Hey there, my names Greyson and I’m a 17 year old high school grad! First off, as I’m 17 (turning 18 and in a few weeks) please be within the age range of 17-19! I really would rather be friends and write with fellas around my age, no exceptions
Anyways if you made it past that little roadblock here’s an introductory type thing:

• I’m a guy but I DONT care what your identity is as long as you’re cool
• I’m in the CST time zone and I BEG you are also near that, it’s so much harder for me to talk to people in other time zones
• I have a part time job, but other than that I’m about as chronically online as possible
• I love talking about random stuff, but I struggle with texting first anxiety when I’m just getting to know you so bare with me!
• I’m autistic (doesn’t really matter but Yknow whatever)
• I draw as much as I can and would 100% be down for drawing our guys doing silly stuff, that’s like the best part of this
• I ONLY write on discord and in 3rd person when roleplaying
• I only main male characters, though for side characters I can write any gender! I only ask that you are fine with writing side characters as well
• On that note I am fine with any MxF/MxM pairing, whatever! No preference

What type of genres/themes I’m into:

• I’m a huge history geek especially in the time periods of the 1800s-1980s, anything from cowboys to yuppies is my jam
• Supernatural elements are always welcome! I don’t require that at all, but I’m always down for something unique
• I love any sort of action or conflict imaginable, the crazier and scarier the better
• Crime and whatnot always interests me, it’s part of my major
• Romance is cool, but what’s really cool to me is a slow burn enemies to lovers type beat. And I mean REAL enemies cliche, not just mild dislike
• I’m kind of into a lot of stuff that’s hard to put into words so here’s some media that I enjoy: Hannibal, Fear & Hunger (Termina especially), Darkest Dungeons, Dexter, the Mafia trilogy, LA Noire, Pathologic, Disco Elysium, Dishonored, any film bro movie, Fallout New Vegas, Bioshock, are just a couple to name a few
• P.S PLEASE CHECK COMMENTS TO SEE WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS I WRITE!!! Not a lot of people are very interested in my kinds of characters so yeah. Also, this sub kept on tagging it when I tried to add the link so that’s why they’re in the comments

That’s about all from me, sorry for being so lengthy. If you made it this far PLEASE give me an introduction about yourself (like name and age for starters) and anything we clicked on. Thanks for making my summer and hopefully the future less boring!

I've been playing the game on normal and not had too much trouble so far, but there is one particular fight that is almost impossible. It's located in the southwest corner of the the Foundry in WM1. There's a room where you can take an item out of a pool, but I did not take it. I just left the room. Outside, there is a hallway where ghost enemies appear on all sides of the party.
My party is the paladin PC, Eder, Zahua, Devil of Caroc, Kana, and Aloth, all at level 11. I turned on level scaling for WM, which I regret. Before the battle I've camped, given each character food, and given them a few potions and scrolls each. But none of this matters, because most of the characters are stunned or paralyzed 75% of the time and I can barely land any hits on the banshees. Zahua is completely useless, as every enemy has "extraordinary defense" against him. Devil invariably dies about ten or fifteen seconds into the fight. Aloth has some good spells, but is quickly stunlocked and killed. Only Eder and the PC have any ability to survive.
I can't even switch to easy mode since that only takes effect for unvisited maps. What do I even do? Load the autosave at the beginning of the map and come back with a different party?

Disclaimer: I'm bringing it here before any shutdown of AMH because lately, there's random stuff being posted there and a lack of control.

*Deals from 2020 onward might still be possible in some ways.
1927:

• Fox Film and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer were planning to merge before being called off.

1929:

• Warner Bros Pictures, Inc. called off a merger with Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation.

1956:

• Suitors including what would become Associated Artists Pictures had been bidding for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's back catalog. MGM would eventually enter the TV market themselves.

1957:

• Associated Artists Pictures almost closed a deal to buy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's shorts library (including the Tom and Jerry shorts) but shut it down due to the (unspecified) price tag.

1958:

• National Telefilm Associates announced plans to buy Associated Artists Pictures, which at this point was a subject of litigation. It would be United Artists who would buy them.

1971:

• 20th Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer considered merging.

1982:

• Orion Pictures looked at buying Embassy Pictures and Allied Artists before settling in on Filmways.
• Warner Communications tried in July to buy back the rights to Metro-Goldwyn-MayeUnited Artists' pre-1950 WB library for the first time. The negotiations fell apart because of dozens of unresolved points, probably relating to the oldest Warner Bros. films. The second time was successful 14 years later with the Turner merger.

1984:

• Reliance Insurance attempted to take over Disney.

1985:

• Turner attempted to take over the Columbia Broadcasting System for $5.4 billion.
• Viacom was looking to buy 50% of MGM/UA from Turner.

1987:

• Carolco Pictures attempted to buy Orion Pictures and Media Home Entertainment.
• NBC considered buying the Turner Broadcasting System.

1989:

• MCA offered to buy Disney.
• Bill Cosby tried to buy a stake in NBC.
• Jim Henson attempted to sell the Muppets to Disney for $150 million.
• Before Time Warner, Paramount Communications, which just rose up from Gulf+Western planned to merge with Time Magazine before the latter went with Warner Communications.
• Viacom itself even planned to merge with Gulf+Western, 5 years before making a full-on successful buyout.
• Viacom was even in talks with MCA Inc., the owner of Universal Studios, according to the same article.
• Ted Turner somehow tried to repurchase Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, this time including the United Artists side.
  • Qintex (which would later become Seven Media) also planned to buy MGM/UA for A$1.5 billion.

1991:

• In March, Brøderbund ended merger talks with Sierra On-Line, and given that date, it most likely started plans in the previous year.
• Turner's New Line Cinema looked into buying Orion, which the interests of Republic Pictures, Savoy Pictures, the American Broadcasting Company, and Polygram would also follow.

1992:

• MCA and Hallmark were originally the buyers for Hanna-Barbera but got outbid by Turner, which merged with Time Warner.

1993:

• In September, QVC tried a hostile $9.6 billion bid for Paramount Communications before a lawsuit came in, and lost to a $9.85 billion bid from Viacom in February.

1994:

• Bell Atlantic planned to buy Tele-Communications Inc. for $33 billion. TCI would later head for AT&T 5 years later.
• Time Warner Communications tried to buy NBC from General Electric for $2 to 2.5 billion.

1995:

• News Corporation, MCA, Time Warner Communications and Cinergi placed bids for Carolco Pictures before Le Studio Canal+ took over.
• Brøderbund bid for the original The Learning Company, before SoftKey bought them and adopted their name. They would buy Brøderbund in 1998.

1996:

• Before fatefully settling its eyes upon Sierra On-Line and Davidson & Associates (Blizzard, Animation Magic, and Knowledge Adventure), Comp-U-Card International, or more unfortunately named, CUC's Walter Forbes had considered a larger company that consisted of not just Sierra and Davidson, but also Brøderbund and LucasArts.
• After having Broadway Video's family library for dinner, Golden Books planned to buy out Nelvana.
• Microsoft nearly acquired Davidson & Associates (Blizzard) on the first try, but they lost to Comp-U-Card. In December 1997, CUC merged with HFS, and the new company was renamed Cendant, which would suffer a big accounting scandal.
• British Telecom, who owned a partial stake since 1994, bid $22 billion for MCI.
• For a year, Polygram attempted to buy out Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn.

1997:

• GTE, which eventually merged with Bell Atlantic to become Verizon 3 years later, bid $28 billion for MCI. Eventually, Worldcom kicked in.
• GoodTimes Interactive planned to buy MicroProse for $250 million before letting Hasbro Interactive take it in. Coincidentally, both GoodTimes AND Hasbro Interactive would be bought out by Infogrames (later Atari SA) in 1999 and 2001, respectively.
• Epic Pictures had offers to be bought by Artisan, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Disney before PolyGram succeeded to buy it. PolyGram would eventually sell it to Metro-Goldwyn-MayeOrion over a year later.

1998:

• Microsoft tried to acquire Davidson & Associates (Blizzard) for the second time from Cendant, but they were beaten by Havas, which was owned by Vivendi.
• Viacom's Paramount Pictures offered to buy French art house studio CiBy 2000 for 500 million francs, or roughly $80 million in USD. The founder's widow, however, refused, and the catalog was dispersed between TF1, MK2, and several companies. Thirty-two years later, Paramount would get an arthouse-type film studio: Miramax.

1999:

• MCI Worldcom tried to buy Sprint for $129 billion. After a 2001 scandal, Worldcom (name since 2000) was renamed to MCI Inc., which would get bought by Verizon in 2006. Sprint merged with T-Mobile US 14 years after MCI went to Verizon.
• Global Crossing offered to buy US West for $37 billion before Qwest outbid them. Coincidentally, the rest seems to have been a big wave of all coming together, as Global Crossing (after a bankruptcy in 2002) would get bought by Level 3 in 2011, which itself would be bought in 2016 by CenturyLink WHO MERGED with Qwest back in 2010.
• Artisan Entertainment and Canal+ were speculated to pick up PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.
• Two years before the release of the Xbox, Microsoft approached Nintendo about buying them. The deal was that they would make the hardware for Nintendo, but the latter's executives "laughed their asses off."
  • They also tried to buy Squaresoft, Electronic Arts, and Midway around this time.
• CanWest Global attempted to acquire NetStar (which consisted of TSN and Discovery Canada), but was vetoed by ESPN. CTV would eventually buy it.
• Francis Ford Coppola planned to buy United Artists from MGM.

2000:

• Activision and partial owner Nintendo bid for Rareware until Microsoft bought them out 2 years later.
• Netflix offers to be bought by Blockbuster for $50 million, but they decline.
• Warner Music Group tried to buy British music label EMI for $20 billion but canceled the merger after pressure. Info here. After EMI's bankruptcy in 2011, Warner would buy Parlophone from it for $765 million, about 40% of EMI's record label.

2001:

• Sesame Workshop was put up for sale, with speculated buyers being Viacom, AOL Time Warner, The Walt Disney Company, and Classic Media.
  • The Jim Henson Company was also up for sale to The Walt Disney Company, Viacom, HIT Entertainment, AOL Time Warner, Haim Saban, and Classic Media.
• Chris-Craft (involved in the United Paramount Network) offered to be bought by Viacom for $3.1 billion until News Corp came in.
• Before NBC came in, the bidders of Telemundo were Viacom, The Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, and AOL Time Warner.

2002:

• Viacom and USA Network were originally speculated to buy Fox Family Worldwide before it was sold by News Corp to The Walt Disney Company.

2003:

• Emtv tried to sell The Muppets to Sesame Workshop and ClassicMedia.
• Before Lionsgate took the shot, Marvel and Miramax were placing a bid to pick up Artisan.
• Viacom, Liberty Media Corp, News Corporation, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Barry Diller were also bidding to buy Universal Studios and its theme parks.

2004:

• Comcast tried to buy Disney for $66 billion.
• Take-Two Interactive Software considered buying Vivendi Universal Games for $1 billion, which was below what Vivendi Universal wanted. Vivendi Games, after its parent company stripped itself of Universal Studios to make NBC Universal, would merge with Activision Publishing four years later to create Activision Blizzard, now part of Microsoft.
• In June, an unnamed financier offered $10 million for TheFacebook, the first of many attempts over the next three years.
  • Friendster also offered to buy them, according to documents seen by SAI Global.
  • A couple of Google execs visited Facebook's office to see if there was a way to work with Zuckerberg or perhaps even buy his company.
• 2 years after Kirk Kerkorian put Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer up for sale, Time Warner emerged as a bidder for the studio. The bid wasn't unexpected, as Ted Turner was the largest shareholder. After all, his Turner Entertainment Group had risen to success through its ownership of the pre-May 1986 library, which had been acquired by the bidder when they merged with Turner eight years prior.
• Casey-Werner was looking to sell itself to a large media company but would later decide against selling. The potential suitors were General Electric/Vivendi's NBC Universal and the first incarnation of Viacom, which owned CBS.
• Channel 4 considered merging with Channel 5 for nine months before calling it off. Five would later get bought by RTL Group.

2005:

• Viacom offered to buy out TheFacebook for $75 million; the deal would have Mark Zuckerburg earn $35 million "on the spot".
  • MySpace's CEO Chris DeWolfe also visited Mark and his team to buy them.
  • NBC Universal's NBC execs stopped by "for a peek" this year.
  • In the fall, Mark Zuckerberg flew to New York to meet with Viacom CEO Tom Freston. Tom would pitch all sorts of synergies to Mark between MTV and Facebook.
• Before creating an alliance consisting of Pandemic Studios and BioWare, Elevation Partners planned to buy out Eidos Interactive before SCi (no, not Sony Computer Interactive) stepped in and bought them in May. The Pandemic and BioWare alliance would get bought by Electronic Arts 2 years later, with the former studio shutting down two years later.
• Five months before Viacom purchased Dreamworks SKG, there were rumors that NBC Universal would buy the then-independent studio for $2.5 billion. Dreamworks Pictures already used Universal's film distribution and home entertainment divisions to distribute their products.

2006:

• In January, News Corporation's Ross Levinsohn wanted to buy Facebook but was worried the deal might not keep up its growth.
  • Viacom sent the company a $1.5 billion offer--$800 million in cash up front, the rest a payout later. In this case, it's said it "almost sold."
  • In June, Yahoo! offered $1 billion, only to... lower it to $850 million after announcing horrible Q2 earnings.
    • In the fall, they suggested they would pay $1 billion or more.
  • In the middle of the year, AOL's CEO Johnathan Miller wanted to buy the company, convincing Time Inc.'s CEO to come in on the deal they took to their parent company Time Warner. A detailed plan would have AOL sell MapQuest and Tegic, while Time Inc. would sell IPC. Together, they'd offer $1 billion-plus.
• At least according to the YouTuber Hook: before Google came in, the bidders for YouTube were News Corporation, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and even Viacom, the last of which, after the Google purchase, would coldly claim YouTube infringed copyright, losing in the long end, and, after a CEO change, bought VidCon.
• In November, National Transcommunications Limited (or NTL for short) approached ITV plc with a merger bid. However, it would get blocked when British Sky Broadcasting (now Sky UK) bought roughly 18% of ITV for £940 million ($117.3 million in US dollars).
  • RTL Group, who owned Channel 5 at the time, also bid at one point; the plan would have seen RTL acquiring Sky's stake in ITV plc (with the aim of further acquisitions of shares in the future) in exchange for BSkyB taking full control of Channel 5.

2007:

• Google offered to buy Facebook.
  • Microsoft also offered to buy a small stake in the platform at a $15 billion valuation, then have the option, every six months, to buy another 5 percent. The complete takeover would've been well within five to seven years. While it never happened, they did buy 1.6% of the company for about $250 million, a deal which set their value at $15 billion.

2008:

• A reverse merger deal between DHX Media and Entertainment One was considered.
• Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo! for $47.5 billion until the latter let Google display its ads on the site.
• There were later debunked rumors of Viacom buying Take-Two Interactive, around the time of the next one:
• Electronic Arts even tried to buy Take-Two Interactive until September.
• France Télécom (present-day Orange) planned to buy Swedish telco TeliaSonera for $40 billion, but both could not come to an agreement.
• Square Enix planned to buy Tecmo, but the latter insisted on a merger of equals with Koei.

2009:

• Lionsgate announced plans on February 1 to buy Summit Entertainment, but 2 days later, the plans fell through. Lionsgate would end up purchasing Summit in 2012.
• Before Comcast came in, Time Warner and News Corporation were originally interested in buying NBC Universal from General Electric and Vivendi.
• News Corporation, Time Warner, Amir Malin's Qualia Capital, and Lionsgate Entertainment were bidding for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Holdings during its bankruptcy. Time Warner already owned the pre-May 1986 MGM library, had enough cash reserves, and co-produced the Hobbit films with the studio. News Corporation's 20th Century Fox, meanwhile, was Metro Goldwyn Mayer's home entertainment distributor at the time.

2010:

• News Corporation made a plan for the takeover of British Sky Broadcasting (already owning 39.1% until then) in June for 700 pounds per share for the remaining 60.9% shares until two turning points came: the removal of regulatory approval from Vincent Cable in December, and the more infamous 2011 News of the World phone hacking incident, which caused the bid to fall to its face.
• In a part 2, two more bidders, Reliance Entertainment (about $1.8 billion) and Relativity Media (about $1.6 billion) went onboard for MGM Holdings. But by November 3rd, MGM Holdings filed bankruptcy and emerged almost a month later when the Federal Bankruptcy Court approved the reorganization plan.

2011:

• AT&T tried to buy T-Mobile US for $39 billion.
• Hulu found itself in an unsolicited offer that was said to involve Google and Yahoo!. Ultimately, none of the bidders offered an amount satisfactory to its owners.
• World Wrestling Entertainment and the UFC were in separate talks to buy G4 until UFC went into a deal with Fox and WWE built its network.
• Before Mattel chipped in, the other bidders planning to buy HiT Entertainment from Apax Partners were The Walt Disney Company, the second incarnation of Viacom, rival Hasbro, ClassicMedia (which would be bought by Dreamworks Animation, which is now a Comcast company), Chorion, and Saban Brands.

2012:

• CBS was also rumored to buy Sony Pictures from Sony.
• People make a half-truth of an NYT article about Valve into "EA tried to buy Valve."

2013:

• Facebook's Instagram attempted to buy Snapchat for $3 billion in cash due to the latter's introduction of Stories. 3 years later, Instagram made their own Stories.
• Yahoo! considered buying either Netflix or Hulu until they fatefully decided upon Tumblr for $1.1 billion.
  • DirecTV and Time Warner also bid for Hulu.
• Time Warner was stated to be one of the buyers of THQ until its bankruptcy in the same year, followed by Nordic Games buying its trademark in 2014.
  • ZeniMax Media also made a $26.3 million bid for THQ's Relic Entertainment before Sega came in.
• Dish Network considered buying Sprint for $25.5 billion.
• RTL Group's Fremantle attempted to buy out All3Media.
• Microsoft was negotiating to purchase HTC, a fact revealed by former Nokia chairman Risto Siilasmaa during an interview with the Helsingin Sanomat, or Hesari. Microsoft would later buy Nokia's mobile phone business that year.
  • On the topic of mobile phones, Lenovo planned to buy Blackberry Limited, but the Canadian government blocked the deal due to security concerns because prominent members of governments around the world have used Blackberries themselves. They would later buy Motorola Mobility from Google in January 2014 for $2.91 billion.

2014:

• 21st Century Fox offered an $80 billion bid for Time Warner, but a potential CNN spinoff was one of the reasons why it became unattractive and fell.
• Hasbro planned to buy DreamWorks Animation to form Hasbro-Dreamworks, two years before Comcast went in.
  • SoftBank was also planning to buy Dreamworks Animation for $3.4 billion.
• Comcast tried to buy Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion but faced a ton of madness to the point of abandonment.
• BT, ITV plc, Channel 4, Comcast (through NBCUniversal), Endemol, Time Warner, Viacom, Scripps Network Interactive, Saban Capital Group, and a joint bid of BSkyB and Discovery Communications were all bidders reportedly interested in acquiring Channel 5. Viacom won.

2015:

• There were some fears of Yahoo! buying Dailymotion from Orange, which were soon quelled by Vivendi's purchase of the site.
• Apple had considered buying TimeWarner.

2016:

• Before Viacom bought Telefe from Telefonica, Time Warner and the Cisneros Group were bidding for the network.
• 21st Century Fox tried a $32.5 billion bid for Sky until they were bought by Disney. Comcast eventually kicked in and bought Sky.
• Vivendi attempted a bid to buy out Ubisoft for $6.4 billion before ending the hostile takeover bid 2 years later. Today, Ubisoft is partially owned by Tencent.
• Disney somehow planned to merge with Time Warner before AT&T went into negotiations.
• Activision Blizzard's CEO Bobby Kotick somehow considered buying TimeWarner before AT&T took it.
• National Amusements sends a letter to both CBS Corporation and Viacom asking them to merge back. It's declined... for now.
• ITV plc placed a £1 billion ($1.3 billion USD) offer to buy eOne, which they rejected. Hasbro bought them for $4 billion in 2019.
• The Walt Disney Company planned to buy Twitter but decided not because there were a substantial amount of bots.
  • Microsoft, Salesforce, and Google were also said to bid for Twitter.
• Viacom tried to sell a stake of Paramount Pictures to Dalian Wanda, but it fell through, thankfully.
• Spotify was rumored to be looking into buying SoundCloud. It would be complementary as Spotify targets signed artists, and SoundCloud targets indies.

