Highsec got you down? Do you dream of living in the space equivalent of the wild west? Do you long for the type of battles that would make Admiral Ackbar swoon? Nocturne is seeking active members of all skill levels who are ready to jump into the beyond and experience life on the frontier.
Who is Nocturne?
Nocturne is a Nullsec Sov [EU/US] corporation flying under the VAPOR alliance, living in the Scalding Pass region of space. Experienced with Nullsec war, and all the joys of moving through and living amongst the wildest regions of New Eden, we strive to create a new player friendly and real-life first approach to EVE that any and all players can get behind.
What we offer:
• ⁠Nullsec large-fleet and small-scale content with SRP • ⁠Moon Mining Operations with Boosts • ⁠Buyback programs at 90% Jita • ⁠Cap Ship Engagement when possible • ⁠The BEST in-house hauling service in the game
What we want:
• ⁠Players that are passionate about being an active part of a group • ⁠People interested in forming a community of pilots that enjoy flying together • ⁠Active communications on Discord and Mumble • ⁠Pilots willing to train into alliance doctrines to make our fleet engagements as fun as possible
What are you waiting for? Reach out to us in game at the "Nocturne Recruitment" channel, or send in game mail to RichHomieTom, Demmoh, or Azrael Hunts. Alternatively, join our public discord channel at https://discord.gg/T97mMjTb and a recruiter will reach out! o7
https://zkillboard.com/corporation/98717704/

First: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/14vo5lb/troublemakers_deaths_pity/
*previous:* https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1crq34h/troublemakers_buried_secrets_bolster_the_weak/
......
Go'mon strutted around the command center, a cape of deep purple silk flowing about his shoulders as he wore his gilded armor. An ornate helmet underneath one arm, the faceplate forged into the visage of a snarling Rak'nal beast. He peered over the shoulders of drone pilots, observing the carnage on the streets in front of the mansion. His black scimitar hung at his belt, the palm of his war gauntlet resting on the hilt, eyebrow crests rising as he saw the expeditionary general's Buzzard explode.
"Casualty report on General Gra'vos?"
He stated to the small Geknosian woman who deftly piloted her drone closer to the wreckage to pull data from the onboard recorder. Her eyes sparkled, reflected in the screen as the data was streamed directly into her brain through a neural implant.
"Deceased, Just like you planned, his provided pleasure slave threw him from the craft and stole the det-sphere you clipped to his belt. You seem to know a lot about how these humans fight."
Go'mon touched the small grooves underneath the elastomer skin of his face where that parasite had shot him with a concealed gun. He laughed bloodily and purred.
"Failure is the greatest teacher in the universe, these parasites have taught me everything they know. Now we just need to see what their true fighting strength is."
"Understood sir, orders?"
"Get a view on the inner courtyard and report to the commanders of the second and third waves their positions and weaponry."
A young lieutenant called out.
"Sir! Twelve UHM-60 Blackhawks en-route to the enemy base! Advise!"
Go'mon stalked over, peering over the satellite observer's shoulder as he followed a chevron of twelve helicopters loaded down with ancient, obsolete human war-droids. He rapped the claws of his war gauntlet against the handle of his scimitar with a purr.
"Send orders to Commander Mar'tek to equip three of his Gallicks with anti-air weaponry, and orders for Commander Rak'don to equip his light attack craft with visual lock on missiles."
"Yes sir, relaying orders now."
Go'mon patted his subordinate on the shoulder hard enough to make them wince as he stepped back to gaze up at the massive map of Golgotha on the big screen. Small purple dots converging on a black dot that symbolized the human base of operations. He noticed that Mar'tek's forces were delayed, having only made it roughly halfway to their staging area. Walking over to the Comm's desk he asked.
"What's taking Commander Mar'tek so long to get into position?"
"A small group of human Saboteurs dropped a pair of buildings across the roadway, they're still clearing the rubble sir."
Go'mon nodded, picking idly at his metal teeth with the sharp point of his war gauntlet's index finger.
"Hm... I thought the parasite's response was oddly punctual, color me surprised they had the wherewithal to keep scouts. Move Mar'tek to the rear of the attack plan and tell Rak'don he's up next."
"Yessir!"
Go'mon chuckled haughtily, exiting the command room and returning to his field office. Setting his helmet on top of his desk he picked up the communication stick for sylva.
"Sylva, Would you kindly deal with that gate once you've landed?~"
There was a pause before.
"I'm too injured to follow that order sir."
Go'mon raised an eyebrow crest at the monotone voice that echoed back through the device.
"you've never refused a command before darling, would you kindly take care of the gate?"
The pause was longer this time, much longer this time. Then, a different, much younger voice came through, filled with fear, but also tainted with determination.
"Fuck you, Go'mon. These are our friends."
The sound of penny whistles and drums accompanied the words before the comms device popped in his gauntlet with the sound of a musket shot. Impossibly thick gray smoke pulsing from the speaker as he snarled and tossed it to the side.
"Bobby, Would you be a dear and retrieve your sister for me?"
The almost seven foot tall brute slowly nodded, eyes dull behind his ceramite mask as he stomped from the command center, bulky combat armor clattering and clunking with each step. Go'mon pressed his metal teeth together with a hiss. That damned warrior corrupted everything he touched with delusions of free will. Go'mon grabbed a fungal cigar from the box General Da'kos had given him as a thank you gift. The sweet, smoky flavor filling his maw as he lit it with the glowing hot blade of his gauntlet's thumb. He relaxed into his chair, flicking his cape out from beneath him as he enjoyed the cigar to relieve some momentary stress. His body suddenly flared with tingling power as the voice of Conquest growled in his ear.
"Kill that boy before he realises your plan. if he finds out your intentions he won't hold back."
Go'mon puffed the cigar and pulled it from his lips, letting it burst into purple flames and crumble away into cinders as he rose from his chair. He stepped out into the command center and commanded.
"Get me a buzzard to that battlefield, Order's from Conquest herself!"
There was a moment of silence as he let his aura roll over the command room, several of the comms officers immediately setting up a Buzzard for his departure.
...
Dust kicked off the ground as Drake's jump pack slowed his fall meters above the ground, He hit the ground and tore it from his back, whipping it into a group of soldiers and hitting it with a jet of pale flames.
The pack detonated in ball of orange fire that vaporized the soldiers, his cape fluttering in the backdraft before he whipped his sword from it's sheath, keen edges wreathed in pale flames as he took a Geknosian's arm off at the elbow as they tried to stuff a blaster pistol in his face. He snatched the blaster pistol from the air, using it to put a kinetic bolt into the faceplate of a powerarmored soldier with a Warhammer, Crumpling it inwards as he slid a foot back, another warhammer crashing into the ground where he'd just been standing. Another kinetic bolt tore off the soldier's pauldron as the hammer swung up at his face, making him reel back as another hammerhead caught him at the small of his back and knocked the air from his lungs. Another hammer slammed into his faceplate, forcing him to kick himself into a flip to land back on his feet. Ears ringing he deflected a Warhammer with his sword before putting another blaster bolt into the wielder's faceplate. But even as they fell back, another hammerblow hit the side of his helmet and smacked him down. Drake rolled out of the way as twenty millimeter high-explosive rounds shredded his assailants, allowing him to get to his feet as the war-bots formed a lethal semicircle, sending high explosive firepowerinto the rear column of the Geknosian assault at a blistering pace. Drake shook his head clear and vaulted over the back of one, hearing it's gun fall silent as he landed in it's cone of fire. Several flowing chops decimated a small squad of Geknosians as he tried to fight his way to the center of the column where the Gallicks hammered the gate with kinetic penetrators. The armored gate shuddering with each blow as Drake dodged war gauntlets and hammers, retaliating with fast slashes and blinding thrusts. Purple blood drenching him as his heart began to pound with battle lust.
He heard a mighty roar and crackle as one of the flying machines opened up with it's chin gun, harassing a gallick with 20mm High explosive rounds to get it's attention off the gates. It's shadow passing overhead with a Buzzard in pursuit as it slalomed low through the buildings to come back for another gun run. There was a ground shaking Boom! as something exploded beyond the rooftops, a Buzzard, smoking from one engine buzzing overhead and away from the battlefield. Drake quickly returned his focus to the battlefield, Smacking a Warhammer to the side with the blaster pistol before thrusting the blade right beneath the soldier's chin, twisting, and pulling free as a war-bot fell forward, a molten pit of slag glowing in it's back as he turned his head to face another column of armor and armored soldiers as they rounded onto the battlefield, a Buzzard painted the deepest, most royal purple he'd ever seen hovered low in front of them.
A geknosian in gold and purple armor fell from the open door, Cape of purple silk flowing behind them as they landed with one palm against the ground, Dark scimitar slashed out to the side as a crescent blade of purple energy was slung straight at Drake. Death's chosen slashed upward at the crescent, but it flowed around his blade, cutting across his chest and bringing with it a foul, draining weakness as a cold, familiar voice called out.
"That one's mine boys!~ all mine!~"
Drake hadn't recognized Go'mon in the ornate armor, but now there was no mistaking it. He tried to take a step forward but his legs buckled beneath him, sending him to his knees as a festering cold spread from the wounds made by the crescent blade that never touched his armor. He looked in confusion at his sword as the pale flames flickered out, then up just as Go'mons armored shin cracked into the side of his helmet, flinging him through a building as his mind reeled with confusion. He pulled himself from the rubble around him, stumbling to the side as a blade of purple energy sliced through the rubble he'd just been buried in without leaving a mark. He tossed the blaster pistol to the side, bringing the free hand to his mouth, intending to rip a ring off with his teeth. But as Go'mon slung another blade of purple energy with a cackle, He missed the ring, biting off his left index finger, ring and all as a boost of power burned the creeping cold away. He spit the severed digit to the ground as the ring still on it puffed into smoke.
"Feeling weak boy?!~ like your power's been drained?~"
Go'mon purred as he took a step forward, aura swelling with power as he held up the black sword.
"The blade of greed will do that if you let it touch you~"
Go'mon took an unfamiliar stance, Blade arched over his head and pointed down as he fell into a low, wide stance, one arm pushed forward as the blades on his war gauntlet's fingers glowed orange with heat. Drake fell into his peasants guard, gripping his sword in two hands as he glared at Go'mon. His gaze flickered off go'mon for a split second as he thought of everyone still in the mansion and the Geknosian chosen surged forward in a flash of purple light to run drake through before kicking him through the back wall of the building, Drake's power draining away like the blood pouring from the hole in his Lorica. He barely deflected Go'mons black blade as Conquest's chosen surged forward with a brutal slash, unable to focus for the split second required to dissipate a ring and refresh his power. Go'mons aura blooming with power with each blow of that black blade. Drake burst through a wall and into an empty street, tumbling ass over head as he desperately held onto his sword.
Angry red blood spilled from the hole in his armor as he got his elbows under him, a pair of golden boots clomping into view as Go'mon gloated, a softly flickering bloom of pale purple flames in his palm.
"All this power, and you don't even know how to properly control or wield it... Don't worry, you won't have it long~"
Drake manage to dissipate two of the remaining rings on his left hand, an intoxicating burst of power allowing him to launch himself back away from Go'mon as his wounds knitted closed, severed finger growing back with a crunching, fleshy noise. He could feel Go'mons grin behind the snarling visage of his helmet as he fell into a peasants guard, feeling far too weak for having removed five rings. The two stared at each other silently, one of the flying machines spinning to the ground before exploding into a fireball behind Go'mon. Drake fet a deathly calm fall over him as he twisted his sword up into a high guard.
He had to make it back to his people, no matter what. The thumb and pinkie ring on his right hand puffed into smoke as he felt those corvid like wings form at his back, a cold cage of festering ice around the burning sun of rage in his heart. Go'mon took a simple offensive guard, twirling the scimitar with obvious skill in a figure eight in front of him.
The two chosen launched themselves at each other, Drake wreathed in black smoke as Go'mon exploded with pale purple light; the pavement cracking beneath their feet with the violence of the action.
...
Martha tended to the mounting wounded in the infirmary as fast as she could, back splayed open as small gossamer arms allowed her to work on several wounded at once. Many of the ex-slave women helped, binding wounds with clean bandages and splinting broken limbs like they had back at the plantations. Hearing the large wooden doors of the ballroom infirmary slam open, she looked up as Destrier and Caz hauled in a pale remin and a Brutalized young woman. Keeping one hand holding a bundle of gauze against the bleeding wound she was attempting to close up, The young man looking up at her with fear, pain, and hope on his face as he helped hold the gauze down. Pointing to two empty beds she called out.
"Set them there! Where's Drake?! We could really use the walking embodiment of Death right now!"
Destrier hoarsely called back, setting Remin into a bed as the old man struggled to keep his eyes open.
"He's fighting his way towards us from the rear!"
Caz helped the battered young woman into a bed where she curled into the fetal position before the Markswoman swept back out of the infirmary, Huntress humming as she slammed a new flechette into the barrel. Martha continued tying off tattered blood vessels, trying to keep the young man from bleeding out as Cassius appeared next to her, shaking his hands dry after scrubbing them with antiseptic to help close up the gnarly gash in the stomach of the wounded man behind her. Martha's heart pounded in her throat as she finally managed to sew the wound closed before hitting the fighter with a sedative to ease his pain and knock him out. She wanted to cry but held in her tears as she turned around to focus on the same patient as Cassius, but even as she did, the young man placed a bloodied palm on her forearm. She felt a lone tear drip down her snout as she looked at the mans deathly stillness, eyes closed in quiet acceptance of his fate, a grim smile on his face.
Her legs felt weak beneath her as she leaned on Cassius, watching Destrier rush out of the infirmary out of the corner of her eye.
"we're going to need a miracle if we want to make it out of this alive..."
She whimpered as the din of battle echoed dully from outside. That was when a wounded man sat up, grunting as he held the bandages across his torso. She rushed over to stop him from tumbling out of bed when he simply fell through the floor, an odd superposition happening where he was there and not for a split second. But when it faded, there was a note left on the ground, scrawled in blood red, blotchy words.
"I'll be back, and I won't be alone."
Martha could only hope that was true as she turned to continue tending the wounded, Despair filling her heart as more wounded were brought in from the ramparts.
...
Halcyon held the gate, rifle spitting hatred from behind one of the wall's crenellations as one of his Hellions fell next to him, skull split open by gauss slug. Halcyon glanced down at the gate where Thomas and another hulking agri-droid held it against the wall, the gate rattling with each impact of a Gallick's kinetic penetrator, apples of sunlight spreading across the ground where they'd simply sailed straight through. The Geknosian reinforcements turning an already blistering hail of various projectiles and beams becoming an impassable force as several of their light cruisers fired on the helicopters that circled over the battlefield. Missiles streaking upwards and shredding the soft-skinned aircraft, forcing them to take evasive maneuvers and stop the pulse-pounding barrage of their rotary cannons. Halcyon's attention was drawn to the sky as an impossibly loud crash of steel on steel accompanied a streak of pale purple light and void black as they shot into the sky. The black streak getting slammed down by a brutal, unseen strike that made Halcyon's heart leap into his throat. What kind of monster could go toe to toe with Drake, and appear to be winning.
Halcyon, peaked past the cranellation he had his back against, a gauss slug taking his eye out and making him shout in pain as he jerked his head back. Ripping a bundle of gauze from his medi-pack, he rolled it out and bunched it up, pressing it against his vacant and shattered eye socket as a bout of lightheadedness turned the edges of his reduced vision dark.
One of his men crouched beside him flinching when chips of stone exploded from the crenellation they'd been taking cover behind, some sort of heavy weapon having been aimed at them as they darted for Halcyon. Halcyon looked into their eyes, face just as dismayed as he felt, their words barely audible over the din of battle.
"what do we do, sir...?"
Halcyon let out a sigh, shouting over the roar of gunfire.
"Pull back! secure the mansion!"
The fighters didn't need to be told twice as the ramparts were abandoned, leaping from the walls to sprint back to the mansion, The agri-bots forming a phalanx behind them to cover their retreat. But Halcyon couldn't help but feel this is exactly what the Geknosians wanted.
But even as the fighters swarmed into the Mansion, Two figures walked past them.
A hulking man in dark samurai armor wielding an lmg and a smaller woman with a flowing furred cloak and white mask, carrying an ornate rail rifle walked past them through the doors.
Halcyon watched in dismayed confusion as Caz and Destrier stepped out into the sunlight, a jump pack freshly mounted on Destriers back beside his kanabo. Another smaller figure appeared as if from thin air, Cassius spinning the weight at the end of a chain attached to a kama menacingly as the doors closed behind them, massive metal shutters sealing them out as the mansion was locked down. He couldn't help but smile grimly.
There was a reason they were Drake's friends, and it wasn't because they were the best fighters.
It was because when everyone else ran away, they ran towards the fight... regardless of their own safety.
......
Part 109: will be linked here upon release.

