Sprinting through the tundra, FPS will drop from 60 to ~45 when new objects are loaded. Is this just the nature of the game engine? I'm not using Dyndolod or grass cache.
System specs:
i5 12600k
RX 7800XT 16GB VRAM
32GB DDR4 3600 RAM
Installed on NVME 1TB
1.5.97 btw
I'm using NAT 3 ENB and weathers and plenty of 2k/4k textures.
I've downloaded all the engine tweaks and display tweaks and CPU optimisation mods.
I want to use Dyndolod and grass cache but am afraid of more fps drops.
Standing still, with my fps unlocked I can reach 90+ on 3440x1440p.
Does anyone NOT experience fps drops when loading new exterior cells/objects?
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: added modlist
----MODLIST----
+Folkvangr Summer Tundra - Alternate Grass For Folkvangr
-Northern Grass Aliased Grass Fix
+(SKSE64) Havok Fix
-1_Northern Grass for ENB Complex Grass
-Northern Grass SE
-Tamrielic Grass 1
-Tamrielic Grass
+SSE FPS Stabilizer 1
-lodgen1
-lodgen
-DynDOLOD_Output1
-TexGen_Output1
+Lightened Skyrim - Base Object Swapper edition 1
-Rudy ENB NAT ADDONS and REQUiRED Files
+1_NAT.ENB - ESP WEATHER PLUGIN v3.1.1C - Fixed
+Skyrim Priority SE AE - CPU Performance FPS Optimizer
-xLODGen Resource - SSE Terrain Tamriel
+Rally's Solstheim AIO
+Tel Mithryn Overhaul - High Poly and Improved Meshes
+Solstheim Objects SMIMed - High Poly Dark Elf Furniture
+High Poly Trama Roots
+Reasonably Round Dunmer Lanterns - Lux Patch
+Reasonably Round Dunmer Lanterns
+Solstheim Mushrooms 2K-4K
-Grass Cache
+Northern Roads Grass Patch
+Northern Roads - Grass patch ULTIMATE 1
+ElSopa - Northern Roads Resculpted
+Northern Concept - Northern Roads
+Northern Roads - PATCHES 2
+Northern Roads Patch Collection
+Northern Roads
-Fantasia Landscapes Yellow Tundra Parallax 2k
+Fantasia Landscapes Parallax 2k
+Fantasia Landscapes 2k
+Environs - Riften Warehouse patches
+Environs - Riften Warehouse
+Container Item Distributor
+Environs - The Greenwood Shack
+Environs - Hroggar's House - Patch Collection
+Environs - Hroggar's House
+Environs - Abandoned Abodes patches
+Environs - Abandoned Abodes
+Environs - The Ruined Tundra patches
+Environs - The Ruined Tundra Farmhouse
+Environs - Kolskeggr patches
+Environs - Kolskeggr
+Environs - Master Plugin
-Folkvangr and Origins Of Forest Grass Patch
-Origins Of Forest - Too Much Grass Patch (OoF TMGP)
-Performance patches for The Grass Mod Your Mother Warned You about and Origins of Forest
-Origins Of Forest - 3D Forest Grass
-Cathedral - 3D Pine Grass
-Grass Sampler Fix
-Vinland Grass Patch
-Grass Cache Helper NG
+Cathedral - 3D Tundra Shrubs
+Another Nordic Imperial Stable Stonewalls Replacer
+Skyrim 3D Rocks Gray Retexture
+Skyrim 3D Rocks
+Whiterun City Stone Walls - Parallax 1k 2k 4k
+Cathedral - 3D Deathbell ENB-lights
+Cathedral - 3D Deathbell
+V2
+Grass Fps booster - Folkvangr twigs reduce
+Grass Patch
+Northern Roads - Grass patch ULTIMATE
+Folkvangr rocks, twigs and leaves remover
+No Grass In Objects
-Skoglendi - A Grass Mod
+CBBE 3BA Vanilla Outfits Redone
+Medieval Candlehorns and Sconces
+Skyrim 3D Furniture
+Skyrim 3D Misc - Barrels
+Skyrim 3D Misc - Buckets
+Skyrim 3D Misc - Butterchurn
+Skyrim 3D Misc - Chopping Block and Axe
+Skyrim 3D Misc - Dining Set
+Skyrim 3D Misc - Giant Mortar and Pestle
+Skyrim 3D Misc - Mammoth Cheese
+Skyrim 3D Misc - Markarth Cage
+Skyrim 3D Cooking
+Skyrim 3D Blacksmith
+Skyrim 3D Misc
+Medieval Silverworks
+Medieval Torch
+Skyrim 3D Docks and Boardwalks
+Falmer Blood Elixir Replacer
+Light Limit Fix
-Auto Parallax
+Whiterun Exteriors Patch Collection
+JK's Skyrim AIO patch fortified whiterun
+Fortified Whiterun
+CBBE 3BA Physics
+Patch for Lawless and Infiltration Quest Expansion
+Infiltration - Quest Expansion
+The Only Cure - Quest Expansion
+Face Sculptor Expanded
+The Heart of Dibella - Quest Expansion
+The Heart of Dibella - Quest Expansion RS children patch
+House of Horrors - Quest Expansion
+Unaggressive Dragon Priests Fix
+Missives
+Caught Red Handed - Quest Expansion
+Dragon Priest Retexture SE
+The Whispering Door - Quest Expansion
+The Innocence Lost - Quest Expansion
+The Notice Board SE
+Sidequests of Skyrim
+The Sinister Seven SSE
+Atlas Map Markers SE - Updated with MCM
+RUSTIC MAPS
+Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Deathbells and Nirnroots
+High Quality Ivy for Tree Stumps and Logs
+High Quality Ivy
+XML SSE
+Bijin Skin and CBBE Muscle Solution Neck Seam Patch
+XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended 1
+CBBE Outfits - No Rim Lighting
+Normal Map Options (CBBE)
+Juniper by Mari
+Jazbay by Mari
+JKs Guild HQ Interiors Patch Collection
+BnP teeth overhaul
+No Rim Lighting
+3BA Patch for CBBE
+Female Hands Redone
+Koralina's Makeup Tweaks - 4k 2k
+BiR's Remiel RaceMenu Preset - HPH
+A Huge RaceMenu Preset Collection
+The Eyes of Beauty - Ai Remastered
+Skin Feature Overlays SE - Freckles Scars Birthmarks Stretch Marks Moles and More for Face and Body RaceMenu Overlays
+Kalilies Brows for High Poly Head (and extras)
+Kalilies Brows
-Female Makeup Suite - Face - RaceMenu Overlays of Eyeliner EyeShadow Contours and Highlights - Special Edition
+The Eyes of Beauty Vampire Eyes SE AI
+The Eyes Of Beauty SSE
+Vanilla hair remake
+High Poly Head SE
+Rudy HQ - Falling Leaves and Needles SE
+Saints and Seducers Flora ENB Light
+Detailed Landscapes - Root Weeds in Morthal Swamp (BOS)
+Detailed Landscapes - Mushroom Trees in Morthal Swamp (BOS)
+Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Glowing Mushrooms
+Nordic Stonewalls
+Cathedral - 3D Lavender
+Cathedral - 3D Tundra Cotton
-Fantasia Landscapes Yellow Tundra 2k
+Rally's Hanging Moss
+Nordic Stonewall Terraces
-Complex Parallax Texture for Northern Roads - 8K - 4K - 2K
+Midwood Isle patches
+Midwood Isle
+Fall Forest And Yellow Shrubs Redone
+Lod Model Library for DynDOLOD
-Northern Roads - NGIO Patch
+Happy Little Trees Add-On - DynDOLOD 3
+Aspens Ablaze Add-On - DynDOLOD 3
-Ancient Land - Ryn's Whiterun City Limits Patch
-Ryn's Whiterun City LimitsHalted Stream Camp PATCH
+Whiterun City Limits_Bleakwind Basin PATCH
+Natural Waterfall patch small update
+Window Shadows - Patches for JK's Interiors
+Markarth Outskirts
+Lux (patch hub)
+Ryn's Robber's Gorge - Lux Via Navmesh Patch
+Lux - Via (patch hub)
-RedBag's Rorikstead - Enhanced - Lux Exterior
-RedBag's Rorikstead - Enhanced - Lux
+HSWhiterun - Arcadia's Cauldron - LUX
+Lux Patch Palaces
+Lux Orbis
+ENB Light
+Embers XD
+Lux
+Lux - Via
+JK's Interiors Patch Collection
-Ryn's Whiterun CIty Limits
+Ryn's Saarthal - Nordic Ruins Patch
-JK's Whiterun Outskirts
+JK's Windhelm Outskirts
-JK's Markarth Outskirts
+JK's Riften Outskirts
+JK's The Bannered Mare
+JK's Fort Dawnguard
+JK's Solitude Outskirts
+JK's College of Winterhold
+JK's Septimus Signus's Outpost
+JK's Sinderion's Field Laboratory
+JK's The Bards College
+JK's High Hrothgar
+JK's Castle Dour
+JK's Jorrvaskr
+JK's Haelga's Bunkhouse
+JK's Temple of Talos
+JK's Temple of the Divines
+JK's Temple of Kynareth
+JK's Temple of Dibella
+JK's Understone Keep
+JK's The Hag's Cure
+JK's Arnleif and Sons Trading Company
+JK's Silver-Blood Inn
+JK's The Temple of Mara
+JK's Mistveil Keep
+JK's The Ragged Flagon
+JK's The Pawned Prawn
+JK's Elgrim's Elixirs
+JK's The Bee and Barb
+JK's Palace of the Kings
+JK's New Gnisis Cornerclub
+JK's Sadri's Used Wares
+JK's White Phial
+JK's Candlehearth Hall
+JK's Blue Palace
+JK's Radiant Raiment
+JK's Bits and Pieces
+JK's Angeline's Aromatics
+JK's The Winking Skeever
+JK's Sleeping Giant Inn
+JK's Dragonsreach
+JK's The Drunken Huntsman
+JK's Warmaiden's
+JK's Belethor's General Goods
+JK's Arcadia's Cauldron
+JK's Skyrim - Reduced Cut - Dragon Bridge
-Enhanced Textures Detail (UV-tweaks) 2023 Cut
+eFPS - Official Patch Hub
+Unofficial eFPS Patches
+eFPS - Miscellaneous Patches
-eFPS - Redbag's Rorikstead
+eFPS - Exterior FPS boost
-RedBag's Rorikstead - Enhanced - Northern Roads
-RedBag's Rorikstead - Enhanced - NGIO
-RedBag's Rorikstead - Enhanced
-RedBag's Rorikstead - JK's Skyrim patch
+PELTAPALOOZA - Special Edition
+Lightened JK's Whiterun
-Solitude Docks Updated
+SkyrimUnderground_Add-On
+Skyrim Underground SSE
+Nordic Jarl Longhouses
-Parallax Earth Floor Whiterun 1
+JKs Skyrim - AI Overhaul SSE Patch
+Unique Towns - Base Object Swapper
+JK's Skyrim AIO - Reduced Cut
-JK's Whiterun
-RYFTEN - Make Your Riften - Inner
+Lightened JK's Riverwood
-JK's Riverwood
-The Great City of Winterhold Patch Collection
+Lightened Skyrim - Base Object Swapper edition
+USSEP Patch
-The Great City of Solitude SSE
-The Great City Of Morthal SSE Edition
+Darkwater Crossing - A Great Towns and Villages of Eastmarch Addon
+Rorikstead Basalt Cliffs Patches
-Spaghetti's Great Towns AIO Patch Collection
+The Great Town of Karthwasten - Farmhouse Textures
-The Great City of Dragon Bridge SSE Edition
-The Great City Of Falkreath SSE Edition
-The Great City of Rorikstead SSE Edition
-Thuldor's Ivarstead Patches
-Thuldor's Ivarstead
+Trainwreck - A Crash Logger
-RedBag's Morthal - FOMOD
-RedBag's Rorikstead FOMOD
+HS Whiterun - Arcadia's Cauldron
-The Great City Of Dawnstar SSE Edition
+HS Resources
+The Great Village of Old Hroldan SSE
-The Great Town of Ivarstead - Notice Board Patch
+The Great Town of Shor's Stone Patch Collection
-The Great Towns and Cities - Missives Patch (Falkreath)
-The Great Town of Ivarstead Patch Collection
+The Great Town and Village - SMIM Patch
+Parallax Meshes for The Great Cities Towns Villages
+Kolskeggr Mine - A Great Towns and Villages of the Reach Addon
+The Great Town of Shor's Stone - Religion Mod Addons - Wintersun - Pilgrim
-The Great Town of Ivarstead SSE
-The Great City Of Winterhold SSE Edition
+The Great Village of Kynesgrove
+The Great Town of Shor's Stone SSE
+The Great Town of Karthwasten SSE
+The Great Village of Mixwater Mill SSE
-More Trees in Cities
-RedBag's Morthal - SE
+3D Riften Trellis and Roofs
-RedBag's Dragonsreach - SE
-RedBag's Rorikstead
-RedBag's Falkreath
-Medieval Lanterns of Skyrim Patch COTN DAWNSTAR
-Cities of the North - Morthal lanterns patch
-Dawn of Skyrim - AI Overhaul patch
-Dawn of Spaghetti's Skyrim
-Dawn of Skyrim (Director's Cut) SE
+Nordic Ruins of Skyrim SSE
-Spaghetti's Cities - AIO - Interior Holds Only Patch
+Spaghetti's Palaces - AIO
+Spaghetti's Faction Halls - AIO
+Spaghetti's Orc Strongholds - AIO
-Spaghetti's Solstheim - AIO
-Spaghetti's Cities - AIO
+AI Overhaul SSE
+Rorikstead Basalt Cliffs
-Spaghetti's Towns - AIO
-Obsidian Mountain Fogs Tweaked
-Obsidian Mountain Fogs
+Rudy - More dramatic Red Mountain Plume
+Skyrim - A Mountainous Experience
+Majestic Mountains - Simplicity of Snow Patch
-Fantasia Landscapes Yellow Tundra Parallax 4k
-Fantasia Landscapes Yellow Tundra 4k
-Fantasia Landscapes
+Simple Snow Improvements - Skyrim Fixes (BOS)
+Simplicity of Snow
-JK's Skyrim Patch COTN DAWNSTAR
-Cities of the North - Dawnstar
-Riften Docks Overhaul
-JK's Skyrim Patch COTN WINTERHOLD
-Cities of the North - Winterhold - JK's + Medieval Lanterns Patch
-Cities of the North - Winterhold
+FYX - 3D Stockades - Walls and Gate
+4K Tusks
+The Great Cities- Resources
-COTN JK's Skyrim and Medieval Lanterns Patch - MORTHAL
-Medieval Lanterns of Skyrim - JKs Skyrim Patch
-JK's Skyrim Patch COTN MORTHAL
-Cities of the North - Morthal
+Stones of Solitude - Better Blended Rock Piles
+Sepolcri - JK's Skyrim patch
+Sepolcri - A complete Burial Sites overhaul
+VIGILANT Voiced - English Addon
+VIGILANT SEAE
+UNSLAAD Voiced - English Addon
+Unslaad SE
+SIRENROOT - HD Texture Pack
+SIRENROOT - Deluge of Deceit
+Nilheim - Misc Quest Expansion
+Natural Waterfalls
-DynDOLOD_Output
-TexGen_Output
+Unmarked Locations Pack All In One - Patch Hub
+Unmarked Locations Pack - All In One
-Ryn's Sarethi Farm
+Ryn's Sven's and Hilde's House
+Ryn's Faendal's House
+Ryn's Alvor and Sigrid's House
+Ryn's Bleak Falls Tower
+Ryn's Bleakwind Basin
+Ryn's Alchemist's Shack
+Ryn's Hod and Gerdur's House
+Ryn's Broken Tower Redoubt
+Ryn's Lost Valley Redoubt
+Ryn's Mehrunes Dagon's Shrine
+Ryn's Mistwatch Folly
+Ryn's Ustengrav
+Ryn's Azura's Shrine
+Ryn's Lund's Hut
+Ryn's Standing Stones Ryn's Farms PATCH
+Ryn's Skyrim Official Patch Hub
+Ryn's Crabber's Shanty and Titanclaw Lair
+Ryn's Secunda's Kiss
+Ryn's White River Watch
+Ryn's Anise's Cabin
+Ryn's Robber's Gorge
+Ryn's Halted Stream Camp
+Ryn's Goldenglow Estate
+Ryn's Bleak Falls Barrow
+Ryn's Valtheim Towers
+Ryn's Saarthal
+Ryn's Standing Stones
+Ryn's Farms
+Ryn's Dragon Mounds Collection
+Ryn's Karthspire
+Ryn's Western Watchtower
+Aspens Ablaze
+Ryn's Sleeping Giant Inn
+Ryn's Riverwood Trader
+Grass FPS Booster
-Whiterun Has Walls Patches
-Whiterun Has Walls
+Cathedral 3D Mountain Flowers - Alternate Textures
+Keyword Item Distributor
+SPID for Footprints
+Icy Mesh Remaster
+Animated Ice Floes
+Rainbows Remade
+Cathedral - 3D Thicket and Dead Shrub
+2K ENB Complex Textures
+Cathedral - 3D Solstheim Grass
+Cathedral - 3D Grass Library
+Major Cities Mesh Overhaul
+Flickering Meshes Fix
+Unique Map Weather
+Scaleform Translation Plus Plus NG
+Beyond Reach
+Beyond Skyrim - DLC Integration Patch 1.6.2
+Beyond Skyrim - Bruma
+Beyond Skyrim - Assets
+Papyrus Tweaks NG
+DynDOLOD DLL NG
+DynDOLOD Resources SE
+Wyrmstooth
+Fuz Ro D-oh - Silent Voice
+Happy Little Shrubs
-Dasinho's Grass Edit - Folkvangr (partially) Reimagined
+Untarnished UI 1.1.61
+Skyrim Character Sheet
+Target Focus
+ICFur's Improved Reach Fern
+Reach Shrub Redone
+Reach Bush to Rosemary
-Ulvenwald Lite - Vanilla Replacer
+ColdSun's Visions - NPCs AIO
+ColdSun's Visions - Asset Pack
+Sky Reflection Fix
+Locational Encounter Zones
+Camera Noise
+Better Combat Escape - SSE
+Wade In Water Redone
+Loki's Wade In Water
+Boreal Whiterun - 4k 2k
+Skyland AIO
-NORDIC UI - Miscellaneous Patches
-Nordic UI 32 by 9 and 21 by 9 aspect ratio patch
+Experience
-Nordic-Ish TrueHUD Recent Item Widget (Made by SwitchbackModding)
-Nordic...ish - A TrueHUD preset based on Nordic UI
+Base Object Swapper 1
+TrueHUD - HUD Additions Latest
-NORDIC UI - Interface Overhaul
+Dear Diary Dark Mode (white text)
+Realistic Skin And Hair Shaders - Giants
+Realistic Skin Shaders - Falmer and Hagravens
+Dust Effects by HHaleyy
+Animated Forge Water
+FleshFX
+Water Effects Brightness and Reflection Fix
+ENB Lights For Effect Shaders
+HD Local Map
+CBPC Equipment Physics
+Window Shadows RT (beta)
+Highlandcow HD by Pfuscher
+No more Radial Blur - Performance optimization
+Word Wall Transparency Fix for ENB
+Medieval Lanterns of Skyrim
-JK's Skyrim No Lights Patch
+Compass Navigation Overhaul
+Infinity UI
+Ruin Levers addon SE version
+Chests addon
+4K textures for the ruins chests urns and a wood
+Rudy HQ - Nordic Ruins SE
+Glorious Doors of Skyrim (GDOS)
+JS Unique Utopia SE - Daggers
+JS Purses and Septims SE
+JS Shrines of the Divines SE
+CC's Enhanced Ore Veins SSE - 2K - 9.0.1
+Security Overhaul SKSE - Lock Variations
+Draugr.by.Kajuan
+Storm Lightning for SSE and VR (Minty Lightning 2019)
+Andromeda - Unique Standing Stones of Skyrim
+SSE FPS Stabilizer
-Kempers Lavender Tundra - Folkvangr Patch
-Kemper's Lavender Field Tundra - Red Lavender FIXED
-Kemper's Lavender Field Tundra
+Cathedral - 3D Snow Berries
+-Skyrim 202X 10.0.1 - Other PART 3
+Skyrim Landscape and Water Fixes
+Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch
+Backported Extended ESL Support
+Scrambled Bugs
+Expressive Facial Animation -Female Edition-
+KS Hairdos - HDT SMP (Physics)
+EFM SE - Racemenu plugin
+Expressive Facegen Morphs SE
+-Skyrim 202X 10.0.1 - Architecture
+Bijin Skin - CBBE 8K Body Diffuse
+Bijin Skin - CBBE
+RUSTIC WINDOWS - Special Edition
+Vine Maple Redone
+Project New Reign - Nemesis Unlimited Behavior Engine
-XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended
+CBBE 3BA
+Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Enhancer -CBBE-
+ENB Helper SE
+FSMPM - The FSMP MCM
+SMP-NPC crash fix
+Faster HDT-SMP
+CBPC - Physics with Collisions
+Sound Record Distributor
+Skyrim Immersive Creatures Special Edition
+Audio Overhaul for Skyrim (4.1.2)
+SSE Fixes
+More Informative Console
+Folkvangr for ENB Complex Grass
+Folkvangr - Grass and Landscape Overhaul
+SSE Display Tweaks
+High performance configuration
+FileAccess Interface for Skyrim SE Scripts - FISSES
+True Directional Movement - Modernized Third Person Gameplay
+Spell Perk Item Distributor
+Ruins Clutter Improved SE
+Footprints enb patch
+Immersive Sounds - Compendium
+Footprints
+Enhanced Blood Textures
+ConsoleUtilSSE
+.NET Script Framework
+Ancient Land Patches
+Ancient Land
+Only Pine Shrubs (BOS)
+RogueUnicorn - City Trees
-Seasonal Landscapes
+Better Blended Mushrooms
-Seasons of Skyrim SKSE
+Waterplants
+JK's Skyrim
+Cathedral - 3D Mountain Flowers
+Cathedral - 3D Stonecrop
+Cathedral - 3D Sword Ferns
+Cathedral - 3D Clovers - Hybrid 3D
+Cathedral - 3D Thistle
+powerofthree's Tweaks
+Cathedral - 3D Dragons Tongue
+Static Mesh Improvement Mod Improvement Mod
+aMidianBorn Book of Silence SE
+Static Mesh Improvement Mod
+Happy Little Trees
+Water for ENB
+Majestic Mountains Main
+RUGNAROK - Special Edition
+High Poly Project
+SSE Engine Fixes (skse64 plugin)
+SmoothCam - Modern Camera Preset
+SmoothCam
+Enhanced Volumetric Lighting and Shadows (EVLaS)
-Complete Widescreen Fix 219 for Vanilla and SkyUI
+Quick Loot RE
+UIExtensions
+Achievements Mods Enabler
-TrueHUD - HUD Additions
+SkyHUD
+RaceMenu
+Skyrim Unbound Reborn
+MCM Helper
+PapyrusUtil SE - Modders Scripting Utility Functions
+Address Library for SKSE Plugins
+SkyUI
*Creation Club: ccBGSSSE025-AdvDSGS
*Creation Club: ccBGSSSE037-Curios
*Creation Club: ccQDRSSE001-SurvivalMode
*DLC: Dawnguard
*DLC: Dragonborn
*DLC: HearthFires
*Unmanaged: _ResourcePack
*Unmanaged: ccBGSSSE001-Fish