2017:

• 22 companies comprising but not limited to Viacom, Miramax, Ronald Wayne Burkle's Yucaipa, Lionsgate, A&E, Sony, and MGM all placed bids for The Weinstein Company.
• Viacom was going to take in Scripps Networks Interactive before Discovery Communications came through with a $12 billion outbid.
• Comcast, Sony, and Verizon were the other bidders for 21st Century Fox's assets. Comcast's bid persisted until July 2018, leaving it to The Walt Disney Company in March 2019.
• Tribune Media announced its sale to Sinclair Broadcast Group, but 15 months later, they were sued for a breach of contract. They would merge with future CW majority owner Nexstar Media Group for $4.1 billion.
• Hasbro attempted to buy Lionsgate.

2018:

• Viacom, CBS (both would re-merge in 2019), Verizon, Comcast, Amazon (later would buy MGM in 2022), Sony, and Hasbro again were speculated to buy Lionsgate, and there were rumors that a combined CBS-Viacom would buy out the studio, with Vice Chairman Michael Burns implying in an interview with CNBC that Lionsgate, CBS, and Viacom all merge.
• Google was eyeing Epic Games before starting their own cloud service called "Project Stream", later named Stadia, which lasted until 2023.

2019:

• Univision was speculated to be bought by ViacomCBS in articles like this, before Televisa (sort of) came in 2 years later, to form TelevisaUnivision.
• Before Viacom re-merged with CBS, there were rumors of the latter entity buying Starz from Lionsgate.
• Before ViacomCBS kicked in, the bidders for a 50% stake in Miramax were the second incarnation of Viacom, Lionsgate (which had the home video rights to Miramax, at least in the United States), and Spyglass Media Group, who had been the owner of The Weinstein Company's library a year ago. Spyglass was the first to exit talks, followed by Lionsgate a month later. After two months, Viacom went out of the discussion until the re-merge with CBS Corporation meant they would resume buyout talks with Miramax.
• ViacomCBS was also speculated to buy Discovery pre-announcement of the Warner Bros Discovery deal two years later.
• Continuing on with the post-merger 'nundrum, ViacomCBS was also rumored to buy Sony Pictures and even Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
• Xerox planned until 2020 to buy out Hewlett-Packard for $33.5 (later $35.0 in the second bid) billion. Hewlett-Packard indicated it would make its counteroffer for Xerox.

2020:

• Microsoft not only (and this was very publicized) tried to buy Tiktok, but almost tried to buy out Capcom, Nintendo, and even Warner Bros. Games.
• Apple and Netflix were rumored to buy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
• Take-Two Interactive was going to buy Codemasters for $994 million and assign it under 2K, before being trumped by Electronic Arts with a billion-dollar bid.
• ViacomCBS initially planned to sell Simon and Schuster to Penguin Random House but ended up in a blockage two years later.
  • Before that announcement, News Corp (HarperCollins) and Vivendi (Editis) were said to be the other bidders for S&S.

Around this time, Lionsgate made an unsolicited offer to merge Starz with ViacomCBS' Showtime.
2021:

• Comcast had some plans to buy Activision Blizzard, at least according to Puck.
• In a better-known attempt, they considered spinning off NBCUniversal and merging it with Electronic Arts, which sadly never materialized.
• Comcast was speculated to merge with ViacomCBS after the announcement of the Warner-Discovery deal, which would only get churned down to SkyShowtime for specific regions.
• Bagdasarian Productions has been reported to have put itself up for sale for about $300 million, with Paramount Global (who has home entertainment rights and Nickelodeon airs the current show) being the most likely bidder.
• Microsoft was interested in acquiring Zynga before it was sold to Take-Two Interactive Software.
• Microsoft was also seriously planning to buy out some of over a hundred developers and nine publishers, and also considered Sega, Square Enix, and IO Interactive in an April 2021 slideshow given out this year's ruling by the FTC on ActivBliz.
• Lionsgate was planning for as long as into the next year to buy STX.

2022:

• Fox Corporation and News Corp were going to merge, only to get called off.
• There were the marathonical rumors of Apple, Disney, and even Amazon buying out Electronic Arts.
• The Washington Post was looking to buy Wordle before The New York Times Company became the buyer.

2023:

• Playtika tried to buy Rovio for $813 million before Sega Sammy took the helm.
• Comcast was speculated to buy out World Wrestling Entertainment before Endeavor Group came in.
  • They were also rumored to buy the remaining 67% of Hulu from The Walt Disney Company, until it became the other way around.
• Legendary, Fremantle, and GoDigital Media Group were bidding to buy Entertainment One from Hasbro until Lionsgate won the bidding.
• In the finale of the Simon and Schuster sale, the other bidder besides Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts was News Corp's HarperCollins.
• Paramount Global planned to sell BET to people including Byron Allen, Shaquille O'Neal, and 50 Cent, until deciding that the networks were a core asset.

Start of Week #4. Check-in closes Wednesday, May 29 at 11:59pm EDT (30 May @ 03:59 am UTC)

Read this entire page so that you are not disqualified by missing any important steps
Click here for an invite to the FitChallenge discord server
Click here for the FitChallenge Strava group

If you do not correctly post, your submission may be marked invalid and you may need to make a correction post.

Weight Loss

^{[Scroll further down for Physique]}
Weight Loss Check-in Rules:

1. Go here and fill out this form. This is for the weekly weight tracker and is REQUIRED.
2. Take photos of Scale using the following verification words/phrase. "INSTANT"
3. Upload Scale photo to imgur, through reddit, or any other image hosting site. They do not need to be public on imgur for us to see them. If they are public on imgur, you may receive comments, etc. from their user base.
4. Create a new post using the format shown below. If you hosted your photos on imgur, add your photo links into the text post, not in a comment. Imgur has implemented a fairly strict nsfw policy that seems to affect a lot of our members. For old.reddit users, I believe you'll have to use new.reddit to upload multiple images.

Physique

Physique Check-in Rules:

1. Create new text post using the format show below. No photos required.

Unofficial

Unofficial Check-in Rules:

1. Follow the check-in rules for the category above that you have chosen and use /unofficial/ as your /Week #/.

• The unofficial category is not tracked for challenge purposes by FitChallenge staff. We have decided to offer this category for those who have missed out on the official start week and would like to be part of the community and take advantage of the help/advice/motivation that we can give.

POSTING INSTRUCTIONS/INFORMATION

Weekly check-ins will be due by 11:59 pm Eastern on each Wednesday of the challenge. During each weekly check-in, challengers will be required to make a short text post giving us an idea of your progression. For example, you could answer these questions: What are your goals? Are you achieving them? How?
Full Body Front, Back, and at least one Side photo are required for everyone at the start and final check-ins with an additional Scale photo required weekly for the Weight Loss category. The check-in post title will tell you when full body photos are required. Photos must be taken in the same, or very similar, non-baggy clothing each week, preferably either underwear or a swimsuit and showing as much skin as possible. For the weight loss category this isn't as strict, but please keep it similar. If NSFW, please mark your post as such. The only photo editing allowed will be to cover your face or any identifying marks. At least the Front photo needs to have a handwritten sign containing a word or phrase chosen by /FitChallenge mods. Please take photos relaxed and not flexed, standing straight with your arms loosely hanging at your sides. Flexed photos may now be added as extra if you'd like to keep track in your postings. Photos must be hosted on imgur and linked in your text post. Please remember to update us on your goals or other progress this week.

Submit a new text post to the subreddit and title it in this format:

Weight Loss/Week #/Male or Female/### lbs
(ex. Weight Loss/Week 8/Female/154 lbs.)
Physique/Week #/Male or Female
(ex. Physique/Week 8/Female)
Weight Loss/Unofficial/Male or Female/### lbs
(ex. Weight Loss/Unofficial/Female/154 lbs.)

May 25/26 2024
👍👍 👋 Welcome citizens, come and take a look at the items I have to offer and feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions before buying.
About me:
RSI: Juannox - Discord: Juannox

• I'm a backer since Jan-2015, I'm an active user in the comunity, my goal is to bring all items to you at best possible prices from me, all funds will be used to support the proyect again,
• More than 3000 real trades in this subreddit without any problem.

✅ Safe place to trade:
- I don't use second hand credits and I don't purshase accounts, all the items I sell are directly from my own account using my own funds, so there is no risk on my side.
🌎🌍🌏 I'am accepting US$ and EU€ from anywhere in the world using paypal or Cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH, LTC, USDT, BUSDT etc.
my local time is GMT -5

• Listed prices includes paypal fees.
• Verified paypal users only
• Confirmed RSI account only, (check HERE on how to)
• Items over $35 only to buyers with some reddit history (crypto has no limits)
• Check instructions on "how to buy" at the end of this post.

⬇️ STANDALONE SHIPS ⬇️

• If you don't find a ship in the list, feel free to ask me.- All the ships listed here are built with my own funds without using second-hand credits, so there's no risk here.

SHIP	Insurance - Attributes	Price	Availability
SPARTAN	OC - LTI	$90	✔️ YES
NOMAD	OC - LTI	$90	✔️ YES
CUTTER	OC - LTI	$70	✔️ YES
SABRE	CCU'ed - LTI	$155	✔️ YES
FREELANCER MIS	CCU'ed - LTI	$160	✔️ YES
CUTLASS BLUE	CCU'ed - LTI	$160	✔️ YES
F7C- SUPER HORNET	CCU'ed - LTI	$170	✔️ YES
A1 SPIRIT	CCU'ed - LTI	$180	✔️ YES
HURRICANE	CCU'ed - LTI	$185	✔️ YES
DEFENDER	CCU'ed - LTI	$190	✔️ YES
SAN TOK YAI	CCU'ed - LTI	$195	✔️ YES
SCORPIUS	CCU'ed - LTI	$200	✔️ YES
APOLLO TRIAGE	CCU'ed - LTI	$210	✔️ YES
ARES INFERNO	CCU'ed - LTI	$215	✔️ YES
ARES ION	CCU'ed - LTI	$215	✔️ YES
400i	CCU'ed - LTI	$215	✔️ YES
VANGUARD WARDEN	CCU'ed - LTI	$215	✔️ YES
CORSAIR BIS 2953	CCU'ed - LTI	$220	✔️ YES
MERCURY BIS 2952	CCU'ed - LTI	$225	✔️ YES
APOLLO MEDIVAC	CCU'ed - LTI	$230	✔️ YES
VANGUARD HARBINGER	CCU'ed - LTI	$235	✔️ YES
ECLIPSE	CCU'ed - LTI	$240	✔️ YES
CATERPILLAR	CCU'ed - LTI	$245	✔️ YES
REDEEMER	CCU'ed - LTI	$245	✔️ YES
ENDEAVOR	CCU'ed - LTI	$255	✔️ YES
CRUCIBLE	CCU'ed - LTI	$255	✔️ YES
VALKYRIE	CCU'ed - LTI	$265	✔️ YES
GALAXY	CCU'ed - LTI	$270	✔️ YES
RECLAIMER	CCU'ed - LTI	$285	✔️ YES
GENESIS	CCU'ed - LTI	$285	✔️ YES
C2 HERCULES	CCU'ed - LTI	$285	✔️ YES
600i EXPLORER BIS 2953	CCU'ed - LTI	$320	✔️ YES
HULL C	CCU'ed - LTI	$325	✔️ YES
M2 HERCULES	CCU'ed - LTI	$335	✔️ YES
HULL D	CCU'ed - LTI	$340	✔️ YES
LIBERATOR	CCU'ed - LTI	$345	✔️ YES
ARRASTRA	CCU'ed - LTI	$345	✔️ YES
CARRACK	CCU'ed - LTI	$345	✔️ YES
MERCHANTMAN	CCU'ed - LTI	$350	✔️ YES
ORION	CCU'ed - LTI	$350	✔️ YES
PERSEUS	CCU'ed - LTI	$370	✔️ YES
ODYSEY	CCU'ed - LTI	$380	✔️ YES
HAMERHEAD	CCU'ed - LTI	$390	✔️ YES
NAUTILUS	CCU'ed - LTI	$390	✔️ YES
POLARIS	CCU'ed - LTI	$395	✔️ YES

⬇️🤑 Saving Cost WARBOND/Pre-Price UPGRADES 🤑⬇️

FROM	📌	TO 👇	Insurance	Price
Defender	➡️	Corsair	120	$15
Railen	➡️	Corsair	120	$15
F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	➡️	Defender	-	$12
Prowler	➡️	Hull C	-	$25
Starfarer Gemini	➡️	Hull C	-	$45
F7C-M Super Hornet	➡️	Hurricane	-	$15
Prowler	➡️	600i Explorer	-	$18
Liberator	➡️	Merchantman	-	$38
Perseus	➡️	Polaris	120	$56
Reclaimer	➡️	Prowler	120	$25
Prospector	➡️	Sabre	120	$12
A1 Spirit	➡️	San'tok.yāi	120	$20
Starfarer Gemini	➡️	Valkyrie	-	$25

