Last epoch lagon fight

I somehow forgot to post an update for April and when I realized my mistake, it was already almost the end of May, so I decided to lump the two together. These two months were mostly the months of Pathfinder. I spent whole April and most of the May playing Kingmaker and brainstorming my character for Wrath of the Righteous. I think my friends, who decided to play alongside me helped that a lot. And we even started talking about trying Pathfinder tabletop game just few hours ago, which I'll DM for. It's nice when videogames have this kind of effect on people. Other than that, I finished Hero's Hour and while I had fun with it as Heroes clone, it was lacking some depth that would hook me on it. I also played forgotten adventure A Vampyre Story, which I wish got a sequel. I finally finished Heidi: The Game. Took me like an hour in total. It was mindless 2D platformer and I still don't regret playing it. Then in May, I opened Itch.io and a small game called Fridge Floppers caught my attention. It was fun in-and-out action to complete during my break. I also finally got around to play Frog Detective 3 and it was magnificent ending to the whole trilogy. I played Five Dates, which is well-made interactive movie about dating in the time of corona. And I also played the Mafia: Definitive Edition, a remake of my childhood game. At the end of the month, I started playing Total War: Three Kingdoms. Last Total War game I played was Napoleon, so it has been a while. It's fun so far. On Switch, I made some progress in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, but I'm close to just dropping it. I'm not feeling it. On the other hand, I bought Fire Emblem: Engage and I'm having fun with it so far. I also played LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which is really boring and doesn't live up to the original LEGO games. I'm currently at Episode VIII, so I think I'll just quickly get past the story mode and end it there. So, let's talk about these games. This will be long update. And as always, beware of spoilers...
Hero's Hour
Well, this journey finally ended. I had to make it my secondary go-for game to break a gameplay stereotype a little bit, but I think I'm finally done with it.
I appreciate what the devs decided to do. A Heroes clone that combines stuff from 3rd and 4th entry sounds crazy, but it works. I felt like at home right from the start. The inspiration is sometimes way too obvious, for example there are structures with 1:1 design taken straight from Heroes. I don't mind it that much, I took it as a nod to the legendary series. I would say the inspiration helped me get "in" the game and understand some of the deeper mechanics faster.
The fractions in this game are a combination of Heroes 3 and 4 fractions mixed with something new. Each fraction had its own gimmick that made it unique. For example undead fraction could rise dead enemies, the barbarians could only level up their units by combat, sea fraction could dig up pearls and trade them for more units, lovecraftian fraction had powerful heroes, who could be on multiple places at once, but had to sacrifice some cultists to be able to recruit stronger units and so on... I've played about a half of maps with random fraction to try them all, but later rotated between 3-4 fractions based on my current mood. I think my favourites were undeads and seafolks.
Each fractions had multiple heroes, each one with unique skill tree. But some skills were shared by multiple characters. And with it comes one of my biggest gripes with the game. These skill trees are so unbalanced. There is OP skill that let's you fill a bar after each battle and when you fill it up, it will spawn a Red Dragon on your team. Red Dragon is one of the strongest units in the game. And that is not all. When level up, this skill also let's you upgrade Red Dragons into Black Dragons, who are even more broken than their Heroes 4 counterpart. And some characters can get this skill as early as level 2. Meaning that you can get extreme push in power within first few turns of the game and can completely steamroll your opponents. But it's not the only skill that is unbalanced. While heroes take active part in the battle, their damage is minimal and there are barely any skills that would make them better. Meaning that heroes' main purpose is to cast spells. And the problem is that some heroes only get spell skills at the top of their skill tree. While there are some good pasive skills, the ability to completely wreck your enemies with spells is just better. I mean there are spells that will basically take your opponent's units and make them yours. And once again, some characters can get these spells super early in the game or even start with them.
Which slowly brings me to battles. I had love-hate relationship with them throughout the whole game. Your units move and attack on their own and your only interaction with the battlefield are your heroes' spells. Well, you can also tell your units to retreat or move somewhere else, but it usually had no effect on the battle. So your only way to affect the battle stands on the ability of your hero to cast spells. And having enough mana to do so. As I said, some spells were crazy. There were multiple times, when I got in the battle with just my hero and small army of troops against huge army. And I won just because my hero could cast overpowered spells the whole time. Be it summoning spells or spells that make some of your opponent's unit instantly disappear or change the team or just good old meteorite rain. On the other hand, when my hero had no spells or couldn't cast them, I had to sit through multiple minutes of automatic battle, which got boring pretty fast, because each unit has one animation for movement and one for attack. Because the battlemaps were flat with nothing interesting on them, I also could strategize in any meaningful way. And it was the worst during battles I knew I'll win, just based on power and numbers of my units, but still had to sit through them. Also in most games, there was usually one huge clash with each opponent, after which my opponent could never get enough momentum again to be any threat.
Final point I would to gather my thoughts on are maps themselves. There is no campaign, only few skirmishes. Well, there are over 40 of them. Each map is randomly generated, but you always see the general skeleton the map will follow. It will show you if you and your enemies are connected by land or sea and if there are any neutral towns. But while each map was randomly generated, most of them felt the same. All of them was divided into same areas. Your starting area, where you could get the starting resources. This area was locked away from the neutral area and your opponents by either a guarded tunnel or guarded fortress. This made most of the maps look the same. I was also missing some better motivation than just "beat all of your enemies." I think a campaign would be fun.
Overall, it was unbalanced fun. It was nice watching my army completely wrecks my opponent. But I wish there was more to it. It felt a little bit shallow. 6.5/10.
A Vampyre Story
It's crazy and a little bit eerie, how many games, good games, get forgotten so quickly. Especially today, when we get hundreds upon hundreds of games daily. It's sad that there isn't enough time to play every interesting title. Or that some cool series never really sees an ending. It wouldn't happen to games I play, right? There is no way. I'm denying any possibility that this could happen to me.
Which is exactly what happened to A Vampyre Story. This P&C adventure game was planned as a whole trilogy. And they really wanted to make you want it. So you can imagine my surprise, when the game just suddenly ended with a cliffhanger. And when I wanted to get the closure the game owned me, I found out the sequel never came out. There is a prequel, but I want to know what happened to Mona! I need to know! It's my right to know! That makes me angry!
