My son turned 3 in February. I am a first time single mom. He was born with a heart condition that has been repaired. I highly suspect autism and had him evaluated by the school system (still waiting on their report) and have a medical evaluation in 2 weeks.
He received speech therapy for 9 months and made no progress. He has been in daycare since 6 weeks old but doesn't talk to any adults but will shake his head yes or no. He will talk "at" other kids at daycare. He talks constantly at home. He does a lot of "scripted speech" and associations.
His grandmother lives in another city and he hasn't seen her in a year and a half but we talk every night. He will not interact with her at all and it makes her mad and she thinks I am deliberating turning him against her. She has tried to talk to him about his favorite things but he won't respond. If she asks him a question that has a yes/no answer, he will answer with a head nod (which of course she can't see). We have tried zoom type calls but he starts having a tantrum.
Any tips are greatly appreciated.

This post suggestion is assuming the foundation of T17s should be kept in place, and is focusing on the difficulty of the content while improving the process of rolling the maps. The goal is to have T17s be VERY hard maps that reward Uber boss fragments as their core identity. Balancing other rewards requires a separate deep dive and I won't go down that rabbit hole here.

Solution:

• T17s have the text "Modifiable only with Blessed, Chaos, or Exalted Orbs"
• T17s have 2 implicit modifiers (similar to Red Map zone modifiers from Ziz misery gauntlet) that can be rolled with Blessed Orbs
• T17s have 4 explicit modifiers per Chaos Orb roll instead of 6
• T17s can have up to 6 explicit modifiers by using Exalted Orbs

What this does:

• Ensures suitable baseline difficulty that doesn't interact with explicit modifier scaling
• Gives more usefulness to Blessed and Exalted Orbs
• Requires larger investment into highest end T17 farming strategies (getting ideal 6 mods would be very rare)
• Raises difficulty for juiciest of endgame farming while keeping baseline similar to current state
• Brings baseline Chaos & go T17 rewards closer to juiced T16s

The above is trying to reuse existing systems that already exist in PoE to reduce the friction in engaging with T17s while maintaining suitable difficulty. The Gauntlet is partly successful because it adds difficulty in a predictable way that effects all builds universally (we all hate The Gauntlet equally). While I like the uniqueness of some T17 affixes that change how you play the fact is some of them brick entire archetypes while being ignored by others. Reducing the base number of affixes DRASTICALLY lowers the amount of rolling required to get a runnable map for whatever build you're playing.

BACK STORY...skip ahead to the point
Y'all ... Where to start. I've been with my spouse for 12 years. We moved in together almost immediately and married 6 years ago. Recently we made a well thought out decision to build a mother in law/ apartment in my spouse's mother's home basement. Her home is paid off, she has no retirement plan as a hairdresser, we can't afford half a million dollars for a home or rather refuse to go that far into debt. The three of us and my spouse's sister discussed a plan for ownership and how to build the basement. We agreed that we would own half the home and we will then pay half the property taxes and all utilities. We will be adding a entry door to the side of the house for this apartment and along with have our own "front" yard on the side of the home. We will share the backyard. We share the parking spaces available in the driveway.
We wanted to start the building process immediately. So we decided to do it in phases. Phase one was building out our bedroom and a master bathroom. This means we would be sharing the kitchen with my mother-in-law and one of the living rooms would be to share as well. Due to budget restrictions we decided to hold off on the shower so we only have half bath downstairs. We have not signed any contracts with this home agreement yet and as each day passes I regret it more and more. With the first phase we re-piped the entire home. My mother-in-law did pay half the price of this. However, overall we have put in $35,000 into the home for our bedroom and half bath.
MIL and I have gotten into a couple of arguments but seemingly seem to go away after apologizing to each other. When she gets a little too drunk, she likes to bring up mean things from the past. I have decided I don't like that so I avoid her when I notice she gets a little too drunk. We have been living under the same roof for 5 months and so I've learned when to avoid.
First fight was me attempting to stand up for myself. After the 5th conversation of her asking me to wear more makeup more often just for her, Because I look so pretty and I could be so pretty if I just wore makeup more. I told her "that was rude and that I wouldn't wear makeup for anybody and I don't really get any joy wearing makeup so that's why I don't wear it." She always starts these conversations talking about how pretty I am and how great my facial features are and I do my makeup so well and I should do it more often. She did not think it was rude and denied what she had said about requesting I wear make up for her. So we had a back and forth of disagreement until I said we should just take some time apart to cool off. She hated that. I went downstairs. Next day I went on as nothing happened and we had a great silly interaction and she apologized and said nothing more needed discussed. We hugged and said I love yous.
Second argument is when she was being emotionally abusive to my spouse when he was opening up about childhood trauma. She started to victim blame my spouse insinuating that he enjoyed said trauma. She is always drunk so, take it for what you will... But at one point she said "why is everyone always ganging up on me??" So I said because she was an abusive drunk asshole and that my spouse was too nice to stand up for himself to you. I did raise my voice. She pushed me out of the room and slammed the door on me.
THE POINT: Final argument with my MIL was two nights ago. (We live together 5 months now...working together to own half the home) Earlier in the day I was setting up a blink camera that she had given us cuz she wasn't going to use it. I put it in my bedroom in the corner facing the door on a bottom shelf so that I could see my dog when I wasn't home. Come midnight I could hear my mother-in-law on the phone yelling about me putting a camera in my bedroom. She said how dare I surveillance her in her home. She was screaming to somebody about how weird it was that I would put a camera in there and what does she think she is doing to be surveillancing. She kept saying my name, I was downstairs. I was not around her, so I popped out of my bedroom and asked. (Found out there was no one on the phone?!) "Hey are you trying to talk to me?" She came running down the stairs with her finger in my face asking me why I have a camera in my room. I said because I want one and she said well why I repeated because I want one. She said who do you think is going to go into your room? I said what do you mean you tell me? She said that she only ever goes in there to make sure my dog is okay and has food and water. Why do you have a camera in your room? *She is in my face throwing her finger in the air and I just said because of this BS motioning to her entire self. She took both of her hands and slapped either side of my face and kind of pushed me away "exactly" and started to turn around. I said don't ever touch me like that again. She turned around and put her fist in the air, so I said you're going to hit me? and she raised her fist again. So I said go ahead and she just sat there with her fist in the air until she finally walked away.
I called my spouse who's out of town working to share that his mother just threatened me physically because there is a camera in her house(my bedroom). He called her and essentially took her side because of how weird it was of me because I didn't talk to her first.
I texted to apologize for making her uncomfortable and that I wasn't being malicious. I took the camera down immediately. And she was screaming all night about how I need to leave her house. And how dare I surveillance her in her home to find her taking care of my dog...So now I feel like I am in the wrong. My spouse is busy and not talking to me so I feel like he's mad at me.
I just refuse to believe that it was a weird action of me to put a camera in my room that was given to me that I've always wanted so that I can keep an eye on my dog while I'm away.
As of right now she wants us to leave and I think it's because she's a crazy psycho and just doesn't like me. This puts us back in our initial financial burden we just escaped. Probably why my spouse is upset but I don't want to blame me but should I?! Am I also kinda crazy?! Maybe I need to reel in my emotional reactions. I feel like I am always reacting to her and maybe I should chill and care less about what she does.
I do love her. I felt that first real connection after our first argument about the make up and how we got over it. I was hurt when I heard she brought it up to my spouse after the fact in a negative way. And later she made a comment to me about being weird that one time with the make up....like what? That's when I started to pull away... probably about two weeks before this final argument.

15th: Randy Bailey 1.0 (Gabon - 8th)

my pookie randy bailey
u/SMC0629:
I LOVE Randy 1.0. Gabon is a great season, and there's so many characters that you could argue for the top spot. For me though, it'd be Randy. The dude's hilarious, and he's a villain that you love to hate. However, similar to Scot, there's moments that really make you sympathize with him and make you even want to root for him. He's super compelling, but even more entertaining, love Randy, so happy he made endgame.
