A while back I asked for help with a project recording regional accents - https://www.reddit.com/CasualUK/comments/1cilrfz/anybody_with_a_regional_uk_accent_want_to_help_me/
I've had quite a few helpful volunteers contact me from around the UK but I'd really like to get a couple of (men with) strong Derbyshire accents, as a lot of the material is from letters written by soldiers from that county. If anyone fancies it, please message me and I can send you the text. It will just be a few sentences - a paragraph at most. All you need to do is read the text into Voice Note or whatever on your phone and send it to me on Whatsapp or email (I'll give you my details).
Thank you! p.s. Guys only, thanks - all the original letters were written by men.

Hello Fidelity,
I noticed that the options summary page has been redesigned and is now the default when clicking the link. I want to submit feedback if possible. First, thank you for having a link to the original version; without that I would be totally lost.
Why update to a new version at all? The original page has all the information needed to make quick decisions and get an overview of positions in a very well designed UX, it's also compact and I can see all the information that is important easily. The new page takes away very important information needed for active traders and does not add any benefit at all. I am really puzzled why anyone at Fidelity would think this is a good idea.
-New page has added the symbol's company logo's (not needed) -Arrow up/down and 3 dots to view additional info adds extra steps to view information that should be there without clicking -Anyone who has a large amount of options, the spaced-out format is very hard to navigate and takes longer to analyze, its too spaced out. Compact design is best -The side bar is gone with all the links I use daily which was very handy -When having multiple options on the same stock, it just repeats the logo and price over and over, making it very cluttered. Cannot click to see current option price -Total G/L and Total G/L % has been added - not useful, old version and titles are more clear: -Need to put back: Average Cost and Change since last purchased and remove Total G/L %
Fidelity is my favorite brokerage, but if the new option page becomes the only way to view my trades I will have to find another broker because it makes trading and analyzing way too long and overly complex. Simple is best.
Thank you for listening.

(continuation of part 4)
I already considered this piece the second greatest musical evidence for Clerith after the London Symphony Orchestra’s Final Fantasy VII Symphony’s second movement “Words Drowned by Fireworks” and its guide, but now that I know about the Clerith reunion that was baked into the ending, the gap between the two is narrower. Each time I hear Cloud begin to call out for Aerith in part 3 (3:04), I immediately start crying. It sounds so much to me like Cloud’s voice in the dark saying “Aerith…?”, meek and scared. If you’ve read everything so far, you know how long Cloud has been looking for Aerith, lost without her, searching relentlessly for decades in real-life time. Through FFT, DFF, Advent Children, MFF x FFVII… all of it spent looking for his Promised Land. In OG, Cloud was so tormented by Jenova’s manipulation and so consumed by the chase for Sephiroth that he could not realize what or how much he felt for her until she was taken away forever. The piece we’ve just analyzed tells the story of Cloud and Aerith intertwining and separating against their will, and you can truly feel Cloud’s anxiety as he struggles to wrench Aerith out of fate’s cruel grasp. Perhaps it is because of Aerith’s ultimately fatal responsibility, inherited from her mother, that this iteration of her theme is called “The Cetra”.
Though in part 5, Cloud and Aerith reunite… could this reunion symbolize their meeting again in Remake, or something more permanent? I think it’s meant to leave us wondering.
I’m very sensitive to music, and as I’m typing this, I’m crying a bit. I wanted to share my interpretation of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” with you very badly, because it makes me feel so much and really enhances Clerith’s story. I’m overjoyed to have found out about the reunion at the very end. And it’s all because you guys showed love for my last analysis! You guys are giving me gifts every day.
V. b) i. 3) Combined Analysis
Please listen to and watch the scene of Cloud’s MOTF 6 (4:21-8:46) again, and consider section “V. b) i. 2)”. What is Uematsu telling us? Similarly to how main world theme of FFVII informs us that Jenova is sabotaging Cloud’s identity far before it becomes a plot point in OG, “Aerith’s theme - The Cetra” is telling us what not even Remake Cloud consciously knows at this point: he’s been searching desperately for her, and fears losing her once more.
As if that wasn’t proof enough, the timing of the shots and musical phrases is absolutely damning. Recall that part 3 of “Aerith’s theme - The Cetra” specifically symbolizes Cloud’s anxiety surrounding Aerith’s safety. It is this particular part of the piece that plays for the entirety of Aerith’s allusions to her murderers and her death (7:25-7:54), including the very moment where “Cloud feels his chest constrict tightly” (7:51-7:54). What’s more, part 5 the piece, which specifically Cloud freeing Aerith from the restraints of fate, coincides with the moment Tifa grabs Aerith’s hand and pulls her out from the circle of Whispers closing in on her (8:42-8:45). This moment leads me to believe that the reunion in part 5 of the piece indeed symbolizes Cloud succeeding (perhaps with Tifa’s help) in saving Aerith from her tragic fate and reuniting with her for good.
It’s heart-wrenching and brilliant. Our theory stands strong.
V. b) ii. Credits: Piece Inclusion
I find it very telling that the character themes included in the credits of Remake are Cloud’s “Hollow” (0:00-5:24), an orchestral arrangement of Aerith’s theme (5:24-9:24), and an orchestral arrangement of the main world theme, (9:24-14:27) which of course includes Cloud’s true theme. No other character themes appear during the rest of the credits (14:27-18:09). This is telling: the credits are communicating to us that Remake is about Cloud and Aerith. Our Mission Theory only gets stronger.
V. b) iii. Showing Relationships Through Music: Intermingling Character Themes
This doesn’t have to do with the Mission, but here’s a pretty good anti-Cloti argument while we’re here.
As shown in section “V. a) i.” where we explored the roles of Cloud, Jenova and Sephiroth’s themes within the FFVII world theme, the way character themes interact in a piece can tell you a lot about those characters’ relationships. This is certainly the case in “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” as well (see section “V. b. ii. 2)”).
I’d like to mention that in all of my listening to the Remake OST and rewatching playthroughs of Remake, I’ve never encountered a single piece that united Cloud and Tifa’s themes. Not once. Let alone a piece that depicts them as intimately or emotionally as “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” depicts Cloud and Aerith. Even the most Cloti cutscenes in Remake aren’t supported by pieces mixing or even juxtaposing Cloud and Tifa’s themes. I can’t find any of Cloud’s motifs anywhere during the orchestral arrangement of Tifa’s theme that plays during her resolution scene in chapter 14. I can’t find either of their motifs in the track the plays when Cloud calls Tifa beautiful at Seventh Heaven in chapter 3. A motif from Tifa’s theme does appear in the track that plays during the childhood promise scene in chapter 4, (0:00-0:25), but it never plays at the same time as or even near Cloud’s motifs (1:23-1:47 and 2:03-2:29). They’re distant or otherwise unaffiliated.
The only exception is that an altered version of Cloud’s theme’s section A phrase 1 appears in the background of Tifa’s theme (1:17-1:23). This symbolizes her connection to Cloud and how much of her attention and worry revolve around him— a reference to how she cares so much that it borders on dependency. Of course, it doesn’t go both ways: Tifa isn’t in Cloud’s theme at all. To me, this lack of reciprocity concerning the inclusion of Cloud’s motif in Tifa’s theme signifies that the only time Cloud and Tifa are together is in her head. She does think about him a lot, which we witness in her chapter of Trace of Two Pasts. Tifa loses sleep over him even two years after he left Nibelheim, despite the fact that she barely knew him at all:

“The moment she heard the word “Soldier”, the few memories she had with Cloud Strife came flooding back. He never contacted her after they parted ways two years ago […]. She tossed and turned all night. When she counted them again, her memories with Cloud were so surprisingly few that others might find it hard to believe that they grew up as next-door neighbors” (Trace of Two Pasts, translated by pekotranslates on Tumblr).

FFVII Remake Ultimania also comments on the superficial nature of Cloud and Tifa’s water tower promise, and how regardless of its naïveté, it became fundamental to Tifa:

“Though rooted in a jejune heroine fantasy of being rescued in a pinch by her hero, this promise is clearly etched in Tifa’s memory” (Tifa’s profile in section 01 of “Character & World”, “An Enduring Childhood Promise” in “Topics of Tifa” page 20).

You could argue that “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is only one song wherein Cloud and Aerith’s themes interweave, but you’d be proven wrong by the Rebirth OST…
V. c) The Rebirth OST
Unfortunately, the full Rebirth OST isn’t out and available where I can listen to it right now. However, based solely on the incomplete OST that’s available to me right now, I can tell you with certainty that the composers were told to incorporate Clerith into the musical storytelling: Cloud and Aerith’s themes intermingle in multiple pieces. I can’t imagine what else I’ll discover once I listen to the full OST. For now, I checked out what was available on YouTube and listened to cutscene audios. This section would be eternal if I included every time Cloud and Aerith’s motifs interact, especially in chapter 14. Trust me, I’d love to talk about every single one, but this thing is long enough already, so let’s just address what pertains to our Mission Theory specifically rather than stopping at every single Clerith reference in the OST.
V. c) i. Ending Cutscene Music
Ending cutscenes are often used to address the next step the characters will be taking as well as their emotional and mental state. They also open up new questions to make the player curious. Indeed, Rebirth’s ending cutscene (18:56-25:00) gives us an impression of how the party members feel by the end of the game: everyone misses Aerith. Barret looks upset and confused at the mention of her (19:35-19:45), the girls are crying and Nanaki is mourning (19:58-20:35). Additionally, we are shown the empty White Materia and Black Materia in Cloud’s possession (20:40-21:24), foreshadowing that they will come to be important in part 3. Cloud and Aerith share a warm goodbye, and exchange promises: Aerith will send smoke signals if something happens to her so a worried Cloud can remain updated on her well-being and she will stop Meteor, and Cloud will stop Sephiroth (23:00-25:00). The fact that this scene is animated in CGI is enough to tell us that the devs consider it narratively important, just like they do Bugenhagen’s observatory and the party’s advance into the Forgotten Capital CGI cutscenes. What did the composers decide to communicate with us about the end of Rebirth and the plot going forward?
Big surprise: Clerith.
During the entire cutscene, only two themes play: Cloud’s and Aerith’s. The cutscene’s music begins only when Cloud notices Aerith among the party members and begins watching her (19:21). She interacts with the rest of the party without their knowledge, different segments of her theme playing one after another. Her theme only stops when Cloud finally looks away from her and to the empty White Materia in his hand (20:45). The music focuses on the mystery and ominousness of these materia, only returning to Aerith once Cloud hears her voice and repeats her message to the party (21:30).
Cloud’s theme appears when he asserts that Barret needn’t worry about him (section A of Cloud’s true theme, 22:41), though soft and tentative, only swelling when Barret and Tifa climb aboard the Tiny Bronco and Cloud finds himself alone with Aerith again (22:57). As he asks Aerith if “[she’ll] be okay getting back” (23:08), the final phrase of section A of his theme plays, but without its concluding note, the tonic. He waits for her to answer him as his theme waits for hers to complete and answer it, that final note dragging long over the seconds (23:09-23:13). She answers with a teasing remark that references their unwillingness to part from each other back in Remake’s Evergreen Park:

“[Cloud has] a chat with Aerith, from whom he’s reluctant to part” (chapter 9 in section 04 “Scenario”, “Main Story Digest”, “4. Saying Goodbye”, page 275)”.