(All names used are aliases) My memories of Ken(He/Him) go back as far as I can remember. We were neighbors when I was around 2 or 3 years old and I spent a lot of time playing with his son who is only a couple years older than me. I also know that there was a brief relationship between him and my mom during the time that we were neighbors.
Growing up around him I always knew he was eccentric. He was constantly making jokes and it was in such an odd way. It was very childlike the way he would play around and as a child myself it was easy for me to enjoy being around him.
Eventually, my family ended up moving out of town and I didn't see him as often but he was still involved in our lives and would come to visit a couple times a year. He soon got married to Lana(They/Them) who I actually still hold dear in my heart to this day. Unfortunately due to my situation with their partner, our relationship hasn't ever been the same.
In 2018 when I was 14 I ended up moving in with Ken and Lana so I could attend a performing arts high school. I moved back home for a bit due to mental health issues and then moved back in with them a year later after dealing with family issues. During that time I lived with them I grew really close to Ken. Being a 14/15 year old girl I felt that he was one of the only male figures in my life that I could trust and rely on. I slowly started opening up to him more and more. I talked about my mental health struggles, my fear of future stability due to growing up poor, and my romantic relationships. I really felt like I had a safe place to express anything I needed to.
He would always take me out and spend a bunch of money of whatever my heart desired. Always let me order whatever I wanted when going out to eat and he knew how much it meant to me due to my financial situation. It soon escalated to him purchasing weed for me when I was 15. This is where I feel like he started to believe he had some sort of power over me because this had to be a secret between and him.
A moment that I think back on a lot is when he sat me down at the table and told me that Lana is a millionaire. He told me that Lana was born into a very rich family. He said that they could adopt me and I could have that money too one day. He said that I would never have to worry about my future ever again. That I would never have to struggle and everything would be taken care of. He said these things knowing how young and impressionable I was. He said these things knowing that I had come to him and Lana many times to ask them to help my mom when she was struggling financially. Worst of all he knew how scared I was that I would never be stable and how good it felt to believe that things would work out for me. Of course this was something that he wanted me to keep a secret from Lana because they don't want people knowing about their financial background.
Eventually my mom and I were able to figure out our family issues and ended up moving into a different place out of town again. It was 2020 and I was 16 at the time. I would occasionally visit Lana and Ken's home. Ken would usually buy me weed when Lana wasn't there and we would smoke it together. Every-time we would smoke together I noticed that he started to get a little too touchy for my comfortability. He would sit very close to me on the couch, I would try to nonchalantly scoot away from him but he would always find a way to get closer and closer to me. He would touch me on my shoulders and knees while he was talking and I remember always feeling uncomfortable about it. Unfortunately I didn't speak up for myself and I wish that I would've because I think that I could've avoided everything that happened after had I just told him that I was uncomfortable.
Christmas of 2020 my mom told me that Ken would be visiting. I was actually pretty excited to see him as I always enjoyed chatting and catching up with him in a comfortable setting. I remembered the last time I saw him he told me that he was gonna get me a "secret gift", I was honestly hyped about it because my 16 -year-old brain thought that he was going to buy me some more weed. When it was time for him to give me my gift we sat together in my room he briefed me about how he was seggs positive wanted to get a gift that would "help me out" and then he pulled a $200 vibrator out of his suitcase. I felt my heart drop in that moment and all my muscles went stiff. Immediately I felt extremely uncomfortable. I had no idea how to respond or react to this, I really didn't think that this would be the "secret gift" but as soon as I saw it I felt stupid that I didn't realize sooner. I awkwardly feigned gratefulness and accepted the gift.
It took me awhile to find the courage to tell someone about what happened. I kept trying to justify it in my head. I wanted to badly to believe that it was all innocent. It wasn't until spring of 2021 when my mom told me that Ken would be coming to our house for my birthday that I finally spoke up about it. It was the right thing to do, but nothing after that was easy. My mom freaked out, she spam texted him calling him a predator and all sorts of things. Ken never reached out to me to apologize, Lana apologized many times. I know they were furious with him. However, to this day I don't think they understands the extent of what I went through with this. I don't blame them but it's hard. I feel like Ken was able to give Lana the impression that he was just trying to be a "safe" and "helpful" adult figure in my life. I feel like it's much deeper than that and I feel like he has controlled a lot of the narrative.
I apologize for the long post and I highly appreciate if you took the time to read it all. This is something that I've been holding onto for a long time and it feels good to finally talk about it more openly. At 20 I'm still working through the emotional damage this caused me and trying to rationalize what even happened to me. Was I groomed?

​

You have survived the end of the world as we know it and have a single, full charge of your gen 1 Steam Deck™. You will be playing Diablo II^®: Resurrected in these trying times, obviously. The tome below instructs how to get the most life out of the Steam Deck™, while having a surprisingly crisp and pleasant, authentic audio–visual experience (aside from any personal plague/hungegrief issues, post humanity).

