girls. Quick Introduction Umamusume: Pretty Derby is a gacha game where real-life elite Japanese thoroughbreds are anthropomorphized into funny horse girls. The game is renowned for its excellent character design, storywriting & filled with attention to details. The franchise also has top-tier anime, manga, and music production, rivaling Japanese giants like Idolm@ster & Love Live; while breathing new life into horse racing. On top of that, Cygames reinvests back into horse racing through sponsorships & donations. The game won the "Best Mobile Game" award at The Game Awards 2025. The gameplay loop involves training a character in Career mode while reading the stories of that character, from slice of life to all sorts of drama & rivalries inspired by their real-life counterparts' legacy, resembling a Tamagotchi-style raising sim. After that, you use the result of a career run (Veteran Umamusume) to do other content. (Career mode tutorial) We all know that Cygames has the reputation of giving away lots of freebies & randomly throwing pulls out of nowhere (Glory to Cygames!!!). However, game development is a business, and oftentimes such generosity is merely an illusion. If the developers shower you with pulls, there's a high chance they're gonna design the game in a way to drain your savings. Umamusume is no exception. Despite Cygames being "generous" with pulls, the game is still considered unforgiving by many Torena-san. This is the result of multiple intertwined design choices: A highly competitive, PvP-focused endgame Dupe-reliant support cards with a severe lack of universal limit-break currency A bloated gacha pool and typical powercreep A tedious, RNG-heavy gameplay loop "alleviated" by expensive microtransactions and QoL subscriptions (in JP). 1: The PvP Endgame The excitement of winning your first career races will eventually fade away, and once you've read all available stories, the Endgame is there to provide long-term engagement. Besides typical story events there are some gameplay events, but they don't add much in terms of gameplay: Golshi Week, 37.6 pulls login rewards & a more difficult Career mode with 1.2M gold rewards Fuji Kiseki's Show Time, more difficult career mode with random rewards Trainer Aptitude Test, career mode with side objectives Racing Carnival, harder Legend Races & a bunch of repetitive menu clicks Naturally, like many sports games, PvP is the main repeatable content. Watching hyper-optimized umas battle for position, meet skill conditions, and backliners executing late-race overtakes (ft. The Unsinkable Gold Ship) can be an adrenaline-pumping experience. Competition is one hell of a drug. However, as we all know, Gacha + PvP has always been a disastrous combo, especially when premium currency is on the line. Wisdom shared by The Mun Many modern KR/CN gacha games either front-load their rewards on lower ranks & have high-rank rewards mostly just flexing rights (title, small premium currency bonus) so that casuals don't feel bad when losing, or no PvP at all. Here are some examples: Blue Archive director Kim Yong Ha shared at a conference that the importance of PVP elements in BA has been intentionally set low to avoid ruining the players' love for the characters. His development philosophies are also reflected in how premium currency (Pyroxene) rewards are distributed: Pyroxenes in Total Assault (Leaderboard Raid) are frontloaded, with Gold -> Platinum rank netting you only 200 pyroxene (1.67 pulls). Grand Assault gives you a 10-pull ticket regardless of ranks. Unless you're in a club with rank requirements, reaching Platinum is mostly for sense of pride & accomplishment. Joint Firing Drill (Roster check) & Final Restriction Release (Tower Raid) has no pyroxene rewards. Tactical Challenge (PvP) splits the playerbase into brackets. You can reach Top 500 (takes 10 battles every 6 months) & never touch it again, treating it as daily free 20 pyroxenes (0.16 pulls). Many clubs don't have Tactical Challenge rank requirements. PvP is arse anyways. During story events, all 12 event stages can be 3★'d using 3★ students, while difficult challenge stages give only 2 pulls total. He also stated that this is not limited to Blue Archive, other games are also moving in the direction of reducing PVP and even reducing the importance of cooperative play. Genshin Impact is another pioneer example with how the game being intentionally designed towards casual players: There's no combat PvP Domain Co-op is mostly just for fun or to help new players. Most events are very casual-friendly, with all primogems rewards being front-loaded into the easiest objectives. You can 9★ Spiral Abyss floor 12 if you follow the guides on KeqingMains & have good artifacts. Imaginarium Theatre is a roster check that allows you to borrow trial characters & characters from your friends. Stygian Onslaught has rewards front-loaded into the lower difficulties. Umamusume, on the other hand, incentivizes tryharding and spending by giving more premium currency toward high ranks. Below are the PvP modes & their rewards. To summarize: an average player can get about 30 pulls every month from PvP & Clubs, assuming you have good game knowledge & put effort grinding, which is a considerable amount for F2Ps & low spenders. Cygames really wants you to grind PvP. 1.1: Team Trials Game8 Tutorial You form 5 teams of 3 veteran umamusume to run against other players. Your umas accumulate scores by activating skills, placing higher & winning multiple races in a row. Your high score of the week decides whether you get promoted, keep your rank, or demoted at weekly reset. AFAIK the strategy is to activate as many skills as possible. Carats are awarded weekly depending on your Team Trials Class. There's a daily challenge that requires you to play 1 game of Team Trials, and is a pre-requisite for full daily completion rewards. Story events require you to play 40 times. Steam Achievement requires 500. Rewards (x1.5 for Global's accelerated schedule) Class Carats 1 0 2 25 3 50 4 75 5 150 6 250 1.2: Champions' Meeting GameTora Tutorial Monthly competitive 3v3v3 PvP with limited entries per day. Whoever finishes 1st wins. Track layout & conditions are announced weeks prior, so that torena-san can research & prepare specialized umamusume for the event. This is where Umamusume's gameplay truly