As soon as Aerith answers Cloud’s question with this romantic callback, her theme answers his too: section C of Aerith’s theme begins with the key’s tonic, resolving Cloud’s incomplete phrase (23:13): she gives him resolution. He chuckles, getting her reference, and the music swells (23:16). The music ebbs and flows thusly, following the rhythms and underlying emotions of their conversation. Finally, the piece ends with phrase 2 of of section A of Cloud’s true theme, following a strong repetition of the first half of Aerith’s theme’s section A. The two make their promises to each other, and “No Promises to Keep” begins, leading us to the credits. This is most definitely a Clerith song, but more on that later.
What this shows us is that Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is fundamental to the plot of Rebirth and will also be fundamental to the plot of part 3: they are isolated one one-on-one in this cutscene, and the music depicts their warm, sweet interaction as well as the strength of Aerith’s character to contrast with Cloud’s somewhat meek personality. The composers are telling us that these two, specifically, together alone, are hugely important to the plot here. This was already true in OG, but no such emphasis was ever placed on their interactions and relationship in its music. Something is different, deeper, more intense now. The Mission Theory explains why. It also suits our theory that the composers are emphasizing the centrality of Clerith in the plot of the Remake trilogy. Cloud’s love for Aerith is the reason for the trilogy’s existence, and it will be the greatest motivator for Cloud in part 3. It’s a grand announcement.
Just like in Remake, I could not find a single instance of Cloud and Tifa’s themes interacting in Rebirth, apart from at the end of the intimate Skywheel date— but every girl receives this treatment in their intimate dates, so each of these instances can be crossed out. Additionally, the Tifa date is not the canon one, but I digress…
V. c) iii. Credits

1. Piece Inclusion

Once more, I find it very telling that of all the pieces included in the credits of Rebirth, the only character themes are Cloud’s and Aerith’s. We start with a song about Aerith’s point of view to mirror *Remake’*s “Hollow”, “No Promises to Keep” (5:18-11:10), followed by the FFVII world theme (11:10-16:12) which of course contains Cloud’s true theme, then we move into a piece whose unofficially translated title is “Parade Battle Ceremony - The Dawn of a New World” as an arrangement of the parade ceremony theme from chapter 4 (16:12-19:03), followed by a theme for the Lifestream springs whose name I don’t have (19:03-21:38), “Junon - Fortified Metropolis” (21:38-24:28), and finally, a gorgeous arrangement of Aerith’s theme (24:28-28:47). No other character is referenced in the credits music: the credits are telling us Rebirth is about Clerith. Our Mission Theory explains why.
V. c) iii. 2) “No Promises to Keep”
At the very end of this song written and performed by Aerith, we’re treated with a sweet little piano conclusion (10:46-11:10): it begins with a variation on Aerith’s theme’s section A (10:46-11:01), and concludes with two ascending arpeggios, each four notes long (11:01-11:10). Each of these ascending arpeggios is a variation of the phrase 1 of Cloud’s true theme’s section A. The differences are minimal. The phrase is usually five notes long rather than four, the first arpeggio ends on the tonic rather than Cloud’s iconic subtonic, and the second arpeggio starts on the subtonic rather than the tonic. The song Aerith wrote concludes with Cloud’s most famous motif. This is also the case in her Gold Saucer performance (3:31-3:41).
V. c) iii. 3) Arrangement of Aerith’s Theme
The final piece in the credits is an arrangement of Aerith’s theme (24:28-28:47) which has noticeably similar elements to the version of her theme that plays during the Jenova Lifeclinger battle in chapter 14 (0:12-3:36), such as the female choirs. Since these female choirs are only heard in the Forgotten City version of Aerith’s theme, and since the credits arrangement of her theme plays at the same time as clips from her chapter 14 pseudo-death roll across the screen, I estimate that this credits arrangement specifically reflects the event of Aerith’s pseudo-death. Recall that composers had access to the credits video as they composed, meaning this piece is specifically written for Aerith’s pseudo-death in Rebirth.
What I find fascinating is that, just like the arrangements of her theme that play during Aerith’s pseudo-death and the Jenova Lifeclinger battle, this credits arrangement contains the sound of Cloud’s pain, rage and protest. Phrase 1 and the first three notes of phrase 2 of Cloud’s true theme section A play on the strings and brass quite loudly and insistently, just as Cloud blocking masamune appears on the credits screen (25:11-25:21). Sephiroth’s dissonant, high and screechy violins appear just as his face comes onto the screen (26:33), and almost as a protective response, phrases 1 and 2 of Cloud’s true theme’s section A return (26:47-27:00). Finally, similarly to what we hear in part 5 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”, a slightly modified section A phrase 1 of Cloud’s true theme play along with section C phrase 3 of Aerith’s theme (oh wow section A and C section Aerith for Cloud’s theme and section Cloud for Aerith’s theme I just realized that’s such a cute coincidence), though unfortunately they do not meet in the middle like last time since they start two octaves apart (28:20-28:25). I’ve recreated it for you once more here so you can really appreciate it. The fact that their motifs don’t truly reunite like in “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is sad, but the very last thing you see onscreen is Aerith’s goodbye to the Tiny Bronco (27:10-27:42), so it makes sense that this piano conclusion implies that Cloud and Aerith aligned, but not yet reunited for good. That’s exactly what you get from the ending cutscene. It does seem to imply that they will be reunited in part 3, as both the ending cutscene and this piano conclusion read as a “till we see each other again” rather than a “farewell”.
VI. Textual Evidence
Now that the musical evidence is done, let’s compile some textual story evidence that supports our theory!
VI. a) Remake Trilogy (Thus Far) Handholding Explained?
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, handholding is a motif in Cloud and Aerith’s relationship— and an extremely symbolic one at that! When researching for info to validate my theory, I found that this Clerith motif was extremely helpful! Its inclusion in the Remake trilogy, and especially in Rebirth, is hugely significant in my eyes.
VI. a) i. Pre-Remake Trilogy: Aerith’s Initiative
Before examining the significance of Clerith handholding in Remake and Rebirth, we should establish the meaning of this motif in OG and Advent Children.
Cloud and Aerith have reached out to take each other’s hands many times since 1997. Aerith used to literally drag him by the hand a lot, shocking the cold and distant merc, before she left. After her death in OG, Cloud surely longed to be able to feel her hand take his again, cursing himself for not enjoying it while she was alive, and for never being the one to grasp her hand first: he never got to tell her how he feels about her, or to save her. It was always her reaching out for him, saving him.
This is why the scene in OG when Aerith reaches for him from the Lifestream after Cloud defeats Sephiroth in chapter 3 of disk 3 is so touching: Cloud sees her hand and reaches out to take it, so close to finally establishing that mutual connection, but she soon fades, and replaced by Tifa’s hand in the tangible world. He doesn’t get to hold Aerith’s hand again.
That is, not until Advent Children, where near the end of his battle with Bahamut Sin, he sees Aerith reach out to him once again (1:08-1:30). Cloud finally gets to hold her hand for the first time in two years when he lost her. This moment was given extra importance by the devs. In fact, Nojima told us the following:

“The ending scene of the battle with Bahamut, the scene where Aerith reaches out her hand, is an homage to the last scene from a previous production. It was [Nomura]'s idea” (FFVII Reunion Files, “Story Digest”, “Summoned Beast”, page 113).

VI. a) ii. The Remake Trilogy (Thus Far): Cloud’s Initiative
As I’ve said before, if I’m right that Remake is all about Cloud stepping up to be more attentive and active in his relationship with Aerith in order to save her, there should be concrete evidence of this in the Remaketrilogy thus far. If OG Cloud’s memories of and love for Aerith exist somewhere within Remake Cloud’s subconsciousness, then Remake Cloud should be far more active in the Clerith dynamic than OG Cloud was— after all, he’s supposed to know better this time around. Thankfully, the motif of handholding can help us evaluate this. Since we know pre-Remake Cloud was quite passive when it comes to handholding, Cloud initiating handholding in the Remake trilogy would be a strong indication that our theory has validity. Keeping this in mind, let’s see what we can find thus far in the Remake trilogy in relation to handholding, and if Cloud is indeed more active than he was in OG.
VI. a) ii. 1) Hollow Hands
Remake’s theme song “Hollow” makes allusions to the handholding motif: “This time, I will never let you go” is pretty clear. And so is “No Promises to Keep”, wherein Aerith speaks of Cloud “[taking her] hand and never [letting her] go” multiple times. Interestingly, these theme song lyrics seem to suggest that Cloud will be much more active in the Remake trilogy than in OG. “Hollow” even promises that Cloud will come to his senses and take charge of the situation: “this time, [he] will” be the one to offer his hand to Aerith, unlike in OG and Advent Children. This makes a lot of sense with our theory: now that Cloud has lost Aerith once, “this time for sure, [he]’ll” be the one to reach for Aerith’s hand, take initiative and save her the way she saved him.
Even though theme songs are extremely telling of a game’s main themes and intentions, lyrics are still all talk and no proof. What about the game itself? Do Remake and Rebirth deliver on this promise? Let’s see!
VI. a) ii. 2) Resolution Hands
The only significant time Cloud initiates handholding in Remake is during Cloud’s resolution scene in chapter 14 (5:18-5:40), wherein he tries to grab Aerith’s hand but is unable to keep her with him. He fills with determination and tells her in no uncertain terms that he’s coming for her. Just as we predicted, Cloud is the active participant in this iteration of the Clerith handholding motif: he’s even explicitly insisting against Aerith’s wishes that he should “get a say in all this” and that he’s “coming for [her]”. Let’s not forget that Cloud’s resolution is meant to reflect not only Aerith’s kidnapping by Shinra, but also her fated death. Nojima implied this by commenting the following on Aerith’s “Even if you think you have, it’s not real” line:

“Those who know what befalls Aerith later on will find the line really heart-wrenching” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 744).