So, I've kind of posted about this in other threads, specifically on askreddit, but by some users request, I will do my best to fully relay this entire tale up to the current point, as well as provide as much context I am able (and will provide missing context if asked in comments).
TL;DR
A friend of mine of 4 years drank himself into liver failure and his wife cheated on him, so I offered him a free room to try and put his life back together, and I was repaid for the thought with a divorce of my own, but honestly, it's probably not that bad.
Part 1: CONTEXT
Me and my wife have been together since early 2014, and married in late 2017. We have been through much together, including two extended deployments, one of which was 10 and a half months long. We have traveled the world together, lived on both coasts of the US, and despite much of our struggles and how things eventually went down, I was always convinced we would work as a team to overcome any issues.
The friend in question was, largely, an online friend. We met playing an MMO during covid and we quickly formed a very tight knit, but small, community that were very close that included me, my wife, my friend, his wife, and 4 other friends. Covid was a wild time and I was surprised how easy it was to form friends in this group and we kept in touch, as a whole, even once quarantine had ended and most of us had moved on from that particular game. This was a group that, while it started online, we have met most of these people several times IRL and had vacations to spend time together and just hang out.
Part 2: His Problems
Fast forward to about January of 2024. My buddy, from here on out I will refer to as Z (and for a quick add, I will refer to my wife as D), contacts us to tell us his condition is dire and he has been diagnosed with stage 4 cirrhosis of the liver as a consequence of his extensive drinking. Shaken, we quickly charter a flight out to visit. Within a week, we're staying with him and his wife and his roommate and a couple members of his family who are taking care of him. This man is bloated, yellow, and probably about 350lbs now. We are worried, but stay supportive and positive that help can be found, especially since he seems keen on changing his lifestyle for the better. Some of his family start a gofundme that we donate to, and many of the people in our gaming circle who have grown close also donate several thousand dollars (One member of our raid team donated 10k. You never know who is stealth rich on the internet I guess). Me and several other friends discuss the possibilities of helping him get on disability and even getting ourselves tested as compatible living donors. Sad, but hopeful, we depart about a week later, and stay in constant touch.
About a month later, I'm getting a call from one of our mutuals letting me know that "Hey, so I may have goofed up." and tells me how Z's wife had visited him and had a 3 way with him and his wife. I am obviously irate at this and turn to back Z up with comments like "So much for in sickness and in health, huh?" I do what I can to stay supportive, and my wife, D, also makes it a point to stay in touch with him as he has found himself banished to the couch of his apartment. Not even allowed to sleep in his own bed and frequently uncomfortable even being in his bedroom to use the PC.
I'm not particularly rich, but I am not poor either. I served in the military and have a high VA rating which means a constant income and have a steady job and a couple side gigs that pay well enough. My love language, in many ways, is gift giving. I pride myself on being able to pick a good gift, even if it's a little early for an occasion such as a bday or christmas, and will often pull the trigger on something if it means a lot or I think it will help. In this case, my brother was selling an old steam deck because he wanted a new OLED model, so I figured "two birds, one stone", and buy the steam deck off him and send it to Z so we can still game together.
In the intervening months, Z and D start playing games that I have no interest in (Disney Dreamlight Valley), but I am happy to play other games and hang out and chat. Really, nothing seems amiss, but since his banishment, me and my wife are both pushing for him to come and take up the spare bedroom we have in our home. Soon enough, I buy him a plane ticket and he arrives with little more than the clothes on his back and we take him in, no cost other than the expectation that he might help around the house a bit (he was a chef, so having a cook and someone to help clean was ideal for me who often did not have the time or energy to handle these tasks as thoroughly as I would like).
Part 3: The Incident
Now, I am skipping ahead a little bit here, but there's not much to be said about the time between. My wife worked part time hours, and when she did go to work, she'd have him tag along just so he wouldn't "Sit and stew with bad thoughts" at the house alone. I will admit that throughout this entire ordeal, I have had several, several times where my brain tried to warn me, but I ignored ALL of those signs because I trusted him, but more importantly, I trusted her with my life.
One new, frequent argument I found myself having with her was she would fall asleep on the couch, and when I finally tried to go to bed, I'd do my best to wake her and drag her upstairs. These became extremely frequent occurrences and I expressed to her how frustrated I was that I had to fight with her just to come to bed so we could sleep (mind you, this is not even about sex. Often I'm taking her to bed at like, 1am and I work at 7, so I really just wanted her to be sleeping in the bed). Hell, one time, I started catching the vibes that the longer I sat and waited for her to be ready to go upstairs, she just never would be, because they were waiting for me to leave so they could talk in hushed tones. On THAT particular night, I went upstairs alone with her finally awake, and she did not join me for another half hour.
Finally, the day arrives. Its Sunday. We are all downstairs hanging out. One of their newest habits I can't really stand but just dealt with is that she'd sit and crochet while he doomscrolled or strummed on a guitar I bought him and listen to music videos on youtube endlessly. Eventually, I grow weary and give my wife a kiss and tell her I'm gonna go upstairs and play some GW2 for a bit.
About an hour passes, and she enters the game room and tells me "I am uncomfortable. I really need to talk to you. Oh, you're dying!" (As she entered the room, I immediately turn face to talk to her and disregard the game, but she decided that my Charr was more important that what was about to happen, so she of course warns me.) We step into the bedroom and close the door.
"You're going to hate me," she says through tears, "me and Z kissed!" At this point, my brain short circuits and I recall one of my first thoughts being "Oh lord, here we go." and just a general desire to not be a part of this conversation. Shock sets in almost immediately. Still with a healthy dose of denial, I talk to her about what had happened and told her that it needed to end. Even at this point, I did not want to send this man home. Was it shock? Denial? Probably a mixture of the two, or some other additional emotional responses. She gets up after some discussion and goes downstairs, promising to shut him down, but comes back about 15 minutes later sobbing "I couldn't do it! I couldn't end it..." (Side note: In my confused haze of a mind, I feel personally threatened, and after she leaves the bedroom, I lock the door and grab a metal water cub I keep at my side and prepare to actually fight if it comes to it, but once she returns, I back off that idea again.)
Talking with her more, I present her with two options; Couple's therapy, or divorce. BOTH of these options are world ending to her, and she even goes so far as to suggest that just because I said the "D word" that it was what I wanted, which was objectively untrue. We talk back and forth about things I don't quite recall at this point, aside from one point where she comes back and locks herself in the master bath and tells me to call 911, she doesn't care, because she's going to take a bunch of pills, but after a couple of hours, Z shows up to the door and knocks and asks if he can come in. I tell him he may enter, and we talk for a bit. After about 5ish minutes, we decide to go downstairs to the living room and continue the discussion.
Once I sit down on the sofa, I immediately feel like I'm being positioned as the bad guy. I'm in the corner of our sectional, and she's on my left, he's on my right. She tells him "He said it's either a divorce or couple's therapy." "Oh, so he gave you an ultimatum?" I continue to argue that yes, those are the two only options. Z tells me "You're not being fair to her emotions. She is telling you there is another option." I am thoroughly baffled at this statement.
D: I didn't think it was possible and I didn't mean for it to happen, but I have fallen in love with another man. My heart has room for two. I truly have two soulmates. I have never been happier than sleeping on the couch next to my two boys.
Z: There is no reason you guys can't stay married, and we can explore what we've found. I mean, look at how happy she has been since I have been here!
Sick to my stomach, I get up to go vomit in the toilet. Now, I wore a silicone wedding ring, and often find even with a hand wash, a little water tends to get trapped under it. After I finish and wash myself up, I come back and am playing with my ring to dry it. She sees this as a sign that I am uncomfortable again wearing my ring, and takes off her ring as I sit back down and hands me her wedding ring.
Me: Uh, excuse me?
D: This is what you want, I can tell.
Me: No? I was washing my hands and water gets stuck under my ring...
D: Oh... I thought... okay. (And she takes back her ring from me)
I tell her, very clearly, the options are to either end things with him, or end things with me. At this point, I'm still in shock, but sober in mind enough to decide that this is not worth fighting over. I will not argue with my own wife my merits or why she shouldn't just pack up and leave with a jobless, now essentially homeless man, and if she cannot figure that out herself then I will eventually move on.
Crying, sobbing, she sits down in front of him and says, "I'm so sorry, I fought for you. I really did. I told you I'd fight for you and I failed. I loved being your girlfriend, but I need to be a good wife and stay."
Z says "Alright." and starts to go gather his things to leave. As he does, she grabs him and says "No, wait! Please don't go. I don't know what I want."
Z: Ok, well if we're getting all this out in the open, I want to say this. I love this girl. I love her with my whole heart, and without her, life is not worth living. I will not leave this house if you (me) tell me to. Only her. You are taking this very well right now, I can tell you want to hit me (Still in shock, no, I can genuinely say that emotion or thought had not actually registered outside of the event upstairs earlier), but this is my stand.
D: OP, we had a good run. I'm sorry.
And with that, I get up and go to get my sandals and leave the house to get some air. As I try to go, she runs to the door and he follows her. She pushes the door closed and says "No wait, please!"
Me: No, this is the deal. I'm going out to get some fresh air. I am not threatening self harm to "win you back".
D: Will you be back?
Me: I don't know.
Z: Man, I'm telling you, you don't understand, you think I am your enemy, but I am not.
And with that, I leave and shut the door.
In the about, hour, I am gone, I drive around near the house and I call my supervisor who I have a very good relationship with (and I did not want to involve direct friends or family yet because I'm afraid it's too early to start spreading this news). I go over to her house nearby and we chat shortly. After our talk, I have at least something of a clear head and go home, with words for both of them.
As I arrive home, there is no one downstairs. I go upstairs. His door is closed. I knock on the door.
Z: Uh, one second.
I wait for about 5 agonizing seconds, but I refuse to be shut out of rooms in my own home and open the door. He is shirtless, and she is hiding in the corner just out of sight of me. I look him in the eye.
Me: Really?
Z: Yep.
Me: Get out of my house.
And with that, they both silently pack their things and leave.
The second I hear the front door close, I start calling people. I am not above pettiness, and the first person I call is her mom, whom I have a good relationship with. She is SHAKEN and immediately calls her. (I find out later that it was a particularly harsh verbal beating by her, but it really doesn't change anything.)
When I come downstairs to check the state of the house, I see her wedding ring on the counter. I call out of work the next day and lay down and hope I die.
Part 4: Her Problems
So, there is some additional context that I did not add in part 1 because a lot of it is red flags I ignored over the course of our relationship that, in the days following, started to become more and more obvious. There are many that I spent much effort playing off or covering her for, but I will try to briefly list much of what I see as glaring issues in the relationship that were never remedied.
This woman is 30 years old and cannot drive. She can drive and HAS driven my vehicle at the start of the relationship (albeit illegally), but after one tiny little accident where she hit a pole and knocked my side mirror off (which she paid for and fixed before telling me, it really wasn't a big deal. I was on deployment), she never drove again. Attempts to get her behind the wheel would end very quickly after they started, and the conditions to get her in the seat were often extremely time limited, scheduled, or something would come up, and every time I told her "okay, this month we're getting your license for sure" it just wouldn't happen and I'd end up feeling like the one who was at fault.
She does not have her Bachelor's degree because she did not turn in her final project for one single class. Not only that, but she has never truly pursued a career with the things she learned from the coursework, or even used her AA.
For half of the relationship, she did not work at all. When she did, it was often part time work, and if she was saddled with full time hours or, god forbid, overtime, it was a world-ending affair. She would come home and constantly be tired from her few hours at work and would do little more than sit around and crochet.
Our agreement when we bought our house was that she was going to work full time and we were going to split household duties, but I would definitely scoop the cat box because she was allergic (but she wanted cats) and wash dishes (because she hated them), and she would do laundry (because I hated it). In practice, all her version of laundry turned out to be was to throw loads in when one of us was out of clothes and just hit wash and then rotate, and then leave all the clothes in a pile on the bed. EVERYONE KNOWS folding the laundry is the worst part! Come on! Men's clothes are easy! I don't wear that much! (When we would fold, I often finished in a third of her time and would just hang out and chat until she was done)
Ultimately, this meant that for many years now, she was working barely more than part time if she was working at all, and would sort-of do laundry. Meanwhile, I am scooping litter, folding laundry, doing dishes, doing all related yard work, doing all the household cleaning, handling all the finances, I did MOST of the cooking, and all of the grocery shopping (often going alone), driving her from work if I could (she'd uber it if not) and picking her up and driving her home, as well as just generally being a chauffeur for her for 10 years, while working a full time job and a side gig online. Many nights I'd have to stop what I was doing to pick her up at closing hours, and then would sit in the parking lot for 30 minutes while she did tasks like vacuum her little crystal shop that she definitely could have done before close so I didn't end up waiting so damn long. Then we'd come home hang out and eat while we watched TV, and then if I wanted to try and go upstairs to do another hobby, I'd be silently guilted about it because she wanted to sit on the couch and crochet.
Part 5: My Problems
I am not perfect, and admit I have flaws. One of her favorite things to claim to our friends now is that I was "emotionally neglectful", and if there is truth to it, I think I can pin down the day. Before I started working full time again, I was going to school on the 9/11 GI bill. I was not a good student in my younger years, but in time, I have become rather good at school. My first two semesters back I easily maintained a 4.0 GPA. Over the summer in 2022, I, woefully, decided to take a Calc 2 class online because I could not find one in person and wanted to be ready for Calc 3 in the Fall to fill a prereq for my bachelor's, and I really liked the instructor for that Calc 3 class. This calc 2 class was painful. The instructor had clearly recorded all his lectures during Covid and we were simply given the full course of videos and given work assignments and said "Email me if you have questions." This is not how I learn, but I figured, hey, it's one class. I'm working again, but one class isn't a huge deal. I can knock this out.
I was wrong.
After the second exam, I had a low C in the class and I knew I couldn't keep up. I withdrew from the class feeling no other option. I tend to be pretty good at math, and ultimately my dream was to work with 3d printing on an industrial scale with a Mechanical Engineering degree- and if that failed I had my military history (which is engineering relevant) and a degree to fall back on and work should come easily. After clicking that withdraw button, I saw those dreams vaporize. After that, I threw myself into my government civilian job full time and slowly fell into depression. By the end of our relationship, with the toll of doing 99% of the work around the house and for her and with my dreams dead and buried, at age 33, I would wake up and pray I died. I would never kill myself, but I wanted to just die. I felt backed into a corner. I still did everything I could to support her and hoped that one day, she would pick up some of the load and maybe, just maybe, I could go back, but that day did not come (At least not in the way I expected).
Part 6: The Aftermath
This post is already too long, and if I include every single detail that has come to light since, I might actually hit the post cap, but I will go over at least some of it here.
I have had my friends come out in droves. Both of them have been effectively exiled, at least from what I can see, from every friend circle we have. After a couple of days, they flew back to live with, I guess, his parents in Vegas while they sorted shit out, because after I spoke with Z's previous roommate, he adamantly explained he was tired of all the "fucking drama" that Z had been bringing into the house and was just done with it.
I have spoken with many, many people and gotten even more context and even receipts of some of each of their conversations to our mutual friends, and some of the shit I read is just hilarious. He is "not ashamed of pursuing happiness, he is just sad that people got hurt". She is "coming to terms with emotional neglect and felt trapped, but now, yes now, she is free."
I got my neighbors to watch the cats, and took my dog up to visit my closest friend of 20 years and spent about a week and a half drinking, smoking, and talking about all this while surrounded by some of the most beautiful nature the US has to offer. Truly, without this man, I don't think I'd have gotten this far as quickly as I have. He really has been a lifesaver and I truly, to my dying day, will always appreciate him.
Paperwork has been filed, we wish to remain on good terms, and one day I still do hope I can be a friend to her, but she is woefully immature and incapable of adequately performing in an adult society. I have quit my job and am returning to school with a much lighter budget and will be getting that degree I desperately need.
It's been hard, real hard. I have put every ounce of my being into this relationship, and I truly felt like she was part of me, and nothing like this could ever happen. But it's that trust that allowed this to happen. I do not hate her, I'm just disappointed. I will pick up my pieces and, hopefully, find myself whole again soon.
Part 7: Rambling anecdotes
These are some stories I wanted to include in the previous body of text but didn't feel like it kept the same flow (if there even is any at all, I'm not proofreading this). If I remember any others after I post, Ill just toss them in the comments.
Early after Z came to live with us, my mother came to the house to drop off a package. I am pretty sure I was at work, but when my mother came to the door, both of them answered the door and the way my mom describes it "First of all, do you answer the door at your friends house? Also, the way he hovered over her made me uncomfortable. They were in the doorway and he was right up behind her poking his head out." She said my wife had told her that I was feeling unwell and was upstairs sleeping. I can't even be sure at this point.
Shortly before all the things happened, my parents were going out of town to celebrate their own anniversary, and I had agreed to dog-sit their 5 month old puppy (who, while cute, has WAY too much energy and was EXTREMELY difficult to handle, and I have raised several dogs at this point). We met up and took the dog, and then ALL of us (including Z) went to dinner. At dinner, my mother looked at my wife and asked, directly "And so how long have you been married? 6, almost 7 years? Well at least you missed that 7 year itch, huh" and my wife shortly followed with a comment about how she was not hungry and did not eat dinner that night.
All of this happened WHILE THIS CRAZY PUPPY was running around the house, and part of me thinks he pushed this to happen when it did because he could not stand having to help take care of this dog any longer (2 days).
About a week after all this happened, my wife did not text or call me, or respond to any messages or emails I sent her (I didn't send many, but they exist). Frustrated, I text her and tell her I need to talk to her about logistics moving forward, specifically about her belongings. She told me "I will talk to you when I am ready." We did not talk for another week. Also, she told me to stop talking to her mom. (I have a good relationship with both of my in-laws and while her step-father tried to remain impartial to the best of his abilities, he gave me some of the best advice I could possibly have gotten at that time, mostly about how to move forward and cope, as he has personally dealt with this with smaller relationships 3 separate times in his life which he gave me details on, and we are still on good terms.)
Their favorite TV show to watch together was Outlander, which, if you aren't aware, is basically a story about a woman who time travels and has two men in her life.
One of our biggest constant points of contention was my friendship with an old high school buddy (who I spent much of the time in the aftermath hanging out with while healing). We believe, with good reason, that she hated this man because after I had almost been hospitalized for psych reasons due to stress, he had told me I needed to talk to her about working again and doing more to help around the house. She figured out, obviously, who was telling me to say these things, and sent a very, very angry text to his wife. They all apparently made up, but I know she never let that grudge go.
One of the fairly recent hobbies I got into was D&D. It seemed like a good fit for all of us. She loved fantasy and gaming, I enjoyed 3d printing and story telling. She needed friends, and a party of people hangin out would give her at least a few connections to start. Every night she "participated" in D&D, she mostly sat quiet and did not do anything. Hell, I tried to get her to participate in 2 different games, and after she left the first one, she asked to just sit quietly in the discord call (This first one was online only, second was in person) and listen, which was super awkward. In the in person game, after 3 months of playing, she did not know how to play her character at all, and mostly spent her time at the table crocheting. (My buddy even made a comment about how at one point, he was proud of how good I was getting at DMing and I was giving particularly good exposition, and she interrupted me to hand another player at the table a dice bag she made. I don't remember it, but I absolutely believe this happened.)
The day of "the incident", she had a meltdown about how a friend of hers had ghosted her. I told her it was okay, she was much younger anyway and people grow apart. She's probably going through stuff and we should respect that path she's on. She cried about how she has no friends.
Also the day of "the incident", we were in the shower together and she told me she had met her sister's new BF on facetime. I asked "why did she break up with her old one?" "Well... she cheated on him." "Oh, that's a shame. Cheating is probably the most cowardly act a person can do to another. If you're going to start a new relationship, you need to grow a pair and end it before starting a new one." She clearly took my words to heart.
One of my biggest pet peeves about cleaning the house is our dog sheds, a lot. If I see a hairball roll through the house it immediately drains me a bit. We had a roomba. She would send that thing home when it started and never start it again. It barely ran. She would not vacuum.
One of the most common descriptors of her I've heard used by many people now that they're "allowed to" is "She was there, doing the thing with us, but it was like she wasn't there."
Something she thought that I apparently hadn't figured out by the time we talked after everything happened was that they had been talking since February. I told her I wasn't stupid and had figured it out already that this wasn't out of the blue.
Z's wife is currently pregnant with the baby of the man she cheated on him with. (And he is also married)
Anything else I remember Ill leave for comments, I know there is much, much more.

Hello everyone! I have been vaporizing some black frankincense resin (Boswellia neglecta) over Palo Santo and I've fallen in love. Scent description from good scents, “the opening note is like smelling a tin of shoe polish mixed with sticky frankincense resins and dry pine cones, the middle notes are frankincense resinous, cedarwood dry, and a tad fresh lemony. The base notes are warm resinous frankincense, dry pine, leather and again tinned shoe polish.” To my nose, It’s very very dark and “sticky,” balsamic, resinous, herbal, spicy, gas station/turpentine-like, woody, and to a lesser extent lemony and camphoraceous. Forgive my vocabulary! It's difficult to capture the magic in words.
I would like to recreate this scent, and I'm def going to buy the b. Neglecta EO from PA, however after sampling a few other naturals I have run into 3 problems:

1. Longevity and sillage - Of course EOs in particular have very little throw and don’t last long. CO2 extracts are definitely superior to the essential oils in this sense, and I’ve been eyeing some frankincense absolutes as well, which leads me to the second issue…
   
2. IFRA limits - it seems like frankincense is generally quite restricted, as many products contain toxins like thujone. Currently with the EOs and CO2 extracts I have, the frankincense note is not powerful enough at it's maximum %. I would need to build the accord with less restricted materials around the small quantity I am able to use.
   
3. Finding Boswellia neglecta/similar smelling ACs (resinous greasy woody pine terpenic cedar leathery): currently the biggest puzzle. I unfortunately do not enjoy the soapy-clean scent of Boswellia carteri, which seems like the most abundant species used. I am afraid of investing in an expensive material and ending up with the lemon dish soap type of frankincense.
   

The candidates i am leaning most towards currently are Olibanum Coeur (Ventos), Robertet’s Olibanol, Bois D’encense, maybe Choya Loban. Based on reviews, Olibanum Coeur and Bois D’Encense are the front runners. If anyone has these items, I would love to hear your experiences with it; what it smells like, longevity and sillage, etc.
I am thinking of using some of the following materials to support it:

• isobornyl acetate
• Pinocarveol
• IBQ
• labdanum
• Prismantol
• Syvlamber (heard it extends the camphor note)
• Fenchol
• B-Caryophyllene
• alpha terpineol
• camphene
• Muscenone
• Vertofix
• Tolu balsam, copaiba balsam, Peru balsam, fir balsam type things
• castoreum or civet (synthetic)
• Myrcene
• B Caryophyllene
• Birch tar or Guaiacol for smoke note
• Palo Santo (if I don't use Bois d'Encense)

Do you think any of these materials would help, or am I way off? Does anyone know what keywords to use for the notes on black Frankincense specifically? I know the only way is through experimenting, but blind buying is hard! I just need some help narrowing down what I'm looking for. So I figured I would ask the experts here! Thank you. 💗

Hey there fellow sci-fi enjoyers. I'm looking for a book/series. I remember a few things but not a lot, and I think it's from different parts of the series.
The introduction has people evacuating on a rather large ship, as an asteroid is hurtling towards earth. Part of it, a pebble sized piece, slams into a bay, and the person recording it happen is a girl who gets impaled by a piece of wood and then vaporized.
Another part that I remember, has this guy/kid strapped.into a medical device spread-eagle, and his skin is getting surgically cut off with no painkillers. But it's only an inch at a time, and it's going layer by layer.
There was also 2 stowaways that managed to get on board, and I think one of them killed someone to get on the ship.
I read it in the early 2000's in middle school. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Cuz at this point I feel like it was a fever dream lol.

