So, this is a little weird. We moved into this new place a little over three months ago. When we first toured it, it had such happy vibes and just felt so warm and cozy? But randomly, things started getting a little unnerving at times.
I used to do a lot of housework at night after my husband and daughter went to bed, so I could spend more time with them during the day. It was my relaxation time honestly. But suddenly it started feeling just off when I was in that part of the house at night by myself. I started constantly feeling like I was being watched or something was behind me when I would wash the dishes. I no longer do my chores at night or leave my bedroom because it feels so creepy in there.
My daughter also keeps occasionally looking at corners of our room and just stares or occasionally SMILES at whatever she’s looking at 😅. Scares the hell out of me.
I also randomly experienced sleep paralysis in the midst of all of this for the second time ever in my life, but I could have sworn it was someone or something holding me down in bed. I tried to scream for my husband but I couldn’t do anything. I’m not sure if I was just dreaming that or what.
The really strange thing is this. My baby has this winter hat that I cannot remember how it ended up in the living room to begin with. But one day, it was in the middle of her huge play pen. I was in a hurry to put her down and to let my dogs out, so I just grabbed it and threw it by her toy box that’s in the small built in along the side of her play pen. Well, every single day for the past month or two, the hat has been right back in the same place every. Single. Morning. At first, I just thought nothing of it and would toss it and move on because I assumed my cats were doing it in the night. I’ve never seen them have any interest in something like a hat and I’ve never seen them be able to get to where her toys are, so it was a bit strange. But, it was the only explanation I had.
I was complaining to my husband as we were leaving early in the morning that the damn hat was there again a few days ago. Well, he just grabbed it quickly and shoved it into this vet box toy that my daughter has as we were walking out and said there’s no way the cats will get it now.
I completely forgot about this until yesterday morning. When I walked out into the living room, there was the freaking hat in the exact same spot it always in the center of her play pen. I was immediately spooked because the toy it was in has a small door on it. There’s an opening above, so maybe a cat could pull it from there. But, the door was wide open. This door takes some force to open. My baby can’t even open it, so I know my cats wouldn’t be able to.
I’m so weirded out because it won’t stop, and it keeps being put in the exact same spot!
I put the hat into my daughter’s shape sorter toy just to see what happens. If it ends up back in the playpen, I’m never gonna be able to sleep again.
Does this sound paranormal or does anyone have any potential explanations?
I know for a fact my husband isn’t pranking me, so I just don’t know what is going on.

Hello Guardians,
Ever since the Stompees nerf, I've been on an exploratory journey of the soul trying to find other lesser-known Hunter exotics that may now have a time to shine in the sun!
Obviously we already know about some of the usual suspects like Wormhusk, Geminis or the dreaded Ahamkaras... But I was genuinely surprised to find out how effective the new Strand aspect, Threaded Specter is when paired with Bombadiers or Sixth Coyote.
Now, I know what you're thinking... Bombadiers?
Well, honestly at first, it started out as a meme. I thought it was just going to be a fun little build to share. But after I used it in Trials, I got a super easy solo flawless while simultaneously battling one of the worst hangovers of my life. I was playing at maybe 60% of my usual capacity and cruised pretty easily to the golden chest.
Anyway, you can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/rApk5RGho-4
Or if you prefer to read, I'll summarize everything below.
---

Aspects

Strand Hunter has three aspects, from which you can equip two:
- Ensnaring Slam; - Widow’s Silk; and the newest Aspect added with Season of the Deep - Threaded Spectre, which we’ll be focusing on today.
But to quickly recap, the Ensnaring Slam is the aerial slam movement that suspends your opponents and Widow’s Silk gives you two Grapple charges.
I’ve previously spoken in depth about using Ensnaring Slam and Widow’s silk in my last Hunter Strand video, focused on suspending but for today’s build, I want to focus on the newest aspect to the Strand kit: Threaded Spectre and pairing it with the usual movement tech you have from Widow’s Silk.
Threaded Spectre means that: Activating your class ability leaves behind a decoy woven from Strand that draws the attention of nearby enemies.After taking significant damage or when enemies approach, the decoy detonates, dealing damage and releasing Threadlings that seek out and attack nearby foes.
In other words, when you dodge, you leave behind in your place a dark green mannequin in the shape of a hunter.
Your Decoy will show up on the radar like a real enemy, it also shows a health bar and your name tag when an enemy hovers their crosshair over it, and it has roughly the same amount of HP as a typical Guardian.
And yes, people fall for this decoy ALL THE TIME. Until you have it used against you, you actually don’t realise how easy it is to get fooled by the decoy when you’re in the thick of combat.
Now, much like a land mine, if an enemy gets too close to the decoy - the decoy will explode and do approximately this much damage in the process. It will also spawn two threadlings that will kamikaze themselves into the enemy.
You or your teammates can also detonate a decoy just by shooting it, which will proc the explosion and also cause 2 threadlings to spawn and chase the enemy. So the decoy, in some ways, also doubles up as a remote-triggered threading grenade.
Now, to be clear, the decoy explosion and two threadlings will not insta-kill a full health Guardian but will leave them with very close to 1 HP. So even the slightest damage done before the decoy explosion or a little bit of chip damage done after, is more than enough to finish a Guardian.
And this, of course, is where The Bombardiers Exotic leg armour comes in.
—

Exotics

OK, anyway, if you didn’t already know, the most popular Hunter PVP exotic in D2 history was recently nerfed this season - and by that, of course I mean Stompees.
Previously, Stompees offered you a universal speed boost - sprint faster, slide longer, jump higher, without any activate trigger. It was always on. Now, Bungie have nerfed Stompees so that you only have those benefits IF you have an unused dodge charge.
Now as you can imagine, it doesn’t feel so good having a pair of exotic speed boots that become useless the second you use your class ability and this has led to many Hunter mains looking for worthy alternatives to the formerly mighty Stompees.
And for this particular build, I’m going to recommend several Exotic armour alternatives that I think you will enjoy very, very much.
Firstly, let’s talk about The Bombardiers.
Dodging leaves behind an explosive that detonates after a short delay, damaging targets around it and creating a secondary effect based on your subclass energy type.
But here’s the thing, the explosive parting gift that Bombardiers leaves behind when you dodge does about 120 damage over a 7.5m radius. That’s HUGE. And more than enough damage to finish off anyone that gets tagged by the decoy explosion and threading damage.
Not only that, the bomb also severs targets, so if they die, they also leave behind a tangle. So the basic playloop when using bombardiers is, bait your opponent around a corner, dodge backwards and walk them into a Bombardiers explosive, strand decoy and 2 threadlings - resulting in an insta-kill. An insta-kill that’s literally available every 15 seconds or so.
It’s also great for shotgun apes, as you can dodge directly backwards as they push at you and kill them outright.
And before anyone asks - yes, this is more than just a “fun build”. It’s surprisingly and frighteningly effective. In fact, I actually used this build last weekend and went solo flawless in about an hour - while also battling possibly the single worst hangover of my life after a friend’s birthday party.
Alright now, an alternative exotic you can try is: Sixth Coyote. Sixth Coyote basically gives you two dodge charges, which means that you’re quite literally able to create two Strand Decoys back to back.
Lastly, you absolutely can’t go wrong with Frostees either, which massively increases the regeneration of all of your abilities, especially your class ability. Using Frostees will give you more decoys and additional sprint speed after you dodge.
Basically, while I’m very much against the Stompees nerf, what you’re going to see is that it opens up a massive trove of Hunter exotics that now are going to see use because Stompees is no longer anywhere as dominant. After all, the argument used to be why use anything else but Stompees but now you’re going to start seeing a lot of underrated Hunter exotics start entering the meta.
—

Class Ability

Alright, now before I go into the fragments you want to use for this build, let me start by giving you a quick tip:
Make sure that you use Marksman’s Dodge as your class ability. That’s because Marksman’s Dodge has a much shorter cooldown than Gamblers Dodge and we really want to maximise the amount of decoys that we’re able to create.
—

Fragments

As for the fragments, this is what I recommend using:
Thread of Ascent is mandatory. Thread of Ascent means activating your grenade ability reloads your equipped weapon and grants bonus airborne effectiveness and handling for a short duration, while also granting +10 mobility. This one is a no brainer.
Thread of Evolution is also mandatory and means that threadlings will travel farther and deal more damage. It also gives a nice +10 to intellect.
Now the last two fragments are actually kinda optional. But personally, I recommend using Thread of Finality and Thread of Binding just for the stat boosts to Recovery and Resilience, both of which are important in PvP.
—

Weapons

The Season of the Deep brought about a bunch of weapon nerfs and buffs, which I can very safely tell you have changed virtually nothing about the weapon meta.
Immortal is still the best gun in the game, although at least now thankfully you can get the “Immortal At Home” version by farming the new Dungeon instead of losing your will to live, farming Trials on weekend.
So here’s the thing. If you’re using the Bombadier’s build, you’ll be playing very close and aggressive. It’s actually an amazingly fun play style because you literally play like how you imagine a hunter would. Moving rapidly in and out, baiting your opponents, and literally tricking them into falling for pre-made traps. It’s like you’re on the hunt, stalking your prey, and I really love the gameplay loop.
So if you’re going to be playing tight and close, I recommend close-range primaries and there’s not much better than the Immortal SMG right now or the alternative from the Dungeon called No Survivors. If you run either, you’re going to want to get a max-range rangefindetarget lock roll for maximum effectiveness.
Now as for the special weapon, I also recommend a good shotgun of your choice, be it a precision frame like Matador or an aggressive frame like Found Verdict.
But a slightly off the wall choice might actually be a wave frame grenade launcher. You can quite literally stand back a little bit and just wave frame the floor as your enemy rushes in - that way the chip damage from the GL + the spectre explosion and threading damage will be more than enough to secure the kill in case the bombardiers parting gift blows too early.
And I mean come on, we’ve all blown a bit too early at times right? Nothing to be ashamed of.
—
Alright Guardians, got a bit more info in the vid but this post is already too long, so I hope that helped and I'll see you all in the Crucible!
- MrArmageddon

I feel like I'm selfish for wanting to be a mom why would I put another human being in this scary world just bcuz I want to experience pregnancy and motherhood. I acknowledge how hard parenting is especially as a mothepregnant. the sleepless nights, morning sickness, depression anxiety, exhaustion, recovery from birth while caring for a newborn, physical demands of the baby like breastfeeding, ensuring children receive a quality education and so on.
As we know dunya is a test and it's SOO hard to be a practice Islam when there is too much fitna around. Idw my kids to grow to resent me bcuz I brought them here willingly knowing how hard life is. I thought about parenting orphans and foster kids who got neglected by their parents or other reasons. I'll still foster kids if i become a mother and if we are financially stable enough. I can help them grow, give them so much love care and affection. I'll try my best to discipline them and raise them Islamically. It will make me happy to help a young kid to grow to be the best version of themselves. It's all out of genuineness and for Allah sake and never out of pity. I hate pity. That way I won't be guilty being the one who brought them here and experience them trauma through out life. Soon I'll have a stable job where I can comfortably raise them(yes I know the husband should provide for the family but living with one source of income isn't enough and sounds unrealistic) Yet i still want to feel and go through motherhood and actually have the chance to see my own babies.
Here's a list on why I'm scared to have kids 1. Guilt 2. Feeling selfish 3. Possibility of them growing up to resent me 4. The amount of suffering and hardship a human goes through. World is scary, cruel, mean, unfair place. 5. Following the Deen is rlly hard and the temptations of the dunya 6. Idw my kids in hell (لا سمح الله) bcuz I wanted to be a mother. 7. It's not like if they grow up and hate being born I can simply suck them back inside my womb.
Is this a negative mindset or doesn't sounds reasonable?
Ps typoooo

We as a couple intend to go to South Africa capetown and the safari for our honeymoon. We have heard many beautiful things about the place and intend to ask a few questions: 1. When is the best time/ months to visit cape town and the safaris? 2. What is the best and fastest way to get from Cape Town to Johannesburg? 3. Where are the best safari? Is it in Johannesburg, something called the Kruger?
Thanks in advance, can’t wait to visit your beautiful country

This was posted in the AngryObservation subreddit (that I stumbled on two seconds ago)
Essay posted by u/dcmetro7
https://www.reddit.com/usedcmetro7/
Democrats have a branding problem : AngryObservation (reddit.com)

Democrats have a branding problem

😴 Long Observation 😴
I was inspired by u/Randomuser1520 's post about the Democratic Party's seemingly weak bench of future potential presidential nominees.
A lot of the problems trace back to 2016, but I'd argue the Democrats' branding woes go back even further. Think all the way back to the last time the Democrats had a consistently strong electoral record as a party -- the 90s, where the only truly bad year for Ds was 1994. Bill Clinton had successfully rebranded the party under the 'Third Way' label that Dems at any level could embrace and benefit from, and he had a clear successor in Al Gore. But Gore loses narrowly in 2000, and the problems for the Dems' brand begin.
'Yes We Can'
After 9/11, the electorate supports Bush and they support war. Dems' brand takes a hit and they lose the 2002 midterms. In 2004, John Kerry is successfully painted as an out-of-touch Ivy League liberal, disengaged from 'real America.' Dems lose and their brand suffers further.
But by the end of Bush's term, most Americans are disillusioned with Dubyaism. They wanted change, and one man promises to lead them to it with posters that proclaim 'HOPE' and cries of 'Yes We Can,' heralding in a new age of politics. Barack Obama and the Democrats are swept into a trifecta in Washington.
And we certainly got a new age of politics. When Obama was inaugurated, pundits speculated about the 'emerging Democratic majority', and how the GOP may literally go extinct in ten years. By the end of Obama's second term, those same pundits are surveying the absolutely decimated state of the Democratic party at all levels of power. Dems had lost the Senate, the House, most governorships, and most state legislatures. Control of the state legislatures makes the GOP's hold on the House even stronger. Control of the Senate effectively leads to control of the Supreme Court.
While Obama certainly can't be blamed for everything the GOP threw at him, I feel like it's safe to say his rebranding of the Democratic party failed in the long run. The 'Party of Hope' was sunk into the quagmire of a slow economic recovery, some of the most cynical politicking ever, and some of the most dysfunctional White House-Congress relationships in the history of the country. Obama's signature healthcare legislation would languish in the 30s approval-wise until after he left office. By 2015, no one was talking about the Democrats as the Party of Hope anymore. Even the guy who designed the original 'Hope' poster said he was frustrated by the lack of progress under the Obama admin. I'd argue that the Republicans were responsible for the clear majority of this dysfunction, but if their goal was to muddy the waters between the parties, they succeeded. And with the Tea Party, they were better at rebranding themselves even when they were in the opposition.
And none of this was helped by the face that Obama seemed extremely reluctant, even uninterested, in stepping into the role of party leader. Congressional Democrats were frustrated at the way he kept his distance from them, making it hard to solidify the policy goals they'd implemented in his first term. This article (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/us/aloof-obama-is-frustrating-his-own-party.html) sums it up well, with this prescient quote sticking out:

In interviews, nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers and senior congressional aides suggested that Mr. Obama’s approach has left him with few loyalists to effectively manage the issues erupting abroad and at home and could imperil his efforts to leave a legacy in his final stretch in office.