~
u/DryBonesKing:
Randy is a bitter, bitter old man, and that’s also why he’s one of the best casting choices Survivor has ever managed to find. It almost feels like a waste that Survivor had been sitting on this guy for years each time he applied, but it was definitely for the best that they ended up bringing him onto Gabon. Randy slots in so well to pretty much any narrative role he needs to be in. Whether it’s the borderline “only sane man” role he fills in pre-swap Fang, to being another cog in the Onion Alliance of Kota (and a much needed personality increase that alliance needed), to just a pedantic asshole in the second swap Fang, to just being a bitter fuckhead in his boot episode. He’s just a very versatile character able to fit whatever role he is needed for, but in a way that still feels consistent to who he is – a fucking asshole who hates everyone.
He's crucial to liking Gabon, as he just embodies the spirit of the season in my opinion as this negative force that just has plenty of hate for everyone. Even his own friends aren’t safe from his wrath, like Matty when the two get into the pettiest argument of all time in the episode nine reward challenge. He has one of the most satisfying boot episodes of all time, as well as just one of the funniest. I’m also a huge fan of his jury voting confessional, where he just helps Gabon come together with seven simple words: “All three of you, kiss my ass!” He's hilarious and I do love his relationship with the majority of the cast, with his dynamic with Sugar, Susie, and Crystal deserving the most praise in my eyes, especially with how they outlast him.
But I do think even beyond just the humor and negativity, he’s just a miserable human being in a way that feels very painful. He’s just a very lonely person and it does manifest in how he interacts with others, and I think it gives a certain sadness to the way he treats others and also the way he is treated. It really helps give him a unique tone that I think Survivor really hasn’t been able to accomplish with villains; a simultaneous feeling where you root for his downfall but also root for him. Root for him to find happiness, even though if Randy read that sentence, he’d probably tell me “He doesn’t want my pity” before telling me to go kill myself. And like… I don’t know, I really fuck with that energy. Randy’s a 10/10 for me and it’s a testament to the rest of the people who made Endgame I don’t have him higher than this. I really hope Survivor is one day able to find someone with even half of Randy’s energy.
Overall Rank – 58/821
~
u/Zanthosus:
I’m not as big on Randy as others if I’m being completely honest. One of my biggest issues with Gabon as a season is that so much of the cast is just so overly-negative constantly to the point that it puts me in a bad mood watching it and becomes a slog to get through. Randy, to his credit, at least has a lot of fun in his negativity that others like Corinne, Kenny, Charlie, Paloma, and various others don’t. I still do appreciate his role on the season, and even enjoy his presence to an extent, but I’ve never been able to fully get on board with him being endgame, and especially not better than Sugar.
~
u/Tommyroxs45:
Randy is probably my spirit animal of Survivor. Just a grumpy old man who hates everything and everyone, but there is such an amazing story there and such an amazing character that makes him a top 10 character for me. Also the fact that he literally has one of the best episodes of all time, his boot episode which is just *mwah* chefs kiss.
~
u/Regnisyak1:
One of my best-kept secrets this rankdown was I don’t like Randy very much. Objectively, Randy has a great story, but something about him never landed for me while watching Gabon. I think he helps make that season more negative than it should be, and I feel like even though Randy was a monstrous dick, no one deserves the downfall he got, and I think it was just unnecessarily cruel. That being said, Randy is a quote machine, and watching the cranky old man on the season did contribute, and he had great relationships throughout, especially with Sugar, Crystal, Bob, Marcus, and others. Plus his leaving Fang and getting his mohawk were all funny.
Personal Rank: 100/821. 8/10.
~~~~~
u/ninjedi1:
Randy Bailey 1.0 (8th Place, Gabon)
Randy, in my humble opinion, might be the best Survivor villain of all time in terms of entertainment. He has a great story of slowly becoming a massive dick throughout the season before getting an ultimate downfall. Right at the start of the season he says his job is a videographer, and then cuts to a confessional of him saying how he edits wedding videos for a living, but isn’t a positive person, hates marriage, and will never get married. Randy ends up on Fang but isn’t entirely his full blown asshole self yet, at least with his tribe. In his confessionals he lets his tribemates have it, like saying how Gillian is annoying and hasn’t accomplished anything, or saying how the GC’s best decision as leader was resigning from the leadership position. However, when he interacts with his tribemates, he’s more reserved and friendly, like joking about being full when offered a grasshopper to eat, or him not really giving his opinion on the first vote when asked by Matty.
However, the reservness slowly goes away as time passes, as he gets more and more annoyed with the Fang tribe. When they start running low on rice and start to pitch that they need to eat less, which annoys GC and they get into an argument about it. This leads t oRandy to decide that his plan is to just sit and watch the team fall apart. That’s not even the end of the rice saga as Randy brings it up again that they’re low on rice and need to ration it better, but knows that Crystal, GC, and Kenny aren’t listening to him at all. The more dickish Randy slowly starts to make his appearance, and he ends up forming an alliance with Dan, Matty, and Susie, allowing him to be in control of Fang, but that quickly changes due to the swap.
The first tribe swap of the season happens where they have to vote on who the most important members of the tribe were and rank accordingly (and you can actually see Randy’s board where he ranks Susie above GC and Ken, based) and Randy actually scores pretty high, placing 3rd on Fang. He gets taken into Kota along with Dan and Susie, and knows that he needs to fit in or else he might get voted out. Luckily for Randy, most of the original Kota hates Fang, and since Randy is able to perform well in the challenges, he fits right in. He mocks Kelly and Ken when they ask for a bite of reward, straight up telling them no, and then mocking Crystal when she starts to cry since they’ve lost so much, going “wah wah wah”. Even after a different reward challenge, he mocks the entire Fang tribe by mentioning how they’re probably out of rice now while they were feasting. This even leads Randy to get pulled into the Onion alliance, replacing Bob. However, his first thing that the alliance does with him in it now is vote off his friend, Dan.
So while Randy’s main edit is watching this go become a villainous asshole, one of the smaller and more missable plots Randy has is his bond with Dan. When Dan returns from Exile, everyone thinks he has the idol except for Randy, who is the only one to defend Dan, saying that he’s just paranoid and tired, and they even end up in a short lived alliance together on Fang. During the tribe swap, both Randy and Dan tell Corinne not to pick GC, as they are both in sync and know what’s good for the tribe. A main moment that really shows how well they work together is in the big hill ball rolling challenge, where their teamwork is able to help clench the victory for Kota over the more dysfunctional Ace and Sugar on Fang. However, Dan has been annoying the rest of the tribe, and Randy tries to distance himself from him. But when Kota wants to vote out Dan over Susie due to fear of an idol, Randy tries to sway the vote to Susie instead, but Dan ends up going home instead. What really makes this impactful is after that tribal, when Randy was asked about it, Randy said that the other tribals were easy, and then got annoyed when everyone laughed as he told them he wasn’t trying to be funny. This is the one rare moment where Randy gets specifically mad at his alliance since he had to watch his friend get voted out.
But now it's F10 and it looks like the merge is finally here! And it's looking like the merge and Randy is on cloud 9. He enjoys the feast, and when the clue for the idol gets revealed, he finds it almost instantly and then he and Marcus convince everyone to throw it into the ocean, with an accompanying confessional where he calls himself the king of Gabon. This all comes crashing down as it's not a merge, it's a second tribe swap! While the Kota six are split evenly between both teams, giving them numerical advantage, Randy worries about Susie flipping and discusses throwing the challenge to vote out Matty. However, Matty ends up single handedly winning immunity for them, and in the next episode, Randy’s fears were confirmed and Susie flipped, voting out Marcus. Of course, it's not all bad news, as Fang ends up winning reward! Except for the fact they won after a five minute argument about the best way to make the easiest shot in the world. It's honestly hilarious to see after the old Kota members on Fang react to seeing Marcus go.
After that it's the merge for real this time! This is where a lot of Karma catches up to Randy. You see, with Susie clearly sided with the Fang members, Sugar is now seen as the swing vote. However, all of Randy’s actions on picking on Fang during the reward challenges and his bad attitude at the recent golf challenge makes her really dislike him and want him out first. However, the Kotas don’t want to do that since Randy is in their alliance, so Sugar ends up siding with the original Fang members who also don’t like Randy and votes off Charlie, meaning Randy inadvertently screwed everything up.