Hey there fellow sci-fi enjoyers. I'm looking for a book/series. I remember a few things but not a lot, and I think it's from different parts of the series.
The introduction has people evacuating on a rather large ship, as an asteroid is hurtling towards earth. Part of it, a pebble sized piece, slams into a bay, and the person recording it happen is a girl who gets impaled by a piece of wood and then vaporized.
Another part that I remember, has this guy/kid strapped.into a medical device spread-eagle, and his skin is getting surgically cut off with no painkillers. But it's only an inch at a time, and it's going layer by layer.
There was also 2 stowaways that managed to get on board, and I think one of them killed someone to get on the ship.
I read it in the early 2000's in middle school. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Cuz at this point I feel like it was a fever dream lol.

Secret Touch is the eighth song on the seventeenth studio album Vapor Trails (2002). How do you rank this one? The choices range from skippable (You can almost see the circuits blowing) to superb (The treasure of a life).
Writing credits: Music: Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Lyrics: Neil Peart
Concurrent band member quote: "This is a bit of an extravaganza. We built the song around these repeating bass chords that I thought sounded like French horns. The tune has a hypnotic feel, and because we weren't happy just enjoying that feel, we had to smack it up with some power. When we get to the middle section and all hell breaks loose, there are these stuttering bass punctuations. I double-tracked them, but on one of the tracks I went in and digitally truncated the notes to make them sound really abrupt and punchy." -Geddy to Karl Coryat of Bass Player Magazine (July 2002)
Rush Official YouTube Channel link
This track was released as a radio promo single in 2002, reaching number 25 on the US Mainstream Rock chart.
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The Purpose of Life for Man

One of the most direct verses on the subject of "the meaning (or purpose) of (human) life" in the Bible can be found in Revelation:

"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."-Revelation 4:11

This, of course, should prompt us to ask what exactly does God take pleasure in?
Conversely, what doesn't He take pleasure in?

"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"-Micah 6:6-8

God does not take pleasure in mere outward religiosity and ritual, but rather finds honest acts of love towards Him and others as more important when pertaining to our fulfillment of what God expects from us as His creation. God takes great pleasure in us doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with Him. This is what He requires of us. In other words...

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."-Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

The Book of Ecclesiastes is an existential treatise on the futility of finding any meaning or fulfillment in life apart from God. In it, "the Preacher" (or "Teacher" in some translations) explores the limits of human experiences which may provide meaning or fulfillment in this life before the author of the book inevitably concludes that the only thing we can do that has any kind of meaning or permanence in the end is fearing God and keeping His commandments. The reason for this is because the march of time and our own mortality effectively make most human endeavors hevel. The Hebrew word "hevel" is translated as vanity in the King James.
The following is taken from BibleProject:

In Hebrew, hevel literally refers to “vapor” or “smoke.” The teacher uses this word 38 times throughout the book of Ecclesiastes as a metaphor to describe how life is temporary and fleeting, like a wisp of smoke, but also how life is an enigma or paradox. Smoke appears solid, but when you try to grab it, it’s like nothing is there.

[...]

The author’s basic goal is to target all of the ways we try to build meaning and purpose in life apart from God and then let the teacher deconstruct them. The author thinks that people spend most of their time investing energy and emotion in things that ultimately have no lasting meaning or significance. And so he allows the teacher to give us a reality check.

The Preacher gives us a "reality check" by demonstrating how time and death effectively make things like scientific and artistic discovery (1:10-11), mirth (2:1), alcohol (2:3), architecture (2:4), amassing property (2:7-8), and luxury (2:8) all hevel. Materialism and hedonism fail to fulfill, and though wisdom and righteousness are acknowledged by the preacher to be advantageous, the righteous and wise are still often victims of injustice and unfairness in the world while the wicked get to prosper and have longevity at times (1:13-18). Generally, your life will probably be better by living in the wisdom given in Proverbs (Ecc. 7:11-12; 9:13-18), but it's no guarantee that you will have a good life as bad things still happen to good people, and good things still happen to bad people. This isn't entirely "hevel" but it's confusing and disorienting because things don't always work out the way we think they should in this life.
Again, from BibleProject:

So what’s the way forward in the midst of all this hevel? Paradoxically, the teacher discovers that the key to truly enjoying life is accepting hevel, acknowledging that everything in your life is totally out of your control. About six different times, at the bleakest moments in his dialogue, the teacher suddenly talks about “the gift of God,” which is the enjoyment of the simple, good things in life such as friendship, family, a good meal, or a sunny day.
You and I can’t control the most important things in our lives. Nothing is guaranteed, and, strangely, that’s the beauty of it. When I adopt a posture of complete trust in God, it frees me to simply enjoy life as I actually experience it and not as I think it ought to be. In the end, even my expectations about life, my hopes and dreams, are all “hevel, hevel. Everything under the sun is hevel.”
The teacher’s words come to an end, and the author takes over, bringing the book to a close. He says that it is very important to hear what the teacher has to say. He likens the teacher’s words to a shepherd’s staff with a goad, a pointy end that will hurt when it pokes you. But that pain can ultimately steer you in the right direction towards greater wisdom.
The author warns us not to take the teacher’s words too far. You can spend your entire life buried in books trying to answer the existential puzzles of human life. Don’t exhaust yourself, he says. You’ll never get there. Instead, the author offers his own conclusion that we should “fear God and keep his commands; this is the whole duty of humans. For God will bring every deed into judgment, every hidden thing, whether good or evil” (Ec. 12:13-14).

Fearing the Lord doesn’t guarantee success in this life, but it is the right thing to do, and ultimately God will clear the "hevel" and bring His justice on all we have done. Therefore, we ought to keep God's commandments.
Through Jesus, we see the Bible clearing the confusion many have, and still have, about God's commandments and what exactly they are (in essence, at least):

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."-Matthew 22:37-40

The apostle Paul puts it like this:

"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."-Galatians 5:14

The apostle John, like this:

"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."-1 John 4:16

In other words, the first and second greatest commandments can be seen as inextricably intertwined, as one cannot truly love God without loving their fellow man, and vice versa.
So, to put it bluntly, the meaning, or purpose, of (human) life according to the Bible is simply love.

"What Does It Mean to Love Biblically?"

But, what exactly is love anyway? We know that, according to the apostle John, God is love. But, what does that mean exactly?
The ancient Greeks had anywhere between four and eight different words for love (depending on the source):

• Storge: affection
  
• Philia or Phileo: friendship
  
• Eros: sexual, erotic
  
• Agape: unconditional, divine, selfless
  
• Ludus: flirtatious, playful, casual, uncommitted
  
• Pragma: committed, long-standing
  
• Philautia: self-love
  
• Mania: obsessive, possessive, addictive, dependent
  

The word translated as "charity" in the KJV's rendering of 1st Corinthians 13 is agape. A more accurate translation of the word would be "love," more specifically, the love of God. In this passage, Paul talks about the importance of having this kind of love for others compared to all the things we might typically obsess over concerning the things of God. Even things like charity to the poor itself, if not motivated by agape, does not impress God! Our motivations and heart matter to God just as much, if not more, than our actions themselves.
This is what the Bible defines as true love, or at least, is the kind of love it's most concerned about.
In order to demonstrate to another that we love them, we sacrifice something. For God, He sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins (John 3:16). For Jesus, he sacrificed himself to save us from our sins:

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."-John 15:13

In essence, true love is self-sacrifice. Putting others before ourselves is the greatest kind of sacrifice.
God didn't have to send His Son, but He did. Jesus didn't have to accept the mission, but he did.
God loves you, and Jesus loves you.
We demonstrate to others that we love them by sacrificing our wants and desires for them. These sacrifices can range from really small, to really big. Loving others is a daily practice of making greater and greater sacrifices.

“You can will to love people. Love is not a feeling. Love is a willing, and the Lord says to love people. He did not mean [to merely] feel love for them” — A.W. Tozer

A stumbling block for many in their walk with God is the inability to love one's enemies and to love unlovable people as Jesus did. It’s difficult for us to show love to people we don’t feel love for; to people we despise or dislike. We also tend to struggle with extending grace and mercy to those who’ve hurt us. I myself often wonder whether I am even capable of loving everyone the way Jesus does.
As I grow in my faith, I realize it’s not that I’m incapable of loving like Jesus; I’m just not always willing to. My unwillingness to love indicates that I am unwittingly adopting the worldly view of love, which is based on feelings and merit. I am choosing not to love people I feel are underserving of my love. The more I study Scripture, though, the more I realize Biblical love is not a feeling or an emotion; it’s a decision. It is an action, and it’s sacrificial. It’s not something you feel; it is, again, something you practice.

“Biblical love is a choice to do good for another person regardless of what we feel. It is a decision to compassionately and righteously pursue the betterment of another person. This is why you can even love your enemies according to Christ’s command.” — Tony Evans

Jesus commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30). He also said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34). Since the Lord commands us to love, that means it is within our power to do so; therefore, love is a decision we make. Although feelings will accompany love, it’s not an emotion; it’s the decision to love regardless of how we feel.
As believers, we’re taught to love our enemies, and do good to those who hate us, and if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, "turn to him the other also" (Matt. 5:39). It’s not easy to do; hating our enemies comes naturally to us because of our evil nature. It is impossible to love our enemies on our own strength; we need the help of the Spirit of God.
The decision to love your enemies arises from the decision to obey the will of God and the desire to be Christlike. We choose to love our enemies because God said so and loved us first. Jesus said we are to love as he loved us.

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”-Romans 5:8

So Biblical love is sacrificial love. It is not a feeling but an act of will; the desire to put the welfare of others above your own. This type of love is not a love based on affection or emotion. Instead, it’s agape love, a love that is not concerned with self but is concerned more with the good of others.
We are not going to like everyone, nor are we called to; we are called to love everyone regardless of how we feel about them. It’s possible to love someone without feeling love for them when we decide to love everyone the way God loves us. The more we love through our actions, the decision to love will become a choice the heart is more willing to make.
Again, this doesn’t mean you will like or feel love for everyone, but when you put your trust in the Lord and pursue wisdom and holiness through prayer and Scripture, you will naturally develop a love for others.
To put it succinctly: Biblical love seeks the best interests of others, even our enemies, often to the detriment of ourselves. "Best interests" here doesn't necessarily mean what the other person thinks are their own best interests. It just means we do for them what we know or believe is best for them, and what we know or believe is best for them should be informed by an active participation with the Spirit of God and by His Word (the Bible) itself. Feelings may or may not accompany this, but how we feel towards the other is not what determines whether or not we're exhibiting the love of God, in the view of Jesus and the apostles. In their view, it's about whether or not we can still decide to seek the best interests of those who might harm us, or who we might not even like.

What the Real Heavenly Treasure Is

Now, this all brings us to an important question that needs to be answered: Is it wrong to love God and others while making a reward the objective for doing so?
We must ask this question, because all throughout Scripture we are told that the faithful followers of God will be "rewarded" some day for everything they've done to merit this. Giving an exhaustive list of passages that proves this point would be endless, but here are some examples of just a few:

"Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."-Luke 14:12-14
"I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."-Acts 20:35
"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil."-Luke 6:35

The answer to this question depends on what we define as "rewards." Most will typically adopt some vague idea of material possesions that await the believer when they get to heaven as one's reward for faithfulness towards God, or that the reward is simply an escape from punishment for one's own sins, or perhaps even some combination of these things both.
However, none of these are the "rewards" the Lord is promising to those who obey the first and second commandments. If they were, our motivation to love God and others would ultimately be selfish. Think about it. Our motivation for rewards would inherently be me-centered, and not other-centered.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ gives the following command:

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."-Matthew 6:19-21

We know there are heavenly treasures, because Jesus says so, but what are they? The issue of heavenly treasures or eternal rewards is riddled with question marks. It’s a subject that has been abused by some (“Store up treasure by giving to my ministry”) and left in the too-hard basket by others.
But the answer here is simple, and two-fold. One of our rewards are God Himself:

"After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward."-Genesis 15:1
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."-Hevrews 11:6

What is the reward of the seeker but to find that which is sought? If you are searching for God, you will find Him and He will be your very great reward.
Now, if you are the newest believer or the eleventh-hour worker, you will be as richly blessed as the oldest, most faithful saint. Eternity will not be divided into the haves and have-nots, for we are all one in the New Jerusalem.
But we can distinguish God our reward from the heavenly treasure that Jesus said can be stored up. You cannot "store up" more of God, after all.
So what are heavenly treasures? The answer may surprise you, but it’s people.

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."-Psalm 127:3

What is the only thing you can take with you? People, a.k.a. eternal friends, a.k.a. spiritual offspring. This Psalm is not just talking about biological children. God has bigger plans for you and they involve spiritual children. Lots of them. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Don’t limit God.
So much time and effort is spent debating heavenly treasures as though they were some great mystery. What are they? Jesus makes it plain: it's people.

• Just as Abraham was called to be the father of many nations, so are you.
  
• Jesus said those who followed him would be fishers of men. What is a fisherman’s reward? It’s fish, or people in this case.
  
• What is the reward of the one who sows and waters the good seed? It’s a harvest of people.
  
• What is treasure that never wears out and cannot be stolen? It’s people.
  

God's heart cries, “I treasure children. The more, the better!” In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus introduces God as our heavenly Father. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says God is a Father who rewards us. And what is a father’s reward?
It is children.
“Sounds great, but I am no evangelist.” You don’t need to be an evangelist to win eternal friends. Believers can live such godly lives that unbelievers will be won to the kingdom (1 Pet. 2:12; Matt. 5:16).
God's desire is to grow the world’s largest family and He treats people like treasure. This is obvious once you see it. Indeed, it’s a theme that runs throughout Scripture:

"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth."-Deuteronomy 7:6
"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth."-Deuteronomy 14:2
"And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments;"-Deuteronomy 26:18
"To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;"-1 Peter 2:4-9

Like Jesus, Paul eagerly gave to the poor (Gal. 2:10). He did not give out of religious duty or to put a shine on his reputation. He did it because he loved people and wanted to share the love of God with as many as possible (1 Cor. 13:3).
Life is a gift that is easily wasted. We can waste it running after inferior rewards that rust, or we can do what Jesus and Paul did and invest ourselves in the only reward that lasts: people.

God Is Faithful

Someone once asked me, "Why would God be concerned as to whether or not we 'have trust and confidence in him' when He's judging us and when He determines what our fate will be?"
Having trust and confidence in God, according to the Biblical authors, is required for us to fulfill His commandment that we love Him, and thus also love others. (See Hebrews 11.)
As with a spouse, you cannot truly love them if you do not have some level of trust or confidence in them, and vice versa. All relationships require trust, from both parties. God wants us to trust Him that He will keep His promises towards those of us who love and follow Him. He also wants to trust us that we will enter the kingdom of heaven with a righteous and loving character. He doesn't want another rebellion in paradise, so He's trying to see if we truly love righteousness for righteousness' sake. A truly righteous person wouldn't want to rebel against Him when the time comes that they enter the kingdom of God themselves, because a person with a righteous character wouldn't ever do such a thing.
As Open Theists, we believe we're being consistent in our belief that God, at times, puts trials before us to test whether or not we will remain trustworthy enough in our character to be deemed worthy of entrance into His kingdom. The Classical Theist doesn't have the luxury of being consistent if they have this same belief.
In the Book of Job, Satan makes an accusation towards someone God has deemed as truly righteous: Job.
Satan assails God’s wisdom and character in running the world by alleging that people only serve Him because of what they get out of it. God protects them from disaster and blesses them in other ways. Their obedience, he is suggesting, isn’t really a free choice. "There is no genuine virtue in the world," Satan is claiming. "There are only self-serving bargains, and obedience for the sake of being protected and blessed is one of them. Hence, true holiness and virtuous obedience are an illusion." "Take away a person’s protection," Satan insists, "and let me have my way with people, and they will stop living for God" (Job 1:9-11; 2:4-5).
God has so much faith in Job that he will not succumb to proving the false accusations being levied towards him and God's way of running things in general that He ends up accepting the challenge. For God, this is as much a test of His faith towards His servant as it is for Job for his Lord. The adversary, we see, was assailing God’s integrity and wisdom in overseeing the creation. Satan was, in effect, accusing God of being a Machiavellian ruler. In the context of this narrative, it was an assault that could only be refuted by being put to the test.
Had God simply forced Satan into silence, without proving him wrong, it would have simply confirmed the accuracy of Satan’s charge. It would have shown that there is no integrity or wisdom in how God runs the world after all. "There is only the exercise of power, used to manipulate beings into obeying Him. People serve God only as a bargain, not out of genuine love."
No, the challenge had to be answered by having it put to the test. The most righteous man on the earth was thus chosen to be tested. If Job failed, the narrative suggests, then Satan will have made his point. If he succeeded, however, then God’s wisdom and integrity in running the cosmos will have been vindicated. Hence, the protective fence around Job is removed and Satan is allowed to afflict him.
In the end, Job proves faithful to God and is even referenced in the New Testament as an example of the kind of faithfulness He expected of first century believers facing persecution and trials:

"Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."-James 5:11

While most of us aren't dealing with the life-threatening kind of persecution that believers faced in the first century, for the very fact that the eschatological end of physical Israel and the Old Covenant system was fastly approaching for them (and already has approached), we still each face our own trials that God puts in our lives as individuals to see if we truly love Him. Job is simply the ultimate example of one who loved God because they chose to, not because God forced them to.
After all, you never know if your love is pure if it isn't tested...

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Preamble

This is going to be a bit of a lengthy post so bear with me. I am going to get into boons, arcana cards, vows, and weapon/equipment choice in this post and how I eventually was able to clear the underworld at 32 fear. All of this is in context of the build I am going for and the weapon I am using. Different vows, cards, etc. may be better for different weapons and playstyles. This is not a definitive guide and I have only beaten it once so far and by sticking to one weapon during my attempts. I enjoy writing about stuff like this and hope that this can possibly help y'all.
I finished the surface on my 24th run and then the underworld on the next for reference. I just now cleared the underworld at 32 fear on my 143rd run. Of those between were me completing testaments, trying out weapons/aspects, and chaos trials. I attempted 32 fear a total of 36 times before I finally got it. Total in game time according to steam is 74 hours lol (I had a four day weekend and my gf is out of town so this is pretty much all I did).
Proof of run

Weapon/Aspect: Momus Staff

Firstly you want to get enough resources to unlock and fully upgrade the aspect, I think 10 total nightmare? Giving your special +30 power. I wouldn't bother 32 fear until you can get it all the way up.
For a few runs while I was using the skull with Melinoe/Persephone aspect, as I was trying to complete the 20 fear testament simultaneously. Stopped since I decided I wasn't really comfortable with the skull and switched to Melinoe's staff. Did that for a while and then saw this video and decided to give the Momus staff a shot, where I then won in 7 runs after switching. It also probably helped that I changed around some vows around this time, more on that later.
Watch the video for a breakdown but essentially you want Poseidon special + legendary boon, and ideally the double moonshot hammer that gives your special 2 more projectiles that seek. He switches his binds for left and right click but I did not, up to you.
Took a minute to get used to but essentially I just spammed special the entire time in fights, kiting enemies when necessary. I used my cast defensively to root enemies and create space mostly until I got a 3 specific boons, more later. Did not really use omegas at all, as I turned off the magick regen card and turned on the vow that removes your magick at the start of each encounter. If I did gain some magick, I would only use it for the omega special to regain some health when it was safe in fights (5 healing if you are near it when it explodes).