⬇️☀️ Standard UPGRADES ☀️⬇️

FROM	📌	TO 👇	Price	Availability
Aurora MR	➡️	MPUV C	$9	✔️ YES
Mustang Alpha	➡️	MPUV C	$9	✔️ YES
Aurora MR	➡️	P-72 Archimedes	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
HoverQuad	➡️	P-72 Archimedes	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Aurora MR	➡️	Ranger CV	$9	✔️ YES
HoverQuad	➡️	Ranger CV	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Aurora MR	➡️	Ranger RC	$9	✔️ YES
HoverQuad	➡️	Ranger RC	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Aurora LX	➡️	Ranger TR	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Dragonfly Black	➡️	Nox	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
P-72 Archimedes	➡️	X1	$14	✔️ YES
Dragonfly Black	➡️	X1	$9	✔️ YES
Dragonfly Yellowjacket	➡️	X1	$9	✔️ YES
STV	➡️	X1	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
C8X Pisces Expedition	➡️	Cutter Rambler	$9	✔️ YES
Cutter	➡️	Cutter Rambler	$9	✔️ YES
Mule	➡️	Cutter Rambler	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
C8X Pisces Expedition	➡️	Cutter Scout	$9	✔️ YES
Cutter	➡️	Cutter Scout	$9	✔️ YES
Mule	➡️	Cutter Scout	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
STV	➡️	X1 Velocity	$14	✔️ YES
Cutter	➡️	X1 Velocity	$9	✔️ YES
Mule	➡️	X1 Velocity	$9	✔️ YES
X1	➡️	X1 Velocity	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
100i	➡️	Fury	$9	✔️ YES
Cutter Rambler	➡️	Fury	$9	✔️ YES
Cutter Scout	➡️	Fury	$9	✔️ YES
Ursa	➡️	Fury	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
100i	➡️	Fury LX	$9	✔️ YES
Cutter Rambler	➡️	Fury LX	$9	✔️ YES
Cutter Scout	➡️	Fury LX	$9	✔️ YES
Ursa	➡️	Fury LX	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
100i	➡️	Fury MX	$9	✔️ YES
Cutter Rambler	➡️	Fury MX	$9	✔️ YES
Cutter Scout	➡️	Fury MX	$9	✔️ YES
Ursa	➡️	Fury MX	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
100i	➡️	Mustang Gamma	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Cutter	➡️	X1 Force	$14	✔️ YES
100i	➡️	X1 Force	$9	✔️ YES
X1 Velocity	➡️	X1 Force	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Cyclone	➡️	Lynx	$9	✔️ YES
Fury	➡️	Lynx	$9	✔️ YES
ROC	➡️	Lynx	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
300i	➡️	C8R Pisces	$9	✔️ YES
Avenger Stalker	➡️	C8R Pisces	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
125a	➡️	Cyclone RC	$9	✔️ YES
300i	➡️	Cyclone RC	$9	✔️ YES
Avenger Stalker	➡️	Cyclone RC	$9	✔️ YES
300i	➡️	Cyclone RN	$9	✔️ YES
Avenger Stalker	➡️	Cyclone RN	$9	✔️ YES
300i	➡️	Cyclone TR	$9	✔️ YES
Avenger Stalker	➡️	Cyclone TR	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Avenger Stalker	➡️	G12a	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Avenger Stalker	➡️	Mustang Delta	$9	🔥 Last one!
-	📌	TO 👇
135c	➡️	Syulen	$9	✔️ YES
Reliant Kore	➡️	Syulen	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
325a	➡️	Avenger Titan Renegade	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
325a	➡️	Cyclone MT	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Reliant Kore	➡️	Reliant Tana	$14	✔️ YES
325a	➡️	Reliant Tana	$9	✔️ YES
Syulen	➡️	Reliant Tana	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Arrow	➡️	Cyclone AA	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
300i	➡️	Spartan	$25	✔️ YES
G12	➡️	Spartan	$25	🔥 Last one!
G12r	➡️	Spartan	$25	🔥 Last one!
Arrow	➡️	Spartan	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Nomad	➡️	Avenger Warlock	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Nomad	➡️	Herald	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Arrow	➡️	Reliant Sen	$14	✔️ YES
Nomad	➡️	Reliant Sen	$9	✔️ YES
Spartan	➡️	Reliant Sen	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Arrow	➡️	Storm	$19	✔️ YES
Nomad	➡️	Storm	$14	✔️ YES
Reliant Sen	➡️	Storm	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Gladius	➡️	Reliant Mako	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Reliant Sen	➡️	M50	$19	✔️ YES
Gladius	➡️	M50	$14	✔️ YES
Hull A	➡️	M50	$14	✔️ YES
Reliant Mako	➡️	M50	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Gladius	➡️	Storm AA	$14	✔️ YES
Storm	➡️	Storm AA	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Hull A	➡️	Buccaneer	$25	✔️ YES
Hawk	➡️	Buccaneer	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Gladius	➡️	Centurion	$25	✔️ YES
Hull A	➡️	Centurion	$25	🔥 Last one!
-	📌	TO 👇
Gladius	➡️	Talon	$30	✔️ YES
Reliant Mako	➡️	Talon	$25	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Arrow	➡️	Talon Shrike	$46	✔️ YES
Gladius	➡️	Talon Shrike	$30	✔️ YES
Reliant Mako	➡️	Talon Shrike	$25	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Freelancer	➡️	Legionnaire	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
M50	➡️	Nova	$25	🔥 2 Left!
Cutlass Black	➡️	Nova	$14	✔️ YES
Freelancer	➡️	Nova	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Cutlass Black	➡️	350r	$19	✔️ YES
Talon	➡️	350r	$14	✔️ YES
Talon Shrike	➡️	350r	$14	✔️ YES
Legionnaire	➡️	350r	$9	✔️ YES
Nova	➡️	350r	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Cutlass Black	➡️	C1 Spirit	$19	✔️ YES
Freelancer	➡️	C1 Spirit	$19	✔️ YES
Nova	➡️	C1 Spirit	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
F7C Hornet	➡️	Cutlass Red	$30	🔥 Last one!
Freelancer	➡️	Cutlass Red	$30	🔥 Last one!
F7C-S Hornet Ghost	➡️	Cutlass Red	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Cutlass Red	➡️	Hull B	$9	✔️ YES
Freelancer DUR	➡️	Hull B	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Hull B	➡️	Razor	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Ballista	➡️	E1 Spirit	$14	✔️ YES
Razor	➡️	E1 Spirit	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Razor	➡️	Razor LX	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Razor	➡️	Zeus Mk II CL	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Razor	➡️	Zeus Mk II ES	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Razor	➡️	Razor EX	$14	✔️ YES
Freelancer MAX	➡️	Razor EX	$9	✔️ YES
Mantis	➡️	Razor EX	$9	✔️ YES
Razor LX	➡️	Razor EX	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	Gladiator	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Hull B	➡️	Khartu-Al	$35	✔️ YES
Prospector	➡️	Khartu-Al	$19	✔️ YES
Gladiator	➡️	Khartu-Al	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Freelancer MAX	➡️	Sabre	$25	🔥 2 Left!
Prospector	➡️	Sabre	$19	✔️ YES
Razor EX	➡️	Sabre	$19	✔️ YES
Gladiator	➡️	Sabre	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Cutlass Red	➡️	Cutlass Blue	$46	✔️ YES
Prospector	➡️	Cutlass Blue	$25	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	Cutlass Blue	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	F7C Hornet Wildfire	$25	✔️ YES
Razor EX	➡️	F7C Hornet Wildfire	$25	✔️ YES
Gladiator	➡️	F7C Hornet Wildfire	$14	✔️ YES
Khartu-Al	➡️	F7C Hornet Wildfire	$9	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	F7C Hornet Wildfire	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
E1 Spirit	➡️	Freelancer MIS	$30	✔️ YES
Prospector	➡️	Freelancer MIS	$25	✔️ YES
Razor EX	➡️	Freelancer MIS	$25	✔️ YES
Gladiator	➡️	Freelancer MIS	$14	✔️ YES
Khartu-Al	➡️	Freelancer MIS	$9	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	Freelancer MIS	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet	$35	✔️ YES
Razor EX	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet	$35	✔️ YES
Gladiator	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet	$25	✔️ YES
Khartu-Al	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet	$19	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet	$19	✔️ YES
Cutlass Blue	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet	$14	✔️ YES
F7C Hornet Wildfire	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet	$14	✔️ YES
Freelancer MIS	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet	$14	✔️ YES
Vulture	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	Sabre Comet	$35	✔️ YES
Vulture	➡️	Sabre Comet	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Vulture	➡️	Zeus Mk II MR	$19	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet	➡️	Zeus Mk II MR	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	A1 Spirit	$51	✔️ YES
Gladiator	➡️	A1 Spirit	$40	✔️ YES
Khartu-Al	➡️	A1 Spirit	$35	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	A1 Spirit	$35	✔️ YES
Vulture	➡️	A1 Spirit	$30	✔️ YES
Zeus Mk II MR	➡️	A1 Spirit	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	$60	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	$45	✔️ YES
Freelancer MIS	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	$40	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet	➡️	F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	$40	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
F7C-M Super Hornet	➡️	Vulcan	$19	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	Hurricane	$62	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	Hurricane	$46	✔️ YES
Cutlass Blue	➡️	Hurricane	$40	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet	➡️	Hurricane	$30	✔️ YES
A1 Spirit	➡️	Hurricane	$14	✔️ YES
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Hurricane	$14	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	➡️	Hurricane	$14	✔️ YES
Vulcan	➡️	Hurricane	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	Defender	$72	✔️ YES
Khartu-Al	➡️	Defender	$56	🔥 2 Left!
Sabre	➡️	Defender	$56	✔️ YES
Cutlass Blue	➡️	Defender	$51	✔️ YES
Freelancer MIS	➡️	Defender	$51	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet	➡️	Defender	$40	✔️ YES
Sabre Comet	➡️	Defender	$40	✔️ YES
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Defender	$25	✔️ YES
Hurricane	➡️	Defender	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
A1 Spirit	➡️	Terrapin	$25	✔️ YES
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Terrapin	$25	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	➡️	Terrapin	$25	✔️ YES
Vulcan	➡️	Terrapin	$25	✔️ YES
Hurricane	➡️	Terrapin	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	Railen	$77	✔️ YES
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Railen	$30	✔️ YES
Vulcan	➡️	Railen	$30	✔️ YES
Defender	➡️	Railen	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Scorpius Antares	$35	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	➡️	Scorpius Antares	$35	✔️ YES
Hurricane	➡️	Scorpius Antares	$25	✔️ YES
Defender	➡️	Scorpius Antares	$14	✔️ YES
Terrapin	➡️	Scorpius Antares	$14	✔️ YES
Railen	➡️	Scorpius Antares	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Cutlass Steel	$40	✔️ YES
Terrapin	➡️	Cutlass Steel	$19	✔️ YES
Scorpius Antares	➡️	Cutlass Steel	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
A1 Spirit	➡️	San'tok.yāi	$46	✔️ YES
Constellation Taurus	➡️	San'tok.yāi	$46	✔️ YES
Hurricane	➡️	San'tok.yāi	$35	✔️ YES
Defender	➡️	San'tok.yāi	$25	✔️ YES
Terrapin	➡️	San'tok.yāi	$25	✔️ YES
Scorpius Antares	➡️	San'tok.yāi	$14	✔️ YES
Cutlass Steel	➡️	San'tok.yāi	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	Scorpius	$93	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	Scorpius	$77	✔️ YES
Freelancer MIS	➡️	Scorpius	$72	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet	➡️	Scorpius	$62	✔️ YES
Sabre Comet	➡️	Scorpius	$62	🔥 2 Left!
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Scorpius	$46	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	➡️	Scorpius	$46	✔️ YES
Hurricane	➡️	Scorpius	$35	✔️ YES
Defender	➡️	Scorpius	$25	✔️ YES
Terrapin	➡️	Scorpius	$25	✔️ YES
Scorpius Antares	➡️	Scorpius	$14	✔️ YES
Cutlass Steel	➡️	Scorpius	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Vanguard Hoplite	$46	✔️ YES
Defender	➡️	Vanguard Hoplite	$25	✔️ YES
Railen	➡️	Vanguard Hoplite	$19	✔️ YES
Scorpius Antares	➡️	Vanguard Hoplite	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Taurus	➡️	400i	$56	✔️ YES
Terrapin	➡️	400i	$35	✔️ YES
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	400i	$14	✔️ YES
San'tok.yāi	➡️	400i	$14	✔️ YES
Scorpius	➡️	400i	$14	✔️ YES
Vanguard Hoplite	➡️	400i	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Apollo Triage	$14	✔️ YES
Scorpius	➡️	Apollo Triage	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	Ares Inferno	$104	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	Ares Inferno	$88	✔️ YES
Freelancer MIS	➡️	Ares Inferno	$83	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet	➡️	Ares Inferno	$72	✔️ YES
Sabre Comet	➡️	Ares Inferno	$72	✔️ YES
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Ares Inferno	$56	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	➡️	Ares Inferno	$56	✔️ YES
Vulcan	➡️	Ares Inferno	$56	✔️ YES
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Ares Inferno	$14	✔️ YES
San'tok.yāi	➡️	Ares Inferno	$14	✔️ YES
Scorpius	➡️	Ares Inferno	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prospector	➡️	Ares Ion	$104	✔️ YES
Sabre	➡️	Ares Ion	$88	✔️ YES
Freelancer MIS	➡️	Ares Ion	$83	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet	➡️	Ares Ion	$72	✔️ YES
Sabre Comet	➡️	Ares Ion	$72	✔️ YES
Constellation Taurus	➡️	Ares Ion	$56	✔️ YES
F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	➡️	Ares Ion	$56	✔️ YES
Vulcan	➡️	Ares Ion	$56	✔️ YES
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Ares Ion	$14	✔️ YES
San'tok.yāi	➡️	Ares Ion	$14	✔️ YES
Scorpius	➡️	Ares Ion	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Defender	➡️	Corsair	$35	✔️ YES
Terrapin	➡️	Corsair	$35	✔️ YES
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Corsair	$14	✔️ YES
San'tok.yāi	➡️	Corsair	$14	✔️ YES
Scorpius	➡️	Corsair	$14	✔️ YES
Vanguard Hoplite	➡️	Corsair	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
F7C-M Super Hornet Heartseeker	➡️	Mercury	$67	✔️ YES
Terrapin	➡️	Mercury	$46	✔️ YES
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Mercury	$25	✔️ YES
San'tok.yāi	➡️	Mercury	$25	✔️ YES
Scorpius	➡️	Mercury	$25	✔️ YES
Vanguard Hoplite	➡️	Mercury	$25	✔️ YES
400i	➡️	Mercury	$14	✔️ YES
Ares Inferno	➡️	Mercury	$14	✔️ YES
Ares Ion	➡️	Mercury	$14	✔️ YES
Corsair	➡️	Mercury	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Vanguard Warden	$25	✔️ YES
Scorpius	➡️	Vanguard Warden	$25	✔️ YES
400i	➡️	Vanguard Warden	$14	✔️ YES
Ares Inferno	➡️	Vanguard Warden	$14	✔️ YES
Ares Ion	➡️	Vanguard Warden	$14	✔️ YES
Corsair	➡️	Vanguard Warden	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Apollo Medivac	$40	✔️ YES
400i	➡️	Apollo Medivac	$30	✔️ YES
Apollo Triage	➡️	Apollo Medivac	$30	✔️ YES
Corsair	➡️	Apollo Medivac	$30	✔️ YES
Mercury	➡️	Apollo Medivac	$19	✔️ YES
Vanguard Warden	➡️	Apollo Medivac	$19	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Blade	$40	🔥 2 Left!
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Vanguard Sentinel	$40	✔️ YES
400i	➡️	Vanguard Sentinel	$30	✔️ YES
Ares Ion	➡️	Vanguard Sentinel	$30	✔️ YES
Corsair	➡️	Vanguard Sentinel	$30	✔️ YES
Mercury	➡️	Vanguard Sentinel	$19	✔️ YES
Vanguard Warden	➡️	Vanguard Sentinel	$19	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Vanguard Harbinger	$56	✔️ YES
Mercury	➡️	Vanguard Harbinger	$35	✔️ YES
Vanguard Warden	➡️	Vanguard Harbinger	$35	✔️ YES
Vanguard Sentinel	➡️	Vanguard Harbinger	$19	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Eclipse	$67	✔️ YES
Mercury	➡️	Eclipse	$46	✔️ YES
Vanguard Warden	➡️	Eclipse	$46	🔥 Last one!
Vanguard Sentinel	➡️	Eclipse	$30	✔️ YES
Vanguard Harbinger	➡️	Eclipse	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Starfarer	$67	🔥 Last one!
Mercury	➡️	Starfarer	$46	🔥 Last one!
Vanguard Harbinger	➡️	Starfarer	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Andromeda	➡️	Caterpillar	$99	✔️ YES
400i	➡️	Caterpillar	$88	✔️ YES
Mercury	➡️	Caterpillar	$77	✔️ YES
Vanguard Warden	➡️	Caterpillar	$77	✔️ YES
Vanguard Sentinel	➡️	Caterpillar	$62	✔️ YES
Vanguard Harbinger	➡️	Caterpillar	$46	✔️ YES
Constellation Aquila	➡️	Caterpillar	$19	✔️ YES
MOLE	➡️	Caterpillar	$19	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Mercury	➡️	Redeemer	$77	✔️ YES
Vanguard Warden	➡️	Redeemer	$77	✔️ YES
Constellation Aquila	➡️	Redeemer	$19	✔️ YES
MOLE	➡️	Redeemer	$19	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Aquila	➡️	Starfarer Gemini	$30	✔️ YES
MOLE	➡️	Starfarer Gemini	$30	✔️ YES
Caterpillar	➡️	Starfarer Gemini	$14	✔️ YES
Redeemer	➡️	Starfarer Gemini	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
MOLE	➡️	Crucible	$40	✔️ YES
Caterpillar	➡️	Crucible	$25	✔️ YES
Starfarer Gemini	➡️	Crucible	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
MOLE	➡️	Endeavor	$40	✔️ YES
Caterpillar	➡️	Endeavor	$25	✔️ YES
Redeemer	➡️	Endeavor	$25	✔️ YES
Starfarer Gemini	➡️	Endeavor	$14	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Aquila	➡️	Valkyrie	$67	🔥 Last one!
MOLE	➡️	Valkyrie	$67	✔️ YES
Caterpillar	➡️	Valkyrie	$51	✔️ YES
Redeemer	➡️	Valkyrie	$51	✔️ YES
Starfarer Gemini	➡️	Valkyrie	$40	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Valkyrie	➡️	Galaxy	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
MOLE	➡️	C2 Hercules	$93	✔️ YES
Starfarer Gemini	➡️	C2 Hercules	$67	✔️ YES
Glaive	➡️	C2 Hercules	$56	✔️ YES
Valkyrie	➡️	C2 Hercules	$30	✔️ YES
Galaxy	➡️	C2 Hercules	$25	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
MOLE	➡️	Genesis	$93	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Valkyrie	➡️	Reclaimer	$30	✔️ YES
Galaxy	➡️	Reclaimer	$25	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Valkyrie	➡️	600i Touring	$67	🔥 Last one!
C2 Hercules	➡️	600i Touring	$40	✔️ YES
Reclaimer	➡️	600i Touring	$40	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Constellation Aquila	➡️	Prowler	$136	✔️ YES
Valkyrie	➡️	Prowler	$72	✔️ YES
C2 Hercules	➡️	Prowler	$46	✔️ YES
Reclaimer	➡️	Prowler	$46	✔️ YES
600i Touring	➡️	Prowler	$9	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
C2 Hercules	➡️	600i Explorer	$83	🔥 2 Left!
600i Touring	➡️	600i Explorer	$46	✔️ YES
Prowler	➡️	600i Explorer	$40	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
MOLE	➡️	Hull C	$199	✔️ YES
Prowler	➡️	Hull C	$67	✔️ YES
600i Explorer	➡️	Hull C	$30	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
MOLE	➡️	M2 Hercules	$220	✔️ YES
C2 Hercules	➡️	M2 Hercules	$130	✔️ YES
600i Explorer	➡️	M2 Hercules	$51	✔️ YES
Hull C	➡️	M2 Hercules	$25	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
M2 Hercules	➡️	Arrastra	$62	✔️ YES
Hull D	➡️	Arrastra	$30	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
M2 Hercules	➡️	Liberator	$62	✔️ YES
Hull D	➡️	Liberator	$30	🔥 2 Left!
-	📌	TO 👇
Valkyrie	➡️	Carrack	$241	✔️ YES
Genesis	➡️	Carrack	$215	🔥 Last one!
Prowler	➡️	Carrack	$173	✔️ YES
600i Explorer	➡️	Carrack	$136	✔️ YES
M2 Hercules	➡️	Carrack	$88	✔️ YES
Arrastra	➡️	Carrack	$30	✔️ YES
Liberator	➡️	Carrack	$30	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Prowler	➡️	Merchantman	$225	✔️ YES
600i Explorer	➡️	Merchantman	$188	✔️ YES
M2 Hercules	➡️	Merchantman	$141	✔️ YES
Liberator	➡️	Merchantman	$83	✔️ YES
Carrack	➡️	Merchantman	$56	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Carrack	➡️	Orion	$56	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Carrack	➡️	Perseus	$83	✔️ YES
Merchantman	➡️	Perseus	$30	✔️ YES
Orion	➡️	Perseus	$30	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Carrack	➡️	Odyssey	$109	✔️ YES
Perseus	➡️	Odyssey	$30	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Carrack	➡️	Hammerhead	$136	🔥 Last one!
Carrack Expedition w/C8X	➡️	Hammerhead	$88	🔥 2 Left!
Merchantman	➡️	Hammerhead	$83	✔️ YES
Perseus	➡️	Hammerhead	$56	✔️ YES
Odyssey	➡️	Hammerhead	$30	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Merchantman	➡️	Nautilus	$83	🔥 Last one!
Perseus	➡️	Nautilus	$56	🔥 2 Left!
Odyssey	➡️	Nautilus	$30	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
M2 Hercules	➡️	A2 Hercules	$247	🔥 Last one!
Carrack	➡️	A2 Hercules	$162	✔️ YES
Carrack Expedition	➡️	A2 Hercules	$136	🔥 2 Left!
Carrack Expedition w/C8X	➡️	A2 Hercules	$114	✔️ YES
Merchantman	➡️	A2 Hercules	$109	✔️ YES
Perseus	➡️	A2 Hercules	$83	✔️ YES
Odyssey	➡️	A2 Hercules	$56	✔️ YES
Hammerhead	➡️	A2 Hercules	$30	✔️ YES
-	📌	TO 👇
Perseus	➡️	Polaris	$83	✔️ YES
Hammerhead	➡️	Polaris	$38	✔️ YES
Nautilus	➡️	Polaris	$38	✔️ YES

⬇️☀️ SOME ITEMS AND PAINTS ☀️⬇️

Items	Price
Scorpius - Stinger Paint 💎	$45
Scorpius - Sunburn Paint	$14
Spirit - Olympia Paint	$18
Constellation ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$24
CITIZENCON 2951 DIGITAL GOODIES	$10

HOW TO BUY:

1. PM me what you would like to buy and include your Verified PayPal email
2. Reply to this thread by announcing that you sent me a private message "PM'd", so I can see that you are a verified buyer.
3. I will then send you an invoice to your paypal email.
4. After payment is cleared Item is delivered to the buyer's PayPal email address.
5. You will recieve a regular email from RSI with the title "Someone sent you a gift from Roberts Space Industries"
6. Make sure to be logged into the correct RSI account before you open the link inside,
7. I will post in "Confirmed Trades theme post" thread announcing the sale.
8. After confirming the gift, you can reply to the post in which I mention you with +verify in "Confirmed Trades theme post".
9. Tracking and proof of delivery are provided by "Hangar Log" on RSI website.

Important: I don't do middleman services, my Discord is Juannox#3193, I do not do trades or anything in discord, avoid trades with any name other than that, please read THIS

I am planning to start a theme page in 2024 ,as a side hustle. Specifically talking , I want to taget US audience. Is it worth taking a shot? How much time should I expect to get my first dollar?

PC divers, in your steam userdata directory is the controls config file, and it's the best documented and most capable controls config I've ever seen. A lot of controls that aren't exposed in the game's ui can be found in a bloody markdown file on an ArrowHead website.
You can easily bind an action to more than one key just by duplicating an input section. You can supposedly also use Overlap = 0.2 or a Chain statement to require multiple inputs (the one containing Overlap and the one immediately following) to trigger an action, but there aren't any examples in the defaults. (even with the uncertainty, it's still amazing).

I've reproduced important sections below.

The input settings file can be edited in any text editor. If you have cloud saves enabled it is here: [Steam install directory]\userdata\[userid]\553850\input_settings.config If you do not, then it is here: %APPDATA%\Arrowhead\Helldivers2\saves\[steamid]_input_settings.config Check the cloud save folder first, it is most likely there.
READ FIRST
Make a backup of the file before you start making changes, so you can revert more easily without losing your settings. Should you get stuck and be unable to boot the game, please report this (and attach your settings file) so we can make this more robust. Then delete the file to revert to defaults. You may need to briefly disable cloud saves if a broken file has been uploaded.

Settings in this file

Verbatim from the documentation.

The available settings values are (and defaults): ``` // Number of frames over which to smooth mouse input (zero means no smoothing). Note that this applies to the _movement_, not the position! mouse_smoothing_frames = 3 // If set (per axis) the look axis is inverted _when aiming down sights_ for gamepads. gamepad_scope_inverted_x = false gamepad_scope_inverted_y = false // If set (per axis) the look axis is inverted _when aiming down sights_ for mice. mouse_scope_inverted_x = false mouse_scope_inverted_y = false // If set (per axis) the look axis is inverted for gamepads gamepad_inverted_x = false gamepad_inverted_y = false // If set (per axis) the look axis is inverted for mice mouse_inverted_x = false mouse_inverted_y = false // Gamepad look sensitivity in first component, vertical multiplier in second. // Range is any valid real value. gamepad_sensitivity = [5 0.6] // Mouse look sensitivity, range is any valid real value. mouse_sensitivity = [0.072 0.072] // If zero or exactly one, no acceleration is applied. // Otherwise, mouse movement is scaled by the following formula: // movement = movement_after_sensitivity ^ acceleration // Settings menu shows this value offset by 1, so the settings range of [0, 3] maps to [1, 4], // essentially cutting off the deceleration part of the curve. mouse_acceleration = 1.0 // The first value is the speed at which we accelerate. Zero means we do not apply acceleration at all. // The second value is the exponent applied to the acceleration rate. gamepad_acceleration = [0.7 3.0] // Multiplier of sensitivity while aiming gamepad_aim_sensitivity = 0.5 // Multiplier of sensitivity while aiming down sights gamepad_scope_sensitivity = 0.5 // Sensitivity of PlayStation controller touchpad when using this to move the map cursor ([0,1] range) touchpad_map_sensitivity = 0.5 // Multiplier of sensitivity while aiming mouse_aim_sensitivity = 1.0 // Multiplier of sensitivity while aiming down sights mouse_scope_sensitivity = 1.0 // Multiplier of sensitivity while scrolling map mouse_map_sensitivity = 1.0 // Size of gamepad deadzone (lower bound, absolute value, [0,1] range). deadzone = 0.1 // Disables the Steam input in-game warning when connecting a DualSense or DualShock controller while Steam input is ON. dont_warn_about_steam_input = false // Veteran mode toggle + scale (percentage of max observed input, [0,1] range). veteran_mode = false veteran_mode_scale = 0.8 // How much stickyness should there be to aiming with controllers when looking at enemies controller_sticky_aim = 0.5 // How strong the Dualsense adaptive triggers should be. [0,1] range, where 0 is disabling all trigger feedback. trigger_effect_strength = 1.0 // How strong the Dualsense haptics or conroller rumble should be. [0,1] range, where 0 is disabling all feedback. haptics_rumble_strength = 1.0 ``` 

Default Controls

These include controls that are not exposed by default. Copying this section into the controls file will replace your binds with the defaults for all platforms, but lets you change them all in the file.
I massaged the formatting because sue me. The original is in the markdown file I linked at the top of this post, which ArrowHead saints linked at the top of the config file. You can remove the bindings for controllers you don't use, but this does unbind those controls for those devices!
Since I did technically make changes, I tested this by launching the game. It didn't crash. Caveat emptor, refer to the markdown file if you have doubts!