shines, which involves studying a specific track's layout, understanding how skills interact with the track & with each other, choosing the right Support Cards for the right skills, grinding parent umas that pass down the correct traits,... You can spend hours researching & building your own playstyle. There are 2 brackets: Open League: will be A+ max in Global. There are min-maxxers who use calculators & race simulators to engineer their uma while remaining under the rating cap. (example run by LinhSaky) Graded League: no restrictions, filled with high-rollers & meta slaves Qualifiers (You earn rewards based on the amount of wins in an entry & qualify to group A by winning 3/5 races in a single entry.) Round 0 Wins 1 Win 2 Wins 3 Wins 4 Wins 5 Wins Open Round 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 Open Round 2 Group B 10 15 20 30 40 50 Open Round 2 Group A 15 20 30 40 50 100 Graded Round 1 10 15 20 30 40 50 Graded Round 2 Group B 15 20 30 40 50 100 Graded Round 2 Group A 20 30 40 50 75 150 As you can see, 5/5 wins gives you more carats. The Finals (1 race, may the RNG god bless you) Finals 3rd Place 2nd Place 1st Place Open Group B 500 600 700 Open Group A 700 850 1000 Graded Group B 700 900 1200 Graded Group A 1200 1800 2500 1.3: League Of Heroes (JP) GameWith JP Tutorial Welcome to Torena-san's Rift. What a name choice. Competitive 3v3 (+6 AI) Ranked PvP with limited entries per day similar to Champions' Meeting. Fixed track layout, but weather & track conditions rotate every 5 races. You gain score & rank up depending on placements of your 3 uma. Top 96 players are qualified for an "extra stage". Placement Score 1st 100 pt 2nd 60 pt 3rd 40 pt 4th 30 pt 5th 20 pt 6th - 12th 10 pt Rank up Rewards Rank Total Score Carats Bronze 2 1,000 30 Bronze 3 2,000 30 Bronze 4 3,000 30 Silver 1 4,000 50 Silver 2 5,500 50 Silver 3 7,000 100 Silver 4 8,500 100 Gold 1 10,000 150 Gold 2 12,500 150 Gold 3 15,000 300 Gold 4 17,500 300 Platinum 1 20,000 500 Platinum 2 23,000 500 Platinum 3 26,000 500 Platinum 4 30,000 500 Platinum 4+ Every 2000 points 100 Score Leaderboard Rewards Top Carats 1 5000 2 4000 3 3000 96 1500 300 1200 1000 900 10000 750 30000 500 1.4: Club Leaderboards Game8 Tutorial If you're a dedicated player you may as well join a club, trade dirt shoes & earn some rewards. Every month clubs gets awarded depending on the total amount of "fans" all 30 members earned during that month. Many clubs have specific daily/weekly fan quota required in order to stay in the club, for top clubs it can be 5-7 runs per day. You gain Fans by racing in Career or playing Team Trials. You can just prepare PvP umamusume & earn fans naturally, or do specialized runs aimed to maximize fans earned. Rewards (x1.5 for Global's accelerated schedule) Top Carats & Club Points 10 3000 30 2400 100 2100 500 1800 1000 1500 3000 1200 5000 900 7000 600 10000 300 10001+ 150 2: The Gacha Some basic information about the gacha: 3% for 3-stars/SSRs, with 0.5-0.75% for featured units All units remain in gacha pools 1 pull = 150 carats. There are daily discounted pulls which costs 50 paid carats. No pity. Spark at 200 pulls with no carryover. You can reach spark without getting a single copy of featured unit. Example tweet of Torena-san reaching spark 2 times without having pulled a single featured unit A full spark (200 pulls) in this game costs ~$420 without any purchase bonuses. New banners drop every 2 weeks. Most units only get one rerun; some never get reran at all. 2.1: Umamusume (Pretty Derby) Gacha Once pulled, all characters are immediately playable in Career without needing to upgrade, allowing you to instantly have fun & umapyoi the girls. Most of their power comes from support cards. However, as good as their storywriting is, you cannot experience their career stories without pulling them first. LARPing is a common lifestyle. The banners are also filled with alternate costumes. In JP, more than 50% of the 3★ units are just alts. Each alt only has a new unique skill, a new potential skill set, and 3 new story events related to the costume. Same career & stories as original versions. Pulling an alt costume has minimal value unless you haven't pulled any version of that character, you really like the costume/character, or the alt is strong in PvP. (data from GameTora, change server to Japan) Duplicates grant Star Pieces for the pulled Uma, and Goddess Statues for universal star piece exchange. However, almost all Umamusume are perfectly viable at 3★. Additionally, if you're an Open League min-maxxer, NEVER star up your umamusume beyond 3★. Starring up adds +1 unique skill level (+170 rating), almost equal to a green skill (+174) for negligible bonuses, which cannot be undone. Many min-maxxers avoid upgrading unique skills by avoiding starring up & intentionally failing scenario requirements to ensure their uma remains under the Open League rating cap. At some point after the 3rd anniversary, there will be semi-limited umamusume during anni/half-anni. They can't be acquired from selectors, or selectable in step-up gacha, and have reduced rate of being spooked. Here are all semi-limited umas currently in JP: Jungle Pocket Gentildonna Orfevre Still in Love Cinderella Gray Oguri Cap (Alt) Stay Gold Almond Eye All umamusume are limited by their aptitudes, potential/evolution skill sets, and unique skill conditions. Some will excel on specific tracks while being weak/okay in others. Some are meta for a long time. What about powercreep? While any Uma can theoretically win PvP with a decent support deck & good parents (Example tweet), new Uma/alts in JP are built to be stronger & sometimes even more specialized towards specific tracks/playstyles with better potential skill sets, very specific skill conditions & better activation consistency, especially the semi-limited ones. Here's an example of difference between year 1 & latest JP uma: Christmas Oguri Cap (Year 1 & Year 2 medium/long meta) Unique skill: +Max Speed, Acceleration & HP in 2nd half of the raceafter activating 3 recovery skills, requiring proper skill activation timing. Her potential skill set includes Triple 7s (+HP at 777m left), which can be used to time her unique. "First-hand Christmas Miracle" evolution skill (Long): +Max Speed & HP at final corner while being near the inner fence. Cinderella Gray Oguri Cap (4.5 