​
This config should take about 3 minutes to setup. Once complete you will have up to 5+ full hours to enjoy Narlant weed with Warriv and Gheed (and probably Deckard too).
​

• Launch Diablo II^®: Resurrected and enter a single-player game
• I recommend that you follow the settings exactly as below before making personal tweaks

Diablo II: Resurrected in-game settings

Important: Toggle to legacy graphics by pressing L2 + "View" button (small top-left button ^▭▭). You will need to toggle to legacy graphics whenever you enter a new game.
Press "Options" menu button top right of Steam Deck™ ≡ (you will need to save and exit, and restart the game from Battle.net browser once all GFX settings below are changed, to reset textures, etc.)
Options – Video
Display

• Display mode – Full screen
• Resolution – 1280 x 800
• Resolutions scale – 50^\)
• Sharpening – 0
• Brightness – To taste (mid recommended)
• Screen space – Default
• Vertical sync – Off
• Framerate Cap – 25^✝

^\) ^{Resolution scaling will not have any effect on the quality of the graphics in game. We are not using the 3D graphics that resolution scale affects. ✝ This is max fps for legacy graphics}
Graphics

• Texture Quality – Low
• Character Detail – Low
• Environmental Detail – Low
• Transparency Quality – High (this is the minimum setting)
• Shadow Quality – Low
• Anti-Aliasing – Off
• Dynamic resolution scaling – Off
• Framerate Target – 0
• VFX Quality – Low
• VFX Lighting Quality – Low

Legacy Video Options

• Game Resolution – 800 x 600
• Lighting Quality – High
• Blended Shadows – On
• Perspective Mode – Off
• Contrast – 20 (highly recommended)
• Emulation – Resurrected (or Glide)

Options – Gameplay
User interface

• Show Life Orb Text: Yes (recommended)
• Show Mana Orb Text: Yes (recommended)
• Show Ammo Count On Skills: Yes (recommended)

Automap

• Automap Size – Mini Map Right (recommended)
• Automap Opacity – Custom, 70 (recommended)

Steam Deck™ settings

Press "Settings" button on the bottom-right of the Steam Deck™ ●●●
Performance menu ▭

• Select “Advanced View”
• Use per-game profile – On
• Frame Limit – 25 FPS (50 Hz)
• Disable Frame Limit – Off
• Allow Tearing – On
• Half Rate Shading – On
• TDP Limit – On^#
• Watts – 9^#
• Manual GPU Clock Frequency – On, 1100^#
• Scaling Filter – Linear (default)

^{#more testing needed, seems fine though}
Quick Settings menu ⚙

• Volume and brightness level to taste – lower brightness and audio to maximize time.
• Finish – Exit Diablo II^®: Resurrected and relaunch from Battle.net launcher.

​
Notes: This is the first version of this guide. As I discover new optimizations myself and from the community, I may release newer versions. I highly recommend the low-contrast setting as it makes the game seem less pixelated and is gentler on the eyes. I also recommend using the mini-map as opposed to full-screen.
Any improvement suggestions are welcome.
​

Hey Everyone,
We have recently enabled Einstein Activity Capture(EAC) in our org and it seems that its creating more complications regarding activity tracking that we all anticipated. If you used EAC, I'd love to hear how it went for you.
Here's how it went for us.
Background: Org is roughly 8 years old. 420 users. Roughly 300 active EAC users. EAC syncing e-mails 180 days, syncing events bi-directionaly, NOT syncing contacts, internal event sync is OFF.
One of the features that interested us was the '360 Reporting' (Activities Unified report type, which seemed to launch with Winter 24'). This appeared to be a decent way to report on data stored in AWS(right?). However, perhaps this was our own fault by not turning over every single stone before launch, but we found countless scenarios over the years where we have Sales Reps adding themselves as individual contact records on Customer Accounts (using our company domain - example: [john.smith@ourdomain.com](mailto:john.smith@domain.com) is at ABC Company). This has cluttered up their activity metrics because any time they send an e-mail to a specific customer, EAC seems to associated their e-mail address with every record that is found (User and Contact e-mail addresses). Boy what a mess. I'm working on clean up this week. Has anyone else ran into this?
Secondly, we are using a service user which is connected to our O365 Exchange which has full impersonation rights to our internal domain users. This seemed like an easy way for our Salesforce users to easily authenticate and start using EAC once they accept the Terms and Conditions. However, it turns out, nested deep in the weeds, that per Salesforce Support...they do NOT support e-mail aliases for Hybrid Exchange Configurations (example: john.smith@ourdomain.onmicrosoft.com). Umm, what? We can't be the only mid sized organization with a hybrid exchange configuration. This is seemingly causing Outlook meetings to flow over (via EAC), into Salesforce as EMAILS...not events. Has anyone else ran into this before?!
Other pain points. Over the previous 2 years, our Sales Leaders were clamping down on Sales Reps about manual activity tracking (using SF for Outlook plug in & mainly tracking events and tasks on Salesforce records). You would think everyone would be pleases that, for the most part, they wouldn't have to do this anymore with EAC enabled. However, old habits die hard with certain managers still clutching on to their reports which capture manually tracked activities and get confused by all of the new EAC automated activities (e-mails). We've communicated this out countless times, even from Executive Leadership, but teaching an old dog new tricks can be hard at times.
Anyways, thanks for letting me vent. I'm also wanting to validate or check to see if others ran into similar issues getting EAC launched successfully. If you are thinking of turning this on, maybe this could be a word of caution before doing so. Use a partner if you can, or triple check everything.

I'm getting finger printed for an FBI background check for work. This whole place smells like weed. Yesterday, I watched someone nonshallently roll a joint in an oil change place. I remember throwing weed out of my car window because a cop was five cars behind me. This is going to take some getting used to. Anyone else a little tripped out by casual public weed use? I still smoke mine alone in my garage next to the lawnmower the way god intended.... And buying pot with a debit card is weird, too! They are putting totally legit folks with obvious aliases operating small businesses behind the Stop and Go out of business
Non edit edit! So many kindred spirits! You're not a middle-aged pothead until your kid looks at you in Walmart and says "Mom! That guy smells like the garage!"
Second edit: and it's just occurred to me that there is going to be a generation of people that are never going to understand what Jay and Silent Bob were doing in front of that gas station. "$15 little man put that money in my hand..."

I found myself telling someone recently that updating a password is hard. And then realized, some people might not believe that.

"What's so hard about it? I pick a new password, update the website, and update my password manager. Done and done, right?"

From my viewpoint, there are two basic challenges. First, at EVERY point in the update process, you want a plan to rollback or recover. What if you lose your Internet connection while updating? What if your computer crashes? You want to make sure you always have a way to log into that website.
The second problem is that each website has its own...peculiar...notion of acceptable passwords. Sometimes it's like an evil miniature version of The Password Game. You have to keep attempting different passwords until you find one that works. But we'll get back to that.
I am laying out a complete roadmap on how to update a password safely. Doing it correctly is a lot of work, and I bet that none of us will do it completely correctly every time. But hopefully after you've read this, you'll know when you've taken a shortcut, kinda like rolling that four-way stop like you did yesterday.
As I was thinking about explaining all this, I realized there is closely related to another workflow: creating a NEW login. I will discuss this at the end, but assume for the purposes of simplicity that you've already done THAT correctly as you try to update the password.

But WHY update my password?

Haha, you caught me. Generally speaking, you shouldn't! Barring certain external factors, you should always leave well enough alone. You're going to see that updating the password is complex and has a certain amount of risk.
One common case is if the website itself requires it to be updated. I know that ADP does this; they require my password to be updated yearly. Which can be more often than I log in, so that EVERY time I log in, I have to reset my password. ADP is also a poster child for Dumb Password Rules; they only allow short passwords without very many special characters. But I digress.
Another plausible case is if the website itself has been breached. How can you know? Perhaps the website owner has reached out to you. But my experience has been that a website that stores your passwords in recoverable format (and that's not necessary, btw) probably doesn't have very accountable leadership. Look, if you haven't done so already, please take a moment and sign up at Have I Been Pwned. This site will send you an email if your username/password turns up in a published list on the Dark Web. (Consider giving them a donation, as well. This is a free service that you already benefit from, whether you realize it or not.)
The most extreme case would be if your vault itself has been breached. This is the least likely scenario, but it's not impossible. LastPass users arguably have a concern about their vault contents from about a year ago. Some people discover that malware may have compromised their device and conclude that EVERY secret in their vault needs to be updated.
I don't think this last case occurs very often, and when it does it's almost always a result of opsec failures. For instance, if you were using an inferior password manager like Chrome, I have seen reports where malware happily scraped the entire database and sent it to a command-and-control server. But in any event, you may one day conclude that changing every password is your best path forward.

(Almost) Before You Start

Log into your website. I do NOT recommend using a mobile device for this. It's going to be challenging enough even on a trusted desktop device. Take a look around first.

• Does the site have a recovery workflow? These can be backup codes, recovery questions, or possibly even an SMS message, like Authy does. Is all of this current? If there are secrets, do you have those secrets in your own password manager backup? Remember, if something goes wrong during the update process, will you have enough to still be able to log into this site?
• Does the site have 2FA (two-factor authentication)? Even if it didn't when you originally set up the account, this might have changed since then. This is a great opportunity to set that up. If you set up TOTP (the "authenticator app"), be sure you have the new TOTP key stored in your password manager backup or otherwise made resilient; you don't want to lose access to the site if you dog grabs your phone and jumps in the pool. If you end up adding 2FA, start over. Log out and in again, and work back up to this point.
• Find the password change web form. This usually asks for your old password and then your new password, twice. But wait....

Save the Old Password

"What? My password is already in my vault? What are you going on about?"

You can still lose your old password as part of this update process. Even though Bitwarden has a "password history", IT ONLY SAVES SIX PREVIOUS PASSWORDS. If you have to make six attempts to find a new password (because the website keeps rejecting them), you will LOSE your existing password.
So, start by copying your existing password and putting it in the Notes section of your existing password entry. Make sure to Save your updated vault entry; this will push the update to the Bitwarden cloud servers.
When all is said and done, feel free to delete that from the Notes. But there's no hurry, and perhaps you might want to wait a bit, in case something still goes sideways.

Find A Candidate Password

Note I didn't say "pick a new password". Unfortunately, the new password is going to be a negotiation between you and the website. And if the website has drain bamaged password rules, this step will have to be repeated.
A good candidate password has these elements:

• It is unique. Any password in your vault should be used on only one website. If that website gets breached, the "blast radius" damage from the breach should be limited to that one website. Note that you cannot pick one random password and then use slight variations everywhere. Attackers and AIs know about this trick. For every one of your passwords they find, they will try perhaps a million variations of it looking for the cutesy little pepper or suffix you added to it.
• It is random. You MUST NOT make up passwords yourself. You must use a password generator, like the one built into every Bitwarden client. The ones you make up yourself are NOT RANDOM, and will be easily guessed by an AI like ChatGPT.
• It is strong. Encryption nerds characterize this as "bits of entropy". Simply put, how many random guesses will an attacker need to make if they attempt to brute force guess the password.

How strong is "strong enough"? Put it this way: if you're going to live 50 years and there is a 1% chance an attacker can guess it after 100 years, odds are the account (or vault, or whatever) will be long gone before they guess the secret. There is no 100% certainty here. You have to decide how heavily to stack the odds.
Current thinking is that 80 bits of entropy is likely to remain impenetrable for the foreseeable future. When generating a passphrase 80 bits of entropy is about six words in an EFF Long Word List, which is what the Bitwarden passphrase generator uses.
For a random sequence of A-Z, a-z, or 0-9 (62) characters, that's about 14 characters.
Note that some people pick RIDICULOUSLY long passwords. Look, the underlying encryption algorithm (AES256) only uses 256 bits. If you are generating a password from A-Z a-z 0-9, that means anything over 43 characters is useless. For the EFF Long Word List, that's 20 words. (Not that ANYONE would ever pick a passphrase with that many words. That's just wrong in so many ways.)
Warning: Long Passwords
Speaking as a software developer, I wish I could say this was not an issue. Unfortunately there are a huge number of mouth breathing idiots out there selling their services as website developers. They do things like save your password unencrypted in a database column, so that hackers can steal it. And then the column may have a fixed maximum width. Or the website input form may have a maximum width (occasionally enforced but not reported back to you). And so forth.
My point is that "longer is not necessarily better". If you can convince the website to accept a A-Z a-z 0-9 password 14 characters, you've succeeded. Don't tempt fate by trying to find all the mistakes the website developer made.
But What About Passphrases?

"Passphrases are always longer than a random password. Why in the world would I use a passphrase?"

Good question, thanks. In general, you're right. Just use a random password whenever you need a password that Bitwarden will be able to autofill for you.
Passphrases have a specific use, where you have to memorize it (such as your vault master password) or transcribe it, such as typing it into your work laptop or entering it into a game console Ouija board (well, that's what I call it). If you have a situation like that, a passphrase is your best solution, but otherwise don't tempt fate and expose website bugs.

Submitting the New Password

Start by SAVING the new password in your vault. If anything fails at this point, you have both the old and new passwords in the vault, so you will be covered in any contingency to get back into the site.
Back on the pasword change web form, paste the old password (usually required), and paste the new password (usually needed twice).
Do the dance to try to get the new password accepted. This could be as simple as just clicking a "submit" button. Other websites will require you enter an SMS countersign from your phone. Other variations are possible.
If you are lucky, the website will successfully accept your new password. If this happens, YOU ARE NOT DONE. Read on. If you get an error message, congratulations: you've been caught in the mouth-breather website developer's version of the The Password Game. Pick a new password, rinse, and repeat.

Testing the New Password

The website accepted your new password; hooray! ...I guess?
The problem is all those pesky website bugs I mentioned previously. The website developer, the Android app developer, and the iOS app developer are all different people, and they probably don't even talk to each other. There is a huge opportunity for things to go wrong here.
Start with the website. Simply log out and in again. This is also a good opportunity to verify that autofill is working correctly on your desktop machine.
If something goes wrong here, you are in recovery mode:

• Try the old password; maybe the new one didn't "stick" at all.
• Try shorter version(s) of the new password. The password update form might process your new password differently than the login form.
• Worst comes to worse, invoke the recovery workflow for that website. This is why I insisted you make sure the recovery stuff was current before you started.

Next comes the mobile app(s). For each app on each platform, rinse and repeat: log out and in again. If you can't log in, see above. This is the time to discover any problems -- not when you're in a rush and you actually need to use the app.

FOOTNOTE: Creating a New Website Login (Picking an Email Address)

Up to this point I've focused on changing the password for an existing website. But there is some extra thinking you should do when you first sign up.
First, do you really need an account? Many vendors allow "guest checkout". This is where you can purchase without actually creating a login. Honestly, every account you create is a potential threat surface. You don't know just what kinds of mistakes or vulnerabilities the vendor has in their server. If you are an infrequent visitor to the website, please consider not creating an account after all.
Second, don't use the same email address everywhere. Email addresses aren't intended to be complete secrets, but using the same email for every website creates its own risks. In particular, credential stuffing start with your username (i.e., your email) and proceed from there to password guessing. If the attacker doesn't know your username, they are out in the weeds before they even get started.
So yeah, having multiple email addresses can be helpful. Keep in mind there can be a small risk here. Those recovery workflows, like sending you an email when you forget a password? If you don't know what email you used, you're sunk. This is yet another reason why you need a good password manager, with good backups.
There are a number of different philosophies you can use here. One extreme is to use a different email address EVERYWHERE. Bitwarden has a recent email alias feature that will help with this.
I take a middle approach. I have one email address that I use for social media, e-commerce, mailing list, and other public persona. I have a second email address that is very closely guarded; I use it for my most sensitive correspondence.
There is yet another trick that works with many email providers: the "plus" email address. Suppose your email address is clueless_user@gmail.com. Did you know that clueless_user+abcd@gmail.com and clueless_user+hello_world@gmail.com will deliver to the same mailbox? Clueless User can route all the correspondence to the one mailbox. But when she signs up on a website, she picks a different unique "plus" suffix for that website. In order for an attacker to brute force her password, the attacker would need to also guess the unique suffix. It's worth a thought.
One final note about email aliases: I do NOT recommend using an email alias for the Bitwarden vault itself. Your email support should be swift, reliable, and generate "push notifications" on your mobile phone. The alias service creates extra moving parts, which reduce reliability and increase latency. If you are already using the same email address as the one you gave out to ToenailClippersAreUs.com, don't despair; did you know you can CHANGE your Bitwarden email address? Just beware that this change will force all your Bitwarden clients to be logged out, so make sure your backups and emergency kit are completely current before making this change.