Arcana Cards

This is what I used but some may find other ones more to their liking. I will explain my choices below. Be sure to upgrade these to their max potential. The descriptions that I give are referencing their maxed out bonus. I almost exclusively used my Charon cards (obol points) to order 8 moon dust in the camp to upgrade faster. Also having 30 grasp is required so be sure to get that maxed out too. Just playing the game should get you there. Gathering bones and completing minor prophecies are helpful in getting more moondust and nightmare faster to upgrade your cards and aspects. I have starred the one's that I think are almost absolutely necessary.
Arcana card choices
I. The Sorceress: Not using omega moves with this build for the most part, mainly chosen to just fill out the top row to awaken the divinity card.
II. The Wayward Son: +2 health (with 50% healing reduction from a vow) is definitely helpful, some much needed passive healing.
* III. The Huntress: +50% attack and special damage when you have less than 100 magick is probably a must have. Especially in my vows set up where I pretty much never have any magick.
IV. Death: Also to just fill out the row for divinity, not really using omega moves.
* V. The Messenger: +10% dodge chance is a lifesaver.
VII. The Titan: More health (and magick) is helpful for the early game before you get any centaur hearts.
* X. The Lovers: 0 damage from bosses for 3 hits is absolutely nuts, this was a whole keepsake in the last game. Attacks that miss you from dodge or daze from Apollo don't count towards a hit as well.
XI. The Swift Runner: Just generally helpful for kiting and running around, especially with increased enemy movement from a vow.
* XII. Eternity: 3 death defiances are absolutely essential probably in any playthrough unless you are a god at not getting hit ever.
* XVIII. Origination: Enemies with 2 curses take +50% damage is fantastic and helps to absolutely shred through them
* XXII. The Champions: 3 chances to reroll boon choices among other things is pretty much a must for run consistency. I would mainly use it on my first Poseidon boon to get the special. Would also use again to try and get slip or blast damage one or legendary from him, also on Hestia to get her cast or the one that allows you to aim the cast (both possible prerequisites for their duo boon, more later).
XXIII. The Artificer: I slept on this one big time at first until I saw someone using it in a 32 heat run on youtube. Change a minor reward into a major one 3 times is fantastic and really helps in the early game. I would use all 3 in the first region for a chance to get a pom, heart, gold, boon, or hammer. I would almost put this one as a must but you do you.
XXIV. Divinity: 20% extra chance to get an epic boon. Activated by the full top row, its just nice to have to possibly get some more benefits out of boons.
Alternatives: Like I mentioned before I only activate I and IV mainly to activate divinity. You could lose them and go for IX Night (automatic charging for your hex) or XVI The Fates (+3 rolls to change location rewards). I feel like hexes are not all that impactful personally (except for a couple). Also changing location rewards is a toss up, meh. You could also lose XI extra sprint speed to open up 5 grasp and go for XV Strength (take and deal more damage at low hp), XVII The Boatman (get more gold at the start of the run), or XIX Excellence (higher % for rare boons offered), which all have valid arguments. In hindsight I think giving up those 3 for Stregnth or Excellence might be worth it, might try in future runs.

Oath of the Unseen Vows

Throughout my runs I experimented a lot with the various choices and found that the ones I chose are best for how I play. It is really up to you, this is just how I did it. I mostly messed around with damage taken, enemy spawns, and health, the rest pretty much stayed constant. I originally was using the 9 minute time limit per region for a majority of my runs until I switched aspects (and the 7 minute several times). I eventually decided that I was playing too aggressively to beat the clock and would lose most of, if not all my death defiances by Tartarus/Chronos, or earlier. I did still have decent amount of time to beat Chronos if I got there with the time limit, just the health and death defiance loss was too much. Here is what I went with and explanations for each, I starred the ones I think should be kept on and are relatively easy to deal with.
Vows Used
Vow of Blood (+3): Just don't get hit duh. No but seriously +60% damage to you hurts, a lot. I really wish I did not have to use this, but the alternatives I think are worse. As you play more you'll get better and learn attack patterns and how to kite effectively.
Vow of Dominance (+3): Enemies now have +30% health which is rough, but with no time limit, just take your time in killing enemies off safely.
Vow of Rebuke (+2): Enemies have 2 barriers before they can take damage, not too bad. Makes clearing enemies a bit harder, but with the Poseidon boon, you apply two instances of damage with each hit. So only one special shot with the boon will clear the barrier, also the wave the shoots out of them helps to clear barriers of the other enemies.
Vow of Fury (+3): Enemies are 20% faster (and their projectiles too?! I'm pretty sure this is the case, I haven't played without it in a while so I'm not exactly sure). This one took some getting used to, not much I can say except just keep trying. Another +3 makes them 40% faster which I do not recommend. The screaming shades, wolves and their heads, thorny spinny guys in Oceanus, rats, and Chronos are all insane with 40% extra speed.
Vow of Suffering (+2): +100% for the first hit you take in each encounter. Same as Vow of Blood, its rough, wish I could go without it as well.
Vow of Commotion (+3): 60% more foes in encounters (does not affect the boss summons). Had this one a tier or two lower, or not at all, when I was experimenting with the time limit. The AOE from Poseidon definitely helps here, just take your time to clear out enemies. It can get pretty bad in tartarus with the bags and skulls everywhere though so just be careful.
Vow of Haunting (+2): Enemies have 50% of spawning a revenant when killed which if left alone long enough will respawn them. These are annoying as hell but not terrible once you get used to it. On death a flaming green skull thing launches out of them and travels a bit of a distance, just run ovecollect them and they are negated, don't need to damage or whatever. Can sometimes be hard to spot if behind a wall or obstacle. Overall not that bad, it's not the end of the world if you let them respawn. Definitely though go for the ones that would respawn an enemy that are hard/annoying to deal with ASAP e.g. rat spawning satyrs, wolves, any projectile shooting enemy. Sometimes I feel like rats almost always spawn a revenant which is annoying. I honestly think they should also rework this so that if an enemy respawns it can't have another revenant spawn.
* Vow of Wandering (+3): 25% chance for enemies to be from the next region. Really not that bad at all, just have to deal with some more annoying enemies with larger health pools.
Vow of Scars (+2): Healing is only 50% effective is not that bad. You only get +2 healing passively from the card now and a lot less from fountains and such, goes hand in hand with blood and suffering, you'll get better at not getting hit.
* Vow of Destitution (+2): Charon's shop (and wells) are 80% more expensive. You'll miss out some boons, healing, poms, hearts, etc. but it's not awful, you will still gain a good amount of gold to usually buy a boon or something at the end of each region except Oceanus I found. Also with Poseidon in your god pool, he has some boons that can help with getting more gold like minor find doubling up, increased value of minor finds, and sunken treasure.
* Vow of Panic (+1): No more magick at the start of each encounter. In this build you don't really need it anyways so this is a freebie point of fear pretty much. Also if you decide to have the card that regens magick on it pretty much negates it after a little while.
** Vow of Forsaking (+2): This one might actually be beneficial. The two boon options you don't pick will no longer show up in your run. This is why I have the boon rerolls on, so I can guarantee to get Poseidon special on my first boon. Otherwise this helps to increase your chances of getting legendary or duo boons (if you have the prerequisites) since the boon choice pool is lowered after each pick. It is unfortunate though if both prereqs for Poseidon's legendary are in the given choices and you are out of rolls though.
* Vow of Arrogance (+4): Prime 10 magick for each level of rarity above common that you pick. Again, not using magick hardly in this build so doesn't really matter. Also in lower fear runs I have used this, it does not really matter all that much even when you are using omega moves.
Unused:

• Vow of Bitterness: Replace the first boon reward of each region with an onion (does not affect shop boons or trial of the gods rooms if they are the first ones you encounter). I tried this many times but it really just worsened run consistency. Also w a keepsake equipped after Erebus to guarantee a certain god's boon, that would become an onion if it was the first one I found, and then would not encounter that god again in that region.
• Vow of Desperation: Time limits for regions: 9, 7, then 5 minutes with increased fear for each increase in tier. Like I said, I stopped playing with this so I could play more carefully.
• Vow of Abandon: Negate all your arcana cards. Insane. Tried it once, it is just too much, the arcana cards are absolutely necessary I feel to clear 32 fear.

Boons/Hammers/Keepsakes/Familiar

Poseidon: Equip his keepsake at start, reroll for wave flourish (special) if needed and rarify. Afterwards look for slippery slope then crashing wave ideally. This primes you to get his legendary which gives +150% damage from splash effects to bosses. Other great ones are double up which is nuts that it can possibly double your hearts, gold, and poms you pick up. Ocean's bounty is nice to increase gold. Water fitness is pretty good if you can get 4 water elements to give you +100 health. Flood control is also nice for damage reduction.
Hestia: Equip her keepsake after Erebus if you did not already get her in your god pool (you get up to 4 gods like in Hades I). Ideally you want both her cast and glowing coal, which lets you aim your cast. Either of which in combination with slippery slope gets you access to Poseidon/Hestia duo boon scalding vapor which does insane damage over time. I'm not sure if you should prioritize glowing coal over her cast honestly, both have their upsides alone, but you do want both hopefully. With glowing coal so you can aim your cast since you will be fighting from a distance mostly (not always but in how I played this build I did for the most part), which can activate the steam cloud on foes with slip. Hestia cast is less safe and you need to be closer to enemies to get the steam cloud to activate, but it does more damage, continuously applying steam on the enemy. Other boons like soot sprint are nice, almost like Athena's dash in the first game. Slow cooker infusion is alright but you may not get many fire elements to increase your base damage power. Flammable coating is great and helps to melt through armored enemies. Burnt offering is pretty nice to increase your health (and magick) pool if you happen to get offered to sacrifice a useless boon.
Other helpful god boons: Pretty much anything that can help apply another curse to enemies. Demeter and Aphrodite are probably the best since theirs are easy to apply without much effort like frigid sprint, gale force, glamour gain, and passion dash. The other gods require secondary boons to get a curse or your attack/special needs to give the curse, you won't really ever be using your attack and your special is reserved for Poseidon.
Hammers: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like I remember in Hades I if you chose a specific hammer you would be locked out of other hammer choices that affect the benefitting move. If the same applies to this game avoid picking a hammer that affects your special for your first hammer if it is not double moonshot, and hope for it on your second hammer. The DPS from Momus staff is still great with spamming special without it (I won my run without it). You could also go ahead and pick up rapid moonfire or shimmering moonshot on your first one because they are pretty powerful too, and I also may be wrong about the hammer exclusion thing. Yeah I was wrong lol, just get the ones that benefit you the most, there is no exclusion mechanic. Double moonshot is the best for this build and then either rapid moonfire or shimmering moonshot ideally.
Keepsakes: So of course Poseidon first, always. Hestia second if you don't get her in your god pool Erebus. Up to you and what you like for Oceanus, maybe choose Demeter or Aphrodite. If I got Hestia I would generally use any one of the following:

• Engraved pin
• Gold Purse
• White Antler
• Crystal Figurine
• Silken Sash
• Aromatic Phial (be sure to pick it up before using the fountain)
• Experimental Hammer
• Transcendent Embryo

Once in the mourning fields I would typically go with the Lion Fang, or possibly one of the above maybe. Lastly in Tartarus I would either use Knuckle Bones (if I felt comfortable with my health and death defiances), Luckier Tooth, or Evil Eye (if Chronos killed me last).
Sidenote: Is Echo bugged? Or is my game just messed up? I was never given the chance to give her a gift so I've never gotten her keepsake :(
* Ok apparently you might have to do some specific things after talking to her in order to give her nectar, this comment explains it. *
Familiar Toula: Sorry Frinos, but Toula is just superior. She gives you an extra death defiance which when upgraded fully gives you 40 health on death. Also upgrading her attack lets her attack more times before she takes a little catnap (cute). She does 99 damage with each strike which is not insignificant. You don't need to go out of your way to sprint over her whenever she is resting to activate her, if she happens to be where you are running it is just some nice extra little bit of DPS. She has actually killed a few bosses for me in my runs lol.
Shovel: Use the shovel as your equipment if you are not hunting for specific resources. In the case you get Demeter, you may end up picking her boon that gives you extra hp whenever you dig for seeds or pick up a flower. Also just generally good for accumulating more bones since you can sell the plants once they're grown.

The Winning Run

So all of this information is from finally beating 32 fear. I followed this strategy in my head for the most part. I ended up not getting double moonshot, but did get rapid moonfire. Poseidon offered me both prereqs for his legendary in the same choice without any rerolls left unfortunately, chose slip of course. I did get the duo boon and both of Hestia's cast boons which was nuts. Also I got rare crop right after I got Poseidon's special so it became heroic by the end. I also got offered to sacrifice rare crop, after it made my spceial heroic, by Hestia to get more health, and I was then offered rare crop again at epic rarity which increased 3 other of my boons which happened to hit Hestia's cast boons. I did not get any other way to apply another curse other than slip unfortunately as well. Started Tartarus with 2 or 3 death defiances + luckier tooth and beat Chronos on my last life. Overall though, not a perfect run but it still worked. Would have been even more nuts if I got the right hammer, legendary, and another curse effect

TL;DR

Momus Staff good. More special projectiles hammer + Poseidon special + legendary + Poseidon/Hestia duo = nuts DPS. Arcana cards important, vows are tough.
***EDIT: Updated hammer section, added short shovel section, grammar and spelling fixes.

“I expect you to die!”
My shout echoed off the sandstone pyramid. I swung my briefcase downward in a large arc, hopeful to catch the adventurer unawares. The multicolored rune shield stopped me short of a connection. I took a step back as a flash of red-green came rushing past. Once. Twice. I stepped back in for another attack. Three. Four. The poison from the dagger took hold immediately. I could feel it working its way through my veins. Up my arm, closer and closer to my heart. I knew it would kill me. I had to get out of here.
In a twirl of my purple robes, I dropped a smoke rune. The vapors twisted their tendrils, fingers wrapping around my body. I broke the tablet and teleported away the instant the smoke became too thick to see. Just at the last moment, I caught a glimpse of magenta. More specifically, the robes of Uri.
“Damn you, brother! How do you always appear as I’m leaving?”
Limping into the portal, I made my way to the pool. Bending and cupping my hands together, I gulped the liquid down. It tasted horrendous, but the effects were immediate. I could feel the poison being sucked back down, slowly dripping from the cuts on my arm. It made a small pool in the grass, the greens playing tricks on the eyes, as it faded into the dirt.
Although I felt physically better, the damage to my psyche was still there. Every single time my alarm goes off, I run out to protect my hidden caches. Every single time, some young buck adventure is there with some gods forsaken armor to beat me back to my hovel. And every single time, my damned brother, Uri, shows up when I leave! Every. Single. Time. It drove me mad. How do they find my treasures? How do they know the way to unlock the doors? Even the alarms don’t seem to help. I’m sick of it! I’m sick of my good for nothing brother laughing away with them while I slink back here.I need a new job. I’m tired of this protection agency. “Oh, you’re so good at your job, Double Agent,” I mocked, venom on my tongue. “Tomorrow,” I said. “Tomorrow I’ll finally make a name for myself. A new name. One other than ‘Double Agent,’ or ‘Bad Guy.’”
Early the next morning, I awoke and stepped to my wardrobe. “There’s not much for options,” I mused. Spotting the patch of black between all the H.A.M robes, I quickly grabbed it and shook it out. “This’ll do nicely,” to nobody in particular. I threw on the vest and slacks and gave myself a once over in the mirror. Twirling my mustache between two fingers, I mused “Yes. I’m just missing one…” I went to the cape rack and found it. With a twist, I threw the cape on, the sashes falling over my shoulder. White with a small gold shoulder trim, blazend with a saw and log. “Dress for the part you play, they say.”Heading to the portal, I grabbed my bowler hat from the stand and slapped it onto my head. With a flick of the brim, I grinned and stepped through. The world shrank and grew with a purple haze as I was transported from Rimmington to Varrock in a flash. “I’ll never get used to that,” I grunted.
Walking around the city felt good. Nobody seemed to recognize me. Nor did anyone pull a dagger behind my back, though not for lack of checking. Playing the role of the double agent has taken its toll on my mind all these years. It’s time to settle down and build my own empire. No more silly scavenger hunts with my brother. No more taking beating from “adventurers.” No. This was my time.
After searching the city for a few minutes, I found the perfect location. It was a small, single story building just outside the palace courtyard. “Yes, yes. The palace guards will want a better place to sleep. Maybe the church goers across the street are looking for new homes.”
The “for sale” sign hung just on the corner of the shabby building. “Well, it’ll certainly need a little work, but nothing I can’t handle.” I grabbed the sign off my new home and made my way down the road toward the courtyard. The birds whistled as I passed. The leaves twitched with the breeze. I made my way up the stairs and into the castle itself. Looking around for a clerk or knight, I decided to head to the left. The faint sound of quill scratching parchment made its way down the corridor.
Peeking inside the open room, papers and books scattered around what I only assumed was the library. A small, squirrel looking man sat at a desk writing away. I cleared my throat… Twice… Three times.
“Ah! Hello, hello,” he said with a start. “My name is Reldo. I am the palace librarian.” He pushed his thick frame glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“That’s why you’re in the library, then.” I said. “I’m here about the property for sale just east of the courtyard. And perhaps a seller's permit, if you’re the man to see.”
“Yes! You’ve come to the right place, err..I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Yuri.”
“Ah, Yuri. I’ll just grab the paperwork and begin filling it out, shall I? Now then.. Where did I put that…” Reldo mused, rifling through his paperwork. “S-sorry,” he stuttered.“Take your time, comr- my good man.” Blast. It’ll be hard to break the old habits I’ve had all these years.
“Here we go!” He began filling in the forms. “Now then. The fees for the permit, on top of the property, and also the permit to own land in our great Varrock total to 10,000 gold pieces.”
Highway robbery, this. “Perfect,” I said with a devilish smile. I sat my briefcase on the table and unclicked the latches. The gold shone out like a brilliant light, dancing in the torch flames. I counted out my coins and collected my paperwork.
“The tax collector will be around once a year!” Reldo called after me.
I couldn’t wait. I’d extort the lumber yard for commission. If their planks wanted to go into my homes, they’d have to pay. Need a few decorations, adventure? How about a new property elsewhere? Ha! I’d take them for everything they’ve got. And then some.
Back at my new business, I took the “For Sale” sign down and unlocked the door. Time to get to work.
“Hello. Welcome to the Gielinor Housing Agency! What can I do for you?” I asked with a flick of my hat. The words “I expect you to die!” fading into an echo over the castle walls.
If you've made it this far, thank you! I hope you enjoyed it! I really enjoyed writing this and "researching" for it. If you have any other in game characters you'd like me to write about, let me know! Can't wait to see what kind of feedback I get. Common questions I've recieved so far:
"Why?" Eh. Boredom? Fun? I enjoy writing and I'd like to think I'm halfway decent at it. The Double Agent/Uri are the same as the Estate Agent, so I got this idea.
"What's the point?" No clue. Entertainment, I s'pose. Mabye an "atta boy" from a Jmod or something.
"Do you have any other ideas?" Yup! They're in the works, but we'll see.