anniversary, strong in Mile + Arima Kinen) Unique skill: +Max Speed while in between top 20% & 70%, stronger in in Mile races and on the Arima Kinen course with at least 146738 fans (reference to 1990 Arima Kinen) "Undying Flame" evolution skill (Mile, Long): +Max Speed at a random point in Mid-race while being in top 50%. Then, +Max Speed at 200m remaining if you've done at least 1 dueling at final straight. "Let Your Name Shake Heaven and Earth" evolution skill (Pace Chaser・Long・2500 m・Nakayama Racecourse, a.k.a Arima Kinen): +Acceleration at Late race, stronger if she were within 10 lengths from the lead around the end of the Mid race. Basically historic horse racing moments being weaponized to make money. Almond Eye (5th Anniversary, absolute menace in Medium tracks) Unique skill: +Current Speed when in top 50%, stronger in Medium race, instant speed boost without needing to accelerate. Then, +Acceleration in Zenkai Spurt (late-rate acceleration if speed stat is at least 2000) "The Next Phase" evolution skill (Pace Chaser): +Max Speed If you're in top 50% at a random point during the second half of mid-race, stronger if your Speed stat is at least 1200. "Assured Victory" Evolution skill (Pace Chaser): +Max Speed at a random point during the second half of mid-race, then +Acceleration at last spurt Ironically, while the cute horse girls are the franchise's main selling point, in order to have a smooth career experience, complete difficult event challenges, or be competitive in PvP, you need good support cards. 2.2: Support card gacha Unlike character banners where pulling the first copy of an uma is worthy for celebration, for support cards, it is just the beginning. Most support cards require 3LB or MLB to be viable, as crucial stats like Training Effectiveness and Specialty Priority are locked behind dupes. A support deck has 6 cards. You must borrow 1 from other players. There are currently 200+ SSRs in JP, many of which are fillers & niches. Getting "spooked" by an off-banner SSR grants zero benefits unless it miraculously happens to be a card you want. This is why "SSR Guaranteed" tickets and banners are often considered scams by players. (data from GameTora, change server to Japan) You can use Uncap Crystals to limit break any card, requiring 20 Shards to exchange 1 Crystal. However, you still need to pull for duplicates because: You cannot exchange Cleats, the currency acquired from destroying unused duplicates, for shards. Events and battle passes only hand out enough Shards for roughly 4 crystals per year (JP), making those crystals extremely rare & valuable Additionally, there are scenario support cards, designed to be very strong in a specific scenario only. With Cygames releasing new scenarios every 4 months instead of 6, F2Ps/Low Spenders are expected to borrow them instead of pulling. There are free support cards, and here are how to acquire & limit break them: Main story support cards: First copy granted by finishing a story chapter Join a club, trade dirt shoes to get club points, then grind fans to get your club into higher ranks to get more club points, which can be used to exchange for support card duplicates. You get more fans for winning career races -> pull & upgrade support cards for better chance winning Event support cards: Play career mode, level up the event "battle pass" & roll the Prize Derby roulette. Progress depend on your career results + event bonuses from unlocked umamusume & support cards -> pull & upgrade support cards for faster event progression. Your support card collection gains a buff to your Team Trials score, depending on their levels (up to 50%): Card Level Bonus (Per Card) 20 +0.01% 25-35 +0.02% 40 +0.03% 50 +0.05% (Note: In JP, this system was updated to be based purely on the rarity of MLB cards: R cards give +0.03%, while MLB SR and SSR cards give +0.05%.) SR cards are viable for endgame & PvP at the moment in Global, but in the future full MLB SSR decks will become the norm when veterans manage to build a decent support collection. Eventually Support cards will get powercrept with new ones having better stats, skill point bonuses, granting 2 gold skills instead of 1, with many skills having better activation conditions. Even the old "Human Rights" ones like SSR Speed Kitasan Black will eventually fall out of the PvP meta. In the future, cards released during anni/half-anni are usually "Human Rights" tier, pressuring competitive players to pull & MLB them. Your SRs & free welfare SSRs will eventually be obsolete for PvP. You cannot escape the support gacha. 2.3: Free pull events There are daily free pull events during special events like Anniversary, about 100-120 pulls per event. However: Unused free pulls are lost at daily reset. Some events have a system that stores unused free pulls, but only if you didn't login from before the start of the event, essentially functioning as a returning player mechanic. Some events only give 1 pull per day instead of 10 pulls. At that point, why not just give players 150 Carats so they can actually save them? Some events split the free pulls between between 2 different banners with different spark progression. You can't select which banner to use those pulls, which means guaranteeing wasted pulls unless you get incredibly lucky or continue pulling until spark/MLB. 3: The RNG Horse racing is chaotic & unpredictable. A superstar horse with multiple victories may randomly lose for whatever reasons at any time (ft. Gold Ship's 12 billion yen incident & Mejiro McQueen topping with 14 billion yen). Cygames tries to recreate this chaos by making the RNG in this game incredibly punishing: Random mood downs & negative conditions. Some uma have negative conditions baked into their career [e.g. Super Creek's "Under the Weather" (+5% failure chance), Meisho Doto's "Not Ready" (random -5 energy after racing)] Resting may grant less energy, with a Night Owl condition (random energy loss) Your training stat gain is influenced by whether Support cards appear in a training category or not. Sometimes they may not appear in crucial turns like Summer training, then appear when your Uma's energy is low, forcing you to gamble. Failing 1 or 2 important turns can brick your PvP training run. Infirmary does not guarantee removing negative conditions. Support card events' appearance is not