And sure enough, Obama's legacy was in peril before he even left office.
'Stronger Together'
In 2016, Democrats didn't plan for a primary, they planned for a coronation. Hillary Clinton had been locking up all the support she could get from the Democratic establishment while Obama was serving his second term. Biden would seem like the clear establishment successor, but by the time he was able to turn his attention from VP duties to the primary he realized Hillary had completely boxed him out. She had already corralled all the big donors, operatives, and endorsements into her corner, and Joe was checkmated before he even sat down to the board. Thus, he turned down the opportunity, likely burying his long-nurtured presidential ambitions.
But then the coronation gets bumpy. Sanders challenges her from the outside, and immediately begins putting her on the spot as to why she's running. In other words, what does she envision for the Democratic brand? Hillary herself doesn't know. Is it a third term of Bill (whose star was starting to fade among everyone whose name doesn't rhyme with Shames Scarville), a third term of Obama (whose Hope posters have since become landfill), or an all-new thing?
To Hillary's credit, she couldn't portray herself as a total break from the past, both because she had been was strongly anchored to the national political landscape for the last thirty years, and because she could hardly attack Obama's record too harshly. In the end, she also struggled to brand both herself and the party. Consider the slogans most associated with her campaign; 'Forward Together' and 'Stronger Together' sound like the slogans of a centrist third party with no concrete policy ideas. They just attempted to project a feeling of unity onto a people who were united only, if the candidacies of Sanders and Trump meant anything, in the feeling that 'establishment' politicians like HRC had failed. And, of course, 'I'm with Her' was barely a rebrand at all, simply associating the party with its uncharismatic yet seemingly unstoppable frontrunner.
In the meantime, Trump had done the opposite, rebranding himself and the GOP as the party of 'America First populism.' What that meant exactly in terms of policy seemed to change from day to day But as a brand, as a forceful statement of intent, it worked, especially when contrasted with a seemingly rudderless HRC campaign that failed to answer the age-old question: 'Why are you running for president?'
'For the People'
After the 2016 fiasco, the Democrats were decimated and leaderless. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had passed his leadership position to Chuck Schumer and passed on soon after Trump took office. Tim Ryan led a mutiny against Nancy Pelosi, blaming her in part for the party's plunge from ascendance to irrelevance in the House. Hillary Clinton disappeared into the woods of Chappaqua. Obama started making a docu-series for Netflix. Joe Biden entered semi-retirement and wrote a book.
But in all of this, they found something they had been lacking. A brand.
Not the one they would have preferred, but one that would work nonetheless for winning elections. House Dems would embrace the (once-again) vague slogan of 'For the People' ahead of the 2018 midterms, but the aim was clear. The Democrats were now the Opposition; the Anti-Trump party.
Trump's approval rating was not just low, but incredibly sticky. People tended to have very firm opinions on him, and so his approval rating barely escaped the 35-45% range, with him almost hitting 50% before the pandemic hit. Thus, running on opposition to Trump would be fine electorally. In 2018, the Democrats had a blue wave year based mostly on opposition to Trump, retaking the house. Ironically, a big policy motivator for voters was backlash against the GOP's effort to repeal and replace Obamacare -- a promise that had driven Republican electoral gains since the bill was passed into law. Republican branding and messaging had been so successful that, for the better part of the decade, people trusted them to 'fix' the ACA until the very last minute before the replacement was signed.
'Battle for the Soul of the Nation'
But the problem remained for 2020 -- who would lead them? This was a difficult decision even before the pandemic. And Democratic primary voters were treated to a veritable buffet on angles on how to rebrand the party to beat Trump.
Should the party embrace democratic socialism under Sanders, or heavy consumer advocacy under Warren? Should it embrace a young, charismatic up-and-comer like Harris, Buttigieg, or O'Rourke or someone just as 'establishment' as Hillary, like Michael Bloomberg? Old-school liberalism with the Klob? Whatever Andrew Yang was doing?
But as the polls drew near, the Democrats seemed to conclude that beating Trump was simply more important than charting a new course for the party. If they could get elected or rebrand, they'd choose the former. And so all the other more moderate candidates dropped out to consolidate the vote around Biden, as the safe, expected pick who could stay the course. Biden and his surrogates began adopting the slogan 'Battle for the Soul of the Nation,' an epic and apocalyptic phrase that is still fundamentally reactive in tone, implying that the biggest motivator to vote for Democrats that fall was not to pass any specific agenda, but to put a stop to the GOP's plans.
Biden wouldn't govern in this way, but he would campaign this way -- as the normal, capable candidate who could lead the country's post-covid recovery in opposition to Trump's perceived incompetence. Biden won, but Democrats didn't get nearly the boost they wanted from covid, and House candidates underperformed Biden nationally, leading to a surprising loss of seats in the House. And after the effort to throw out the election failed, Trump left office with severely damaged standing with independents. The anti-Trump brand had delivered Dems a trifecta; now it was time to use it; hopefully to establish a new brand for a new decade.
'Building Back Better'
Upon taking office, Biden and the Dems lay out their agenda; the 'Build Back Better' plan, which centers on a three-pronged approach; a pandemic relief bill, an infrastructure bill, and a social policy bill. Passing such plans will involve all 50 Senate D's on board in some cases, and a bipartisan filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators in other cases.
People laugh, think back to 2010, and begin arguing whether a prediction that the GOP will control 55 Senate seats by 2023 is too conservative. Nancy Pelosi is trying to manage a mere five-seat majority in the house. Mitch McConnell, who once feasted on the Democrats' lost hopes the way a hungry turtle devours a plate of juicy strawberries, still held enough sway in the Senate to hold up any significant policy not related to budget reconciliation. Even then, Schumer must wrangle mavericks like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Dramatic divisions still rip across the fabric of American society. But then, something truly strange happens.
The 117th Congress ends up being one of the most productive sessions ever.
Whether or not you think any or all of the 117th's acts were good policy, it's undeniable that this was an unusually politically efficient session, especially considering the last decade of hardball politics. Bipartisan majorities drive the infrastructure act, a gun control act, a tech-manufacturing promotion act, and even a somewhat-legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide. Plus, Schumer and Pelosi navigate their tiny majorities toward passing partisan priorities, like the pandemic relief act and the scaled-down Build Back Better social policy bill, rebranded as the Inflation Reduction Act or IRA. McConnell drops his trademark stonewalling and collaborates with Biden on the bipartisan bills, and 'Yea' votes roll in even from deep red states -- Republican senators from Mississippi, West Virginia, and North Dakota get these bills over the line. Bipartisanship returns to Congress in fleeting glances -- something that I feel confident in arguing absolutely no one expected Biden or the Dem leaders to be able to do.
Of course, no one has forgotten 2010, and 2022 looks to be another rough year. Inflation soars, and Biden's approval rating drops. Dems brace for impact. The Dobbs ruling happens, but polls repeatedly suggest that the economy is the top issue on voters' minds, and they don't like Biden's handling of it.
But while these things are true, they ignore a crucial factor -- the GOP is embroiled in an identity crisis of its own. The leader of the party is claiming to be the legitimate president of the United States, which is a bit of a hard issue to ignore. Trump loyalists beat out 'establishment' Republicans in the primaries, and bring their hard promotion of the MAGA brand to the general elections. And they lose.
I think it's fair to say that the GOP lost most of the key races of the 2022 midterms, rather than Democrats winning them. Swing state Republican parties chose candidates who adhered so closely to a brand so toxic that independents still chose the Democrats, even in some cases where they were dissatisfied with the party. Republicans who have managed to establish a brand for themselves -- DeSantis, Kemp, and DeWine among them -- soar, while the Trumpiest candidates fall flat. McConnell remains in the minority, and McCarthy becomes the head of a very, very dysfunctional family.
Will Brandon's Rebrand Stand?
So, coming off an unusually strong midterm, where does the party go in 2024? Probably, as u/Randomuser1520 said, back to Biden. When your party wins one of the most fiercely contested elections in American history, has a productive legislative session, and then massively overperforms in the midterm, you don't usually change horses regardless of what approval polling says. If Biden were just 10 years younger and the health concerns were off the table, there would be no question in anyone's mind who to nominate.
The establishment and progressive wings of the party seem to be behind him if he runs, meaning challenges will only come from real outsiders like Marianne Williamson and Robert Kennedy Jr. The DNC will probably work to make those challenges as unviable as possible.
2024 is tricky to predict. Trump is favored on the Republican side, and as said before, his brand is so toxic that Biden can probably glide to reelection barring any massive economic downturns or serious health problems. I won't get too much into 2024, because it seems pretty clearly on the path to becoming another referendum on the GOP's brand, not the Democrats'. Biden's second term (and the rest of his first term) may be defined as much by implementation of the legislation they passed during the 117th as much as by new legislation, if not more.
So the question becomes this -- where does the party go in 2028? Or, in other words, what will Democrats take away from the Biden presidency, and how will Biden shape the party's brand going forward? Who they choose to lead the party next will tell, and Biden's presidency may already be laying out a blueprint.
In his 1996 State of the Union address, Bill Clinton declared 'the era of big government is over,' essentially conceding that Reagan and his vision of a small role for the federal government in domestic affairs had won out for the time, and that Democrats would need to work within that political reality in order to win elections. Obama's efforts to change that status quo resulted in an avalanche of backlash from Tea Partiers, self-proclaimed champions of fiscal conservatism. Hillary Clinton's failed campaign strategy arguably rested more on that understanding of the political climate than anything else, causing her to miss a series of growing frustrations with Reaganism at times channelled by Sanders and, at times, Trump -- at decimation of the manufacturing sector, at the growing gap between rich and poor, at China's seemingly unstoppable three-decade rise at the expense of the U.S.
Biden's approach to American industry and government is a strong repudiation of Reaganism, based around the idea that it is the government's job to fortify and guide the economy in ways that are necessary where the free market has little incentive to. It argues that the issues of infrastructural decay, manufacturing decline, and the growing need for green energy in the face of climate change will only be solved if the government directs the power of the private sector towards those goals at great upfront cost. And free trade, long held as the unassailable source of America's prosperity, must now only be employed in moderation -- if the U.S. has to arguably break international law to lure foreign investment into the U.S. through generous subsidies, it will be worth it, even if it earns the fury of our economic partners. This may be the groundwork of Bidenism.
These plans may fail. The money may be wasted by incompetent or corrupt administrators and the American people may become even more jaded at the thought of big government. But movement within the GOP may suggest a broader shift in the American mind towards this kind of economic interventionism is already in progress. Promising to reverse the decline of manufacturing through tariffs and other measures would have been political anathema twenty years ago, but it has become a core Republican plank. Florida Republicans' punitive measures towards Disney and the GOP's growing support for government action against Big Tech companies suggests openness towards not just using state power to guide the economy, but also to reshape the social landscape by manipulating the private sector. It may well be that the era of small government is over.
I've sorted some potential 'brands' and some of the people who might be nominated in 2028 / become party standard-bearers should the Democrats go in that direction. These lists aren't exhaustive; I'm just trying to establish a general vibe.
The 'Biden Blueprint': Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Gina Raimondo
These are members of the Biden admin who have been given great power (and great piles of money) to enact the legislation of the 117th. If American sentiment towards big government changes as quickly as I think it could, a Cabinet secretary could have a decent shot in 2028. Harris would be the natural successor as the VP, but Transportation Sec Buttigieg and Commerce Sec Raimondo, who were empowered to implement much of the Infrastructure Act and the CHIPS Act respectively, could become standard-bearers for this new vision of technocratic governance if they administer these programs well (and in a way that makes headlines). If Energy Sec Granholm were a natural-born citizen, she would definitely fit here as well, considering how much power the IRA gave her department.
The 'New New Deal': Amy Klobuchar, Catherine Cortez Masto, Mark Kelly, Tammy Duckworth, Raphael Warnock
Liberal senators who are capable of working across the aisle to achieve compromise could be a strong bet if Democrats want to recreate the success of the 117th Congress in the future. There's always an argument that effective legislators won't necessarily make for effective executives, but these choices would help with Democrats' goal of rebranding the Democratic party as the party you vote for if you want Washington to function properly and anticipate constituents' needs. Such a ticket could brand itself as the path to bipartisan yet assertive solutions on familiar and emerging issues like immigration reform, federal protection for abortion, the housing shortage, and the drug crisis.
The 'Bulwark': Roy Cooper, Laura Kelly, Andy Beshear
I'll admit that when I began writing this post, I had a more favorable opinion of the above three governors and politicians like them as presidential nominees and the potential 'future of the party.' I no longer feel as strongly about them, however, because I don't believe they do enough to change the brand of the Democrats and the political environment as a whole. These governors are best known for winning races in red states; for holding the line against the most conservative policies while finding areas of compromise, especially on kitchen-table issues.
But this brand of Democrat is fundamentally reactive, even defensive -- it assumes that most of the job will be obstructing right-wing legislation from a red legislature. In other words, it is a kind of strategy you use when you're trying to hold ground, not gain it. It works well when your opponent's brand is toxic (as the GOP's has been since 2016), but this I suspect this brand of 'competent normality' will struggle if the opposition ceases to actively repel voters. If Trump and his acolytes continue to hold a strong grip on the party through 2024 and beyond, this brand may not be a bad bet short-term, but long-term Democrats want to be the ones establishing the rules of the game, not just beating your opponent at theirs. That's what a successful political brand does. While Dems in similar situation should definitely look to these governors for guidance in running their campaigns (and hopefully, their administrations), I would caution at this point against basing the national party's brand on their model.
I think somewhere between these three groups lies a successful path forward for the Democrats that towards becoming the dominant party in U.S. politics at the federal level. There are some other interesting currents in the party; like how Democratic governors like Whitmer, Evers, and Walz have rebuilt D strength the Midwest after a rough 2010s, and how Western Dems like Jared Polis, Mary Peltola, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez have found unexpected electoral stength by embracing a form of libertarianism. However, these currents may be regional, and Democrats shouldn't necessarily try to nationalize every idea that works in one part of the country. Creating different regional 'flavors' of Democrat would be necessary to keep the party relevant in all parts of the country.
Regarding the 2020 primary runners-up, I don't think most of the visions laid out then work post-2024, and for this reason I tend not to give too much weight to current Democratic primary polling, because it assumes these same people would be running again.
Assuming Biden ends his term without catastrophe, I don't think the party needs to place all their faith in a young, charismatic Obama wannabe like O'Rourke or Swalwell, nor does it need to drastically pivot to the center, nor does it need to proclaim itself the party of 'outsiders,' nor does it need to give the reins to the progressive wing. If everything goes right, they can remain ideologically where they are now (roughly) and establish a solid brand for the first time in a generation.
The Democrats been losing the branding war since the days of Nixon. They may currently have all the tools they need right now to change that, and set the expectations for the next fifty years of politics. Let's see how they do.
This is my first big write-up, so I almost certainly missed some stuff and made some assumptions. Let me know what you think.