Hi Guys,
First of all let me say that I'm not used to sharing my thoughts with others. Generally I like to keep to myself with the exception of talking to a group of close friends whom I have known for ages - some of the them as long as since we went to my country's equivalent of primary school. I don't have an active social media presence neither do I post or comment much under aliases on here or other forums. I'm telling you this so that you know that creating this post means a lot to me and I was thinking very hard If I should do it or not. I decides to go ahead because I think it may spur a discussion about abusing substances in our profession and I'm interested in reading your perspectives on that or even your stories if you'd like to share them.
That said, here goes: I'm currently employed at B4 and do tax consulting work, mostly tax planning, opinions and some M&A due diligence as well. I've been here for two years now and just received a senior promotion (in my country it is usually 3 years on associate grade before being promoted). I'm considered a top performer and won a jurisdiction wide contest for associates this year and represented my country in the global finals. This FY received the best assesment grade on the whole team. I have a bachelor in fiance and accounting and am currently finishing my master's during weekends (just thesis left).
I come from a difficult background with my father being an alcoholic and my mother emigrating to a different country when I was 10 to do manual labour (I'm Easter European so as many people from here she went to the UK to work at a warehouse). I spent my teenage years living with my grandparents who are blue collar and retired. That said for all intents and purposes I was raising myself as grandparents were not able to keep a track of what I'm doing. They are also people from a different epoch, being raised and spent their life working under communism system. They are not so in touch with how the world changes and how it works under capitalism.
When I was 13 I started smoking weed. When I was 15 I was already drinking. This went on until I went to college, I was doing a lot of both of these substances and was mediocre in high school. However good final exams allowed me to go to a really good university to study law which I have not finished due to a failed exam and subsequent mental breakdown. I spent 2 years there with another 2 lying to my family that I'm still doing it because of shame. After that I changed my 6 years long relationship for something new, and my new girlfriend convinced me to go back to school and get my education. I did bachelor's in accounting because of her and because it was my second choice after law when originally applying for college.
During bachelors I started working for a big international company as an accountant. Did well and was quickly promoted. After finishing bachelors I applied to big4 tax through a contest for students and won a job in the finals.
As an accountant I thought I worked lont hours but oh boy was big4 some new level shit for me. I was swamped , this was during COVID so I was also stuck at home and separated from the team.
In law school I stoped smoking weed and started using stimulants. It was mainly recreational but in COVID I started doing them at work. When I transitioned into B4 I was already aware I had a problem and started getting professional help. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder as well as a drug addiction. I was put on SSRIs which didn't help much. Went to three different psychologists with no luck and my addiction getting worse.
At work everyone was super happy with me because I did long hours and delivered quality work. I fucked up myself basically every weekend going on benders and getting no sleep. While high I did school. I sometimes had whole weeks in work high on drugs working nights and getting almost no sleep.
Finally the time came to write my thesis and start doing seniors work. I couldn't do both of those and be high all the time. It all caught up with me and I ran from work without notice. My therapist suggested for an nth time that it is time for rehab.
Since my B4 pay was good I started doing cocaine a lot. I also had a team mate that would bring coke to every party and we were doing it together with an intern on every occasion. Once we ended up in a hotel room with a female manager, just the three of us snorting lines until 9am. There were some people doing coke as described above (that I knew of) but besides that, every party was basically getting drunk until you get unconscious and in this everybody partake.
I was scared as hell to accept the rehab proposition because I feared it would be the end of my career. But this way of living long ago became unsustainable. When it all caught up with me I finally accepted it but treated myself as shit, as a failure. I was thinking of offing myself as a more honourable solution.
I'm lucky I have a great girlfriend in my life who is also a psychologist and she supports me all the way. Because of her I decided it was better to change myself despite the fact that my work reputation will get hurt and I will probably get fired when everyone will know what happened with me. Now I believe there are plenty other jobs and being the best always in stupid b4 rankings created to get the most value of workers is not such a great idea. I have however drank the coolaid and thought that this work was evetything for me, worth sacrificing my personal life and health. It really isn't.
I'm not trying to make this post read as "because of B4 I'm an addict". There were a lot of things that contributed and in the end I got only myself to blame for how it turned out. However the constant pressure, deadlines and incredible workloaded no doubt contributed to making my situation critical. If you read as far - thank you for your time and remember to put yourself, people important to you and your health first. No amount of money is worth this. At least now I know that for me it isn't. I'm going to rehab this Friday and I'm relieved honestly that I won't have to deal with this anymore. I'm coming out in half a year and probably will quit then if I'm not fired by that point.
I'm also interested in hearing your stories, did any of you struggle? Do you do drugs recreationally with your work colleagues? How is it in your country?
This post allowed my for the first time to share this with someone other than my therapist. If you want, feel free to do the same.
Wow this is a long one. All the best to everyone on this sub, I enjoy the memes a lot. Especially the ones about designates crying toilets :)
Take care!

<< < >
Book: Black Canary
Set: 86
Arc: Chicken
 
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
 
Larry Lance sat at his usual spot, at the usual table, reading his usual morning newspaper. Things in this city had been getting weirder and weirder ever since the Markovia incident had come and gone.
 
He shuddered over his coffee, still thanking his lucky stars that he had been sequestered away in the hospital for the majority of that particular incident.
 
And now, when the dust had seemingly settled and all had returned to relative normalcy in his life, something was stirring in the shadows.
 
He had noticed it pop up in the paper a month ago, but thought it had been an isolated incident. Even if it wasn't, after the last time he had tried to go snooping didn't work out well for him, he had decided to wait and see how things played out.
 
Now, people were dying, both in Seattle and Star City. Death, he could manage, but it was the dead themselves that had caught the former detective's eye. They were all young. Younger even than his daughter. Teenagers, or those barely into their twenties.
 
Their bodies had been washed of all color except for the bloodshot eyes and bulging veins in their neck. From that first incident there had been more and more reports of them swept under the rug - relegated to the back third of the paper if they were mentioned at all.
 
It was that aspect of it that convinced him someone was behind it. Deaths like these didn't just get swept under the rug - especially when there was more than one of them. Someone was paying off the reporters. Or worse, he thought, the reporters were in on it.
 
After the twentieth death of a similar sort, Larry Lance had finally admitted that he was probably in over his head, and despite his intentions of trying to keep his daughter well away from trouble for a while - he had made the call to bring Dinah on board.
 
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
 
There was something deeply satisfying about seeing her father sitting in his chair looking over case notes. Even from the doorway she could see the mental map he was creating. It reminded her of when she was just a kid, and Larry would plop her on his knee and tell her she was the best detective's assistant he could ask for.
 
And the man wondered why his daughter had fallen into crime fighting like he did.
 
“Hey Dad!” She called, deliberately shuffling her feet a little louder to make her presence known. Larry was so deep in the case that he didnt even lift his head to greet her, only grunted a vague approximation of greeting before waving her over.
 
Dinah shook her head, quickly surveying the space and taking note of his pillbox calendar. He had been on good behavior since the shooting, doing everything she and the doctors asked of him, except, of course, for taking it easy.
 
Only after she had carefully calculated whether her father had actually taken his morning dosage did Dinah turn her attention to the mountain of case files layed out in front of her. Death stared back at her from too young faces, toxicity reports that showed high levels of an unknown compound.
 
“What have you found?” It was no use trying to have a regular conversation with her dad when he was this focused. He would simply get annoyed and short with her until she finally relented and brought up the real reason he brought her here. The case. It was always the case.
 
“Drugs.” Larry Lance stated simply. “And a seedy club chain both here and Star City. The cops can't figure out what's causing the poison, but each of the cases has minor readings of other illicit substances.” He jutted his head towards the pile of tox reports. “Meth, weed, you know it, these kids tried it and had it in their systems when they died.”
 
Dinah made a noise as she riffled through the tox reports to show that she was still listening. She knew her dad would have more. He rarely called her without there being something he couldn't handle by himself. “My bets on a drug cartel.” He shook his head, confusion in his eyes as he stared into the middle distance between the papers. “Just can't figure out why they're killing their clients though.”
 
“Maybe they're not.” Dinah mused as she flicked through the cases one by one, comparing each of the tox reports side by side. She could feel her fathers eyes on her, demanding an explanation of her thought process. “Maybe it's the other drugs in combination with whatever it is they're taking. What if the cartel is trying to make it so their drug is the only one these kids can ever take?”
 
She offered him the papers back, pointing to the tox reports and the unknown chemical. Her dad grunted and Dinah offered him a smile.
 
“Where did you say this club was?”
 
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
 
2040 was a hub of everything that was wrong in his city.
 
Oliver Queen hated that he was even inside the building, but people were dying and he needed to figure out who was causing it, why, and put a stop to it.
 
The pretty brunette bartender slid another coke and whisked his way, the liquor burning its way down his throat in an almost unpleasant way. Almost. He signaled for another and the woman offered him what he assumed was her best smile. She leaned across the bar slightly, offering him a sample of what lay underneath her constrictive shirt.
 
“Same as before hun?” Her husky voice was either the product of cigarettes or the woman's version of sexy. He offered her a tightlipped smile and a nod, immediately turning his attention back to the door.
 
Let her think he was waiting for someone, a date maybe. Gods knew he had not been on one of those in a while.
 
The thumping bass echoed through the cramped, foggy space and Ollie had to resist the urge to scratch his skin. He had been in the club for an hour now, watching the shadowed corners and the dance floor for any drug deals.
 
But it had been a quiet night. Had been, until Dinah Lance walked through the club doors.
 
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
 
2040 was one of the major hubs of the underground network of both Star City and Seattle, but anyone who was anyone knew that if you wanted the good stuff, you had to go to the Star franchise.
 
Using one of her previous aliases Dinah quickly got in touch with an old contact who agreed to meet her at the club. If she brought the cash, he would bring the merchandise.
 
Dinah had never carried so much cash in her life.
 
The small black purse slung across her chest carried almost five grand. And the only thing she brought to protect it was the small knife clearly strapped to her thigh. Everyone in 2040 carried weaponry. The higher up the chain you were, the more visible your arsenal of weapons.
 
Carrying it on her midthigh was a statement to all that she was relatively high on the scale and generally not to be fucked with.
 
She was striding through the club, eyes set on the black partition that separated the casual attendees from the usual crowd when she was pulled into the muscular embrace of a tall man that smelled like the cheap watered down whisky they served at the bar.
 
It was only his voice that stopped her from downing him immediately, as Oliver Queen asked the exact question that was already burning through her mind.
 
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
 
Dinah took a deep breath, surveying the scene around them. A few of the casuals had noticed that she had been stopped and were watching the two out of the corner of their eyes. Assessing whether she was indeed, as high scale as her weaponry claimed her to be.
 
Moving her weight backward slightly Dinah threw a lazy arm around Oliver's shoulder, arching her back and giving him a look that would wilt a weaker man. With deliberate care Dinah slowly reached down to grip the knife at her thigh, unsheathing it to point at Ollie’s delicates.
 
“I suggest you release me.” Her voice was foreign to her, lilting and accented slightly scottish.
 
Ollie’s eyes darkened, and Dinah knew that she would be hearing from him later. If nothing else, the Emerald Archer had not been expecting to see her any time soon. They had come to an unspoken understanding after clapping William Zard in chains to stay out of each other's hair. And here she was, smack bang in the middle of his city.
 
Dinah flashed Ollie a sweet smile, lowering her knife back into its sheath before stepping out of his way and continuing her saunter into the backrooms.
 
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
 
The informant was exactly how Dinah imagined him to be. A head full of long wavy dark hair and a face that was barely emerging from puberty. No more than a boy and already selling drugs and probably unwilling to change that.
 
He gave her a brief nod, stepping in front of her to lead her towards one of the booths at the back of the room. Dinah tried not to look too hard at what was happening in the other booths.
 
One problem at a time, after all. She had learned a long time ago that it was impossible to solve all the world's problems all at once.
 
The youth sat, slumping into the soft leather opposite her. He barely glanced at her face, instead his dull brown eyes stared at her chest. It was an odd feeling, because Dinah was certain the boy was making a point not to notice anything about her. As if he had been warned and trained specifically against making notes about anyone he served.
 
“What are you after sweet thing?” The side of his mouth lifted in some weird approximation of a smile.
 
Dinah licked her lips, leaning forward slightly, looking every inch the part of someone desperate for their next hit.
 
“A friend told me there’s something new on the market. Something special.”
 
The boy nodded, barely searching in his satchel before procuring a small vial of violet purple viscous liquid.
 
“A warning though.” He said, keeping it just out of Dinah’s reach. “Don’t mix it with anything else.” He offered her another smile, seeming to take her in for the first time since their meeting. “And I’d recommend getting home first. It’s quite strong.”
 
He laid the vial on the table, eyes intently watching as Dinah fished out the cash from her purse. She hoped it was worth it, the cash being traded was some of the last she had saved.
 
The youth smiled, sliding the vial further onto her side of the table before standing fluidly. He didn't offer a goodbye before disappearing into the shadows of the back of the club, whistling a listless tune and surely headed off to bank his cash before greeting his next client.
 
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
 
Ollie wondered how many times he was going to intentionally follow Dinah Lance home. He also wondered if it was something he needed to do, or if it was something he was choosing to do.
 
He knew that she knew that he was there. It was in the way her shoulders sat, and how straight she kept her spine. In the odd flick of her eyes towards the rooftops where he followed her from. It made him wonder if she had allowed him to sneak up on her that first time.
 
It was a humbling thought.
 
He waited four more blocks, allowing her to slow down incrementally, a sure sign that she was ready to talk with him before swinging his way down to the pavement beside her. Oliver knew he had been right when Dinah didn't even flinch at his arrival.
 
Ollie tried to wait. He really did. But he had never been an exceptionally patient man, and it didn't even take half a city block before he was demanding answers. “What is it?”
 
A demure shrug of her shoulders as she crossed her arms, staring straight ahead and acting as if he didnt exist.
 
“Dinah.” He wasn't sure what it was in his voice, or if it was just her name on his tongue that finally made her answer him.
 
“I’m going to get it tested. But he warned me not to mix it.” She gave him a sideways glance. “And warned me to get home before I tried it lest I be accosted in the club when it overtook me.”
 
Ollie swore under his breath, running a gloved hand through his short hair. “Give me a sample. I’ll get it tested.”
 