Given this note by Nojima, it looks like we’re supposed to watch Cloud’s resolution scene with Aerith’s fated death in mind. Considering this, Cloud’s “I’m coming for you” line sure seems like an subconscious promise that he will save Aerith from her tragic fate. This subconscious promise could be the result of post-OG Cloud’s feelings and intentions rising to the surface. Nevertheless, he’s absolutely determined and he’s staying true to the promise he made in “Hollow”. I think it’s fair to say that this instance of the handholding Clerith motif does indeed fit perfectly with our theory. This is only one strong example though, and we need a pattern in order to pat ourselves on the back on this. So, let’s keep looking! There isn’t any handholding initiated by Cloud beyond that point in Remake. At this point in my research, I moved on to Rebirth to go digging for handholding there.
Hoo boy. I was not disappointed.
VI. a) ii. 3) Golden Hands
Let’s begin with the obvious. In their high-affinity gondola date in chapter 12, Cloud bravely interlaces his fingers with Aerith’s: Cloud’s taken charge not only of handholding, but the most intimate kind of handholding. I’m sure you’ve encountered the phrase “こいびとつなぎ” or “koibito tsunagi by now (literally translates to “lovers’ tie” or “lovers’ connection”); this is the term used in Japanese to refer to the type of handholding Cloud initiates with Aerith on the Skywheel. It’s considered the most intimate form of handholding. In Japan, skinship is normally considered quite significant and indicative of the closeness between two people— you could say it’s a big deal. Cloud also offers Aerith his hand when they step off the Shywheel, once more making the first move. Though some might say that the Skywheel dates shouldn’t be counted as canon, I believe Aerith’s date is indeed canon (I have my reasons but this post is long enough). Even if we discount the Skywheel date however, Clerith's use of the koibito tsunagi returns in a non-optional scene we will touch on later.
For what it’s worth, Alfreid offers Rosa his hand in the Loveless play too. I can prove that Aerith is the canon Rosa too, but I’m going to save that for my next analysis! You can take my word for it now, or just wait for that analysis to drop. Take it or leave it!
VI. a) ii. 4) Meta Hands
However, the narrative weight of these Clerith handholding instances doesn’t even come close to my very favorite iteration of the handholding motif in Rebirth. I’m referring to what I consider a severely underrated Clerith moment in chapter 13. First, some context: Sephiroth manipulates Cloud into giving over the Black Materia. Cloud seems to be firmly under Sephiroth’s control. However, the sight of Aerith being swarmed by Black Whispers snaps Cloud back into the driver’s seat: he breaks out of Sephiroth’s grasp to run to her and save her. Aerith gets knocked off into a fatal free-fall by a Black Whisper before Cloud can reach her, but he won’t have it: he lunges forward, hand extended. What results is a beautiful shot of their outstretched hands (56:25-56:27).
Let’s analyze this great shot. Notice how the seconds where Cloud is reaching downwards to grasp Aerith’s hand are treated. This key moment is stretched longer by a slow-mo effect, building up the tension and drawing the audience’s focus to the distance between their hands before Cloud actually catches Aerith’s in his, fulfilling the promise he made in “Hollow”. Their hands take up the whole screen in a deliberate close-up shot. All the ambient noises of the scene go quiet: Aerith’s theme is all we hear as Cloud reaches desperately for her. These are blatant audiovisual cues, signalling to the audience that whatever is happening on screen is especially significant. We should therefore examine this specific instance of the Clerith handholding motif to see what the devs are trying to tell us, and maybe it will fit with our theory!
We should begin by comparing this Clerith hand-reach shot to previous ones. If you compare it to the Advent Children’s hand-reach that occurs during Cloud’s battle against Bahamut Sin, it’s evident that Cloud and Aerith’s roles are reversed: just as our theory states, Cloud gets out from inside his head and reaches for Aerith this time. She saved him and the world in OG, and now it’s his turn to save her. This change becomes especially evident when you juxtapose the two scenes and notice how their hands have switched places, reaching from above and below, from left and right. I think the Rebirth hand-reach was deliberately made to look like the Advent Children one —and even the OG one in disk 3, chapter 3—, just to highlight this role reversal.
This Rebirth hand-reach is my favorite out of all because it shows that Cloud is much more conscious and attentive toward Aerith in Rebirth than he was in OG. At this point in OG (disk 1, chapter 25), Cloud is meant to be beating Aerith up at Sephiroth’s command, to the horror of the rest of the party. In fact, a few minutes before Cloud rushes to save Aerith in Rebirth, he has absolutely no problem violently shoving Tifa to the ground when she gets in Sephiroth’s way (53:27-53:33). This shove and Cloud’s earlier attack on Tifa in Gongaga (Rebirth, chapter 9) proves that Sephiroth is just as capable of making Cloud hurt his party members as he was in OG… though Sephiroth can’t seem to make Cloud hurt Aerith. Why is this? Why is it that Cloud beats Aerith in OG, but doesn’t even lay a finger on her —and snaps out of Sephiroth’s control at the mere sight of her in trouble— in Rebirth?
Our theory provides the answer. In disk 1, chapter 25 of OG, Cloud had not yet realized he loved Aerith. Sephiroth was therefore able to make him hurt her. But things are different in Rebirth. The Cloud we see in the Remake trilogy has gone through the OG timeline and traveled back in time, kicking off Remake as his second try at the OG timeline— and he did this precisely because he loves Aerith. His love for her is clearer and stronger in the Remake trilogy than in OG because Remake Cloud is an amnesiac, post-OG, time-traveler Cloud. He’s been through the OG before, has fallen in love with Aerith and realized it before, so this time around, he can’t even lay a finger on her. This is made evident by how closely the moments where Cloud pushes Tifa and saves Aerith are juxtaposed, separated by mere seconds of gameplay. Merely seeing Aerith in trouble wrenched control from Sephiroth and put it in Cloud’s hands again— Sephiroth probably couldn’t have gotten Cloud to attack Aerith if he tried.
This isn’t the only time we get evidence of this though! As Cloud approaches Aerith’s praying form in the Forgotten City, Sephiroth’s Black Whispers swirl around the buster sword: Sephiroth is trying to kill Aerith with it, while Cloud’s struggle to wrench it away plays out visibly on his face. Interestingly, Cloud is not being controlled by Sephiroth here. We know this because we can quite literally see the Black Whispers trying to move his sword, but also because every time Cloud is being controlled by Sephiroth in Rebirth, he has an empty-eyed, zombie-Cloud look on his face. Either that or he laughs or smiles somewhat maniacally. There is never any resistance on his part. To see an example, simply pay attention to Cloud’s blank face as he attacks Tifa in Gongaga in chapter 9 (19:20-20:30). You’ll see the very same expression on his face if you watch this video of Cloud following Sephiroth’s orders in chapter 13 (53:36-54:15). Additionally, look at how strangely Cloud smiles (41:01) as he grasps the Black Materia. Cloud makes none of these faces as the Black Whispers try to take control of his sword: quite the opposite. Cloud looks like he’s trying his hardest to pull his weapon back down and away from Aerith, a horrified look on his face as he grunts from the effort. Once more, Sephiroth is unable to make Cloud hurt Aerith.
Back to my favorite handholding moment. Think about this devs intention for this shot for a minute. The devs have been teasing us as to whether or not Cloud will succeed in saving Aerith in the Remake trilogy since it was first announced, and this slow-mo shot of Cloud catching Aerith’s hand as she falls to her death is a reflection of this tension. The audience holds their breath during those slow-moed seconds, all that hope and fear hanging in the balance. This instance of the handholding motif is a meta way for the devs to reassure us that Cloud will indeed save Aerith. I firmly believe this.
VI. a) ii. 5) Self-Sacrificing Hands
Alright, alright, enough about my favorite! Let’s move to chapter 14 of Rebirth! There’s evidently a lot going on with Clerith in this chapter. Let’s address the Sector 5 date. The handholding is first initiated by Aerith as she tugs him toward the candy vendor and Cloud reacts with a quiet gasp (4:07-4:17). Soon, it becomes a reciprocal embrace: Cloud holds his hand out for Aerith’s and tightens his fingers around hers, smiling at her before they head to the photographer (7:07-7:17).
Then of course, when Aerith pushes Cloud into a portal in her church, you can see Cloud reach his hand up toward her desperately as he falls (17:38-17:58). What I find particularly emotional about this moment is that Aerith pushing Cloud away from her is kind of the opposite of reaching for his hand: it symbolizes Aerith accepting her fate and giving up on a life where she can be with him. This Aerith seems to be a post-OG Aerith who exists separately from the main world we experience in Rebirth, meaning she knows all too well that her fate is to die. In fact, it looks like she is the very same or a similar Aerith to the one who appeared to Cloud in his resolution scene in Remake. By literally pushing Cloud away, just like she figuratively did in Cloud’s resolution scene, she is sacrificing both herself and the happiness she could share with Cloud. She’s going against her heart’s wishes, just like she did in Cloud’s resolution scene when she would not let Cloud take her hand. Indeed, post-OG Aerith seems to be resigned to her fated death and completely devoid of hope: she only wants to ensure the planet’s survival, because she thinks she knows there is no way she can or should be with Cloud. In contrast, Cloud reaches his hand out toward Aerith as he falls into the portal, and even though he does not know that her push symbolizes her self-sacrifice, his outstretched hand represents his protest. So far, our theory is fitting beautifully.
VI. a) ii. 6) Grieving Hands
Later in chapter 14 of Rebirth, after Aerith’s death/non-death, there is more handholding. As Cloud cradles Aerith’s body close to him at the Forgotten Capital, Aerith places her hand on his cheek. Cloud covers it with his, curling his fingers around it (1:03:33-1:03:53). Before he leaves her lying down on her back to go fight Sephiroth, he squeezes her hand as he tells her “I got this”— or, per the Japanese version, “Wait for me”, meaning he’ll reunite with her once he’s done (1:04:56-1:05:10).
VI. a) ii. 7) Hero-Heroine Hands
Next, the koibito tsunagi returns as Cloud and Aerith interlace fingers back to back in a classic hero-heroine pose, right after their two-versus-one fight against Sephiroth. This time, they both reach for each other simultaneously (7:42-8:18), without even having to look down at their hands or talk to each other, as though perfectly in sync. As you can see, Aerith and Cloud are now on the same page. This is different from post-OG Aerith’s attitude in the Sector 5 church earlier in chapter 14, as well as in Cloud’s resolution scene in Remake— my interpretation of this mutual koibito tsunagi is that both of them are agreeing to hold onto each other now, with neither of them pulling back or being inattentive of the other: their priorities are now the same. It seems now they are aligned, and hopefully this means that Aerith will be working together with Cloud so they can reunite again in part 3. Even if she doesn’t prioritize her life and happiness though, we know for sure Cloud will.
VI. b) Blocking Masamune Explained?
Another piece of evidence that Cloud has been through the events of OG before is the fact that he is able to block masamune. Cloud looks up and sees Sephiroth descending with his blade poised to kill Aerith. Screaming, Cloud instantly rips the buster sword from the Black Whispers’ hold and successfully blocks masamune. Hatred and determination fill his eyes as he rallies his strength and successfully pushes Sephiroth away, saving Aerith’s life (6:00-7:26)— at least, in one reality.
Obviously, something about Cloud is different in Rebirth from in OG, otherwise, the events of Rebirth’s chapter 14 would be the same as the events of OG’s disk 1 chapter 28. In my opinion, what happened here is that upon seeing Sephiroth swoop down with masamune, Cloud remembered Aerith’s death in OG, and the post-OG Cloud’s determination to stop it came surging up from within him. This is frankly the very best proof there is that Cloud is far more ready, stable, determined, and clear-headed about Aerith in the Remake trilogy than in OG. Our theory explains why! In fact, this very moment is what our entire theory banks on: Cloud saves Aerith in one reality, as is shown by the rainbow effect produced by the event, and just like that, the promise made in “Hollow” has been fulfilled! However, now we face the question of how to make sure that Aerith is alive and by Cloud’s side when the multiverse converges again into one protected timeline. I’m sure it will be done; we will see how in part 3.
VI. c) Theme Song Lyrics
What the theme songs’ texts have to say about the trilogy so far is quite important, as they summarize the feelings of the characters they represent: Cloud and Aerith. We can glean a lot from their perspectives that could help support the Mission Theory.
VI. d) i. “Hollow” Lyrics
“Hollow”, Remake’s theme song, was written about Cloud’s feelings and rumination. Nojima confirmed that, when he was given directives for the lyric-writing, “Nomura just gave [Nojima] the keywords: ‘told from Cloud's point of view’ and ‘standing in the rain’. [Nojima] interpreted that as ‘a ballad for a man who lost something/someone important’” (Nojima and Uematsu interview “‘I wanted to put the word ‘empty’ in the theme song of Remake. That was how it started’ - Music-Related Interview Part 6: Kazunari Nojima”, by Famitsu). Our theory is about Cloud’s motivations and mission to save Aerith, so “Hollow” is especially relevant.
Let’s run through the lyrics and analyze, starting with the song’s first verse:

“I would be lost, drifting along
Floating up high, time after time
And there you'd be, shining brightly
Your smiling face to guide my way
Bloody and bruised, brought to my knees
When beaten down, when broken up
You would appear, reach out to me
Heal every wound and make me whole”

Makes sense with our theory in mind, doesn’t it? This is post-OG Cloud remembering Aerith and what she means to him. “Hollow” seems to be told from the perspective of the post-OG Cloud hidden somewhere in Remake Cloud: a suppressed or eroded part of him that remembers Aerith clearly. Or maybe it’s told by Cloud after the events of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration and before the start of Remake, asserting his mission to save Aerith.
Next, here are the pre-choruses:

“Was it all, a dream? Will I never know?
Foolish and blind to everything
Had I realized, had I thought it through
Would you be here in my embrace?”

&

“With your every smile, hiding something more
Dark mysteries lurking beneath
But I was consumed with this emptiness
This selfishness, this void to fill”

(continued in

Disclaimer : English isn't my first language.I'm saying what I have to say here just because I need to say this somewhere, I don't really want any advice, but I don't stop you from commenting to this post.
TL;DR: Everytime I start talking to a girl, after some time things get colder and eventually we stop talking.
It is only me or are there other people who makes the same mistakes when it comes to the dating scenes, know that they made a mistake, and even know what they did wrong and why is it wrong, but the next time they do it again without realizing?
I'm in that stage of life when everyone is dating someone, and dating in general is kinda easy.(18-20 years old) Even I don't struggle with finding girls to talk to, every month or so I find another girl. But after we talk for some time, I feel like I always make the same mistakes : maybe I take things too slow and the girl gets bored and we slowly stop talking, or I get bored, or maybe I can't answer to her immediately and things get colder, maybe I talk too much about me or try to make her talk about her. (now, that I'm writing this down, I see how stupid and childish things really are, I guess).
The thing is, I don't really go after girls. Like, if they show some interest(platonic or romantic, doesn't matter) in me, I'm going to start messaging them.
I know that I'm not the best texter, but I thought that if you showed some interest in someone when you first met in real life, the texting part isn't as important as it would be if you met someone on-line. But maybe I'm wrong.
Anyway, thanks for anyone who read everything.