guaranteed. Some events require you to gamble for desired skills. Some characters like Gold Ship may randomly restrict your training options. Praying for "Fast Learner" buff (-10% skill points cost) in JP, where average uma has roughly 20-30 skills thanks to scenario stat inflation. Inheriting sparks from parent uma is RNG. Start reaction time is RNG. Skill activation chance is determined by your Uma's Wit stat "If you're blocked, you're blocked." Not placing 1st in a career race costs more energy + grant less skill points, and placing 6th or below in may inflict a purple self-debuff skill. While this unpredictability helps with immersion in casual story runs, it can destroy your PvP Ace training. Imagine 30 minutes wasted because of missing important skills, failed important training turns, or not reaching stat thresholds. Example of support cards appearing when The Mun's energy is low. Luckily this is a casual story run & not PvP Ace training. And there's the infamous Trackblazer/MANT scenario. An average run takes 1 hour, where you're expected to win more than 30 races to collect epithet bonuses, watch a bunch of loading screens & UI animations, while praying for the item shop to drop something good. Deck building is restrictive, requiring stacking Race Bonus to more then 50%, making inheriting skills from parent uma important. Cygames made no adjustments to Trackblazer's global release, so Global players have to suffer through it for 4 months. (Game8 Tutorial) Example of a Trackblazer/MANT run's Race Agenda To make matters worse, just 1 month before Trackblazer was sunset by Grand Live, Cygames dropped The Throne's Assemblage Group card, a very good scenario card for Trackblazer, in hope of draining players' Carat savings before the next scenario. Reddit post for reference What about parent/legacy farming? Think a good parent umamusume as god roll artifacts in Genshin. A Kitasan Black level stud in real-life is rare (she got dried just like BA's Sensei), so Cygames also tries to mimic this with multiple layers of RNG: Blue spark: 20% chance for 1 of the 5 stats, then 5% to get 3★ at 600 stats or 10% at 1200. They direcly give you stats at the start of career & during inspiration events. Having 8★ or 9★ stamina sparks can save you a stamina card slot, and in some Medium distance races can substitute a recovery skill. Red spark: Randomly chosen between your character’s A-rank aptitudes. Track aptitudes affect Acceleration, Distance affects Speed, Strategy affects Wit stat These Can be used to increase an Uma's aptitude, especially ones with B or below, up to A at career start, up to S during inspiration events (and the main way to make Haru Urara win Arima Kinen) White spark: 20% for white skills learned, 25% for ◎ white, 40% for gold, increases by 2.5% (white) to 5% (gold) when grandparents have it. Those sparks grant skill hints and are used for inheriting important skills like Groundwork, strategy/distance corners, Nimble Navigator,... Not to mention that you may have to redo the same thing for different uma, or when a new scenario drops with higher stat limit, forcing everyone to move on to the next scenario while soft-sunsetting your existing trained roster. The result is an MMO-level grind where even with the best support deck, majority of your time will be spent making "Uma glue" while praying your next run will be something decent, but instead of being showered with glue, the game proudly awards you "1 bottle of Uma glue" every 30-minute run, and your veteran umamusume gets soft-sunset every scenario release. (Note: The "Uma glue" joke is a dark community reference to the historical fate of unsuccessful or injured racehorses, as raising them is incredibly expensive and only a fraction ever win a debut race. Here's a Reddit post about why retirement farms need fundraising.) You can borrow parent umamusume by following other Torena-san, but strong parents are highly sought after that they can reach followers cap very quickly. 4: The paid packs Game development is a business, and developers need food on their table. With how competitive PvP is, it can be tempting to swipe your credit card. 4.1 Currency subscriptions Standard light spender goodies in gacha Daily carats pack (980 yen, $6,99) Good old monthly pack. Instant 500 "Paid" carats + 1500 carats drip-fed over 30 days. Unclaimed carats are sent to mail box when expired (JP) X2 career rewards (excluding fans & bonds) (JP) +3 Daily race tickets Cygames doesn't adjust the pack to accommodate global schedule acceleration Premium monthly battle pass (JP) (800 yen, ~$5) Instant 300 "Paid" carats, unlocks premium track of the battle pass. You can get legacy support card tickets, which can be used to exchange featured Year 1 & 2 SSR support cards that have been powercrept (including SSR Speed Kitasan Black) Notable rewards: 1300 free carats 25 legacy support tickets (10 to exchange 1 copy) 4 Uma pull tickets 4 Support pull tickets 1 Crystal shard (20 to exchange 1 Uncap Crystal) 4.2 QoL subscriptions Instead of fixing the stupid RNG I mentioned in section 3 for every torena-san, Cygames decided to monetize QoL features. Having all three of these subscriptions saves you hundreds of hours of parent farming. These are features that would be free baseline QoL updates in almost any other modern video game. Spark reroll subscription (JP) (500 yen, ~$3) Lets you reroll the sparks 3 times for "free" instead of spending 30 Energy -> 30 carats -> 30 carats, basically 4 parent runs in 1. You can select your preferred results. Blue/Pink spark selector subscription (JP) (980 yen, ~$7) Selects which blue/pink spark type you want to get for your Umamusume at the end of their career run for "free" instead of 100 carats. No more praying for RNG to drop your preferred spark category. The stars of those sparks are still RNG Uma Plan (JP) (1980 yen, ~$12) "Sweep" the career mode & instantly get 5 parent-only umamusume daily, 10 with the spark reroll pass. Yes, they're monetizing a basic feature of a gacha game. During Inspiration/Inheritance (Classic/Senior Early April turns) events you can choose 1 of 2 spark rolls, alleviating inspiration RNG. +5 Parent borrows per day Permanent +100 follow slots (probably to lure players into subscribing) There were mixed reactions regarding the Uma Plan subscription. Torena-san defending