Randy’s boot episode is where Randy is at his worst, which also means he’s at his best since he’s about to go. Randy decides that he’s just going to keep being an asshole, and he lives up to that as the auction is the next reward challenge. He annoys everyone as he gets his hands on beer and nuts as well as a plate of spaghetti. He also buys cookies for the whole tribe and gives one to everyone except Sugar who doesn’t want one, and when he offers his cookie to her, she takes it and gives it to Matty, which annoys him. He then comes up with a genius strategy, basically making everyone miserable so that everyone will vote for him, and then he’ll use the idol that Bob found to make himself safe and take out Susie for personal reasons. It's foolproof! Except there’s one problem. Bob never found the idol because Sugar found it. That alone would be funny if that was that and Randy just got voted off, but there’s more. Bob made a fake and told Sugar about it, and she tells him to give it to Randy if he wants to make it farther. Bob complies, and Randy is none the wiser, super smug with the fact his plan is going to work. This tribal is great cause it gives us two iconic voting confessionals, with Sugar old bigot vote and Crystal’s shouting vote, and the cherry on top is Randy standing up and playing the idol all smug, only for it to be revealed to be fake while Sugar and Crystal laugh, and Randy is out of the game.
Of course, that’s not entirely the end, and Randy would get one last fuck you to the final three. He grills Sugar for laughing at him out the door, asking her if she didn’t realize he would be on the jury, yells at Bob for making a joke at his expense about the fake idol and screwing him over, and gets annoyed with Susie about her saying she feels sorry for him. He then delivers the iconic voting confessional “All three of you can kiss my ass!”. Randy’s villain journey from annoyed old man who’s keeping it to himself to overconfident dick rubbing in the other team's faces to massive downfall caused by his own auctions is a lot of fun, especially with how genuine he feels at all times. Without Randy, Gabon wouldn’t be nearly as great as it is.
~
SMC0629: 11
DryBonesKing: 16
Zanthosus: 19
Tommyroxs45: 8
Regnisyak1: 23
DavidW1208: 6
ninjedi1: 12
Average Placement: 13.571
Total Points: 95
Standard Deviation: 6.079 (12th Lowest)

And if I don't vibe with the energy, I simply can NOT keep them around.
Just a week ago, I had someone interacting with me, who said some concerning things & out of curiosity, I want to their profile and was BACK HANDED with the fucked up energy radiating from their photo and it sent me RUNNING, because there was EVIL.
But what was crazy though, in the man's photo he was doing nothing wrong & could even be described as handsome, but that energy put my spiritual guides on guard and they said "Hell no".
I've had situations in my life, where I have told people to their face "I don't like you" when they approached me, because I could just FEEL what type of person they are and I simply could not entertain it.
And it doesn't help their case, that I'm a clairsentient (I divine by feeling ) to my Granny's clairvoyant (The gift of sight).
Due to these things, I have also removed people from the community when something DOES NOT feel right. I don't know who they are, but I have to protect myself and the community, my coven, from that harmful energy or whatever is attached to them.
When they have self reflected and have done some cleansing, they're WELCOME BACK, but otherwise...nah.
I'm just way too sensitive to that energy.
I am hoping to assemble a mod team of individuals who know what I am talking about and would be willing to help me, by stepping in and double checking my work, if someone isn't passing the vibe check.
No, getting into arguments doesn't equal "not passing the vibe check".
An example would be someone expressing they would take from the GRIEVING, while voicing they know it is insensitive. That made me sad.
I can't fuck with you...
It's just.. something. I need someone to understand what I'm talking about.

Killed to Death Vanilla
It's like Official, but with Admins! First person with longer days! No game play mods, just vanilla. Up and running for over a year and half, we welcome players of all skill levels and play styles. In addition to our active player base, we also have dedicated admins who are available to help with any issues you may encounter. If you need any assistance, we offer a ticket support and have an active Discord community where you can connect with other players, stay up to date with server news and updates, and get help from our admins.
Our Chernarus Vanilla Server Offers;
• a vanilla DayZ experience
• Active Admins monitor deaths, builds and player interactions
• Discord.gg/WgvtNwfpGZ
• A Discord Community to engage other players and get help
• Discord ticket system

Server Name: Killed to Death :: Vanilla : 1PP ; Admin Mod
51.81.93.68:2302 (Game Port)
51.81.93.68:27016 (Query Port)

Here's another thing you have to make leaks of your own mod too so the creator won't get mad

First, a little bit of backstory. I'll try to be as clear as possible.
I (26) am a straight man. My best friend, "Chase" (24) is also a straight man. We first met when we were roommates in college, 7 years ago. We became best friends pretty quickly and we have remained close to this day. While we were in college, I had a fling with this girl who got pregnant with twin boys. She told me that she didn't want them but she also didn't want an abortion, so she was going to put them up for adoption. I convinced her to let me raise them by myself. They are now 6. Chase has helped me with them for their entire lives, by his own choice. He was there for their birth and they now call him "Papa" (We did not encourage this. In fact, we discouraged, but eventually gave up. They know that he is not their father and that they have a mother).
After college, Chase, the boys, and I moved to another state and found jobs at the same company. It's a tight-knit and kind of family-run (my father worked there before he died, my uncle works there, and Chase's sister works there). Because of us working together and most of our friends being either from college or from our workplace, Chase and I have never had to introduce each other to any of our friends (with new people, we obviously introduce as friend/roommate).
Here is the issue: apparently, for the past few years, our friends have thought that we are a couple. Neither Chase, nor I, had any idea of this. People at our workplace talk a lot with each other, so I guess word somehow spread that we are together (which we are not and never have been). He is my closest friend, we live together, and he is heavily involved in raising my sons, but we have never interacted in any romantic way in front of any of our friends, ever. We hug sometimes and that's it. Also, maybe important, neither of us have been in serious relationships probably ever.
We learned that everyone thought we were a couple when one of our friends ("Bob") introduced Chase and I as "boyfriends" to someone. We thought that he was joking and I told him after that that kind of joke wasn't funny. Bob asked what I meant, and I told him that I didn't like him joking about Chase and I being boyfriends. Bob was genuinely confused, so I said, "Just because two guys are good friends doesn't mean you should joke about them being a couple". Me saying this sort of shocked the friend group and they thought I was joking at first. Chase and I both clarified that we aren't together and that we're both straight. So now, our friend group is mad at us, saying that we lied to them. Calling us AHs for pretending that we were a "perfect couple" (?). One friend even said that he had looked up to us as what a relationship should look like (????).
I don't think Chase and I did anything wrong. We've never said that we were a couple, but Chase is kind of on the fence and feels like we should apologize. So, AITA?

CONTENT: MK11 has like 50 times more single player content, thousands of ''FREE'' costumes, gears, endless towers. Has the best KRYPT ever in the series while MK1 doesn’t even have a krypt. If you’re a MK addict, and if you like grinding single player content you can easily play MK11 for more than 500+ hours while you’ll find yourself doing nothing in MK after 50-100 hours.
STORY MODE: MK11 easily has a better story and more memorable moments. The duo moments of Grand Masters Hanzo Hasashi and Sub-Zero, Sonya's fall, the funny moments of young and old Johnny, Jax's depressive states and wrong side to right side transitions, the expected and unexpected betrayals. Everyone had already predicted Shang Tsung's betrayal, but the way he snatched the crown disguised as Raiden was unexpectedly spectacular. Liu Kang's fusion with Raiden and becoming the God of Fire and Thunder was epic. And let's not forget the Aftermath DLC, which was almost like a standalone story mode. Also, the finale with Shang Sung was quite funny, sitting on his throne with his giant form and calling Raiden and Fujin as minions was great.