I just spent 4 hours getting to know all the characters. I wish I could do anything to experience at least a bit of what happens next. There is even a trailer for a sequel still available on YouTube. Maybe we could bargain a deal?
Is there even a point in playing games anymore? If all we get is uncertainty after enjoying a good game, isn't it depressing that there will never be a sequel?
Bur it's all gone, isn't it? I'll never meet A Vampyre Story's characters again. They will forever be locked in a cycle of escaping that cursed castle again and again. They will always end up on their way to a crazy scientist. Poor Mona. It's depressing.
But you know what? I had fun with it. I loved its art style and humour. I enjoyed exploring the castle and the town and solving the puzzles. I liked that you could use your bat companion as an item, which meant you could combine him with other items. In the end, nothing can take my enjoyment back. So, I think the only thing to do is to accept that this was one-off experience and move on.
Overall, I hope you enjoyed my [s]stages of grief[/s] review of A Vampyre Story. 8/10.
Heidi: The Game
It's strange. I got this game alongside my Game Boy Micro and bunch of other (and arguably better) games, but this one stayed in my mind and from time to time, I noticed I'm thinking about it. So it's only natural for me to pick it up again and play it.
It's a game based on a children book. I remember I read the book in primary school during classes. And I was lucky to be familiar with the story, because the game barely tell you anything about it. It don't even bother to be consistent. For example Heidi mentions Klara once out of nowhere at the end of the game, while completely ignoring her existence up until that point. Other characters are pretty much non-existing, only one of them has dialogue and that's only at the start of the game.
The gameplay is simple. It's 2D platformer, where you go from left to right. And about 70 % of the levels really felt like I was just holding a forward button and just beat the level by jumping at the right time to avoid pits and enemies. The rest had me sometimes going up or down and very rarely (in like 2 levels), I actually had to navigate through a complex layout. It's a game for small kids, I get it, but some levels could be finished in under a minute with minimal input.
Overall, for a game that lasted me for about an hour, it was fun and quick, but didn't really leave an impression. It would be cool flash game. Nothing more, nothing less. 6/10.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
"It takes 500 hours to complete, " that was an ad for a game I was a little bit interested in. Up until that moment. After I read this ad, I moved the game to the "probably will never play" category. "An epic adventure that will take you 100s of hours to finish, " says another ad for another game. But it fails to address that that game has enough content for about 20 hours and the rest is just a boring filler.
One view, when it comes to value of games is how long it is. And it's honestly something I can't really understand. Time spent in the game is weird variable to measure the value of the game with. For example, when I finally decided to play The Witcher 3 (as someone, who played previous entries on launch, I was turned down by the switch to more traditional open-world and the promise of 100s of hours of content), I spent over 100 hours in it on one playthrougth. But, and also because of this, I think it's mediocre game with great dialogues and cinematography. I experienced everything the game has to offer in about 20 hours. But the game never built up on that, so the final 80 hours of my gameplay were really bland and boring and felt like a filler for most parts. I really only kept up playing because the general consensus about it is that it's one of the best RPG of all time and I just didn't get to the good parts yet. Which is a lot weirder, since it isn't really a RPG, but that's probably a topic for another time. On the other hand, Smile For Me is a game I've finished in one sitting one evening. It knew exactly what it wants to do, executed it perfectly and ended right when it was suppose to. And it's a game I still fondly remember to this day. The art of ending the game at the right time is really hard to master and it doesn't always apply that longer games don't know when to end. For example, Divinity: Original Sin 2, that I've played last month is long game. But it's exactly as long as it needs to be. It barely has any filler in it and leaves me wanting more. On the other side, SUPERHOT is about 2 hours long, but even that is way too much and feels like a slog and just doesn't know when to end.
Which slowly gets me to Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Kingmaker puts you in a shoes of a (future) monarch. As you progress the game, you gain the ability to manage your kingdom. And with it comes the biggest problem. The game has awful pacing. It starts good. Kill a bandit king and claim good lands. You have few days to do it. But then, you quickly get another, more personal quest. And suddenly, you have to choose. Which one will your pursue first. Will you take out your competitor and risk that the only trail you have to the bandit king will go cold? It adds so much to the game and you question whatever you've done the right thing.
But as the game goes on and you get your kingdom, these choices slowly disappear and all you're left with is "you have X days to finish this quest," which the game sometimes doesn't even tell you and then will just say you failed the objective after some time. While this adds to the overall feeling of alive world, it also introduces few more problems.
But let's talk about the kingdom management for now. You get special quests that can be resolved by you or your advisors and take some time. You basically just click, who will solve which quest and then wait. Some of the quests will lock-in your character for few in-game days. Which means if you don't finish all your personal quests first, you risk failing them. It's really a weird design choice, especially since you still can use you companions normally, while they are solving a kingdom quest, just not your main character.
Then, there is the pacing issue. When you finish a chapter, you have some time to manage your kingdom and explore. Exploring is, like in many exploring-focused games, useful only at the start. After that, you'll encounter the same looking maps, same enemies and same loot. The loot was so weirdly distributed that I've used some weapons all the way from the first dungeon to the end of the game, because there just weren't better weapons of that kind for my characters. After a while, I didn't even bother with exploring everything, because what I got during the main game was enough. So, that's one part of the game that I don't really want to participate in during this time. The second is kingdom management. As I said before, there isn't really much substance to it too. You just click and wait. Sometimes, you don't have anything to click on. So you'll have to click "Skip a day" button. Yeah, there is a button that will skip one in-game day. That's just an atrocious idea. Instead of giving you any meaningful activities to spend your time in, the game let's you click one button until it allows you to continue. And it really is an issue. In one instance, I had to skip over 400 days until the game let me continue with the main story. For the final two chapters, I had to turn kingdom management on auto, because I would have to spend another in-game year clicking skipping button.