the new Uma Plan, arguing that paying for QoL advantages is normal Torena-san explaining why Uma Plan is worth it, that paying for time-saving QoLs allows them to play other games Torena-san being against it, arguing that QoL subscriptions shorten the game's life span Torena-san bragging about spending $110 for annual Uma Plan Reddit's reactions 4.3: Selectors/Guaranteed Banners Selector tickets (Uma/SSR) Can be exchanged for 1 copy of an 3★/SSR unit. Because of the bloated banners, these have very high value. The first ones cost $21, standard selector prices. Includes 1500 paid carats. The second ones cost $70, equal to a modern AAA game. Includes 5000 paid carats. The fact that Global players actively map out months of pull plans around these tickets proves how demanding PvP is. Guaranteed 3-star/SSR banners Costs 1,500 Paid Carats ($20). Because there is no duplicate protection against a bloated pool, this is widely considered a scam. Step-up gacha (JP) Available during anni/half-anni Costs 5000 paid carats total. You can buy a $70 selector ticket & dump the bonus carats on this. Select 10 units for rate-up, then do 5 steps of 10-pulls: 1 (500 paid carats): Guaranteed 2★/SR 2 (700): Guaranteed 2★/SR 3 (1000): Guaranteed 3★/SSR 4 (1300): Guaranteed 3★/SSR 5 (1500): Guaranteed Selector 3★/SSR Overall, If you're a dedicated PvP player, you're expected to buy all 5 subscriptions (total $30+ monthly), plus selector tickets & step up gacha. EX: What if I'm F2P & ignore PvP? If you step away from PvP, you will save a massive amount of money and sanity. In fact, a considerable portion of the playerbase treats Umamusume purely as a casual game. Support card requirements are low for story enjoyers. Rental decks will come in 4th anniversary. URA Finale is the fastest scenario for story runs with no extra gimmicks (yet). You can ignore farming parent uma Until Autoplay comes to global, you can do a botched run to complete dailies: Pick any uma with a fan objective as second career objective Win debut race Spam recreation until the 2nd objective deadline and lose career Or slot 4 speed cards, turn your brain off & Bakushin Bakushin Bakushinshin. There are players who focus on self-made achievements like grind 1 billion fans for their oshi, collect epithets, or pulling off the legendary feat of making Haru Urara win the Arima Kinen career race. It's not everyone's cup of tea, though. [Note: Haru Urara is a Dirt umamusume specialized in Sprint & Mile distances. Her final career objective requires participation in the Arima Kinen, where her Turf & Long aptitude is G (-90% Speed & Acceleration), which is basically a guaranteed loss, and then you'll watch this cheerful girl break down & cry for the first time. Many Torena-san consider winning the Arima Kinen with Haru Urara a legendary feat, because it requires not just parents with at least a total of 7★ Turf & 7★ Long sparks, but also luck in inheritance (she has low affinity with every single character), and luck in the race itself (You can't retry the race)] In the long term, not caring about PvP means you won't have much motivation to deep dive into the game's mechanics. The game essentially transforms into a high-quality visual novel with raising-sim elements where you mostly log in just to do dailies, and maybe eventually become a Cygames seasonal player. However, keep in mind that you still need to pull the characters in order to experience their career stories, and PvP accounts for a considerable amount of repeatable carat income. 5. When "Fun" becomes an excuse to silence criticism If you combine all the information, it's obvious that the game's trying to suck players into the PvP grind, then milk dedicated players & whales as hard as possible. But wait. It gets worse. Umamusume, like many idol and gacha franchises, is fundamentally built on fostering relationships with their characters. You read their backstories, help them through personal struggles, watch them cry when they lose, all while doing your best being the guiding light towards their success. Eventually you've followed the franchise for so long that it becomes part of your life. You can't image a day without getting pampered by Super Creek, squishing The Mun, or hearing Mejiro Ardan's alluring ASMR voice. Then, the "Glory to Cygames" meme erupts when the devs continue to hand out free pulls, or do something good to IRL horse racing, further reinforcing Tribalism. When players express their frustrations about the game (e.g. This tweet), it creates cognitive dissonance for the fans who are still having fun, acting as if criticizing the bad parts of the game is the equivalent of attempting to take their beloved horse girls away. The result is that oftentimes there'll be responses like "Umamusume isn't just PvP", "Try playing more casually", "You're expecting too high", "Just quit if you're not having fun". Yes, you can have fun with Umamusume in various ways. It's still a great franchise, after all. However, "fun" should never be used as a shield to deflect valid criticism. Game companies are not your friend. Blindly defending the game means you're implicitly allowing them to exploit you even futher for their shareholders' demands. You can love Umamusume, but the game & the real-life horses will never love you back. The accelerating powercreep, the QoL subscriptions (especially Uma Plan), and the barebones $45 spinoff with just 4 minigames called Party Dash, should be the warning shots for everyone. If Cygames can accelerate milking the game without major backlash, they'll do it. I recently watched a video ranking predatory gacha game monetization tactics. The #1 worst tactic wasn't FOMO or the Gacha system itself. It was Tribalism: passively training the community to defend the multi-million dollar corporation on its behalf. This phenomenon isn't unique to gacha games. The Destiny 2 community suffered from a similar divide, where casual players routinely shrugged off the complaints of hardcore veterans because they were having fun in different ways (reddit complaint for example). What used to be the king of looter shooters has gone downhill since The Final Shape expansion, from 250K+ players peak during expansion releases & average 50K~80K players daily to less than 10K players daily (Steam charts), due to Bungle's greed & incompetence. Here's a