We as a couple intend to go to South Africa capetown and the safari for our honeymoon. We have heard many beautiful things about the place and intend to ask a few questions: 1. When is the best time/ months to visit cape town and the safaris? 2. What is the best and fastest way to get from Cape Town to Johannesburg? 3. Where are the best safari? Is it in Johannesburg, something called the Kruger?
Thanks in advance, can’t wait to visit your beautiful country

"Then I shall show you. The end of your journey. The demise of human history that will redo this planet. The moment my great undertaking is completed!"

Goetia

♫ Shikisai ~The Time of Parting Hath Come~ ♫
This thread is a collaboration with InverseFlash and rsthethird, who helped with feat-gathering, as well as Proletlariet, who helped with formatting. Thanks!

Background

Beast I. One of the Seven Evils of Humanity, possessing the principle of "Pity".
The King of Mages, Solomon, gathered 72 demons in his life that he fashioned into "a system to promote reason in humans"--a sort of magical logic network. After some time, the demons gained self-awareness and merged into a collective being.
This being, the amalgamation of the 72 Demons, became known as Goetia.
When Solomon died, the demons were sealed away inside his corpse. The awakened Goetia at first assumed Solomon's identity. Through his eyes, they witnessed the extent of human suffering that Solomon, for all the king's vast power, had failed to address. They became disillusioned with their host, and hatched a plan to remake the world without its imperfections by travelling back in time.

Source Guide

Hover over the feat to view the story chapter the feat is from.
Relevant Scaling:

• List of Servants
  • If I name a character, it can be found here. I will not be linking a respect thread for every individual character mentioned in this thread due to the shear number of Servants/characters Goetia and Demon Pillars interact with.
• Mash Kyrielight
• Beast II - Tiamat
• Beast VII - U-Olga Marie

Some terms:

• Rayshifting: Chaldea's method of time travel. It works by transforming the time traveler's body into 'Spiritrons', and then sending them backwards in time. Spiritrons being a form of energy/particle formed from a person's soul
  • Full Definition/Description can be read here
• Sheba: An observational lens that can sense the near-future, and could give Chaldea detailed information from inside of a bubble that absorbed all forms of normal radiation
• See the Fate Franchise Hub Post for a more extensive list of Fate related terms

Elements of Goetia's in-game profile and Fate/Grand Order material IV entry (translated by castor212 are freely quoted in this thread to help explain abilities that might not show up explicitly in the series very often.

King of Mages - "Solomon"

"Plead for help. Raise your mewling voice. For it is the time for you to drown in the sea of anguish! Behold this festival of flame that set ablaze the altar, rendered in its resplendence!"

♫ The Time of Coronation Hath Come ♫
Prior to revealing himself, Goetia posed as King Solomon while possessing his corpse..
Controlling Solomon granted Goetia a variety of abilities, namely the class container of "Grand", which allowed him to outclass any normal Servant by virtue of this.

Physical Feats/Power

• Manifested himself after his own death via his own will, and therefore doesn't need to rely on any sort of magical energy support like normal Servants
• Mordred claims his power exceeds that of a dragon, with Shakesphere going on to say he has 'infinite' magical energy, although he's likely exaggerating
• Tamamo-No-Mae claims that, even if she got all nine of her tails and became "a great demon strong enough to destroy the multiverse" that "[Solomon] is a threat threat enough to rival" her in that state
• When comparing him as Solomon to the Beast of the Seventh Singularity (later revealed to be Tiamat), the Lion King flips around the idea of who might be more of a threat to humanity
  • Kingu/Endiku later claims that Tiamat is on par or superior to him
• Command spells wouldn't work on Solomon
• Engages with an extensive fight with Mash, hurting her with an attack
• Takes a blow from Mash that 'reaches the core of [his] body'

Clairvoyance

It has been said that Solomon's clairvoyance can see through the past and the future.
Because Clairvoyance is a skill furnished on the flesh, Goetia can also use it.

• Claims that he can 'see everything' and 'all possible futures', but cannot track things which exist outside of time
• [Limit] Even with his Clairvoyance, he didn't foresee the appearance of the Beast of the Seventh Singularity, Tiamat
• Goetia used Solomon's clairvoyance to perceive all human suffering in the past, present, and future
• Solomon sent one of his rings over 3,000 years into the future to act as a catalyst for his own summoning as a Heroic Spirit, putting into motion the events that would lead to Goetia's defeat
• Solomon used his Clairvoyance shortly before turning into a human with no powers to foresee the Incineration of Humanity in 2018 from 2004
• Gives him an unobstructed view of the past and future, as well as x-ray vision

Magecraft / Magic

Offensive

• Solomon/Goetia can summon any of the 72 Demon God Pillars at will, described as him projecting them out from his inner world to the outside world
  • Summons four at once that defeat Kintoki, Tamamo, and Shakespeare. Implies that he can summon far more of them
• Anderson is astonished at how badly he's hurt blocking just a single one of his attack spells
• A second spell rips Anderson into hundreds of pieces and then burns him into a crisp
• Goetia incinerates all living things on the planet at once just with his gaze, a feat characters in the story assumed he would need a powerful technique to accomplish

Utility

• Uses magic similar to a Rayshift to transport himself to the London Singularity
• Generates a field around himself that passively blocks Sheba's ability to observe him, as well as Romani's ability to communicate via hologram
• His field blocks Chaldeas' ability to Rayshift Fujimaru and Mash out of London
• Likely broke the seal binding Tiamet out of existence, though Ishtar notes that human mages might have done it
• Inserts images into Mash and Ritsuka's heads while they're mid-Rayshift
• Has a countermeasure that prevents using magic to predict his actions
• Has the ability to hasten his magical incantations, create magical constructs, and make magical territories via Solomon's class skills
• Goetia has nine of Solomon's 10 Rings. If all 10 were brought together, Solomon/Goetia would invalidate any magecraft used by mankind against him and put them under his control
  • Reference of what can be accomplished with magecraft

Evil Eye

Curse

• Solomon has become a walking curse, such that saying his name or looking him in the eye will remove a person's soul and imprison it
• By just looking at him, Mash begins to quake in fear for reasons she can't explain. Her soul might have been imprisoned in the false reality forever if a friend's out of character behavior hadn't tipped her off
• Tamamo with two of her tails believes she'd be vulnerable to the curse
• A person who's been afflicted with the Evil Eye has trouble remembering Solomon's appearance, and even video recordings of him are covered in static
• Even a drawn picture of Solomon can inflict the Evil Eye without special anti-curse precautions

Prison

• To escape, the soul must complete a set of trials within seven days, or death ensues
• Only the soul is imprisoned in the false reality, while the body remains behind. The soul experiences time at a much longer rate in the false world than the body does in the real one with seven days for the soul being equal to one for the body
• The prison's trials drag in fragments of the souls of the prisoner's acquaintances to serve as obstacles, it can do this even to heroic spirits, who have superhumanly powerful souls

Beast I - Goetia

"Well, I will rid myself of the title "King of Mages.”
"There's no more need for deception. I had no name, but if you want to call me something, call me this:"
"I am the one who shall attain true wisdom, as was desired of me. I am the one who shall devour you to reach a new height, and create a new planet."
"I am the one who shall gather 72 curses, and set flame to all of history. I am the Ritual for the Incineration of Humanity."
"I am Goetia, the King of Demon Gods."

♫ Shikisai ~The Time of Parting Hath Come~ ♫
The form Goetia takes after he abandons Solomon's corpse partway through the final battle.
His body is a central core surrounded by the 72 "Demon Pillars" that comprise him.

Collective

General Power and Information

• Hid in Solomon's body for three thousand years in Ars Paulina without any adverse effects due to the passage of time
• Is a "living summoning spell" that hid itself in Solomon's corpse and later gained a will of its own and physically incarnated as a Beast
• Describes himself as a higher-dimensional being that no longer requires flesh or blood. Due to being Solomon's familiars, he shared in Solomon's Clairvoyance
• Due to being an amalgamation of the 72 Demon Gods, which each have individual personalities, Goetia's personality will mirror that of someone who interacts with him on a surface level
• His existence is fixed, meaning he's immune to 'instant death' effects as well as temporal effects, like the paradoxes generated by incinerating human history
• A weakened Beast VII, or the Foreign God, is stated to be the most powerful thing Chaldea has faced since Goetia, with her magical energy being called a "third class planet" to Goetia's "second class planet"

Physical Feats

• Moves so fast he appears to teleport next to Solomon, before bloodying him with a barrage of punches and bombarding him with energy projectiles from his arms
• [Weakened] Ritsuka has trouble blocking his blows with Mash's shield, but can do so long enough for Goetia to die due to Ars Nova
• [Weakened] Knocked back by a Command Spell amplified punch from Ritsuka

The Beast Class
The entire space of Solomon's temple gives Da Vinci the same Beast Class reading she saw from Tiamat.

• Goetia's Beast Class Skill, Nega Summon, allows him to negate through "invalidation, invincible, absorption, reduction" any attacks or Noble Phantasms generated by Heroic Spirits, although this skill was nullified by King Solomon's actions at the end of the Final Singularity
• The Evils of Humanity, or Beasts, are summoned in a chain, meaning that Goetia's manifestation heralded the appearance of other Beasts

Individual Demon Pillars

Power

• Demon Pillars give off more magical energy than Servants or Phantasmals
• Demon Pillars are weaker while outside of Solomon's Temple, due to their cells dying off
• Demon Pillars have a "Spirit Core" like Servants, as well as innate magical energy, which can be used to fuel other spells (such as one to create pancakes) if defeated
• Require groups of Servants to defeat under normal conditions
• They have comparable power to Kingu during the Babylonian Singularity
• A Demon Pillar is compared to the energy output of a Servant empowering themselves with a Holy Grail
  • The corpse of a Demon Pillar can become a source of magical power similar to a Grail if fused with a servant, and possessing a strong will not to die

Strength

• Eight Demon God Pillars wrapping around the Chaldea building deal catastrophic damage to it and nearly destroy it
  • Reference of how large Chaldea is, the building's size can be compared to hallways connecting the structures in it
• Groups of them tear through the stone and marble of Solomon's throne when called to Goetia, reducing it to ruins
• Erupts out of the floor in a metal observation room, then attacks and absorbs a number of researchers

Damage Output
Demon Pillars attack in a number of ways:

• Various forms of spontaneous explosions that can cover multiples of meters
• Energy blasts that erupt from the ground
• Large storms of smoke that cover the battlefield
• Lasers, presumably fired from their eyes

These attacks are threatening to a variety of named servants:

• An attack from four Demon Pillars oneshot Kintoki, Tamamo, and Shakesphere
• Hurts and sends Robin Hood and Helena Blatvasky flying
• Spits out flames hot enough to burn Oda Nobunaga^FGO
• Draws blood on Fergus Lily, hurting him, although he's defeated in the overall fight against Astolfo, D'Eon, and Fergus
• Bloodies Wu Zeitan with an attack

Durability
Favorable Interactions

• One takes a bullet from Francis Drake and continues to fight Mash, Ritsuka, and allies, although it loses the overall battle
• Li Shuwen has trouble injecting them with chi attacks, mostly due to their size
• Robin Hood's 'Yew Bow' and Elizabeth Bathory's weaponized singing don't do anything to them
• Tesla's Noble Phantasm, 'System Keranos', doesn't appear to do much to them, neither does a combined attack from Tesla and Edison's Noble Phantasms
• Lancer Li Shuwen breaks his spear on one
• Cursed Arm and Serenity have no means of harming them, even with Serenity's poison
• Oda Nobunaga's special attacks and bullets have no effect on Demon God Pillars
• Takes a hit from three bullets fired from EMIYA Alter and doesn't seem bothered by it moments later
• A Demon Pillar in its humanoid form take a blast of magic from the Queen of Sheba and is fine
• Takes fire produced by Chacha's abilities and fights Ritsuka, Okita, Nobunaga, and Hijikata, although it ultimately loses the fight
• A recreation of the Demon God Pillars gets bombarded with meteors from outer space by Astrea's Noble Phantasm, and continues to fight with Grey and Astrea, with Astrea commenting it was just as strong as the originals

Limits

• A suicide Noble Phantasm release from Arjuna kills twenty-eight of them
• Altera destroys one with Teardrop Photon Ray
• Mordred destroys one with Clarent Blood Arthur
• Bedivere takes out three pillars with an activation of his Noble Phantasm
• Okita Souji slices apart several pillars
• Edmond Dantes was able to take out a pillar by himself
• Ritsuka and his allies (in this case EMIYA Alter and Artoria Alter) were able to kill a Demon God Pillar
• One is defeated by Gawain, although Ritsuka notes it seemed particularly weak

Powers
Immortality

• The 72 Demon Gods are all part of the same magecraft ritual associated with Solomon, so as long as Solomon exists, they'll continue to exist even if destroyed
• After Mash kills Flauros, he instantly re-appears, with Mash describing this as an entirely new separate entity being born, and not some form of regeneration or resurrection
  • Vlad the Impaler runs out of stakes to hit them with due to how fast/often they were doing this
• Killing all 72 at once would be required to actually kill them for good
• Creating new demon pillars to replace fallen ones does draw away power from the center of Solomon's Temple, giving Chaldea entryway to the center of Ars Paulina
• Nightingale claims that killing them for good would require destroying all of Ars Paulina
• Even after escaping the Temple of Time and losing their proper immortality, individual demon pillars live for over 3,000 years to plot against Ritsuka

Other

• Demon Pillars can fuse with Heroic Spirits, even against their will
  • When Phenex did this with Scheherazade,, the two could trade places and transform into one another
  • A Heroic Spirit temporarily integrated into Goetia's hivemind via this process gained access to information he could use to calculate out events related to the Incineration of Humanity
  • Merging with a Heroic Spirit gives a Demon Pillar protection from its skills, such as Scheherazade's inability to be killed by Kings
• A number of Demon God Pillars were able to escape the Temple of Time's destruction while leaving ripples in space-time, this being an extradimensional space outside of time
• A number of Demon God Pillars demonstrate the ability to possess humans
• As of the events of Lady Reines' Case Files, Ritsuka has killed so many Demon Pillars that just inserting information about him into facsimiles of them cause them to get significantly weaker

King of Humans - Goetia

"The Demon Gods have burned away. My temple is destroyed. My grand plan for the Incineration of Human Order dies with me. But, I will at least deny you this final victory. Let us begin... Master of Chaldea. I shall annihilate you, and all you've achieved, with my own hands."

♫ GRAND LAST BATTLE ♫
Despite Ars Nova ending Solomon's spell that bound the 72 Demons together, Goetia manages to linger long enough for one last fight. However, in this weakened state he can be defeated by a punch from Ritsuka.

Noble Phantasms

Ars Almadel Salomonis: The Time of Birth has Come, He is the One who Masters All

"Then I shall show you. The end of your journey. The demise of human history that will redo this planet. The moment my great undertaking is completed! Third Noble Phantasm, deploy. The Time of Birth has Come, He is the One who Masters All. Now, burn up like trash!"
"Ars Almadel Salomonis!"