ROSTER: MK11 wins easily again. MK1 doesn't even have OG characters Kano and their first ever female character in the series Sonya lol… Imagine Capcom cutting Chun-li and Zangief, fans would destroy them. It’s an unwritten rule in fighting games but you just can’t cut your OG characters… The Tekken and Street Fighter series are very faithful to their OG characters. NRS failed so badly with MK1. I mean I’ve never mained Kano and Sonya and I played all MK games for 30 years. But I always like to see them as main fighters. They are as important as Scorp, Sub and Liu Kang. They added some generic 3d era characters instead. Seriously who mains Li-Mei or Reiko? I don’t even think 1% of player base use them. Dunno why some ppl requested them but 3d era was a complete disaster, those games almost destroyed the entire franchise lol… Guest characters are also the worst in the series. We had a chance to play Alien vs Predator in MKX and Robocop vs Terminator in MK11. We had the Joker with incredibly fun gameplay. And we had damn Rambo voiced by SYLVESTER STALLONE himself. And we got Megan Fox and a 2nd class Superman in MK1 lol. I don’t even know who is Omni-man and the other ones fr…
CHARACTER MODELS: This is another thing MK11 is miles better than MK1. WokeBros forced their puppet Ed Boon to go Woke as much as possible. And like any product made under the Woke Agenda crap, this game fell so bad. The female models are ugly af in MK1, Tanya doesn't even look like a woman, she looks more like the retired Brazilian soccer legend Ronaldinho... Scorpion and Sub Zero are extra clean-shaven bisexuals in MK1, while in MK11 they look like Gigachads. Same goes with Shang Tsung as well. Damn we have the legendary Cary Tagawa as Shang in MK11. It’s not even fair. And they even took out Shao Khan's iconic Hammer of Wrath and replaced it with an axe lol. Seriously whoever thought it was a good idea should’ve already been fired twice. Both from NRS on the day of General Shao’s reveal trailer and from the new company he/she joined recently…
COMBAT: You'll see a lot of fanboys praising MK1 combat and saying the gameplay and combos are better, but that's the biggest lie about MK1. If some people say MKX has the best combat in the series, I can't argue but I think MK1's combat is overrated. The Kameo system is stupid, I'd rather do my defensive moves and throws with my main fighter any day. And the combos are too long and boring, people even started calling them "coffee break combos". There's nothing fun about doing 40 hit combos in 15 seconds for only 30% hp... After experiencing these stupid long ass combos over and over again I now know MK11 combos combined with some krushing blows are way better and fun. MK1 combat is just lazily designed. In MK11 you can easily play more defensively using more polished defensive mechanics and manually control your krushing blows for more advanced offensive play, especially in online matches.
OTHERS: MK11 also has better character interactions with 3 lines of dialog at the beginning of the match, much funnier exchanges with many references. Stages are also better with balanced color and themes. MKX was a great game but there was few stages and color palette was complete dark ass, and MK1 is just TOO colorful for a MK game and they have no stage interactions. MK11 has many great stage interactions for some defensive plays, juggle combo starters even stage brutalities.
Video games have some real fans and too many fanboys nowadays. And there is a huge difference between these two groups. This post will make some fanboys mad cos a MK fanboy will call any new MK game the best MK ever with the best roster, best combat, best story etc. Which all turns false when it comes to MK1. I’m 38 yo, and I’m a loyal Mortal Kombat ''fan''. I started to play this franchise from the very first game on a Sega Genesis. I played MK2 on Arcade mostly. I even played all those stupid 3d era games. And I’ve started to enjoy the series so much again with MK9. I’ve got 530 hours of playtime for MK9, 693 hours for MKX and 882 hours for MK11 on Steam. After watching the first MK1 trailers, I really thought MK1 would be the first MK game I would hit 1k+ hours. But at the end I completely uninstalled it after only 51 hours. And now I can easily say MK1 is one of the worst MK games ever made. If Ed Boon doesn't stop being a WB puppet, this great fighting franchise will only get worse. Cos this game is just made for the EGS score and microtransactions. Selling Fatalities for ''real money'' is the lowest sh*t I’ve ever seen in video gaming…
And yes if the topic title still needs an answer, MK1 did NOTHING better than MK11.

Mods might remove this post because this girl isn’t my MIL, but I find it fitting because she is a mother and also my in law. I don’t know what other sub this would go in so if it isn’t approved please direct me towards a place, and tbh I just need to rant to some like minded people.
This in law is my fiancés first cousin that he grew up with like a sister. Literally next door to each other, together every day pre-18, she’s in all of his pictures growing up. He’s always warned me about her being a major see you next Tuesday, but we never interacted much and when we did she was always okay so I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. We started to get closer when I got pregnant for the first time because she and her friends all have kids. I started hanging out with her best friend and their other cousin they grew up with too. I felt like I was finally part of the girl group in his family after 3 years of being on the outside. Long story short, I miscarried and her best friend kept checking in on me, but she practically abandoned me. Sent an obligatory “I’m here if you need anything” text and then I didn’t hear from her for months until my birthday dinner that her friend planned. After hanging out at least twice a week prior. At that point I kind of felt like maybe she didn’t actually like me, but I didn’t think too much on it because I didn’t have any proof, she was nice enough, and she truly had NO reason to dislike me that I’m aware of. I’ve held this girl’s baby, crocheted her a custom baby blanket, given gifts, checked in on holidays, and always tried to be nice because I WANTED her to like me.
Well recently I got pregnant again and she’s been acting fish since. First of all, we announced to fiancés extended family via a group chat that about 20 of his family members are in, including her. I’m not in it. Immediately after announcing, she texts my MIL congratulations on being a grandma (I know this because MIL was in the room). She didn’t message me for almost 3 days. Didn’t respond to my response. Two days later asked if I was going to the family Memorial Day lunch on Saturday. I said I wasn’t because fiancé wanted to work on a project, and left my message open for a conversational response. All she said was gotcha and I haven’t heard from her since. Weird. At this point I really think she doesn’t like me for some reason, but I’m not going to press the issue or confront her on it over text. I still have no proof.
Today her best friend invited me over for Memorial Day for some BBQ and swimming. She was supposed to be there but claimed she was sick and didn’t want to go. I’m a blunt person, so when her friend and I had a private moment, I asked “Is there any reason that Sally doesn’t like me? I just kind of get the vibe that she doesn’t and I have no idea why” Friend asked why and I basically repeated the paragraph above. I was kind of expecting her to say no, but wasn’t surprised when she gave me a reason. And the reason is literally a non reason. Apparently she “doesn’t respect the way that (my fiancé) treats me” LOL WHAT? The irony, but I’ll get there. I want to defend my fiancé first. We’ve been together for 4 mostly wonderful years. Never broken up. Obviously our relationship isn’t picture perfect, but we’ve never argued in front of other people, we always work our issues out peacefully, he never puts his hands on me, we are each other’s best friend and confidant, he takes care of me and his unborn child financially, he spoils me, and is overall a sweet and amazing partner. There’s nothing to not respect about our relationship tbh. Especially about the way he treats me. His whole family and most people that we meet say we will be together forever and it’s a match made in heaven. He’s an only child and his mother WANTS me to marry her son.
So I find it incredibly ironic considering her baby father has cheated on her pre and during pregnancy, been caught on dating apps, has beat her and literally choked her out, thrown her car keys in a field when she tried to leave, kicked her parents from out of state out of their home with nowhere to go for defending their child, made her climb an 8 ft fence at 8 months pregnant, and done god knows what else she’s probably too embarrassed to tell people. But she tries to tell people that “the baby really changed him” (lol yeah, okay). Idk, it reads as jealousy to me. And apparently she’s been trying to force him to propose to her, virtually trying on rings, and constantly bringing it up towards him even though this man clearly has no intention of marrying her. With or without a baby. According to her friend. Again, reads as jealousy. But our relationship is the non respectable one. And the funny thing is, I’ve never treated her any differently despite all that shit because her shitty relationship should not define her. But this shit does.
Also, her baby father came to grab a plate of food today for before work and hugged everyone else at the party and didn’t even acknowledge my presence. Something is up with them and I’m over it. I think everyone else is noticing it too because after he left there was a collective “well that was rude as fuck”. Lol.
Any advice, theories, and/or requests for further context will be appreciated because I’m honestly mostly at a loss here. Kind of hurt, kind of enraged, kind of hormonal.

Just modded my first ever 3ds a few weeks ago and it's awesome. But I'm having trouble figuring out where to get up to date, reliable news on what's real and what's not, and whats being worked on.

• I wanted to see if Mario 64 was available as a port or emulation and I came across tons of (6-48 month old) reddit posts and youtube videos saying it was impossible or too laggy. Yet, here it is on my 3ds running smooth as butter from the H-shop.