It's really a shame, because I think the story was fun. Not something world breaking, but nice little tabletop adventure. Same goes for characters, which I enjoyed quite a lot. I even managed to swap my party members a lot, not really having a set team of 6. I was afraid some of them will be annoying, like overly optimistic Linzi or her polar opposite Jaethal. But even them managed to convince me to like them. My favourites are Harrim, Valerie and Nok-Nok. Harrim had nice twist on the typical dwarf character, Nok-Nok was fun comedic relief and Valerie was one of the best Lawful Neutral character I've ever seen. The final dungeon forced me to shuffle the party one more time, so there was no time for stereotype to settle in. I've played as Wizard, an illusionist, and it worked fairly well. Illusionists are usually RP-heavy characters and doesn't work well in these linear environments, but I had fun with it. Especially illusions on higher levels were something I never tried before.
Which brings me to the pacing issue #2. The battle system. I hate the real-time-with-pause system of cRPGs. Who's idea was it? Who likes to watch two parties missing each other for 10 minutes, while they as player has 0 input in the game? It's not how battles in tabletop RPGs work. Luckily, I was able to switch to turn-based system and it was a little bit better, but I still encountered moment, where no hit would land for 10+ rounds. And especially by the end of the game, it was tiresome to fight low-level enemies in this mode, so I kept switching in and out of it. I'm the end, it was the best idea. I let the game solve easy fights for me, while I kept the harder fights and bossfights for myself. And it was great. I enjoyed most of the chapters and their respective bosses. The final bosses were a little bit predictable, but I don't think the game was aiming at some big shocking revelation, when it comes to them.
Overall, this game has a lot of good ideas and mechanics. But it will shove them down your throat to the point that you'll actively avoid them. When I turned down/ignored all side activities, I had a lot of fun with the game. Which is weird, but it's the result of your 25 hours long game taking 70 hours to finish. 8/10.
Fridge Floppers
Fridge Floppers is a 15 minutes physics-based game made in 48 hours. Which is impressive. The main goal is to move a fridge to a van, while controlling two movers carrying it. You can move them both at the same time or let one of them jump. But the fridge can't fall off.
There were about 5 levels of varying difficulty, just scratching the edge of all the possibilities. You barely get to experience the pain of climbing up and down a set of stairs before the game ends.
And there isn't really anything else to say. The art style is simple, yet nice and feels like a good fit for this game. The controls are easy to understand and hard(-ish) to master.
Overall, I wish there were more levels added to the game, because as I already said, I love the concept. 8/10.
Frog Detective 3
You might remember me excitingly talking about the previous two entries in this series. Ever since then, I was eagerly waiting for the final part of the trilogy. Only to completely miss the release. I only recently learned about it, while browsing Itch.io. I have no idea how could I miss it, but made sure to play it as soon as possible.
Frog Detective is the worthy finale of the series. It picks up exactly where the previous entry ended, but you're also served quick recap of previous games. The game plays exactly like the previous two games. You're let loose in a small area and have to solve a crime. This time, you're in Wild West-themed town and you're trying to find everyone's stolen hats. You're aided by Lobster Cop, who is supposedly #1 detective in this world. But is he really? The story is extremely silly and full of plot twists and surprises. I would never expect this game to surprise with its story.
The gameplay is simple and follows the same structure as the previous games. You talk with characters, find out what they need and what can they offer and then you start exchanging items with them until you get what you need. It's always clear what to do and especially after you talk with all characters, you're just following a linear path.
Overall, this is great way to end the series. I'll be looking forward next game from these devs. 9/10.
Mafia: Definitive Edition
While I've played the original Mafia (and its sequel) when I was younger, I never really joined in the cult that worship this game and its creator as second coming of christ. It was a great game, but the fanbase and its creator are a little bit crazy. And I think that's what turned me off the series for so long. I think the last time I've played Mafia was 10 years ago and it took me so long to get to this remake. Now, while I'm writing this, I know I had some kind of point to make in this paragraph, but I forgot what it was...
So, let's move on to the actual remake. I think it does a lot of things right. I like the re-imagining of the cutscenes, the added details and dialogues. The city looks amazing. It looks like it did in my imagination back in 2002. But it also introduced some not so great changes. It completely kills "Just for Relaxation" mission. It was one of the best mission in the original game, which let you tackle the problem your own way. It also made sense from narrative perspective and was grounded in reality like the rest of the game. Now, it's stupid boring forced linear stealth mission, that betrays Salieri's character and just makes everyone so unlikable and makes them act out of character. Plus, for some reason, there is still dialogue from the original that doesn't make sense in this new scenario. Luckily it's almost final mission of the game and it has no consequences on the rest of the missions.
The gameplay is pretty much the same as the original, only tweaked a little bit to match the modern standard. I like it. The original had more opened areas and let you handle missions your own way, but I didn't mind the more linear approach. It was annoying few times, because I was so used to completing certain mission certain way, but nothing to be mad about. Unlike the mission I talked above.
Overall, I think this remake is nice alternative to the original, but scratches completely different itches, so I don't think it's something to replace the original. 7.5/10.
Five Dates
Five Dates is interactive movie about dating during the time of corona.
And to be honest, there isn't really much to talk about. The gameplay is simple. You watch a movie and sometimes pick, where to take the story. There are 5 woman to date and each of them has really captivating personality and story. They didn't feel one-dimensional at all. I didn't expect it, but the game had great writing and was full of surprises. I decided to first tackle Saffron's storyline and when the credits started to roll, I was left with my mouth opened. I had to take few minutes to really grasp what just happened in the last few minutes. It was fun and it left me wanting more, so I returned and finish all storylines. The acting was enjoyable and I'll make sure to check more games from this studio. I've actually played their Late Shift back in 2017 and it's amazing how much they improved since then. I think it was from them.
And... that's pretty much it. It was cool short game, the acting was great, the dialogues, the characters and writing was fun, there was really big attention to details, despite each shot being just a character standing/sitting in front of webcam. 8/10.
For June, I'm playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I couldn't get enough of Kingmaker, despite it sometimes feeling really dragged out. But I know what settings to turn off or on to make the game more fun. The full version of HROT, Czech Boomer Shooter, was released, so I hope to get around to play it. And I hope to finish Total War: Three Kingdoms. And maybe make some progress with my Switch games. And I'll also try to put Call of the Sea somewhere in between them.