Okay so to preface, I know I am young and I still have my whole life ahead of me, but this truly feels like something I don't know how to come back from. The beginning is a vent but the last paragraph is the actual question.
TL;DR I was in a completely healthy happy relationship that now after it ended, I don't know how to move on or love again. i feel completely stuck on him and would do anything to get him back.
I (18F) met my ex-boyfriend Nick (20M) after I graduated high school through a mutual friend. He was on a road trip at the time to visit his family back home, he lived across the country from his family for work, I had gotten his Snapchat through one of my close girlfriends who was dating one of his friends. One of the first things I was told was he had never been in a relationship, and never kissed a girl. I thought this was INSANE because if you saw this man (tall, muscular, dark hair and iconic jawline) you wouldn't believe for a second that he doesn't have girls fawning all over him.
Ironically, I had gotten his snap right as he left for this week-long road trip, so the first week we communicated was solely through pictures. I thought he was dry at first, but he was really (and I mean really) cute. I ended up getting the courage to call him so we could properly chat. He was super funny, sweet, and nerdy. I remember I couldn't wait for our first date. Fast forward a month and Nick and I are dating, things are going better than ever. I truly have never felt more loved, supported, and protected than when I was with him. He bought me flowers "just because", and would keep his fridge stocked with my favorite drinks. He taught me how to play chess and video games, would always have a hand on the small of my back, and for the entire length of our relationship, I never so much as touched a door handle.
I have a history of problems with mental health, specifically eating disorders and depression. Even though I was his first relationship, he handled it in stride. I occasionally had panic attacks, and somehow he just knew innately how to deal with them. One thing I had never experienced before was someone lightly blowing on me while having a panic attack, which I have since learned is one of the only things that can calm me down. I had asked him once how he knew what to do and he just said it just "felt right" . That was how things worked with him. He saw a problem and solved it. I barely ever had to ask him to do anything more than once if at all. My family loved him, and he helped my dad out around the house, joked around with my sister, and had a great relationship with my mom. We were the couple my single friends wanted to be like. I had been through so many awful relationships and situationships that I truly thought this was the universe apologizing.
The issue, however, comes down to how we grew up. Nick grew up in a very religious and right-wing state, whereas I grew up more west coast in a relatively liberal area. Before I met Nick, when I started recovery from my ED, I discovered marijuana. Weed was something that genuinely helped me eat, deal with my anxiety, and helped me sleep. I can admit during my senior year of high school I took it a bit far, and definitely smoked more than my fair share. He knew about this early into the relationship, and he never really liked it, but he knew it was part of my life. Being someone who grew up religious, Nick was adamantly anti-weed, and I knew this so while we both knew about my usage, it was kind of an unspoken issue. I never smoked around him, avoided calling or messaging him when I was high to avoid him being uncomfortable, and I did my best to not talk to my friends about weed when around him either.
Fast forward a few more months, and we had plans to go to the zoo after I had gone on a hike with my friends. He picked me up and drove me to a parking lot off the highway and explained that he wanted to talk. I have pretty bad abandonment issues so I immediately went into fight or flight mode and asked if he was breaking up with me. With tears in his eyes, and not looking at me, Nick mumbled yes. Cue the instant and debilitating panic attack from me (arguably the worst one I've ever had). He somehow managed to calm me down enough to talk, and he explained that the weed was a huge issue for him even though he said he was fine with it in the past. I was shocked and blindsided because as far as I knew, we were just going to the zoo. I tried to explain how it helps me and I could quit if he wanted me to, and he said that was not what he wanted. he just couldn't think of me the same way knowing I smoke. While we were talking, I had texted my mom to come get me. We were trying to work things out, at this point we are both crying, he said he loves me and wanted to be with me, but he doesn't think he could get over this. My mom gets to the parking lot, I sort of stumbled to the car, basically holding myself together by a thread. As soon as I closed the door I screamed. A blood curdling scream that held so much anguish and pain that my mom started crying. I truly felt like I had lost a limb.
Those three days without contact were brutal, and on the fourth day, I caved and called him. We met up that day (I called him at 5am and we met up around 6am) and we both apologized. He said he felt like he made a huge mistake, and that he hadn't been able to stop thinking about me. I promised I would stop smoking weed, and we both swore to each other that there would be no more secrets or issues between us, that we would talk about how we feel as soon as we feel like something is wrong.
For a while this worked, the no-smoking wasn't too bad, even though it was still a point of contention between us. But then I started to remember why I smoked in the first place. I became more depressed, food stopped looking good, and I was withdrawing into myself. He noticed this and we talk about it, but ultimately there was nothing we could do, because I knew I would lose him if I went back to smoking.
Things were good for a while, we talked about everything, and every issue got resolved within the week if not the day. I had my person back, and life felt good again. Everything was going smoothly up unitl a few weeks before our 6 months (I know this was a lot to happen in 6 months). I started to feel Nick going distant, not cold or anything, and he said nothing was wrong, but I could tell something was nagging at him. One Monday, he called me and said he wanted to talk. This immediantly raised red flags because last time he said that we broke up. we facetimed and he confessed he was feeling like he wasn't being true to himself in the relationship. He felt like he wasn't going to the gym as often as he wants, and he doesn't have any time to himself. This one conversation ended in him driving to my house, a hours-long confession of everything he had been bottling up, and when he left that evening, I was single again.
My actual question paragraph is below:
I hope now everyone has context for why this relationship was so influencial in my life, and now getting to the part i need advice on. It has currently been about a month and a half since we broke up, and though I was half-hearted trying on dating apps, and I am somewhat talking to a guy right now, I can't stop thinking about Nick. I know if it didn't work out not once but twice, its probably going to happen, but I haven't had such a deep connection so fast before, and I don't want to give up on us just yet. its not that I don't want a relationship right now, but if its not with Nick I don't know if I want one ever, he taught me to never accept less than I deserve, and that I am worth loving and being treated like a princess. I have never felt more appreciated, safe, or cherished than when I was with Nick. Is it worth moving on? Or am I leaving my soulmate? Is it possible to feel love like this again? Is it worth messaging him or will I just get my heart broken instead?
Sorry for the long post, I guess I needed to get stuff off my chest. Any advice or similar experiences are welcomed, thank you!!

Good morning my witches and wizards.
I'd like to inject some very niche nuance into the discussion surrounding Supergiant's presentation of the Greek Gods in Hades 1 and 2. This will post will be a little long, but I believe context will be helpful when explaining my argument. If you need to get back to kicking [REDACTED]'s ass ASAP, there's a TLDR at the bottom.
I will preface this by saying Hades 2 may be my favorite game of all time, beating out the first by a wide margin (despite me logging over a hundred hours in the original). I've followed Supergiant since the original release of Bastion, played each of their games extensively, and I think I have a passable understanding of the studio's vision. As a result, I view their design choices in good faith.
That being said, I have a few very minor concerns. While they are nowhere near enough to sour the experience for me, I would like to express the thoughts that have been banging around in my head. Spoilers below.
Table of Contents

1. Why do you care?
2. What's your problem?
3. What does your smelly uncle have to do with this?
4. Giving props for the small details.

1 - Why do you care?

For context, I am a Greek man who was the first generation born and raised in the United States. Greek was my first language, I was raised by a Greek community, and I've been heavily involved in our customs since birth. While many people think ancient culture is completely disconnected from modern Greek beliefs, this is inaccurate. No, I don't pray to a shrine of Poseidon when I go fishing. However, many of the stories, beliefs, and morals that were described by the ancient Greek pantheon remained key parts of our culture throughout the transition into modernity.
For example, a common theme in ancient Greek mythology is that of a god secretly traveling on earth, being offered hospitality by unsuspecting mortals, and then rewarding them for their generosity. This is represented in modern culture by the term "philoxenia" which represents our value of being friendly towards strangers. Relationships like these represent the fact that we still value our ancient culture, albeit through modern representation of its ideas. I see many moral, theological, and literary threads that connect the time of the pantheon with the time of modern christianity. As a result, I am passionate about how our ancient culture is represented. In many small ways, it is still a part of me.

2 - Whats your problem?

I started thinking deeply after a recent post on the subreddit (rightfully) condemning racist remarks towards the characterization of Hermes. I think the general consensus of correct - the design of the gods are amazing, and they do a great job representing how many different cultures were involved in worshiping the Pantheon in ancient times. Ancient Greeks traded with others, spread their beliefs far and wide, and often praised the virtues of other cultures (such as Ethiopia) through art and literature. This is represented well by diverse design in-game.
However, despite the fact that the characters in Hades visually represent the variety of people who engaged with the pantheon, I sometimes feel that their traits and voices don't represent Greekness. To put it in other words, the gods are fantastic at giving off the aura of Greek mythology, but less so at giving off the aura of Greek culture.

3 - What does you smelly uncle have to do with this?

My primary complaint is Supergiant's approach when choosing character voices. To preface - THE VOICE ACTING IS AMAZING! There's not a single character whose voice doesn't fit their design and personality. I'm still amazed that Darren Korb managed to nail both Skelly and Zag. However, what interferes with my immersion the most is the choice not to use Greek accents at all.
Hephaestus in the sequel looks exactly like my immigrant uncle in real life. However, every time he speaks, I'm left wondering why he sounds Scottish. Judy Alice Lee did an amazing job voicing Melinoe, but when she speaks Greek (ie. Kataskion Aski) during her incantations, it sounds more like a British classics student practicing her Greek lines. Greek-speakers are a vast minority of the player base, and I get that this is something only someone in my position can notice and complain about. However, it feels like voices were chosen based on what Americans think sounds "regal and godly" as opposed to what characters would sound like in the context of the culture.
I don't think this was done intentionally, and there are definitely limitations when casting voices that don't come in common accents. However, I do think it is a missed opportunity to create a work of art that represents our culture far more deeply than other media has in the past.
Another small example is the use of Roman numerals when marking the doors in Tartatus and Chronos' clock attacks. In the context of the story, these symbols are being used a few centuries too early. Why not use Greek letters as the numerical system, counting down doors through ε, δ, γ, β ,α until the end? It may be confusing on the first run, but people learn quickly - they may even walk away understanding more about the Greek alphabet. I'm sure the creative minds at Supergiant could come up with other ways to represent "time" in a way that fits the cultural context.

4 - Props for the small details

I'd like to give props to some of the amazing tiny details that did make me feel represented in-game.

• Frinos and Toula are incredible names for familiars - if I don't get a dog named Osto next, I'll riot.
• The music, as usual, is magically done. Darren's use of culturally relevant instruments alongside his own flair proves that he is among the most thoughtful and skilled in the entire industry.
• Polyphemus' design is so Greek. The chest hair, the evil eye, his desire to eat and sleep, all of it.
• While pronunciation and accents can be bizzare, including Greek phrases when Melinoe is doing her incantations is an incredible touch. I would love to see more spoken Greek included in future updates.

Thank you for reading my rant. I understand that much of what I would have preferred is out of the scope of the team's vision, but I wanted to get my thoughts out so I can finally put them to rest. I hope my argument about cultural representation can be separated from the more negative and insensitive discourse about racial traits in character design.
Ν'αστε καλά. Θάνατοσ στο Χρόνοσ.
TLDR: The discourse around Supergiant's presentation of Hades characters has been bipolar - either "It's Perfect" or "It's Horrible". I think it is much closer to perfect than not, but as a Greek myself, I find myself begrudgingly accepting some very minor details (such as dubbing and pronunciation) that could have been executed a tad more thoughtfully. That being said, I think Supergiant did their best considering the resources available to them.

I have a SYS-5018D with the X10SLM-F motherboard. I actually acquired 10 units on a facebook post. I have several servers deployed at various locations and all are working, except for the IPMI. While not necessary, I thought I'd give it a try and plug in the IPMI. I went into the bios and configured the IPMI to grab a DHCP address, as well as setting it static with no luck. My router is seeing the IP of the IPMI, but I cannot ping it, or load it in with any browser(I've tried chrome, IE, etc). The supermicro page for the motherboard says it supports IPMI 2.0, however the "version" it shows on bios is 1.35. I have searched high and low on the web for info on this solution with no luck. My only though here would be to update the IPMI version with the latest, however I have seen some people try that with this variant of the board and got stuck in a boot loop due to old bios firmware.
I have learned in order to update my bios(only if i have to) I would need to short a few pins on a header that isn't soldered on the motherboard.
What would be the next logical step in diagnosing the IPMI issue?
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.
-D

Hi, I have several PDFs and epub textbooks that I want to get into chatGPT to Q&A to improve my comprehension on a chapter by chapter basis. All but one of them run into an error extracting information.
I really only need the text so wanted to ask if anyone had good experience with any 3rd party tools (windows, web or android based) that you just suck out the text and put it in a doc or another format where I can Q&A the contents?
Does anyone have a good workflow for this that they can recommend? Thanks!