• Apparently Undertale is being worked on, as I've seen some posts in this subreddit, but I had no idea that was a thing even possible. I don't see undertale ever mentioned in any 3ds hacking youtube videos or tutorials. And when I google it, a 7 year old spoof youtube video is the search result
• To play DS games, there are so many tutorials on youtube (6-12 months old) that say you need TwilightMenu to get them to run. But I found one youtuber named FunkyScott47 who showed how to download them like CIAs and play them on your home menu without Twilight Menu. His video was the only one I could find that didn't use Twilight menu, all the other tutorials implied you NEEDED twilight menu to play DS games.

Tldr - Is there an official Discord for updated reliable news? Or just this subreddit?

Recruiting new members for the Lost Lands PvE Cluster! Hosting a range of mods, boosted rates & friendly members, if you're looking for a fresh start & a new Ark home, we hope you'll consider Lost Lands! If interested, please leave a comment here or shoot me a DM.
(Servers are PvE, console only and never wipe, unless a new map releases and the server is re-purposed)
Maps: The Island (Will change to Center on release) & Scorched Earth
~Server Rates~
*Max Dino Level*: 180
*Experience*: 5x
*Harvest Amount*: 5x
*Taming Speed*: 8x
*Egg Hatch Speed*: 50x
*Crop Growth Speed*: 30x
*Item Stack Size Multiplier*: 5x
~Miscellaneous Settings~
*Diseases* - Off
*Crosshair* - On
*Floating Damage Text* - On
*Hit Markers* - On
*Spawn Animations* - Off
*Speed Leveling* (All Creatures) - On
*Tribe Alliances* - On
*Raid Dino Feeding* - On
*Unlimited Respecs* - On
*Structure Placement Collision* - Off
*Always Allow Structure Pickup* - On
~Creature Mods~
*Shiny Dinos Ascended* - By nevcairel
*No Untameables* - By myrmecoleontidae
*Clay's Trike Edit* - By Claymore_Art
*Gigantoraptor* - By StudioWildcardMods
*Paleo ARK - Evolution Apex Predators* - By UpFromTheDepths
*Additions Ascended* - All By Garuga123
Acrocanthosaurus
Archelon
Brachiosaurus
Ceratosaurus
Deinosuchus
~Miscellaneous Mods ~
*EZ's Engram Unlocker* - By Ezlazeme
*Pelayori's Cryostorage* - By Pelayori
*Mutate Madness* - By zeroSixThirty
*Upgrade Station* - By Ghazlawl
*Der Dino Finder* - By Hacki_van_Bane
*Speedy Rhynio* - By EclipseModding
*Cliffan's Backpacks* - By Cliffan_
*Appetizer* - By Zogniton
*Industrial Dehydrator* - By Trixt3r
*Qol+* - By Void_Ark
*Tek ForgeV1* - By Lescaa19
*Smol Structures* - By MissBeans01
*Greenhouse Glass Fix* - By InquisitorB
*Improved Egg Incubator* - By Shinygati
*Custom Dino Levels* - By kitzykatty
*Super Spyglass Plus* - By kavan87
*Cheaper Trains* - By Alex2067
*Better Trains* - By Shinygati
*Utilities Plus* - By blitzfire911

My grandma (85) doesn’t trust medical professionals. Never has. She used to work for the Medical Examiners office. I wonder if that has something to do with it. Her distrust is so extreme that when my mother was SA’d in her twenties and came home crying, my grandmother actually tried to dissuade her from going to the hospital for an SA evaluation/kit. I do not remember when my grandmother last went to the doctor. She had pneumonia once and pretty much didn’t get up for three days, thinking it would pass. Mom didn’t want to call the ambulance because she “didn’t want Nana to hate her” - so I did - and they said she’d have been dead in another 72 hours. She was mad. Just for context.
She had a stroke last Thursday. She is also fiercely independent and is still in denial after 2 CT scans and an MRI. Says she doesn’t understand why they are holding her in the hospital “just because she fell”. She cannot walk without multiple people assisting and her right side is as good as paralyzed. She lives on her own and the only reason anyone found her is because she didn’t show up to meet a friend at their scheduled time. Police had to break her door in and found her on the floor. I was mortified when I saw her, and even more mortified when she insisted on leaving against strong medical advice, only to fall within five minutes of getting home and go back to the hospital again. She still wants to leave again.
She hates the hospital and routinely calls it a “shit hole” when speaking to staff. She berates them. She’s been an indoor cigarette smoker for about 60 years, so I know she is going through nicotine withdrawal hell. But… c’mon. I attribute maybe 80% of her demeanor to the stroke, and the other 20% to her just naturally being vindictive and rude when she doesn’t have control of something. That’s how she always has been, but I have noticed enough of a shift in her mannerisms and way of talking to realize the stroke certainly took a piece of her. I’m trying not to hold it against her.
She demanded a patient advocate because they couldn’t wheel her outside to smoke a cigarette - and because they wouldn’t allow her to have a space heater in her room (obviously a fire hazard). She ignored me the first two days when I visited her because she felt I was the reason she was there. She berated me the second day because I brought her what she asked for from home, but there were other things she thought of that I didn’t bring. When she berated me, she did it in front of me to the nursing staff as if telling them to relay the message when I was 10 ft from her. She finally began to talk to me on the third day when I showed her a picture of her cat that I took to prove she’s being cared for and loved on. Today, when I brought her purse, she asked me why I didn’t sneak in a lighter or some cigarettes. She said, “I’d do it for you if you wanted them”. I told her I’d be upset if she did that because it’s against my best interests long-term, to which she said “Oh, don’t be so damn paltry.”
She threatened to start throwing things in her room. I’m surprised she hasn’t thrown her own shit.
I have been going in between her condo - that reeks of cigarette smoke and she insists at keeping 84 degrees indoors - and the hospital pretty much all weekend to get her things she asks and to visit. Hospitals give me immense anxiety due to prior experiences, and it doesn’t help that the last time I was at this one was when Mom passed away in 2022. My entire weekend has been spent ridden with anxiety over the situation, annoyed with her non-compliance, confused, and more. I call the hospital constantly to check in on her and her plan of care, several times a day, and I really hope they don’t think I’m trying to dump her on them. I already told them I do not want to have guardianship of her or be her healthcare proxy either, because both would only make her resent me more.
I don’t plan on going to the hospital this week to visit, although she may expect me to. I have a job, my family, and a terminally sick fur baby we don’t have much time with. To be honest, I never want to go back. I’m tired of every interaction with her consisting of being ignored or spoken down to when I’ve just been trying to help, and I do not feel any obligation to put up with her abuse.

Mods: I realize this topic could be posted to the megathread, but this is a more fleshed-out post and I want more people to see and interact with it. Thank you.
Bottom Line Up Front: 1) Words mean things and matter in context. 2) Either the Attacking section of the official rulebook needs significant expansion/revision to remove a lot of ambiguity, or TPCi needs to create and publish a separate, much more comprehensive version of the rulebook that incorporates a lot of the important rulings and that is written for a "competitive" audience.
I'm asking this question because of the Greninja ex - DTE interaction discussions on the Questions megathread. Basically, the question is this:
Greninja ex has the attack "Mirage Barrage": [W] [C] [C] Discard 2 energy from this pokémon. This attack does 120 damage to 2 of your opponent's pokémon (Don't apply weakness and resistance for benched pokémon.)"
The way most people have been meeting the energy requirement for this attack is with a basic water energy and a double turbo energy.
The question being asked is if you discard the DTE, does the attack do 120 or 100 damage.
Well, if we look at the Twilight Masquerade Official Rulebook (https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/rules) section "Full Details of Attacking" on page 20, it says:
[Starts with Step A, but the first step we're concerned with is Step D]
"D) Make any choices the attack requires you to make. For example, if an attack says, “Choose 1 of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon,” you would make that choice now. E) Do anything the attack requires you to do to use it. For example, you must flip a coin if an attack says “Flip a coin. If tails, this attack does nothing.” F) Apply any effects that happen before damage, then place damage counters, and then do all other effects."
So, back to the original question: Is "Discard 2 energy from this pokémon" a "choice" or a "requirement?"
The list of compendium rulings would say that it is a "choice" and that the act of choosing is distinct from the act of actually resolving the effect that made you choose in the first place (https://www.judgeball.com/guidebook/tcg/attack-steps/). So you would choose the energy to discard but don't actually discard them, calculate the damage of the attack, place the damage, then resolve the effects from step D by discarding the energy. So Mirage Barrage would do 100 damage in this interpretation.