It's Thursday. I got wrapped up in playing Diablo and forgot to take a nap before work. I'm on an egg fast(6 eggs with 6 tbsp of butter and an ounce of cheese twice a day) so I can't buy a bit of ice cream to power through the night. And the hotel is filled with a bunch of kids who were apparently given coffee or something, because they won't go the hell to sleep.
So my night hasn't been great. How about you?
But this tale isn't about tonight. Not my part in it, anyway. The fallout happened today though. But for now, a musical interlude.

There are those who think that life
Has nothing left to chance
With a host of holy horrors
To direct our aimless dance

Our cast includes Me, Booking Agent(BA), Coworkers(CW1/2) and the star of our little tale, Karen, Mistress of the Self Frag(K).
Last night was fairly slow. I'm working on figuring out what my PC in our tabletop campaign is gonna do next session(she failed really hard in some combats due to bad dice after a kid she's kinda looking out for asked for her to teach him to fight better, so that's gonna be a morose conversation later). And then I get a call and give my Standard Hotel Greeting.
K: "Hi, yeah. So I have a reservation under Karen McCustomer for arriving tonight, but due to some issues, I won't be making it in tonight. I still need the room for Thursday night though. Any way I can cancel the first night but keep the second?"
Me: "Let me take a look at that for you."
I load up her reservation and... uh oh. I have to give her some bad news.
Me: "Unfortunately, it looks like you checked in via the mobile app. Due to that, I can no longer remove the first night of the stay for you. However, your second night is definitely held for you."
K: "There's nothing you can do? I'm a tier 1 shiny(lowest level above basic member)."
Me: "Unfortunately not, sorry."
K: "Well, that sucks. Okay then. Thanks for trying."
If it had ended there, I wouldn't be telling this tale. And she definitely wouldn't have been given the moniker of "Karen". So anyone reading this probably isn't terribly surprised with what comes next. About twenty minutes later, the phone rings again. I give the Standard Hotel Greeting.
BA: "Hello, yes, I'm calling from about a reservation for Ms. Karen McCustomer."
Me, internally: "Of course you are."
Me: "Okay, what can I do for you regarding that reservation?"
BA: "So, Karen has had an issue and is unable to make her first night. Is there any way to cancel the first night but keep the second one?"
Me: "As I told her when she called me a bit ago, since she checked in online through the mobile app, I can't cancel her first night."
I mean, I could have. But it would have both required me to violate hotel policy and engage in extra work. I might do one or the other when I truly feel it warranted, but not at the same time.
BA: "Oh. That makes sense. I'll let her know. Just to confirm, she will have her reservation for the second night, right? We can't risk her having her reservation no showed and her losing the second night."
Me: "That's not an issue at all. She's good to go for her second night."
BA: "That's the important part. Thanks for your help."
Me: "Thank you for calling. Have a good night."
BA: "You as well."
Again, if it had ended there, this wouldn't have been a story worth posting. Guest is told no, tries to get travel agent to talk me into saying yes. Very common tale. However, this is where my involvement in the story ends. The following interactions have been dramatized based on being recounted to me by CW2.

A planet of playthings
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
“The stars aren’t aligned –
Or the gods are malign”
Blame is better to give than receive

It is daytime. Late afternoon. The birds are singing. The machinery of a road crew working just down the street is singing the song of its people. The giant ball of fire is up in the sky doing...things.
Just remember kids: When has a giant ball of fire ever been good? I rest my case.
Anyway, the phone rings. It's busy, so our FOM, CW, gives the Standard Hotel Greeting as he's helping out with the desk
K: "Hi, so I had an issue with my flight, and I only needed one night of my stay."
CW: "Oh, I can fix that for you. What's the name on the reservation?"
K: "Finally, someone who can help. Karen McCustomer."
CW: "Okay, I've fixed that reservation for you."
K: "That sounded really easy. I wonder why the guy last night wouldn't fix it."
CW: "Don't know. But you're good now."
K: "Thank you."
If you've been paying attention, I'm sure you see what has happened. But CW was unwitting. And Karen thought she'd gotten what she wanted. Meanwhile CW sends up someone to make sure the room is cleaned since he just processed a really late checkout.

There are those who think that
They were dealt a losing hand
The cards were stacked against them
They weren’t born in Lotus-Land.