What follows is the story of a Wormholer Eviction, with all its ups and downs and unexpected twists, as told from my perspective as a Director in Vapor Lock.
What is special about this one is that we evicted a group of Swastika-lovers (I can see your eyes rolling).
https://preview.redd.it/ztj2nfisy70d1.jpg?width=1677&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=396df2ca2121ac6bd6219bd8c93607d78d411723
Credit: Crovan (Noir.)
The Premise
I want to introduce you to a group living out of J141425 who we’ll just call Normans.
At its core were the corporations Horny Police Department, Haven Enjoyers, Interstellar Realm, a few other corporations, and a fair number of individuals from better-known corporations who spent much time here.
This group is immensely fond of putting Swastikas and references to the 1940s Chancellor of Germany on many of their ships, their POSes, every single POS gun, and on their evictions where they make a huge swastika out of mobile depots.
For some images of this, see: https://ibb.co/#FztTGXV (Remove the # in the URL)
We are not keen on evictions, but after wandering into this system, it is hard to just shrug at this insult to Bob and decency. We soon decided to look into the possibility of removing these people and their assets from J-space, with no option for ransom.
Eavesdropping in their home hole (C4 3/5) for a few days, we got a good feel for their numbers and assets. We called this hole Normandy. We figured we could do this eviction with some planning and solid effort.
The Assault (Day 1)
We infiltrated on Thursday @ 1700 without any resistance and anchored two POSes - one incompetently, and another after a quick refresher on POS mechanics.
Opting for a Nighthawk and Basilisk fleet, we bashed their Astrahus and Athanor together with a flock of Oracles. As smooth as our initial infiltration went, we still managed to be a few minutes late on the bash and created a 3 day timer ending Sunday 1900, instead of a 2 day timer as intended.
As if two days of hole control (HC) isn’t tedious enough, to make matters worse: Sunday was Mother’s Day in most of the West, but not in Russia, where virtually all the residents are from.
Nonetheless, we pressed on, another structure lesson learned.
Starting hole control we immediately roll out one of their main scanners and links pilot. Shockingly, this was achieved by our corp elder who has a track record of rolling out friendlies and consequently receiving internal bounties on being rolled out himself in return. We agreed he would now once again be trusted to roll wormholes at home.
Bashing their POS using the Oracles took from late US TZ to an hour before DT. The pilot of the Oracles having gone to bed many hours before and handed off his oracle flock to a squad leader in a cloaky, ready to warp them off, as a real bashing shepherd does.
https://preview.redd.it/8gnomvzu080d1.png?width=621&format=png&auto=webp&s=8fc9d83db53f29debab68bb04bbd038a303fea6f
AFK Oracles bringing balance to the universe
On Friday we had a quick skirmish with a third party but other than that it remained uneventful.
To keep spirits high we threw a Discord slumber party complete with a screening of a motivational film - an obvious Tarantino classic.
The Counter-Attack (Day 2)
Saturday morning around 0830 the Normans decided to contest our HC - run by a few sleep-deprived door stoppers - and forced us to crash all of the connections.
After ten minutes of the Normans first showing activity, their batphones and the rest of the Normans start infilling with a wide variety of ships via the new C3 static. With frantic pinging we tried to form to reestablish HC. But by the time we landed their batphones’ tackle wing was already streaming in with more following behind. We lost eight ships in the process before we disengaged and delivered the bad news to everyone as they slowly woke up.
https://preview.redd.it/lj299an6280d1.png?width=181&format=png&auto=webp&s=d0b6b6c0afb61ab2ad538b8e9a53978a77fcc325
Their total numbers climbed rapidly to 70+ from batphones and their group’s stragglers and rollouts, outnumbering us significantly by the time they start to bash our POSes.
We do the only thing we can do at this point and start batphoning some of our friends in the hopes we’ll be able to reclaim HC during USTZ when all the Russian groups are themselves sleepy.
Unsurprisingly, we become demoralized by the rapidly increasing numbers the Normans and their batphones now have on us. Some small relief was found when the ref timer of our main POS exceeded their structure timers, giving us a window to continue our eviction. Our previous miscalculation in creating a 3 day timer became a surprising blessing.
Still, it was not looking good for us and our reduced force, boxed in and outnumbered significantly.
The Batphone Plot Twist
The first wave of their batphones consisted primarily of Hold My Probes/Scan Stakan, Tricky Situation, and a few smaller groups.
Our FC mistakenly accepts a convo by someone who appeared to be a friend, but turned out to be a representative from Hold My Probes/Scan Stakan. They inquired as to why we’re evicting these people.
We showed him all the details and soon afterwards, diplos from the other batphones contacted us as well. We shared the same information we had gathered during our recon and occupation. After some initial shock, all the major batphones leave in disgust and fully disavow the residents of Normandy.
Real credit to Hold my Probes, Tricky Situation, and others for abandoning a group who condones and LARPs Normandism.
They showed sincere conviction and gave up what would be at least a decent fight, entirely for the sake of their principles, and that’s worth emphasizing and congratulating.
Simultaneously, our own batphones eagerly wished to contribute to their eviction. However, all of this still hinges on whether we can reassert Normandy HC in USTZ against the now-full membership of the Normans+ whatever batphones remain. We wait until it is past midnight in Moscow and make our attempt.
With a heavy show of force we manage to reclaim HC without much resistance or rollout games.
In Friendship We Trust (Day 3)
Soon we managed to create secure connections to High-Sec and Low-Sec to bring both our batphoned friends in and more of our corpies.
Small groups of people from a number of different corporations came to help us out to maintain HC and finish up our operation. Without their timely contributions our operation would likely have failed.
Sugar, Noir, Hole Control(alliance), OnlyHoles, 745, and Lupus, each had their representatives at this point, putting in effort to maintain HC.
Inevitably it was contested again around the same time as the day before. Another round of frantic pinging but with better turnout this time and including some of our friends. We manage to significantly reduce the mass on the connection and only let an Eos multiboxer in.
https://preview.redd.it/p8uxsxb9280d1.png?width=328&format=png&auto=webp&s=69d854b87a2f507e0b2227299ac938ade61c4067
Despite taking some losses in the first round - and swearing off cap-chain logistics in the future - we manage to regroup and go for round two, forcing one marauder to roll himself out, destroying the Eos multiboxer, and scattering the rest.
After this there were only some wormhole scanning games. The normans moved what assets they could into deep safes, self-destructed some ventures, and did not do much else of note.
The End of Normandy
For the final timer Kitchen Sinkhole and Loose Coalition had each promised a fleet, and once they arrived along with yet more infills for the timer from many other groups, our joint fleet had ballooned to an incredible 100+ ships on grid.
There was no contest.
Some fighters were launched and killed.
Silly docking games were played, T1 Yeets died as they inevitably do.
Comms were whimsy and jolly - not least because they were mistakenly kept on voice-activated and we just winged it - but somehow it all was fun and entertaining for everyone in spite of it being a plain structure bash.
Inevitably both the Astrahus and the Athanor go poof to much cheering.
Conclusion
If there is one thing to conclude from this eviction, it is that people will always band together to fight the threat of hatred. The out-of-place instances of symbolism we saw in J-Space throughout this op served to galvanize our forces and opposition alike. Thank you sincerely to our old friends, new friends and fellow capsuleers for heeding the call.
The Final Bash
PS: Vapor Lock. is recruiting :) 40m SP minimum