Menu = { Up = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "up", trigger = "RepeatInterval", threshold = 0.2 },{ device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "w", trigger = "RepeatInterval", threshold = 0.2 } ] Down = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "down", trigger = "RepeatInterval", threshold = 0.2 },{ device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "s", trigger = "RepeatInterval", threshold = 0.2 } ] Left = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "left", trigger = "RepeatInterval", threshold = 0.2 },{ device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "a", trigger = "RepeatInterval", threshold = 0.2 } ] Right = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "right", trigger = "RepeatInterval", threshold = 0.2 },{ device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "d", trigger = "RepeatInterval", threshold = 0.2 } ] Back = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "escape", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 },{ device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonRight", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Select = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonLeft", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 },{ device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "space", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 },{ device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "enter", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Social = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "o", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ExtraOption1 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "tab", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ExtraOption2 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "r", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ExtraOption3 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "t", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ExtraOption4 = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonMiddle", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] CategoryNext = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "e", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] CategoryPrev = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "q", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SubcategoryNext = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "c", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SubcategoryPrev = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "z", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Rotate = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonMiddle", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ReadyUp = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "enter", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.2 } ] Zoom = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y", threshold = 0.2 } ] ZoomIn = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y+", threshold = 0.5 } ] ZoomOut = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y-", threshold = 0.5 } ] Scroll = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y", threshold = 0.2 } ] WarbondOverviewScroll = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y", threshold = 0.2 } ] ScrollHorizontal = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "X", threshold = 0.2 } ] MouseScroll = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y", threshold = 0.2 } ] MoveCursor = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "Any", threshold = 0.0 } ] MouseCursorAbsolute = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseCursor", trigger = "Any", threshold = 0.0 } ] InspectItem = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "left ctrl", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ItemInfo = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "tab", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ToggleMenu = [ // main menu { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "backspace", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] KeyboardToggleMenu = [ // also main menu "for technical reasons" { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "escape", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] CloseWheelMenu = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonRight", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SelectHeaderTab1 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "1", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SelectHeaderTab2 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "2", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SelectHeaderTab3 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "3", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SelectHeaderTab4 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "4", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SelectHeaderTab5 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "5", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SelectHeaderTab6 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "6", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SelectHeaderTab7 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "7", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SelectHeaderTab8 = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "8", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] OpenChat = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "enter", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 }, ] InvitePopupAccept = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "y", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 }, ] InvitePopupDecline = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "n", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 }, ] AxisUp = [] // default directional menu for controller AxisDown = [] AxisLeft = [] AxisRight = [] CursorRight = [] // Directly moves the cursor? CursorLeft = [] CursorUp = [] CursorDown = [] RotateRight = [] // rotates the Inspect Item model? RotateLeft = [] RotateUp = [] RotateDown = [] InvitePopupModifier=[] // ??? } Map = { MoveRight = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "X+", threshold = 0.0 } ] MoveLeft = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "X-", threshold = 0.0 } ] MoveUp = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "Y-", threshold = 0.0 } ] MoveDown = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "Y+", threshold = 0.0 } ] ZoomIn = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y+", threshold = 0.0 } ] ZoomOut = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y-", threshold = 0.0 } ] PlaceMarker = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonLeft", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] } Avatar = { MoveLeft = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "a", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] MoveRight = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "d", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] MoveForward = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "w", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] MoveBack = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "s", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] LookRight = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "X+", threshold = 0.0 } ] LookLeft = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "X-", threshold = 0.0 } ] LookUp = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "Y-", threshold = 0.0 } ] LookDown = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "Y+", threshold = 0.0 } ] Aim = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonRight", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] Fire = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonLeft", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] Reload = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "r", trigger = "Tap", threshold = 0.2 } ] Use = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "e", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] Crouch = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "c", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Prone = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "z", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Climb = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "space", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] Sprint = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "left shift", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] Dodge = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "left alt", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Melee = [ // Patriot Parry { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "f", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] QuickStim = [ // a control so handy they { // yote what it's quicker than device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "v", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ChangeEquipmentQuickGrenade = [ // press to throw { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "g", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] ChangeEquipmentPrimary = [ // Change to primary weapon { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "1", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ChangeEquipmentSecondary= [ // Change to secondary weapon { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "2", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ChangeEquipmentSupport = [ // Change to support weapon { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "3", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ChangeEquipmentGrenade= [ // equip then fire to throw { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "4", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SwitchAimMode = [ // between ADS and 3rd person { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonMiddle", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] CameraSwitchSide = [ // from shoulder to shoulder { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButton4", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Map = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "tab", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] WeaponFunctionUp = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y+", threshold = 0.0 } ] WeaponFunctionDown = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseWheel", trigger = "Y-", threshold = 0.0 } ] WeaponFunctionLeft = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonLeft", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] WeaponFunctionRight = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonRight", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] BackpackFunction = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "5", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 }, ] WeaponFunctionOpen = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "r", trigger = "LongPress", threshold = 0.2 } ] DropOpen = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "x", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] ChangeEquipmentContextSensitiveShort=[] ChangeEquipmentContextSensitiveLong=[] } Player = { NagForRespawn = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "space", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] CommunicationWheelOpenBasic = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "q", trigger = "LongPress", threshold = 0.2 } ] Emote = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "b", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] CommunicationSpot = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "q", trigger = "Tap", threshold = 0.2 } ] RadialMenuRight = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "X+", threshold = 0.0 } ] RadialMenuLeft = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "X-", threshold = 0.0 } ] RadialMenuUp = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "Y-", threshold = 0.0 } ] RadialMenuDown = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Axis", input = "MouseMovement", trigger = "Y+", threshold = 0.0 } ] DialogueSkip = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "space", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] VoicePushToTalk = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "caps lock", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] SpectateNext = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "d", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] SpectatePrevious = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "a", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] } Stratagem = { Start = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "left ctrl", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] Left = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "a", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Right = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "d", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Up = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "w", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] Down = [ { device_type = "Keyboard", input_type = "Button", input = "s", trigger = "Press", threshold = 0.0 } ] } Vehicle = { FireDualWieldLeft = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonLeft", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] FireDualWieldRight = [ { device_type = "Mouse", input_type = "Button", input = "MouseButtonRight", trigger = "Hold", threshold = 0.0 } ] } 

This is going to be a long post. Just to warn you.
I (25M) last had a girlfriend in January of 2020. The relationship was about 4.5 months (felt like years to me). I loved her. I know I did. Or maybe it was just lust but my brain tells me it was love. She broke my heart. And I couldn’t accept it…but backstory on that.
I didn’t have my first girlfriend until March of 2019. For much of my childhood, I was really self conscious about not being in a relationship. I am not a conventionally attractive guy (I am 100% sincere when I say I’m not saying that for pity, I’m just stating a fact I’ve accepted).
I always felt like guys could do/say things/act a certain way and if I did the exact same thing, it was like a completely opposite reaction. So I really never had a time in middle school/high school where I liked a girl and she liked me back. There were 3-4 girls that did confess feelings for me but I didn’t feel the same way. Here was the first major blow to my perception of this: when those girls confessed their feelings and I turned them down, a lot of their friends/my friends/acquaintances basically said “well the girls you like would never go for you, you should just accept dating ____”. So…if a girl didn’t find me attractive it was fine but if I didn’t find a girl attractive it wasn’t? This, in high school, pretty much led me to not wanting to date at all and i pushed it on to college.
Let me also add that throughout high school, I had (and still have) a best friend who is a woman. I’ll call her Lydia. I love Lydia more than anybody who I don’t have blood relation to. As you could probably assume, I did have strong feelings for her when we were in high school. She didn’t like me back. She didn’t find me physically attractive. 14 year old me could not accept that but overtime, I really just thought to myself “I love her so much, more than my heart can handle, and I can still be there without that necessity to be in a relationship with her. Do I want to be selfish and cut her off simply because she rejected me or accept my “place”, so to speak, as her best friend?” I chose to be best friends with her. I am completely fine with this even to this day. Like at this point if she ever told me she did feel like that towards me, I don’t believe I’d be able to reciprocate those feelings back again. I love her very much, I would destroy universes to save her, I would do anything for her but she’s still just my friend - I’ll explain why I said this later.
Back to 1/2020: when my ex broke my heart, everyone told me: I’m a pussy, I need to get over it, I’m a creep because I can’t get over it, I’m misogynistic because I can’t get over it etc. This furthered my confusion from above because…she got in a relationship after me and he broke her heart and..so many of those same fuckin people were basically damning him to Hell for it?? Anyways. After we broke up and during that time period, she complained to a friend “why do all of these guys keep getting attached to me?”. This really pissed me off because she had dated two guys before me at college and they ended the same way: she ended it and they couldn’t accept it. Was it a coincidence? Or was it a “if everyone in your life is an asshole maybe you’re an asshole?” sort’ve moment?
So eventually, after crying myself to sleep for 9 months, I did manage to get over it. It was ugly. It was bad. It ended in me unfriending her on everything (and because she could never accept not getting her way 100% of the time, she “one-upped” me and blocked me. Just had to get that last word in, huh?). So in September of 2020, I vowed to never date again. Fast forward to January of 2022. I just graduated undergrad, was starting grad school, started a full time job. I felt for the first time in like 1.5 years that I was ready to possibly date again. Huge mistake (kind’ve).
I had a friend (that I don’t talk to anymore), I’ll call her Katie. Katie graduated a semester before me and it REALLY hurt her because she moved back home/wasn’t near her college friends. I completely understood. So, as a friend, I did my best to hang out with her still. Originally, we were supposed to move into an apartment together near our hometowns (grew up within like 45 minutes of each other but met at college) but I got offered a job near our University that I accepted << more on that later. She would come up to my apartment (she was friends with my two roommates from school too) and we’d hangout and go to bars etc. Like a fucking friend would do. But the thing about Katie is that she’s very…bland? I don’t like saying boring because that’s mean but her personality is just sometimes hard for some people to mesh with. Like conversationally she really struggles. So with this, she struggles to gain friends and keep friends. The reason I’m saying this is because I think she started obsessing over me. She started posting a LOT of pictures of us to social media. And she had a picture of us as her background. I really didn’t know how to solve this because I never kissed her, I never hugged her, I never cuddled her, I never told her I loved her even as a friend…I have a friend that I love and her name is fucking Lydia.
So in 1/2022…I got a new friend group (that thankfully didn’t last long) and ALLLLLL of them thought “OP/Katie are dating”. A girl asked me why I don’t like her like that and I just said I didn’t feel the same way. I asked her if a guy ever liked her that she didn’t like back and she said “yeah but I feel like it’s different for guys though”. Another guy told me “well even if you don’t want to, you should just fuck her to make her feel better”. So….again…when I like a girl and she doesn’t like me back, I just need to get over it, but when a girl likes me and I don’t like her back, I should just date her anyways???
And a lot of people kept saying “well she’s your best friend, you have to be there for her” which this pissed me off more than anything because I HAVE A BEST FUCKING FRIEND AND HER NAME IS FUCKING LYDIA. I would without question end my life if it meant Lydia got to live longer. Lydia saved me from suicide in high school. Katie didn’t. I love Lydia. I don’t love Katie. Having people question who I my best friend was and disagreeing that it was Lydia, not Katie as they thought really just made me hate them. Not dislike, hate.
Our friendship ended because partially she held a huge grudge against me for not moving in with her and some other disagreements but I honestly didn’t even really care. I hate that I didn’t care but…when so many people left my life and I was told to just get over it it became harder and harder to care when people started to leave.
From about October of 2022 (the last time I saw Katie - we only saw each other maybe 2-3 times in 2022) to now, I have become a complete and utter…loser to put it bluntly. I have lost any desire/motivation to date. Every time I see a woman I find attractive, my brain does a speed run of what our relationship would look like and it always ends with pain and sorrow. When I was heartbroken, I was told “why don’t you go to a bar and fuck some random girl to get your mind off of it?”. First of all, I hate bars as much as anything in the world. I don’t really like drinking and there’s too many fuckin people. But…what? I fuck a girl, she gets attached to me, I get over my ex and then I dump that girl to the side? So I just transfer the pain to her? How is that fair? The point of life is just to hurt one another?
So now I pretty much just keep to myself. I don’t know if I can ever gain the motivation to date again. I would love to someday have a wife that loves me but 1. I am 100% serious when I say this, if I go through heartbreak again I will kill myself. 2., I want to just skip to “in love and dating/planning to get married”, I don’t want to go through the initial dating stage. I know that’s extremely unrealistic but I don’t tell my brain what to do, it tells me what to do.
If you read all of this, I thank you. If you want to give me advice/ask more questions, feel free to but I don’t mind if you just scroll away. I know a lot of this is petty bullshit but when the same fucking thing happens to you over and over and over and over and over again (I like girl, go fuck yourself, girl likes me, I should be forced to date her), it becomes like a natural instinct to feel this way. I’m stuck, I feel like I’m running out of time, and all I can think right now (and for the past 4.25 years) is that my last relationship has already occurred.