• Rank: EX
• Type: Anti-Unit/Anti-Human Order Noble Phantasm
• Range: ?
• Maximum target: ? person

Goetia's third Noble Phantasm. The "" of original sin. A belt of light that announces mankind’s demise.
Goetia is able to manipulate this belt of light in order to collect, accelerate and converge portions of it, travelling through the timestream or otherwise influencing it.
Singularities
For his plan to work, Goetia needed to make cause and effect stop working, so he can set fire to multiple periods of time in history at the same time.
He enables this by destabilizing human history with Singularities. These are turning points in human history that he's sent Holy Grails (powerful magic artifacts) to change important historical events.
Reference of what Holy Grails can do
Creation

• Singularities are key turning points in human history that have been interfered with, causing aberrations in the timestream. Goetia's Incineration of Humanity involved seven primary Singularities
• Resolving individual singularities will not fix the timestream. Only resolving all seven will set things right
• Solomon caused some Singularities by sending his Demon Pillars to different eras to directly alter historical events
  • These Demon Gods were embedded in King Solomon's descendants and activated like sleeper agents all at once in 2018
  • Goetia hid his Demon Pillars inside of the magic circuits passed down generationally by mages so he could seed them at specific points in history
• Solomon sent one of these grails directly backwards through time to Babylon, and and removing it is especially necessary to keep human history from burning
• Goetia's singularities had such a profound effect on human history that it rippled to other timelines, and caused singularities to still pop up after he was defeated

Structure/Attributes

• Singularities are cut off from the rest of the timeline, existing apart from the past or the future
• Singularities are immune to time paradoxes, so Ritsuka and Mash fighting soldiers in the past doesn't have any adverse affects
• Singularities are bound to a specific area, which can vary between the size of a city to the entire United States

Incineration of Human History
Once human history is destabilized, Goetia 'sets fire' to every moment of it and lets it burn. The energy is then collected as "Spiritrons" (magical energy) and raw heat.
Of course, this has catastrophic affects on the timeline.

• Chaldeas lost its ability to sense the future, or detect the outside world - this was because there was no more outside world to detect, as Goetia's Incineration of Humanity destroyed the timeline
• Despite being able to Rayshift to different points in time, Chaldea can only travel between Singularities because the rest of the timeline has been eradicated
• The Incineration of Humanity also affected The Land of Shadows, a realm described as being sundered from the mortal world
• The Incineration of Humanity burned all biological matter on Earth across all points in time as fuel to reset the universe
• Goetia needed to create Singularities to in order to weaken "the strength of human history" enough to carry out the Incineration of Humanity. Singularities break up the timeline into fractured chunks, allowing for the paradox necessary to incinerate matter during all points in its existence

Bands of Light
Finally, this energy is then channeled into Goetia's temple, and refined into bands of light that he can control and release at will. Either as weapons, or as fuel to for his ultimate goal: time travel to the creation of the Earth.

• Each Singularity Ritsuka and company travel to have a series of light bands encircling the sky present. These are around the size of North America
• These bands of light are the manifestation of Goetia's Noble Phantasm locking the rotation of the planet in place for the Incineration of Humanity
• Each individual band of light has comparable heat output to Artoria Alter's Holy Sword. The Noble Phantasm manifests hundreds of millions of them at once
  • Respect Artoria Alter
• Ushiwakamaru Alter claims the band of light are the only thing that could destroy Tiamet's corrupted ocean
• One of the Demon Pillars claims it could be used to incinernate all the Heroic Spirits summoned to fight in the Temple of Time
• The bands of light could burn away the outer layers of the planet. Mash says nothing on Earth could match their energy output
• Manifests as a beam of light from the sky that clashes with Mash wielding Lord Camelot. While Mash is able to block the attack, it still vaporizes her through her shield
• After Goetia is defeated, the bands of light start to release their energy into the atmosphere with nobody to control them. Da Vinci says the effect of this would be like a supernova
• The magical energy circulated between the Trees of Emptiness, and channeled into the Atlantis Lostbelt to summon the Foreign God had already built up to the same level of power as the Bands of Light prior Chaldea entering it
• [Limit] Even if they were collected and used to attack Chaos, the Bands of Light wouldn't be able to destroy it
  • Chaos is a mechanical being whose core is an entire star, otherwise known as a Dyson Sphere

Ars Paulina: The Time of Crowning has Come, He is the One who Begins All

• Rank: A
• Type: Anti-World Noble Phantasm
• Range: 999
• Maximum target: ? person

A Reality Marble that Goetia fabricated by amplifying the remains of King Solomon, forming a magical workshop in "void space" that exists outside the normal flow of time.
Reality Marbles are essentially self-contained dimensions that 'paint over the world' in a given area. Here's a better schematic explaining what they do.
Physical Structure and Location

• His temple resides outside of time, and can only be found by tracking back its location from the Seventh Grail
  • Da Vinci and Romani have no methods to track Goetia returning to his temple
• Chaldea pinpointing its location by analyzing Goetia's Seventh Grail also opens a back door for Goetia to locate him in turn, and it begins to pull him out of the timeline to itself
• Described as a "miniature model of the universe" containing no other celestial bodies, about the size of a cell when compared to the universe proper
  • There's still sort of celestial background present inside of it
  • Lostbelt 7?
• The temple lacks a concept of time. This property facilitated the Incineration of Humanity
• A recreation of the Temple is too cold for normal life to survive in it

Properties

• The route to the throne itself is blocked by a swirling tempest of "incalculable" amounts of magical energy, with Da Vinci believing Chaldea had to destroy areas around it to have a chance of getting through
  • The throne is accessible after Mash and Ritsuka remove this magical energy tempest via a fissure in space a kilometer long
• The temple has a similar composition as the Greater Grail of Fuyuki. It is made up of of Solomon's magic circuits, which form a small self-contained universe
• The throne is a giant magic summoning circle with planetary magecraft at its core

Ars Nova

• Rank: D
• Type: Anti-Unit Noble Phantasm
• Range: -
• Maximum target: 1 person

Goetia: Light Band Convergence Ring

• Goetia prepared his endgoal feat from the Incineration of Humanity as a 'virtual Noble Phantasm' due to not knowing the purpose or how to activate the original
• This ultimate feat, which he would use all the energy collected by Ars Almadel Salomonis to accomplish, would have him travel 4.6 billion years into the past to the birth of the planet, where he would then change the starting conditions of the world so that death did not exist, with him supplanting the planet with his own body

Solomon: The Time of Parting has Come, He is the One who Lets Go of the World

• By having all his ten rings present between those worn by Goetia and himself, Solomon can recreate the legend of him giving all his rings back to God
  • Activates as Solomon slowly becoming engulfed in a pure white light while chanting
• After using it, everything related to Solomon is wiped from existence and rendered inert. This includes Goetia himself as Solomon brought the Demon Gods together, as well as Solomon's rings, and Solmon's ability to be summoned as a Heroic Spirit
• Although this doesn't instantly kill Goetia, the Demon Pillars that make him up finally start to die for good, and start separating from the collective

Individual Demon Pillars - Unique Abilities

While it's likely that Goetia possesses all these abilities as the composite of all Demon God Pillars, some of his components developed wills of their own and gained unique abilities before and after his destruction at the hands of Chaldea.

Flauros

• Flauros can change his shape between a human form, Lev Lainur, and his true Demon Pillar form^FGO
  • Some other Pillars can also do this, but they are more obviously inhuman
• Lev has a spell similar to a Command Spell, controlling Caligula's actions^FGO
• Helped create SHEBA under Goetia's guidance, which is a failsafe to detect and act against Demon Pillars that go rogue from Goetia's collective, SHEBA is an observational lens that can sense the near-future, and could give Chaldea detailed information from inside of a bubble that absorbed all forms of normal radiation
  • Had enough intelligence to react to the threat of the Salem Singularity and summon a Heroic Spirit to it by using itself as a catalyst

Andras

After separating from Goetia, Andras gained a self-awareness and will to live, and escaped from the Temple of Time near-death, but died afterwards. Even then, its 'vindictive desires' remained as a corpse that could maintain a being by fusing to a Heroic Spirit, summoning and doing so with Chacha and Hijikata to create a singularity-like space.

• The space created by Andras is completely disconnected from the past or future, and time inside of it doesn't progress, having carved the space out of time itself, or at least travelled to an existing space like this
• Nobukatsu used him in a ritual to summon a demonic castle where nothing inside can die, so that he and Nobunaga can live forever inside. It disappears when Andras is defeated
• Summons waves of corpses to fight Ritsuka and allies

Bael

• Somehow hacked into Ritsuka's Rayshift coordinates, which made all of his servants rayshifted with him go off in random directions and himself to spawn in hundreds of feet into the air
• While believing itself to be the heroic spirit Moriarty, Bael somehow fights Chaldea and disappears like a Heroic Spirit, only to re-appear as a demon pillar
• Learned how to fuse together Phantom and Heroic spirits, though Phantom Spirits cannot normally be summoned as complete entities
  • Fused together being from multiple legends to create Hessian Lobo, granting it composite abilities such as the Invisible Man's invisibility
  • Fused Moriarty with Der Freischütz, giving his weapon supernatural accuracy on the 7th shot, something that could even apply to objects as large as a meteor to make it strike Earth
  • Moriarty uses this method to absorb the defeated Sherlock Holmes

Phenex

• As the Demon God of Death, he isn't detected by Chaldea's scans for life because he's technically dead
• Despite being killed by Ritsuka and his allies, re-appears later in the body of a nearby corpse, transforming back into its demonic form
• Constantly regenerates from being attacked by D'Eon, Fergus, and Astolfo
• Endures Caladbolg's vortex, which destroyed a floating island big enough to house an entire forest and a mountain
• [Limit] Is hit with Wu Zeitan's Noble Phantasm, and still fights while being afflicted with it
  • The attack works by keeping Phenex in "state of both life and death", allowing Phenex to finally be weakenedand then killed
• Despite all of the above, it still has enough strength to try and attack Scheherazade, although it's killed with one last burst from Fergus' sword

"Huh, who would have known? ...Tragically short, and yet, strangely fascinating... So, this is what human life is..."

At the end of June a few friends and I are going to be traveling from PA through New England for 10 days going to various breweries and disc golf courses. The itinerary is as follows:
Day 1: Leave PA, Travel to Norbrook Farms (DG & Beer)
Day 2: Leave CT, Travel to MA, Play at Maple Hill (DG), Go to Treehouse (Beer)
Day 3: Play Pyramids (DG), Eat at B.T.’s Smokehouse (Food), Go to Oakholm Brewing (DG & Beer)
Day 4: Leave MA heading towards Waterbury, VT, Play at a course along the way, (Clement Farms, The Hollows, Top O' The Hill?) (DG)
Day 5-8: While staying in VT we are looking to play at The Quarries, Brewster Ridge, Fox Run Meadows (DG), and Von Trapp (DG & Beer). Going to imbibe at Foam Brewing, The Alchemist, and Lawson’s (Beer). We are also going to Cider Hollow Mill, Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot Cheese (Food)
Day 9: Leave VT towards Albany NY, play Joralemon (DG)
Day 10: Head back to PA
I am looking for some further recommendations in regards to interesting places to eat, excellent breweries to drink at, where to play at on the way to VT from MA, and potential must see courses I may have missed.
Thanks in advance!

I just bought a whole bunch of frozen baby octopus. I always have success with the big octopus from the same shop, but can’t buy it frozen to put in my freezer, because their regular octopus is huge, maybe 2kg, and I never need that much. The baby octopus is very small, around 35g each. If you put one in your hand, you could easily close your hand around it including tentacles, that’s how small they are.
I tried various ways of cooking, but no success. Googling doesn’t help much, because much of what people call baby octopus is much bigger, plus the advice I find are all over the place. So, based on what I found, I tried 4 approaches:
1) Fry for 30 seconds on each side, in about 5mm of cooking oil 2) Fry for about 2:30 minutes, turning from time to time, 5mm cooking oil 3) Boil for 15 minutes, then fry in frying pan with just a little oil 4) Boil for 45 minutes, fry in pan like 3)
The results were: 1) Tender, good taste, very soggy 2) Like eating the soles of my shoe 3) Tenderness is between 1 and 2, closer to 1, not too bad. Taste very bland. 4) Tender but taste so bland I couldn’t even eat it.
I managed to eat 1 and 3, and overall 1 was the best. But the sogginess, as well as me being concerned about food safety put me off… is the head pretty much raw in this state? Is that OK?
So, what should be the next step? Learn to deep fry with cornstarch, and try only 30 secs? Or do like 1 and put it in a wet dish (soup, etc), so sogginess doesn’t matter? If so, can you suggest a recipe? Or should I do something else? One more thing: I used a big pot with much water when boiling it (3 and 4), should I try with little or no water instead?