Hey gunners, There is a guy who is selling tickets for 80 pounds for the everton game on facebook He seems legit ( lot of pictures from Emirates and lives in London) but that really seems cheap and as I would come from Croatia that really is a big risk.
Does anyone know any other way to find last minute tickets for the match. Any help would be great, thank you :)
ps - I am a member but I did not have luck of getting the tickets from Arsenals official site

Hello Everyone!
My name is Vinícius, I'm from Brazil and I have some history here in "Gift of Games", as I have requested "Diablo 4" 22 times, "Helldivers 2" 8 times and more haha!
​
What is Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
SMT V: Vengeance is a very hard, strange and interesting JRPG, it has some dark themes that make it stand out from the majority of games on this genre.
The game features a monster catching system(more like demon catching in this case) that enables you to recruit, improve and fuse demons that you find everywhere. It is very unique because for you to recruit them you have to chat with them, and sometimes it doesn't work like you expected, the demons may not want to join you or maybe they even want to trick you into giving them something and just vanishing after, the outcomes are very funny sometimes.
The newer version improves the game in many ways, it has a lot of QOL features, but the biggest difference is a totally new campaign, since most fans thought it was the weakest point of the original version.
​
Why Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance?
I'm a very big JRPG fan and have been for many years, I like many of the old ones and also newer ones, but I'm specificaly found of the ATLUS games like the SMT and Persona series. They have such a personality that you can always be sure that they are made by ATLUS the moment you see a frame of it.
I have been waiting to play this game since 2021 when it released, since I don't have a Nintendo Switch, but it feels like even more time and I'm sure it will be worth it.
​
Why can't I buy it?
All games are very expensive here, I live in a small town in Brazil, a country in which the AAA games cost R$ 300(our currency is called Real) or even more, and the minimum wage is R$ 1.412, so it costs a big % of the minimum wage, it's absurd. I am a photographer who is still trying to make a living of it, I had many jobs before but some fired me and some I just could not keep up because they had a huge tow on my mental state. From my experience the only job that could maintain me without destroying my mental is photography, I just love it, and I took too long to realise that I could do something important with it.But the point is that not only AAA games, but all game prices here went up really fast on the last few years, and it's impossible to keep up with it. I am struggling at the moment to acomplish my objectives professionaly, and I believe that this game may make my days a little easier.
But the most important reason why I can't buy it is that my city right now is going through the biggest natural catastrophe the country has ever seen. I live in Pelotas, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and we have many cities very close that were completely vanished because of a flood, and I mean that literally, some cities will now cease to exist because everything was consumed by water. The situation here is sad, we have never seen something of that magnitude in our lives, if you want to have an idea just search about it and watch some videos, it's devastating...
Now my city is also starting to suffer because of the flood, I think my house is probably safe for now, but now I can't even work, nobody can do anything until this passes, and even after that, we will have to deal with the problems that will appear. Some people lost everything they had, some people lost their family, their pets, the whole country is trying to help but there is no way to really stop it now.
So I basically just want this game to keep me sane during these dark times that we are living here, I know it will not make life easier, but it might bring me a little more joy so I can face the problems in a better shape than I am right now.
​
I think I don't have anymore to say, so I just hope someone reads this poorly written but full of sincerity text. 😁 Thank you SO much for giving me the opportunity to ask for something like this, you have no idea how much this means to me and how surprised I am that we have some people here with that kind of generosity!
Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
Steam Profile

So my girlfriend of 4 years told me that her brother’s wife (we’ll call her Rain) wants to have a conversation with me. I’ll try to make this as short as possible but with enough details 😭 sorry!
At one point me and my gf hit a rough patch, We broke up. I ended up moving away to another state for work. I went out with an old friend from HS one day and we slept together. A couple months later me and my girlfriend decided we were going to get back together and work on our relationship, I moved back. She found out that I hung out with said friend and asked if we had sex, I told her the truth. But I didn’t tell her how I went out to brunch with the friend days later, because she thought that she violated me and wanted to apologize. During the time of telling my gf I wasn’t thinking about the brunch because I was so focused on comforting her because she was really hurt about it. She ended up finding out about the brunch later on and was upset which is understandable.
Many months later the woman I had sex with texted me her location with a message telling me she’s moving overseas and wanted to see me before she leaves. This was around the same time I went back to town for a modeling gig. I never responded or saw her but my gf just assumed I did once she saw the message. She eventually said she believes me and we moved past that situation overall.
One day I reposted a Facebook post that said “Where’s the girls that like to go Fishing,Hiking & Camping n shii the ones that really do like nature and ain’t boujie??” Rain took a screenshot of it, sent it to my gf and blocked me on Facebook. She read that as if I’m looking for another girlfriend instead of actual friends…Because for some reason people think just because I dress masculine most of the time that I can’t be friends with other women 🥴. My gf confronted me about it I explained it to my girl what it means and she moved on from it. I blocked Rain on Instagram.
But recently my gf’s been telling me how Rain has been telling her to break up with me since she found out I had sex with someone else (although we were broken up). Now that we have a family trip planned where we will most likely be going to Rain’s home she told my girl that she wants to have a conversation with me to make sure I don’t have bad intentions and how it’s awkward because we have eachother blocked on social media. There was no hard feelings when I blocked her, after she sent my gf that screenshot I felt it was best to not have her on social media considering she’s causing unnecessary drama within my relationship and I never even had my gf’s brother on social media so what’s the big deal with having his wife?? When reading what she sent my girlfriend it comes off as if she’s going to try to “check me” about what I did she said “We’re gonna try not to be aggressive about it”. Although we weren’t together I still feel like I don’t owe anyone else an explanation for what I did except my girlfriend. I also don’t feel comfortable staying in their home anymore after discovering how Rain really feel about me. It totally seems like she doesn’t like me at all.
My gf’s ex followed her on IG the other day. My gf told Rain how we were both shocked and that I was “talking my sht”. Rain automatically read that as if I was going off on my gf about it, her response was “LOL she’s mad at you about someone you haven’t talked to in years 😑” my gf shut it down and let her know I was not mad and that’s not what she meant. At this point it seems like Rain has some type of hatred towards me. Every time my gf brings me up when they’re texting she’s saying something negative about me. But now that I think about it when I first met my GF Rain was telling her I was going to cheat on her, like she was expecting me to be a bad partner which is still odd to me because in the beginning my gf was the one getting caught up texting her exes so why did she assume I was gonna be the one to cheat or break her heart? My girlfriend told me she had to defend me on multiple occasions when people tried to put dirt on my name in the beginning which is weird because why were they saying these things?? (A friend said it’s because I’m very attractive and some people think attractive folks are “fck boys” 😂😐)
But anyways I don’t feel like I need to talk to her brother’s wife about our relationship problems or what not. I probably would feel differently about it if we were like kids in high school or if it was her parents but her sister in law? Not necessary. I also feel like it’s wild to tell someone to leave their partner who they want to be with after they told you how important their relationship is to them. It seems like Rain has been waiting for something to happen to try to convince my partner to leave me. I don’t understand how I would have bad intentions and/or what would be my goal in the end? It isn’t like I’m using my gf, she isn’t funding my life or anything remotely close to that so why would I stay with her after everything we’ve been through with bad intentions? My gf understands how I feel, she says my feelings are valid. She says her brother and Rain are just being protective.
How would you handle this situation? What is a mature way to handle a situation like this?
Thank you in advance!
i don’t know if this matters but for more context me and my gf has been living with each other since 4 months after getting together. We moved across the country together when we were 19. So we’ve always been very serious about our future and relationship together. Very mature when it comes to certain things, obviously we met when we were young so there’s a lot of situations we have where we have to learn from them and learn who we are and what we’re growing to be. if that makes sense lol.

This content is orginally posted on facebook by a facebook user mention below. I am reposting it on redit because I think he makes a lot of sense with his claims.

By Terrah Albert Talipe:

I wish to take this time to thank the Hon Mining Minister Mukuwa Dilu for bringing relief to PNG by deferring the National Gold Bill. At the same time, I would like to thank the following members of parliament who were fighting within the government caucus to try to stop the bill. 1 Hon Sir Chris Haiveta 2.Hon John Rosso3.Hon Gary Juffa4.Hon Richard Maru5.Hon Dr Tom Lino6.Hon William Duma7.Hon William Bando8.Hon Sir Ano Pala 9.Hon Sir Peter IpatasIncluding others in government. Thank you to all the opposition MPs for your stand against the bill as well. Thank you to all my people of Wau Bulolo, especially the hard hard-working Alluvail miners and the Alluvail Miners association president and your team.Our members for Wau Waria Hon Marsh Narewec and Bulolo MP Hon Sam Basil jnr for hearing the cries of your Alluvail miners. Thank you to all the followers around the country who have been hearing this cry and stood with us since day one when we filed a case at the national court in 2021 and fought with us up until this present day. Not forgetting our fearless patriots Samson Komati, Dilu Okuk, John Endemongo Kua, David Lepi, and other activists and who fought alongside us on all social media platforms. I also want to make a very special mention to PNG Core and their vigilant executives in Anthony Smare amd Richard Kassman for very informative coverage of the grievances of this bill that compromises 26 Acts of 20 or so state agencies regulatory processes. I wish to inform you all that we will continue this fight to make sure that this bill is changed and that it must be 100% PNG-owned with no exclusivity deal to be included, we want this bill to benefit PNG and its people while making sure that it must be made to benefit our hard-working Alluvail miners. We will and must make sure that the signed Shareholder Agreement kept in secret must be shredded and that K2 Singaporean company and all its shareholders must be blacklisted and not allowed into the country.All reactions:75You and 74 others.
Attached is the mega link to the actual PNG GOLD BULLION POLICY 2023.