Hello everyone, this will be a long one. First, I wanted to discuss Pantheon's thematic concept and thematic playstyle. Both of these terms are subjective. Then, I wanted to analyze his current state and kit to get a better understanding and highlight his strengths and weaknesses. Then I made some small, large, and redesigning suggestions for the champion. This document is about 13 pages single space. I hope you enjoy.
Thematic Concept Thematic concept refers to his out of game concept, clearly being a mix of a spartan warrior and partially a vessel of a god of war. What stands out in the character is the combination of spear and shield. As a vessel of the god of war, there is an expectation that his fighting is flexible to be both offensive and defensive as well as dueling and large combat prowess. This works well with the spear and shield combat as both Spartans and gladiators often used this combination of weapons. Spartans could create a protective front line and pierce enemies from behind the shield wall. In formation, they could use their shields to push enemies back and stab when opponents were knocked off balance. Gladiators with spears and shields are very defensive and it only takes a few pokes and some endurance to whittle away at your opponent until you go in for the kill (or they surrender). As a vessel of a god of war, we want to embody these two characters as well as being a durable fighter. He should be bulky, someone on the front line who's not afraid to get into the thick of it while maintain this offensive and defensive balance.
Thematic Playstyle The thematic playstyle should flow from the thematic concept. These two concepts should match to the best of their abilities. Obviously the game has to have some balance and a space dragon and guy with a shotgun should be able fight on a more or less even playing field. Pantheon currently has two distinct playstyles: fighter, and glass cannon.
If above the curve, his glass cannon builds can 100-0 most isolated squishy targets, and if not can leave them very low on health (or kill them if they are below 100%). Usually the playstyle looked like this: ult onto target or surprise from a bush or flank >> empowered w (+3 quick autos) >> q >> auto >> e >> empowered q. There's not a lot of mechanical skill in this playstyle, the skill comes from your ability to set up the kills (map awareness, timing, understanding current vision control, know when to push and then duck into cover). The main reason I didn't call this an assassin build is because assassins are usually defined by their slipperiness. Assassins are meant to get a kill and then slip out. However, they usually can slip out of ganks easily with their dashes or other mobility spells. Pantheon is meant to be a frontline/diver in his thematic concept and playstyle and so he doesn't have this ability to slip out of a gank (unless you want to use your 3 (down to 2:30 minute ultimate cooldown which can easily be cancelled if the enemy is in range). Pantheon does have his empowered e, which does help him escape these ganks if near a turret (or allies), but with it's long cd as well being the only defensive tool, pantheon becomes a sitting duck if ganked in a long lane (particularly in the mid/late game). What this playstyle means a lot of the time is that you're clearing waves and clearing waves, running away at the sight of an opponent (even if it's just one), then clearing some more waves, and then try to find a good ult when objectives are spawning. This glass cannon build plays super scared, does not want to be in a fight, but can often be more successful since getting a pick in the early/middle game puts the enemy carries behind; and getting picks in the middle/late game leads to objective control as well as top laners being less valuable than carries. Let's also be clear that if you cannot get a kill on a carry (usually because the support protects them), then you will die 95% of the time with no recompense. There is a thematic mismatch between this playstyle and his concept. It's not a mechanical playstyle, since you're just landing all of your abilities while a target is stunned for half of the time and running away; it's not a tactical playstyle, because you're not baiting out abilities, spacing the opponent, or waiting for your cd's; but it is strategic in the general sense that you have to be a strong macro player to play pantheon well, however I would argue that this is not part of Pantheon's thematic concept (although in general I don't think many champions fall under a "strategic" concept, with maybe the exception of Swain and Teemo). More importantly, with his glass cannon build, there is no balance between spear and shield (offense and defense), it's all spear. There's no front line soldier who gets into the thick of it, only a coward that runs away. There's no culmination of small victories (winning small trades) until your opponent dies or has to surrender, it's just a one-shot from a surprise angle. I like Pantheon's glass cannon build solely because I win more with this build.
Pantheon's fighter build is closer to matching his thematic concept. His trading patterns are a longer, he can last longer in combat, and he is threatening enough that he can dissuade kills. His major strengths come from his point-and-click stun which counters pretty much all assassins in team fights as well as gets picks for your allies. Pantheon's kit is indeed strong and so his bruiser build functions well on low economy. All he really needs is a black cleaver and another defensive fighter item (DD or Maw depending on matchup, which you end up getting first) and he's off to the races (this is Keegun's - NA challenger pantheon main - current build suggestion for pantheon). It's almost always better to gives your teammates the gold in team fights because they are more gold efficient than Pantheon. Similarly, it's also better to give your jungler the kill when they gank your lane (top lane) because they can use the gold and affect the map better. This is also partially how jungle and support Pantheon function, they become a stun bot so that their teammates can collect the goal. Pantheon's fighter build still suffers from similar issues as his glass cannon build where he can be run down in the long lane. If even, most (if not all) duelists and tanks will win the 1v1 at 3 items+ if both Pantheon and his opponent are at 100% hp. In many cases where Pantheon goes even in the trade, Pantheon will find his enemy life stealing against the wave. Even if Pantheon went a life steal build, he will find himself running out of mana quickly and so it is better to give his opponent the push, which impairs his ability to move to a team fight, ultimately taking away one of his major strengths. Regarding the flow from thematic concept to thematic playstyle, Pantheon's bruiser build gets closer to mending the two with his ability to be in the thick of a fight for a little bit, but even this aspect doesn't stand out amongst the other bruisers in the game; he becomes as tanky as camille or fiora, but without their late game upside. He doesn't balance offense and defense; or spear and shield; burst and endurance. With this build, he's not a vessel of the god of war, he's a sidekick who helps feed his teammates.
Pantheon's Current State Pantheon's glass cannon build seems to be his best performing build, but this is partially because this build becomes more effective when he's played mid lane. As mentioned earlier, he can one-shot squishy targets with this build and so it makes sense that playing in a lane that typical plays squishy champions (mages, assassins) pantheon is able to excel. Riot Phreak said in his recent patch notes rundown video that they have to be careful when buffing Pantheon because his win rate is strong in the mid lane, which comes from the common matchups that he plays against. Based on the previous section, it's likely that the best changes for Pantheon would be to diminish his strength as a glass cannon. I'm going to largely talk about top lane (I'm most familiar with this role for Pantheon) because this is where the fighter class general thrives, but also because his role in other positions is more one-dimensional (as explained in the glass-cannon section).
Early Game/Lane Phase
In top lane and mid lane, pantheon's lane phase is largely similar. Usually the difference between playstyle is based less on lane and more on the range of the opponent. Pantheon has clear mana problems (I will get into this in my section on each of his abilities). In lane, he can usually use his full kit twice (essentially 2 e's, 3 w's before fully oom, not including q's). Other than his e, which drains him of mana, he has no defensive mechanics in his kit. He technically has his w to stun someone and walk away, but this doesn't negate damage nor does it sustain him - it also drains him of mana. So Pantheon relies on his Q in lane to poke to a point where his full combo is enough to get the enemy low. This is a strong strategy early game, but if you don't get his poke off, the enemy can easily all-in you from levels 3-5. So usually Pantheon succeeds on hard pushing the first wave to hit level 2 first - if the enemy doesn't respect the level 2, then they will lose the trade pretty hard. However, depending on the matchup, Pantheon can lose the level 1 and if the other player is aware of the matchup, then Pantheon is playing on the backfoot for a while. If the opponent respects the level 2, then they back up and usually nothing happens and you can get a cheater recall off (if perfect success, you have 450g which goes to boots + refillable). After first back, Pantheon excels at his poke trade patterns, and it's important that he is either freezing or crashing waves against his opponent. He's very good at not letting opponents freeze a wave assuming both Pantheon and his opponent are equal. However, if he's behind and frozen on, he will struggle greatly because he loses pretty much every all-in (from 100%) after level 3. As mentioned earlier, one of his strengths is to whittle the opponent down, but as long as they respect his range; Pantheon can't do much about it. This is where the jungler plays a crucial role for Pantheon top. Pantheon is great for setting up dives for most junglers and so he works very well with carry/damage oriented junglers. If Pantheon gets ahead, as long as his opponents don't give him a freeze and they respect Pantheon, Pantheon is very bad at pushing his lead in lane. If Pantheon keeps receiving help for the dives, it's likely his other lanes will start losing. This is why it's best for jungler teammates to gank early to get themselves ahead and transition their lead to winning the rest of the map. At this point, Pantheon's goals change to winning the lane through farm, not dying to ganks, and finding opportune moments to roam (particularly mid lane).
Mid Game
As the data suggests (I use lolalytics), Pantheon's win rate falls off a cliff in the mid game (and then comes back up a bit in the end game). The main reason, I believe, that Pantheon loses a lot of his win rate in the mid game is because he loses his poke-trade pattern. When tier-1 turrets fall, the lanes become longer and so enemies either give him the push, they all-in him in the long lane, or he gives them the push. Since his ultimate is 3 minutes long from levels 6-10 (and 2:30 from 11-15), he basically only has an ultimate once every 5 minutes for when dragon spawns. If Pantheon doesn't save his ultimate for objective spawn, he will find it very difficult to be effective in the team fight. It will require running to the fight early (or pushing strong, which means your mid laner (who is running tp) needs to cover weak side, which means you're fighting for position around the objective without your mid lane carry, which puts you at a disadvantage), and finding a good flank. Because he loses his poke trade pattern, he cannot 100-0 bruisers, he's often just farming up and waiting for fights. This is a fairly underwhelming trade pattern and can lead to Pantheon mains likely getting bored and starting unideal fights. Overall, his play pattern changes the most after the early game when the enemy opponent is not required to interact with Pantheon in a shorter lane.
Late Game
Late game has similar problems to early game, but his win rate stabilizes to 50% likely because of the confounding variable where a team that cannot beat Pantheon's team by 30 minutes, it could be because Pantheon's teammates are farther ahead and scale better. This is not to say Pantheon scales poorly. Pantheon's scaling is difficult to define. If Pantheon can stun or kill an enemy carry late game, his team will likely win the game. With Black cleaver and BotRK, Pantheon can also hold off most split pushers. However, he's not a win condition and is not great at applying pressure. He's good at taking one tower at a time if his team plays safe and enemy top laner doesn't have TP up, but since he cannot dive or all-in well, he cannot pressure an enemy in the 1v1.
Pantheon's Kit and Stats In this section, I will be looking at Pantheon's current kit to analyze the strengths and weaknesses. I will cover both their numbers, relative to other champions in his class as well as his former kit, and their concept. I will then discuss some of his base statistics. To save a bit of time reading, I will not be displaying the full text of each ability.
Passive - Mortal Will
Pantheon's passive is likely the most problematic part about his kit. Conceptually, it's generic. Pantheon's current passive requires him to have 5 stacks, which can be stacked from either autos or abilities, which can then empower one of his basic abilities. Previously, pantheon needed 4 stacks, which would cause the next basic attack to be blocked. Additionally, Pantheon's old W (same ability more or less) would give him his passive immediately and keep the stack counter the same. This means at 3 stacks, Pantheon could W a target, that target's auto would be blocked, then pantheon would auto, and the target's next auto would be blocked again. The old passive gave him a unique defensive tool which matched his thematic concept with his thematic playstyle. It also gave him tactical depth because he could W an opponent before their empowered auto to negate the damage. His current passive does not give him the same tactical depth, and actually limits his depth because of how reliant he is on empowered W as part of his trade pattern. It does offer you the choice though if you would like to kill your opponent immediately with empowered Q or chase them down a bit if you need a few more autos with empowered E (or just run away). But even if you did believe that his passive adds some depth, it still has two other major issues. The first is that it encourages Pantheon to be more auto-based. None of his kit except this part encourages auto attacks, nor does thematic concept or playstyle revolve around an auto-based kit. He's a midrange ad spell casting fighter, akin to Jayce, but instead of a melee/range form he should have a offensive/defensive balance. The second major issue with his passive is that it frontloads too much of his power into his basic abilities, which creates balance issues.
Q - Comet Spear
This is Pantheon's bread and butter, but it still has problems. To start with empowered Q, this may be one of the most satisfying abilities, but it's just too strong. His regular Q deals about half damage. While his poke in lane is good, it's not as good as it used to be. Pantheon used to have a Q that dealt 75/115/155/195/235 (+140 bonus AD), with a 4s CD, point and click and is 600 range. Pantheon's current regular Q deals 70/100/130/160/190 (+115% bonus AD) with a 4.4-3.2s CD, aoe skill shot, and 560 range. Old Pantheon used to fall off heavily after level 9 because his old Q was so weak, and it's a similar story now. In lane, this is a great ability; however, base weak is just very weak in all-ins. The other frustrating thing about his Q is its thrown version. Since this ability is his bread and butter, if you use the thrown version, it becomes an 11-second CD rather than 4.4s. This means you basically have to back off after using thrown Q. Therefore, the only time you should be using it is when you've clearly won the fight and you're looking for chip-damage or you're trying to execute. In the first case, it's pretty meaningless because they'll just back at this point. In the second case, it's great! However my point is that thrown Q is a fake part of the spell, it does more harm than good when using it. It gets worse though, since if you try to use thrown Q through a minion wave, it gets reduced by 50% if thrown through a minion wave. It has its fringe uses, but I think it has room for improvement. In general, I think this is a great ability, but it must be remembered when looking at solutions for this champion.
W - Shield Vault
This is Pantheon's best ability, for the reasons listed above. A point-and-click stun is just strong. I think everything about this ability is fair; however, it may even be too strong, and changing the ability so that it's not point-and-click should be considered. The big issue with his W is it's empowered version. There are two problems and a big consideration with this ability. The first problem The first problem is that the three auto attacks are just so strong with on-hit. I considered BotRK to be Pantheon's best item by far last patch because the 3 auto's at 12% current health was the only thing winning him 1v1s. Similarly, Pantheon is able to stack conqueror, black cleaver, and PTA well with this combo. While this may sound like a benefit to him, it moves away from a preferred thematic concept. This leads into my second point, the three autos feel small with the quick animation and high pitch audio. They're three little stabs, and when you don't go BotRK, they really don't deal much damage. Thematically, this just feels bad, it feels like an ability that xin zhao, fiora, gwen, irelia, kat, shaco, or talon would have. When it comes to playstyle, there's no skill expression with this second part either, it's just the same W and since their stunned and your auto attack timer is up, it's basically just a free "combo". The consideration that needs to be made is how it stacks Pantheon's passive. While it did fully stack the old passive, his old passive was... passive, it wasn't part of his offensive trade pattern. Pantheon's current trade pattern almost always starts with empowered W because it becomes a free empowered Q (or E sometimes). His W being a passive stacking mechanic is what brings down the depth of his trade pattern.
E - Aegis Assault
Pantheon's E is pragmatically his most problematic ability. It's pragmatically problematic (rather than thematically) because the base ability is so strong (there's a theme here if you can't tell). Because it's so strong, the CD is super high, the damage is low, the empowered E got heavily nerfed a few seasons ago, and the mana cost is also high. To compare his current E to his old E: Current E has a CD from 22-18, costs 80 mana, and deals 55-255 (+150 bonus AD). Old E used to have a 10-6 CD, cost 45-65 mana, and dealt 100-300 (+300% bonus AD). Yes, you're reading that right. 300 + 300% bonus ad on a 6s CD with only 65 mana, which you would get at level 9 if maxed first. Talon R total physical damage (hits both parts) deals 360 (+200% bonus AD) at level 16. I'm not suggesting to return Pantheon's current E to similar damage, I am just trying to highlight how much damage was lost in Pantheon's kit. If I recall correctly, Pantheon was around 54% wr top consistently prior to being reworked; nowadays he sits below 50% as a "simple" champion (he's currently ranked 65/95 champions according to lolalytics over the last 30 days in emerald+). The two main issues with this ability are it's cooldown as well as its mana cost. Pantheon has 1 defensive ability and it feels like you only get to use this as a last resort. It feels like you don't get to play with the shield as a spear and shield guy. And when you do use it, you're severely punished mana-wise. Lastly, his empowered E just feels bad. Rarely do I use empowered E offensively, and it's much more likely that I use it to run away after. Although since the movement speed is small and only lasts 1.5s, you're likely to get caught afterwards in a long lane, which is why he has to play so scared in the long lane. However, even if you do escape, he's not (nor feels like) the champion that tanks in a fight and stays, he tanks a bit and runs away. Again, playing with a cowardly playstyle.
I want to compare his defensive ability to that of other champions in the same class. On top of Camille's mobility and healing, her passive shields every 14-10s (lvl 1-13). Fiora W costs 50 mana and CD is 24-16s. Gangplank W costs 60-100 mana (usually 60 since maxed last) and CD is 22-14. Riven E is manaless and the cd is 10-6s. Gwen W is 60 mana and CD is 22-18s. Irelia W is 70-90 mana and CD is 20-12s. Jax E is 50-90 mana and 15-9 CD. Olaf W is 50 mana and is 16-12 CD. Sett W is manaless and 18-12 cs. Volibear E is 60 mana and CD is 12s. Assuming Pantheon can even survive in the 1v1 after a full use of spells, all of these champions will have big defensive spells up like 4-8s sooner than Pantheon. During the early game, his ability is more mana hungry and his E loses in often 3 different ways compared to his fighting counterparts. What's most important though is that Pantheon's shield should be defining in his playstyle, but since you can't use it often, you feel like you're just the spear guy.
R - Grand Starfall
Pantheon's R has remained the same the most compared to all of his abilities through the rework. One thing to note is that his ult used to be 2:30-2:00 CD while his current ult is 3:00-2:30, which feels a bit bad. But all global abilities in League have been strong and so they need to be gated behind a long cooldown. I think this is more or less okay, and his ultimate does play into his thematic concept and playstyle well. I think his old ultimate had a bit more oomf to it but both of them are betteworse in minor ways. I think there is a way to reimagine this ability in a following section, but for now I think this is a great ability that needs to be changed the least. However, the 30% armor penetration that was added to his kit a few seasons ago is a band aid solution. In fact, it what makes his glass cannon build so much stronger because lethality becomes more gold effective on him.
Base Statistics
Mana - Pantheon has a starting mana of 317, which puts him the bottom 3rd of base starting mana as a spell-casting (rather than auto based) melee fighter (let's also remember that much of top lane are manaless champions). Pantheon is in the bottom 15% of champions for mana mana growth per level (31/lvl). In the list of champions with a worse growth coefficient are all mages; the next 3 are auto-based fringe top laners (ww, nocturne, quinn), while Poppy - a champion with 2 possible mana items that they are able to purchase in their class - is the next closest (40/lvl). Camille and Jax are the next comparable champions (52/lvl).
For Pantheon's other stats, he usually is in the realm of the fighter class (which has higher base stats on average) but is usually near the bottom in his class. However, it should be noted that his base health regen and health regen coefficient are both low for his class, and without any healing or cheap shielding in his kit, he will often get out endured in a lane where he doesn't have good opportunities to back. For a champion who's playstyle should be partially about sustained fighting, he is bad at it from a base statistics perspective.
Small Changes These are my band aid solutions. These are direction suggestions and the exact numbers shouldn't be taken literally. Also, since I'm including multiple suggestions, I know that adding all or even multiple of them will make Pantheon overpowered. These are just the directions I suggest the balance team should take.
Q: Have the base Q scale harder off of bonus AD (remember old Pantheon Q had +140%). Compensate by nerfing Q5 base damage by a bit or nerfing empowered Q base scaling.
Q: Either make thrown Q able to deal full damage through minions, or reduce cool down of thrown Q. If cool down is reduced, nerf tap Q cool down refund respectively.
W: Remove the effectiveness of the on-hit portion of his W.
E: Buff this ability overall. Reduce mana cost to something like 60-90. Reduce cooldown from 22-18 to 16-12; however, nerf W cool down to 16-12 in response. It would make sense that these two abilities are up at similar times (similar to alistar Q and W) so that there's more choice between spell usage.
E: This damage can be buffed. This ability basically deals 3 auto attacks worth of damage over a 1.5s duration.
R: Remove the armor pen.
Increase base mana, base mana regen, and base health regen.
Larger Changes These larger changes are more unrealistic.
Tap Q: Slows enemy by 5/10/15/20/25% for 1s. Serylda's grudge got massively nerfed for Pantheon because he can no longer go Black Cleaver + Serylda's, and also the slow was nerfed to below 50%. If a champion is below 50% while Pantheon is on them, they're basically dead (assuming he hasn't used his abilities yet). A slow on his Q, while incredibly strong - and should perhaps be tuned by champion level rather than skill rank - gives him the ability to space opponents and play that endurance fight more effectively. He keeps them at bay slowing them and so they can't chase him down as easily in the long lane.
E: Do the E small changes (regarding mana and CD) but also make the channel a smaller window. A 0.75-1s channel window makes the ability more skillful and allows room for buffs.
Empowered E: Refund cool down on E. Something like 50% allows his 22s cd to come back up in 11s can be big as a defensive option.
Redesigning Pantheon To reiterate, here's what I would want from Pantheon's kit: balance of offensive and defensive, spell-based mid range melee fighter (mid range similar to ryze, cass), mostly endurance fighter but some opportunity for burst, and someone who can be a front line or duelist. With this in mind, we need to set up some weaknesses. He can't be a burst champion, he has too many tools that we need to give his enemies time to outplay him. Since he's mid range, he will be weak to champions that out-range him. With this combination, it should be hard for him to jump on an enemy, but if he does, there should be time for them to react. This means he will be weak to mages and supports which should shift him out of mid lane and support.
Passive - Mortal Will
Pantheon generates a stack of Mortal Will whenever he lands an ability on an enemy champion or large monster, stacking up to 3 times. At 3 stacks, Pantheon's next basic ability consumes the stacks to become empowered. Pantheon gains maximum stacks of Mortal Will upon starting the game, completing a Recall channel, and respawning.
Note - The purpose of changing this ability to 3 stacks means that he has to be more skillful with his abilities. He can't just rely on autoing minions or Q-ing the air to get himself to full stacks. This will also nudge him away from being an auto-based champion. With 3 stacks it will will take longer to get multiple passive procs, but this allows for the passive to be strong. If you can extend the fight, Pantheon will shine.
Q - Comet Spear
Cost: 45 (20 mana nerf) Cooldown: 5/4.5/4/3.5/3 Range: -40 - 560 / 1100 Cast time, width, speed: same. For the rest of the ability, I would keep the text and numbers largely the same. Added: Tapping Comet Spear refunds 55% of the mana cost (~25 mana total). Comet Spear impales his target causing them to bleed for 3s and take 5/10/15/20/25 (+ 25% bonus AD) total physical damage over the duration. Empowered Q will cause the bleed to deal double damage.
Note - This needs to be his major damage source. As mentioned above, tap Q has a 4.4-3.2s CD with 0 ability haste, so this would technically be a minor nerf early game, however this gives him his thrown ability back. Thrown Q is harder to hit because you need to channel the ability for 0.55s to throw as well as the speed, while fast, is slower than an instant tap Q. It will still take reduced damage through the minions which means that it shouldn't be great for harassing range opponents, but it will give him some ability to play into the matchup after his loss of engage and burst (as you will see). To also mitigate this buff to thrown Q, the mana cost is nerfed to old Pantheon's Q cost, however the mana is refunded if used for tap Q. The bleed damage backloads the damage a bit which gives time for enemies to react. The bleed does not stack, but does get refreshed upon further Comet Spear hits. Bleed should be added to Pantheon's kit because it brings out the endurance side of his thematic playstyle. Bleed will keep conqueror, grasp, black cleaver and other similar effects up which highlights that he's still in the fight. Additionally, this damage will mitigate the damage that is lost from being an auto-based champion, as well as mitigate effects from passive/active health regen and items/runes such as doran's shield and second wind (old Pantheon had this problem where he lost every matchup into players who took doran's shield + second wind). The empowered Comet Spear getting double bleed damage is to mirror that this ability practically does double damage. Lastly, the numbers for the bleed were chosen to mimic Darius' Hemorrhage (passive) which does 13-30 (based on level) (+30% bonus AD), but stacks up to 5 times. 3 seconds was chosen as a timeframe for the bleed for Pantheon because he can make full use of it early game, but once it's rank 5 and with ability haste, he won't be benefitting from a spam Q playstyle and will be slightly rewarded for playing it slower. Lastly, the bleed damage can be used to balance his Jungle clear since he won't be getting his passive up as easily without the auto-based passive.
W - Shield Bash (New Spell)
Active: Pantheon bashes his shield in front of him. Enemies near Pantheon are also stunned for 0.5s and knocked back up to 300 units based on their proximity to him. Damage is the same as what's on PBE right now (5-7% max HP + ap scaling). Effect Radius: 300 Cast time: 0.35s Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 (1s nerf). Empowered W will be the current Shield Vault. The damage will be the same, but it will be a skill shot similar to Malphite ultimate, although smaller radius, slower travel speed, stuns rather than knocks up, and Pantheon will have a 0.25s animation lock upon landing.
Note - Shield bash is pretty much a copy of Maokai's inner Bramble Smash (Q) which knocks back enemies. It doesn't have the extended range, slow or damage though. The point of this ability on Pantheon is that it gives him a defensive tool that gets melee champions off of him, which helps his midrange play style. The reliable stun which comes up every 6 seconds in the mid/late game going away takes away his current identity of being a stun-bot. Additionally, he takes away his burst and dive potential since it's harder for him to get onto targets. He will have to either use empowered W to get onto target or his ultimate. Shield Bash also gives more out play potential because you can time melee champs out of their attack (if you're familiar with Maokai, you know how strong this can be). Ultimately, this makes Pantheon become a disengage-poke champion which plays into that midrange thematic playstyle. As for the empowered W, this will give him the flexibility to engage, and with it being an AOE spell, it allows him to be a strong team fighter. However, because it's a skill shot rather than point-and-click, it gives his opponents potential to outplay. Often carries would flash Pantheon's Shield Vault but would still get hit by the stun which is unfair to them. The purpose of the 0.25s animation lock after casting gives him the heavier and slower rolling feel that you get in dark souls games but also it's meant to be clearly weaker than Malphite ultimate. Also this ability helps Pantheon run away from enemies which is important for a side laner, but also the animation lock gives them a little room to hit a skill shot on you. Also, if you are using this ability to run away, you will find that your passive is down and since you have to hit enemy champions (or large jungle monsters), you will often find yourself at a disadvantage for the next find or if they try to pursue you.
E - Aegis Assault
Cost: 50/60/70/80/90 Cool down: 22/20/18/16/14 Duration: 1s Effect radius, angle, and everything else is the same. Due to less duration, Aegis Assault deals damage 8 times (every 0.125s to enemies hit). Empowered E inflicts armor reduction for 5% each time an enemy takes damage from Aegis Assault up to 40% armor reduction for 5 seconds.
Note - The cost is lowered early so you're not as heavily punished for using it. The cool down remains the same early to be in line with other early game defensive abilities. However, as a spear and shield champion, he should have this ability up more often in the mid and late game. Because of this, the duration should go down and mana up slightly to compensate. The damage is being nerfed slightly also since it doesn't last 1.5s. The empowered E getting armor reduction helps his team fighting prowess and will likely only give him the armor reduction against front liners. This greatly takes away his power to burst squishy targets and also means that he won't be using his empowered W to stun opponents (carries). Here there are significant trade offs to using his abilities for offensive vs defense in a more satisfying way. Additionally, if enemies don't take the full channel of armor shred, they're not getting their armor reduced which should be slightly weaker against mobile enemies in the 1v1 but stronger against tanks.
R - Grand Starfall
Remove the armor penetration from ultimate rank up. New passive: Hitting an enemy with an ability slows affected units by 10/20/30% for 1s.
Note - The slow will give him his true duelist potential in the mid/late parts of the game because it allows him to space appropriately against the mobility creep. Without Serylda's Grude Pantheon doesn't have the ability to stick on targets well over a duration of time which is partially why he needed to be burst-oriented. The slow should alleviate this issue and allow his mid-range thematic playstyle to shine. It's important to note that this only works on abilities that hit enemies and therefore doesn't work on the bleed that was added to his kit. Taking away the armor penetration also goes away from his glass-cannon build.
Conclusion Pantheon's current kit misses the mark for what should be his thematic concept and thematic playstyle. He should be a warrior that can go into battle or a duel with a balance of offense and defense, outplay his opponent through a fight of attrition while having his moments for heavy damage. He should not be a pseudo-assassin who can't 1v1 in the side lane and is scared to walk up. I have highlighted his issues above which come from being mana hungry while also being too auto-dependent when he should be ability dependent. The "Small Changes" section shows reasonable band-aid fixes to his kit. The "Larger Changes" section are some fixes that drastically change a few of his abilities but are what's needed to make his playstyle feel better. The "Redesigning Pantheon" is how I would go about reimagining this champion to fit the thematic playstyle and concept that he deserves. It is largely a rework, and the numbers are not exact, but this gives a lot of complexity to a champion that currently plays more generically than he seems.
This took me a long time to write and I'm happy to hear all questions and comments about any part of this document or Pantheon in general. Pantheon is my highest mastery champion (however I'm far from a one-trick) and I've hit Masters in multiple roles if that's something that's important to the discussion. Thank you for reading.