Video made by Aztecross, a veteran Destiny content creator, roasting D2's microtransactions. Closing Words Gacha games are predatory by nature, but many players usually tolerate it to a certain extent when the game is good. It seems like Cygames is testing how far they can cross that line without making players too angry. There's no VIP system at the moment, but considering that Cygames isn't shy about being P2W & is ramping up the monetization, who knows? The franchise is still a faithful adaptation of Japanese horse racing with great characters, stories, attention to details, anime, manga & music. so as a F2P you can still get some enjoyment out of it. Let the tryhards, whales beat each other & fund the game. Go buy some merch instead. Your Super Creek shrine will still be there long after the game went EoS. On the opposite site, the game is constantly trying to lure you into grinding PvP with lucarative rewards back-loaded into high achievements. Falling into PvP rabbit hole means you will have to deal with a tedious & repetitive grind with multiple layers of RNG, where the winners are those who not just whale the hardest, grind the hardest for those god roll umas & parents, but also blessed by RNG. On top of that, Cygames will not stop milking you through powercreep, PvP meta shifting, expensive packs & multiple subscriptions in typical JP gacha fashion. Generosity is an illusion. The freebies are just enough for survival. Thank you for coming to my UMA Talk. submitted by /u/xXinsertCoDGMtagXx to r/gachagaming [link] [comments]

This is the official Eurovision Live Blog of Vienna 2026, coming to you from right in front of the Wiener Stadthalle stage! We’re sharing what we see as the artists rehearse their performances for the very first time. Got questions about anything? Ask away in the comments section! We’re here all day. We wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else, would you? 🤩 Here’s the rehearsal schedule for Day 1. We start with Moldova, apparently take a brief detour to Palma de Mallorca (???) and after five more countries have rehearsed, we end the day with Finland. Fin. 10:30 🇲🇩 Moldova: Satoshi - Viva, Moldova! 11:10 🇸🇪 Sweden: FELICIA - My System 11:50 🇭🇷 Croatia: LELEK - Andromeda 12:45 🇬🇷 Greece: Akylas - Ferto 13:25 🇵🇹 Portugal: Bandidos do Cante - Rosa 15:00 🇬🇪 Georgia: Bzikebi - On Replay 15:40 🇫🇮 Finland: Linda Lampenius x Pete Parkkonen - Liekinheitin All times are in CEST. Which is appropriate, because if you open your map app in Vienna and zoom out, you realise that you really are right in the heart of Europe, they’re not just saying that because it sounds poetic ❤️🤍❤️ --------------------------------------- 10:15 - We're in Wiener Stadthalle The Live Blog is where Eurovision fans and friends come to get the very first insight into what all 35 performances are going to look like on 12 | 14 | 16 May. Before our photos are published and our preview clips released, this is your place to discover every detail and ponder every prop. Until the visuals arrive, you can rely on our words. And as we’re in Austria, the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe might even be popping up to assist. Who The Hell Is?... First things first. Your gal Heidi, who you’ll remember from doing the Live Blog in previous years, is currently off on a multiple-week jaunt around Europe. But she hopes to be chatting with you again in the future 💬 Instead, you’ve got me, the social media guy. I write the captions across the Eurovision social media platforms all year round. And it’s nice to not be restricted by a shorter character limit here, because I’m sure there’ll be plenty to say. --------------------------------------- 10:30 - Moldova and mash-ups We're waiting for Satoshi to take the stage. He said it would happen and he was right - Moldova is about to be on duty! I was humming Viva, Moldova! earlier this morning and it suddenly drifted into Forogj, Világ by NOX. That’s got some monumental mash-up potential right there - 🇲🇩 2026 vs 🇭🇺 2005 In the grand spirit of the Käärijä x Baby Lasagna interval performance at Basel 2025, drop your dream Eurovision mash-ups in the comments below. --------------------------------------- 11:15 - Saluti. A tutti. The first Live Show of Vienna 2026 on Tuesday 12 May has got its party-starter, its hype guy and its on-your-feet crowdpleaser all in one. This is an ideal Semi-Final opener from Moldova - Viva, Moldova! by Satoshi. If you’ve seen the Selecția Națională performance which won in Moldova, you’ll be well aware of the BIG energy that Satoshi exudes by bouncing enthusiastically around the stage. Well, at the Wiener Stadthalle he’s got even more space to cover, and you can tell he’s absolutely in his element exploring every inch of it. He’s as happy to be in Vienna as we are delighted to have him - and Moldova - right here with us. At the start of the performance we even get to see the Moldovan flag beaming out in big lights from behind the screen. And it’s a beautiful sight! Call us Athena Manoukian in 2020 because we’re currently thinking one thing: CHAINS ON YOU! Satoshi is adorned with rows of chain mail on his shoulders, draped over a blinged-out sports top in royal blue. Royal blue - fitting for our Moldovan king 👑 The choice of accessories has caused what you could call a chain reaction… those chains have extended to his band and his co-performers (oh HEEEEY, Aliona Moon, it’s been a minute!), with every outfit accented with a touch of shiny metal. Not that the heavy material is weighing anyone down… So! Much! Bouncing! If you’ve been getting to know Satoshi since his national final win, then you’ll be familiar with his deep appreciation for Japanese culture. He’s ensured that this is on full display here, with a cute n’ colourful backdrop that viewers will no doubt find adorable. Cos it is adorable. And features even more bouncing. --------------------------------------- 11:40 - First Look photos are on their way We’re officially SEATED. And we hope you are too. Our seat is in the Wiener Stadthalle, facing the stage. To our right is a big production team that are checking every performance closely on their monitors. They’re made up of lovely folk from the Austrian broadcaster ORF, as well as our Eurovision office besties. To our left is the phenomenally talented Eurovision photography