A couple hours later. The giant ball of fire is dipping down along the horizon. I'm at home, wondering to myself why the hell I'm playing the second lowest DPS spec in the game. And why some people keep dying to avoidable mechanics. Oh well, I'm not leading this circus. I just get to be one of the clowns.
Karen arrives, expecting to check into her room. Which has been sold. In fact, it was snapped up within moments, as CW checked the reservations screen after he hung up and we were booked solid again.
K: "What do you mean I don't have a reservation?!"
CW2: "It looks like you were checked out a couple hours ago."
K: "No! I called to cancel the first night, not tonight!"
CW2: "That wouldn't have been possible, as it was already checked in, looks like through the mobile app."
K: "That's what the guy said last night. But the guy I spoke to a couple hours ago said he could."
CW2: "He said he could cancel the first night but keep the second night?"
K, realization dawning: "...he should have known that's what I wanted!"
It devolved from there. Karens gonna Karen. But this Karen got to go Karen somewhere else. All because she chose a path that was clear. She chose free will. Next time, maybe she'll listen to the ready guide in the celestial voice of the auditor.
Who am I kidding? We all know she didn't learn a damn thing here.
I just hope you all have learned to distrust the giant ball of fire.

Core theme:

• Iconic 90’s helmet’n buster hunters from shoot’n run platformers game where you gradually obtain more armors and power ups throughout the game, with each game giving them new armors and powers
  
• They worked under an organization which revolves around hunting dangerous lifeforms (Maverick and Metroids). These organizations haved also created their enemies (Sigma was once the leader before he went Maverick and the Galactic Federation revived Ridley)
  
• Are arch-nemesis of a villain who they once were friendly with before they almost got killed by them (Ridley and Sigma) said villains also have a reputation of returning almost every time even when they really should die. These villains have is also responsible for the loss of the closest thing they have to a family (Zero and Grey Voice), through they also obtained and keep their last remmants (Zero’s Saber and Grey Voice Chozo DNA)
  
• One of their games end with their companion sacrificing their lives to save the protag from a boss and give them late-game power ups (Zero in X1 gives the Zero Buster, the baby Metroid in Super Metroid gives Samus her Hyper Beam after dying)
  
• Has an evil copycat that has the name X on them (Copy X and SA-X) they also have most of their original owner powers, but their transformation is different
  
• Their helmet hides features that fans love talking about (Samus’s gender and X’s hair)
  
• Their family could only spend little time with them before they die and after that they have to be trained for many years, whether it’s emotional or physical training, before they became what they are today
  
• They live with people different from their race (X is a robot master living with reploids and Samus lives with Chozo)
  
• They signature attack is called Charged Shot, they would shoot out lemons if not charged
  
• Despite being known for shooting, one of their signature and most powerful attack is ramming the opponent at high speeds (Nova Strike and Screwattack/Shinespark)
  
• They have a habit of losing all their previous powers in the next game, whether they lose it or just don’t bother to use it again
  
• They have a reputation of being the strongest in their verse (Samus is “the most powerful Metroid” feared throughout the galaxy, X is known to have “unlimited potential”)
  
• Legacy MU between Mega Man X and Super Metroid, as they are highly acclaimed sequels to their also famous NES games
  

Animation:

• Just the usual shoot and run, but they will exchange armors and weapons to counter each other, ending with Ultimate Armor X vs Metroid Suit Samus
  
• Have X uses the falcon armor and have an aerial fight with Samus spaceship, before X close the gap and uses his Giga Attack to destroy her ship, crashing it down.
  
• After they land, Samus could use her morph ball to get in a sneak attack and land a combo on X
  
• X manages to destroy Samus suit, but he would learn that he is facing a human being, which he pauses before being attack by Zero Suit Samus
  
• Samus would then uses her Metroid Suit to finish off the reluctant X, but when he sees the Metroid Suit, just make him somehow think that Samus isn’t human anymore and has succumbed to what he calls “a human Maverick Virus”
  
• X, no longer reluctant and can now fight as he pleases, transform into his UA and both of them have a final gundown, before ending with a Nova Strike vs Zero Laser
  

I just wanna make connections for an underrated legacy MU

I didn't drink in a while after the last time I got very drunk. I'm in a limbo where I want and don't want to drink, but it's different than the stuff people usually talk about, I am not fighting myself and trying to stop myself from drinking, trying to suppress the urge or debate myself out of it.. not at all. I am open to the idea of drinking and getting drunk. If I did it today, fuck it, my health won't suffer, I can take it. My drinking at this point is pretty low, and I never put any value in counting sober days, it's a childish game.
The problem is something else. I allow myself to drink if I want to. I want to drink in order to help myself reach something or unlock something that's currently unobtainable for me. But, I fall short and it's disappointing. This last year, most of the time I can even start drinking just to stop without any imperative that stopping is the right thing to do and all that shit. And I'm not glad about it, I'm disappointed, not because I want to drink but because I lost something. I don't know how to explain it well, I get that if your main issue is fighting the urge to drink this almost sounds like a brag, like "look at me here, I want to drink today but I stop myself", what a problem in life. But that's not the point, it's not anymore about changing my lifestyle, I'm already not drinking much anymore, blacking out and all the shit that was an issue before.
Now I lost any fucking ability to be anything except for completely empty. I can't even let myself get out of this obsessive control in my head that blocks me from everything. The last few days again I feel like I'm going to go completely insane, I have the constant urge to break things
But I think I understand how everything is going to shit, how nothing will be better, everything will be lost, and nothing is missing, that is just the normal state, nothing was ever there, I don't know what I'm looking for because there is nothing, nothing is a substitute for something else, just for itself not being there. Everything is missing.
I don't know, I really feel life is a horror movie and there are no options available. I swear I wish there was a comfort, if I could believe it I would, I wish I was wrong about everything. I can't force it and pretend but if there was anything I could genuinely hold on to, good or bad, I would. But that thing doesn't exist.
Alcohol is just another thing I lost. So being sober doesn't make me happy. I didn't achieve anything, I just lost.