I have been trying to manifest this boy for a few months now. We met at camp as counselors and we live on different cities. However summer is coming up and also very final exams. Which mean, I'm going to see him at camp , and he told me last summer , that he is coming to study physics in my city ( I live in the 2nd biggest city of my country). So by September, we will probably be at the same city, as long as I stay here as well.
The past few weeks I have been seeing his name EVERYWHERE. His name is not too common but not too rare either. And I've been seeing it on social media, people with the same name as him replying to me on comment sections, stores in the streets with his name, tv shows mentioning his name while there is not a main or any kind of character in there with his name. But the one that shook me up was today. I was casually scrolling through instagram reels and all of the sudden an advertisement popped up for a bakery with his name that is located almost on the other side of the country. And , honestly, I wasn't expecting that. I have heard that when you are manifesting and you start seeing their name or things that remind you of them , it means that your manifestation is coming to life. Is that true ? Should I keep manifesting ?

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Other_Salt3889
My wife is addicted to the gym and it’s ruining our marriage
Originally posted to TrueOffMyChest & survivinginfidelity
BoRU 1
BoRU 2
TRIGGER WARNING: infidelity, physical violence, anger management issues, emotional manipulation
Original Post Feb 1, 2024
My wife is 30 years old and she’s always worked out and been in shape, but lately I feel like it’s becoming excessive.
She used to regularly work out at a gym when she was in college. At some point she stopped going to the gym, I think lately just due to her schedule, and preferred to work out at home or go for runs outside.
About 18 months ago she announced she was going to get back into the habit of going to the gym. She now had a job where she’s able to make more time for it. It started off normal, but slowly became more and more frequent. She signed up for classes on the weekend (both days), she started going to the gym every day, then it became the morning before work and then again later in the evening. Every single day. If she’s stressed, she goes to the gym. Experience some sort of life crisis. She immediately heads to the gym. We have an argument - runs to the gym.
She’s 4 months pregnant right now. I’m kind of surprised we even had time to make a kid. I understand that it’s safe for her to work out, especially since she was already in the habit of doing it before she got pregnant, but the intensity is not slowing down.
If she misses one of her normal gym session she becomes so irritable, like a junkie not getting her fix. It’s just bizarre. Truly a case of too much of a good thing.
Of course she gets upset when I voice that I feel it’s becoming an unhealthy obsession and that I miss spending time with her because she’s there so much. She has all of these friends and this whole circle of people there that she seems to prefer spending time with over me. Why don’t we work out together at the gym? The gym is her time, she says. This isn’t a case of me feeling insecure because she’s in great physical shape and I’m a fat slob. I work out and am in shape - my job really requires me to stay in shape so I can’t let myself go if I want to.
I genuinely feel her gym habits are unhealthy. She’s over exercising, for one. There is such a thing. But worse than that, I feel it’s becoming a way for her to escape everything else in her life. She never actually fixed anything that goes wrong in her life. She just runs off to the gym to get some sort of mood boost and then that’s it. She also never gets anything else done in a practical sense because how can she when she’s at the gym so often? It’s to the point where I have to do every chore and if food is getting made I’m going to have to do it. I don’t expect her to do all of those things, but it should at least be a shared effort.
People we know have even commented about it to me. They’ve said things about how she seems different, how she “sure is at the gym a lot,” and many of her friends and family barely see her anymore. Some have even suggested she’s having an affair with somebody there.
Please tell me that this doesn’t sound normal to you. She insists this is perfectly normal.
Update Feb 11, 2024
I posted not very long ago about my wife’s addiction to the gym. A compulsion, if you will. She spends most of her free time there. She often goes twice a day, and sometimes even 3 times if we have a fight at night and she needs to run off instead of actually talking to me.
She won’t let me go to her gym and she refuses to go to mine. Her gym is her place, my gym is my place, and that’s just the way it has to be according to her. I’d love to have her come along with me. I’ve invited her multiple times.
She’s about 18 weeks pregnant right now. This is our first baby. She worked out like crazy prior to the pregnancy and she continues to just as hard now.
I truly didn’t think she was cheating on me. People suggested it in the last thread and I laughed. You can tell she’s at the gym a lot, she’s in great shape. So she’s obviously going there. I felt really confident about the cheating issue and when I posted 9 days ago I wasn’t even considering cheating.
I’m embarrassed to admit that after reading a lot of the comments on my last post, I thought maybe I was being overly confident about her fidelity. She usually always has her phone on her, but she left it in the kitchen counter and as stupid as I felt, I decided to do a quick swipe through her texts. She had a current text conversation going on with a guy. I recognized the name. The same name of a guy from the gym she mentions a lot. She’s friends with a lot of people there, went to one of their weddings last fall. I wasn’t too terribly concerned until I started reading the texts. Never wanted to know what the guy’s dick looked like, but I know now.
She was only out of the room for literally about a minute or two, so I had to scroll fast. I was furious. I asked her what the fuck that conversation was about. She started yelling at me for looking at her phone. I told her she’s acting so weird and the gym obsession was really bothering me so I just decided to look, and was ashamed that I did, but that’s I thought I’d find nothing all. She said “it’s nothing! It’s nothing!” Didn’t look like nothing to me. She sure seemed pretty interested in this “nothing.” I wanted to know if she’s been fucking him. For how long? She kept saying no. I left the house because I was so furious, but not before I slammed her phone on the ground and shattered it. She was calling me all sorts of names for breaking her phone. She hit me on the back as hard as she could. I left. Went to my brother’s house. My brother and sister in law were shocked, although my sister in law was one of the most vocal ones about my wife’s gym obsession being weird and bringing it up to me constantly.
I went home. She was in bed crying. She obviously couldn’t call me or anyone else for that matter. She was laying it on thick, “I don’t know if you’d ever come home.” Give me a break.
I took her phone to get repaired tonight. She doesn’t deserve it but I still feel like an ass breaking her phone.
I still don’t know how deep it goes. She won’t admit to anything beyond what I saw. Was it sexting (bad enough) or more? I’m convinced it was a lot more, but she refuses to hand over her phone and is now trying to act like I’m this terrible monster who is abusing her because I broke her phone. Not my proudest moment, but I honestly wanted to body slam her after she punched me. I have never and would never actually touch her like that.
Update 2 - My wife admitted to an affair Feb 12, 2024
Not sure if posting something in my profile will be seen by anyone, but I don’t feel like making another update in a subreddit.
Today my wife asked me to stay home from work so we could “talk.” She laid in bed all day yesterday trying to get me to feel sorry for her, but I paid absolutely no attention to her and ended up leaving the house to go to my family’s Super Bowl party. I wasn’t in the mood to go but I wasn’t going to sit at home with her. It really bothered her that I left. She kept texting me things like “Who just leaves like that? When something like this is happening, who is that cold and callous that they just leave to go to a party.”
I stayed home today to talk to her. She was full of tears, she’s “so sorry.”
According to her, she really was going to the gym twice a day because she likes going there, that’s where her friends are, makes her feel good, it’s “fun” for her. She met this guy there and he started flirting with her. Everyone likes him. He’s one of the most popular guys there. I didn’t realize there were popular people at gyms.
She admitted that she flirted back but didn’t mean anything by it. She didn’t reciprocate very much at first, but he gave her “butterflies” and she just found herself flirting back without thinking. She said it felt like when she had a crush on somebody when she was in school when she was younger. They started texting. At first it was just friendly and nothing sexual for several months, but she’d feel giddy every time she got a message from him. She was really attracted to him, but told him that she was married and there could never actually be anything between them.
According to her, he kept flirting with her anyway and said “sure, we won’t cross the line.” Until they did cross the line. She said she had tried to resist it for a while, but then one day they kissed. She admitted to enjoying it but also feeling that it was wrong. She must not have felt that bad because she slept with him for the first time later that night.
She described it like falling in love with somebody for the first time. All she could think about what him. Is she in love with him? She doesn’t know.
Is this baby mine? She thinks so but there’s always a small chance it could be his. He always uses a condom so she doesn’t think it’s his baby but they were sleeping together at the time she got pregnant.
She loves me. She can’t help that there’s just this huge spark between the two of them.
She doesn’t know if she loves him. She doesn’t know if the baby is mine. She doesn’t know why she did this. She doesn’t know what she thinks we should do.
The nail in the coffin is when she said “You would really leave me if it’s not your baby would you?” She had the balls to ask me that. I told her of course I’m leaving her and I wouldn’t raise another man’s child. She seemed shocked. She said “really? With everything we have and all our history, you wouldn’t even consider it?” She can’t be serious. I told her no I would never consider it.
She agreed to get a DNA test. She tearfully agreed, like I’m supposed to feel sorry for her about it?
I don’t know who this woman is. She was crying the whole time, but not tears of an ashamed or sorry person. They were tears for herself and meant to try to make me feel bad. Feel bad for what? That her heart is apparently so torn?
RELEVANT COMMENTS/ADDITIONAL INFO
OOP

She’s ruined my life, but I just feel numb right now. I barely feel anything at the moment.
It would have been bad enough for her to have an affair and cheat on me. But she couldn’t have stopped when she found out she was pregnant? At least I could have walked away if it wasn’t for this pregnancy. Maybe a still can, but I won’t know for sure until I get some test results. She’s almost positive the baby is mine. Im stuck dealing with her forever then. My child will grow up with divorced parents. Their mom will be the gym bike. Maybe she’ll even take off to live near her family and take my kid with her. Oh but then she couldn’t be near the guy who gives her butterflies and fucks her in gym changing rooms. The thrill, the excitement, how can I even blame her?
She’s ruined fatherhood for me, whether this is my kid or not. If by some chance this isn’t my baby and I’m able to completely break free, how will I not think of this one day when I start a family? I was so fucking happy to have this baby with her. I was really excited, even though we hadn’t planned for it right now. We have names picked out. I’ve been there for everything and now she does this to me. Not only me, but this poor kid regardless of who their father is.

~
OOP

She’s saying “I’ll never go back to the gym again. I’ll never talk to him again.” But she can’t say whether she’s in love with him or not? What kind of idiot does she think I am?

TTIsurvivors

She still thinks there is hope to save your relationship? Jesus Christ.

OOP

Yeah, I believe she still thinks there’s a chance I’ll agree to raise another man’s child with her. She doesn’t take me seriously when I say there’s no way I’d do that. She is dependent on me. She probably wouldn’t leave me if I knocked somebody else up and wanted her to play mommy. I know that sounds terrible and it’s nothing I’d ever do but I feel like she’d be mad and she’d go screw somebody else to get back at me but she probably would be too scared to actually leave me. I don’t feel the same way about leaving her. I’m sad to leave her. I don’t want this to be our reality. I can’t even say that I completely hate her yet. But I won’t raise another man’s child. If she feels so strongly about that guy and he’s so wonderful, go get together with him then and leave everyone else alone.

~

She was practically on her knees yesterday saying “I won’t go back to the gym. I won’t ever contact him again.” I feel like that doesn’t really mesh with the fact that she doesn’t even know if she’s in love with him or not. She obviously still has very strong feelings for him, which are probably coming more from between her legs than her actual heart but doesn’t really matter either way to me.
I think despite anything to do with him, she’s dependent on me in a way. For stability, maybe. Just out of comfort, maybe. We’ve been together since she was 20 years old, so I’m just this familiar person I guess. She has her gym friends out here but other than that she has no family or friends out here. She makes pretty good money, but I make more and all of our benefits are through me. Even with her good salary, it would be difficult to survive on her own as a single mom here with all of the daily living expenses, or at least live anywhere near the level she wants to live at.

~

Today is the day she was crying all night about how she’s ruined her life. She seemed genuine, like reality is hitting her, but I didn’t pay any attention to her at all. I just pretended she wasn’t there.
I did ask her if she’ll get blood drawn for a paternity test. I asked her to please not hurt me further by keeping me in limbo about that for months. She said she doesn’t want to.

OOP on if he got a lawyer and if he ever met the AP

I’m meeting with a lawyer next week and will see what they advise.
How can she parade me around when I’ve never been allowed to go to her gym? I’ve met two of the people, a slightly older married couple.
Yes, I met the AP. Last summer he called her because he was drunk at a bar and couldn’t drive home, so he called her to come get him. I didn’t think it was a good idea for her to go pick somebody up late at night, so I went with her.
I want her out of the house but I don’t necessarily want her to fly back home to where she’s from just yet. If this is my kid and she gives birth out here I’ll be in a much better position. If she leaves and goes home to her parents, she could very well be allowed to stay there and that would be considered the baby’s place of residence.
She missed a few days of work, but she has gone to work since all of this happened. She was having a meltdown this morning and I left for work. She told me had to go in late today and when she got there everybody was making her food and tea and stuff. She obviously didn’t tell them what really happened.

How long the affair was happening

She claims they’ve been sleeping together since the summer. Thats just what she claims, of course.

My wife is moving in with her AP, they’re “in love” Feb 22, 2024
My life has been reduced to a trashy daytime talk show.
The woman who was once my wife, who I considered a classy woman, has turned into complete trailer trash.
Today she announced that she’s moving in with her affair partner from the gym. She’s pregnant, might be his kid, might be mine. She’s too embarrassed to go get blood drawn for a paternity test.
She spent about a week trying to get my attention, to get me to talk to her, to get me to beg her to be mine. I didn’t fall for any of it. I’ve largely been ignoring her and when we have to speak I keep it very brief. We’ve been living together this whole time, but I’m in a different room now and functioning separate from her in all ways.
So, her pouting and trying to get me to pay attention to her and give her a gold star for not going to the gym for 5 days in a row didn’t work. Today she texted me to say she is moving in with him.
Somehow I still care about this person. I’ve already met with a lawyer though. I can care about her as a human being and possible mother of my child without being married to her. Still, it stung to hear her say she was going to be with him. I told her it wasn’t a smart move to leave the house. I’ve even told her she should probably meet with a lawyer. She doesn’t care about anything I have to say. I don’t think she needs to move in with anybody. I actually feel bad for her that she can’t just be on her own.
I asked her if he actually knew she was pregnant and wanted to know what story she’s been telling him this whole time. She said he knows and he doesn’t care if it’s my baby, he loves her and wants to be with her. Bizarre. You can’t find anyone else? Somebody who isn’t a married, pregnant woman? Why would you take that on? Doesn’t make sense to me. He’s scum but he’s good looking scum who apparently is gainfully employed and owns his own home, so you can’t tell me that my married, pregnant wife is your only option here. I just can’t imagine being a single guy like that and wanting to put up with this baggage when I could have other options.
And if this really is my baby then what? They’ll live with my wife and this weasel 50% of the time?
I don’t know how my life turned into this mess. And she thinks it’s embarrassing to have to go get blood drawn?!?!
My wife has agreed to a paternity test Feb 29, 2024
My wife moved in with her AP last weekend. She didn’t take very much at all. Most of her stuff is still in our house. I still get the feeling she was just waiting for me to beg her to come home, but I didn’t reach out to her at all after she left.
It was a strange mixture of relief, anger, and sadness. I don’t think I ate at all until last night. Just never felt hungry. Drank a little too much. But I’m fine.
I’m posting this update because I’ve received a ton of messages from people and honestly it’s emotionally draining to respond to each one and to have to type the same stuff out. I just don’t feel like talking about her that much.
So this morning she texted me to say her AP wants to get a DNA test done, so she’s going to do it. Look at that, didn’t matter when I wanted one but now that he has requested it she suddenly thinks it’s a great idea. She asked if I wanted to submit a sample because it’ll be cheaper to have 2 dads tested as part of one package. I don’t even care about the cost at this point, I just want an answer.
I don’t have to see or interact with them at all. I just have to make my own appointment with the lab to get my cheek swabbed. So this Saturday I’m going to do that and we should have the results within a week.
I’ll take what I can get at this point because it’s better than her dragging this out for another 20 weeks.
So that’s it. I’m fine. I’m going to work every day. Trying to function. Just feel stuck in limbo. I miss her. Honestly, I hate that she’s there with him. It makes me sick. Part of me does want to beg her to come home. It’ll be even worse if I find out that it’s my baby and she’s there with him. Unless he drops her at that news. I won’t let myself beg her. I won’t play any of those games with her.
RELEVANT COMMENTS/UPDATES
March 8, 2024
TTIsurvivors

Have you gotten the paternity test results?

OOP

At 11:00 this morning I got the news that I’m the father. I feel incredibly conflicted right now.

jacobe_bryant8

Is she asking to come back home? Or is she still planning on staying with the other guy? Regardless this is a rough situation I’m sorry for you bro.

OOP

We haven’t talked.

jacobe_bryant8

Understandable but I think that you should try and set up a meeting with her somewhere public to discuss the pregnancy and the future in general with her. Whether or not your marriage is going to end the kid is still going to be a big part of your lives so it would be best to see where both of you stand in that regard. Also I recall you saying earlier that you think that your wife would listen to what her affair partner would say to her (or something similar to that) so now that it’s not his kid I would be concerned about him pressuring her into getting a abortion. So I think you really should talk to your wife about your unborn child and whatnot.

OOP

We definitely need to talk, but I got the news in the middle of a work day so I wasn’t in the mood to have a full blown conversation with her. I think I need to sort of wrap my head around the reality of it all before I say too much to her anyway.