team 📸 We’re truly blessed to have Corinne, Sarah-Louise and Alma are back with us once again. They’re gonna be darting around the arena at an impressive speed, taking gorge pics of all 35 First Rehearsals and painstakingly choosing the best shots to upload. The first images will be released tomorrow on the Eurovision Song Contest Instagram and Facebook! Now, Sweden is up next. Time to open our head, our heart... --------------------------------------- 12:00 - MY 💥 MY 💥 MY SYSTEM Guys, we’re shaking. We’re physically shaking. Not because we’re in the presence of icon FELICIA (though that can’t be fully counted out), but because those banging synths near the end of the song (you know the part we mean, we know you know) are making the arena floor actually vibrate. It’s like a potent current of epic electronica is running underneath us. And it’s not an unpleasant feeling, truth be told. FELICIA is dressed in black and sparkling red, the colours of a Black Widow - which is incidentally the name of her debut single, if you’re on the hunt for more FELICIA bops. It ain’t the black and red number you saw at Melodifestivalen, however; her outfit’s had a system upgrade! The performance opens with FELICIA getting the wind-machine treatment, parting a cloud of smoke and revealing the Swedish singer standing on stage. Well, revealing her as much as one can behind that mask. And yes, Tuesday night viewers are going to get to enjoy that thrilling switch-out of masks near the end of the song. Accompanied by GIANT FELICIA climbing out of the screens and into the audience. It's still a total gag, no matter how many times you've seen it. As with the Melodifestivalen-winning performance from March, FELICIA is engulfed in lasers throughout. Lots of 'em. But new for Vienna is some interaction! During the second verse we get to see FIGHTER FELICIA literally battling away lasers with her bare hands, before she tames them into doing her bidding. Before long those lasers are framing her poses so that she can look extra stun for audiences at home. This diva knows her lighting. --------------------------------------- 12:35 - Stationed for the Croatian nation There’s just something about being in the presence of the LELEK ladies singing in unison. It changes you. We may never be the same again 🥵 Not long into their performance of Andromeda, we get a stunning shot that really makes use of the catwalk leading from the Green Room up to the stage (and it’s the first time viewers will get to see the catwalk element properly pop). It serves as a dramatic presentation of the Croatian group, giving their arrival to the Eurovision stage the majesty it deserves. LELEK fans will know from their Dora-winning performance that the band LOVE a robe ensemble. The striking fashion choice returns for Vienna, but this time they’ve woven a deep blood-red colour into their scheme. It’s a chilling visual and therefore a superb stylistic choice for a song teeming with this much drama. The ladies aren’t doing all the legwork, however. The screen behind them plays a big role in the telling of their story. It takes the viewer from a mystical cave to an enchanting forest, closing the performance by pulling us through a wormhole at such high speed, it feels like a time warp we have no choice but to travel through. Can that time warp take us back 30 minutes please?... We wanna watch those three run-throughs again! --------------------------------------- 13:00 - Ferto fun for all coming up Everyone has had a well-deserved break, but we're all back in the arena now. Another rehearsal? Ferto! A new performer to see? Ferto! Akylas from Greece? Su léo ferto!!! He's about to take the stage for the first time 🇬🇷 --------------------------------------- 13:35 - Hey kitty kats 😸 Is this real life? We’ve just been taken right inside a video game. And we’re legit winning 🎮 🕹️ 👾 Akylas is taking the Eurovision Song Contest from Arcade to arcade games! This game creates multiple illusions for the viewer and, in it, Akylas wants to introduce you to some new characters. But we’ll let him tell you more about them on Tuesday 12 May… Our Greek hero Akylas turns into a tiger on that Wiener Stadthalle stage. Not least because he’s dressed stylishly in an orange and black palette. The furry boots are out in force, as is the cutie kitty-kat hat with the lil’ ears. No Eurovision fancy-dress party is ever gonna be without one. And Ferto is certain to be a dance floor staple at those parties for at least another 70 years. Just when the audience thinks they are getting to know Akylas, everything changes. He stops, removes his funky shades, steps out of character and addresses his mother in an emotional display. Mommies everywhere are gonna love this. Daddies, too. --------------------------------------- 14:10 - Time to look at the world through Rosa**-tinted glasses 🌹** Portugal’s staging commences with a continuous shot that pans through the lineup of Bandidos do Cante singing to their audience. It’s like a Wall of Song - if the video game theme from the entry before them had continued into this one, then the Portuguese Wall of Song would be a proper ‘final boss’ moment! Like a lineup of football players singing their national anthem before a trophy-deciding match, you can tell that Bandidos do Cante are just as proud to be showcasing their beloved Cante Alentejano genre as the world watches. In Rosa, they’re not just performing in the genre, they’re telling the listener about it, too. If you watched the boys’ performance from Portugal’s Festival da Canção, then you’ll remember that they are momentarily joined by a sixth member! Their violinist is back and contributing a magical moment to proceedings, enhancing the soothing tone that’s already been set by the band. Bandidos do Cante give the First Half of the First Semi-Final a change of beat, which many viewers will no doubt appreciate. The performance ends with the visuals on the screen behind the band springing into life. This is when Rosa blooms, literally and figuratively speaking. And there’s not a thorn in sight. --------------------------------------- 14:15 - BREAKING! 🚨 No, literally, we're going for a break It's lunchtime. And we're gonna need to be on a high-energy bzzzz for Georgia. Not to mention the fire we'll need for Finland! 