It wasn't a request, and he could see Dinah struggle with the demanding tone of his voice. Even though her mouth thinned into little more than a grimace she fished out a much smaller vial that she offered him.
 
“I’ll let you know what I find.” He offered, and she nodded, her eyes returning to the road in front of her and Oliver knew the conversation was over.
 
It took until he was well and truly on his way home for him to realize that Dinah had never offered him the same courtesy.

heres my reasons
-detroit (broken city) -lots of deer -greenhouse (weed) -lots of finnish aliases (upper peninsula)
emma barged into my house and told me this. you have to acknowledge it or else you will be sentenced to 1hr of dealing with breakcore tiktokers

I've officially joined year of the voice!
I'll drop the last line of this long post here for folks who don't want to read all that:
if you were waiting to get into using a voice assistant with Home Assistant until there was an easy to use and relatively inexpensive hardware solution, folks... this might be it.
These little guys are pretty great. I had some VLAN fuckyness that took me a while to sort (well like 45 minutes), but fully on my end - other than I just followed the readme, flashed the esp32 and it (mostly) "just works" after that.
I did have to add a bunch of aliases to for my devices and also a few scripts we use for some fairly complicated routines, but that was easy as can be and not unexpected.
What's nice (for me) is the really hard work of making all the routines I'd want voice for is already done, so really once I added aliases I had a LOT of powerful things I can do with a simple voice command now. Like switch 7 different sets of speakers over to a different input, change their volume, pause the music, and turn on the apple tv, with one "hi ESP, tv time" or it's reverse: "hi ESP, music time" to swap that all back.
So far I've seen it be pretty fickel with my wife's voice. She has to use a lower register to get consistent results, but my voice is picked up well, and from a pretty stunning distance.
I was telling her in the living room to say "hi esp, turn on the small signal" and it picked it up a good 30 feet away and the music was on too!
I am, admittedly, very very early on in messing with this thing (flashed em yesterday afternoon) - but I got say I am really liking this so far.
I do see some delays after I stop speaking and before it sends the command sometimes, and I think it's because I have so much background noise (music is basically on 24/7 in our house) but commands are mostly completing and correct.
I had it pick up what I think was drums from the music as NO NO NO as a command instead of what I was trying to say, but I admit I could be wrong about that (I had smoked a fair amount of pot at this point, so... it's tough be certain).
Anyway, when I went to bed last night I didn't press my home assistant button, I said Hi ESP, shut it down. And Home Assistant told everyone to have a nice night over the speakers (and let the cat know we were going to bed) - turned down the music to a very low volume, and shut out all the lights, except the ones that we leave on at lower brightness and dark blue color, those it just switched over.
A few days ago I drove my electric car to the legal weed store. And a day after that I took a driverless robot taxi home from a place a few miles from my house.
We are really living in the future here folks.
Once we can start using our own wake words, my goodness is that gonna be a treat.
Anyway - if you were waiting to get into using a voice assistant with Home Assistant until there was an easy to use and relatively inexpensive hardware solution, folks... this might be it.

any one who tells you that having ASPD and or NPD is great is either on drugs or lying and just trying to be cool. Having ASPD/NPD/BPD is awful
-I can’t keep a job
-I overreact to criticism if done in a public space
-I can’t help but steal shit whenever I can
-I have an awful drug addiction
-I can’t understand why I can’t go into someone’s house and claim it as mine. And If some douchebag passes by me with a Ferrari or nice car, I spend the whole night w out sleep cause it would ruin me for days from how that guy has more than me without having suffered for it, some other delusion i believe I tell myself
-I have a criminal record and can’t find a proper job -you manipulate a lot of people around you without noticing and then never follow through on what you say, you’re just unreliable douche
-you end up with domestic abuse charges that I currently am dealing with because you don’t like taking shit from people you live with
-you crave combat and physicality, thank god for fight gyms
-you get dropped by therapist because you are basically untreatable
-you lie ab little shit for no reason because of shame or you just don’t notice it
-you meet people and give them fake aliases because you’re bored and paranoid
-you have trust issues, you feel alone all the time
-the place you feel the least lonely will be in jail or rehab
-you want to enjoy your relationships w other girls but can’t help but manipulate them and be promiscuous and also take their account and routing number just incase things end badly.
-you become increasingly hostile and violent on some days and only drugs can help u calm down like weed and benzos and opiates
-you’re bored as fuck and wanna start shit
-you’re in a state of “calm” rage. A cold anger, ALL THE FUCKING TIME. It’s a constant state of irritation and it’s awful and all it’s takes it’s something for it to be unleashed
-constantly getting put in mental hospitals
The only pros of having this garbage disorder is that you make fantastic first impressions and seem very socialble to everyone and are will survive well, act and think fast and calmly in life or death situations.
the worst part of having this disease, you are always irritated, no matter what. Nothing sits right with you, you’re just unhappy, empty bored and you have no direction in life. Any direction you may have while having this shit disorder is for self pleasure and doesn’t last
This is true hell. Imagine someone admiring this shit. This thing would’ve been beneficial 300,000 years ago maybe. But not in the 21st century in a 1st world country
Also the inability to feel true gratitude, there are people getting bombed to fuck in Syria, walking 5 miles barefoot to get some water or some shit and they just “live”. There are motherfucking African kids who are about to get their ass mauled by lions and snakes and are fucking happier cause they have each other. WHAT THE FUCK MAN? Why good god why

Hey y'all, I've got a question that is not immediately clear to answer when Googling... Although I may just be using wrong terms, etc.
I have setup local DNS as I am adding more VMs, getting into other things like Ansible, and because I like to learn. This way I only have one spot that needs an IP update if I need that in the future and stuff like my Ansible playbooks will just work without modifying inventory files. Works great, no complaints.
My question is this - we will use Proxmox as an example. In my setup, that would be proxmox.lan:8006. I would like to set it up to where I could somehow forward port 80 to 8006 in the router without needing to actually change ports inside the Proxmox software. I have one VM that has multiple services all using different ports, for example, and I want to keep it that way. Is there an efficient way of setting this up in pfSense?
My first thought would be to use aliases and set up firewall rules, but this is getting a little into the weeds for my level of knowledge right now. I do have some port forwarding setup for a couple of services that are exposed to the internet but since all of this is inside the network and I have several interfaces due to multiple VLANs, I'm just not sure how to do this most efficiently.
TL;DR how can I make life easier and not have to remember all the individual ports for the web GUI of various services?

Hello reddit, this is my first post ever, I have come out of lurking and I wanted to start with a big post that could potentially destroy every theory you have ever thought about.
Hopefully you finally open your eyes to the one and only truth.
How it all started:
Last night, as we were reading the last chapter’s spoilers, me and my friend came up with a theory that we believe to be incredible and down right mind-blowingly accurate. After a long night on discord discussing philosophical subjects such as Im-sama’s true identity, we finally connected all the pieces and we believe we have come to find the ultimate answer.
As we all know Im-sama’s identity has never been revealed but we have come to believe that Im-sama is in reality the beloved Marine Admiral Kizaru, or should I say, Kizaru was Im-sama all along.
For a long time a lot of people have speculated about Kizaru’s, real name Borsalino, true motives and ideals but nobody ever found an actual answer but today I present to you this incredible theory that will completely change your view of this man. Maybe you thought he was a simple weed lover, constantly high and chill, but his personality has deceived us for quite some time too. But behind this fake mask of a weed-loving hippie hides a brutal dictator that ruthlessly rules the world with an unwavering iron fist.
Now this might seem a bit of a stretch, something unthinkable to the common individual, but after great analysis and confrontation let me enlighten you and explain why Borsalino, or should I say Borsal(Im)o, is actually Im-sama.
​
Basic statistics that prove us right from the start

Borsalino’s source of Haki

Luffy vs Borsalino
​
Or should I say Luffy vs Borsal(Im)o
Now, in the recent chapters Borsalino is seen approaching Egghead with a fleet of ships to take on the newly crowned Yonkou, Monkey D. Luffy, user of the almighty devil fruit, the Hito Hito no Mi: Model: Nika.
Now, how is Borsalino going to overcome Luffy’s powers? We know that the only way to overcome DFs is with great haki, as mentioned by Trafalgar D. Water Law when countering Doc Q's own Devil Fruit. Haki being the determination, or willpower, of an individual.
Of all people, how does Borsalino have such a strong willpower while he seems such a chill and laid back guy? If we think about it, he would need an incredible, nay, insurmountable amount of Haki to overcome Luffy’s DF, which has been deemed to be incredibly powerful, limited only by the user’s imagination.
Well, it’s simple. His willpower is simply the strongest because he is the ruler of the world, and it is in his best interest to defeat Nika, or at least whoever embodies the concept of Nika.
Im-sama is the direct arch-nemesis of Nika. Nika impersonates freedom, Im-sama impersonates order and control. Im-sama wants to eliminate Luffy, as proven as when he stabs the wanted poster in Mary Geoise. So it would be safe to assume that Im-sama’s haki would be quite powerful, maybe so powerful that it is able to overcome Luffy’s powers? Only time will prove us either right or wrong.

Hiding his true aspect: The power of the Pika Pika no Mi

​
Wake up people, how did you not realize????????
First, the facts: there is not a single panel in which we see both Borsalino and Im-sama together. I don’t think I need to explain why this is crucial.
Now I know what you’re going to say: “But dude, like, Borsalino’s eyes are so different and shit dude”, well of course they are, otherwise the Five Elders would recognize him immediately.
How does he change his eyes? Simple, thanks to his DF, the Pika Pika no Mi or Glint Glint Fruit. His DF allows him to transform himself into, create and control light. Therefor he uses it to refract different wavelengths of light so that he can alter his appearance.
He uses this ability to change the refraction of his eyes so that they appear completely different to others, something that is enhanced by his sunglasses that he constantly wears.
Another point that supports this is how Im-sama seems to be permanently obscured much like a murderer from the popular manga series “Meitantei Konan”, Great Detective Conan or, as by the English localization, Case Closed.
Why is Im-sama obscured? Well, because he uses his DF, the Pika Pika no Mi, to completely negate the refraction of light on his silhouette, making him seem like a shadow in broad daylight.

Extent of the powers of the Pika Pika no Mi: Possible awakening?

​
Borsalino's ruthlessness and true power
We saw how Im-sama destroyed an island in mere seconds with sky lasers and stuff. How is that possible? An ancient weapon? Or maybe a simple DF that we already know of?
Well, let’s start by assuming that it is the latter. The sky lasers were just an awakened version of “Yasakani no Magatama”, a power move that has been used by Kizaru in the past, particularly during the war at Marineford against Marco “The Phoenix”, 1st Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates.
Kizaru never showed his awakening because it would most likely give away his true powers and identity. But, while he is Im, he doesn’t have to hold back, nobody knows of his existence, he can use his DF to the fullest, therefore he can simply just obliterate anything by invoking great pillars of light raining from the sky.
Now, again, I know what you’re going to say “Well, if Kizaru was really Im, he would’ve known that Luffy had incredible powers, he could’ve killed him at Marineford and end everything there, cementing is tyrannical rule over the world. Why didn’t he do it?”, let me just say, if you think like this, you have a pea brain.
The reason as to why he did this is blatant, to say the least.
First off, this is a shonen, there is no way in which the protagonist could die mid-manga. The villain plays with his food, classic shonen trope.
Secondly, Borsalino knows his powers are incredibly powerful, he could one-shot anyone at any time, but he likes to make them suffer, hence why he acts slow, allowing his prey to run for a bit, ultimately just low-diffing them.
Also he always asks before obliterating his enemy, almost as a taunt, a provocation, to warn them “Have you ever been kicked at the speed of light?”. He is so confident with his abilities and his control of his DF that he knows he can end the confrontation immediately but he just wants to enjoy the fight a bit longer.
Third, now, beware this is a spoiler and quite a big one.
Why does Borsalino, of all people, get to speak so non-chanlantly with one of the Five Elders, AND in the same chapter we even get to know their name? It seems a little bit odd to be just a coincidence. It is clear to us that Borsalino is more important than what he might appear as. Sure an admiral might know the names of the Gorosei, but to just have some chit-chat with them like nothing is going on? Clearly he's onto something.

Uranus, the Light of Judgement

​
Inverse Iridium Flare as shown by Borsalino
Now, on a different tangent, and bear with me on this one, this could literally have been theorized by Vegapunk himself.
There is a phenomenon called Satellite Glint (Glint Glint Fruit, HELLO?????), or Satellite Flare, which is “a satellite pass visible to the naked eye as a brief, bright "flare". It is caused by the reflection toward the Earth below of sunlight incident on satellite surfaces such as solar panels and antennas.”
There is a chance that Borsalino never actually awakened his DF but instead used one of the ancient weapons, namely Uranus, because we already know the location of the other two, to enhance his DF powers.
How is that? Let me explain briefly.
Iridium Flares
​
A Satellite Flare in the real world
“The first generation of the Iridium Constellation launched a total of 95 telecommunication satellites in low Earth orbit which were known to cause Iridium flares, the brightest flares of all orbiting satellites, starting in 1997.” As per Wikipedia.
Why is this important? Borsalino enacts a reverse Iridium Flare, instead of sunlight reflecting from a satellite, he reflects HIS OWN light on Uranus, which could be a satellite, and aims it a specific point to create an weapon of mass destruction, capable of erasing islands in a second.
Lastly, look closely at the word Iridium. First letter “I”, last letter “m”, I and m together Im. It baffles me that no one ever thought of this.
The answer was right in front of us all along.

Time Dilation of Light speed: Borsalino’s Immortality

​
Time Dilation Formula
​
Borsalino bug-abusing of his light speed to slow down his aging process
Now it has been speculated that Im was present during the events of the Ancient Kingdom, possibly he’s immortal ever since, he’s probably around 900 years old or something.
How would Borsalino a mere mortal be able to survive this long? His devil fruit once again comes in clutch. The reason is time dilation which is “In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in the elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is either due to a relative velocity between them (special relativistic "kinetic" time dilation) or to a difference in gravitational potential between their locations (general relativistic gravitational time dialtion). When unspecified, "time dilation" usually refers to the effect due to velocity.”.
His body could be moving at light speed at any given moment which means he ages SIGNIFICANTLY slower than any other being. Which would explain how he could have survived this long.