I wrote about what it is like to be viewed as a target by sexual predators. I thought this might be a place where others who have experienced this might understand what I have written.
I am now convinced, at 57, that there are ways to identify and call out certain sexual predators. The only stumbling block I can see to pointing out and stopping such predators, seems to be the blame that gets placed on those who are targeted as prey. I am currently trying to write more about this, in hopes of one day having society protect, instead of sexualize and then blame, the targeted children and young ones who end up being devoured by sexual predators.
Please do let me know if is not the group where this post belongs.
https://sighlentz.blogspot.com/2023/06/beauty-and-prayer-by-tina-fey.html

Hey everyone, some help please. I'm trying to put together a Europe-wide league table for football - first sorted by points-per-game (PPG) and, when those numbers are the same, sorting them by goal difference (GD).
Example - in the below screenshot, PSV and Arsenal have the same PPG but PSV have a higher GD (+49 compared to +45). They're formatted correctly but there position on the left is wrong. And, underneath, Liverpool and Rennes should be the other way round.
From what I've Googled, it doesn't seem possible to sort them in this way via formula so I've tried to combine PPG and GD into another score (the Test Ranking column, which it's currently sorted by) but I can't get it to work correctly for the entire sheet (100+ teams with many various goal differences).
So, is there way to sort PPG by descending order but then factoring in GD when there's identical values? It'll also fix the issue right at the bottom where Monaco and Sparta need to swap places. I'm hoping that I'm just being stupid and that there's a simple way to do it!
https://preview.redd.it/lkvup2k7em3b1.png?width=895&format=png&auto=webp&s=08af7aca0300d4c3a10c593869036505f9322a29

I sighed. So I'm gonna get reassigned huh? I'm not apart of the c.i.a's gun running, drug peddling, and the guerilla warfare division anymore eh? I guess I'll miss air america flights. I then recalibrated my prosthetic right arm using a Philips head screw driver. Open close. Open, close.
After a couple of seconds my arm was finally done recalibrating. I'm gonna miss my friends. But I'll never miss the humid areas of laos, Vietnam, and some parts of china. The golden triangle is so goddamned hot. Honestly I don't know if it's secretly a promotion or a demotion. Or possibly I'm gonna get fired, and killed.
I'll get my name scraped out of the national files. If I get fired the chances of getting dragged into a blacksite is high, and I'll get tripped by the guys on one of the blacksites.
Oh god. I remember the LSD torture. It's like being awake but not in control. It's like being stuck as a backseat driver as people do unspeakable stuff to me. Oh boy if the public knows about the MK ultra test 2 oh boy. The people are gonna riot. It's already 2040.
The world is on edge, and under foreign influence for over a decade now. From the end of the 20's intergalactic travelers, and companies came, and control most of the world's nations within just a span of two years. They have the guts to exploit our resources, and don't give a damn about what happens to us. They care about profits. Except for the 8 major powers most of the world is under alien control. The only nations that aren't under alien control are russia, china, The U.S.A, great Britain with their manpower advantage given Australia is a British vassal state, France, Canada, Israel, and lastly an unlikely power the African union made out of 7 of the most powerful nations in Africa before the arrival of the outsiders are the only remaining independent countries.
Most of the intelligence agencies are currently working together dealing drugs with the outsiders who visit us, giving weapons to guerilla fighters, and getting weapons from the outside. Ships from an unlikely ally an independent economic alliance of nations named the syndicate allows to us to get some weapons. As long as we sell them drugs, and perishables from earth. It turns out the syndicate likes drugs, coffee, and other stuff native to earth.
Some of our intelligence guys are chatting with the aliens. The guys who are exploiting our resources are called the consortium. They are a consort of companies, and a league that agrees on how to manipulate markets. These guys are basically the more unhinged version of the wall street guys, and a mix of the c.i.a.
I sighed. "This is gonna be a long day ahead of me."
I then smoked a cigar. The cigar calmed my nerves as I inhaled the nicotine. The addictive substance relaxes me. Plus lung cancer isn't a problem anymore considering we now have a solution on how to cure it. The alien companies gave us some of their tech to show their so called sympathy before they flooded economies with consumer goods from their companies, and controlled almost all of earths economies.
"So agent smith. This is your new partner." A c.i.a handler said to me.
I spat out some ash from my mouth, and complained. "The fuck are you giving me a newbie as a partner? And what the hell am I gonna to do to need a new partner. Rodriguez already was fine yet I'm stuck with a newbie?"
The handler laughed. "Oh heavens no. This is an a.i. Codename poppy. She's your new partner in crime. Because we are gonna send you as a diplomatic bodyguard to the syndicate."
"Oh hi! I'm poppy I'm an artificial intelligence created by the c.i.a, m.i.6, the g.r.u, the s.s.m, mossad, and the s.s.a." The human looking robot said.
The voice kinda sounds synthetic, and the tone is too happy. I kinda hate it. I hate that it gives off happy go lucky vibes. I don't mean to be a grouch but the happy go lucky guys always die first. It's kinda ironic in a fucked up way.
So this thing is an a.i kinda like g.w. An a.i made by the c.i.a. G.W have made the internet more tolerable, and friendly due to context. People back then always manipulated facts into their political goals, and ideals. People get the facts misconstrued for political reasons.
G.W was made after a game character that was so prophetic about the world in the future. M.G.S 2: Sons of liberty. It has the same function as g.w from mgs2. It gives facts in a non biased way. In a way where people don't get their feelings hurt when something is given to them in a factual, and non biased ways.
People used to manipulate facts for political correctness. Hiding the fact that they misinterpret the meaning of those words. The internet used to be a toxic, and a fucked up place before g.w. Like Jesus Christ the goddamn internet was filled with incels, and attention seekers using facts and misusing them for internet clout. It was a place where no one is invalidated but nobody was right. G.w put an end to that era. G.w is now living in a secluded server thanking us for it's creation. It was phased out after it asked to be replaced by another one because it was sick, and tired of correcting people that get the facts misconstrued. It got to the point that it begged the c.i.a, and annoyed the c.i.a to the point that it wanted to be put in a secluded server so it could live it's remaining days in relative leisure just because it begged the c.i.a director so many times that he would get spam calls from the a.i using his official phone number even in the middle of the night for three straight years.
Anyways back to discussion.
"So you're one of those advanced a.i's like g.w?" I asked just to be sure I'm not paired with a dumb a.i.
"Yup. I even passed the Turing test in flying colors. I can feel emotions, do something out of spite or anger, and can think for myself." Poppy said with a dog like innocence.
"So what can you do?" I asked.
"Well. I can fly planes, use guns even those that people can't use due to physiological differences, and hack computers without being near the target. I'm basically just an a.i that can be a jack of all traits if given a chance." Poppy said.
"Fine. But you'll do it my way or the high way." I told poppy with a commanding tone.
Poppy laughed. "Okay boomer."
I sighed. This is gonna be a long day. I'm old as shit but not a boomer.
"Woah. You guys are already going along greatly. Great for you." The handler snickered.
He then left, and left me with poppy.
I'm fucked. "So I'm gonna brief you about the world poppy. Through a song."
I then sang bo burnham's how the world works song.
"Hey, kids Today, we're gonna learn about the world The world that's around us is pretty amazing But how does it work? It must be complicated The secret is the world can only work When everything works together"
"A bee drinks from a flower And leaves with its pollen A squirrel in a tree spreads the seeds that have fallen Everything works together"
"The biggest elephant, the littlest fly The gophers underground, the birds in the sky And every single cricket, every fish in the sea"
"Gives what they can and gets what they need That is how the world works That is how the world works"
"From A to Zebra To the worms in the dirt That's how it works Hey everyone"
I then pulled out a sock, and made it into a puppet.
"Look who stopped by to say "hello" It's Socko Hey! Where you been, Socko?"
"I've been where I always am when you're not wearing me on your hand In a frightening, liminal space between states of being Not quite dead, not quite alive It's similar to a constant state of sleep paralysis"
"Socko, we were just talking about the world and how it works!"
"Boy, that sounds complicated! Do you have anything you'd wanna teach us about the world?"
"I wouldn't say anything that you Probably haven't already said yourself"
"I don't know about that, Socko How about you give it a try?"
"All right!"
"The simple narrative taught in every history class Is demonstrably false and pedagogically classist Don't you know the world is built with blood? And genocide and exploitation"
"The global network of capital essentially functions To separate the worker from the means of production And the FBI killed Martin Luther King Private property's inherently theft"
"And neoliberal fascists are destroying the left And every politician, every cop on the street Protects the interests of the pedophilic corporate elite"
"That is how the world works (really?) That is how the world works Genocide the Natives, say you got to it first"
"That's how it works"
"That's pretty intense?"
"No shit Sherlock."
"What can I do to help?"
"Read a book or something, I don't know Just don't burden me with the responsibility of educating you"
*It's incredibly exhausting"
"I'm sorry, Socko I was just trying to become a better person"
"Why do you rich fucking white people Insist on seeing every socio-political conflict Through the myopic lens of your own self-actualization?"
"This isn't about you So either get with it, or get out of the fucking way"
"Watch your mouth, buddy"
"Remember who's on whose hand here"
"But that's what I- Have you not been fucking listening? We are entrenched in a way (all right, all right)"
"Wait, wait, no please! I don't wanna go back, please, ugh, ugh, ugh I can't go, I can't go back Please, please, I'm sorry!"
"Are you gonna behave yourself?"
"Yes"
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, sir"
"Look at me"
"Yes, sir"
"That's better That is how the world works That is how the world works I hope you learned your lesson"
"I did and it hurt That's how it works"
NOOOOOOO!!!
Drags sock puppet into a pocket like some introvert getting dragged into socializing in bars by extroverts.
"So do you understand know?" I asked poppy.
"That everything is made under the blood of billions, and we shouldn't make their deaths be in vein?" Poppy said.
"Correct. And we shouldn't let outsiders make our choices for us. We should kick them out." I said like some isolationist American during the 1920's.
"Ironic isn't it smith. The c.i.a used to be anti socialist but look how the circumstances turned the American government into. A social democracy/merit based democracy where politicians are based in merit rather than popularity. Politicians are insentivised to change the world than burn it down like some of the old presidents did. Ironic that america became something it hated. A weird mesh of meritocracy, democracy, republican, liberaterian, and market socialist ideals. Some sort ideological mesh made by idealogs"
"And it's working with it's remaining two Allies, and former enemies just to defeat a foreign threat. How poetically ironic isn't it? I mean the CIA used to go schizo mode when they hear communist, and socialist ideals or hearing the word russians, and chinese are plotting something. Now the country it help grew became the very thing it sought to destroy. Morbidly ironic isn't it?" Poppy said with a meloncholic under tone.
"Yeah. Specially the stuff we do now." I said agreeing to the statement.
"But that's how the world works. Everything must change. Either you adapt or die." I said with a meloncholic under tone.
"So do you know where we are going?" I asked poppy.
I then puffed up my cigar. Sweet sweet nicotine.
"Back to america. In the space port in Austin Texas. I'm already done contacting the contact the handler gave to me. E.T.A 7 hours. Now let's go to the laostian military base 7 miles north from here. Our air america flight is waiting for us." Poppy said.
I sighed. "Come ride with me. I have a motorcycle a hundred meters from here."
We walked towards my motorcycle. I then puffed up my cigar smelling the nicotine.
So my life is about to change huh? Eh. I'm just gonna adapt. After all in this world it's either adapt or die.
Click, click, click
Motorcycle engine starts rumbling.
Poppy then held my waist. It's hands are cold as steel. Colder than even corpse. I sighed.
The highway was almost empty. Everyone was working a 10-8 job in one of the corporations that control laos. There was no land vehicles transporting goods because the aliens are using their tech to transport them underground. The road was almost abandoned except for the guys who have motorcycle hobbies. Anyways it doesn't matter. After all there's no traffic anymore.
The fresh breeze calmed my nerves. It made me feel alive. A motorcyclist drive by me and waved hello. I waved back at the motorcyclist. It's good to be on the road.
After a twenty minute drive we arrived at the military base. Another CIA agent greeted us, and escorted us to the flight.
"So you guys are the diplomatic bodyguards?" Asked the agent.
"Yup. That's what my handler told me." Poppy said.
"So your one of the newer a.i models eh. Ok. Just step right in. Plus the flight is rather boring. Just sleep while on flight to save energy." The agent told me.
I sighed. I threw away the cigar, and slept through the flight.
A few hours later...
I woke up arriving at Austin executive airport. Poppy just sat there watching me sleep like some sort of creep. It made me a little bit paranoid at the unflinching eyes that was watching me. But I ignored my instincts, and went outside.
After that I ate something for breakfast. A couple of pancakes, and chicken wings. Poppy looked at me with envy. I sighed.
"Can you eat? Do you need food to survive?" I asked.
"Well.... I need glucose to recharge my batteries. I can also use a charger but it would be suspicious. So the glucose to energy converter was made for special missions so that I wouldn't blow my cover."
Figured. Those guys in the CIA RnD team are making contengencies for every eventual event. I then ordered a plate of syrup covered pancakes.
Poppy looked at me smiling. I sighed.
An hour later...
We arrived at the space port. People walked around buying nicnacs, waiting for their flight, and just waited around for their family members that were coming back.
Another agent came up to me, and gave me two tickets.
"Here's the tickets. Also have this. You'll need it."
The agent then gave me some sort of high tech phone. Then out of knowhere something exploded.
I was knocked unconscious for a couple minutes. When I woke up I was getting dragged by poppy along with the agent that gave me the tickets. She shot back at incoming enemies using alien tech.
"Ugh..." As I said that I began coughing blood. I looked down I was bleeding. My left leg was missing. It was slowly bleeding due to a tourniquet, bandages, and some sealing foam. It was still bleeding but isn't bleeding as badly as to kill me in just a couple seconds.
Gunshots echoed in the space port. Agents shot back at the alien attackers. A fierce firefight began. Bright lights like something akin to RGB lights but in a epileptic way we're seen down the isles as screams of both alien, CIA, fbi, and fully kitted out port guards were slaughtered one by one.
Poppy dragged me, and the other agent to a bathroom. "Sit rep." I asked poppy.
"It seems to be a terrorist attack. I don't know why but they looked like alien mercenaries. The question is that did the consortium hired them to kill our diplomat. Good thing the diplomat hasn't arrived. I checked the agency message boards, and they said that good thing the diplomat was sick after getting food poisoning this morning. They are already talking about it. Some of them are even suggesting that the consortium did this attack." Poppy said.
"So the diplomat got lucky. But why the fuck would they attack our diplomat to the syndicate? I mean it's counter productive. We don't need their goods or services considering the people here would rather choose human companies rather than alien shady companies. I guess they must've know about our deals with them, and decided to start a shadow war. A war in the shadows. The companies of the consortium vs the remaining independent government's. Who ever wins controls all the resources in the world." I told poppy.
She nodded. "Good guess but no one really knows. It's so sudden. We need more info before we act against them."
"I'll patch you up in the meantime. I hurried the medical assistance I gave you a couple minutes ago. I was hurrying because this guy is saying we need to leave after he suffered minor bruises. You blunted most of the damaged for him because you were in front of the explosion. He was saved because you were blocking him from getting hit by shrapnel. I cut you're leg off. Sorry. It can't be saved considering it was barely hanging on the leg. Plus I was running out of time so I had to cut it before you bled out."
I sighed. "Okay. Just get my hk UmP 45 inside my arm. It's in second the compartment a secret compartment. In the upper arm. I have a few mags of it inside the compartment. Here's a screw driver to remove the lid."
I then gave poppy a screw driver hidden in my pants, and saw her unscrew the lid off. A ump 45, and fully loaded 4 mags came out dropping loudly on the floor.
"Now carry me to the danger. I would rather die than suffer for years being reminded of the sad reality that I lost an arm, and a leg every time I wake up." I morbidly joked to poppy.
"Are you sure? You're injured! Are you fucking suicidal?" Poppy, and the agent said.
"Did I stutter?"
The two of them sighed.
Poppy then carried me in her back, and the other agent used poppy as meat shields. The agent held a Barretta 93r. A burst fire weapon.
"Ready?" I said.
"Ugh. You're lucky I accepted your request dumbass."
"Yes."
I was being piggy back carried by poppy while the agent followed us.
"Tango 15 meters to the left." Poppy said.
I then activated burst fire, and shot at the direction given. When I saw an enemy I aimed for the center mass. But I instead hit the thorax killing the alien instantly.
"Kill confirms. Enemy is k.i.a."
"Tango 20 meters ahead."
I then aimed straight forward, and saw a bolt of light strike near me. It was close enough to feel the heat of the round. I shot back, and killed the alien instantly by hitting the alien in the lungs, and heart.
"Enemy is k.i.a"
Then I heard a three round burst coming from a Barretta. I looked back, and saw the agent kill an incoming enemy.
"Thanks. So what's your name?" I asked.
"Oh I haven't properly instroduced myself. My name is agent Carter." The agent/Carter said.
"Thanks Carter. My name is agent smith."
"No problem agent smith. We CIA agents got each other's backs. We must stick together."
"Guys tangos incoming coming from the left. ETA 20 seconds."
We then aimed our Guns, and waited for the enemy to arrive. When they eventually arrived we moved them down with burst fire. After that a couple national guard guys came up to us. They were probably chasing those aliens.
"Thanks." One of the national guards said.
"No problem"
We continued, and after two minutes of walking we walked into a firefight. I smiled.
"You know what to do." I said smiling.
"Third party them?"
"Yup."
I then turned on full auto, and began to spray, and pray.
After a few seconds of pulling the trigger my gun ran out of bullets. Carter also ran out of bullets in his magazine, and reloaded. 3 confirmed kills, and multiple missed or slightly injured.
Oh crap. Then a bolt of light past near me. Enough to the point my right cheek got minor burns.
"Duck!"
I then began to be dragged by poppy into cover. Carter also looked for cover, and dived into the nearest cover. I quickly reloaded the mag, and started shooting at the aliens again. I changed the selector back to burst fire to conserve ammo.
I aimed center mass at the enemies. A loud burst of .45 ACP rounds was heard as an enemy was hit in the thorax.
"Kill confirmed."
I continued, and shot enemies in either the arms, legs, the thorax, or the chest.
After three minutes the firefight ended.
"Other sectors secured. All area's are currently in our control. Over 700 people died, 1720 were injured, and some were missing. Military and government casualties are 124 KIA'd, 24 severely injured, 57 mildly injured, and 38 MIA'd." Poppy said smiling.
Then paramedics rushed into the scene. People were rushed into nearby hospitals while I was dragged by a undercover CIA paramedic to a government safe house along with poppy, and Carter.
A week later…
I was standing in the military cemetery in Arlington national cemetery. Where soldiers who died without any identifications are buried. I saw burials around me. Soldiers who died without any family members, soldiers disowned by family, and other such things. But hey it's just the life of a soldier. That's what I know at least. From ranger grunt to c.i.a grunt. I was disowned by my parents who were conservatives, and highly religious because I was going to sacrifice my place in heaven to save some heathens from the middle east. I never regretted my actions. I saved lives, and ended some. No guts no glory after all.
Some of the people getting buried got medal of honors. Saving comrades in need of dire help in exchange for their lives, soldiers who rescued civilians in exchange for their own lives, and soldiers who honorably fought on to save others even faced with hard decisions.
I saluted the unknown soldiers for their bravery, and honor. In the background poppy, and Carter were talking. But that wasn't important. Bagpipes, trumpets, and drums play as the unknown soldiers get burried with their medals. The grave sentinels saluted while burying the dead. Gunshots in the honor of the dead was heard as the unknown soldiers got buried while being watched by the people who those soldiers saved.
After that I returned to head quarters with a prosthetic leg, and talked to my handler. Poppy, and Carter went back to the safehouse just to talk.
"Oh hi smith." My handler captain david said.
"Hi David."
"Here's another purple heart medal, and a bronze star medal." David then tossed the medals towards me.
"That's your what? 22nd and 23rd medal? Bravo congrats smith."
"I'm gonna ask you sometime David."
"Ask away smith."
"When will i get sent as a diplomatic bodyguard?"
"About three weeks from now. Also agent Carter is gonna be one of your partners for the mission."
I sighed. Figured.
"So who was behind the terror attack David?"
"Honestly. The CIA search the crime scene, and saw that the consortium blatantly did that. The mercenaries worked under one of the companies in the consortium. But for the public it's gonna be announced tonight that a rogue consortium PMC did that so we wouldn't provoke them too much."
"It's gonna be a long day smith."
"Yeah David."
Then David gave me a cigar.
"Wanna smoke?"
I nodded.
To be continued…