"Great days and glorious victory! My name is Spifflemonk and welcome to my Letsplay! Today I am back from my medically mandated break from playing human videogames after a rather... cathartic experience with a game called Teardown. Subnautica, even among humans, is labeled as a notorious experience with... mixed reception for its sequel. A survival crafting game apparently. I have experience with those so presumably the gameplay loop should be predictable enough. So... Let's go in!"
Spiffle starts the game, going for standard Survival Mode, with aspects of food and water mechanics alongside health and oxygen. The game loads very, very fast with Spiffles overpowered computer, and the introduction sequence begins. The camera pans to the panicked sight of the payer character moving down a ladder followed by a sight of a starship above exploding.
"Oh dear... oh dear! They weren't kidding about survival! Do I even survive this or am I a ghost or something..."
The pod rattles, the screen shakes, a fire extinguisher falls from its mounting. Velocity causes the pod to dislodge a panel from a wall and it flies around the cabin. The panel flies into the player's screen, making it go black.
"Oh... well okay then. I uh... well."
Spiffles' character awakens and panics at the buttons securing him to the seat. Spiffle quickly figures out that fire in this game is in fact bad, and grabs the fire extinguisher, putting the fire out. The game's introduction plays, showing his PDA, the game's inventory UI.
"Oh! I have seen these things in real life when visiting human stations! Do all humans have these?"
Spiffle starts exploring the escape pod, noting all of the damage to the radio beacon and the wiring panel.
"Hmm... craft the repair tool... Well... For later I suppose. Now how do i-AH, the ladder!"
Spiffle clicks on the ladder and goes through the animation. The character exits and dramatically stands. Spiffle looks around. His face visibly pales as he looks in every direction, finding the only thing nearby that looks 'safe’ or like 'land' is the destroyed ship in the distance.
"Water... it's... water... everywhere! How big is this game's map!? Structural hull failure... zero human lifesigns detected. That's.. not nice. Well... Here we go!"
Spiffle jumps into the water. His mood changes, the underwater environment significantly different than above ground. The water is absolutely teeming with life and color, as Spiff swims towards a reef to stare at some coral. Spiff gets distracted and starts chasing a fish, specifically a Peeper, and grabs it.
"Oh! Good god! THAT'S how humans catch fish!? That's very... inefficient! What is this thing? Can I eat it? I know I'm supposed to take care of my food and water, so how do I eat it?"
Spiffle wanders about for a while, gathering resources and exploring his general location, eventually getting back to the pod. He had gathered up a decent amount of stuff while he was swimming around and accessed the Fabricator to see what was available.
"Ah! I see, the fabricator cooks things too. Uhm... cooked fish thing and... these transparent fish give me water bottles? Okay then! Well. Sorted for food anyway. Let's see. Copper wire, batteries. A Scanner? Does that mean I can like, scan things and tell what they are? And... Oxygen tank? Oh hell yes. I'll build that then."
Spiffle goes through the process of building a few things, checking out how the game's crafting system works, and spending more time collecting resources. He quickly realizes how much work he has to do and finally finishes making a Scanner.
"Okay then well... I can see how much time is going to be spent collecting resources so i'm going to edit all of that out and keep you all in the loop on all the fun parts instead."
Spiffle continues playing, inserting a creative, albeit mildly annoying fanciful scene transition in between resource loops. He comes to a cave looking for salt to make more equipment, when he encounters the first hostile enemy of the game: The Crashfish. He does not notice it at first, the strange sloppy noise it makes as its pod opens, the beast makes a terrible gurgly noise and charges straight at him.
"What is that noi-AH! OY! OI! OIIII what are you what are-!"
Spiffle is cut off as the fish explodes, causing him to lose half his health. He quickly surfaces and takes a breath.
"Okay then... OKAY... THAT... makes absolutely no sense from an evolutionary perspective... but okay then. Avoid those. What even was that? I can't even scan it because it was moving so fast! Gods... exploding fish."
Spiffle shakes his head and resumes his hunt for resources, eventually finding enough for a repair tool. He makes the repair of the pods' broken wiring and looks around a bit more, noting some of the details in the game.
"Hard to believe these games are over eight hundred years old! I keep getting requests to play 'them gud ol' gamez' instead of any new releases. Maybe I'll get to those eventually. I have quite the backlog though."
Spiffle quickly tabs out and shows the huge list of human made games on his list that he has been gifted or purchased himself. The list includes Space Marine, Starship Troopers, Spyro Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot, and so... so many more.
"I am also told about this thing called 'anime', whatever that is. Maybe I should look into that. Anyway..."
Spiffle shrugs for now and resumes playing, swimming around for a bit before finally deciding to use his scanner. He gets the first scan - the Acid Mushroom - and painstakingly reads the supplied article. He then goes on a scanning frenzy, scanning each thing he can find, comically chasing after various fish and objects, trying to scan them then taking an irritatingly long time to read the article aloud.
He gets to the point where he encounters his first real hostile enemy and tries to scan it. The stalker, of course, doesn't appreciate that, and attacks.
"Oooh what's this thing? Oh lovely, it's a big one. Can I scan it? The... Stalker? Oh okay is it friend-OW! NONONONO go away!"
Spiffle panics and scans it while running away from it, trying to swim backwards. He's so focused on scanning it he can't run far enough away that he gets ambushed by another Stalker nearby and manages to scan it just as he gets hit with his first Death in the game.
"Oh.... o...kay. Well... it seems things aren't as friendly as expected. I'm going to guess there's more things like that around. So... I'm just going to finish working on repairs and equipment then I'll take those things on."
Spiffle reads the article on the Stalker he scanned and spends more time collecting resources, scanning local entities and building the rest of the gear he has. Fins, high capacity O2 tank, rebreather and some more food and water which he stores in floating containers for later. He starts to explore a bit farther in search of fragments to scan and finds a Sand Shark, as well as a biome resembling a desert-like area. He encounters his first piece of the wrecked ship here.
"Oh! Hello! Pieces of wreckage! What are these for now do you suppose? Can I disassemble these for resources or-Oh! Is that a door? Oh! I'm supposed to go in here and look for things? How do I get in? Oh I can't. I need a laser cutter. Is one of those here? Need more fragments I guess..."
Spiffle gives up trying to enter and goes up for air, then returns to the floor to hunt for fragments. He eventually unlocks the Bioreactor, pieces of the Scanner room, a couple fragments of the Seaglide and Seamoth. He comes across the first cave entrance to the Mushroom Caves Biome.
"Oh... oh my. That's... deep. Good thing I unlocked the Seamoth thing. Its a miniature submarine I think. I can use that. But that's... kinda scary. I can't see the bottom. I kinda see just... purple. Mostly purple. But it scares me that I can't see the bottom."
Spiffle hangs around the cave entrance for a bit before a call for Oxygen forces him to the surface. He swims back down to the cave entrance and then hangs around a bit longer before once again resurfacing, heading for some new things to scan. It is however at this point that Spiffles exploration is cut short.
"EMERGENCY - SEISMIC READINGS SUGGEST A QUANTUM DETONATION HAS OCCURRED IN THE AURORA'S DRIVE CORE. THE CENTRAL DARK MATTER REACTOR WILL REACH A SUPERCRITICAL STATE IN -"
The computer aboard the PDA shakes Spiff out of his daze and he quickly rushes to the surface and looks at the ship.
"Wait wait wait what's that!? What's going on!? I see the ship? The Aurora! That's what its name is? Whats a Dark Matter reactor and wha-"
The computer continues its countdown muffled by Spiffs panicked squealing and he has a front-row seat to one of the most spectacular explosions in the history of gaming - the Aurora's Reactor Detonation.
It happens. The world goes dead silent for a short moment, and one can see Spiffles heart visibly stop beating. Then explosion as the Aurora lets out its magnificent blast. As the shockwave expands outwards, Spiffs skin visibly turns a paler shade of blue, and his eyes go wide. The sound of a geiger counter follows, leaving him breathless and pale as the world suddenly goes dead quiet again. The sound of the geiger counter ominously leaving him shaken even more than he already is.
"FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE - THE RADIATION SUIT HAS BEEN ADDED TO YOUR BLUEPRINTS."
Spiffle stays completely silent, bobbing in the water for a solid few minutes, staring in shocked wonder at what he just witnessed. He regains his composure for a few short moments and returns to his scanning venture, but one can easily see he isn't in the right mind after that. He returns to the seabed, at the entrance to the mushroom caves and dives again. He does this several more times, popping up to the surface, looking at the shipwreck, then diving at the entrance again. Finally, after much hesitation, he dives one last time.
"Screw it. it's just a game right?"
He smiles at the camera with a shrug and swims far below the surface, into one of the caves. As he enters the cavern his jaw drops at the sight of a massive underwater cavern filled with gigantic glowing pink mushrooms. The Mushroom caves as they are known. He spots something in the distance, entranced, forgetting his oxygen situation. He cant get far however and a terrifying shriek of some unknown entity shakes him out of his stupor.
"What in the red dawn was that noise!?"
Spiff can't finish asking his invisible audience what's going on as he strays too close to a mushroom, occupied by a Crab Snake, a gigantic sea worm. He is grabbed from behind, spun around and he visibly panics as the giant worm digs its enormous tusks into Spiffles character. Spiffle immediately freaks out, a combination of both the terrifying shriek emitted by the creature and the shock of being attacked makes poor Spiffle jump out of his seat and duck under the table.
"GOWAYGOWAYGOWAGOWAYGOWAY!!!"
The worm comes back and finishes Spiff off before his oxygen runs out. Spiff's character respawns but the footage continues, a slight whimper can be heard in the background as Spiff hides under the desk. This carries on for a few minutes, and his head very slowly appears above the desk. He gingerly puts himself back in his seat and breathes heavily for a bit. When he finally gains control, he tabs out of the game and takes a look at the wiki for Subnautica. He returns a few moments later and stares at the camera in that strange haunting glare he's become so famous for.
"WHY DO YOU STUPID DEVELOPERS NOT PUT GUNS IN THE GAME IF YOU HAVE SHIT LIKE THAT!? ARE YOU INSANE!?"
He grabs the camera and shakes it violently as he rants at it, questioning why there are guns in every other human game he has played and not THIS specific game, especially considering how there are 'giant water snake monsters that eat your face' in a game with no guns. He rants for a good minute or two then plays his outro.
TOP COMMENT: "Are you absolutely sure after Teardown, Factorio and Project ZOMBOID, you should be playing Subnautica? I mean seriously, try something less... psychologically terrifying. It's known as Thalassophobia Simulator for a reason."
_______________________________________________________________
"Great days and glorious victory! My name is Spifflemonk and I still don't understand why we have giant worm monsters but we have no guns!"
Spiffle stares at the camera with an expression that can only be summarized as 'Seriously bruh?' and resumes his last playthrough. He becomes confused at the lack of stuff in his inventory.
"Why is my... Why do I not ha-Oh right... I was eaten. When you die your inventory is wiped... I need to build more tools then."
Spiffle starts some silly music, an alien version of Benny Hill to a montage of him collecting resources, occasionally ranting at various oddities and questioning game logic. He restores all of his tools then goes hunting for a Vehicle Bay fragment so he can build the Seamoth. He continues to scan what he can, developing something of an obsession with the task, then painstakingly reading every word about it to try and understand it. It is at this point Spiffle, during his explorations finds another derelict chunk of ship near the desert region, encountering his first Sand Shark.
"What... What is this? Oh... careful Spiff. This one looks angrier than the last one you found. Wh-What in oblivion!?"
Spiffles attention is once again diverted by the appearance of a Reefback Leviathan and its signature low drone. This one appears to be a fully grown adult.
"You-you... You've got to be... You gotta be fucking kidding me. A Juhara Eelfish!? WHAT IS THAT DOING IN A HUMAN VIDEOGAME!!!??"
Spiffle squeaks in shock as he sees a creature that is an absolute spitting image of a large oceanic dwelling sea creature, which is both the games and his native homeworlds version of a Whale. The Reefback has some dissimilarities, but its close enough to the real thing that Spiffle is genuinely shocked. He quickly pauses the game, opening various wikipedia articles, then displays a full picture of both Subnautica in game Reefback, and the Juhara-Kal-Rehar, colloquially known as a Juhara Eelfish, a shockingly similar creature that lives in his homeworlds oceans.
The only difference between them is the color of the exterior chitin shell. The Reefback has a blue/purple shell, the Juhara Eelfish's chitin has a red/green shell.
"WHEN was this game made!?"
Spiff checks, the current Earth-date is the year 2886. Humanity only entered the galactic community in 2752. Subnautica was released in 2018.
"HOW.... How is that even possible!? You didn't even know the galaxy existed until only a few decades ago, yet you almost PERFECTLY matched the appearance of one of our homeworlds native species! How is this even possible!? Okay. If the name matches then I have to call bullshit."
Spiffle approaches and scans it, then reads the data article.
"A... Reefback Leviathan? Oh thank God... Now let's see... A herbivorous creature that... that likely got so large due to the fact that its predators went extinct. Well... that's... okay... A hard chitinous shell of multiple layers, a microcosm of different creatures and flora growing from its back, hence the name. Hmmm..."
Spiffle gets that cold, empty stare on his face and glares menacingly at the camera. The screen goes black, then returns, seeing Spiffle nursing a beverage of some kind while wrapped in a blanket.
"I realized something... Call it a message from the Ancestors or a Divine revelation. But I have a funny feeling this isn't going to be the last time I see a creature from the galaxy represented in human media. I hope to the Gods that doesn't happen... the concept of this situation is nothing short of terrifying. In any case, I'm sorry about that. Lets.... let's continue."
Spiffle resumes where he left off, doing his usual routine of scanning, then obsessively reading. Eventually he unlocks the Vehicle Bay, and returns home to his pod where the situation with resources is growing obscene with at least fifty floating resource containers hovering around the area.
"Alright... A Vehicle Bay... This means I can build things like the Seamoth now. This will be nice. Right, I shall for the sake of my audience skip the resource collection mechanic that's here and focus on the actual result. I shan't waste my time either though. MONTAGE!"
Spiff yells excitedly and a montage to that same odd Benny Hill type music plays out, with him collecting the resources he needs to build both machines. Most of it is already in the floating containers strewn about. With a few visits to the fabricator, he compiles the Power Cell, Titanium Ingot and Lubricant he needs to make the Vehicle Bay. He deploys it and chases it to the surface just away from the pod in the deeper end of the shallows.
"Right... Not too hard. Let's see then, how do-Ah. Get on it and... The Seamoth. Cost of two glass, one titanium ingot, a powercell, lead and lubricant. Right."
He quickly gathers and makes everything he needs for the Seamoth, then stands on the platform ready to go. He chooses the Seamoths recipe and the sequence starts. His eyes light up as drones start flying around the platform, then begin assembling atom by atom, the small, adorable minisub known as the Seamoth. It finishes the process and flops into the water with a splash.
"My gods look at this thing! It's so cute!"
Spiffle explores the sub for a little while and hops inside it, testing the controls and playing around with it a bit to see what it can do.
"Hm... Maximum Depth, 200 meters? So if I go below that does it implode or something? I need to be careful of that. OH dammit I remember! I have to make that Radiation Suit don't I? I shall do so now!"
Spiffle seems to have found a new resolve, quickly gathering resources together and making both a Seaglide and radiation suit in short order.
"Does this thing have any weapons? How do I repair-Oh... Repair tool? That makes it easier I suppose. Now... Where do I go now? Is there anything I can do?"
Spiffle stumbles about in the blind for a few minutes, trying to figure out his next course of action beyond simply wandering aimlessly while scanning things. He gets back in the pod and fixes the radio beacon. His face visibly contorts into an expression of irritation when he hears his rescue is in 9999 hours. He resolves to come back every now and then to check the radio. He decides to gather more resources to make up for building the seamoth and comes back a bit later. He finds a radio transmission when he returns.
"RADIO: ▀▖┗▛Nine new biological subjects designated. Mode ▄▖▜▚┣: hunting/analyzing.
Sharing subject locations with other agents."
"What... in the Nine Hells was THAT!? Why was it in such an odd voice? What was that language? What were those letters!? Somethings going on here... SO now what? I have the radiation suit. i guess... go into the Aurora? Oh no, I'm not going in there unprepared! Lemme make some tools and spare batteries, then i'll go in. I need... Oh... I need more fragments is what I need."
Spiffle resumes his fragment hunt, looking around for fragments of various tools. He uses the Seamoth to traverse around.
"WHEEE!!!"
Spiff seems more than just a bit happy as he trundles around in the Seamoth, using his speed to launch himself out of the water. He splashes about a bit, testing the limits of the craft and trying to see what holes he can squeeze himself into or out of and how deep he can go.
"Okay okay. time to get to serious work. Now... I need to find... A Laser Cutter and a... STASIS RIFLE?! Wait... rifle? That means GUN! I NEED A GUN!!"
Spiffle charges forward towards the desert biome where he found the Reefback and resumes his search for things to scan. It is now he comes across a Reginald.
"What... IS this fish? Wait, let me just..."
He gets out of the Seamoth and scans it.
"Huh... Reginald. That's a... fish? It's so cute! Wait, come back friend!"
Spiffle spends an unreasonable amount of time trying to catch a Reginald. When he finally catches one he gets back in the Seamoth and heads towards the aurora, new friend in tow. He trundles over to the side of the crashed ship and scans some random stuff here and there, finding fragments to a few small items, including a few he needs such as a Powercell Charger for the Seamoth’s battery. He gets close to the front of the ship and the haunting, evil noise of Subnautica's most iconic killer suddenly echoes through the gloomy water.
"What... Was that? Is it another worm thing? Please don't let it be one of those..."
Spiffle wanders around the side for a bit longer. An ominous shadow looms in the background, catching his eye. He ignores it for the moment and simply carries on, eventually arriving at the entrance to the ship. Through the mangled steel and fire he squeezes into the front of the ship and looks around. The environment ominously rattles and his screen shakes as the ships structure isn't exactly stable. The howl of the creature in the shadows makes Spiff even more uncomfortable.
"I... Do NOT like this. I really dont."
Spiff parks the Seamoth where he can see a ramp leading up, and gets out. He is immediately accosted by Cave Crawlers and uses his knife to defend himself, poorly, but he gets rid of the three or four around him.
"WARNING: SCANS SHOW THE DIGESTIVE TRACTS OF INDIGENOUS LIFE FORMS CONTAIN HUMAN TISSUE."
Spiffs face turns an even paler shade of blue and he swallows visibly as if he's trying not to vomit.
"Yeuch... I can scan this thing and read it later. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to."
Spiff scans and follows the path to the interior, uses his fire extinguisher to put out some fires in the area and gets inside. The ship rumbles as he wanders around and gets into one of the rooms. He finds the poster of the P.R.A.W.N. Suit.
"Ooh! A poster thing? Can I take it or? I can! PRAWN Suit eh? Can I actually use that thing?"
Spiff takes the poster, scans some furniture and collects a PDA. Spiff continues down the corridor and retrieves his Propulsion Cannon from his inventory and uses it to pick up some furniture in the way.
"I am SO glad I got this thing from scanning the area before I came here. This is super useful! I wonder if it has other uses..."
He gets to the door and looks at his databank.
"Hmm... Here it is! Code for the door is 1454. Right."
Spiff moves through, repairing a door to get the Seamoth Depth Upgrade Module. He continues and clears a fire to enter the main reactor. His inner loot goblin shines through and grabs the Cyclops engine efficiency module before he starts work on repairs, scanning the breach and starting work. It doesn't take him long, but he gets issues with a Bleeder that lives in the waters. He scans one then finishes repairs. Foolishly, he uses the propulsion cannon and shoots the bleeder at one of the reactors, undoing his work. He looks at the damage he caused and repairs it.
"Well... what was I expecting... Why did I do that? It's a CANNON... why did I aim it at the reactor exactly? So stupid..."
Spiff finishes and heads to the PRAWN Bay, and looks around at the damage. He spots the prawn suits and starts scanning, grabbing a storage module upgrade from a console and starts extinguishing flames so he can scan. He runs out of fire extinguisher juice though.
"Blast! Can I still scan these if they're on fire?"
Spiff walks around, finding cheeky angles he can use and scans the debris, finding all four fragments he needs. He heads upstairs and goes through the rooms and everything he can find. He gets into the Galley and sees the Kitty in a Space Helmet Poster.
"What the- 'Keep Calm'? What in the blue balls is this? It's.... cute! What is this creature!? Can I keep this? I can!"
Spiffle excitedly grabs the poster and moves on. He goes through cabins, picks up PDAs and collects the Natural Selection 2 poster, the Prawn suit in the sea poster and the collectible arcade toy in the locked cabin. Lacking the code to the Captain's cabin, he returns to the prawn bay and tries swimming around, eventually finding a passage in the hull debris to the rest of the ship. He moves through in silence, recovers the black box data and exits the ship. He removes debris, grabs the local wildlife with the cannon and tosses them into fires or the water with glee.
"BEGONE BEAST!!! Ha! Right... uhh... where did i park? Oh, there it is. Should I go home? I wonder if there are any fragments I can use around here?"
Spiff exits, finding Liefpod 4 floating upside down on the surface of the water. He collects the PDA data and a new blueprint. Then, as he gets in the seamoth, the horrifying roar of the Reaper Leviathan suddenly sounds. Spiff is thrown into a panic, screams in terror and tries desperately to get away. The beast appears with jaw chomping and claws clawing at the poor Seamoth. The entire time Spiffle is screeching like a bird with a broken leg, his entire body now an almost ghostly white out of absolute terror.
"GOWAYGOWAYGOWAYGOWAYGODNONNONOGOWAYGOWAY!!!"
Spiffle manages to get out of its grip and in a panic charges away towards his lifepod and continues to scream, breathing hard between screams. He gets to the pod and then hides under his desk, continuing to scream. His channel outro plays.
TOP COMMENT: (This has been translated from Eridani) "I am starting to believe this whole sojourn was a very BAD idea. Do you humans have those kinds of beasts on your homeworld? How did you ever survive them?!"
RESPONSE: LOL no we never had Reapers. The only Leviathan Class creatures we have on our planet are Whales. And they're mostly peaceful plankton eaters. Mostly.
RESPONSE: (Translated from Eridani) "Seriously? I think I find it more terrifying that these creatures are made up in your minds. What kind of nightmares do you people have to be able to create this level of fiction!?"
RESPONSE: Do. Not. Ask. This is only Subnautica - we have FAR worse.
Spiffles response: "You're going to make me play these 'far worse', aren't you?"
RESPONSE: "Damn right we are! :)"
________________________________________________________
"Great days and glorious victory! My name is Spifflemnonk and welcome back to Subnautica!"
Spiffle looks visibly stronger, his usual lanky appearance now looking like he's been working out like a Gym Bro. One can see muscles on muscles and Spiff seems to have an abnormal amount of energy.
"I am now relaxed. It is now time to get eaten by giant scary sea monsters. And yes, before you ask, I have successfully finished fully soundproofing my office. And also yes, I am indeed expecting a new addition to the brood... THANKS DAMN HUMANS! You and your damn musical magic nonsense..."
Spiffle starts the game and is swimming outside the pod next to the Seamoth. The first thing he does is repair the seamoth from the damage incurred by the Reaper, and recounts what hes been up to, checking inventory and equipment. He heads to the radio and gets a new transmission.
RADIO - "This is Avery Quinn of trading ship Sunbeam. Aurora, do you read? Over.'
'Nothing but vacuum. These Alterra ships. They run low on engine grease, they send an SOS; you offer to help, they don't pick up.'
'Aurora, we're out on the far side of the system, it's going to take more than a week to reach your position, do you still need our assistance? Over.'
'I'll try them again tomorrow. Damn charter's going to have us wasting our profit margin running errands for Alterra.'
'See what the long-range scanner picks up in the meantime."
"Oh? Oh lovely! There ARE people in this game! I wonder when they will be here? Meh, I have things to build, so I'll keep an eye."
Spiffle resolves himself to start building a base, trying to find a good spot. He finds the Mushroom Forest Biome and starts gathering resources to ferry them around. He installs the Depth Module and the Storage module to the Seamoth, then builds the Moon Pool. The Mushroom Biome becomes one of his favorite spots and a close encounter with a JellyRay cements it.
"Those creatures are beautiful! Look! JellyRay! Its glowing blue and pretty! I love that! Oh... I have a new radio message. I need to listen to that then."
Spiff returns to the pod and listens to the message.
RADIO - "Aurora, this is Sunbeam again. We just picked up a massive debris field at your location.'
'I didn't know how bad... How many of you... I didn't know.'
'We are now en route to your location. We're going to bring you home. Sunbeam out.'
'What else can I say? The only time I parked a rig this big on a rock that small was in VR, and I blew it'
'Oh, it's a bad option alright, but so are all the others."
Spiff smiles and carries on working, parking the Seamoth inside after powering everything up.
"So lovely! But... Is that a win condition? I know human games by now I have played enough of them. Is that a win condition? Get rescued? I dunno..."
Spiffle carries on building for a little and gets a storage system up, spending a few in-game days transporting resources to his new base. He returned to the pod and played a new radio message, again from the Sunbeam.
RADIO - "This is Sunbeam. Y'know, Aurora, we're from a little trans-gov on the far side of Andromeda, and we have a saying there.'
'There's no bad without the good, no good without the bad.'
'Sounds like you tasted a bunch of the former, but that only means you're overdue a whole lot of the latter.'
'Might just be we're it.'
'We're scanning for somewhere to park, we'll be in touch when we find it. Sunbeam out."
"Ohh... That... that's a lovely saying! What was that uh... There's no bad without the good, no good without the bad. I like that! I think i'll have that framed on my wall! Now lets see.. i ca- I CAN GIVE THE SEAMOTH A NAME? OOHHHhh okay, okay.. I can customize the color too! I think I'll just do this..."
Spiff leaves the name as 'Seamoth' for now, changing the color to a mix of purple for the main, and blue for the trim and name color. His two favorite colors. Spiffle does a little more work, acquiring the last fragments for the Cyclops and starts gathering together the resources necessary to build it.
"Hmmm.. Cyclops... Personal large scale submarine capable of carrying other vehicles! Ooohhh I want to build that! I need to fetch the Vehicle Bay though. Im almost done moving house!"
Spiff returns and packs up the last of his resources, then gets another radio message.
RADIO - "Aurora, we're approaching the planet now, and we have a landing site for you that's... well, it's better than the alternatives.'
'We've sent you the coordinates.'
'It'll take us a couple of days to align our orbit, we should be able to establish direct contact with you during that time, then we're coming in to get you.'
'Cross your fingers the weather holds, and don't leave us waiting. Sunbeam out."
Spiffle gets a new beacon on his HUD. Sunbeam Landing Site.
"What!? Is this game over If I'm there!? Okay... well. At least it's no longer terrifying! I'll get the Seamoth and go for the beacon then. I hope it's okay... Strange... this... doesn't feel like the end, you know? But if it is then it is."
Spiff heads home, deploys the Vehicle Bay and deposits his gear and resources. He heads towards the location, occasionally squealing 'WHEEE!!' as he uses the Seamoth to jump out of the water like a dolphin. However, he miscalculates and the Seamoth jumps up, out and sustains a bit of damage as it hits a rock formation close to the surface. He gets out, repairs it and looks at the camera.
"Why no I didn't just damage my Seamoth by having too much fun. I don't know what you are talking about. Hehe."
Spiffle smirks at the camera with a glare and carries on. Eventually, he encounters the largest of the Islands in the world.
"Wh... WHAT. This has been here the whole time!? Is this an island? Who cares! LAND! Sweet land!"
Spiffle now notices the timer and hops onto the island from his Seamoth. He walks up to the landing zone and stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the massive al;ien structure known as the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. In essence, a giant alien cannon.
"What... the *beep* is THAT?"
Spiffles' editing has gotten better, his editor learning how to censor Spiffles foul language, in both English AND Eridani. He moves closer to the building, scanning the broken tablet and the Forcefield Controls.
"What is this? I mean it's clearly alien... What do the codex entries say... 'possible to reconstruct the device' Oh... hmm.. I can make more of these then. 'Matches no known technologies... functions like a lock'. Okay then so... Standard video game logic I guess. That's nice! So A purple tablet will unlock the gate there. What are those?"
Spiff moves towards the Cairns marking the way into the island, pathways leading up the mountainside. He follows them, finding a Purple Tablet in the process on one of the pathways.
"Oh! Lovely! That saves me resources and a trip I guess. This pathway keeps going though. hmm... Welp, we still have thirty minutes, so let's go."
Spiff explores the pathway, getting lost a bit before finally figuring that following the large cables is a good idea. He comes across the Teleportation Arch and scans it, in between dodging the Cave Crawlers.
"Right, let's see... Alien Arch... not much to speak of here. Maybe this thing will be useful later I guess. Likely.... Hmmm..."
Spiffle continues exploring and eventually finds himself back at the forcefield with another twenty minutes to go.
"Screw it, let's go."
Spiff activates the forcefield platform and the animation of the key being placed plays out. He moves into the building, activating both data platforms and acquiring two Ion Cubes for later, scanning everything he thinks he can scan. He enters the Moonpool in the bay and gets two more Ion Cubes, plus data on a rifle and a Doomsday Device. He ignores it for now, acquiring one more purple tablet and accessing the control room.
"Right... what's in here? Hmm... Energy Core, right. I shall scan that and... press button?"
Spiff presses the button. An animation plays where a device locks his characters hand in place, viciously stabs it with a pointy metal bit and then releases it.
"OH GODS what the hell! Why is that?! That's just nasty!"
"THE TERMINAL IS BROADCASTING A MESSAGE. TRANSLATION READS: 'Warning, infected individuals may not disable the weapon. This planet is under quarantine.'"
"Quarantine! What? Infected? I-Hold on...."
Spiffle gets his scanner out and performs a self-scan. It is only now he notices something very bad has happened.
"I-infected!? Wait, what!?"
"SELF-SCAN COMPLETE - DETECTING STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT BACTERIAL LEVELS. NO ADVERSE EFFECTS DETECTED. BE VIGILANT FOR SYMPTOMS."
"Oh brilliant! Does that mean I can't leave? I KNEW IT! Wait... weapon!? This is a weapon!?"
Spiffle panics and runs out of the facility as fast as he can and waits the last few minutes for the Sunbeam to arrive. Sure enough, it does. In the last 30 seconds, the Sunbeam plays a message.
RADIO - "Survivor, we see you!
'Man, I don't know how you held out down there.'
The sunbeams message plays, and Spiffle gasps in terror from the sound of the gun platform starting up and starting to move around.
RADIO - "We've broken atmosphere and we're descending towards the landing site.'
'Is that a building down there?! What do you mean you can't identify it?"
The weapon powers up and turns, aiming itself high at the sky.
RADIO - "Hold on, no turning back now.'
'Positions everyone, touching down in 10, 9, 8-'
The weapon charges up and a loud vicious hum can be heard echoing through the valley.
RADIO - "It's coming from the building?! Change course, set thrusters to (full)-"
The radio goes to static, the weapon fires and the Sunbeam is vaporized instantly by a massive blast of bright green light. The sunbeam disappears, its hull structure completely disintegrated. Spiffle sits in stunned silence as the platform returns to a stable position, shuts down, and everything goes quiet.
"Well... Okay then... That was... horrifying. I guess thats all we have time for! Hehe! Oh dear..."
Spiffle looks a bit defeated as he sits back in his seat.
"S-see you next time! I guess... Holy shit..."
Channel Outro plays.
TOP COMMENT: "Are you okay? You seem a little bit too disturbed by that. Its fine though, compared to what happens in the Rise Of The Ancients Mod, this is tame! Lol! I love that mod!"
Spiffles Response: "Please don't make me play that mod..."
((Authors note - due to how bastardingly huge Subnautica is, this will be a multi part series. Other Spiff stories will come inbetween. Hope you enjoy!))