This is kind of contrived though. Is this really a "choice" to be made? The attack just says "Discard 2 energy...", not "Choose 2 energy to discard..." I get that you inherently have to choose the energy you want to discard, but it's the verbiage that matters here. I think it's fair to say the average player would take the attack description at face value and say that discarding the energy is a requirement of the attack (hence all the questions on the megathread...). The official rulebook available to the common ptcg player on the official Pokemon.com website says "Do anything the attack requires you to do to use it." "Do" not "Decide what you would do, but don't actually do it yet." Further, the order of the steps in the official rulebook matters. If the energy is indeed supposed to be discarded after the damage is calculated and placed, why not move this step to be after those steps in the official rulebook to remove all ambiguity?
Further still: How is the common player supposed to know that what the official rulebook says is actually qualified and amended by a bunch of rulings you have to go looking for on third-party websites not affiliated with TPCi. Judgebook has text to that effect at the bottom of its webpages and, in it's About page, Pokegym says "We are always careful to be clear that the rulings are official. The Compendium is not," i.e. the rulings are official, but the way they're described on the website technically is not.
If the rulings from TPCi are important to the game and come up reasonably frequently, why are their rulings not incorporated into literally the most recent version of the official rulebook?
I know this post got kinda ranty at the end, but I think this is an important discussion to be had. What do you think? Does the attack in this instance do 120 or 100? Since it does 120 damage on PTCGL (the official TPCi online version of the TCG), is PTCGL bugged?
Thank you for making it this far. I appreciate your attention and consideration.
EDIT: I like u/Murky-Exercise-6990 's reasoning in that the damage in this example is 100 because of Full Details of Attacking Step B that says "Apply any effects that might alter or cancel the attack." So the damage amount gets modified by DTE at essentially the very beginning after declaring the attack and checking that you satisfy its energy energy requirement.

Overview
Hello everyone the massively popular game Skyrim is currently on sale I've can't even begin to talk about how many good things I've heard about this game it looks so awesome and I've also heard how immersing the game is going on a adventure to kill a boss but stopping in a town for a snack and a nap and maybe even a new weapon as well it's cool because I always do this in red dead redemption 2 if I'm going to get a bounty I will always stop in town and shop and clean up it makes the game feel so real and like the characters are actual people your interacting with
What is this game about
Wow where to even start? Skyrim is a open world rpg game this is the fith game in the Elder Scrolls games you play as a adventurer where you have a huge open world to fight tons of different monsters with a ton of different weapons
Other facts
This game is actually older than gta 5 and it is still wildly popular if a game has released over a decade ago and is still popular is a pretty easy way to tell how good of a game it is and another shocking fact is the game has received over 200 game of the year awards I always watch the game awards when it live and a game with over 200 awards is just insane to me edit: a new fact I just learned is this is the biggest sale on the game ever that's kinda crazy
Other reasons why I want the game
I've been feeling like playing a good rpg lately and since summer has started this will be great to sink some time into I also have a steamdeck and have heard this game is great on handheld it will be nice to sink Tons of time into especially since I have chronic knee pain it will definitely help pass time when the pain is bad and I've also seen there's alot of mods for the game i love modding games and I can only assume there are some insanely good mods I could use
Outro First of all of you read this entire post I am very thankful you took the time as this was alot for someone to read as I mentioned Skyrim came out over 11 years ago and it's definitely very high up on my list of games to play thank you all and have a great day/night
Here's my steam account if anyone needs it https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199015262875/edit/info
Game https://store.steampowered.com/app/489830/The_Elder_Scrolls_V_Skyrim_Special_Edition/

Hi,
I was wondering if anyone could help me with this mod. I have Magic for Vampires by Zero and although everything works, I can't seem to figure out how to get the "sage" Carmilla. I get just a regular one My sim a bloodcaster with high friendship on Carmilla but whenever I choose Magic the only options I get for her are "Challenge to duel" or any other interaction on"duel for". There's no option for ascenssion or ask for magic or anything else. Any idea what I could do? I tried both getting her from Gallery and adding the traits manually 😦

If I get frustrated and react negatively to something my partner does am I just automatically the asshole for having a negative reaction? Do my feelings cease to matter if I appear visibly or audibly upset? Is this how it works for other people? I am not talking slamming doors or yelling, but way prior like just asking your partner to stop doing something and they try to explain why it's fine but then you get frustrated when they call it a lecture or a reprimand? Like how do you get someone to change the way they interact with you if any type of criticism or accountability is something they get mad at? I genuinely want to understand how the fuck people work out relationship issues if the answer is yes. I can't think of any relationship where people don't get hurt or scared. But when I do the basic "how did I hurt or scare you" conversation, it's always about my reaction to a situation where I tried to express anything less than glowing approval.

I'm trying to make a studio apartment for my sims to live in, but when items are too close to each other, my sim does that thing to show they can't use the item. I'm wondering if there's a mod that lets my sims use an item even if interaction space interacts with another one.

so… I don’t think we’re getting an emerald of the season.. at all. Looking back at the golda queen charlotte interview where she implies that there’s another “diamond of the season saying” I realized she might have meant “the sparkler” which was referring to Fran.
I’m almost mad at myself for convincing me that there was for sure going to be an “emerald of the season” and pen was going to be it…
After a lot of thinking and stuff based on spoilers and no lady Danbury x pen friendship I’m afraid we have clowned too hard on this one theory and I don’t think an emerald of the season is even possible. At this point, I’m not even sure the queen and Penelope will even develop any type of relationship this season. I would not be surprised if they go another way with the lady whistledown reveal and the queen and pen don’t even interact tbh.
I’m really going in with part 2 with the least amount of expectations but just wanted to see if anyone else thought the emerald of the season could still be possible.

3D doesn't matter but here is a mini backstory. SP and I have been NC for about 3 weeks up until last week. He broke up with me because I want marriage and children, he is divorced with 2 kids already. We are deeply and madly in love with each other, but he got scared of trusting me due to his abandonment issues and we broke up. It was a difficult breakup as neither of us wanted the relationship to end, but he didn't want to waste my youth and set me free to find someone who would give me a child. Essentially, we broke up because he was married for 20 years, had minimal partners, and I have a string of shorter term relationships and he doubted my ability to commit and be faithful even though I would never do anything and he is the LOML. I was devastated during NC and invented/continued the narrative I had during our relationship that I was the rebound girl and he never loved me. My lack of SC came true.
Last week I reached out to ask to be removed from a few recurring calendar invites that I couldn't get rid of. He responded offering to return my apt key in person. During NC, I had been manifesting that our love was deep, true, and after several months apart while I work on my SC and he heals his abandonment/insecurity wounds, we will reconcile at the end of summer beginning of fall.
During our key exchange, he was nervous and a little snarky (I'll admit, I manifested this). He kept asking if we could be friends. I told him it was too painful to be friends right now if we are seeing others (even though I am in a self care cocoon and not dating). Afterwards, we went on a texting bender for 24 hours straight reopening the whole relationship wound and reasons why we cannot be together -- issues with my SC and his in ability to trust. I decided I didn't need to play games and shared the details of my SC journey with him including the fact that I am not dating. Again, he doubted my authenticity. I told him I was doing this for myself and he told me he was working very hard on his deep rooted insecurities. After having hours of these circular conversations, I told him we need to take some space, nothing changes in 3 weeks. We can revisit in a few months potentially to reconcile or be friends. He continued to try to push me away.
I have been journaling and manifesting SP and I reconciling with marriage, full trust and commitment, children of our own, with an engagement later this year. I changed his name in my phone to "Husband". I am struggling to connected my 3D interactions and manifestations, but I will take this interaction last week as proof that my manifesting is working. He responded IMMEDIATELY when I reached out about logistics, and wanted to see me in person to do a key exchange and within minutes pushed to re-establish a relationship.
I need to continue to work on streamlining my SP manifestations and truly believing and seeing the end. Right now it is a little bit of a struggle, but I believe it will take some time to work on my SC which is why I am giving myself a few months.
He needs to date some other girls (no one seriously) to get experience and get himself more comfortable with my background and where I am coming from in order to see how truly unique and special our bond is. I have no doubt about that. During this time I am working on my SC as it was a mirror in our relationship that I need to heal in order for us to reunite.