And update on my wife’s affair and pregnancy March 15, 2024
My wife has been having an affair with a guy she met at the gym for at least nearly a year. She’s around 22 weeks pregnant right now. She was somewhere around 17 weeks when I discovered she was cheating. She maintained that she was positive I was the father, but then refused to get a paternity test done to ease my mind.
We recently had a paternity test done (at the request of her affair partner) and it proves the baby is mine. It’s been very mixed emotions for me, very up and down. Originally I thought I just wanted to be completely done with her and not have any lifelong ties in the form of a full blown human being we shared, but I was sort of happy or relieved when I got the results. I’d already had it in my mind that I was going to be a father for months before I found out she was cheating. Sometimes I just have moments where I can’t believe this is my life, that this is the situation that my kid will be born into and I hate her for it.
She’s still living with him. All of her belongings are still here in our house. I refuse to do the work of packing everything up for her. She doesn’t seem concerned about taking any her things, beyond the essentials.
After we got the news that I’m the baby’s father, she texted me to say she’s glad I’m the father and that she knows I’ll be a great dad. She was texting me new baby name ideas last night. She’s tried calling but I ignore the calls. I only speak with her via text. This morning she asked if she could come by and get a few things. I told her it was fine, as I’ve been advised by my lawyer to not prevent her entry from the home, but I told her that he better not be with her.
So who shows up with her? The scumbag boyfriend. He walks right on into the house behind her like it’s no big deal. She ran upstairs to get the stuff she wanted and he and I were just left standing there in the living room. He told me it wasn’t her fault that he was there. She told him I didn’t want come but he forced his way along. He wanted to talk to me, supposedly, to tell me he “understand how I must be feeling.” No, you don’t know. He told me he knows I probably don’t believe him, but he genuinely loves her and knew he probably wasn’t the father. He accepts it and then tried to assure me he won’t try to take my place with the baby and hopes we can just get along since we’re both going to be in her life now. He “promises” that she’s fine, he’s looking after her. I told him that I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what he wanted with a pregnant woman who is having another man’s child, that I found it weird. Then I told him if he didn’t get out of my house I’d punch him. I went upstairs and she was trying to find somebody things in the bathroom. I got mad, asked her why she brought him along, and told her I find it really strange that he still wants to be with her now that he knows he has nothing to do with this baby - and that I refuse to let him have anything to do with my child. She said he talked her into coming and she’s sorry and never meant for any of this to happen but she’s in love with him now. He is supposedly what 30 year old her is looking for, not me. She’s setting up a nursery in his house and I can set one up at my house and she has no intention of trying to get full custody or anything like that. She doesn’t want to keep me from being involved in my child’s life. How generous of her.
She went back downstairs and I followed her and he was still standing there in the living room and I just walked up to him and punched him. He stumped back and fall into a table. She yelled “What the fuck?!” and ran over to him. I don’t even care at this point. As if he’s going to call the cops? He deserved it and it wouldn’t have happened had he just left like I told him to.
Several hours later she texted me to say she was sorry about today. He really meant what he said and he’s actually a good guy and he cares about her and he respect me. Wtf? He respects me?! He was screwing my wife in the gym locker room! I was like you can’t be serious. She said “Fine! I’m trying to have a mature conversation about this. I can’t help that we fell in love. Believe it or not, I’m not trying to hurt you and I want everything to be amicable.”
This guy stole my wife and he’s stealing my kid too. Sure I’m the actual father but now they’re setting up a nursery together in his house? I’ve tried to not feel jealous or sad. I’ve tried to maintain the thought that he’s the trash man who picked up my garbage. Sometimes I feel that way, but the truth is that I loved her, and still love her. I don’t want to stay married to her on principle alone, but this is devastating to me.
Another installment of the implosion which is my marriage Apr 10, 2024
My wife? is basically 26 weeks pregnant now.
There actually hasn’t been much drama with her and her AP. I was away for a long weekend last week and it was nice to just get away from home for a while.
Only really annoying thing that’s happened is that I told her I’m being in the delivery room, not him. After everything she’s done, she owes me that. It’s not his baby. He has no right or reason to be there. I will not be the one waiting outside when my kid is being born.
She said yeah she agreed and she never planned to have him in there with her. I asked her if she’d told him that and she said no. I told her to tell him he’ll have no part in it. Well she told him and apparently he didn’t like that and he started trying to convince her why he should be there. Next thing I know she’s telling me that he really wants to be there and she’s the one giving birth so she should be able to say who she wants there and she wants him there. I suppose he’ll start making name suggestions soon and will try to overrule names we’ve had picked out for our future kids for years.
We’ve talked a little bit and she told me I can have our house and the dog in our divorce. I’m requesting that we sell the house and split the profit. I already that written in the paperwork. I’m not buying her out of our house - a house that I’ve made all the payments on anyway. I have a much better credit score than her and less debt. I compromised a lot because she liked this house. I’d rather be able to get my own place based just on what I want and with no reminders of her. And there was already no way she was getting the dog. I already had proof that I “owned” him though so she wouldn’t really stand a chance of having a court award the dog to her. It’s the one thing I told my lawyer I wanted above everything else (not including any custody issues surrounding my actual human child). Honestly, her AP can have her, but he will never ever have my dog. Not to mention my dog is 100 times more loyal than my wife and some might even say better looking too.
So with the idea I won’t be living here in this house for much longer after the baby is born (if everything moves quickly), I decided I will still prepare a nursery here anyway in case anyone wants to try to accuse me of not being invested/prepared for fatherhood. I’m trying to look at the positives. It doesn’t matter what colors she likes or what themes. I can do whatever I want. Honestly, we’ve been together for so long and have lived together for most of our adult lives. It sort of nice not living with somebody but sort of lonely too. I have friends and family, but it’s hard to feel in the mood to go out or hang out with people too often. They always ask me about everything that’s going on and it’s just like I’m tired of that being the topic of conversation.
I got a promotion at work, which financially would have been better had it happened after the divorce, but I’ll take what I can get.
I feel like I’m living in this limbo right now and a lot of what I do is always framed around “how will this affect me in the divorce?”
Admittedly I spy on them on social media sometimes. Guess I’m hoping to see he’s been in a motorcycle accident or something now that the weather is nicer. Hasn’t happened yet, but he’s starting a new company and once that’s up and running I can always get all my friends and family to leave 1 star reviews everywhere. Have to find ways to have a little fun.
Sorry that I don’t respond to a lot of messages or comments. Sometimes I just take big breaks from looking at Reddit since it can be depressing af.
Editing to add something I forgot. She told her family that we’ve split up and that she’s with this other guy now. Her sister reached out to me to say how sorry she was, her sister is a dumbass, that sort of thing. She told me that my wife was complaining about her AP. She the sex is over when he’s done and apparently he’s really selfish with sex. He doesn’t do extra little things for her that she’s used to me doing, like clearing the snow off her car in the morning and heating it up or offering to make her food after a long day. He doesn’t speak her “love language” and he hangs out with his friends too much. This made me so happy to hear. She’s secretly miserable and I find that absolutely delightful.

NEW UPDATE

I’m still alive May 19, 2024
I’m still alive. I’m mainly posting here because several people have reached out to me and were concerned that I’d taken my own life. No, I’m not on the brink of ending my life. I think I’m doing better than I have since all of this started.
Around the time of my last post, my story blew up and I was getting messages from people who saw it on TikTok and YouTube. I had to take a step back because it was a little overwhelming. I have over 100 unread messages here. I appreciate it but it was a little uncomfortable at the time, and I got to the point where I didn’t really want to talk about the situation with my wife and her AP anymore.
So as of today, our baby is due in less than 10 weeks. We’re in the home stretch now. I don’t feel prepared at all. All of this other stuff has just been so distracting.
I started working on a nursery. It’s not done yet, but I have the floor finished and the walls painted. My ex-wife was impressed with the color scheme and furniture I chose. She’s not legally my ex-wife yet but I’ve started calling her that. It sort of makes it easier.
I also packed up a bunch of her stuff. Originally I refused to spend my time packing up her things, but eventually just said screw it and started packing it. I’m at the point where it’ll just be easier to not see all of her stuff around here. Why did I leave it for so long?
She came over to get some of the boxes I packed up. She came alone. Things were fine between us. I loaded the stuff into her car. We didn’t argue. At one point she started to tear up and said she fucked up. I said yeah she did, but there’s no point talking about it now. She shit all over our marriage. She has her muscle bound asshole to go home to now anyway so who cares. She said “I know, but it’s not the same.” I told her nothing has been the same since she decided to fuck him the first time.
Supposedly he’s going to “let” me be in the delivery room when my baby is born. I didn’t even argue it when she said it like that, but inside I was boiling at the idea of him letting me be there for the birth of my child. She says she talked to him and he agreed it wouldn’t really be right to not allow me to be there. I’m going to take what I can get if it means being there for the birth of my child. I’m going to try to just ignore him for the time being. She was acting all sweet and laying on all of the “I really want you there. I really need you there” stuff and I know mentally I’m not in a place to be that cold to her when she starts acting that way. I’m trying to be indifferent more than anything else but it’s so hard when she’s actually around and starts looking at me a certain way and making me feel bad. She invited me over to see the nursery they have set up at his house. I’m not sure I can bring myself to go into another man’s house and look at the nursery set up for my kid.
I did ask her if she was truly safe there though. I don’t know why, it’s just been bothering me. As pissed as I still am, I don’t want to find out he’s mistreating her and I definitely don’t want my kid to be going into an unsafe household. I haven’t told her about anything her sister has told me. They probably won’t last but as of right now there’s a very good chance my newborn baby will be going home to his house. It kills me to think about. It’s almost soul destroying to think about if I dwell on it too long.
She says she’s fine. He genuinely loves her. He’s great with kids. He accepts that she’s having a baby and that this is part of the package. She insists it’s not weird because she wasn’t pregnant when anything started between them.
I asked her why she did it…why did she ever let anything start between them in the first place. She said “I don’t know.” Then went into “I don’t want to talk about this” mode and left pretty soon after. Typical behavior from her - just run away.
Overall I’m doing ok. I’m not sitting here depressed and drinking a bottle of scotch every night anymore. I mean on occasion, but for the most part no. I feel more used to my new normal now, and that’ll all change yet again pretty soon.
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

This post will repeat weekly through the month of December. Please repost or cross post as a way to promote this subreddit. Or ignore this one and check out our others! I apologize if it's cramping your style, but when I work hard on certain posts I want to be sure they are useful! I also am working on making these shorter so they don't get lost in the madness....
Scroll down for the Character Questions and create a thoughtful and empathetic profile of your main characters for your projects!
As always please use these as sparks to create and feel free to post your responses and ideas in comments or separate post! This is YOUR subreddit so go ahead and post away!
Prompt: Imagine a dystopian world where an oppressive government has successfully erased all forms of personal identity and history. In this society, individuals are assigned generic roles and are forbidden from expressing their unique thoughts, emotions, or experiences. Write a short story or reflective essay exploring the life of a character who discovers a hidden underground community that encourages self-expression and reignites the importance of personal narratives.
In your response, consider the following:

1. Character and World Building:
   • Describe the protagonist's background, their assigned role, and their initial perception of the oppressive world they inhabit.
   • Develop the hidden underground community, including its purpose, structure, and the means through which it safeguards personal stories.
   • Create a contrast between the protagonist's initial world and the underground community, highlighting the impact of personal narratives on shaping identity and resisting oppression.
2. Plot Analysis:
   • Outline the protagonist's journey of discovery, including their initial skepticism, the influential encounters they have within the underground community, and the personal sacrifices they make to preserve their identity.
   • Explore the challenges and conflicts faced by the protagonist, both externally (e.g., encounters with government authorities) and internally (e.g., the struggle to confront their identity).
3. Deep Introspection:
   • Prompt the protagonist to reflect deeply on the uncomfortable subjects that the government's erasure of personal narratives seeks to suppress. These could include topics such as individuality, memory, trauma, and the power of storytelling as a tool for empathy and resistance.
   • Encourage the protagonist to evolve their thoughts and perceptions throughout the narrative, considering the consequences of silence and the potential for personal growth through self-expression and sharing.
4. Requirements for Responses:
   • Conduct research to explore real-world examples of societies that suppress personal narratives or attempt to erase collective memory.
5. Prompt: In a post-apocalyptic world, a devastating pandemic has wiped out most of humanity. The survivors are forced to live in isolated communities, each with its own set of strict rules and customs. Write a short story or reflective essay exploring the life of a character who questions the existing order and embarks on a journey to unite these fragmented communities. Consider the role of unity, diversity, and collaboration in rebuilding a shattered world.
6. Prompt: Set in a future where advanced AI technology has permeated every aspect of society, write a story or reflective essay following a protagonist who begins to question the boundaries between human and machine. Delve into the ethical implications of human-AI relationships, the erosion of human emotions, and the potential consequences of blurring the line between artificial and genuine experiences.
7. Prompt: Imagine a world where climate change and environmental degradation have irreversibly altered the planet. Write a story or reflective essay from the perspective of a character who is part of a group striving to restore balance and heal the damaged Earth. Explore the connections between personal responsibility, collective action, and the intersections of social and environmental justice.
8. Prompt: Transport yourself to a society where strict social hierarchies are based on a person's genetic makeup. Write a short story or reflective essay following a character who challenges this system and advocates for equality and inclusivity. Examine the role of genetic determinism, discrimination, and the power of individual agency in reshaping social structures.
9. Prompt: Imagine a world where art and creativity are considered illegal, seen as tools of subversion and chaos. Write a story or reflective essay from the perspective of an artist who risks everything to defy this oppressive regime and reclaim the power of artistic expression. Analyze the significance of art as a form of resistance, its ability to inspire change, and its impact on personal and societal transformation.

Remember to consider the following for each of the prompts to insure a well rounded and thought out premise that will engage the audience and allow room for growth in the plot.
Prompt 1 - Post-Apocalyptic Community Building:

• Consider the unique customs, rules, and societal structures of each isolated community.
• Explore the protagonist's motivation for questioning the existing order and their vision for uniting the communities.
• Analyze the challenges and conflicts faced in the journey of uniting fragmented communities and the potential benefits and drawbacks of unity.

Prompt 2 - Ethical Implications of AI Technology:

• Reflect on the protagonist's personal experiences and interactions with AI, including the blurring of boundaries between human and machine.
• Explore the ethical dilemmas and consequences of advancing AI technology.
• Analyze the impact of human emotions, genuine experiences, and the potential loss or transformation of human qualities in a society heavily influenced by AI.

Prompt 3 - Environmental Restoration and Social Justice:

• Consider the protagonist's role in the restoration of the damaged Earth and their motivations for taking action.
• Explore the intersections of social justice and the environment, including the disproportionate impacts of climate change on marginalized communities.
• Analyze the challenges of collective action, personal responsibility, and the potential for transformative change in healing the planet and addressing social inequalities.

Prompt 4 - Genetic Hierarchy and Social Change:

• Reflect on the protagonist's experience within the rigid social hierarchy based on genetics.
• Analyze the implications of genetic determinism and discrimination in shaping social structures.
• Explore the role of individual agency, activism, and the potential strategies for challenging and reshaping the genetic-based hierarchy.

Prompt 5 - Artistic Expression as Resistance:

• Consider the protagonist's personal experiences as an artist within an oppressive regime.
• Reflect on the significance of artistic expression as a form of resistance and its power to inspire change and challenge societal norms.
• Analyze the risks, sacrifices, and potential outcomes associated with defying an oppressive regime through art.

1. Chick Lit: Write a chick lit novel or short story following a relatable protagonist navigating the challenges of love, career, and self-discovery. Explore themes of friendship, personal growth, and finding balance in a fast-paced, modern world.
2. Young Readers' Adventure: Imagine a group of young friends who stumble upon a hidden portal to another realm. Write an adventure novel or short story as they embark on a quest to save a magical world from darkness. Delve into themes of friendship, bravery, and the power of imagination.
3. Historical Fiction: Set in a time of significant historical events, write a novel or short story highlighting a lesser-known figure or group of people. Research the historical context meticulously and emphasize the character's resilience, struggles, and contributions during that tumultuous period.
4. Fantasy: Create a fantastical world filled with mythical creatures, magic, and ancient prophecies. Write a novel or short story following a young protagonist who discovers their extraordinary abilities and must navigate a treacherous journey to fulfill their destiny. Explore themes of self-discovery, heroism, and the blurred lines between good and evil.
5. Mystery/Thriller: Write a gripping mystery or thriller novel following a seasoned detective or amateur sleuth investigating a perplexing crime. Develop complex characters, suspenseful plot twists, and an intricate web of clues and red herrings that keep readers guessing until the very end.
6. Science Fiction: Set in a future where technological advancements have transformed society, write a novel or short story exploring the ethical and societal implications of groundbreaking inventions. Examine themes such as artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, or virtual reality and their impact on humanity's future.
7. Romance: Craft a heartwarming romance novel or short story centered around two individuals from different backgrounds or opposing sides. Explore themes of love, forgiveness, and the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity.
8. Coming-of-Age: Write a coming-of-age novel or short story following a young protagonist's journey of self-discovery, identity formation, and navigating the complexities of adolescence. Explore themes of friendship, personal growth, and the challenges of transitioning into adulthood.
9. Psychological Thriller: Create a psychological thriller novel or short story that delves into the intricacies of the human mind. Focus on a protagonist who becomes entangled in a web of deception, manipulation, and paranoia. Explore themes of trust, perception, and the blurred lines between reality and illusion.
10. Family Drama: Write a novel or short story exploring the dynamics and complexities within a multi-generational family. Include themes of love, secrets, and conflicts that arise as family members navigate their relationships, face past traumas, and strive for reconciliation.

Considerations for each prompt:

• Genre-specific elements: Ensure your story incorporates the defining characteristics and tropes of the chosen genre, such as the tone, pacing, and narrative conventions.
• Character development: Develop dynamic and relatable characters who undergo significant growth or transformation throughout the story.
• Plot structure: Create a compelling plot that introduces conflict, builds tension, and resolves in a satisfying manner, adhering to the common structure of the chosen genre.
• Themes and messages: Select themes that resonate with the genre and explore them through the characters' experiences and narrative development.
• Reader engagement: Craft a story that captivates the intended audience, keeping them invested in the characters and eager to uncover what happens next.

1. Historical Romance: Write a one-page historical romance set in a lavish ballroom during the Victorian era. Focus on the forbidden love between a spirited debutante and a mysterious gentleman from a different social class.
2. Science Fiction Comedy: Craft a one-page comedic story set in a futuristic space station. Follow the misadventures of a clumsy maintenance technician who unwittingly saves the day against all odds.
3. Paranormal Mystery: Pen a one-page mystery story set in a haunted mansion. Introduce a skeptical paranormal investigator who must solve the mystery of a ghostly apparition that has been terrorizing the inhabitants.
4. Literary Fiction: Write a one-page literary fiction piece centered around a character's contemplation of the fleeting nature of life and the importance of cherishing the present moment.
5. Action Adventure: Craft a one-page action-packed adventure story set in the jungles of an unexplored island. Follow a daring archaeologist's quest for a hidden treasure while battling against treacherous obstacles and rival adventurers.
6. Psychological Drama: Create a one-page psychological drama following the internal struggles of a troubled artist as they grapple with their inner demons and seek redemption.
7. Magical Realism: Write a one-page magical realism story set in a sleepy coastal town. Explore the extraordinary occurrences that happen when an enigmatic mermaid washes ashore and disrupts the mundane lives of the townsfolk.
8. Thriller: Craft a one-page thriller story involving a race against time. Follow a determined protagonist as they try to decipher cryptic clues and prevent a citywide disaster.
9. Fantasy Adventure: Pen a one-page fantasy adventure story set in a whimsical realm. Follow a young hero's quest to retrieve a stolen artifact and restore balance to the land, encountering fantastical creatures and overcoming obstacles along the way.
10. Historical Fiction Mystery: Write a one-page historical fiction mystery set during the Roaring Twenties. Follow a quick-witted detective as they unravel a web of deceit and intrigue surrounding a glamorous underground speakeasy in the heart of the city.

Considerations for each prompt:

• Engaging Beginning: Choose a compelling starting point that grabs the reader's attention and hooks them into the story from the very first sentence.
• Concise Plot: Craft a tightly woven plot that can be fully developed within one page, with an introduction, rising action, climax, and resolution.
• Strong Characterization: Develop distinct and memorable characters, even within the limited space, by providing key details that bring them to life and make them relatable to the reader.
• Descriptive Language: Use vivid and sensory language to paint a clear picture of the setting, engage the reader's imagination, and create an immersive reading experience.
• Resolution or Twist: Provide a satisfying resolution to the story or introduce an unexpected twist that leaves the reader intrigued and wanting more.

Protagonist Character Profile:

1. Name:
2. Age:
3. Gender:
4. Physical appearance:
5. Background:
6. Personality traits (list at least five):
7. Core values and beliefs:
8. Motivations and goals:
9. Biggest fear:
10. Internal conflicts:
11. External conflicts:
12. Strengths:
13. Weaknesses:
14. Childhood experiences and their impact:
15. Education and professional background:
16. Relationship status and dynamics:
17. Quirks or peculiar habits:
18. Psychological disorders, if any:
19. Familial relationships and dynamics:
20. Support system (friends, mentors, etc.):
21. Traumatic experiences and their effects:
22. Coping mechanisms:
23. Emotional vulnerabilities:
24. Resilience and determination:
25. Personal growth throughout the story:

Protagonist Character Questions:

1. What drives the protagonist to take action and pursue their goals?
2. How does the protagonist's childhood shape their behaviors and choices?
3. What values does the protagonist hold dear, and how do they influence their decision-making process?
4. What inner conflicts does the protagonist face, and how do they attempt to reconcile them?
5. How does the protagonist's education and professional background contribute to their strengths and weaknesses?
6. What traumatic experiences has the protagonist overcome, and how have these experiences shaped their worldview?
7. How does the protagonist cope with stress or adversity?
8. What relationships and dynamics are most significant to the protagonist, and how do these relationships evolve throughout the story?
9. In what ways does the protagonist exhibit resilience and determination in the face of challenges?
10. How does the protagonist approach personal growth and self-improvement?
11. What psychological disorders, if any, does the protagonist struggle with, and how do these disorders impact their thoughts and actions?
12. How does the protagonist's physical appearance contribute to their self-perception and interactions with others?
13. What unique quirks or habits does the protagonist possess that make them stand out?
14. What are the protagonist's primary desires and aspirations?
15. How does the protagonist's internalized fear drive or hinder their actions?
16. How does the protagonist navigate and resolve external conflicts?
17. What coping mechanisms does the protagonist rely on during times of stress or emotional turmoil?
18. How do familial relationships and dynamics influence the protagonist's actions and decisions?
19. What significant life choices or dilemmas does the protagonist face throughout the story, and how do they respond?
20. In what ways does the protagonist's support system impact their growth and resilience?
21. How does the protagonist's personal development and self-discovery contribute to the overall narrative arc?
22. How does the protagonist's background and experiences shape their perception of the world?
23. What are the protagonist's core beliefs and values, and how do these impact their interactions with others?
24. How does the protagonist handle setbacks or failures, and what lessons do they learn from these experiences?
25. What external influences or societal pressures affect the protagonist's decision-making process?