Hakaishin Godzilla vs Imperialdramon
Arena: Ginza, Chuo, Tokyo
Rules: Both begin in their base forms. If one of them wins, the other will go up to their next form, and so on until either or both of them have reached their final form(s). Imperialdramon's Paladin Mode won't be considered due to the lack of feats/info provided.
***

Round 1: Shin Godzilla vs Paildramon

Battle Theme

Strength

Godzilla

• Shattered the ground with a footstep
• Staggered Legendary Godzilla with tail slaps, creating a shockwave with each hit

Paildramon

• Kicked the much larger Okagumon and sent him flying
• Caught Okagumon's claws and tossed him away, before throwing him by the legs into the ground
• Swung and tossed the much larger Megadramon by its tail
• Wrestled with a Triceramon for a moment, before getting overpowered, Triceramon being strong enough to smash Stingmon and Exveemon into buildings

Godzilla doesn't have very much in the way of strength feats at this point to help him out here, while Paildramon can launch and throw opponents much bigger than himself. Although Godzilla is bigger than the Digimon Paildramon fought, the latter pound for pound has more impressive feats under his belt.
Edge: Paildramon
***

Speed

Godzilla

• Has no listed speed feats, but he can turn on a dime rather quickly

Paildramon

• Can move at FTE speeds, moving so fast as to only appear as blurred lines
• Dodged Megadramon's missiles

Paildramon has a pretty distinct speed advantage here. Even just moving so fast as to be visually nearly imperceptible alone would be enough, but dodging missiles further solidifies his advantage. Godzilla is gonna have a hard time landing any hits here.
Edge: Paildramon
***

Durability

Godzilla

• Blasted to the street hard enough to damage it by Legendary Godzilla's Atomic Ray
• Took a combo attack from Legendary Godzilla, getting hit in the face hard enough a shockwave was created on impact and slammed into the street with enough force to heavily crater it, and quickly retaliated and got up
• Thrown by Legendary Godzilla with enough force to create a large shockwave and travel across a block, trenching the street and quickly retaliating and getting up after getting subsequently stomped on
• Smashed through two buildings by Legendary Godzilla and quickly retaliated

Regeneration

• After getting a hole blown into his chest by Legendary Godzilla's Atomic Ray which damaged buildings and created a huge explosion much bigger than the surroundings buildings, he quickly healed from the damage
• Had bloody wounds inflicted and flesh torn off by Legendary Godzilla's bites, and quickly healed afterwards
• After getting his head destroyed by Legendary Godzilla in a beamclash, he regenerated hours later into his next form

Paildramon

• Staggered by an energy beam to the back from Mummymon's gun
• Pushed back whilst blocking another shot from Mummymon's gun, before getting sent flying upwards from a strike by Triceramon
• Slammed against the side of a building by Triceramon, damaging it

This time around, Godzilla has a pretty distinct edge here. Without much in the way of scaling, Paildramon's durability feats look pretty lacking compared to his other stats. Meanwhile, Godzilla is a tank in comparison, and he can also regenerate fairly quickly on top of that. Paildramon is going to struggle when it comes to taking hits here.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Melee Weapons

Godzilla

• Long tail
• Taloned feet
• Large jaws and sizable teeth

Paildramon

• Claws which can be fired as grappling hooks to grab opponents from a distance
• Sting Strike, retractable wrist blades that allow him to pierce Okagumon's skin and clash with Blackwargreymon

Both have useful weapons to help out in a melee fight, Godzilla's sheer size giving an edge in reach, while Paildramon's claws and blades could also be useful. However, Godzilla's greater reach and Paildramon's weapons being more ineffective against his durability than vice versa gives him the advantage here.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Ranged Abilities

Godzilla
Atomic Ray

• Can be fired from his mouth, as well as his dorsal spines and tail
• Pierced and cut through several buildings
• Detonated upon impact with the ocean, creating a huge explosion
• Pushed back Legendary Godzilla, leaving a bloody gash along his side

Paildramon
Desperado Blaster

• Destroyed Okagumon's body
• Destroyed the child emperor's base, which could endure a mouth beam from Kimeramon, who used the same attack to attack a town, destroying buildings and creating big explosions with repeated shots
• Sent chunks of rock flying from the ground with a barrage
• Created a big explosion and sent chunks flying from the street

Both have formidable firepower, but Godzilla's Atomic Ray has a piercing aspect that Paildramon would not have a resistance to. The clip of the base being destroyed doesn't do a good job of showing what's actually happening; it's not clear if Paildramon destroyed it all in a single shot or a continuous barrage of shots. Regardless, Godzilla will be able to survive Paildramon's ranged attacks better than vice versa, and that combined with the piercing capability of his beam and the ability to fire such an attack from multiple areas at once gives him the edge on this one.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Verdict

Paildramon has a distinct edge in strength and speed, and is obviously smarter, but Godzilla takes the clear advantage in durability and firepower. His ability to regenerate mid battle further aids him in enduring Paildramon's attacks and outlasting him, and his Atomic Ray will do a lot more damage to Paildramon than will Paildramon's Desperado Blaster against him.
Round 1 Winner: Shin Godzilla
***

Round 2: Shin Godzilla vs Imperialdramon

Battle Theme

Strength

Imperialdramon

• Easily caught Triceramon's charge and lifted it up by the head, Triceramon having previously overpowered Paildramon and slammed him against a building

Even though Imperialdramon only has a single strength feat, it does show that he's significantly stronger than his previous form. Being able to scale above Paildramon's strength feats, which was already considered more impressive than Godzilla's, helps broaden the gap between both fighters in Imperialdramon's favor.
Edge: Imperialdramon
***

Speed

Imperialdramon

• Traveled quickly around the world, traveling to Odiaba, Paris, Hong Kong, Sydney, Moscow, and finally Miami
• Moved at FTE, appearing as a blur

With Paildramon already having a clear speed advantage over Godzilla, Imperialdramon is even faster with his world traveling feat. Godzilla's gonna have an even harder time tagging him with his hits.
Edge: Imperialdramon
***

Durability

Imperialdramon

• Took a fire attack from Daemon long enough to close the distance
• Took a barrage of missiles, going into his fighter mode

Unfortunately for Imperialdramon, his durability isn't much better. He'll still need to avoid as much hits from Godzilla as possible to hang in there. Godzilla is still a lot more durable here.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Melee Weapons

Imperialdramon

• Teeth
• Claws and wristblades
• Horns
• Tail

Unlike his previous form, Imperialdramon doesn't seem to have the ability to extend his blades or claws to attack from a distance. This is a problem in melee given Godzilla's far better reach, so the Digimon will have to keep away from the kaiju in this fight.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Ranged Abilities

Imperialdramon
Positron Laser

• Traveled above the clouds and shot different areas of Japan, firing from Tokyo to Sapporo, Mount Aso, and Osaka Castle
• Shot to different places while flying over Europa, including the Palace of Versailles, somewhere in Norway, and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin
• Fired a rapid barrage that pushed back Armaggedemon

Mega Death

• Destroyed a castle in a huge explosion in his Digivolution cinematic
• Created an explosion that engulfs a Digimon taller than the surrounding buildings

Imperialdramon has some pretty good range with his laser, way more so compared to Godzilla. It helps that his flight allow him to open fire on Godzilla pretty much anywhere he wants. However, the actual damage output of his projectiles is questionable compared to Godzilla. They'll hurt, sure, but they won't be immediately lethal to him, and Goji can simply heal from them anyway. This one feels more like a toss up, with Godzilla having the better destructive power, while Imperialdramon has superior range.
Draw
***

Verdict

Things are largely the same here, with Imperialdramon being stronger and faster while Godzilla is more durable. However, Imperialdramon is now a lot faster in terms of movement, to the point Godzilla will struggle a lot to even remotely keep up with him. At the same time, I don't think Imperialdramon can really kill Godzilla. He can keep him on the backfoot, though, and continuously pelt him with projectiles while constantly dodging his attacks. This almost feels like a tie in that Godzilla can't hit Imperialdramon but the latter can't kill the former. But I think Imperialdramon's speed and range is just enough to give him the advantage here.
Round 2 Winner: Imperialdramon
***

Round 3: Evolved Shin Godzilla vs Imperialdramon

Battle Theme

Strength

Godzilla

• Knocked down a building just by grabbing onto it
• Repeatedly tore up the ground trading blows with Legendary Godzilla, cratering him into the ground with his throws
• Overpowered Rodan's supersonic charge with a punch, sending him sliding back and tearing a trench into the ground
• Repeatedly slammed Kong into the ground with his tail, tearing up and cratering the ground

Suddenly, the strength difference has shifted. Godzilla is now strong enough to crater kaiju around his size range with his throws and can punch hard enough to send such opponents flying. Scaling above Paildramon is all well and good for Imperialdramon, but now it's not enough to help him keep the advantage here. He is not going to enjoy a supersonic punch from Goji.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Speed

Godzilla

• Shot a fighter jet out of the air and caught another in his tail mouth
• Tagged Rodan with a punch, striking him out of his supersonic punch
• His punches create sonic booms
• Dodged Rodan's divebomb
  • Rodan is supersonic

Now, Godzilla is a lot faster in terms of reactions and striking compared to his previous form. Imperialdramon does retain the travel speed advantage, but his actual combat speed feels lacking in comparison. With Godzilla able to react to supersonic opponents and strike at similar speeds, he can now more easily land blows on the Digimon. Imperialdramon is faster in terms of movement, but Godzilla is arguably faster in striking and reactions.
Draw
***

Durability

Godzilla

• Tore up the ground trading blows with Legendary Godzilla, repeatedly taking impacts which cratered the ground
• Withstood a pointblank Nuclear Pulse from Legendary Godzilla that launched him back with enough force to crater the ground
• Traded blows with Kong that tore up the ground, repeatedly tanking strikes to the head from Kong and shrugging them off
• Tackled into the ground by Kong hard enough to lightly crater the ground and repeatedly punched in the head, seemingly getting his head embedded into the ground, before quickly retaliating and getting up

Regeneration

• Recovered from a broken jaw, smashed head, and injuries from Legendary Godzilla's Atomic Ray whilst using a Nuclear Pulse
• Healed in seconds after getting his chest cut open by Kong's axe
• Impaled through the chest by Behemoth and had Kong's axe embedded into his skull, and just triggered his next evolution, healing from his wounds

Godzilla is now even more durable, with his regeneration still as potent as ever. Imperialdramon is going to have an even harder time dealing any lasting damage to the kaiju, and he'll struggle greatly to do anything against Goji's regen.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Melee Weapons

Godzilla

• Tail mouth is more developed and functions like an extra arm
• Has long muscular arms, larger spines, and an extra head on his tail

Godzilla already had an edge with melee weapons, and now his arsenal is even more developed. Any interaction in melee will go badly for Imperialdramon; he needs to stay away from melee range as much as possible.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Ranged Abilities

Godzilla
Atomic Ray

• Blasted Legendary Godzilla across the landscape, greatly tearing up/cratering the ground and leaving a bloody gash on Godzilla's chest
• Powered up his Atomic Ray into a stronger white version which split apart Legendary Godzilla's Atomic Ray and pierced straight through his body
• Can blast out of his back to push him to his feet
• Blasted Rodan a good distance away
• Can be fired from his tail mouth and his dorsal spines

Nuclear Pulse

• Launched Legendary Godzilla away, significantly tearing up the surrounding ground

Godzilla's firepower has only gotten worse for Imperialdramon, to the point the Digimon can't afford to get hit by Goji's beams. The kaiju's ability to attack from multiple angles is further compounded by his pulse which has a huge area of effect. Even at a great distance, Imperialdramon is at good risk of getting hit.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Verdict

This has now become an uphill battle for Imperialdramon, one that he simply cannot win. His movement speed is his best advantage here, and it alone is insufficient to help him win. Godzilla is a wall with potent regeneration and lethal beams that can easily end the Digimon should they land, and his speed has been boosted to wear he can now more easily land hits on Imperialdramon. Though he can certainly try and put up a valiant effort, the Digimon loses this round.
Round 3 Winner: Evolved Shin Godzilla
***

Round 4: Evolved Shin Godzilla vs Imperialdramon Fighter Mode

Battle Theme

Strength

Imperialdramon

• None listed

It's reasonable to assume Imperialdramon FM scales above his previous forms, but the total lack of feats on his part hurts him badly here.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Speed

Imperialdramon

• Pushed Blackwargreymon from Gotenba City to the height of Mount Fuji in seconds

Again, it's reasonable to assume Fighter Mode scales above his previous forms, but the one speed feat he has doesn't seem like anything that couldn't be replicated by regular Imperialdramon. It doesn't look like he could avoid Godzilla's attacks any better.
Draw
**\*

Durability

Imperialdramon

• Shot out of the air by a shadow attack
• Collapsed after getting cratered into a stone wall by a shadow beam that overpowered his laser
• Took a direct hit from a shot by Armaggedemon and remained in midair, a similar attack sending Omnimon flying from one island to another

Imperialdramon's Fighter Mode at least has more feats in terms of durability. Sucks that they're either too vague or too weak to make much of a difference. Given how easily he drops from hits seemingly far weaker than anything Godzilla does, this doesn't look good for the Digimon.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Melee Weapons

Imperialdramon

• Claws and wristblades

It would be very much in Imperialdramon's best interest to stay out of melee range from Godzilla, because he is not winning in an upclose fight.
Edge: Godzilla
***

Ranged Abilities

Imperialdramon
Positron Laser

• Parts the clouds in his Digivolution cinematic
• Vaporized a Skullsatamon
• Created a massive explosion comparable to Mount Fuji in size in a projectile clash with Wargreymon and Blackwargreymon
• Killed a big Digimon and created a huge explosion bigger than buildings

Giga Death

• Caused a giant explosion as wide as the Rainbow Bridge

This is where Imperialdramon truly shines. Now he's got some legit firepower that could put Godzilla on the ropes. He still needs to watch out for Goji's beams, but now he can return fire with attacks that will be hazardous to Godzilla's health. It's not enough to give him the complete edge, but it does help even things out.
Draw
***

Verdict

Godzilla is stronger and tougher, Imperialdramon is faster in movement, Godzilla is faster in reactions and striking, and both have formidable firepower. Imperialdramon's best bet for winning would be to fly out of Godzilla's range and rain down Giga Deaths upon him to kill him. But then the question becomes how quickly would the Digimon think to try such a strategy before Godzilla lands a good hit and kills him instead?
Unfortunately for Imperialdramon, I don't see him going for a tactic like that. He usually tries rushing in or attacking from only a relatively short distance away from his opponent, which would go badly for him against Godzilla. He doesn't have the durability to survive even a few hits from the kaiju, and he'll have trouble dealing with Goji's durability and regeneration.
Ultimately, though he was able to push Godzilla to reach his evolved form, Imperialdramon just doesn't have what it takes to beat this version of Shin Godzilla. Hakaishin Godzilla would have likely stomped.
Winner: Evolved Shin Godzilla

A little while ago i saw a discussion of the DBS broly movie, and like any discussion it had criticisms and praise, some i agreed with and some didnt. But there is 1 criticism i sawthat didnt quite stick with me “they made gogeta into a vegitto clone” And then they said some stuff that they belived to qualify him as a vegitto clone. Which, as you can guess, i disagree with.
to make it a long story short they said

“gogeta didn’t immediately transform into ssb and subdued/killed broly. unlike in the original movie where gogeta was a stoic no BS hero who immediately killed janemba, he know plays with his food like vegitto”.

now to make it clear, just because gogeta didnt want to shoot a big bang kamehameha x100 and vaporize broly doesnt mean he wasnt serious. Playing with the opponent and not going all out from the start is an integral role in fighting in DB, from both an enjoyment and strategic pov. Sure gogeta KNEW what broly is capable of from goku and vegetas fights, but he didn’t experience it himself, because as most people know the fusions are entirely new beings than the beings that made them. Just knowing how strong someone is vs learning how strong they are can lead into a more accurate assumption of power, as remember not even gogeta wanted to kill broly, it wasnt until the end when knocking him out was out of the question and he had to be killed via the final clash. another (and frankly the most obvious reason) is that gogeta is also a saiyan, he loves fighting like literally every saiyan character ever introduced, he was just born for the first time and knows he. Will never be remade in a long time, he wanted to atleast have 1 proper fight before being locked away forever. And even then unlike vegitto who disrespects his opponents, doesnt try, and cracks jokes always. Gogeta was locked in and trying to just knock out broly until he realized in the end that he must be killed to be stopped and gave everything into that kamehameha.
ps. I know i yapped alot and my grammer is abit funky but i hope its readable

only asking this because only floral shoppe seemed to be remembered (even if it was a meme song) as well as enjoy yourself and white woods boardwalk as probably vaporwave songs
(casin isn’t vapor wave)