I had never fallen in love before; the idea disgusted me. But when I first saw her, I found out that mythical butterflies do, in fact, flutter in one’s belly. I always thought that our society just had an unhealthy relationship with soda pop, but there they were.
She was beautiful! She wasn’t the cookie-cutter beauty that your fashion magazine manufactures; her eyes twinkled naturally like store-bought moissanite. Her bushy, deep dark eyebrows looked like they'd been shampooed with brand-name self-care products. It wasn’t just her pink glazed donut lips or her flowy dark hair that stole my heart; it was her essence. She glowed like those aftermarket LED headlights on my nightly drive back home. And those eyes… those dreamy eyes!
I started cleaning on Friday afternoon as soon as I got home from work. Charlene, my desk mate, had misplaced my favorite pen and became gradually paler as she silently watched me erupt into a volcano without having to pay a subscription fee. It was given to me by my late father, a stickler for rules who failed his “how to show empathy” class up until the very last second of his miserable life. He stared hauntingly into my eyes as he drew his last breath. Her eyes were different; they smiled when she did and rolled when we bantered that one time I cornered her in our local convenience store. She was buying tampons, and I snuck behind and whispered, “bloody murder!” She was startled at first, jumped even, but her face softened as her glassy green eyes laid on me. I felt those damn butterflies again, practicing rain dancing as my heart exploded in my chest. She joked around that she was getting them as earplugs to drown out her noisy neighbor. I told her a shovel would work just as well. It was courting at its finest.
I woke up early on Saturday with the morning light and gingerly started cleaning the kitchen floor. Armed with my favorite dirty cleaning rag, I got down on my knees and found every nook and every cranny. My momma called me on her new iPhone to remind me about my aunt Vicky’s birthday later that day. She was upset that I wasn’t coming. I told her that I had plans with a mortician and whether I should put in a good word for her, but she didn’t find that funny one bit, so she lashed out like I knew she would. Her yell pierced through the phone like a messy SWAT raid, and after that, I heard as much as I cared to listen. She said something about how I always find a way to disappoint her. She reminded me of how that mouth of mine caused me to lose my previous job. Somehow it always comes back to money with her, and it used to make me cry, but this is her insecurity — not mine. Ever since I could remember, she was always keeping face around her more successful older sister who married into wealth. She dragged me to beauty pageants as early as five, and then to modeling castings after that, but I guess I was not good enough to be her golden egg.
The second time I officially met her was in the barely maintained suicidal elevator of our building complex. The maintenance date on the sticker had long expired, and every time those doors closed, it truly was a gamble of whether my laziness was worth the odds of me falling to my death in there. She had forgotten about me and our mesmerizing tampon talk at the nearby store, but I took no time to remind her of our lovely first encounter. “Ah!” she said, like a cliched mad scientist who had just solved aging, pointing an accusatory finger to the heavens. I asked her if she "took care" of her neighbor and extended her a wink. She pouted her juicy lips and started thinking for a bit while I mind surfed down her long, thick dark hair. Then suddenly, I saw excitement and joy building up inside of her and exploding out her bright, hypnotizing eyes. She tried to contain it and with a muffled chuckle, she said, "I won't say a thing, but don't you go looking in the rubbish downstairs!" Somehow, the conversation turned to famous serial killers and crime shows, so I did the thing and asked her to watch some series together sometimes.
The first time we did was last Saturday. I out-thrifted my local thrift stores and was fashionably late. She greeted me in sweatpants that failed to conceal the contour of her hips, and she coughed quite a bit before telling me that I smelled nice. I raided my momma's vanity earlier that day for brand-name perfumes and accessories. She always has the latest stuff. I told myself that I wouldn't overdo it, but I overdid it. She took a good look at me as I was heading out, fixed my hair, and asked, "Who's the lucky man?"
My gorgeous neighbor lived in apartment 31B, the one with the off-red door, and it was disgustingly perfect. I thought that since we lived in the same building complex, her place wouldn't be so different from mine, but it was. I don't think it was even the layout that made it better. It was the furniture arrangement, the attention to detail as if she had her masters in color theory. It was her. She gave me the tour, and I was amazed at how every room looked like someone's pinned Pinterest board. The whole place looked staged for viewing, but the way she flowed through her space made me realize that this was her norm. It was so clean that I started to wonder if she did kill her now eerily quiet neighbor. It wasn't until we sat down on the couch together, and she wrapped us in her silky vanilla blanket, that my anxiety flew away. But those damn butterflies persisted. I sat beside her, far enough to be cold but close enough to fill my fantasies and ask myself what this was. It came as no surprise, then, that we had an awkward goodbye when it was all over, and I stood at her door not knowing what to say or do. She held onto the door and said, "Next Saturday then?"
By the time Saturday evening arrived, it had been hours of me mindlessly cleaning and endlessly rearranging my furnitures around. The same anxiety that I felt at her place came back raging, and no amount of YouTube or Pinterest made me feel any better. But then, there came a knocking at the door. I wasn't expecting her this early, so naturally, I freaked out like a bomb had gone off in my head, and I started running all over the place, getting dressed like a chicken with its head cut off. I smeared perfume all over my body and opened the door with unrepentant puffy messy hair. It was momma. She looked fancy. She was rocking this beautiful light blue cocktail dress with cape sleeves. It screamed, "I overpaid for this dress”, and I wanted to puke—I loved it!' She gave me this 'check me out' look before she pranced in without any invitation. She saw how tired I looked and asked me if I ate anything, but she must have noticed the change in my apartment and didn't bother to let me answer. There was this glimmer in her eyes when she asked, 'Well, well, you smell nice! Who's coming over?'"
I swear I'm better than this, but in that moment of pure exhaustion, I just let my guard down and told her the truth—that I was having a girlfriend over to watch a show. I knew instantly that I'd messed up as soon as the words left my mouth. Her eyes blinked at a thousand miles per hour, like she was looking for the least hurtful way to explode, but there's nothing kind about her outbursts. She yelled, "You're missing out on your aunt's birthday to watch a show with a friend??" I watched her face get redder with anger and felt tears at the ready, edging the corner of my puffy eyes, and I felt the kind of muffled anger that a 30-year-old adult woman would have to explain to her mother what adult choices made her happy, but I couldn't say anything. No matter how angry I was, I couldn't tell her to just let me be. I let out a weak but defiant "Yeah?" And she unleashed on me about just how much she was disappointed in me. She slammed me about how little I cared for my family, so I yelled back at her, saying that I didn't care about a who's who party where we must rent out a fancy dress to be welcomed. "I bought this damn dress!" she yelled in pure anger, oblivious to the point that I was making. I retorted that she was doing a good job hiding the price tag to return it later then, and that's when the palm of her hand found my face. I stumbled onto the ground, and in an attempt to regain balance, I held onto the big standing mirror behind me and dragged it to the floor with me.
I sat on the floor and finally justified crying; a bit of blood painted my right hand. Her left hand covering her mouth, she fumbled a reactionary apology and made her way to the door avoiding the pieces of glass on the floor. She stumbled out in tears just as my green-eyed neighbor was about to knock. She looked back at my fleeing mother in shock and ran to the kitchen to get me a wet paper towel. When she finally joined me on the floor, my face had turned red, but my tears had dried. It was then that I saw this piece of broken mirror shattered perfectly in half, but not separated. You could see the crack going all the way down.
The reflection was of both of us, each of us on different sides of the crack. She was perfect. I would have written a sonnet from the cadence of her hips. I would have written a haiku on her lips, but we were from different worlds, and I was tired of expectations. I was tired of having to validate what my happiness should look like.
So, I reached in.

Gosling would help him with his shows, and then watch his uncle turn into someone else when he performed, someone different and more full of life.
Gosling says this uncle also bolstered his act with talent shows, people drawn from the local community, and "everyone had this secret talent. You'd see the guy that bags groceries at the A&P, and he has some version of 'Black Velvet' that'll bring the house down, you know? And then you realize that that’s really him and the performance is the guy he's playing who packs bags at the A&P."
If you are a certain age, you will well remember the frenzy in the early part of the past decade around Gosling, and particularly Gosling's appearance
...which was the subject of endless Tumblr posts and thirsty bar conversations. "I think it embarrasses him in some ways," [Emily] Blunt says, about the public perception of Gosling as some sort of cross between the perfect boyfriend and the coolest man around, "because it’s not what he feels."
"I got the sense it wasn't really what he felt about himself."
Earlier in his career, Gosling used to talk about being raised by a single mother who was attractive, and how frightening he found the predatory energy that came from the men they'd encounter, how uneasy he was made by the way people related to her. ... Gosling says now, flatly, that he never made the connection between his mother and himself and the attention his own appearance began to garner as he became famous.
And he did his best to depersonalize the attention he was getting.
But the whole experience, Gosling admits, was "confusing."
These days Gosling lives in a quiet town in the southern half of California.
Because he brings his family to the location of each movie he shoots, he aims to do only one or so per year. Most of the time, he says, he's simply at home. Relatives come around, Gosling says, but he and [Eva] Mendes don't have a nanny; whatever they do, they do it themselves. Gosling is frankly romantic about his life with his daughters and Mendes. He says things were one way, then they were another. "I was looking for her, you know?"

Were you conscious of that?

"No. But it all makes sense now."
He says as a parent, whenever he doesn’t know what to do, which happens from time to time, "I just lean on Eva."
"She knows what's important, always."
"She just somehow knows. So if ever I’m in my head about it, I just ask her."
Gosling and I depart the train, talking about nothing in particular:
...childhood, Starter jackets, the way that playing cool can skew into a fear of playing at all. "Like, you thought you were winning by not trying," he says. "Or at least showing that you weren't trying. But it kind of backfires a little later, when you start actually not trying in order to win."
And I'm nodding at the profundity of what Gosling is saying, and he keeps going: "And then you realize that that's actually what losing is. Is just not trying."
And I say yes!
And he says, because he knows he has me now, "And all you had to do was watch Rocky to realize that just trying is winning."
"I'm having a little train regret," Gosling says, a few weeks later. "I think just the nostalgic nature of it and the hypnotic rocking motion got me musing and self-mythologizing more than I intended to."
"When you asked me about Eva and kids," Gosling says, "I think I said, I didn't think about kids until she told me she was pregnant. That's not really true. I didn't want to overshare, but now I also don't want to misrepresent. I mean, it's true that I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her,
"...but after I met Eva, I realized that I just didn't want to have kids without her."
"And there were moments on The Place Beyond the Pines where we were pretending to be a family, and I didn't really want it to be pretend anymore. I realized that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have."
Ryan Gosling subscribes to what he calls an escape-room style of being an actor.
This is a little theoretical, because he's never actually been to an escape room, and he’s not totally sure what happens inside of them. "Maybe I should do one," he says, "to see if this really works."
But the general idea is: You're thrown into a particular set of circumstances and you've got to find your way out.
Maybe you show up on set one day and it's raining when it's not supposed to be raining, Gosling says, "or this person doesn't want to say any of that dialogue, or the neighbor’s got a leaf blower and they’re not turning it off." What do you do next?
Over time, Gosling has discovered that this approach might apply to more than just acting.
Maybe, for instance, you're a kid growing up in a town you don't want to be in and you’re trying to locate an exit. Maybe you're looking for something you can't put into words and you make movies to try to pin down whatever it is you're looking for. Maybe you're a person who never envisioned raising a family and then you meet the person who changes, in some radical way, how you see yourself and your future.
Life comes at you, in all its unanticipated and startling particulars; the thing that makes you an artist is the way you respond.
-Zach Baron, excerpted and adapted from The Return of Ryan Gosling