The Source of All Things: Colors of the World

​
Borsalino: The light from which everything is born
The last part of this speculation, and this is very important so please pay close attention to this.
As we know, all of the admirals’ aliases come from the Momotaro legends, but we believe it goes a bit deeper than that.
All admirals have a color assigned to them: Fujitora – Wisteria, Ryokugyu – Green, Aokiji – Blue, Kizaru – Yellow and Akainu – Red.
Why is this important? By the definition of Color from Wikipedia: “Color (American English) or colour (Commonwealth English) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though color is not an inherent property of matter, color perception is related to an object's light absorption, reflection, emission spectra and interference.” When we think about it colors are nothing but different wave lengths of lights, essentially they all tie back to Borsalino’s devil fruit.
Kizaru named each and every admiral corresponding to a color that originated from the refraction of his light through the prism, something that he might have discovered with the help of Vegapunk while he worked on other projects with him.
All colors originate from light, all the admirals, the “Pillars of Justice” one of the three main powers, originate from Borsalino himself. He is the very face of justice; he is the origin of all things.
Haki: The Color of Willpower
​
An example of two Haoshoku Haki users: Gol D. Roger and Edward \"WhiteBeard\" Newgate showing their colors.
Notice how, in the English localization, the different types of haki are called "Color of (Observation, Supreme King, Arms) Haki".
Now you might think this is a coincidence. That is if you haven't learnt anything from this post, or if you haven't read it.
Have you ever heard the saying "To show one's true colors"? Haki is the embodiment of one's true colors. And who is capable of literally generating colors thanks to light? That's right, Borsal(Im)o. His light IS haki, but not just one type of haki, ALL THREE OF THEM, that when put all together appear as just one, much like the colors of the prism appear like one beam of white light.
This does not only re-emphasize the first point about Borsalino's haki but also further proves our point about Borsalino's connection with colors.
​
​
I will add only one last thing, which I believe to be the most important and insane part about this theory.

Who will defeat Borsal(Im)o: The most powerful being in all of One Piece

​
Tony Tony Chopper from the One Piece Live Action Adaptation
If Borsal(Im)o is so strong, capable of harnessing something so incredible as light, who could possibly beat him?
He is the very epitome of invincibility and intangibility, so who will help Luffy defeat Borsal(Im)o? The answer is Tony Tony Chopper, the ship doctor of the Straw Hat Pirates.
Why Chopper of all people? Why, it has to do with his reindeer eyes.
Studies have proven that reindeers can see UV light and use it to survive in the wild. As per the article “Reindeers use UV Light to survive in the wild” https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2011/may/reindeer-use-uv-light-survive-wild, “Humans are able to see light with wavelengths ranging from around 700 nanometres (nm), which corresponds to the colour red, right through all the colours of the rainbow in sequence to 400nm, which corresponds to violet. Professor Jeffery and his team tested the reindeer's vision to see what wavelengths they could see and found that they can handle wavelengths down to around 350-320nm, which is termed ultraviolet, because it exceeds the extreme of the so-called visible spectrum of colours.”.
Chopper is able to clearly see through Borsalino’s games, he is enlightened thanks to his heightened senses. His sight is that of a cold blooded killer ready to hunt his prey, ready to make his captain the Pirate King.
Chopper will be the key element in the final fight against Borsal(Im)o thanks to his incredible reindeer eyes.
That will conclude our theory.
Thank you for your attention and we hope we have opened your eyes to the truth.
You are never safe from Borsal(Im)o.
Made by u/FrancyYT and u/Zaun1
Images by Google Images and u/FrancyYT
Sources: Google (Mostly Wikipedia) and our Giga Galaxy Brains

Seriously, most people just don't bother with the campaign (myself included) and when they do play it, they just end up wanting to play MP. When SP is the only thing you can play, you can just enjoy the experience so much better and any serious technical problems can be weeded out much earlier. For example, LET US TURN OFF ANTI-ALIASING IW PLEASE!
Other than that, good job with this decision.