Would love any guidance or feedback from the community. This sh*t is HARD work. WOW. But I see this past month as proof that it truly, truly works. I need to control my emotions and live in the end.

I’m 16f and my dad and stepmom (not so) recently broke up. They’re not a healthy couple and the relationship me and stepmom had wasn’t healthy in any way. I never want to feel how I felt every waking moment in that house again. They got together when i was about 4 and briefly broke up in early 2020. They got back together and then broke up in the middle of 2023 (while i was visiting my brother in another state). They’re still contacting each other due to them owning a business together. However, I’ve been looking at my dad’s messages, and they’ve been going out together and my dad is calling her pet names again. Is this okay?
My feelings were never validated when I talked about how I felt about her so I don’t know if i’m overreacting but she would find something I did wrong and yell at me about it, every day, with no fail, since 3rd grade. I’m watering down what was said but she would bring up things that she knew made me cry, like my biological mom, my brother (who lives far away), and my dad who couldn’t take care of me due to him always working. I was a really bad kid though (I didn’t like showering and I was scared to wash my face due to something happening in the past.)
I was berated for years with no breaks which caused me to always be on edge when i was with her. I was afraid to talk to her because I was scared I would do something wrong. She rarely physically abused me, but when she did she was truly mad. Like choking me mad. If she wanted me to have a worse punishment she told my dad. Him, being stressed over the business and his family back home, released his pent up frustrations on me. Beating your child is not okay but I always have this thought lingering in the back of my mind, wondering if what she really did was abuse.
Anyways, they broke up because of me. I did something stupid and ended up in the mental hospital. My dad did everything while I was visiting my brother, so I didn’t have the chance to talk to her one last time. When I came back home, I found myself missing her. The house felt empty without her presence. The feeling of dread never left. I felt unaccomplished. The break up didn’t fix anything and i put my dad in an uncomfortable situation.
Things were silent for a few months, and then he brought her to a family function. I knew she was coming so i stayed upstairs until she left, but is this normal??? Should I be happy?? When she came I had to go to the bathroom to cry and i felt so scared in that moment even though we didn’t interact. I miss her but i’m so scared of her. Is this okay?
It’s like my dad is trying to slowly bring her back into my life like he did in 2020. I’m so conflicted. Sorry this post is so jumbled up there are so many more factors to this but i tried to sum it up to the best of my abilities. I literally don’t have anyone else to talk to about this and im scared

Hi! I'm expressing my opinion here! It's only mine and I'm not forcing it on anyone, so you're the only one to choose whether you're agree with me or not. Also, sometimes, out of excitement, I can make a bit too harsh statements because of what I am very sorry. Please keep in mind that I don't want to offend anyone. Hoping for your understanding!
Well, greetings my fellow Duskwood community. In the last couple of days we have gone through an indescribable emotional swings and felt the whole range of emotions. For most people it turned out to be negative, for some it was positive, and some generally treat everything quite neutrally and simply observe (hello to such people!). I belong to the first category and find that everything we have gone through and saw gives us the right to hate and negativity. However, recently people from the second category, who apparently liked Moonvale, started to share their emotions about the game (which is totally fine and acceptable), and also justify and protect Everbyte (which is already a questionable for me). I also noticed that in that posts a lot of people don't get WHY we don't liked Moonvale, so now I want to make one big and comprehensive post about what made me firstly feel disappointed, mad and sad in this game. If there will be people who would like to add something or express their point of view the comments are always welcome. :)
So, let's start?
First: a lot of people didn't get this, but we doesn't want Duskwood 2. Not a single person I saw here and in the other platforms such as Instagram disliked Moonvale because of the lack of Duskwood content in it. We all remember and understand that this games are two separated and independent projects with their plot and characters that can overlap only if the player will want to. We want a quality level as in Duskwood. Why is it so important? Well... mobile gaming industry has very bad reputation among the players, because it is very easy for developers to create low quality - scam games for stealing money from naive users. There's is a lot of that kind of games in this industry, but even if there is some sort of protection from that kind of scam (like the one that Apple store has) it still didn't helped this platform to grew out from the "unserious" and "just for time passing" termins. And the thing that helped Duskwood to get seen in such place was it's quality. With just one quick look you could tell that this game isn't the same as the other ones, you can expect something new and good from it. But what we have now? Let's not lie to ourselves, Moonvale now looks like that exact scamming games that took week or two to create, with it's diamond system, A.I. generated cartoonish visual, boring characters and holеy plot.
Let's also quickly clear one thing too. Duskwood and Moonvale are two separated games, yes, but that doesn't mean that we can't compare them. They both are from the same studio, written by the same writer, have the same genre, gameplay, universe and they can even overlap, so as I said a lot where, comparison is inevitable and necessary. Get it? Moving on.
The quality of Duskwood also was one of the main things that made people fall in love with that game because it was very, very realistic and atmospheric. You could open the game outdoors and no one would suspect a thing until you won't start playing three in a row. I’ve personally heard questions like “who are you talking to?”or “when you found new internet friends?”, etc. a hundred times and I like that. Because of that realism I could close my eyes and imagine that Duskwood is real, and the game would do everything to help me keep that faith. For your understanding, that exact realism was one of the main reasons why you could start to feel involved in the story more. But what Moonvale does? Every single new decision that Everbyte made now kills off all that realism and atmosphere. The game tries so hard to create a mysterious and scary vibes but as soon as I go back from the chatroom and see the interface, or even worse: start to play the mini games, I see that all purple - pink colour palette, round angles that just reminds me of games for little children to play. Is it really the atmosphere that will suit to the story about people missing in a big, dark and probably dangerous forest? No. But the Duskwoods design would totally fit due to the darker color palette and realism.
Yes, devs said that they wanted to experiment a bit, which totally isn't something bad, BUT, considering all I wrote above they needed to understand that changing the visual was a very f*cking risky decision. Just don't even try to tell me that they didn't knew about one of the main reasons for their game being so loved by people. And they waisted so much time on that? Let's not forget that designing and creating a fully new interface from scratch also took probably a big part from this two years of our waiting, but was it worth it? I would say no. They could save so much time just by using already good and time-tested assets from Duskwood and just simply add more backgrounds in their beloved cute way (which actually Duskwood also has with kitties, flowers, mars, space, plushies and etc.), but instead they just ruined one of the most loved by me things. I never heard at least one person complaining about visual of Duskwood, so why, Everbyte?
Ok, we got this but there's something that makes the paragraph above a bit meaningless , but still is a big minus for the game. Even if they spent time on planning the outlook of the new interface, it was created wittin a day or two because of the use of A.I.
Yeess, my beloved piece of sh1t called Artificial Intelligence...~ Do I need to say that I hate it? The fact that they used A.I. is so f*cking wrong, and what is even more ridiculous, unnecessary. Considering the all I mentioned before that I just can't understand why they took this path from the very beginning. Maybe it's really only me, but this cartoonish A.I. generated avatars kills of the atmosphere of something real, making it feel more like a regular game. That's maybe actually the reason why I didn't liked Ash's avatar too, as it is blue haired cartoonish girlie. Yes, a lot of people use A.I. or actual drawings for their profiles, I'm that kind of a person too, but for a game, with limited characters that need the realism due to player feel more involved in the plot, using that sort of pictures kills the vibe, because I literally start to think about anime, or genshin like games, not about our real world. That's why Jake's avatar with Guy Fawkes's mask on it, or Richy's early orange machine (that always will be in my heart) and Dan's ✧mysterious person in a hoodie✧ doesn't kill the atmosphere. Even tho they don't show us the characters look, they let us associate more with the real world, because that pics are real. I hope I explained that good.
That's why I personally don't want to see A.I. or drawn art on the characters profiles, but let's go back to the A.I. topic. As I said before, using A.I. is wrong and I don't care that "it's everywhere" or "fun to use", that doesn't magically make A.I. something good, and people need to finally understand that. But in this situation there are some aspects that irks me off the most.