Warning!!!Long post ahead. So last year i(29M) started working on my startup around april. During that time i managed to gather a 11person team. Then i needed a content writer. So one of my co-founder reffered a girl(22F) whom he friends with. I hired her and started working with her through phone call on a daily basis. At first i was hasitant to talk anything beside the work but after some time when she started to open up about her past and her family so i thought she is being friendly and started to talk about personal stuff also. So a friendship began during that time i was dating my ex and she was also dating someone. So around july she broke up with that guy whom she was dating.
Then our conversations through phone increased apart from work hours. During that time i used to do parties in my home she is always seems so excited to come to my house. She used to be super flirty, i have to hold back. (Its not that i am shy bcz my body count is in double digits) warned her many times that don't wanna talk but she's always like a chatterbox. So around october one day she was behaving like a child constantly trying to annoy me for 2/3 days. So i asked my cofounder to talk to her so which she said to him that she was taking a revange on me because acc. to her i was trying to be bossy and doesn't respect her. I was super annoyed that day so by evening she was trying to annoy me more it was like she was waiting from a reaction from my end, she was calling me every 15-30 mins to rescedule the time for work happend atleast 6/7 times that evening. I waited till 11.30 that night then called and lashed out at her.( i know super fu○king wrong, have no right to lashed out on someone). On the very next day called her appologised her for my behaviour and told her my situation that, why i lost my controll. And my breakup with my ex and the problems with investors. That night for the very first time i felt something about her. The way she was trying to giving me the solutions and courage. I was just awwstrucked.
So started developing feelings. But deep down felt wrong because didn't want her to be a rebound. Then after 15/20 days when we met again in my house party something triggered in us both we had our first touch that day spent the entire evening in the kitchen. I was cooking and she was helping me with dishes. Felt i found the one that day. Then our bond gets stronger after that started talking more and more after work like 4/5 hours everyday. Then the day in november came when unknowingly i spilled her that i like her (never had any intention to say that) i know things were going to get fucked up from this point on because it was too early. Now she started distanceing her self. For 10 or 15 days i was quite at that time but after that she initiated contact and told me indirectly that she like me too. I didn't reacted that day. Acted like i didn't get what she was trying to say. After couple of days we had a fight because of the co-founder whom she was reffered by bcz he was always trying to slut shame her to me. And i told her the things he told me about her which she got furious that how i didn't take any stand for her or fight for her. Which i reassured her that i trust her and i don't believe what he was saying. So why wasting any energy trying to fight a person of that kind. We fought for 5hours that day ended up owning up my mistake that i let her down.
Again for 15 days no talk. And stared talking around mid december. Around that time she said that she is emotionally unavailable right now. So she doesn't want to start anything. Which i said okay. Knew she need peace and her time to sort out the things. And the problem started from there when she was trying to test me by trying to tell me about her guy friends. (Those guy friends with whom my cofounder try to associate her name with.) I try to stay calm but my evil brain trying to act extra smart and poked her by confessing again, just to tease. She got furious that day. Haven't thought about the outcome. So took it as a rejection just to move on. After 7/8 days she told me that she likes me back. Haven't reacted on that just drift that conversation to some other topic. Now it's been 3.5 month after that incident she isn't talking to me properly gave her enough way out saying if you feel any uncomfort you can leave, and she denies everytime. But her action speaks otherwise. Now my work from her side reduced to 24days a months to 6/7 days a month. Now she is getting irritated on small things and cut off contact for 4/5days. I don't want to fire her now because it will leave a bad impression on me. My co-workers can think i fire her because of the rejection. Which is not true.
Now my dilemma is, A- i want her to leave on her own. B- Not contacting her from my end but she always manage to initiate contact and dissapear after that. C- cant say anything to her to set boundries because everytime i want to she takes it in a wrong way and gets irritated. D- Now the final nail in the coffin i think i love her now. But don't want her anywhere near me.
TL;DR : girl i am working with being flaky. Affecting my work. Can't fire her because don't want to be a jerk who can't handle rejection.