Strap in. It's a long one, and may be a bit NSFW. I'll start with the background, could be important. We've been together 17 years, and obviously there have been highs and lows. We're both bisexual but I don't think that really has any bearing on the situation. Up until about four or five years ago, I had a somewhat insatiable sex drive. To the point where it started to feel like I might have a condition or an addiction. Often it would feel to me like I was pestering her for sex. At the time she was working long shifts in nursing, I can understand that she would be tired and maybe not interested in sex. Eventually (like I said, four or five years ago) I managed to control my urges and started initiating sex a lot less. Things got good, we were intimate when we both felt like it, and the sex was good. She got a new job in IT, working from home when the covid thing happened. And her sex drive suddenly went through the roof. A complete 180, now it sometimes felt like she was pestering me. I struggled to keep up honestly and it showed. She told me it felt like I was just "going through the motions". I got a new job after the whole covid thing, now I was (still am) doing 12-14 hour shifts daily, coming home absolutely shattered. Add to this that I've put on a fair bit of weight, and the guys at work like to joke about that kind of thing, with not being able to satisfy my fiancée in the bedroom, it's safe to say I feel like I'm at my lowest point mentally. I have never felt this depressed. Things came to a head in April this year, around the time of our anniversary. We booked a week away in a nice little cabin. There was a hot tub, it was secluded. She packed a few toys and nice lingerie she had bought especially for the occasion. But on the first day I struggled to bring her to climax, not a thing that happens a lot, but has happened more than I would like recently. We had a chat and I confessed that the stress of work and how I don't feel great about myself right now has kind of killed my sex drive. She said she understood but I could tell she was upset. Understandable. We enjoyed the holiday overall and we were intimate a few times, one of which was the best we'd had in a long while. Now, we had discussed a few times in the past the possibility of introducing another person in the bedroom. And even the possibility of seperate "playmates". While on the holiday, I suggested it again. She laughed and said she wouldn't want to, as she thought it might make things worse for me in my current mental state. One reason we discussed seperate "playmates" is because there are fetishes that we don't share. To the point where she expressed interest in something in particular that turned me off so much I flat out said "go and find someone else to do that for you" So. About a week after our holiday she came to me and said she had indeed found someone to indulge in her fetish with. Now I must preface that this fetish does not involve penetrative sex. We had a discussion and set some boundaries. Those boundaries being no penetrative or oral sex. Anything else is on the table, go and have fun. She told me who this other person was, and it's a male friend she has told me about before. They met on a discord server for people with "deviant" sexual tastes (I think. I'm not entirely sure of the actual purpose of the server, it started when another server (one that revolved around sharing NSFW/risqué pics of goblins, that I was also a member of) kind of went to shit). Now I need to make it clear that I'm not some kind of prude. I have my own deviant tastes, just some things aren't to my taste. This friend she had met up with once before. She told me it was for drinks and there were other people there. She also went on to tell me that he was a shy type that had no real friends and was lonely. She hung out with this guy one on one a few times afterwards and told me that she felt sorry for him because he was lonely and had no friends. When we discussed her meeting up with this guy to indulge in her fetish, she added that he was not her type and that she wasn't even sexually attracted to him. On the day she was going to meet up, she left very early, a lot earlier than I had assumed she would. But it is like a 3 hour bus journey, so I thought nothing of it. The whole day I worried. We had agreed that she would share her location with me in case anything happened. But she shared it for an hour and then nothing the rest of the day. At about midnight, she messaged me saying she had missed her bus and could I come pick her up from the station in that town. Of course I agreed. When I picked her up I asked her how it was, and would she be doing it again. She said it was "alright" and might do it again. She also mentioned that she had tried to give the guy a "happy ending" but that he couldn't keep his erection. I don't know why she felt the need to tell me that but thought nothing of it at the time. I will say that after that day, I don't know if it's jealousy or some kind of fetish I didn't know I had, but my sex drive has started to improve. This is important for later I think. About a week later she told me she would be going to hang out with him again, but just to hang out. The next morning I went to work, and found that I had gone in too early as they had put me on a later shift and I failed to check the rota board. So I went back home. Bearing in mind this was between 7 and 8am. When I got home my fiancée was nowhere to be seen. I admittedly panicked a little. Something snapped in me and I tried to call her. She didn't answer 3 times. Then she called me back about 15 minutes later saying she was on her way to her friend's place and that he had messaged her the night before and asked her to hang out, and that she could work from his house. I noticed that it sounded like she was indoors, not on a bus or train. It was like she was in a hall that echoed. I went on with my day, but couldn't stop thinking about her and what she was doing. She was out until midnight again and I really started to worry then. I actually broke down crying. Shamefully, I also tried to access her computer to look at her discord conversations with her friend. I found that the pin she usually uses does not work on he pc and her discord password no longer works on our shared tablet. When she got home she apologised for not telling me. I told her her how it made me feel and that I had tried to get into her discord account and she said she hadn't changed her passwords then she apologised again and said if I wanted she would stop hanging out with him. Of course I said that wasn't necessary and I was just being silly, but she does need to tell me when she's going and how long she's going to be. The latest thing, the one that has cemented my thoughts that she's not sticking to those boundaries we set happened last Friday. She said on the Tuesday that she was gonna meet her friend on Friday for "a meal and drinks" to celebrate her birthday which was on the Sunday. Now I assumed that a meal and drinks would mean an evening thing, right? On the Thursday night she showered and did her hair. Putting in a LOT of effort. She's quite meticulous with her appearance, but this just struck me as a lot. Then on the Friday morning, I left for work. She messaged me at 10:30 letting me know she was on her way. I asked why so early and she brushed it off saying its a 3 hour bus ride. So I thought okay, maybe she plans to come home earlier. When I get home I find a few things out of place that concern me. The first is that in the shower, there is her douche. It's normally kept in the cupboard and she only ever uses it when she plans on doing some "butt stuff" (this also includes what she did with her friend, that I admit I've been considering trying in an attempt to remove him from the equation). The second thing was that the draw of my end table next to the bed was open. I normally keep condoms and lube and some toys in this draw. There is one particular lube we have exclusively for butt stuff. That bottle was not in the draw. I lost my cool. I got very angry and punched a wall. I may have damaged my hand. I left it and stewed in my own bile for a few hours. Then at about 10 I messaged her and asked about the douche and lube. After an uncharacteristic pause (with the "typing" bubble appearing and disappearing a few times) She brushed it off, has no idea where the lube is and douched because she was worried about a smell down there due to her period. At half past midnight she still hadn't texted me to tell me she was on her way home. Cue another bout of anger and more tears. I messaged her asking if she was coming home. After another uncharacteristic pause, She said she was on her way and would be 40 minutes, but would get an uber from the station. Now I know for sure she would have missed her last bus and it takes about 40 minutes to drive from her friend's town, so I instantly thought she was lying. I waited outside to see if she had in fact got an uber. As far as I can tell she did. But maybe from her friends place instead of the station. We had another long discussion and she reiterated that she didn't know where the lube was and that she wasn't having any kind of sex with her friend. I told her I thought she made a lot of effort for just a meal and drinks and she just said I was being ridiculous and it's the normal amount of effort she would make. She offered to show me the contents of her bag so I could see she didn't have the lube with her. I gave up and said that wouldn't be necessary, my insecurities were just making me paranoid. I even told her exactly what I thought was going on. Basically accused her of cheating. The whole time she didn't get angry or even look upset in the slightest. I asked her about it and she just said she understands how it looks and she's not angry or upset. We celebrated her birthday over the weekend, we didn't have sex, which is a little unusual, but considering what happened on Friday, I can understand. On Wednesday however I was tidying up before going to work, and I accidentally knocked her bag off of the sofa. The contents spilled out and as I was picking them up I found the missing bottle of lube. Now this was a new bottle when I last saw it, still had the plastic seal over the lid, we hadn't used it yet. But when it fell out of her bag and I picked it up, there was no seal. I tried to forget it and go to work. Maybe she put it there when we went out the weekend before? But unfortunately on the way to work I started to panic. I couldn't focus on anything but that bottle and I started shaking and my chest felt tight. So I told my boss I had to go home. When my fiancée woke up I confronted her with the bottle. She said she had no idea it was in her bag. She even said why would she tell me to look for it if she knew it was there and was trying to hide it. I broke down. I ugly cried, huddled in a blanket, shaking. I pleaded with her to tell me the truth. And the whole time she remained calm, I even thought emotionless. She's normally a very empathetic person, doesn't like to see people cry, and has said on multiple occasions that men crying really gets to her and makes her upset. At this point I can't help thinking something is definitely going on. But I can't get any proof. I don't want to push it with her, I don't want to ask her to show me her discord conversations. I just want to forget the whole thing. I love this woman, and she says she loves me too. I wish I could just go on like nothing has happened. But whenever I get a moment to myself I have thoughts that she's going to leave me. She's just waiting for something. I don't know what. Both of our birthdays are within two weeks and I'm worried that after mine, this coming Tuesday, she's going to drop this huge bomb.
Sorry for the long post, any help on how to put it out of my mind would be great. TLDR is in the title.

Have a question about The Masters ticket lottery. Perhaps you guys can shed some light on it. I have applied for years. I have never won nor do I know anyone that has won. Before I apply again this year I was hoping someone could help me understand some details on how it works.
The way I see it, if I win the right to buy tickets for the all seven tournament days including practice rounds, I’ll find a place to stay, start driving the month before just incase my car breaks down multiple times and work will need to understand that I will not be reachable. That said, I have always applied for all seven days hoping to get something, assuming they will fulfill partials should some days not be available. But today it dawned on me…do they fulfill partials? In other words if you request tickets for every day, and your name gets pulled, if there are no tickets left for the tournament rounds will they still offer the practice rounds to you?