Please note: You don't have to read Part 1: A New Andal Timeline or Part 2: The Ancient Enemy to understand this post but I'd appreciate it.
​
Part 3: The Dragon's most ancient and terrible bloodline.
​
Finally, nearly a year after I began, I publish my original theory. Though, it has grown quite a bit.
As stated in part 1, this theory is based on LuciferMeansLightbringer’s work and is an attempt to link House Hightower to the Bloodstone Emperor. This, I found quite quickly due to some very good fortune early on in researching but between LmL, OotGH and my own work, I ended up with far more questions. The most important of which was, why the maesters, who we know are working with the Church, are leaving clues and how they managed to hide these things in plain sight.
This is my version of the events based primarily on the following theories. Unless otherwise stated, information in the next section should be credited to LuciferMeansLightbringer.
​
1: Timeline Heresy.
The accepted timeline for ASOIAF:
The Dawn Age - The Pact - The Age of Heroes - Long Night - The Age of Heroes - The Andal Invasion - The Targaryen Dynasty, is wrong.
LML places the events in this order:
The Dawn Age - The Long Night - The Pact during The Long Night - The Age of Heroes - The Andal Invasion - The Targaryen Dynasty.
He reasons that it makes no sense for the First Men to have made peace with The Children. They had been enemies for thousands of years and yet, in mass, they decide to not only, mostly, end hostilities but also take their enemies faith? Why? What could have convinced them?
The obvious argument is that The Hammer of the Waters frightened the First Men but the children weren’t responsible for that.
Firstly, the Children have never shown that kind of power and if they had it, why didn’t they break the arm earlier? Furthermore, the Old Gods are nature Gods. Why would their followers call down a cataclysm that would destroy the land?
No, The Children did not call down the Hammer of the Waters. Someone else did and it was that event that caused the Long Night. The Pact was made during the darkness, because this is the only way to justify a sudden mass peace:
When the sun has not been seen in years and the dead walk, anyone with a pulse becomes an ally. Afterwards, having seen the power of the Old Gods, a mass conversation makes perfect sense.
Now, I do deviate from LmL on how history is to be read. While he has deciphered the ancient past, he can occasionally take what the maesters say about modern history at face value. This is because he saw how fantastical and short on detail everything coming out of the Dawn Age was and argued that the population would’ve been decimated, entire regions may have been wiped out; their stories lost to time. Those who survived would’ve been suffering from the most severe PTSD imaginable so it’s understandable how stories became muddled.
Meanwhile, the Age of Heroes is far clearer despite the “fact” that Septons wouldn’t write down the stories for millennia. The oral history was strong and, though passed along by hundreds and thousands of different story tellers, the basics were there to make an educated guess of how much to believe.
This would all make sense if it wasn’t for the Citadel and Greenseers, which would’ve guaranteed clear history. It’s all there, though it’s likely the most easily accessible books were the first to be translated and replaced.
​
2- The Great Empire of the Dawn existed and they were dragon riders.
Duran Durrandon was the first to see the link between Dany's "Wake The Dragon" dream and the GEotD. The eyes of the ghosts who lined the hall matched the gemstones of four of the eight rulers of the empire.
The largest empire in history, incorporating several different cultures, was ruled from Asshai before it was poisoned. An empire of this magnitude is the only way to explain the largest city in the world. A city that is older than written records. It was built during a time when Asshai was full of life.
The best evidence comes in the form of the Five Forts and the base of the Hightower. Both of which are made from Fused Black Stone, which can only be created with dragonfire and magic. Both structures have a plain appearance: Simple flat, black walls. The precursor to the fantastical work that Valyria would eventually create.
Now, some might argue that Valyria could’ve built those as early tests but I’d remind you that The Five Forts are further east of The Bones than Valyria is west of them, and the Freehold never got anywhere near those mountains.
In addition, even the maesters definitively date both structures to before the Valyria. I believe the reason for this is that both are so famous that it’d be impossible to make them any younger. Instead, the maesters shroud them in mystery and misdirection but there is enough information, along with the tales of dragons roosting on Battle Isle, to tell us that there were dragonriders in Westeros' ancient past.
Lastly, a fan provided evidence during one of LmL’s livestreams that the BSE and his people sailed east from Asshai to Westeros.
Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenya, the islands that Elissa Farman discovered, were said to have been populated by pigs, what we believe to be Komodo Dragons and had strange purple fruit growing on them.
LmL linked this to George’s time as a history teacher and his knowledge of how Spanish explorers would release pigs and plant fruits high in vitamin C whenever they found an uncharted island with fresh water. Pigs can take care of themselves and would serve as food for, not only sailors but the Komodo dragons that provided security. Meanwhile, the vitamin C would prevent scurvy.
And the name of the that purple fruit? Dragonfruit.
​
3- Moon Meteors:
The Long Night was an impact winter. There was once a second moon that was destroyed by a comet, the remaining piece of which is the red comet from early in the story. The pieces of the moon rained down and were responsible for, not just blotting out the sky, but also for many of the legendary cataclysms referred to throughout the story. The evidence comes from three tales:
The Qartheen legend about the origin of dragons where a second moon gets too close to the sun, cracks and dragons pour out.
Meteors were identified as dragons in ancient societies because they fly, are on fire, make a lot of noise and cause serious damage when they strike.
The next tale is of Azor Ahai, where his sacrifice of Nissa Nissa forges Lightbringer but also leaves a crack across the face of the moon.
And lastly, the story of the Great Empire of the Dawn and the blood betrayal. We know the BSE caused the Long Night but one of the many crimes that he is accused of is that he cast down the true Gods and worshipped a black stone that had fallen from the sky.
Lml theorizes that that was a piece of the destroyed moon: The Oily Black Stone which the Seastone Chair, the idol on the Isle of Toads and the entire city of Asshai are made of.
I know that the maesters write as if Oily Black Stone and Fused Black Stone might be the same thing, but the evidence says otherwise. OBS is carved from existing pieces while FBS has to be made and requires a dragon and magician.
Furthermore, there’s a fair bit of evidence that OBS causes severe health issues whereas there is none for FBS doing so. Think of all the people living on Dragonstone or traveling the Valyrian roads, the only places that have issues with their health are the ones that are too close to Old Valyria, which is magically toxic, like Asshai.
There’s also a well-known theory, though I don’t know who came up with it, that, in addition to a blood sacrifice, OBS is a necessary ingredient to reforge Valyrian steel.
LmL links the unpleasant oily feeling to vitrification. A process in which the extreme heat from a meteorite vaporizes the area around it, leaving it coated in an oily film. The difference is that, in our world, it’s only the surface of the stone that’s affected whereas OBS is magically soaked through. This is why it’s so hard for life to exist in Asshai.
When sifted through and put together the story of the Long Night goes something like this:
There were originally two moons. The smaller of the two was in eclipse position (think the God’s Eye) and the comet was forced into it via the sacrifice of Nissa Nissa. As the sun and the moon were seen as man and wife in ancient cultures, the people of Asshai would’ve seen the sun with his wife in front of him. Then the bright, silver comet would hit the moon and exited out, blood red, on the other side as the moon broke apart. It looks like the sun has stabbed his wife.
​
4- Azor Ahai is The Bloodstone Emperor is The Night's King.
The legends of Azor Ahai and the GEotD both reference the Long Night but the BSE is said to have caused it while the AA was a hero ended it. So how could they be the same man?
Think of Davos’ internal monologue after being told the AA story. He imagines killing his wife and realizes he can’t do it; declaring himself as not being made of the stuff of heroes. Except that he is. AA murdered Nissa Nissa. She didn’t offer herself up. She didn’t fall on the blade. He murdered her
As for the Night's King? Well, according to LmL, he is the father of the White Walkers.
The legend would have us believe that it was post Long Night but how could any man of the Night’s Watch, let alone the Lord Commander, not recognize a White Walker? Or not alert anyone else to what they saw? And then get near enough to touch one without trying to kill them?
AA used the sacrifice of Nissa Nissa, a Child of The Forest, to invade the weirwood net. This split the net to a living and dead side. In response, Nissa Nissa’s spirit took from him the power to create the White Walkers; the spirits of ancient Greenseers who had been forced from their afterlife.
Yes, ancient Greenseers. George called the White Walkers. “Icy Sidhe” (Pronounced "She"). Sidhe are a type of Irish elves who are VERY protective of their territory.
​
5- Dawn is the original Ice.
Dawn, the ancestral blade of House Dayne, is the dragon steel of The Last Hero, which was entrusted to them by House Stark. This is the blade for which the Stark's ancestral swords were named and is the only surviving remnant of the GEotD. A royal blade, like those held in the hands of the ghosts lining the hall in the “Wake the Dragon” dream.
So that’s what you need to know, thank you to Lml and if you’re wondering if I got any proof of this madness. Read on.
​
​
Rogue maesters, the Night's Queen, code breaking, and real names:
Westerosi history is a funny thing. If you read it, you’ll get a certain picture of the continent but, the more you pay attention, the more it doesn’t add up. And yet, if you to go deep enough, you’ll see the truth.
But why?
The BoH doesn’t leave breadcrumbs. It’s not their style to expose themselves in any way. So, why is the truth, even convoluted to Seven Hells, being written?
​
We have two options:
1- George forgot and it’s a minor plot hole that most will never find, let alone notice because it, so far, hasn’t had any negative bearing on the story.
Or
2- GRRM
​
Now, let us all be honest; the first option is completely legitimate. It’s just that it’s boring and hurts my feelings, so I’m ignoring it.
Though, can you imagine if it is option one? That would make it canon that the BoH spent 1,000 years getting their hands on the final quill only to write true history by accident. If there was ever a sign that you were on the wrong side, this is it.
Originally, I believed it was a rogue group inside the Citadel. Those who translated things from the Old Tongue as they would’ve been constantly exposed to the truth head on but I could find no evidence to support this.
What I did find was a conspiracy made up of maesters, septons, royals and a fool.
Those who dealt with the “modern”, post-Andal invasion, history used things like contradicting statements, salacious rumors and limited info to make the reader think on what was actually going on. While those that dealt with ancient history used legends and a secret code that had to be deciphered to learn the truth.
So, who were these individuals?
HotD would likely cause people to guess Aegon I but this theory wouldn't be part of Aegon’s scheme because:
One, I came up with this WAY before that reveal and I refuse to share credit. I legitimately wanted to get this out months ago but between the ADHD and the weed, I delayed and ended finding out much more, so I'll take it.
Two, Aegon's plan would've been set by the time he chose to conquer Westeros. This feels like that plan was on the verge of collapse and House Targaryen called an audible. I believe that this began with Maegor and Visenya.
The reason I chose them was because their deaths were more than a bit suspect. I believe that Visenya, a sorceress according to many, and Maegor, chose to sacrifice themselves. With so few supporters, Maegor knew his time was up and rather than allow himself to be made an example of by the Faith, he bled himself for the future of his family.
I mean, are we supposed to believe that Maegor allowed, not just his hostages but an ancestral Valyrian steel blade to slip out of his grasp like that? No, he set it up for them to leave so they would’ve had cover when the Church came looking for them.
If they were still hostages, The Faith could argue that they were may have been "turned" by Maegor but by "abandoning" the King and crowning Jaehaerys, they gave themselves plenty of wiggle room.
While this might sound nuts, remember that Jaehaerys and Alysanne lived long healthy lives, had a loving marriage, produced more children than any other royal couple and are remembered as the best of their line. It cannot be denied that the couple saved House Targaryen.
​
As for the truth tellers?
This isn’t a full list because I’m not entirely sure, but my major players are: Barth, Munkun, Mushroom, Gyldayn, Perestan and Yandel.
Some of you might be surprised that a certain name isn’t included but that’s because Marwyn isn’t a truth teller. He’s a plant.
I believe it was the Disputed Lands who made a video on Marwyn that painted him in a rather negative light. He taught Mirri Maz Duur human anatomy and the Common Tongue, while Qyburn sees him as one of the few in the Citadel worthy of praise. These are not good referrals.
And why is he an archmaester? Isn’t he a troublemaker?
Why is he allowed private audiences with Leo Tyrell and Alleras? A named member of a Great House and the wunderkind of the Citadel? Then, he’s allowed to have a conversation, in public, with the former Tarly heir, where he announces that he’ll be taking a ship to Slavers Bay to “help Dany”.
One, why is the Citadel allowing one of its archmaesters to travel on a trade ship? Shouldn’t they have their own ships?
Two, why is he allowed to leave when the Iron Born have taken The Shields and could already be on their way to attack?
Three, he has to sail through waters that are experiencing serious kraken activity off the southern coast of Dorne.
Four, he has to pass the Stepstones where slavers might take him.
Five, he’s sailing to Slaver’s Bay, which is at war and closed off due to a naval blockade. How is he supposed to help Dany when it shouldn’t be possible for him to get anywhere near her?
Marwyn is there because you need that “voice of opposition”. The talented, free thinkers will gravitate towards him and he’ll twist them into the Citadel’s servants. No, he is not a hero.
​
Barth was able to discover many important secrets and his mission was hidden by the greatest king Westeros had ever seen. A king that lifted men up to position based on their deeds rather than their names.
A bookish, blacksmith’s son would not be looked at with much suspicion since he was only in charge of the library. It also gave Jaehaerys an easy excuse to bring him along to places like Castle Black, where that very old library would’ve held some very interesting texts.
Barth’s truths were set to the torch, as were Mushrooms but the others hid their truths more carefully.
All have added to the cause but the most important person in terms of the battle is Yandel. For he is the one who wrote, A World of Ice and Fire, and, as such, is the one responsible for the truth being brought to light.
A foundling who was expected to do nothing but serve, Yandel refused to accept this and became a maester. Someone like him understood that the system was set against someone like him rising but his keen mind demanded more and, in return for that education, he wrote the truth.
The coded truth.
And what is this code?
​
“I need to know the name of a character before I can write about them.” -GRRM
​
We’ve always concentrated on the names of major characters not realizing that EVERY character was named before they were written and as such, EVERY name carries the truth of who they are.
​
As I mentioned in the intro, I stumbled upon this early in my research. I had been looking for Hightower theories to make sure that no one else had come up with mine and found that was based in the Deep Ones end of the theory pool. They used Latin as the first root language. So, I decided to go with Germanic languages, which I believe is the equivalent of the Old Tongue in ASOIAF. And what did I find?
​
Peremore:
Pere meaning, Father. More meaning, Greater Than.
Peremore - Greater than his father.
Or
Pe- Father. Re- Hinder More- Might
Peremore- He who hinders his father’s might.
​
Urrigon:
Ur meaning "original, earliest, primitive,"
Rig - meaning rich but more archaically King.
On - meaning upon.
Urrigon - The original King upon the Hightower.
Now this had been my translation for nearly eight months until, while thinking on "on", I realized that it could be translated as turning something on. And, when you take into account House Hightower’s words and the fact that Urrigon built the Citadel, his name would properly translate to,
"The Original King to Light The Way"
​
Uthor:
Ut- meaning out, out of, from.
Hor -meaning "dirt, filth," also foulness, dirt, defilement, slime and mucus.
Uthor – He who comes from filth.
Or
Hor can also be translated as famine, making him
He who comes from famine.
​
Please note, that Uthor Underleaf would translate to “He who comes from mucus, as in the slime that a snail leaves behind. He’s fine
​
LmL surmised that Uthor’s name was a reference to Uther, King Arthur’s father, who magically concealed himself as his enemy, Gorlois, to have sex with his wife, Lady Igraine. Arthur was born of this tryst which happened while Gorlois was dying in combat.
Yeah, Uther was a bit of a shit stain. And what does his name mean? Terrible.
And his full name? Uther Pendragon. Pendragon meaning Chief-Dragon or Head-Dragon.
We know a dragon rider had to have built the Fused Stone Base that the family lived in for generations.
​
Now, we need to link Uthor to the Night’s King and the easiest way to do that is to find his Queen. If Uthor is indeed AA than his wife Maris The Maid was Nissa Nissa but if Nissa Nissa was a Child of the Forest, how could she be connected to winter?
Well, LmL discovered that Nissa is the name of a kind of winter elf in Scandanavian culture.
And Maris?
She’s said to have been a maiden that had been promised to the man that won the first tourney ever held in Westeros. The winner, Argoth Stone-Skin never got to claim her as she wed Uthor instead. Argoth spent the rest of his life roaring for Maris from outside the walls of Oldtown.
Now at first glance, this looks like an allusion to Robert Baratheon, screaming at Rhaegar for Lyanna from beyond the veil of life and death. This works but it’s not the primary meaning of the story because House Baratheon is associated with gold while Argoth translates to, "Silver Oath" or "Silver Curse." Well, arg translates to silver but more accurately bright white.
So Argoth was a warrior, associated with white, who spent his life screaming from beyond the walls of Oldtown at a dragon king who stole his winter queen.
But the walls of Oldtown didn’t exist back then.
So, Argoth was a warrior, associated with white, who spent his life screaming from beyond a wall, that would’ve existed during the early Age of Heroes, at a dragon king who stole his winter queen.
​
And what does Maris mean?
Mar- To destroy
Is – Ice
Maris - She who destroys with ice.
Maris the Maid is The Night’s Queen is Nissa Nissa.
​
True Names
I wondered what was actually wrong with Peremore. He was said to have been born with a "withered arm and a twisted back" but a sharp mind. It’s clear that, whatever might’ve been wrong with Peremore’s body, his family respected his wits enough to teach him but there’s nothing special about this.
Peremore was a prince. He was entitled to an education. His physical state did not result in his family casting him out, so his being taught was not out of the ordinary. Thing is that, thinking of Peremore’s mother as a Child of the Forest gave me an idea as to what was actually “wrong” with his body.
Urrigon was an example of hybrid vigor. A combination of both parent’s magical powers with the physical size and strength of a man descendant from Gods. Peremore was small. Strong as his brother magically, more so I’d wager, which is why he was taught but small in stature, like his mother’s people.
​
A bloodline obsessed father with a perfect first son and a stunted second son?
​
One of the most popular end game theories for Tyrion, if he were to survive, is that he would do penance for his crimes by serving the realm. I believe that he will partially pay his debt by building. And rebuilding. Rebuilding what Peremore built before him.
​
This is where Peremore’s real name came to me. Peremore is an alias. Code for what he was, “Greater than his father,” Not who he was.
His father, too, is name in code. He has 13 aliases:
​
The Bloodstone Emperor
The Night's king
Uthor Hightower – He who comes from filth.
Azor Ahai – He who engages in ruthless violence.
Hyrcoon the Hero -He who knows fire
Yin Tar – The Shade of the Evening Tree.
Neferion – He who is without a fairy Queen.
Eldrich Shadowchaser- The Old King or I am Fire.
Grazdan The Great – Graceful Master or Frozen Grace
Hugor (Hukko) of the Hill- He who has an inclination to gore.
Huzhor Amai- He form the House of the Defiled Mother.
Artys Arryn – He who builds a mountain of ice
The Shadow
​
Yes, The Shadow. It’s not a new theory that Euron travelled up the River Ash and met the spirit of his future boss. He even references the BSE in one of his aliases: Urrathon Nightwalker “He who walked during the first Long Night.”, but what was the BSE’s name? His real name?
You know it. We all know it. We’ve always known it. It’s said that the Night’s King’s name was forbidden and forgotten but Old Nan had her suspicions. We’ve always known the name. It’s the same name he gave, not to his heir but to his second son.
​
Brandon.
​
And it was not just one Brandon. Peremore was Brandon the Breaker, who cast down his father and broke the grip of the Long Night.
​
He was also Brandon the Builder.
​
Brandon the Builder was said to have built the Wall, Storm’s End, Winterfell and the first stone keep of the Hightower. He was also said to have been a child when he did at least some of it.
Now take Peremore’s heritage into consideration. How long would he have lived? We assumed a shorter than average human lifespan but his bloodline would’ve given him and his brother centuries. Centuries to set the world on the right track. To build the foundations, like the Citadel.
Peremore was short in stature and would’ve had an innate understanding of green, fire and ice magic. This is how Lord Commanders were able to add to the height of the wall early on. In addition, he would’ve been well acquainted with shadows.
But why is he named Brandon? Why did Uthor give Peremore his name instead of Urrigon? And what was Urrigon’s real name? What was Maris’?
​
Well, OUR Brandon translates to “Head Crow” Bran- Crow. Don – Head or Lord**.**
​
Will he lead the Night's Watch in the future? I'm not saying that, I have no evidence. I'm just trying to start trouble. But Peremore and Uthor? There’s two ways to think about it.
​
For Uthor it’s, “He who stood upon the fire.” Brand- Fire. On-Upon.
​
But Peremore can’t be anything but, “He who lit the fire.” Brand- Fire. On- To light.
​
And if you’re wondering if the Uthor intended for his son’s real name to mean that. Sadly, yes. If Maris the Maid is The Night’s Queen is Nissa Nissa then that means that Uthor murdered her. Stabbed her, to be specific.
The father was Brandon of the Bloody Blade. The father of Brandon the Builder. His story claims that he slayed so many CotF at Blue Lake that their blood turned the water red, and it was renamed.
LmL connects bloody blade references to a penis covered in virginal blood (Think Barbery Dustin). He theorized that Brandon had been impregnating female CotF and that giving birth to half human offspring killed the mothers.
If I’m right, Urrigon or Dayne (He who is without fire) would’ve been a normal sized if not larger human baby and that didn’t kill him mother. And even if she couldn’t give birth to him, labor is long after the bloody blade, if we’re being poetic.
George wasn’t being poetic.
It’s the literal blade covered in Nissa Nissa’s blood. And, considering Brandon the Elder's royal background, it can only be one type of sword: The pale blade of the GEotD.
Now Dawn is one but it is a song of ice and fire so it should have a twin. A dark one. Or one that was made dark. Remember the cost of Valyrian steel? Sacrifice and Oily Black Stone.
Oily Black Stone was made through Nissa Nissa’s murder. That’s why it’s so toxic. It’s been magically imbued with the foulest magic in history.
When Brandon The Elder stuck that pure blade in Nissa Nissa’s pure heart, you can picture how the blood seemed to soak into the blade. How the pale flames turned dark red, orange, yellow and black. And how Nissa Nissa screamed, her eyes to the sky watching as the comet obliterated the moon.
And where does Brandon the Younger’s name fit into this? Well, where do you think he was when his father murdered his mother?
We know what happens on the Quiet Isle and we’ve seen Euron use a woman, pregnant with his baby, as a sacrifice. He wants to wed the Kraken and the Dragon to create an heir worthy of HIM. He’s planning on impregnating and then sacrificing Dany.
And that's how we know Nissa Nissa’s true name: Daenerys (Lady of Light).
Maybe Daenerys had been in labor. Whatever the situation, you can imagine the pain that Brandon the Elder was experiencing, for he truly loved his wife. He had to. Just like with his far-flung disciples, the Faceless Men, the price was within his ability to pay but the cost to him personally needed to be devastating or it would not work.
So, he murdered her. And as the blade pierced Daenerys’ heart, the comet struck the moon and, as above, so below, they both broke and dragons emerged. The difference was that the moon could not control what her children, poisoned as they were, would do: Raining down fire and blotting out the sky to create the Long night.
Daenerys’ children brought order. She would not damn her sons to a life like their father, instead she called upon her brothers, who had been thrown out of their home, to take their vengeance. Green magic was not enough to stop fire but ice could.
Daenerys didn’t hate humanity, like the Targaryens, she had been forced to improvise. She did the one thing she could think of to protect the world from her husband. And while this would lead to frozen horrors, the dragons she birthed would warm the world. Her sons would be her legacy.
And that’s why Peremore was, Brandon, “He who lit the fire”.
For his father, it was the fire of destruction.
For his mother, the fire of life.
And for his brother, the fire of inspiration. Because how was Dayne supposed to light the way if his brother hadn’t lit the flame.
A….. Lightbringer, so to speak.
And with that, I'm done. Though I wonder, the next time you read an Andal, or Faceless Men, or Hightower theory, do you think they’ll come off a bit darker?
So, what do you think?

Hey Reddit, obviously judging by post history this is an account that is expendable because my SO is a frequent user of Reddit and especially related forums to this one. Gonna keep it vague, but enough information to paint a picture. If there are any questions, I'm happy to answer in the comments.
So, I (26M) have just recently started a relationship with my (24F) girlfriend of <6 months. Everything has been flowing so well and despite our busy schedules, we find a ton of time to spend together. As I have not done in the past and started doing now is trying to not be blind to the whole "red flag" business. I'd say I've done pretty well and have asked questions to kinda weed out any potentials or any deal breakers.
The incident, happened approximately a week ago and I have been stewing on it ever since. We were just chilling out and started talking about our parents and how their marriages failed (cheating being the root for both). Following that discussion I asked if she'd been cheated on and was curious as to her experience with it. She explained a situation that happened with an ex and then mentioned that she had also made a mistake. Now, that kind of got me curious.
Seeing as I pride myself on my loyalty, I was kind of surprised she wasn't so willing to talk about it and I thought it was just gonna be something stupid. My exes all had priors that were kinda miniscule and it never affected the relationship or had any influence later on. In fact, one of them completely cut out alcohol because that was the middle man to her mistake.
However, this was faaaar from a "one time mistake". This was planned and calculated from start to finish. And seeing as every good.or bad story needs characters, lets establidh aliases for both male parties involved. We'll call the "victim" - Dalton. And we'll call the guy she cheated on him with - Sergio.
She explained to me that she had recently broken up with Sergio and had started seeing Dalton shortly after. Fast forward a month or so, Dalton and her decided to put a label on the relationship. At the time, there was a little bit of distance, however they made due and worked with the time they had. One week Sergio decided to text her and begin chatting again. She entertained it as apparently "it hadn't ended with any closure". They had also purchased gifts for each other that they both wanted to exchange at a later date.
So, she did just that. And well, thats where things took off. Following this little excursion, she had Sergio meet her on her lunch breaks at work and they would further have sex or its equivalents in his car. And not just once. Every day at work for two weeks. The only reason they stopped, because she moved in with Dalton, which made the sex and difficulty of hiding it at this point not worth the drive I suppose.
When telling me the situation, she struggled to use eye contact, something shes normally very good at keeping. So, I know she feels quite guilty for in hindsight. I just can't fathom why one would do this especially in the honeymoon phase, and then carry out the relationship as if nothing happened, for another year to come. Sure enough, she then got back with Sergio and eventually ended that a few months prior to meeting me. The worst part, is that poor Dalton doesn't even have a clue it happened, something of which I myself feel so guilty about. It feels so weird, but I almost want to make it known to him and I don't even know him.
Now, other than to rant to you folks on here, I kind of don't know how to feel or whether or not I'm overreacting to this. My main concern is that I work shift work, meaning 12 hour shifts. Sometimes, our schedules are pretty well in sync, but other times I'm stuck working when shes off or vice versa. Not knowing of her past recently, never made me worry at all. But, a few days ago, she went into the office (normally only happens 2 days out of her 5 day work week) and she hadn't even sent a text the entire time she was there. This is something I wouldn't have even thought of prior to having this conversation that now has opened up as a potential reality to me. How am I not to worry about something happening either during her days of work (she works closer to where this Sergio dude resides now that shes working and living nearer to me) or on days where shes off and I'm working?
I have never had trust issues in any of my past relationships, however I have been a victim to the most extreme jealousy and trust issues for absolutely zero reason, and would never want to make anyone feel the way I felt when I had been subject to that. I'm unsure if chalking this up to it being a mistake because she was young and dumb is a mature decision or not. This has definitely made me feel a little insecure though and I know the primary answer all of you will give me is, "talk to her about it", but that's not all that I'm looking for.
I want to know the similar experiences you have experienced and the end result of said experience. If you have any advice for me, what would it be?
TL;DR - My SO cheated on her past partner with her most recent boyfriend before me. The way she cheated in my opinion is quite scummy and I'm unsure how to go about things now.
Thanks everyone.