🔥 See you shortly xoxo --------------------------------------- 15:15 - Ready for replay Shall we talk about the stage? One thing we mentioned in the LELEK write-up was the catwalk element. It runs all the way from centre-stage to a double set of steps leading right up to the Green Room. It ends up splitting the arena completely into two halves. If you enter one side of the floor, you won't be able to pass into the other. One of our favourite things about the Live Shows in recent years has been the camaraderie we’ve seen going on between the artists in the Green Room. Everyone is rooting for one another! With this set-up, the performers are going to be able to strut down the catwalk, look up and see all of their new besties cheering them on. And that’s such a wholesome thought 🥹 Back to Day 1 rehearsals and Georgia are up next. We're gonna watch their song On Replay. Well, for three run-throughs, anyway. --------------------------------------- 15:50 - Don't. Think. Let. Go! It’s the stuff of dreams. Bzikebi representing Georgia at the grown-up Eurovision Song Contest - and they’re dressed fully in black and yellow 🐝🐝🐝 The talented trio are proud to pay homage to the big buzzzz around their Junior Eurovision beginnings and their outfits are a cute Easter eggs for longtime fans. Their hornet-themed high fashion has understandably had quite the glow-up since that Junior victory back in 2008. We’re at Vienna 2026, but Bzikebi look like they’ve come to us from some decades in the future. Yellow catsuits cinched in with black-striped PVC. It’s giving superhero, which is fitting really, because Bzikebi are our very own connecters of the ESC and JESC multiverse. But wait… there’s more! More Bzikebi, that is. Performing behind the Georgian group is a second iteration of the trophy-winning trio. Meet CYBORG BZIKEBI! They may look intimidating (don’t stare into those eyes for too long), but they’re here to help our Bzikebi babes. These cyborg overlords are surging the popstars with power. And with great power comes great… lasers! The laser show on display here is electrifying. Bzikebi weren’t lying when they said they were gonna “la, la, la light it up”. --------------------------------------- 16:40 - He's ready to sing and she's ready to string 🎤 🎻 Have you been likin' Liekinheitin? Linda Lampenius stands alone on the deserted stage of what was once an orchestra. Now, it’s been littered with the overturned chairs and sheet-music stands of Linda’s former musician colleagues. But what could possibly have happened here? Shall we head to the confessional box to find out? There, we find Pete Parkkonen, and he’s been in touch with the wardrobe department for an outfit upgrade. In the confessional box, Pete has got some things he’d like to get off his chest - and this all-new open top of his is gonna make that an easy-breezy process. It’s not just Pete who’s had an appointment with the Tampere tailors. Linda Lampenius has lightened her colour palette! Her dress, while structurally similar to what you’ll have seen at the Finnish pre-selection UMK, is now a striking silver. It makes her slow descent towards the burning confessional box even more otherworldly to the eye. And it’s difficult to look away - both performers are emanating star power so brightly here. The staging for Liekinheitin has turned the Eurovision Song Contest into an Olympic sport, with silver-clad Linda Lampenius going for gold in the sprinting category. When the camera pans away from her towards the big climax of the song, the audience at the Wiener Stadthalle will be able to watch as our heroic violinist races towards the back of the stage to be reunited with her duet partner. There, she’s lifted up onto the abandoned orchestra seating for a final showdown with Pete. It brings him to his knees and the set goes up in flames, destroying all evidence! --------------------------------------- 16:50 - Now it's your turn! We just had our big finish with the Finnish! Linda Lampenius x Pete Parkkonen were the last act to rehearse for Day 1. Social media guy has some social media stuff to do, but I'm sticking around here for a little while too. Ask me some questions in the comments below and I'll see what I can answer. --------------------------------------- 17:30 - What to look forward to tomorrow What a day. What a tonne of top-tier tunes. What a load of lasers. We'll be back tomorrow morning at 10:00 CEST sharp ⏰ And we've got all this to look forward to: 🇲🇪 Montenegro: Tamara Živković - Nova Zora 🇪🇪 Estonia: Vanilla Ninja - Too Epic To Be True 🇮🇱 Israel: Noam Bettan - Michelle 🇧🇪 Belgium: ESSYLA - Dancing on the Ice 🇱🇹 Lithuania: Lion Ceccah - Sólo Quiero Más 🇸🇲 San Marino: SENHIT - Superstar 🇵🇱 Poland: ALICJA - Pray 🇷🇸 Serbia: LAVINA - Kraj Mene We'll also be posting some First Look Photos from today's rehearsals, so that you can finally get to see a glimpse of how things will look. Oh, and mark your diaries for 10:00 CEST on Monday, too. Not only will we be back with Day 3 of the Megathread, we'll also be revealing some news about the Live Shows on eurovision.com 👀 submitted by /u/eurovision to r/eurovision [link] [comments]

I ordered from Fashion Nova in November 2025. The package was stuck in transit for weeks. In December I started contacting the shipping carrier eGlobal Post to ask what was going on. They were extremely difficult to reach and I had to create multiple tickets before I finally got a response. On January 30, 2026, they emailed me saying the parcel was lost in transit and that I should contact Fashion Nova to request a reshipment. Before I received that confirmation, I had already opened a dispute with PayPal because the tracking wasn’t moving. PayPal sided with Fashion Nova since there was tracking information, and they closed the case. Now that I have written confirmation from the carrier that the package is lost, I tried contacting Fashion Nova again (I’ve opened two tickets so far), but I haven’t received any response. I also called PayPal, and they told me that since the case was already closed, they cannot reopen it. I’m extremely frustrated because the carrier confirmed the package is lost, Fashion Nova is not responding, PayPal says the case can’t be reopened. Has anyone dealt with this before?Is there any way to escalate this further. I am from Germany, in case this helps. submitted by /u/sopms to r/Fashionnova [link] [comments]