Hello, my name is Racer (she/they) and I am looking for a roleplay partner from any of the following fandoms: _____________________________________________________ Key Bold = These are my MAIN fandoms currently. ★ = Unless you are in NO other fandoms on this list, do not bother trying to ask about it. It's a 50/50 on whether or not I will accept a roleplay in this fandom. ★★ = I'm willing to roleplay this, but I don't really have a lot of confidence in my ability to do so. I may get bored extremely quickly or I haven't been in the fandom for a while. ★★★ = I will roleplay this with you, just expect slower responses occasionally. I don't know how motivated I will be with it I Am Not Okay With This (Netflix series) - ★★★★★ IT (2017) - ★★★★★ IT (Chapter 2) - ★★★★ It's Kind of a Funny Story (book) - ★ Merlin (series) - ★★★ My Hero Academia - ★★ Newsies (1992) - ★★★★ Newsies (Live!) - ★★ Over the Garden Wall - ★★★★ Panic (2021) - ★★ Stranger Things - ★★★★★ The Black Phone (2022) - ★★★★★ Slaughterhouse Rulez - ★★★ Umbrella Academy (Netflix series) - ★★ West Side Story (1961) - ★ West Side Story (2021) - ★★ West Side Story (book) - ★ Your Turn to Die - ★★★ _____________________________________________________ Disclaimers : ✦ I am a 16 (turning 17 in exactly a week from posting this)
✦ I don't mind roleplaying with an adult, but I can't promise a decent amount of out of roleplay conversation. Discussing plot and stuff is fine, but I'm not gonna be checking up on how your day is going all the time :') I like making friends with my rp partners, but I know a lot of adults aren't very cool with a minor interacting out of rp, so I tend to avoid that.
✦ Don't be rude outside of rp to me please! I don't handle it very well lol- Although, if a character is canonically a jerk, please do play them as such.
✦ Try to keep canon characters as close to their canon personality as possible ! I know I will, unless you ask me to do otherwise ✦ I've been roleplaying for a little while now. Around four years lol
✦ I will only be willing to roleplay on Discord ✦I enjoy angsty roleplay plots for a lot of my fandoms. _____________________________________________________ Disclaimers about fandoms : ✦ Adventure Time - I watch this show randomly. Sometimes I feel extremely inspired by it, other times I do not. As of posting this, I am inspired by it. I should also note : I am NOT willing to roleplay a lot of angst with this fandom. This is a comfort show and I watched it a lot as a kid. I'd prefer to roleplay some sort of fluff, but only light angst if any at all. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Flame Princess, Finn the human, or Princess Bubblegum from this fandom. But please ask me about the other characters, I'm very flexible with who I'm willing to play from this fandom. ~ I have an (unfinished) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay canon x canon, but I'm also okay with oc x oc OR oc x canon. ✦ Be More Chill (book) - It has been AGES since I've read this. As a result, I'm not entirely sure how well I'd do with this. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Michael Mell or Christine Caligula. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x canon, but I am also okay with oc x oc OR canon x canon. ✦ Be More Chill (musical) - I'm very on and off with this fandom. I really do enjoy it, but it's not always my favorite thing. Responses are very 50/50, here. Either I'll be as immediate as possible or I will barely be responding :') ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Michael Mell, Rich Goranski, or Christine Caligula. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x canon, but I am also okay with oc x oc OR canon x canon. ✦ Dear Evan Hansen (book) - I would love to roleplay this. I don't know anybody who roleplays the book and it kinda sucks. If you roleplay with characters from the book, let me know please. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Connor Murphy, Miguel, or Jared Kleinman. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay canon x canon, but I am also okay with oc x oc OR canon x oc. ✦ Dear Evan Hansen (movie) - I did not enjoy the movie as much as the book or musical, but I feel like it would be wrong for me to offer the book and musical for this, but not the movie. I know the characters and stuff. Just please, if you know the musical or book, roleplay that with me instead of the book. If you don't, that's okay, I just don't know how frequent responses will be. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Connor Murphy or Zoe Murphy. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x oc, but I am also okay with oc x canon OR canon x canon. ✦ Dear Evan Hansen (musical) - This musical holds a special place in my heart. Although I don't enjoy it quite as much as I do the book, I'd still be happy to roleplay it. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Connor Murphy or Jared Kleinman. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x canon for this fandom, but I am also okay with canon x canon OR oc x canon. ✦ Doki Doki Literature Club - It has been a while since I've watched anything on this, OR played the game. I can't promise accuracy to the characters. I also can't promise extremely frequent responses. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Sayori or Natsuki. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x oc for this fandom, but I am also okay with oc x canon. Will be more selective with canon x canon. ✦ Dream SMP - For two years, this has been one of my main fandoms. Although I'm not very knowledgeable on the egg lore, I like to think that I know a significant amount about the rest of the lore. I already have a lot of roleplays for this fandom, so that's why it only has four stars. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Tommy, Ranboo, Sapnap, Punz, Purpled, Sam, Aimsey, or Niki. ~ I have a (well thought out) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay no ships for this fandom, but I am also okay with canon x canon, oc x oc, OR oc x canon. ✦ Gravity Falls - It has been a VERY long time since I've watched this show. Like Adventure time, it's a comfort show of mine. I would prefer if we didn't make it super angsty. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Mabel, Wendy, or Robbie. ~ I have an (unfinished) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x oc for this fandom, but I am also okay with canon x canon OR oc x canon. ✦ Heathers (1989) - I dunno lmfao. I'm not super into the fandom, but I'm not super opposed to rping it, either. There's not much to say, here. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Veronica or Heather McNamara. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x canon for this fandom, but I'm also okay with canon x canon OR oc x canon. ✦ Heathers (musical) - I'm decently into this fandom, but once again, not SUPER into it? I've got random periods of time where I'd love to roleplay this with all my heart, but at the same time, if I've gotta roleplay as Kurt and Ram doing their garbage acts one more time, I'm gonna lose it <3 ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Veronica, Heather McNamara, or Martha. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x canon for this fandom, but I'm also okay with canon x canon OR oc x canon. ✦ I Am Not Okay With This (Netflix series) - I have not been able to roleplay this fandom yet, but I really think that this could be fun :D I've watched the series like 12 times now and it's one of my absolute favorites. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Sydney or Stanley. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x canon for this fandom, but I'm also okay with oc x oc. Will be more selective with canon x canon. ✦ IT (2017) -PLEASE roleplay this with me. This is one of my favorite fandoms and I absolutely adore it. Seriously, some of the best roleplays I've ever had were from IT :') ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Bill, Beverly, Richie, Georgie or Stanley. ~ I have a (well thought out) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay canon x canon, but I'm also okay with oc x oc OR oc x canon. ✦ IT (Chapter 2) - I would also be happy to roleplay Chapter 2 :D I haven't watched this one nearly as much as I've watched Chapter 1, but I still have a decent amount of knowledge on it. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Bill, Beverly, Richie, or Stanley. ~ I have a (well thought out) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay canon x canon, but I'm also okay with oc x oc OR oc x canon. ✦ It's Kind of a Funny Story (book) - I haven't read the book that many times tbh. Maybe twice. I dunno, it's not my favorite fandom, but if someone's desperate to roleplay it, I'm here. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Craig, Race (yes, the Batman kid), or Nina. ~ I do NOT have an OC for this fandom, specifically. ~ I have no preference on canon x canon, oc x oc, or canon x oc. ✦ Merlin (series) - It has been a little over six months since I've watched the show. Although, I should say : I do not remember anything other than the characters general personalities. I have vague ideas of their relationships with other people, but I am not super knowledgeable on these people. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Arthur, Gwaine, Gwen, or Lancelot. ~ I have an (unfinished) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x canon, but I am also okay with oc x oc OR canon x canon. ✦ My Hero Academia - I have a lot of roleplays with this fandom already, but I've only watched the show up until season four. I haven't read more than six(?) of the manga for this. I haven't been in this fandom for a few years now and I'm not super confident in my ability to roleplay this. Still, I'm willing to try if you aren't in any of my other fandoms. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero, Mina, Todoroki, or Jiro. ~ I have a (well thought out) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x canon, but I am also okay with oc x oc. Will be more selective with canon x canon. ✦ Newsies (1992) - HI, HELLO- I LOVE THIS FANDOM WITH A HECKING PASSION. A lot of people only rp the Broadway version of this and it lowkey hurts my heart a little bit Newsies (Live!) - I have a lot of roleplays for this fandom :') gonna be really selective when I pick any more. I dunno, the responses may be slow for this one. But I will roleplay it if you really want me to lol ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Jack, Katherine, Racetrack, Albert, or Finch. ~ I have a (well thought out) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay canon x oc, but I am also okay with oc x oc OR canon x canon. ✦ Over the Garden Wall - Never in my life have I gotten to roleplay Over the Garden Wall. BUT IT SEEMS SO GOSH DARN COOL! ~ I have no preference for who I roleplay as. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I have no preference for what kind of ship we roleplay. ✦ Panic (2021) - I have only watched the show once. It was okay lol, but yeah. I dunno how knowledgeable I will be with this fandom :') ~ I have no preference for who I roleplay as. Maybe Dodge? I dunno. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I have no preference for what kind of ship we roleplay. ✦ Stranger Things - Ah yes, another one of my main fandoms. I have only watched the show once, but I really enjoyed it. I'm about half way through rewatching it, currently on episode three of season two. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Nancy, Steve, Robin, Dustin, Max, or Mike. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay canon x oc, but I am also okay with oc x oc. I'd also be okay with roleplaying canon x canon, if we can have a respectful conversation about ships. Please, guys. Just- if we don't agree on a ship, let's just move on, yeah? ✦ The Black Phone (2022) - PLEASE! Please roleplay this with me. I beg of you. This fandom has dragged me back in and I don't wanna leave. I have a few different plot ideas for it. But yeah :') please rp this with me. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Billy, Bruce, Gwen, Finney, or Donna. ~ I have a (well thought out) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay oc x canon, but I am also okay with oc x oc OR canon x canon. ✦ Slaughterhouse Rulez - Okay, I've watched this movie maybe three times. But it's a very cool :D ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Willoughby Blake. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay canon x canon, but I am also okay with oc x canon OR oc x oc. ✦ Umbrella Academy (Netflix series) - I really do enjoy this show, but I already have a lot of rps for this fandom. I'm losing inspiration to keep up with the fandom and try to keep the characters personalities consistent. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Five, Allison, or Viktor. ~ I have an (unfinished) OC for this fandom. ~ I'd prefer to roleplay no ships for this fandom, but I am also okay with oc x canon, canon x canon, OR oc x oc. ✦ West Side Story (1961) - Hhhh.. I would prefer to not roleplay this version. I mean- it's just not great. I try to make the characters reasonable, but it's just.. yeah. Please don't message me about this unless you aren't in any of my other fandoms. ~ I have no preference for who I roleplay as. ~ I have an (unfinished) OC for this fandom. ~ I have no preference with ships. ✦ West Side Story (2021) - Okay, this one is a little bit better. Not a lot, but a bit. I can try to reason with the characters actions a bit more, but honestly? Not many of these people are genuinely good (the actors for this are incredible, though). ~ I have no preference for who I roleplay as. ~ I have an (unfinished) OC for this fandom. ~ I have no preference with ships. ✦ West Side Story (book) - I prefer to not roleplay this version, either? I haven't read the book in a WHILE and I don't want to get any details painfully wrong. ~ I have no preference for who I roleplay as. ~ I have an (unfinished) OC for this fandom. ~ I have no preference with ships. ✦ Your Turn to Die (game) - Here we go. I do like this fandom, and I truly enjoy the characters. I am more than happy to roleplay this, even though I haven't played the game in a little bit. ~ I would prefer to roleplay as Joe, Gin, Kanna, Reko, or Alice. ~ I have an OC for this fandom. ~ I would prefer to roleplay canon x canon, but I am also okay with oc x canon OR oc x oc.

Hello Guardians,
Ever since the Stompees nerf, I've been on an exploratory journey of the soul trying to find other lesser-known Hunter exotics that may now have a time to shine in the sun!
Obviously we already know about some of the usual suspects like Wormhusk, Geminis or the dreaded Ahamkaras... But I was genuinely surprised to find out how effective the new Strand aspect, Threaded Specter is when paired with Bombadiers or Sixth Coyote.
Now, I know what you're thinking... Bombadiers?
Well, honestly at first, it started out as a meme. I thought it was just going to be a fun little build to share. But after I used it in Trials, I got a super easy solo flawless while simultaneously battling one of the worst hangovers of my life. I was playing at maybe 60% of my usual capacity and cruised pretty easily to the golden chest.
Anyway, you can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/rApk5RGho-4
Or if you prefer to read, I'll summarize everything below.
---

Aspects

Strand Hunter has three aspects, from which you can equip two:
- Ensnaring Slam;
- Widow’s Silk; and the newest Aspect added with Season of the Deep
- Threaded Spectre, which we’ll be focusing on today.
But to quickly recap, the Ensnaring Slam is the aerial slam movement that suspends your opponents and Widow’s Silk gives you two Grapple charges.
I’ve previously spoken in depth about using Ensnaring Slam and Widow’s silk in my last Hunter Strand video, focused on suspending but for today’s build, I want to focus on the newest aspect to the Strand kit: Threaded Spectre and pairing it with the usual movement tech you have from Widow’s Silk.
Threaded Spectre means that: Activating your class ability leaves behind a decoy woven from Strand that draws the attention of nearby enemies.After taking significant damage or when enemies approach, the decoy detonates, dealing damage and releasing Threadlings that seek out and attack nearby foes.
In other words, when you dodge, you leave behind in your place a dark green mannequin in the shape of a hunter.
Your Decoy will show up on the radar like a real enemy, it also shows a health bar and your name tag when an enemy hovers their crosshair over it, and it has roughly the same amount of HP as a typical Guardian.
And yes, people fall for this decoy ALL THE TIME. Until you have it used against you, you actually don’t realise how easy it is to get fooled by the decoy when you’re in the thick of combat.
Now, much like a land mine, if an enemy gets too close to the decoy - the decoy will explode and do approximately this much damage in the process. It will also spawn two threadlings that will kamikaze themselves into the enemy.
You or your teammates can also detonate a decoy just by shooting it, which will proc the explosion and also cause 2 threadlings to spawn and chase the enemy. So the decoy, in some ways, also doubles up as a remote-triggered threading grenade.
Now, to be clear, the decoy explosion and two threadlings will not insta-kill a full health Guardian but will leave them with very close to 1 HP. So even the slightest damage done before the decoy explosion or a little bit of chip damage done after, is more than enough to finish a Guardian.
And this, of course, is where The Bombardiers Exotic leg armour comes in.
—

Exotics

OK, anyway, if you didn’t already know, the most popular Hunter PVP exotic in D2 history was recently nerfed this season - and by that, of course I mean Stompees.
Previously, Stompees offered you a universal speed boost - sprint faster, slide longer, jump higher, without any activate trigger. It was always on. Now, Bungie have nerfed Stompees so that you only have those benefits IF you have an unused dodge charge.
Now as you can imagine, it doesn’t feel so good having a pair of exotic speed boots that become useless the second you use your class ability and this has led to many Hunter mains looking for worthy alternatives to the formerly mighty Stompees.
And for this particular build, I’m going to recommend several Exotic armour alternatives that I think you will enjoy very, very much.
Firstly, let’s talk about The Bombardiers.
Dodging leaves behind an explosive that detonates after a short delay, damaging targets around it and creating a secondary effect based on your subclass energy type.
But here’s the thing, the explosive parting gift that Bombardiers leaves behind when you dodge does about 120 damage over a 7.5m radius. That’s HUGE. And more than enough damage to finish off anyone that gets tagged by the decoy explosion and threading damage.
Not only that, the bomb also severs targets, so if they die, they also leave behind a tangle.
So the basic playloop when using bombardiers is, bait your opponent around a corner, dodge backwards and walk them into a Bombardiers explosive, strand decoy and 2 threadlings - resulting in an insta-kill. An insta-kill that’s literally available every 15 seconds or so.
It’s also great for shotgun apes, as you can dodge directly backwards as they push at you and kill them outright.
And before anyone asks - yes, this is more than just a “fun build”. It’s surprisingly and frighteningly effective. In fact, I actually used this build last weekend and went solo flawless in about an hour - while also battling possibly the single worst hangover of my life after a friend’s birthday party.
Alright now, an alternative exotic you can try is: Sixth Coyote. Sixth Coyote basically gives you two dodge charges, which means that you’re quite literally able to create two Strand Decoys back to back.
Lastly, you absolutely can’t go wrong with Frostees either, which massively increases the regeneration of all of your abilities, especially your class ability. Using Frostees will give you more decoys and additional sprint speed after you dodge.
Basically, while I’m very much against the Stompees nerf, what you’re going to see is that it opens up a massive trove of Hunter exotics that now are going to see use because Stompees is no longer anywhere as dominant. After all, the argument used to be why use anything else but Stompees but now you’re going to start seeing a lot of underrated Hunter exotics start entering the meta.
—

Class Ability

Alright, now before I go into the fragments you want to use for this build, let me start by giving you a quick tip:
Make sure that you use Marksman’s Dodge as your class ability. That’s because Marksman’s Dodge has a much shorter cooldown than Gamblers Dodge and we really want to maximise the amount of decoys that we’re able to create.
—

Fragments

As for the fragments, this is what I recommend using:
Thread of Ascent is mandatory. Thread of Ascent means activating your grenade ability reloads your equipped weapon and grants bonus airborne effectiveness and handling for a short duration, while also granting +10 mobility. This one is a no brainer.
Thread of Evolution is also mandatory and means that threadlings will travel farther and deal more damage. It also gives a nice +10 to intellect.
Now the last two fragments are actually kinda optional. But personally, I recommend using Thread of Finality and Thread of Binding just for the stat boosts to Recovery and Resilience, both of which are important in PvP.
—

Weapons

The Season of the Deep brought about a bunch of weapon nerfs and buffs, which I can very safely tell you have changed virtually nothing about the weapon meta.
Immortal is still the best gun in the game, although at least now thankfully you can get the “Immortal At Home” version by farming the new Dungeon instead of losing your will to live, farming Trials on weekend.
So here’s the thing. If you’re using the Bombadier’s build, you’ll be playing very close and aggressive. It’s actually an amazingly fun play style because you literally play like how you imagine a hunter would.
Moving rapidly in and out, baiting your opponents, and literally tricking them into falling for pre-made traps. It’s like you’re on the hunt, stalking your prey, and I really love the gameplay loop.
So if you’re going to be playing tight and close, I recommend close-range primaries and there’s not much better than the Immortal SMG right now or the alternative from the Dungeon called No Survivors. If you run either, you’re going to want to get a max-range rangefindetarget lock roll for maximum effectiveness.
Now as for the special weapon, I also recommend a good shotgun of your choice, be it a precision frame like Matador or an aggressive frame like Found Verdict.
But a slightly off the wall choice might actually be a wave frame grenade launcher. You can quite literally stand back a little bit and just wave frame the floor as your enemy rushes in - that way the chip damage from the GL + the spectre explosion and threading damage will be more than enough to secure the kill in case the bombardiers parting gift blows too early.
And I mean come on, we’ve all blown a bit too early at times right? Nothing to be ashamed of.
—
Alright Guardians, got a bit more info in the vid but this post is already too long, so I hope that helped and I'll see you all in the Crucible!
- MrArmageddon

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, or if my flairs are correct, please forgive me if it isnt.
Lately, I have realized that I have difficulty applying advice or correcting myself when doing something. I will give a few examples to show what I mean.
I've been trying to improve at a rhythm game that I play but I keep making the same mistake at the same point of the song every single time. It doesn't matter if I know the correct way, how many notes there, if I'm fast or slow. Everytime I reach that point I just keep screwing up the same way the past 100 attempts.
Similarly, I've been learning to ride a motorcycle, I can't get past a lesson, the instructor has told me what I'm doing wrong, given me advice, and even shown me how to do it while I was a passenger. Yet everytime I approach the area, I just make the same mistake, its almost as if I dont think when doing things.
Hopefully I made some sense with the examples, but maybe what I'm trying to know is, how can I improve myself, or what even to improve, I'm so lost. I'm more afraid that this will stick with me as I move on in life (university, work, literally anything important).