(insert GarageBand Acoustic Picking 18)
​
Hello, and welcome to the History of Russia. Last week, we finished our discussion of Jarl Rurik's settlement of the Novgorod region and establishment of the region. This week, we will discuss the period of Rurik's rule, starting in around 867 and ending with his death.
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Probably the best place to start is with Rurik's first round of conquests, as this will put into context much of the administrative goals he achieved during the interbellum before his second round of conquests. At about the same time that his brother-in-law Bjorn af Munso would set sail for the Viking conflicts in England, Rurik sent forces to the region just north of Novgorod known as Vodi. The defending forces were outnumbered, and the region fell quickly to siege. This is where the rule of King Rurik began. Shortly after the conquest, Rurik announced that with complete control over the Novgorodian region he was proclaiming himself as King and establishing a royal court in the new capital. The coronation took place on September 24, 867. To celebrate this achievement, a runestone was erected in the newly acquired land. In addition, a grand tournament was held where Valdemar af Aalborg would win the duels and earn himself a position as Rurik's bodyguard. It was in this position that he will go on to be recognized as the court's first "Champion of the Violet," commanding forces alongside Rurik.
​
After the conquest of Luki, Rurik would then deploy his forces northeast, marching through the Biarmiland in short order. Rurik's forces would travel along the rivers until they reached key holdings and sieged them down, trampling the much smaller forces of their opponents, controlling the jarldoms of Chudia by 870, Biarmia by 874, and Vologda 877. It was upon finally reaching Ustyg that his up-to-now unblemished record received its first blemish. Jarl Ulljoi called his son-in-law the Karelian Tuure and raised a mercenary host, and with a numerically superior force was able to dislodge Rurik's forces who had never fully recuperated from the constant warring. According to the skald Baldr, it was during this fight that Tuure let out a massive scream and entered a berserk slaughter, where he gained the nickname 'the Butcher.' Rurik would pull his forces back to the capital and recoup over the winter of 882-883 as well as purchase the services of a Lithuanian host. While Ulljoi would take this advantage to control the chiefdoms of Povonets and Pudozh, he would then attempt to ford the Belo Ozero where his forces were broken on the other side by a rejuvenated force in the spring of 883.
​
The consolidation of the Biarmiland region marks the end of Rurik's first series of conquests and his interbellum transition to administration, a period which would last for about 10 years. It is worth discussing Rurik's family now, as his handling of them will help set the stage for events to come. His first three children with Ingrid were all daughters - Umila, Iliana, and Ragnhildr who were wed to Krasimir of Starodub, Tarkatzus of Arpad, and Gauronas of Prussia respectively. In the summer of 883, about 9 months after returning to Novgorod during the rout, Ingrid bore her first son Sverker. With the knowledge of the Norse tradition of confederate partition, Rurik was well aware that if he had multiple sons his lands would be divided amongst them, and thus endeavoured to ensure that each of them would be a capable ruler in their own time. Thus, the Biarmiland was split up amongst Rurik's children as they were born - Biarmi to Sverker, Chudia and Vologda to the twins Sigurthr and Bergthor in 884, and finally Ustyg to Ragnarr in 891.
​
To say that the interbellum meant that Rurik's armies stood idle would be an incorrect assumption. Though they did not formally go to war at this time, they would still periodically raid the nearby holdings for loot, which was translated into increased development across Novgorod - in the capital as well as in the personal holdings of Luki, Vyangi, Tikhvin, and Vodi. Much of this money was also invested into developing cultural relations with the local Russian rulers.
​
Rurik's grand tour starting sometime in 891 and ending in 893 heralded the culmination of his adminstrative efforts, but also brought great personal tragedy. He set out first for Pallteskja, administered by his son Helgi, but learned shortly upon departing of a wave of consumption that swept through Vologda and would kill Sigurthr. On route to the court of High Chieftan Askell, his wife Ingrid was injured in a fire and would succumb to her wounds within the week in the fall of 892. Shortly after returning, in the winter of 894 the young Bergthor was found dead on a hunting trip, killed multiple times by archers. It would not be an overreach to make the assumption that this rash of death affected Rurik, as it was in 896 that he would commit himself to one last series of wars. At the age of 66, and still commanding troops into battle, it is not unlikely that Rurik envisioned himself dying with a sword in his hand.
​
In the same manner as before, Rurik's forces were able to blitz through much of the region of Vladimir in 897, capturing Suzdal and the holding which one day will become Moscow, the capital of Russia. Taking advantage of Ruslan's weakened state to the south, envoys were sent to request submission. The answer was no, and within the year Ruslan's answer had been changed to a yes. After this, Rurik set his eyes on the lands west of Minsk, to Pinsk and Kyiv. His second, and final, blot on his military record would come in a similar manner as the first - Pinsk, calling upon its allegiance with Chornobyl and Varmaland, was able to outmaneuver and crush Rurik in the field. Rurik himself was captured, and forced to end his war as ransom.
​
Rurik never would recover from his short prison sentence. A few days later, he would retire to his bedchamber from where he did not emerge. He was 69 years old, and had ruled Novgorod for 32 years. Next week, we will follow his heirs as they enter the octagon in what is now known as the Novgorodian Wars of Succession. Only one, his youngest living son Ragnarr, will survive the next 5 years.
​
(insert GarageBand Acoustic Picking 18)

"Well, today I felt like I had enough. So I had to write this just to get it out of my head. Before that, lemme predict some of your comments, and reply back:
1: "skill issue"
Okay, I may or may not have to say I have a skill issue, but somehow that only applies to Sharkos. I can somewhat take on a stone golem at level ~5, a stone knight at level ~8 and cheese threshers by just holding S.
2: "Just do trial of 1 it's not that hard"
Trial of 1 IS the reason why I'm making this.
3: "Stat check them then."
Well, apparently EVERYTHING I READ ON THE WIKI AND THE ADVICES MY FRIEND GAVE ME ARE ALL FAKE. Tank the swipes, dodge the kicks? Yea no shot I'm dying almost instantly. The kick has a narrow hitbox? The sharko kicked me from 100 STUDS AWAY.
4: "Are you okay?"
No, I am not. I am at the verge of quitting the game and the community as a whole as to how the toxic side (98%) treats others as "metamancers or free loot". The game's dry as hell as it's more because of how meta overshadows anything else creative and I get punished wildly for the SMALLEST mistakes like blocking a sharko kick (We'll get to that later).
Okay, now the discouragement comments are out of the way (Aside from 100 more I don't have time to talk about), brace and listen to my rant.
Part 1: Deepwoken Devs, gimme some of your marijuana you're smoking rn.
So, this is ages ago, but I just want to question WHY THE HELL DID YOU GUYS MAKE SHARKOS MOVE AROUND? At first it's said as a "Starter monster" but I feel like nowdays these little bitches are nothing but nuisances. I go mining at Vipers Jaw, they appear. I go hiking at Songseekers (Impossible), they appear. I DO LAYER 2, THEY STILL APPEAR AND COULD AND WILL FUCK ME OVER. JUST, MAKE THEM STAND STILL, PLEASE, LIKE THE OTHER MONSTERS WE FACE. IT'S A STARTER MONSTER, WHY THE FUCK DO YOU WANT TO MAKE THEM SO UNIQUE?
Part 2: The moveset of the apparent "Starter monster"
So, lets revise what the sharko could do when you're close to it:

• Swipe: A simple, parriable swipe that could be followed up with a swipe or a kick
• Kick: A hard, punishing unparriable kick that launches whoever hit sky high.