So we live in a subdivision and we have a neighbor on one side and they were on the other side so the neighbors who moved in because we were here first and it's a brand new subdivision they are pretty cool they keep themselves they are kind of private just like us, the other neighbors beside us they from the start have been very adamant and in your face kind of neighbors
But that's not the issue the issue is how we ended up on meeting and what's been going on ever since
Usually my family we go ahead and we take my children myself and my husband to go knock or ring the doorbell and introduce ourselves and strike up friendly conversation etc, this is how we see it appropriate or just meeting everybody so we're not going back and forth then doing that whole thing we just want to get it out the way and have everybody meet everybody
So I'm working from home in my home and my husband is outside playing basketball with my children and the neighbors who are kind of in your face are home but the husband and the wife are home and the children the woman next door sends her children inside and then walks over to my husband and just loudly just waves him over and she's like always your wife home and he's like she's busy, and she just like oh I wanted to meet all y'all and all this other stuff and she just said that her children have been trying to meet my children and it was kind of odd because she sent them in before she came over to say hello to my husband and didn't bring her children to say hello to my children who are out there playing basketball with my husband also she didn't make it a point to go inside and get her husband who was also in the home to come outside so they can all collectively say hello which was kind of off-putting.
But nothing else was thought of it so it had been a while since any interaction, me and my children ended up bumping into her husband on our way to the mailbox and we had a conversation and said hello and a few things and my children met his children they started to play because they actually wanted to meet them just like she said and what not so we let them play for a little bit we only just talked for a moment and then I left went back home and then shortly later in the day the whole family comes and shows up to our home I guess he told her that we had a conversation and the children played so I guess she then wanted to come and meet me.
So they show up to the door they come at dinner time and we're just kind of in a rush and so we all say hello and this is when the red flag weird stuff starts to happen is after her husband is standing in front of her she's lightly kind of behind him so he can't really see what she's doing but she's just like back and forth staring down my husband like a piece of meat, giggling and trying to catch his gays repeatedly, and then looking back and forth at her husband trying to see if he's looking or not she didn't look at me one time while she was standing on my porch and then I made a comment and said that I had met one of her relatives when I was going on a bike ride and she said that she likes my hair and my outfit and she said oh okay and then she continued to glance back and forth at my husband and her husband and she had no interest in me and having any kind of conversation or real meeting of hello or anything.
So after that it left a bitter taste in my mouth because people like that they tend to have it all but they need more and they need like attention from the outside even though they have everything right in front of them they can't really see it. but anyway she struck me as this attention seeker and it turns out she actually is.
so her whole family came to the door, we were eating dinner, and they wanted to know if our children could come out and play and I said we just sat down to eat and you can tell that she was bothered by that and bothered by the fact that I answered the door because before she came up she was primping herself on the doorbell camera,
So I let her know that we would be coming out later after we're done so we go over and then I have her children come out and play with my children for a little bit.
We end up having a conversation while they were playing and at first she did seem kind of genuine but then she started to get over the top and just started saying I was so funny and she kept hitting me and trying to be buddy buddy and over and over again putting her hands on me laughing and it was very off putting and very fake feeling like she was trying to get bloody buddy with me somehow very quickly.
She referred to my husband as Daddy and it was kind of off-putting the way she had said it and then because I didn't like the way she said, what about daaaadyy is what she said when she asked about my husbands involvement in our day today which was kind of weird.
So I went ahead and when we were talking I said it back to her yeah your children probably need daddy too and I said exactly how she did and hopefully she got the head but nope and also she was asking me for advice about staying home and needing to be out just needing to be doing something because her husband was taken care of her too much and working but he wasn't even working a lot he work from home and in the office but he said she didn't have to and that he takes care of her but she doesn't want him to she wants to just be out there in the streets essentially doing something and being seen.
Her words not mine.
And she said she can't help it because she had her children she doesn't want to be just cooped up in the house everyday or something like that.
And so that was kind of off-putting and then I mentioned focusing on your family like being present with them and focusing solely on them reaps really good benefits because you create a closer Bond and you don't need outside anything to feel complete essentially what you have is inside of you and I just kind of reference that when she kept saying that she needs to just be on the go when she can't sit still and she said her husband always says that he's got her and that their mom needs them and things like that and I said I agree because I know how I am with my children and I have my children all the time and my family works really great because of the way our dynamic works and I tried to like give some knowledge and information to her but she kind of wasn't hearing it and didn't seem interested really in that dynamic.
So after that day she text me and wants me to go to the park with him but I'm in the shower and I never see her text message till I'm done and I have like this whole routine so it takes about an hour or so until she's just like in the park and I finally text her back the park is up the street and I text her back and she's just like kind of upset that I didn't show up and that's understandable but I did let her know like hey I was busy and I didn't see your text message can we try and do something else and so I let her know that we can have the boys hang out and we hang out tomorrow and then the next day me and my kids went for a walk and she was also on a walk with her child, we briefly passed each other cuz I'm coming out of my house and she's entering up the sidewalk to the driveway to her house she sees me and I just kind of stand there waiting so I can wave her and she just like looks through me and continues to walk
So I didn't think anything of I just kind of laughed to myself because it was kind of a petty cuz she clearly saw me but whatever but I texted her when I got back from the walk and said hey I saw you on our walk a few minutes ago I don't know if you saw me, but I just wanted to let you know that the boys are available at this x amount of time, she text me back later lets me know the time works out so the boys and I come out there later on that day at that time then this was before our dinner time so I tried to accompany and accommodate, my children are out there playing basketball and this woman literally at the exact time at her children are supposed to be out there text me and said one of her children were in trouble and can't come out there we'll catch you all next time
And I said thanks for the courtesy etc and so the next time we saw her was when my husband was cutting the grass I was inside doing some housework he was outside cutting the grass with my children running back and forth doing everything like they usually do and so during that time she makes her way outside and she's got this really short pink dress on and it's like really cold outside and it was just like really alarming to me and she's just like out there walking around sweeping her front porch and then like while my husband is cutting the side that's closest to their house she's like back to back with him and she just makes it a point to be like hey how you doing and just other stuff even though earlier in the day when we got home we both wave to them from the car and said hey and so it was kind of odd that she made another appearance to try and speak to my husband, he brought this to my attention and he said that he was very brief about it because he knows how things are between me and her and how we revives were between us and so he just briefly said Hi and then turn back around and kept cutting the grass and so I guess that wasn't enough attention for her
So after he was done cutting the grass I never took myself outside even though he said that she was out there and was trying to strike up a conversation, after that and he started to do the wrap up , but the hose away put the gutters back on and all that stuff blow the grass away.
And so basically I get a notification on my phone from the doorbell camera and the garage camera went off as well and I'm like okay someone has been spotted that's what it says and I look and I see this person standing there in a pink dress mini dress she's right there in front of my house sweeping the grass out of my driveway and sweep in the grass almost basically to the other side of the neighbor's house she's directly in front of my house sweeping my grass up going back and forth essentially waiting for my husband to come out there and I don't know what have an interaction talk I don't know look at me I'm cleaning up your grass I have no idea
And so I let my husband know like I see this happening right now on the camera and then he's just like I'm about to go cook dinner he goes to go cook dinner and I let him know I'm going to handle the cleanup and then I go out there with the broom and I walk out there I don't say anything to her and I just started sweeping and then she looks shocked to see me cuz I don't even think she knew I was home because the car wasn't in the driveway and then she just walks past and she's just wiping her nose and has her head down and she just walks back up to her driveway, her husband was cutting the grass on the other side of the house by the way her children were running around but she was in front of my house and in my driveway back and forth sweeping my grass instead of over there helping her husband with his yard work she was in my driveway and the other side of my yard sweeping the grass
And then she just after she gets back to her side of the house she's just like hey how you doing? And I say good and then I keep sweeping and then like she got this like grin on her face and she's just like see that I'm like visibly like annoyed with her and so she just keeps it moving, and so after that I went to the house and got the leaf blower and just started blowing the grass out so I can get back in the house cuz I was just like I was just really irritable, I'm blowing the grass and then I hear her come up right behind me and say hey hey where did you get that leaf blower at and I turned around and I said I don't know it's old and then I continue to blow the grass away and I guess she took the hat because I was pretty Stern with it and I think she came back to say something to me to see if I was in a good mood or to see if I was still like angry essentially because she got caught doing what she was doing
I didn't sugar coat when I spoke to her and I'm thinking okay she got the hint. And then a few days later she tried to make a playdate and then I said my children are unavailable at that time then, we were going to a nearby Creek and taking my children they wanted to go and we ate before we left we were going to leave around like 4:30 and so we didn't leave at 4:30 we ate and then we were going to leave now as we are eating I get a notification on the doorbell camera and the garage camera yet again and it says person has been spotted I checked the camera and she's out there walking back and forth back and forth back and forth with her children trying to see if we're going to come out trying to see if she can wave at us in miraculous and any kind of way I don't know but she's in front of our house her house on the complete other side and she's just back and forth walking with them
And we ended up leaving a close to 5:00 p.m. so by that time she already went in the house
And after that I just was done with any kind of interactions with her because she is very off putting and she gives off this vibe and energy of I am being fake. And I have an ulterior motive and I need to Garner attention from Men even though I have one.
Even the guy next to us was outside cleaning his car and then her husband was in the house yet again and after he went inside I guess he was like busy , So she took it upon herself to scream across the yard and say ooh that looks good. Referring to his car and so he comes over and then starts talking to her across from our yard and and her yard and she starts complimenting his car ridiculously and was just asking a bunch of stuff about his car and his pain and and what he does and how does he get it to look like that and just a bunch of stuff and what crossed my mind was the whole married women complimenting another man's car perfusively was kind of off-putting.
And so they carried conversation for a while and then to the point that he ended up getting his phone and trying to show her something about his paint job and then he actually paused before he actually had her come over and like look at the phone and she goes oh you can send it to me and I don't know if they have each other's numbers or whatever but I heard her say that and then he actually paused and said I sent it to your husband actually and then she was just like oh okay and then she stopped the conversation and went in the house
Just yesterday because we haven't had a moment to cut the grass in a while my husband cut the grass after he got off of work so me and the children were outside and we were all doing yard work like we usually do I was trimming and the boys were trimming and picking things up in the yard and she pulls up. Usually she picks up her kids and then goes in the home closes the garage and we don't see her the rest of the day, but since we are all out here and my husband's got in the grass she made it a point to pull up leave the garage open open trunk and just bring her kids out and have them running around in the driveway which I knew was going to happen, because whenever my husband's out there she makes it a point to be out there but when I hop out she flies inside of her house
So I'm out there packing up my grass and I was done because my mom had called and so I'm on the phone with her and my husband is starting to cut the side of the grass closest to her house and so, I say on the phone and I'm just like talking on the phone while looking into her driveway and garage knowing that she's going to pop out at any second to try and get some kind of attention from my husband because she's been doing that, she actually came out when I was right there just waiting and then she briefly raised her hand and waved while my husband didn't see her so he's over pushing the mower back and forth back and forth and conveniently she's in the garage going from one side of the car to the next side of the car from one side of the car to the next side of the car she did this about eight times
And he never looked her way didn't give her any kind of attention so eventually she went ahead and close the garage cuz I guess she saw me actually noticing what she was doing so she closed the garage and went house so my husband stops or is finished cutting the grass on that side of the house so he pushes it to almost the back of the outside of the fence now they don't have a fence, so her kids ran out and were right there while my husband was cutting the grass I'm guessing she was all so back there as well to try and say hello to my husband from the back of the house because she knew I was in the front of the house
And he said he didn't actually see her he was just focused on cutting the grass but I'm sure she was back there since her children were running around back and forth back there as well.
So that was pretty long but that's what has been happening since she moved in here, I am not sure how to go about anything her children seem very kind her husband is very nice and not red flaggy at all she on the other hand has the need to go up to every single neighbor and talk up people but specifically because I live next door to her it's like a game to her because she finds every moment to speak to my husband I haven't even mentioned the other times that he was out there just like cleaning out the car and she just hopped out it would just stand there and try and get his attention and then he would not give her any attention I wouldn't even look her way, it's like she can hear when we're out there or here when he's out there doing something and she can find a way to speak to him and it's really off putting and I'm not really sure what to do I've been closing all of my curtains and blinds because when she first got here she was actually looking and standing straight across looking straight. Into my house for a lot of good 5 minutes while I was vacuuming and so I close all my stuff up.
I would love some recommendations on how to peacefully handle this situation I am not sure what is going on mentally in this woman's head or why she needs to Garner this attention and I just want to be kind about it because I actually tried again and wished her a happy mother's day but then this incident happened after that so I am just done with the situation I feel like, I don't have any desire to try and be friends with her or even just be neighborly.
I would love some feedback or advice on how to peacefully go about this, the only time we are really out there is to cut the grass and do yard work which is pretty rare so I guess we don't have to really see them.
All feedback is welcome, I am close to pushing 40 so I really don't have the mental energy to deal with this kind of situation anymore I'm feeling like it's beneath me and very childish to actually do any kind of intentional situation as far as ignoring and things like that or being unkind I don't want to get roped into drama and things like that and I just wish that woman healing to be honest.
But I would love some feedback on this scenario thank you.

Introduction

The main purpose of this guide will be to help unlock the golden dice for those of you who feel less confident about tackling honour mode. This is designed to be a path of least resistance, so we won’t be experiencing everything this game has to offer. It’s also worth noting that instead of focusing on min-maxing for damage; we prioritise safe & consistent damage. We don’t need to be respeccing characters often, if at all, and we won’t be relying on strength elixirs. My girlfriend (u/-babyjanehudson) and I put this together as we’ve beaten honour mode a 5 times now without any failed attempts, we were even in the first 800 people to beat it which is kinda cool! Here’s how we did it. First starting with our builds, then a little general advice and finally just a list of some general Do’s & Don’ts. Apologies for the wall of text.
​

Builds:

[Bardlock](https://www.reddit.com/BG3Builds/s/pMh6196Xp8) (party face) - Great old one Warlock 2, college of lore bard 10 - Cha16>Dex16>Con14>Wis12

• Key items are the spell sparkler until Markoheshkir, potent robe, quickspell gloves, necklace of elemental augmentation & the warped headband of intellect (great for general party face checks in acts 1+2) at least until you get the birthright at sorcerers sundries in act 3. Once I reach act 3 and have persuaded half of the shadow cursed lands into dying, I personally choose to respec into Sorlock: 2 goolock, 2 fighter, 8 draconic sorcerer. It’s not necessary but I find it gives the edge in combat while in act 3, as there are less dialogue checks available that bard can abuse. Being a sorlock means every morning in camp I can convert ALL level 1+2 spell slots into extra sorcery slots meaning my bonus action is now always being used for eldritch blast thanks to quickened spell meta magic plus we have action surge :) Skill priority for this character is Persuasuion > Intimidation > Deception > Performance > Perception > Investigation. Credit to u/kethrynweryn for this build, it’s easily my fav in the game.