Antagonist Character Profile:

1. Name:
2. Age:
3. Gender:
4. Physical appearance:
5. Background:
6. Personality traits (list at least five):
7. Core values and beliefs:
8. Motivations and goals:
9. Biggest fear:
10. Internal conflicts:
11. External conflicts:
12. Strengths:
13. Weaknesses:
14. Childhood experiences and their impact $ Go on

1. Education and professional background: 16. Relationship status and dynamics: 17. Quirks or peculiar habits: 18. Psychological disorders, if any: 19. Familial relationships and dynamics: 20. Support system (friends, mentors, etc.): 21. Traumatic experiences and their effects: 22. Coping mechanisms: 23. Emotional vulnerabilities: 24. Strategies for achieving their goals: 25. Methods they employ to antagonize the protagonist:

Antagonist Character Questions:

1. What drives the antagonist to oppose the protagonist and act as an obstacle in their journey?
2. How does the antagonist's background and upbringing contribute to their negative behaviors and motivations?
3. What core values and beliefs does the antagonist hold that align with their antagonistic actions?
4. What personal goals or desires does the antagonist seek to fulfill?
5. What is the biggest fear or insecurity that drives the antagonist's actions?
6. How does the antagonist's internal conflicts manifest and impact their decisions?
7. What external conflicts arise as a result of the antagonist's actions, and how do they handle these conflicts?
8. In what ways does the antagonist exhibit strength and power, and how do these traits affect their interactions with others?
9. What are the antagonist's weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by the protagonist?
10. How have childhood experiences shaped the antagonist's worldview and motivations?
11. How does the antagonist's education and professional background contribute to their methods and strategies?
12. What familial relationships or dynamics influence the antagonist's actions and choices?
13. What unique quirks or habits does the antagonist possess that make them distinct or memorable?
14. Are there any psychological disorders or conditions that contribute to the antagonist's behavior?
15. How does the antagonist cope with stress or emotional turmoil?
16. What strategies or tactics does the antagonist employ to achieve their goals and antagonize the protagonist?
17. How do the antagonist's actions impact their relationships and interactions with other characters in the story?

18.How does the antagonist perceive and justify their actions, even if they are considered morally or ethically wrong?

1. What external influences or societal pressures contribute to the antagonist's motivations or actions?
   
2. How does the antagonist's physical appearance contribute to their demeanor and portrayal in the story?
   
3. What significant life choices or dilemmas has the antagonist faced, and how have these shaped their character?
   
4. What is the antagonist's reaction to setbacks or failures, and how do they adapt their strategies?
   
5. How does the antagonist's support system or lack thereof impact their actions and decisions?
   
6. What past traumatic experiences or events have influenced the antagonist's worldview and behaviors?
   
7. How does the antagonist's emotional state or emotional vulnerabilities influence their actions and interactions with others?
   

First off interestingly enough i think none and i mean NONE of this would have happened if Sean does not choose to flee the scene in Episode 1.
Shoot Sean didn’t even have to try to explain himself, he could have literally just played dead until the police got there and just woke up like “woah wtf just happened”
What would they have even charged them with? They literally had dashcam footage from the incident, they can clearly hear only ONE gunshot go off followed by the police officer literally FLYING through the air. The street is somehow DESTROYED. The only logical explanation is that some type of explosion went off but forensics on the area would prove that there was no explosion. They would genuinely not be able to make sense of it. If Sean just gets literally any lawyer they beat the case and are released into the care of his grandparents.
The real problem is that it took Sean a ridiculously long time to figure out that his brother had powers. He literally doesn’t make the connection until the motel room in episode 2 despite Daniel seemingly causing a literal Explosion TWICE by this point. It is unclear if Daniel himself knows he has literal telekinesis by this point either and based on his actions he doesn’t have a clue. There is no telling what would have triggered the next explosion and who would have been around to witness it. It could have happened while Daniel was in the hospital or at his grandparents house. A picture of his dead dad on the tv was enough to trigger what can only be described as a episode that would have most definitely got Daniel locked away in the custody of the CIA forever.
So when you think about it, Sean lowkey did the right thing in terms of protecting Daniel. He literally sacrifices his life for Daniel in a way. I see so many people say Daniel was just a kid but bro so was Sean. He was only SIXTEEN. When I was sixteen i didn’t know shit about shit! He had to become a father at 16 years old! He was able to successfully take care of a 9 year old boy while traveling from seattle to the mexican border mostly ON FOOT. They even briefly take care of a DOG. They stayed in a surprising amount of shelter along the way to be completely homeless, Sean was extremely innovative and was able to adapt to any environment. He deserved better considering that for the entire show he pretty much picked up after Daniel the entire time. No matter which way you slice it, Daniel killed that cop in seattle, yes it was a accident and yes he’s just a kid but that doesn’t change the fact that Sean was gulity of nothing but wanting to go to a party. The first two crimes they rack up after running away are the incident at the gas station and the vandalizing of the motel room which are both crimes Daniel committed. I don’t blame Daniel, he literally had no control but that doesn’t invalidate what’s happening to Sean because of all this. If you ask me he is the character that gets it the worst in this game and maybe all of LiS Games.
Another thing actually why does it take the cops so long to catch Sean and Daniel. After leaving Seattle they literally walk along the edge of the road for like two days. They quite literally do not hide their faces. No one saw this 9 year old walking down the side of the street with dirty clothes on looking like he had just hiked mount Everest in 2 days and fell back down and called the cops.. At the Gas Station, once again nobody recognizes them. It is actually revealed later on that Brody knew exactly who they were though so how convenient that the only person who recognized the two from a worldwide manhunt is super friendly. How does nobody recognize them in beaver creek? (Other then the guy who calls the cops) Wouldn’t police constantly have surveillance over the grandparents home? They are literally Sean and Daniels only known family in the US outside of Karen. Most of ALL how does nobody in Haven Point recognize Daniel bruh. Like seriously he literally uses his real name. You telling me not one person in that church saw him lift a literal cross with his mind and called the police? It was literally viral online, as newspapers show that the Haven Point church is growing in popularity. Seriously these are the most incompetent cops ever lol.
I know it doesn’t seem like it but i loved this game. Watched a playthrough years ago but never actually played it. It’s so much better actually playing it and it feels unique to you, like a movie or show where you control what happens. Makes me wanna play the original Life is Strange now but gonna be kinda hard to get into since your choices really don’t affect the ending like they do in LiS 2. This game is actually underrated when it comes to the choice based aspect, for example when you get to the gas station there is a family eating at the picnic table, there is about 5-6 different possible senarios that can play out here just dealing with this alone. I used to scroll through the stats at the end of each episode like “you could have done that?!?”. Think about the heist, it can go so many different ways.
Amazing game bruh. Loved the soundtrack and the visuals. Beautiful ass game man. Sorry i wrote a book lol

I had the experience of having two ipads side by side, one on google earth for an ipad pro and one on google maps. Purpose was to learn a route from A to B. Was a great experience scrolling through both side to side. Google earth showed what the landscape actually looked like while the other ipad with apple maps, which showed the routes. Was a great experience to walk through a route on a road and explore, honestly a better experience than walking through a location in VR
Wonder if there is a better way to do this tho?
I just own an 11 inch ipad pro from like 2018 which is still great. Hoping to experience a 12.9-13 inch ipad one day, though I fear it will end up becoming an overpriced google earth/apple maps/comics machine. Maybe with a new ipad OS version someday and a keyboard base it could be more tho
It looks like there are some old ipad pros from like 2017 ish in the 350-400 dollar range, are they good? There also seems to be the 12.9 inch ipad 3rd generation for around 520 dollars
I wonder if I wait a year since this is basically for me just a toy, not for work, how much better the prices/technology would be a year from now

Platform(s): PC
Genre: Educational
Estimated year of release:Sometime in the 90s
Graphics/art style: It was a side scrolling Jump Start type game
Notable characters: I'm fairly certain you were a lion wearing a tee shirt
Notable gameplay mechanics: I definitely remember there being a lesson on Roman Numerals and there was a part you went through a castle
Other details: I definitely played it before autumn of 2000. I don't remember much else about it, but I would be happy to try to answer questions about it if asked.

This is going to be a long one and patience may be required. There will also be no poll, as I think this requires in-depth discussion. You can scroll down to "Discussion Prompt" to just get the meat of it.

Hunter's Log

Top-bottom, left-right	Warm Season	Cold Season	Breeding Season
Day 1	Hunted Daimyo and acquired Vespoid wings	Crazy funkcat goes in my room, rummages through my item box, tells me to "take that bucket off my head", then gives me an afro and leaves. Anyway, then I hunted a Gendrome.	Talking & delivering requests
(Night)	-	I upgraded my house! I have a bath now (which I cannot use, but it's still cool)! Also unlocked Snowy Mountains (finally)	1st successful solo Rathian hunt
Day 2	Purple Gypceros with almost no health (due to botched meal). Yikes! Succeeded though!	Ate with the Chief. Delivered machalite to upgrade the Smithy. Talked to people and delivered requests.	-
(Night)	Repelled Kushala Daora and saved the village	Hunted Bulldrome & Mined for Aquaglow Jewels in the Swamp	A-Class Congalala & Mining
Day 3	Hunted Yian Kut-Ku for shells	Shared a meal with the Novice Hunter. Hunted P. Gypceros, & collected 3 Machalite. 2 stolen by Gyp. Grrr.	Hunted an enormous, silver crown Rathian!
(Night)	Repelled Kushala Daora from the desert	Gathered Machalite, hunted Bulldrome	-

- Empty tables mean that the last activity took that long to complete before the next one.
Multiplayer
Hunted Congalala with one other person. Hunted a Gendrome with them, then did an event quest with them (Melynx, Felyne and Velocidrome - chaos)! Hunted a Cephadrome with them, and then also a Blue Yian Kut-Ku. Hunted my first ever Rathian (before the solo one). Then, with four players, I hunted a Congalala, 3 Purple Gypceros, and 2 Blue Yian Kut-Ku. Hunted my first Khezu with someone. Failed. Abandoned a Rathian with that same person. Hunted an A-Class Purple Gypceros. Completed my first exams. Abandoned Blangonga because someone disconnected again. Hunted Blangos, Bulldromes to get Anteka Horns, then finally attained a set of Vespoid arms and legs which allow me to have the Transporter skill. Hunted Bulldrome. Attempted to find a secret area that I thought might be in the desert. Unfortunately, I did not manage to find it. Gathered Prism Dandelions and slayed White Velociprey. Failed hunting Rathian solo (why did I think I could do that alone?), ended via subquest. Collected potion ingredients, collected ores. Then hunted a Rathian with friends and then finally, a Pink Rathian.
Technically this paragraph is for the year after this one as I already started it, but it is important to the topic so I will shift it back one year in my posts. I farmed machalite a whole lot, then fought my first successful Khezu with 3 people joining me. It was a Red Khezu as well! Did tons more machalite mining, hunted a Congalala, did more machalite mining, and hunted a Rathian twice. Hunted Gypceros, then another Rathian, an Iodrome, then another Rathian. I needed Rathian spikes, which is a pretty rare drop in this game. I helped someone do their exams, then did some of my own exams. By now I had full Rathian armour, which is awesome! I upgraded that armour by hunting some genprey. I finished off my exams, then hunted a Khezu, Purple Gypceros, and mined even more machalite. Hunted another Khezu, entirely for zenny this time because the bounty was pretty good. I got disconnected in my best ever machalite run... And was informed that Basarios gives better machalite anyway. I repelled my first Lao-Shan Lung!!! Then, I helped someone with their exams. Attempted to hunt another Lao-Shan Lung, and failed. People wanted to take a break so I did a quick machalite run while I waited. Then, when they came back, it happened. I slayed my first Lao-Shan Lung with 3 other incredible hunters! What an amazing experience! Lastly, I helped someone deliver some sootstones, hunted a Khezu with them, and then hunted Blangonga.

Discussion Prompt: Has Monster Hunter forgotten how to do stakes?

The first mentions of Kushala Daora come from rumours rapidly spreading through Jumbo Village. I don't know if this was just my slow uptake, but to me it seemed like the rumours were becoming more common (like they were "spreading") as I was progressing in the game. Word had it, that a powerful dragon had been spotted, and that it had a black, steel-like hide and could command the very winds.
I had somewhat of a fiasco in the last year, where I got absolutely dunked on trying and failing to save an ioprey fang to complete a delivery for the Travelling Merchant. I skipped the season because of this, and once I delivered the items, the story progressed. I came back from a quest to find a wyverian woman I had never seen before. This immediately made me anxious. Talking to her, my heart sank. She said she was a wyverian scholar who studies and tracks the patterns of elder dragons. She said the mysterious dragon that the rumours seemed to be talking about was an elder dragon. She explained that elder dragons are disastrous and destroy everything in their paths, and that there were two options for Jumbo Village. Either everyone evacuates, or I repel Kushala Daora. This felt like getting bad news at a doctor's visit. The coldness with how she described how dire the situation truly was, was chilling, especially with everything I have done for Jumbo Village at this point. On the plus side, she seemed competent in my abilities and was insistent that I simply repel it. The catch to this was the dread of knowing that no one would evacuate and that the livelihoods of all these people rested on me and me alone - Just an aspiring hunter who shows some promise.
This reminded me of Ceadeus in the 3rd generation. To me at least, Ceadeus kind of sneaks up on you. I was sort of just doing my own thing, and then suddenly I'm told that the guild found out that a giant sea dragon is under the island and has issued an evacuation order. Ceadeus hits really hard during the fight and after you repel it, in my opinion. Repelling your first Kushala Daora, the build up is far superior, but the atmosphere of the fight and the feeling of having saved the village are both pretty mediocre. Still, I felt proud for having done it successfully, because the game presented good stakes and build-up. It was I who accomplished that. I saved Jumbo Village, and I'll do it again if I have to.
It's been a long time since I played the story of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, but from memory, the stakes are somewhat weak there. They are still strong and potent, because your entire world, and the ecosystems it relies on are at stake. You do feel like a hero for beating Shagaru Magala. I only really have one criticism: The story does not seem to put any emphasis on how this will affect your caravan, or the people of the villages/towns. Heck, you do not even really get super attached to those people because they are not a part of your caravan. You do not see them frequently and you are given very little opportunity to help and nurture them continuously. So compared to Monster Hunter 2 and 3, it feels kind of flat.
5th generation is really where things go downhill though. I do not remember a single time in World or Iceborne when something the player cares about is in threat. Safi Jiiva would had felt amazing to fight if it was attacking Astera, but instead the players come to it. Much of World and Iceborne is handwaved as "research". To me, Xeno Jiiva felt urgent. However, it was less in an "it's going to attack Astera! Oh no!" sort of way and more in a "this thing has a horrible potential and it cannot be allowed to live" sort of way. This is good for a more Lovecraftian story, but it does not make the player feel like a hero. It makes you feel like you just witnessed things you should not have.
Rise and Sunbreak... I have complicated feelings about. On one hand, the stakes are good on paper. "The rampage is going to destroy Kamura", and being a dedicated Kamura hunter, are both strong motivations. This is good stuff. However, you do not really feel the urgency and there are basically none of these heart-wrenching moments where you see and feel how the danger is affecting people. What's more, many of the villagers are described as combat-capable, and throughout the entire game they act pretty nonchalantly. I do not mind this myself, but its impact on the emotional side of the story is pretty hard to ignore. Sunbreak meanwhile, puts you up against a plague that threatens Elgato. The fact that you are the Kamura hunter sort of kills this a bit in my opinion, as you do not have the connection to any of these characters like you do the Kamura villagers at this point. The game has to work double time to convince you to care about these new characters and that hurts. It does get there eventually, however, especially after Fiorayne is injured and you are set out on a series of quests to help her recover. Monster Hunter needs that kind of storytelling. To me, it did feel a bit like too little too late, but it is at least something. I think the fact that much of Sunbreak's story was released in patches does not do it any favours in this regard.
There is also something to be said for rejecting the idea of danger to an ecosystem, or danger through illness or plague, and instead just aiming straight for the head. I fought my first Lao-Shan Lung in Monster Hunter 2 recently, and the impact it left on me was also very different and profound. Lao-Shan Lung is not an evil monster. It just migrates for some reason and has a bizarre habit of destroying anything in its path. It does not mean any harm. Still, when a Lao-Shan Lung starts heading towards Dundorma... One of the most prolific capital cities in the world... You can imagine the destruction that would cause. Destruction not just to the city, but to society as we understand it in the Monster Hunter setting. Imagine if you failed to repel this elder dragon, and one of the biggest trade cities in the world went down with you. That... Kind of slaps? You do not see stakes like that in any other Monster Hunter game, as far as I know. Gogmazios comes close, but something about it just does not hit quite the same and I am not entirely sure why. Maybe it is because in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, you do not quite see the scope and importance of Dundorma? Regardless, when I first repelled Lao-Shan Lung, it felt like I had done something big. When I first killed Lao-Shan Lung, it felt like my party and I were heroes. We returned to the city that we saved, and the game rewarded us with vouchers to hear songs in the Assembly... So we celebrated. We went to the Assembly and heard a beautiful opera song. We drank, we laughed. It was almost like our triumphant return was simulated. All that was missing was a parade.
What do you think? Has Monster Hunter forgotten how to introduce stakes? Please provide your thoughts and experiences, but keep it snark-free!

hi, recently I posted about how should I name certain words which we, people on Earth, use. I decided that I want to go in other direction, and call everything my own words (maybe with some exceptions of "human", or animals, etc) – these are seasons, months, stars and directions
I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I either go what is easy to recall for readers (North, East, August, February) or to make up a lot of new words, but it's gonna be harder to memorize it...until I thought about this
basically, I decided to call seasons four types of playing music instrument Forte, Diminuendo, Piano, Crescendo these names are shortened to 4 letters, but I'm not gonna specify it for uh, "no theft" reasons
I think it kinda fits seasonal cycles, and also fits their vibe (at least to me)
and I have 8 months, 2 months per season. each month is 44 days (which is roughly 2 * 44 = 3 * 30. 2 days off). there i recalled 7 modes, but since it's 8 months, I decided to include one "exceptional" mode
these are: Aeolian, Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Dorian, Phrygian, Locrian and Pentatonic
for the sake of similarity in names, I won't shorten their names, although Pentatonic will be Pentatonian probably first 7 words are modes, and Pentatonic is 5 keys, coming (i guess? I didn't look it up) from 5 black keys, whereas other 7 modes come from white keys only, but depending on where you start, its gonna change the scale (for example, if you start from A/La with white keys only, it's Aeolian – minor. If you start from C/Do, it's Ionian, major (and I might actually add these ones as extra names, not sure). if you start from E/Mi, it's Phrygian, etc)
i might fuck around and uhh maybe add first key letter to these months which is....messy, to say the least, cause it would be Cionian, Dorian, Ephrygian, Flydian, Gmixolydian, Aeolian, Blocrian...okay you know what it's not that bad lmao. Pentatonian would probably be Pentatonian, or Hpentatonian (cause you know the drill, Bach died, someone decided to make up H key which is A#/Bb, okay im getting too nerdy)
now, I only need to understand how to name directions, but I think I'll tie it to things which are common to respective sides of the world (for example, if we speak of our world, North could be Iceth, and South could be Scorch...or, if we get political, something like Wealth and Poorth. just dumb names, don't mind it). but that's enough yapping, what do you think of music themed seasons and months names?

Hello all, I got special permission from the mods to post this regularly because they are big projects. If you are not a fan of fanfiction feel free to keep scrolling.
From a Legends Point of View
https://www.tumblr.com/from-a-legends-pov/743172144114040833/from-a-legends-legends-point-of-view-2024?source=share
Not my project but I came across it and will be participating. In short it will be a collection of short stories set around the OT featuring Legends characters and what they were doing at the time. I wanted to spread the word to anyone who might not have seen it otherwise.
Star Wars ReExpanded
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ioNfp-4eFXmi3puuM6Hi1FiMlqCzk9o-fOzLacM9elk/edit#gid=0
This is a reading list of fanfics that are Legends Compliant, largely this is a group headcanon, If anyone's interested please get in touch. We've had a lot of fun with it!
Thanks for your time guys, carry on

I don't know why this isn't more popular, but I genuinely like The Heavenly Demon’s Descendant. Most of the manhwas here with the whole "hunter and dungeons theme" are all 99% of the time, the same shit different smell.
We have an MC who was an ordinary human and then all of a sudden they become OP. In which the authors have this infinite cycle of:
new opponent emerges > the MC has a difficult time but eventually wins > repeat
This can be executed well, but a lot of the times they aren't. And that's why they feel repetitive. The most atrocious part of stories like these is that every aspect of the plot one way or another, exists to make the MC look good. Completely neglecting depth of other side characters, and often times the MC themselves who at best have the cliche "I need to get stronger to protect myself"
This is where I think The Heavenly Demon’s Descendant truly shines: the story has depth beyond just "hur hur look how OP I am".
Let me explain.
First off, the MC actually has an interesting story. His parents died from monsters and strives to become stronger to avenge them. Before he used to be extremely promising and talented, and now he's a disappointment, and he wants to relive his former glory, which is where his super OP ancestor comes in and helps him achieve that.
But we also get to learn more about characters that aren't just the male lead. We get to learn about the victims of the antagonist, the backgrounds and motives for why others follow the antagonist, etc.
It wasn't those "I follow the main antagonist because I am evil and I like power", they actually go further into that and explain why those people choose to sell their soul to the devil pretty much.
It delves into the back stories of the MC and his former friends
With that being said, there is one flaw, and that is the fight scenes are a bit under whelming.
What do you guys think about it