Hi,
I am once again dealing with a large amount of spam. I use Linux and of course I use bogofilter and so on (fill in your Bayesian spam filter du jour). But my current spam generation comes from two main sources:

1. recruiter emails. I had signed up to some job portals which request a CV, I had also contacted some recruiters. The address ended up stored in any amount of data bases which are obviously shared like chickenpox, and since then I am getting a really nasty flood of spam inquiries with below zero information value. The thing is they have grabbed, among others, my primary email address from the CV and I am not willing to delete that one. And now, I have to look for another job and already sigh when I think in my inbox....
   
2. internal spam from larger organizations. Say I subscribed years ago to IEEE and got mails from account@ieee.org, which was perfectly fine. Then, I cancelled that because I couldn't see the value. And now, I am also getting mails from whydidyounotsubscribeagain@ieee.org, tech@papers.ieee.org, advice@new-ieee.org, hifromchapter@mycountry.ieee.org, hifromanotherchapter@ieee-mycountry.org, as well as ieee-our-flashy-bullshit-bingo-magazine@ieee.veryimportant.news.org .... you get the idea. It is reminding me of the Great Molasses Flood of Boston, if you know what that means. ARRRGH!
   

Bayesian spam filtering does not seem to work with these ones. Also, email filtering by sender does not work well - all these things that IEEE does is precisely to get around my inbox filtering. It is possible to weed them out, but it is exhausting - when I have deleted one sender address, they already seem to have added two others. This isn't going to work, because it is the faulty enumerating badness idea described by Ranum again.
Also, the communication was initiated by me - there would be no hard criterion which mails are spam and which not, the key point is that they are distributing my address.
I could set up aliases, but this is a bit of a PITA. My email provider has also a limit on the number of aliases.
So the idea with using plus aliases. One could set up plus aliases which expire after some time... but this would not work well, since the sender could simply strip it. What is needed is a kind of alias which allows to block a sender if the alias is wrong, or the alias address was passed on by another party. Like, for example, the several departments within IEEE in the example above.
So what is needed is a kind of lightweight signature which gives exactly that sender the permission to put something into my inbox.
Here is what I am considering to do about it:

1. most email clients and providers now support plus aliases. This is is some characters which can added after a "+", and can contain some string. For the mail server, this is just a string which is added to the recipient local part and ignored. But it can be used to filter mails; gmail supports that, so one could guess it is standard.
2. I have an email client which is capable to run programs for filtering (it is claws-mail, I think there are other good options). What I want it to do is to check the sender mail address and the plus alias whether it is valid. This can be done with a small Python script which returns 0 if it is valid, and 1 if invalid, as exit code.
3. So, I need to give any untrustworthy party or recruiter who wants to send me mail to, say, Alexander.Selkirk.jobinquiries@mailbox.org a plus alias which will easily identify it as valid. That can be done very simple to hash the relevant part of their mail address with a secret password, and take the first 5 digits as the plus alias. Assuming that the password is "hunter2", and the allowed sender is "Dave@brilliantrecruiters.com" this would look like so:
   echo Dave@brilliantrecruiters.com:hunter2 sha256sum
   

which yields

e3246c34cc6927c8aece0ae257a9c0bf70f8fefbdf2c4ad132a0e69b4dcd39cf - 

so, e3246 is the right plus alias (which serves as a public key). This is so simple that I can keep the password in my head (who would forget it is just "hunter2"?), and run the command on my nerd phone (just in case that some recruiter stops my on the street and asks for my email address).
So, I give them the address

Alexander.Selkirk.jobinquiries+e3246@mailbox.org 

(you note the plus alias).
Now, I would like you to gloss over the cardinal error to give an email address to an recruiter. Nobody should be that stupid. But it could be a contact address in a CV for a really interesting job.
As said, on my computer I have a little script which is called by the email program which checks that the sender address and plus alias matches my password hash (in claws-mail, this is called a filter command, and it can also be run manually as an action). If so, the exit code is 0 and the mail appears in my inbox. If it does not have a plus alias, the message is greylisted, because some people cannot be bothered to use my address correctly, and ends up in my "Greylist" folder. Maybe I look into that one before Christmas. If the hash exists but resolves wrong, it is marked as spam and moved to my spam folder because that means that Dave gave my address to somebody else, or even another company (I could check the hash with the whole email address or just with the domain name).
What do you think about this? It means essentially that everyone who wants to contact me and which is suspect to either spamming or sharing my address promiscuitively, gets that address only with a kind of digital signature, which he has to use to get the mail into my inbox, and which I can generate very very easily. Of course, I need to keep my real personal address secret, or he could simply strip the alias (Luckily, nobody knows that my real email address is Alexander.Dunkirk@hotmail.com....).
Any thoughts?
Edit: Somebody in /linuxadmin suggested to use gmail for the spam filtering, and a private mail server for the reading. However, I do not want to use google mail at all, and setting up a private server seems too much work for me. (I am using a service similar to mailbox.org, and they do really a great job to keep things running, for less than one buck per month...)
Edit: One more thought, the script doing this is probably the least I have to think about. The most difficult part could be to get from the recruiter or other interested party the email address they are going to use before I give them my address, and to stick with sending to that address. It is a bit more difficult than with standard spam since there is some residual interest in communication with that party.

Hi,
I am once again dealing with a large amount of spam. I use Linux and of course I use bogofilter and so on (fill in your Bayesian spam filter du jour). But my current spam generation comes from two main sources:

1. recruiter emails. I had signed up to some job portals which request a CV, I had also contacted some recruiters. The address ended up stored in any amount of data bases which are obviously shared like chickenpox, and since then I am getting a really nasty flood of spam inquiries with below zero information value. The thing is they have grabbed, among others, my primary email address from the CV and I am not willing to delete that one. And now, I have to look for another job and already sigh when I think in my inbox....
   
2. internal spam from larger organizations. Say I subscribed years ago to IEEE and got mails from account@ieee.org, which was perfectly fine. Then, I cancelled that because I couldn't see the value. And now, I am also getting mails from whydidyounotsubscribeagain@ieee.org, tech@papers.ieee.org, advice@new-ieee.org, hifromchapter@mycountry.ieee.org, hifromanotherchapter@ieee-mycountry.org, as well as ieee-our-flashy-bullshit-bingo-magazine@ieee.veryimportant.news.org .... you get the idea. It is reminding me of the Great Molasses Flood of Boston, if you know what that means. Fuck them.
   

Bayesian spam filtering does not seem to work with these ones. Also, email filtering by sender does not work well - all these things that IEEE does is precisely to get around my inbox filtering. It is possible to weed them out, but it is exhausting - when I have deleted one sender address, they already seem to have added two others. This isn't going to work, because it is the faulty enumerating badness idea described by Ranum again.
Here is what I am considering to do about it:

1. most email clients and providers now support plus aliases. This is is some characters which can added after a "+", and can contain some string. For the mail server, this is just a string which is added to the recipient local part and ignored. But it can be used to filter mails; gmail supports that, so one could guess it is standard.
2. I have an email client which is capable to run programs for filtering (it is claws-mail, I think there are other good options). What I want it to do is to check the sender mail address and the plus alias whether it is valid. This can be done with a small Python script which returns 0 if it is valid, and 1 if invalid, as exit code.
3. So, I need to give any untrustworthy party or recruiter who wants to send me mail to, say, Alexander.Selkirk.jobinquiries@mailbox.org a plus alias which will easily identify it as valid. That can be done very simple to hash the relevant part of their mail address with a secret password, and take the first 5 digits as the plus alias. Assuming that the password is "hunter2", and the allowed sender is "Dave@brilliantrecruiters.com" this would look like so:
   echo Dave@brilliantrecruiters.com:hunter2 sha256sum
   

which yields

e3246c34cc6927c8aece0ae257a9c0bf70f8fefbdf2c4ad132a0e69b4dcd39cf - 

so, e3246 is the right plus alias (which serves as a public key). This is so simple that I can keep the password in my head (who would forget it is just "hunter2"?), and run the command on my nerd phone (just in case that some recruiter stops my on the street and asks for my email address).
So, I give them the address

Alexander.Selkirk.jobinquiries+e3246@mailbox.org 

(you note the plus alias).
Now, I would like you to gloss over the cardinal error to give an email address to an recruiter. Nobody should be that stupid. But it could be a contact address in a CV for a really interesting job.
As said, on my computer I have a little script which is called by the email program which checks that the sender address and plus alias matches my password hash (in claws-mail, this is called a filter command, and it can also be run manually as an action). If so, the exit code is 0 and the mail appears in my inbox. If it does not have a plus alias, the message is greylisted, because some people cannot be bothered to use my address correctly, and ends up in my "Greylist" folder. Maybe I look into that one before Christmas. If the hash exists but resolves wrong, it is marked as spam and moved to my spam folder because that means that Dave gave my address to somebody else, or even another company (I could check the hash with the whole email address or just with the domain name).
What do you think about this? It means essentially that everyone who wants to contact me and which is suspect to either spamming or sharing my address promiscuitively, gets that address only with a kind of digital signature, which he has to use to get the mail into my inbox, and which I can generate very very easily. Of course, I need to keep my real personal address secret, or he could simply strip the alias.
Any thoughts?

Hello,
I don't know where to post this and I don't know what to think. This is an old account, I hope he won't see it.
So..my life has been complicated. But 3 years ago, on a convention I've gone to monthly, I encountered a person. He was a tall man, looked worn out and sniffed some speed in the hours we spend talking and having fun. I was 15, I think he was in his early 20s. Back then I smoked weed like..2 times, no big deal. But I didn't even understand what was happening to me at that time and I think I'm fucked up anyway, but that's a whole another story.
I didn't know this was going to be something way bigger than I thought..
He, let's call him Bill, was in a poly relationship, two women, one night stands were okay. Well..after that day at the convention, he tried to kill himself. He called me, told me to stay safe and pumped himself with drugs and alcohol while I was trying to get a number from his friends. He gave me the contact informations of his best friend. They all had aliases. Animals ect. . Well.. I told his friend and they cracked open the door to his apartment and the ambulance got him to a hospital in his home town which is about 25 km away from here.
He knows my full name and adress, the school I go to..everything.
After that I visited him. We kissed and after my mother saw it she's never allowed me to see him, even though I insisted everything was okay at that time.
We saw each other monthly as she didn't want to stop me from my hobbies and I had some huge problems with myself at that time, so social contacts were very important. I don't know.
We chatted during the pandemy, but were on low contact as I was in a really toxic realationship..
Right before I met my ex I lost my whole friend group because I didn't want to be compared to my "bff" anymore by her and her mother, just as well as her hitting me if I didn't do what she wanted and putting me down as often as possible. Especially in front of boys and friends. And I was done with my friends ignoring their friend touching me. I guess that's understandable.
My ex got me into chemical drugs, self harm..after all that I even abused him and punished myself right after, I guess because of psychosis and my eating disorder at that time(began at 11 and has been going until now). So yeah.. Borderline crazy shit I never knew was somewhere in me. He lied and cheated on me many times, told me there was no other way than to stay in this relationship, we were perfect, the "love of his life". Every day he'd say it. I still hear his words in my head. It was a repeating cycle and everytime I tried to get out all I would do is to blow up on him, because in the end.. I was dependent on him. After a month of being together I already noticed we weren't right for each other and tried to break up. So I didn't talk to anyone for 1 1/2 years while he secretly got out at night. The only people I saw were broken or weird people from our friend group to party and smoke weed. I think you get the picture.
We first broke up last August right before my 18th birthday, got together again after 2 1/2 months.
So.. Bill was always there for me. He told me from the day we met that I won't get him off me. Ever. I laughed. And he was one of my only contacts, so I stayed with his weird life and punk lifestyle. Because it wasn't as hard to talk to him than to my real friends.
After all this complicated stuff and my final leave last month(ex bf).. I've had Bill blocked since September 2021. I had someone, that in this case absued me because he smoked spice and wasn't right in the head, that wanted me to block Bill. So I did. I noticed he wasn't good for me. I mean.. he was always nice, eloquent and complimented my very being. I was his princess. But well..he took drugs, many. And I was trying to get clean from chemicals so his affinity to drugs was something I had to get away from.
He texted, called and tried to get to me through his best friend from back then, but I didn't answer.
After getting away from the other, I got back with my ex and yea. I changed, from the first breakup on I was completely different than before. I wasn't abusive anymore, I didn't take chemicals, watched out for myself. But it got too much, because in the end he didn't change his behavior and I understood.. I'm not crazy. I wasn't fully at fault. After 2 years I felt free to to something with my friends and not sit at home and think about him and what *we* can do. So I broke up.
And I haven't been happier. I noticed my patterns and I've been going to therapy since january 2021.
But now, just yesterday, after everything..Bill texted me. Apperently he wanted to talk. And just like a robot, I sat there and texted him for 2 hours. He send me long texts with no ending compliments. "Matured like a fine wine" was his response to my changing ed habits and looks. He admitted that since September he stalked me online through a fake account he made. I have 2 other accounts that are very personal(emotionally, just some art and the other with aesthetics as it helped me to compensate). I don't know if he knew about them, but I guess he does. He is far from dumb or stuck in his..drug career. I feel distanced, from myself. I know this feeling as depersonlization. This only happens when I'm heavily underweight or down. I know this is not good and I talked to 2 school mates about this and my mother. But she isn't very..responsive. There are other problems. But I don't know what to do