​
Life cleric 12 - Wis16>Con16>Dex14>Str
(light cleric does more damage so is technically better for experienced players but a life cleric is there to save your run in case of an emergency, something pretty invaluable to beginners in HM as we can’t assume we are winning every fight in the first 2 turns like we ideally aim to)

• key items are reapers embrace, sentinel shield, hell riders pride, the whispering promise & blood of lathander. Other items of note would be luminous armor & the radiant/illumation rings. Most fights will simply involve casting spirit guardians at its highest level and running through crowds of enemies like you’re mowing a lawn, picking up the war caster feat is brilliant for helping you keep concentration when taking attacks of opportunity but i know as a feat it’s a little divisive, just my personal preference. This setup trivialises all combat encounters in act 2. Just remember to check enemies for radiant retort, they’re few and far between but can fuck things up if you forget.

​
Swords Bard Archer (Lockpicker) - 6 Swords Bard, 4 Rogue Thief, 2 Fighter - Dex17>Cha14>Con14>Wis12>Str

• Key items are hag hair (+1dex), titan string, risky ring, hill giant club, helm of arcane acuity & band of the mystic scoundrel. With this setup every time you attack, you can hold person, fear, vicious mockery or invisibility as a bonus action :) Just make sure to use your slashing flourish as much as possible to maximise damage. Don’t forget to get to the high ground whenever possible to increase your damage.

Skill priority for this character is Sleight of hand > Stealth > Perception > Persuasion > Intimidation > Deception > Acrobatics
​
Barbarian - Wild heart Bear Barb 8, Battle Master Fighter 4 - Str16>Con16>Dex14>Wis12

• Key items are more flexible here as it’s less dependant on gear. I recommend grabbing the Everburn blade if you can, it really helps during the slog of act 1 (to get it easily, when you first find Shadowheart on the nautiloid immediately swap any one of the spells in her book for Command, then use command drop on Zhalk and steal his sword. I do not recommend trying to fight him for it) Most the time you’ll just wear the usual barb stuff, bracers of defence & a 2H weapon of your choice. If you’re willing to brave Raphael & Ansur this build becomes a powerhouse with the gauntlets of hill giant strength, amulet of health & Baldurans giantslayer. These items are incredible but are also locked behind fights which pose the highest risk to your run, prepare carefully and if you don't feel confident enough then don’t be ashamed to just skip them. Anyway we take wild heart bear because being resistant to everything but psychic damage is really underrated. You can use this character to abuse the poor souls that your swords bard has been using hold person on for easy crits. Make sure to *always* use reckless attack. Initially it sounds bizarre but stick with me, you want enemies to have advantage against your barb, doing this while keeping your AC capped around 17~19 means the computer always prioritises attacking your Barb over the rest of your party (all your other characters should have AC19-23ish by act 2). Not to mention if you’re always using reckless attack, the feat Great Weapon Master no longer has a downside, so it becomes a reliable +10 to damage.

​
Final note for builds:
As you’ve probably noticed, yes almost everybody in the party takes a dip in fighter for access to action surge & shield proficiency. I learned this habit from Colby like everything else I know. He’s the Bob Ross of DnD builds and well worth your time.
​

General Advice

The most important factor in honour mode is “meta knowledge”, This means things like: knowing how to enter each combat effectively, making sure everyone is in a good position before starting, knowing exactly which enemies/spells you’ll face during that fight and ensuring you always take the enemy by surprise to gain a free turn. Being properly prepared is better than any build. As for difficulty, Act 1 is always going to be your biggest challenge so use plenty of rests and pick your fights carefully. For this guide I also recommend using your bard to persuade the act 2 bosses into committing suicide.

Do’s:

• Always have a these spells prepared: longstrider, aid, enhance ability, bless, misty step, heroes feast, counterspell, shield & guidance.
  
• Buy the ring of bless from Volo the moment you meet him at the grove.
  
• Steal Laezel’s armor at the start if you’re not using her, it’s great medium armor in the first few hours.
  
• Let Volo take your eye for a permanent see invisibility buff.
  
• Barbarian should always use reckless attack
  
• Buy & craft every potion of speed you can get your grubby mitts on. With the slight nerfs to Haste in HM potions of speed are a safer alternative.
  
• Take the Hag hair +1dex for swords bard and most the time just let Ethel have Mayrina, its fiddly to control who Ethel will offer the deal to so just go in being prepared to sacrifice Mayrina.
  
• Talk to crusher outside the goblin camp and persuade him to kiss your feet. He'll run off embaressed, follow him to the bridge away from all the other goblins. Now you can safely and easily kill him to loot his ring which increases movement speed.
  
• Use your party face to poison the goblin camp in act 1, killing over half of them outside before even entering combat and then the party face can simply deny everything.
  
• Look up the wiki page for every boss and check their legendary resistances/actions BEFORE starting the encounter. Ethel, inquisitor w’wargaz, cazador, steel watch titan & Nether brain specifically can do some seriously nasty stuff that’s exclusive to HM & can easily catch you off guard.
  
• Kill Balthazar in his room/lab where you first meet him. To make the fight even easier you can take flesh into the self same trial using the bell so you don’t have to fight him alongside Balthazar. Either way it’s a much easier than the fighting in the shadowfell.
  
• Take alert if someone has a spare feat available, otherwise increasing your main ability score is usually the best bet.
  
• Cast sanctuary on Isobel during the raid on the last light in, a lot easier than chasing after her trying to heal & blade ward her. Alternatively ignore her altogether, go straight to ambush against the drider, grab the lantern and release dolly dolly dolly, allowing you to skip the Isobel & Marcus’s fight altogether.
  
• Keep characters ability scores in even values when possible, odd values do not change anything (with a slight exception to constitution as odd values still give a little extra hp).
  
• Try to keep all characters at 12 Wis or higher to avoid being feared, charmed or hold person’d.
  
• Cast darkness over Halsins portal to prevent enemies attacking it.
  
• Take Gortash's deal to skip his fight & the steel foundry.
  
• Use minor illusion to group enemies together & pull them out of position before initiating combat. You can also use this method to fix broken NPC’s when they’re not standing where they’re meant to. Looking at you Alfira & Lakrissa.
  
• If you’re open to a little cheesing you can leave some ranged/throwing party members on the steps before the Grym boss fight. Now just rain hell down on the boss from safety.
  
• Globe of invulnerability is exactly as broken as it sounds. These scrolls restock daily at sorcerers sundries & trivialise every boss encounter in act 3. Ansur specifically has no way of countering this.
  
• Illithid powers. These wriggly little cuties are some of the strongest buffs/abilities available. I recommend having every possible party member take atleast: favourable beginnings, luck of the far realms, ability drain & cull the weak. If you opt to go half illithid then you get access to some outrageous kit such as: fly, psionic dominance, illithid expertise & blackhole.
  
• Summon any minions before casting Aid, Heroes feast, Longstrider & other morning buffs.
  
• Use your potions, elixirs & scrolls as much as possible. They’re literally everywhere & with good reason. A well timed potion of invisibility or scroll of misty step can save a run.
  
• Most people know this already but don’t forget you can throw healing potions at allies in a pinch.
  
• Before descending the stairs to Cazador’s fight have a party member go invisible. They can run over and free Astarion before rolling initiative. This method can also be used to free Volo, Mayrina, Aylin or set up smokepowder barrels for a one turn kill.
  
• Use darkness to cover any pickpocketing and then flee the area before the NPC notices they've been got.
  
• Only trade with vendors using your highest persuasion character.
  
• Give your frequently visited vendors a few hundred gold to max out their attitude. this way you have the best prices for both buying and selling.
  
• Remember you can skip the final fight altogether using the dialogue option (important distinction) to blow Gale up at the brain stem in act 3.
  

Don’ts:

• Don’t awaken at the Zaithisk unless you’re certain you can make the checks, there is a [great guide on respeccing for this exact moment](https://www.reddit.com/BaldursGate3/s/7uQ7MSzzBg) credit to u/kodiak3393.
  
• Don't use friends, guidance or any other spell when bargaining with Ethel for Mayrina & the hag hair. It will trigger Ethel's legendary action and prevent you from getting the hag hair.
  
• Don’t free Orpheus unless you're prepared to also fight the Emperor in the final fight.
  
• Don’t play as durge for the first time. Worth noting the cloak exclusive to durge is easily the best in the game but being durge throws the player some unexpected curveballs that can end a run if you're not prepared.
  
• Don’t keep sharpshooter toggled on permanenlty unless you’ve got risky ring or oil of accuracy.
  
• Don’t try & save the gondians, don’t go to the iron throne, do not pass go, do not collect £200
  
• Don’t underestimate Flind the and other Gnolls who are attacking Rugan in act 1, you ideally want to be level 4 before this fight. Ensure to start the encounter from insidde the cave where Rugan is trapped, it can be accessed from the area near the fake paladins of tyr & Karlach.
  
• Don’t use the cantrip Friends unless you plan on immediately leaving the area or killing the target.
  
• Don’t convince Ketheric to commit suicide at the mindlfayer colony. Instead use the first phase of the fight to get into position & takeout the Mindflayer asasp then get to work on the apostles. Makes phase 2 infinitely easier.
  
• Don’t talk to Wulbren or the Tieflings in the Moonrise prison until you’ve killed the warden and all the guards . These guards are utterly brain dead and somehow will never inform anyone upstairs of your massacre, regardless of how stealthily or raucously you tackle them. So just go hog wild. This’ll secure your potent robe with ease.
  

​
[Updated and streamlined version of the guide i made a few months ago on my old account u/JoseMongo]