First: as we found out earlier, Everbyte had no intention on using A.I. as long as they didn't lost their assets from Duskwood and didn't needed to quickly make new ones (in that situation it wouldn't be acceptable, but at least I would be able to understand them). I needed normal, objective answer to why they decided to use A.I., but instead of it I've got fcking nothing! They didn't lost anything, they weren't forced to use it, they just simply wanted to use it ✧because it's fun.✧◝⁠(⁠⁰⁠▿⁠⁰⁠)⁠◜Well, sorry for very harsh comparison, but, a lot of people are having fun while taking drgs too, and you can find them almost everywhere, so let's collectively use it too! NO, IT'S NOT HOW THINGS WORKS. SOMETHING BAD WILL STAY BAD, EVEN IF THE WHOLE PLANET STARTS TO DO IT. YOU, EVERBYTE, AND ESPECIALLY VANESSA AS THE WRITER OF THE STORY, A LITERAL ARTIST, NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE BEST. BUT NAH! LET'S USE A.I. AND GIVE A BIG F*CK TO THE ARTIST WHO SUFFER FROM IT! Because "our beloved writer never would be replaced by A.I.", isn't she?~
Hey. Everbyte. WHAT THE HECK THAT MEANT. They literally put that sentence in their answer and no matter how I try to put this I can't take this phrase in a good context, it simply does not exist. They are literally saying that as long as A.I. isn't affecting them directly it's ok to use it! Fck the artist, I'm a writer after all! It's so unconnected and far from each other, isn't it?! And you're justifying *THEM? You want me to not HATE THEM???
Gosh, it's just... I... I loved them... really. Everbyte was the studio that helped me decide that I want to be a game developer. Everbyte was the studio that convised me that I can create something even in my lowest and there will be people who will like my art. They motivated and inspired me. But this..? I... let's move on.
I hope everyone got the idea why A.I. can't be used in anything. "So, how they can bring their ideas to life? They are a small studio, they need money!". Yes, they surely do, but, if they used the assets from DW, which already will help them save money and time, they could wait and with income from Moonvale hire an artist who would help them create they new interface, icons, avatars and so on. In that condition, instead of getting hate for using A.I., which you can't avoid, you would get approval for supporting real artists on this harsh moment when we try to fight A.I. back. And even if you wouldn't have enough money for that, hey, how one of the Reddit users said here, our fanbase is so talented! I'm sure a lot of artists would agree to help you with smaller payment or even just for you to mention them, just out of their love to Duskwood and especially you, Everbyte. Or of not artists, you could open a Kickstarter or Sony like that! S lot of people would support you, especially everyone who's now was ready to pay for multimedia package to help you!
But no, instead we have what we have and Evers try to earn money the way they find right.
Ok, now let's talk about the diamond system and paywall. You can either spend ~20-25€ on the whole episode (at least it's the amount of money that my friend spent on the first episode by buying diamonds only when they were ending) or replay the same episode over, and over, and over again just to unlock everything, spend two - three seconds looking at it and forgetting about it, without even a chance to look at that content again, because now our characters don't have bio's. Nice, Everbyte, nice. And do I even need to ask how many episodes will be there? Seven? Ten? Twenty? Do there really will be people who would be ready to pay that much € for A SINGLE EPISODE. SINGLE.
Still, of course there will be, and are, people out there who don't mind diamond collecting kind of interaction with the content, but for me, someone with no money, it's very time eating and motivation killing procees to collect that darn diamonds just to watch a pic for a second and won't be able to look at it again. Especially when the mini games literally are forcing you to go for "pay to win" tactic because of their difficulty level. Yup, there are a lot of people who didn't find the minigames hard, but, as a very skilled Gardenescapes player, who does it everyday for the sake of her mother to decorate some rooms, I find them very, very difficult. Sometimes even unfairly difficult, because without getting extra moves you stupidly can't win, and for me it's very motivation killing process. Especially when hearts are regenerating every half hour. In Duskwood at least this process was more nice coded, because the first heart was regenerating after one minute, the second after five, then after fifteen, and then finally after thirty minutes.
Ok, if you get till here then I firstly want to say thank you for the time you spend on this, and want to cheer you up by saying that it's a little topics left to discuss. We're almost at the end. ;)
So, now it's time to talk about the plot. As I said in my post about Everbyte's answer to us, their plot is more holey than a f*cking piece of cheese. Where do I even start? Maybe from characters that feels like robotic cardboards who I literally can describe using Duskwood characters or plot holes with the minigames and secret chats? Maybe the second because it's more shorter topic.
So, my dear Everbyte, why we are playing minigames? They have no plot subtext which is very big minus compared to Duskwood. And how we are able to read other people's chats if there's no Jake to open them for us? I'm reminding that Moonvale and Duskwood are two separated games, so everything that Moonvale has without the Duskwood's code is it's "canon", an by that canon our MC is a different person from our Duskwood MC and has nothing to do with them. I would be happy if you even explain it like MC just loves to play three in a row and says something like "Welp, good luck guys, I will go play something while I'm waiting", really, it would be hilarious, + already better than nothing, but what about secret chats? And why our MC can't react to them like in Duskwood? Do they aren't even a bit surprised? So yup, a plot hole over here. And a big one.
Now the characters. I don't know how other people, but I simply doesn't feel connection with any of them. Even Eric who I was interested in, lately became another lame side character. Like... Eric is literally Thomas with a bit of Richy, nothing unique. Adam is Hannah, spiced up with Jake a little, Charlie.... Charlie is just Richy from AliExpress, and... that's all. The other characters didn't interested me enough. And all of them are acting too much like character ai bots, and I'm saying in the most worst context. I just can't believe that they are genuine.
You're close friend mysteriously wanishes away, letting you only some strangers number and you don't find them at least a bit suspicious? A person from your friend group literally gets missing in the middle of the night in the woods and the first thing you do is make jokes? That AliExpress pissed me off the most, because in the fandom he is already "Moonvale Richy", but my baby would never joke in a serious situation like that. My baby KNOWS when it's appropriate to make someone laugh.
Gosh, if we are talking about this then even our MC is kinda robotic too. Although we are the ones who creates MC's personality they aren't a white blank either. There are moments in Duskwood where the MC is the one to choose what to do, and we can't do anything with that because it's their decision. For example the MC is the one who decides to stay and help Duskwood gang, we can't choose to block them. MC is getting angry at Lily, we can only decide whether they would forgive her after or not. MC gets very frustrated when they loose to someone and don't like to accept that they lost (we can whiteness that if we offer Jake to find info about the Hannah's antidepressants and don't text for like five minutes. In that case Jake texts first and there's literally no such an opinion like "Congratulations, you win!", or "it was fair bet", nah MC just gets really toxic and didn't want to lose. You can try it, it's actually pretty fun detail! :) ) and so on, and that's awesome, because in that case I know that if someone putted canonical MC without the players touchs in a room they won't just stand there and do nothing, they would be able to make deciginons and move. Even MC is a character and that's awesome, but Moonvale doesn't have that. This MC is just... meh. And even the Duskwood code doesn't help, because they stay exactly the same.
Ugh.... actually, there is still some things that I would like to talk about, like Evers words about our cod having 300+ unique deciginons that we made while playing Duskwood, the characters not having profiles and only numbers instead of their names, which really helped me a lot to forget some characters names, the achievement system that is also distracting us from the plot and even giving us some spoilers and so on, but GOSH, it's already 2:34 AM, I'm writing this all from 12:00 I JUST CAN'T KEEP GOING ANYMORE. So let's go to my final words.
After all I didn't said everything I wanted, but I think I've said enough to convince you that Moonvale is a low quality game, and that Everbyte could do a lot better, considering that back in episode one of Duskwood they've had even more lower budget then now, but somehow this games are very, VERY different from each other by quality level. But even so, you can like Moonvale, it's not some sort of a crime, but please, respect and understand the opinion of people who hate it, because we really have reasons for that. As I said, if we silence ourselves up Everbyte could start using the part of their community who genuily liked Moonvale for earning money, since no one would say a word.
They may feel hurt, or betrayed, or sad, but we feel the same way too and they need to understand and accept that. They can change their game, it's not to late, the question is do they want to do it or not.
Thanks for the time that you spent reading this, especially if you survived till this moment. You're a real hero for that. XD Also sorry for any grammar mistakes that could be here, I have read this text several times but due to my tiredness I could easily miss something. Let's hope for the best, and respect each other. Have a good night/morning/day.
:)