There's something up here with me.
Since I returned to the world of the living, I've been doing my best to become an active member of society again and to try and earn my ticket to heaven in the meantime.
Even though I can't afford this luxury right now, I always donate a portion of my salary to charity, do volunteer work on weekends, and help out at a community kitchen on Thursdays after work.
All of this is to avoid going back there.
But I don't know how well this can work, nor do I know if by gaining this new life, I also received a new chance.
There's something I haven't told you.
If none of this makes sense to you, it´s good to take a look at my first post.
If you missed the last update, I recommend reading it before continuing.
The truth is that my torment hasn't completely stopped. Since I returned from the dead, my nights are filled with agony and terror.
The nightmares are terrible, but when I wake up shrouded in the darkness of my room, I can sometimes discern things in the shadows.
Arachnid-like forms with dozens of eyes and mouths that sing profanities.
Throughout the day, I can still see them, in the corner of my eye almost like a permanent silhouette, a reminder that they're watching me, just waiting for my last breath to take me back via the VIP express lane.
I think Samael didn't like being deceived one bit.
Now, however, it's not the time to recount my escape. There are still many dangers I've yet to warn you about.
And if after your death you find yourselves wandering through the infernal circles, surely at some point you'll come across the Silver City.
The last vestige of community in hell.
Gehenna is like a living structure, a fabric composed of buildings, streets, and alleys that stretches vertically through the 9 circles that compose the abyss.
When I died, I arose just like many others in Lust, the third circle of Hell, contrary to what Alighieri claimed.
The real order of the circles would be: Limbo, Greed, Lust, Wrath, Gluttony, Heresy, Violence, Treachery, and finally, Pride.
The goal of the Collectors was set like a jewel in the center of Limbo.
It's funny, in Dante's work, the city is portrayed as a paradise away from heaven for those with good hearts who never accepted Jesus into their lives. Their only punishment would be to never glimpse the face of God.
Damn, I wish it were like that.
I woke up with the mettalic taste of blood still on my mouth.
A gentle voice was saying something, but with my ears ringing, I couldn't make out anything. I could tell there was something in front of me, the smell was good, my stomach reminded me I was yet to eat anything.
Without much choice, I accepted the charity and ate. The taste was surprisingly good, if I were to describe it, it's something close to pork.
I spent some time just eating and recovering. I was also given a canteen of warm water; it tasted weird, but It was not like I was gonna complain.
As my senses returned, I could understand what the young man in front of me was saying.
I still remember his face, without any bruises,shallow beard and a glimmer of hope that didn't match that place at all.
"Feeling better now ?"
" I guess.. where are we now, Is that thing still here ? "
I tried sitting but a sharp pain on my chest stopped me from moving.
"Hey take it easy now. You're so skinny you look like a twig. When was the last time you ate?"
"About 10 seconds ago "
He smiled a bit.
"Well at least now you´re good enough to enjoy the ride"
With that, I felt prompted to look around, and finally noticed that we were on the back of a strange pickup truck.
Not only that, some sort of locomotive seemed to form around us. In total, there were four vehicles.
Our pickup stood at the center, with metal plaques around its frame and sharp grates on the ends confining us.
On our left, an old mustang suffered to keep itself close traveling on such uneven terrain.
On our right I could see Mice on top of an old motocicle gigling to himself, I silently wished he crashed.
Leading the group ahead, I could see the rear of a black van, and finally, following behind, I saw what appeared to be a Honda with smashed windows and covered in dents.
"Where are they taking us?"
"I have no idea, but anything must be better than these fucking fields."
Recalling Mice's delusions, I wasn't so sure about that.
"Who are you? Are you with them too?"
"I think we're in the same boat, buddy."
"The last guy who called me 'buddy' tied me up and dragged me into the clutches of a monster."
"I don't like them one bit, but from what I saw when we arrived, he was trying to protect you."
"So you really are one of them!"
"I already said we're in the same shit-hole. I got caught by the masked one while trying to hunt dinner." he said, pointing out the window towards the driver of the pickup, a tall, muscular man wearing a strange wooden mask.
"Sorry, the past few days have been so... God If you only knew what I've been through."
The young man chuckled sincerely. "Friend, I'm sure whatever you've been through, I've lived it dozens of times already. The name's John, nice to meet you."
"Well, John, you can call me Nate. I would shake your hand, but..." I nudged towards the wires on my hands. "
"Could be worse" He gestured towards his feet.
They where chopped off.
"Holy shit! I´m sorry John, these guys are insane!"
"Don´t be, They will be back once I die, but I have a feeling they will not let that happen so soon."
We could already see the spire slowly coming into view on the horizon.
"You sound used to all of this."
"Don't tell me, you're new?"
" I...still can´t believe this is all real"
"You better come to terms with it fast; this place doesn't take pity on the weak."
We didn't feel like chatting after that.
I wanted to ask about what I was given to eat, but something told me I would be better off not knowing. We traveled far towards the Spire, Gehenna slowly embracing us again with its dark skies.
From up close, I was able to see an opening in the base of the Spire.
The twisted terrain of the fields gave way to broken roads and dusted buildings, screams of despair found their way back to my ears as we passed near the tar pits.
Haunted by memories of my arrival, I couldn't help but search for the beasts that mauled me in the confusing streets of the city. I don't know if it was because of the sound of the engines or the size of our group, but I didn't see them among the wreckage and alleyways.
As we approached the Spire, a strange icy breeze embraced us. The shock was so intense that I lost my breath, trembling as I noticed a thin layer of ice forming rapidly on the pickup truck.
"Try to control your breathing, it'll pass soon."
"What is this now?"
"Specters."
As we finally reached the center of Lust, I realized we were not alone.
The base of the Spire held an immense arched opening, from which a dark interior was barely visible. Above the entrance, crucified on the wall, I saw a man; the slight movement of his head and his blue eyes made my stomach churn.
The culprits for the sudden cold gathered below the man in desperation. There were dozens of them, humanoid beings emitting a faint glow and seeming to levitate; their cries echoed through the city, spreading along with their icy presence.
The man only watched them, one by one, but said nothing.
He seemed to be judging them.
The engines shut off, and one by one the collectors descended from the vehicles.
Mice was the first to approach; the specters recoiled from him like cockroaches fleeing from light.
He then looked the man in the eyes, bowed, and said:
"Oh Aeacus! King of Aegina, my heart is not pure for rest, my eyes are blind to injustice, and my fists only weigh for my desires. From dust I came and to dust I return, my soul judged to forever burn, so I beg you to open the doors to my torment."
The Man's eyes locked onto Mice for a moment, then his lips whispered something in an elaborate tongue, and the darkness of the entrance turned into a scarlet mass.
I didn't knew about the kings back then. Aeacus is the easiest to convince; he oversees the higher circles. They say if you're under Minos's gaze, however, I hope you enjoy the lower circles because he's unlikely to grant you passage. And if you're a special kind of unlucky, I suggest you don't even try to approach Rhadamantus unless you want a one-way ticket to Pride.
The collectors then pulled us out of the cars, displaying us like trophies in an organized line. I had to support John on my shoulders; otherwise, they would have made him crawl the rest of the way.
From the other cars, a few more people emerged, other unfortunate souls with the same destination as mine. I saw a beautiful woman with short red hair and brown eyes; she was injured with several cuts on her back. The collector taking her out of the van seemed pleased; I tried not to dwell on it too much. She stared at me intensely, looking scared.
A man had to be forcibly removed from the Honda by two collectors. He was big and strong, dark-skinned with furious eyes, long braids cascading from his head to the middle of his back, a terrible scar showing on his left arm.
To this day, I have no idea how they managed to capture that bastard; later, he would tell me that they didn't got him until after he'd taken down some of them.
Finally, an old man with a band over his eyes was pushed into line; he looked so worn down that I thought I would see him turning to dust at any moment.
Mice then made his way to the entrance and was swallowed by the mass.
The collectors forced us to enter, one by one I saw everyone being pushed into the unknown, looking around I tried to think of something, some escape route.
"Don't do anything stupid," John whispered in my ear. "It won't work."
I thought about throwing him at them and running for my life. I didn't know him, didn't know a damn thing about him except his name. A glance at the collectors' weapons made me change my mind; I wouldn't get far even if I did find an opening.
Finally, my turn came. With the weight of John still on my shoulders, I walked to the entrance with my heart pounding in fear.
The mass that filled it seemed to react to me, stretching to cover my body, the scarlet glow blinding me as the collectors urged me to hurry.
I reached out my hand and felt a slight resistance, almost like touching cold gelatin. I felt it pulling me, and before my head was completely swallowed, I held my breath.
My body was warm; it was like being bathed in soup, every exposed inch of my skin burning, but the agony was only beginning.
I felt that strange mass invading me, entering through my nose, ears, eyes.
It hurt.
I tried to scream but my lungs were filled with the alien substance that forced its way through my organs; I felt like I was about to lose consciousness.
A shockwave ran through my body; I felt as if I was being torn into a thousand pieces and reformed, my consciousness used as a child's toy.
And then I was spat out.
I barfed on the gray grass that solemnly clung to me; John lay beside me, eyes rolled back, red fluid still trickling from his mouth.
I didn't have time to worry about him.
Before me, proudly stood what can only be described as a monument of sin.
Far from the light of hope it once was, now taken and calloused, abused and defiled by the filthy ideals of the damned scum.
Its golden streets don't shine.
Its security only harbors hate.
Its cracked walls don't protect, they only confine.
Even though I didn't knew much about hell, didn't knew its history or care about its purpose, I could see in that moment that I was looking at the greatest disrespect to the sacred that could exist.
An empire built with blood and erected by desire.
The Silver City opened its gates to me.
With the intention of never letting me go again.
The other collectors arrived, and one by one we were introduced to the next 40 years of our lives.
The memories of this city are painful. I tried to ditch this shit given the purpose of it all, but a drag is necessary if I'm really going to recall the decades I spent under that tyrant's rule.
Passing through the rusty gates, the lower city is the first thing you see. Jack leaves this region of the Silver City for his merchants to sell their findings in the lower circles, where everywhere you look, prostitutes and slaves accompany the more fortunate. Jack's personal guard takes advantage of his authority to get everything they want without spending a penny, of course.
Linked to the lower city by a rudimentary elevator, the Pleasure Zone casts its glow over those below, a neighborhood where the best drinks, drugs, and alterations can easily be found. Hunters and collectors usually walk around there, spending their earnings to calm their vices and complaining about their King's insane demands.
But by far, the most striking sight is a castle covered in soot, built at the highest level of the city, where only Jack's personal circle can tread without being summoned.
That's exactly where we were being taken.
John was still unconscious, being carried by our captors.
As we walked under the guns, naked and defenseless, the malicious glares of the vendors assessed us as new merchandise.
My feet ached, full of blisters; I couldn't feel my hands anymore. Looking at a toothless man being pulled by a chain around his neck, I wondered if that would be my fate.
Desperation was beginning to consume me.
We ascended to the Pleasure Zone by elevator, the same one powered by the brute force of several slaves harnessed to the wall, their hands raw from continuous and repetitive effort.
The hallucinogenic fumes from the laboratories filled the street of the neighborhood. I felt my heart race, my skin tingle, and a sweet smell invading my mind. The woman accompanying us seemed to recognize the substance as she lunged towards the source of the vapors. Mice kicked her in the stomach, making her kneel, grabbed her by the hair, and laughed.
"You fucking addict! You've used this shit before, haven't you? Look at the way you're trembling, hahaha! If they don't send you to the brothel, I might have an idea of what to do with you!"
She didn't seem to understand, or care, drooling from her mouth and experiencing small spasms as the drug filled her lungs.
Wish I could say I avoided it, but this shit is strong; within a few minutes, I was almost as high as when the Succubus attacked.
We then walked through the alleyways towards a staircase carved in marble; a sinner was overdosing against the steps.
Mice shot him in the head and threw him aside.
One moment he was alive, and the next, the remnants of his brain adorned the ground.
I gasped for air, my vision darkening; I meant nothing to them, they could dispose of me whenever they wanted.
I felt like I was going to die. I felt like I was going back to the tar pits, seeing myself suffering and being devoured for ages, running only to be captured, no rest, no warning.
What kind of being would create such a rotten place? Why did he have the right to read my soul and throw me towards this flaming lake? It's not fair, it's sick.
As I climbed the stairs, stepping on the remnants of the sinner's mind, I wondered if God was watching me at that moment.
Maybe he was having fun.
The biblical hell holds a king.
It shelters demons and powerful beings born from darkness itself.
And as you already know, beings made by the Creator's own hand.
It wouldn't be at that moment that I would meet Samael, but alongside the self-proclaimed human King, I met his right-hand beast.
When the doors of the castle opened, I fell to my knees on the ground.
An angelic figure, with the aura of pure evil.
A feminine body, dressed in white adorned with jade, three pairs of long and golden wings kept her hovering a few meters above the ground.
On her face, a twisted helmet, with an eternal black flame at its peak, portraying what was, what is, and what will come.
The base of her helmet completely covers her eyes, squeezing them with such force that blood constantly drips to the ground. Her face constantly changes—a slender young woman, a frightened child, an irritated elder, a black goat, a hungry tarantula, an unnamed beast, an indescribable void.
In her hands, a chain hangs a clock, which constantly moves, which moves constantly. It tries to guess the hour, the hour that only He knows, constantly wrong, corrects itself, recoils, recalculates, wrong, corrects itself, recoils, recalculates, wrong.
Such a beautiful creature, fell alongside the morning star, with a third of the stars, to forever hate us, to extinguish everything and everyone.
Who was I compared to such perfection?
Who was I compared to such obscenity?
I felt broken.
I felt complete.
Terrified.
Emancipated.
A thousand mouths sang in a thousand languages in my mind, all equally correct, all equally wrong.
The duality that leads to madness.
In my heart, he introduced himself, Astaroth, the Grand Duke of Hell.
With a flick of his hand, he disappeared, but I still felt him watching us, assessing us.
Seated on a broken throne, there was the face of control.
Almost as tall and robust as my captured companion, a short, defined beard adorned a ruthless face marked by battles.
Gray hair and a leather cloak, a silver medallion around his neck, and a shining red ring on his left hand, eating grapes like a Greek emperor.
Jack graced us with his presence.
Mice once again took the initiative.
"My lord, we have found fresh meat of the highest quality to expand your empire, mostly young and strong, and the old one is wise and knows the ancient rituals."
Jack looked at us as if we were worms, evaluating us like a spoiled child receiving gifts at Christmas.
"You bring me trash and expect gratitude. If this is what you consider good quality, perhaps it's time to revoke your position."
Jack's ring began to glow, and I felt Astaroth's strong presence growing. Mice quickly knelt and spoke again.
"My king! One of them appears to be marked." Mice then looked at me with a malicious smile, sending a shiver down my spine.
Jack observed me, the disdain in his eyes palpable.
He seemed to notice something at that moment, scratched his beard, and smiled.
"Mice! I can always count on you to keep me entertained. Take him to the pit, send the others to the dungeon. There may be something useful in this batch after all.
Before I could protest, I was struck on the head with the butt of a gun, and I lost consciousness.
Sorry, I need a moment. Just remembering the terrible nights I spent in that place makes me feel sick.
Man, I hope smoking doesn't count as too big of a sin.
When I woke up, I was chained to a wooden pillar by the neck, with several other sinners chained around me.
The place was poorly lit, and I could smell feces and urine. They didn't even release us to go to the bathroom.
In front of me, Jack stood with two guards.
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. I'm sorry to disturb your rest, but I have some questions, and if you cooperate, you may find yourself involved in something much bigger and more important than your miserable afterlife."
"Screw you! I've seen the things your people do, you're all crazy. I don't want anything to do with you!"
Jack's ring began to glow, and Astaroth's silhouette became visible even in the deep darkness.
"For your own good, I hope you learn to have good manners. Now tell me, where is he?"
"What?"
The ring glowed, and Astaroth entered my mind.
The concept of emptiness is terrifying.
Non-existence is dreadful.
Emptiness occupied existence before everything existed; in the beginning, there was nothing, and then there was God.
My consciousness faded away, I felt the void corrupting my flesh prison; it's not a lack of senses, it's Nothing.
Sounds didn't vanish; they turned into nothingness. Along with sensations, memories, my existence.
I was completely devoured. I wanted to scream, but there was no voice, no will.
I wanted to exist, but there was never an "I."
I vanished completely, and then I was catapulted back into existence, where I could feel everything.
The infinite, it destroys.
Through Astaroth's eyes, I saw, I understood, not even in a thousand and one lives could I touch one percent of the truth.
My brain burned, flooded with everything that was, everything that would come. I cried, I screamed, agony drove me to madness; time made no sense anymore.
And then everything stopped. In despair, I screamed, I cried like a child. Jack embraced me with the tenderness of a mother as I collapsed into his chest. He gently stroked my head while speaking softly.
"Poor thing, so much suffering, so much lamentation. Pain is a choice, and I don't want it for you. I love you; I love all my possessions from the bottom of my heart. I only want what's best for you, but for that, I need your help. I want your pain to stop, help me make it stop! You just need to tell me, Where. is. he?"
I didn't want to return to nothingness; I didn't want to suffer with knowledge. Desperately, I lied; I said I knew where whoever he was looking for was, I would show him, he just had to let me go.
Jack acquired a sad expression, gently lifted my face, and said.
"Oh, child, why do you lie to me?"
With the scarlet glow of the ring, once again, I ceased to exist, catapulted between two extremes, blood streaming from my ears, I laughed, cried, begged.
All to make it stop, for him to remove that being from the room, I just wanted peace.
I felt my cells giving up, exploding and restructuring; memories were erased and returned, lived a thousand times per second.
My wife, my daughter, the drugs, the betrayal, the accident, the body, the hospital, the fall.
Once again, everything stopped.
I spat blood on Jack's cloak, who asked me again.
"Where is he, come on, damn it, just tell me! He marked you, he touched you, come on, where the hell is Samael, tell me and I'll leave you alone!"
I pleaded, I tried to tell him that I didn't know who he was talking about, I promised obedience, my life, anything for mercy.
Once again, he sent me to the void. For countless nights, the cycle repeated itself, I have no idea how long I was tortured in that place.
Eventually, Jack began to use me in other ways.
My days were divided between slave labor in the lower city and nights of torment in Jack's palace.
At the time, I didn't understand how he couldn't see that he was wrong; clearly, there was nothing special about me, I couldn't lead him to Samael, I was just a damned soul who could barely endure the first days in the abyss.
I just hadn't realized that Jack already had the certainty that I was different. After all, how could I be a nobody if Astaroth couldn't extract the "truth" from me, and they had to resort to torture?
Hope vanished from my chest; I didn't know if I would ever escape from there, if I would see John again before my soul was corrupted by the Grand Duke.
The years dragged on, and Jack's fury only grew.
Fortunately for me, in my fourth year in the Silver City, I gained a new cellmate, the old man who had been brought in the same group as me.
Little did I know that he would be my first clue to the way out of there.
I'm tired of remembering those horrible years, so I think I will stop here for today.
Clinging to hope in hell is as useless as using petrol to put out a fire; you'll only end up dying either way. But in the realm of insanity, it might not be all that crazy to think there might be a way out of the suffering.

My background: 53 y/o M, 5’11”, 180 lbs. Never exercised until age 45, then did moderate strength training until 8 months ago when I decided to take up running because I bought an Apple Watch Ultra.
My first running shoes were Nike Invincible 3. I chose them knowing nothing about running shoes. They just felt good in the store. During three months of using the Nike Run Club app, I built up to a 5k race. Some knee pain then set me back for a couple of months, and reading about how runners should have a shoe rotation, I went back to the store and bought Vomero 17, again just based on feel. I knew I wouldn’t like like them as much as my Invincible 3, but that was fine. I just needed a rotation shoe, and I wanted to stay with Nike because dumb-reason and I would have been overwhelmed had I considered all brands.
A couple months later, I splurged on Alphafly 3 because why not. They feel like walking is ski boots, but man I can fly! (Meaning I can do a 5k in 29 minutes rather than 30 in my Invincibles.)
Just a few days ago I bought Pegasus 39, Infinity RN 4, and Zoom Fly 5. — I walked around in the house in the Pegasus 39, and as expected they felt very flat. I ran a mile in the Zoom Fly 5 and they double slapped the ground like tap shoes, probably because I slightly heel strike, and they don’t have a roller feel. I then ran in the Infinity RN 4. They were fine and basic, but the upper was small and hot compared to my other shoes. I returned the Zoom Fly 5, Infinity RN 4, and Pegasus 39.
So I’ll stick with my Invincible 3 as my daily runners, and the Alphafly 3, and the Vomero 17 on a treadmill.
I’d been feeling guilty about not being able to tolerate a standard shoe and worrying that I won’t build strength by relying on semi-super and supershoes. But if it’s all I know, and it’s all I run in, and it’s all I plan to run in, so I’m going to embrace it and just enjoy what I’m doing. (I’ll still go to the gym and do my strength training in my Metcons.)
Edit: I just tried in the VaporFly 3. Felt good and soft and appropriately unstable compared to the Invincible 3. I couldn’t see a reason to get them since I already have the AF3. — I then tried on the Asics Metaspeed. Felt awesome. Like a perfect cross between the AlphaFly 3 and VaporFly 3. But again didn’t see a reason to get them with the current shoes I have. — As I know, it’s more about the runner than the shoes.

I have been holding off to try and get ahold of the other adapters to use with my favorite bowls but finally caved and got one. I’ll say again that I am aware of the opinions surrounding its creator, but I am here strictly to judge the product based on what was promised.
Bowl: Alpaca Goodfella 5.0
Rig: Igla El Bomber
Tobacco: Afzal Pan Raas
Coals: 3x Cocourth 26m
Setting: Inside, with a window cracked and reverse fan flow to reduce vapor accumulation.
This review will be updated with a video in the future using equipment to gauge heat retention in duplicate setups using both the provost w/foil and the default setup for the savant. Anecdotal observations only go so far when comparing the two.
I considered using a high end tobacco for my initial trial (Must have or Trifecta) but decided against it as I have been primarily smoking Afzal PR for the last month and I will be able to compare results better. I commonly use a mini rook with provost foiled for daily sessions and x2 26mm cubes. One thing to note is that I tend to enjoy intense shorter sessions (90 - 120 mins) rather than mellower and longer sessions. This means that my expected performance is based upon that time frame.
Coals were added at 3:05 PM in the directed pyramid formation. Went to do something and missed the 5 minute point (directed to remove third cube) by about 2 minutes so the bowl was hitting a bit hotter than intended. Removal of one coal didn’t do the trick so i purged and waited to see how long it would take to cool down. It took around 15 minutes before i finally removed a coal briefly.
Note: this is actually a good thing as the whole point of this device is to maintain the desired heat level
Session returned to optimal heat (for my tastes as I like my menthol-esque shishas to hit a bit hotter) after a few minutes, and i was able to add the coal back and continue with the session
At 4:05 (one hour in) I ashed the coals and added the third. Unfortunately I dropped one of the coals as i was pulling it out and some ashes landed on the savant baseplate and increased the draw a bit. User error lol.
Clouds started to fall off at around the 85 minute mark. Flavor was still there, but expectedly not as full. Probably about 65%.
Session ended at 4:40 (95 minutes)
I tried a few more sessions following the directions to a tee and they were all perfect (haze purple krush and starbuzz pirates cave and if youve smoked these you know they get unpleasant at higher heat). If you take off the third coal off at 5 minutes it should heat up to perfect levels by 6-7 minutes.
Overall, the product works very well at retaining heat at the desired level. No spikes observed, and provided fantastic sessions. Quality product that will likely result in my provost collecting dust. I’ve seen some claims on here that it provides a ‘cleaner’ flavor but I did not notice that at all. I think what is being observed is the true potential of consistency in heating which prevents harsher flavors during spikes. One thing to note is that the HSD/HMD is solidly locked in place and did not budge. This is a huge win on its own. Instructions worked perfectly and it truly seems to work as advertised.

Vapor Lock. is a C4 (C3/C5 static) wormhole corp created by a few close friends who got together after burning out of null bloc life and decided diving into wormholes with each other would deliver us the most enjoyable experience the game has to offer. Now, we’re looking to bring in players and vets who want to enjoy the close-knit community vibe in an environment that doesn’t care about your killboard, or previous knowledge of Wormholes.
What we offer:

• C3 and C5 statics for easy access to good PvE ISK for newer players and high SP veterans alike. As well as near-unlimited roaming opportunities down-chain.
  
• Corp Buyback at 90% Jita. Save yourself the trouble of hauling stuff out to get your hard-earned Isk.
  
• Galaxy Finder WH mapping service.
  
• FCs and corp leadership with over a decade of combined Wormhole experience
  
• Chain hunting and good ol’ wormhole brawls, targets allowing.
  
• Mixed-size excursions with other WH groups, roams (including FW), filament fleets, BLOPS
  
• Group PVE activity to provide extra security in numbers, and provide bonuses & assistance with content you’re learning while you get up to speed.
  
• A laid-back atmosphere where you don’t need to be worried about making mistakes as you learn.
  
• Full corp doctrine SRP
  

Our Requirements:

• A good attitude.
  
• A working microphone, Discord, and reasonable English proficiency.
  
• 30 million skill points - Or able to fly doctrine ships day one. (Exceptions can be made)
  
• Current Omega (through PLEX or $)
  
• Linking ALL characters on our SeAT website for ESI check and access to our services (yes, this is a deal breaker) https://seat.vaporlock.space
  
• A desire to both PvP and push your PvP boundaries to become a better pilot every time you fly.
  
• A willingness to help and be helped, and work alongside all of us to continue to improve our corporation
  
• A willingness to generate your own content, as is the nature of wormholes
  

If you are interested in applying, please Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/vaporlock and use the !apply command; or ping a recruiter if you have additional questions.