Hello, everyone!
After almost 2 months of "distro hopping" I finally found a place where I feel like home, literally feel like it was made for me, every detail seems to be perfect...
I have been using linux mint for almost 3 years now, I used it for 90% of my activities (and I literally only had windows for gaming, specially for VR)...
After some time I realized that steam was actually available for linux and I started looking that many of my games were available for linux and actually native (probably like 20 to 30% of them), I thought it would be nice to transfer my Linux into a bigger SSD, so I could split the games for linux in one SSD and the ones for Windows into another one...
Then I saw this little option in steam linux called: "make all games available" and I was surprised that I could actually run many of them, although I had no hope on running most of the games, I thought to myself it would be impossible to find a compatibility layer that made modern games work in Linux...
Eventually I noticed another little thing called "Proton" and saw that I can choose in the compatibility options multiple proton options, I saw that a huge amount of my games would run pretty well!
Afterwards, I tried enabling proton for some regular Linux-available games (like Cyberpunk 2077 and Howarts Legacy) that didn't run super well in regular linux (there was like stuttering or framerate drops, I couldn't really tell), but with Proton they would run even better than in Windows, it was amazing to see that!
Then I learned about two additional great applications: lutris and bottles (this was mostly because I had just installed 7th Heaven in Windows -The mod manager that can make the Classic Final Fantasy VII game look and feel absolutely stunning- and I wanted to give it a go in my Linux Mint), I followed an old tutorial on how to install the mod manager and I saw bottles, then I realized that there was another tool similar called Lutris (which was much better IMO, and it's my goto for any non steam game, specially for abandonware games, and it surprisingly runs games from like 20-30 years ago!)... I would use bottles mostly for mod managers and old puzzle games that I wanted to have in a single prefix (by the way, thanks to these two mod managers, I understood a lot about the world of prefixes and I was fascinated by it! With steam I never noticed this and with regular wine I had no idea how things worked, discovering Windows prefixes was like finding a brand new world!).
Later on, after having most of my games working on my Linux mint, I tried to run & make work every single possible "tricky" game, old and new (one example is paraworld, which literally took me an Hex modifier to make it work because of some weird port configuration, lol, that one would work in Linux, some other examples were games with the Easy Anti Cheat) and eventually made every single one of my games I tried to work (in total probably 200)...
However, the very last thing that was missing was to be able to play my VR games, and it was solely the reason to keep Windows in another partition (I was dumb enough to upgrade my windows 10 to 11, unfortunately), I started to look into the possibility on running a VR device on linux and discovered that the valve index was compatible with Linux, so, I thought in selling my HP Reverb G2, but because of it, I realized that Windows would actually TERMINATE COMPATIBILITY WITH WINDOWS MEDIA REALITY DEVICES AND DISABLE THE APPLICATION FOREVER! It was unreal for me, the worst kind of move I've ever seen in a corporation, even worse than Ubisoft taking away games you paid for, because this was a full fledged electronic device of hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of dollars...
At the same time, I made a post on reddit asking about VR in Linux and someone gave me some great advice about it and sent me a discord server link: "Linux VR Adventures", there I started to get into the rabbit hole about the VR possibilities in Linux, I statred looking for a great step by step tutorial to install Monado with Windows Mixed reality devices: I followed the tutorial and I succeeded! My linux Mint was able to use my VR headset as a display (and it can play properly VR 180 degree videos properly!).
However, that would only be the first part of the process: The second and hardest part would be to create a compatibility layer to either enhance or replace SteamVR itself (because, for some reason, SteamVR for Linux has a bug that closes the VR options and when they open again it says something like: "disabled Monado driver because on the last attempt, the application crashed", and I could never solve that problem, no matter what...
From the advice of my fellow reddit user as well, I tried to install Envision, which would be the tool to fix such problem by replacing SteamVR, but it was no use, this would be my first stopper in my Linux journey: unfortunately Envision required either Ubuntu 23 (The latest version of Mint is based on Ubuntu 22) or other more up to date kernel (i.e. latest arch or fedora), I spent probably the whole night trying to make envision work by compiling manually & installing dozens of packages because some dependency libraries required certain version of another and they piled up until the point I had to go to a very low level...
After all of that, I finally made envision work but when trying to create my VR profile, it showed me a weird error about my VR headset that I could never sort out, it was very frustrating but I knew it was time to give up and try something new...
So, what I did is to install Arch to replace Windows for good, it was probably one of the best decisions of my life, I would get rid of Windows forever, after 25 years or so using it, would be a semi-radical change, but I knew it was time: VR used to be the only reason to cling to them but if Windows was going to get rid of its flagship app & brick its devices, it had to go! (Plus I started to look about the multiple controversies about Windows 11 like the ads in the start menu and more recently the issue about Bitlocker, I have hated Windows & Microsoft for the better part of my life as well), it was simply time for a change!
After a couple hours I managed to install Arch and it was surprisingly great! I installed it alongside KDE Plasma 6 and I was astonished on how beautiful it looked and how many desktop effects, cursors, themes, login greeters, etc., I could use, it was my first time using KDE after only using Cinnamon and Gnome...
Then I tried installing steam on my Arch and everything ran very smoothly, I think I installed a couple of libraries but it was almost plug and play, games felt even running better than in Mint! However, Arch had a few issues that I couldn't ignore: the first one was an audio driver bug: I couldn't sort it out and my optical output wouldn't work (I didn't bother to fix it that much because I still had mint when I needed to use my optical output); the second issue wasn't much of an Arch's problem but it kinda turned me down: sddm and its multiple problems in the login greeters (I installed a few of them and when I tried to login the next time I had a black screen for no reason, the only way to login back was to login in mint and modify manually the config files for sddm in another partition, and then someone in reddit gave advice on how to start kde plasma without sddm and voila! it worked, only a singular sddm theme worked in the end but I was content with it). And the third and most important issue for me: a bunch of things that I needed to install manually that I already took for granted: a folder browser, a folder compression file, a text editor, etc. (I know the general purpose of Arch is to be as minimalist and customizable as possible, but for me it was a bit tedious, specially adding the right click actions in the config files for some apps, it made things unecessarily complicated for my liking)...
Eventually I got a barebones gaming laptop and I asked in reddit if it would be better to install either Fedora or Debian for gaming: most people recommended me Fedora and I got excited about it: I installed the Fedora Workstation edition and it worked like a charm in everything! Fedora would be specially useful for me because I'm a developer and I've seen everywhere that this is probably the best System for Developers (and I also noticed that it has the best compatibility with some technologies like Oracle, which would be great, because I was never able to install Oracle in my linux mint, I worked mostly with .NET, Angular and I would start with python and Docker as well)...
However, I liked both, Fedora and KDE so much that I wanted to see if I could get Fedora AND KDE in my main computer, I made a hard decision on replacing Arch for the Fedora 40 KDE version, and I was very excited to look into it!
BUT, there were a number of issues I experienced with this new Fedora KDE: the first one was that the KDE effects (one of the main reasons I chose this particular system) were kinda broken, sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't, they were like slower than in arch and had some of the options disabled (like the little colors you can use in the hexagon "burn my window" effect to open and close windows), and in general it felt slower than Arch, sddm didn't work either, I didn't know if it was because Fedora 40 just came a few days ago and KDE Plasma 6 wasn't fully compatible yet or what happened, but I was willing to accept this, as long as my games worked...
The second and most important issue is that I couldn't make most of my steam games to work I tried to look what I was missing, I installed ProtonUpQt and a bunch of libraries but it was no use, something was wrong but I couldn't pinpoint what was it...
Then I remembered that in the reddit post I made, someone recommended me Nobara (because it was a Fedora Fork, mostly adapted for gaming, developed by Mr. Glorious Eggroll himself, with everything out of the box to make it plug and play for games) and I decided to give it a go...
After making the live cd, I noticed that KDE worked much better (I think the latest version of Nobara still uses Fedora 39 & Plasma KDE 5 but because of that it's a bit more stable?), I installed it into my system and started customizing everything like crazy! I also tried sddm and it also failed, however, it at least allowed me to login from a black screen (rather than not allowing me a login, like in Arch), I decided to ditch sddm in favor of LightDM and it was probably for the best, since I've used LightDM in Mint for years and I knew exactly how to configure and customize it, and it never broke!
After adapting the system to my liking, I noticed that everything I would want is already installed: a good web browser, ProtonUpQt, Steam, Lutris, there's even a tool for Xbox controller drivers, it was crazy to me to see all of this, plus everything on top of a Fedora system that would allow me to work on my software development projects.
Then the real final test would come: how good does it run steam games? I tried at least 50 of my most recent games and all of them ran flawlessly! I didn't have to install anything, all came up first try, no issues! The next step would be to see if Lutris still ran the games that I could run in Mint and: it did: I copied every prefix that I have in Mint to my Nobara Lutris and they worked the exact same way! Everything looked perfect!
The Very last step would be to immerse myself into the VR world that I still left pending, however, I haven't tried the VR installation steps yet but I was able to download & run the AppImage of envision and run it (unlike mint, where I had to compile it manually, not without the nightmare of compiling & updating all the dependencies as well)... I looked that open composite was another possibility for this and I would try either of them alongside Monado eventually (I haven't done it yet because I had to travel but once I'm back, I'll 100% do it!).
At this point I'm mostly convinced about replacing Mint for good and take advantage of all my hard drives: I have Nobara in a 1tb nvme m2 and mint in a 4tb regular SATA ssd, I could use that mint drive as an additional ssd for games or something, it doesn't make so much sense to have a dual boot of systems that do mostly the same (Nobara being the superior one in multiple ways, of course), I was willing to have Arch dual booted with Mint because Arch had better compatibility with VR but for me it was very hard to think about Arch as my main and only system, for all the issues that I mentioned before), but now I definitely found a place where I want to stay, a place I can call home, and I feel very excited for having this great system and the future things I'll do in it!

I got recently diagnosed of Schizotypal Personality Disorder because of my referring different mythology, deities, and religious concepts interconnected with each other.
I was suffering from depression from roughly around 2015 to 2019 then there would be moments when I would get a lack of sleep and I would feel better (hypomanic) this went on for a while me cycling depression and hypomania. It wasn't until 2018 that I was introduced to cannabis being high opened my eyes to new possibilities like I could be this happy. I realized I'm a highly anxious person and cannabis allows me to relax.
In 2020 I had a psychotic episode where I was walking with my mom to the subway and I was on my way to an interview with Equinox to become a Personal Trainer, I just wanted to help people get better. During the subway ride, I was happy as a peach, but then I heard whispering from the other side of the subway cart, it was a little who was just mumbling to herself and she was just looking around with a paranoid taste. I looked at her and sent her love and kindness and she nodded at me and closed her eyes. Then I received a text from Jude mentioning about Flushing Printer, but I interpreted it as I need to go to Flushing Hospital. I left the subway cart and I called an Uber, as my Uber lifted me up I had an internal monologue, I had a voice.
The voice said "Son you are worthy, to be King!", the worthy part I liked, but becoming a King I said "I don't know want to be a King and be burdened with responsibility" I asked the Uber Driver where he was from, Brooklyn = King so I said he can be king. Then I went to call two people who I had a crush at the time, one I would be referred to as a Lady Sif and another a Valkyrie, I just automatically assumed their title and they responded normally. I assume I was Thor.
I got to Flushing Hospital and I bypass the security and followed an old man going to see his daughter or wife, I still have no reason why I was there, I thought I was going to perform a miracle, and I was on the 4th floor by then. I was answering's doctor's call which were empty. Then the medical staff noticed I was there, there was another older gentleman who said "You have nice hair" and my Grandfather would say the same thing.
The security team arrived to escort me out and they were disappointed in themselves for missing me and allowing me to come in, they were annoyed by my presence.
Since then I've gone through many Archetype.
Marvel Thor was cast out of Heaven due to arrogance and to learn humility. I equate that to Lucifer, a lightbearer, and Lucifer is equates to a Dragon. I have this book call "An Initiate's Guide to the Path of the Dragon" which ties everything for Dragon path.
I went through a plethora of ArcheType I really thought I was God because I was able to create a pantheon a series of what I would call evidence.
Aang The Avatar: The Last Air Bender shares the same name as my Vietnamese Name "An" it's pronounced the same. An in Sumerian is number 60, I am also number 60 in my Kung Fu Lineage. Then I received the name "Samuel Wiest" and from there things started to get biblical. I have a degree in BTech Computer Information system so I started to see things as in codes.
I would mean "Daniel" would be "God is my judge" and Ingram "angel, raven, or ruler" the most recent archetype if Dream, and I would use his Family Tree mostly recognizing the different archetypes and characters around me.
I received a Hot Pink Umbrella that said Dream Hotel from a local park that has Graffiti "I LOVE YOU JESUS!" and "ELI" "MER" "SIL" and "SUPA" tagged on the billboard.
I've cycled through and attached to different archetypes, I still use Dream and N30 Morpheus as my "high self".
Anansi the Spider, King of Stories, and Loki, God of Stories has been resonating a lot.
I meant this clown named Spatz Donavan and he worked with Jim Carey to get into spirituality, he worked with performers like Michael Jackson. I called Spatz Merlin, but Merlin is also Odin and I'm Loki his blood brother.
There are just a lot of things that happened that connect to each other, like the show Mr. Robot and Raganarok the endings are the same where it was all in the character's head.
On Facebook, there a lot of people who seem to pick up on the Lucifer archetype and then Lucifer in the Netflix series becomes a boddhisatva of Hell.
There is a trend where Anti-Heroes or the An Thai Christ, I use my name as part of the equation.
An = Peace Shalom = Peace
Lately I've been exploring the Abrahamic religion because I want to learn more about the Holy Spirit.
I was wondering if this is a common thing to explore archetype.
I looked in Anansi the Spider because it contained "An" my name and my initial is AT = @
@ looks like O+a which reminds me of the Netflix Series The OA (Original Angel)
The most recent death Akira Toriyama's initial is AT, he is known for Dragon Ball and Dragon Quest. Dragon Ball characters such as Son Goku take after Sun Wu Kong, and Sun Wu Kong is Hanuman.
After watching the show Loki, I believe we are all variants of each other, so there is a say "view all as your mother", since people as variants from one another helps me navigate.
Journey to the West, Sun Wu Kong because a Buddha
I believe I connect with Chenrezig aka Avalokiteshvara the most, after watching ABC: American Born Chinese, I'm a firmly believer that my mother is Guan Yin and I'm learning the path back to Source.
I'm writing because it's the only thing that brings me joy and hopefuly opens to other who would like to share their story.
I personally don't subscribe to Schizotypal Personability Disorder, but I'll borrow the name because I do look at SchizoPoster's Memes.
I learned OM MANI PADME HUM Mantra from a group of Guan Yin' Disciples in California, ever since then my parents have taken on meditation practice and even setup an altar since I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder which I definitely do have since I've felt the highs and lows, writing because I feel low right now and didn't know where else where I would post and discuss besides Reddit.
Anyways I wonder if this has to do anything with the Arisings and Passings or has anyways gone though this Archetypal journey?