Simple, right? WRONG. Apparently it's this two SIMPLE ENOUGH MOVESETS THAT BREAK MY ADHD BRAIN CAPABLE OF ONLY MEMORIZING 1+1=2. People often times say to "memorize its pattern", but when the sharko's main method of attacking you can be mixed up so much I don't think memorizing is a good idea anymore.
One main reason why this moveset is so busted is because of the lack of its obviousness, or rather, how much you'd notice it when you're focused on attacking it. Sure, some people suggest hitting it 2-4 times after parrying or dodging its attacks, but to me it just doesn't work as it just starts attacking when I throw my 3rd/4th hit in and I forgot that feinting is a thing and I can just do that. Its swings are fast, it throws out kicks so unpredictably, and the fact that YOU CANNOT ROLL SHORTLY AFTER A FAILED PARRY (what) JUST MAKES THIS EVEN MORE BULLSHIT.
Part 2.5: THE KICK
If all Sharkos did was kick I swear to god it'd be the easiest monster to fight against. But hell, put an entirely different move that acts drastically different to the kick and suddenly Sharko becomes from attention seeking to FUCKING STRESSING. Just knowing the fact you getting kicked means you're gonna fly so far out the stratosphere you can't fight back and that dying means losing days if not months (Yes I am this bad) of progress just DISCOURAGES ME from learning to fight Sharko. What's the reward for defeating that beast you may ask? Its hide, small chance for it to be a jacket and even smaller chance for it to be shadow poop. It's just not worth it man, it's just not.
Part 3: PLEASE STOP MAKING VARIANTS OF THIS GUY
So far, we have:

• The normal, unbearable variant
• The previous but now it can Tacet
• The previous but now it can rain swords of flame
• The one that's actually worth fighting (and is fun against)
• Idk if this is a variant but Frog in Layer 2

Sharko by itself is already annoying. Unless you can stat check it, fighting it is always a chore rather than a fun interaction. However then, something weird makes these sharko variants different from the normal sharko:
They have gimmicks.
The Tacet sneak attack is a pretty good (but obviously obvious) attack that makes the Sharko fight trivial to fight against. Just stay a decent distance from it, wait for it to Tacet to you, dodge it and slam it continously for 2 seconds.
Ooh, the Mechasharko. The one that I actually like fighting. Sure it still has the swipes and kicks, but the extra attacks make it more of a live being than the normal sharko. (That's said when sharko is BIOLOGICAL while Mechasharko is just a bunch of cogs and an AI) These extra attacks are also the reason why I like fighting against them, as I don't need to focus too hard on these two punishing attacks and actually have fun. (Except for the flaming kick. I hate you)(I don't hate you as much as you don't really send me THAT far)
All these variants of the sharko, yet the normal one is the HARDEST to fight against. I'm starting to wonder what the fuck the devs are up to after this.
Part 4: Toxic fanbase
Do you know why the devs don't know that the normal sharko is hard to fight against?
Yea, the fanbase is so toxic to newcomers, that they LAUGH AT THEM for not being able to kill a sharko. (Remember the times when you got your asses kicked by them and learnt them in excruciating pain) This one thing, THIS ONE THING is enough to make the devs realize they gotta nerf the Sharko. Instead, they BUFFED THEM, because APPARENTLY THE TOXIC PEOPLE MAKES UP 98% OF THE PLAYERBASE.
I'm speaking of this as a return player, for the 3 times I've came back (First is when Layer 2 dropped, second was when a friend of mine persuaded me to, and the third and last is when I still had feelings for making builds and eventually got around to making a Minos prime build. (Still in the works)), never once have I actually skill checked a Sharko. Idk if it's because of me unwilling to learn, or that I have ADHD and cannot focus for long periods of time, but this alone should be a reason to nerf Sharkos as a whole.
Part 5: How I would nerf sharko (and buff other monsters)
So since the devs are so negligent on their newcomefreshie playerbases, I think it might be a good time to nerf that guy into the ground and make it easy to fight, as well as buffing others that could be potential candidates to replace the sharko as the "Starter monster".

• Swipe: Make it so it will never incorporate the kick. Newbies shouldn't be tortured to be able to learn multitasking. BUT, it will throw in another move to further enforce the idea of parrying this attack.
• New attack, Slam: The sharko raises its claw before slamming down in an attack to crush the player. This creates an undodgeable AoE that MUST be parried, and sometimes would be thrown out on its own albeit with a larger windup. A sound cue also plays when the sharko uses it as its own attack rather than in a combo.
• Kick: Longer wind-up, make it groan before kicking. This adds an extra obvious factor to dodging the kick. Alongside this, make it deal only 99% of a player's posture if blocked instead. This much posture damage would tell players that this attack is not meant to be blocked so they'd be more careful later on fighting the same thing. Ah right, lets also reward players by making it stun itself shortly if it misses its kick so its less time spent on this thing.
• Command grab attack? Sure why not: Lets say we also add a new attack to the sharko that also incorporates the lesser used Ritual Casting. The sharko would swing forward for an undodgeable. This grab doesn't deal damage on its own, but the player gets 3 seconds to gather ether by inputting 4 ritual casting keys (5-6 for the harder types) to escape, should they not want to get eaten by the sharko and take grave damage.

Of course of course most you guys would think I'm malding. But just think about this, fighting the new sharko of above text. You'd be actually having fun and you know what's what and not get punished too hard for making a mistake.
Oh, and did I mention the stone knight? Apparently Tankfish flawlessed it first attempt so lets buff this guy.

• Firstly, lets add an undodgeable Shockwave attack. The Stone Knight would swing their blade downwards, creating a shockwave that trips anyone that isn't standing their ground (Those that roll would slam their faces on the rumbling ground, tripping them).
• Next, make the Swings slightly faster? Not to the Sharko point of speed but still fast enough to be a challenge and punish the impatient.
• Also, the pillar move. I was thinking if there could be an alternate variant where it launches you right at where it is if you start running. This variant would also attempt to predict where the player would be.
• Lastly, I'm thinking of having the Stone Knight be able to feint (and only feint) their stone pillar move. Yep, you heard me. I'm gonna make Stone Knights unbearable. It should be, though. Considering that you meet it at Starswept Valley which is a Level 15+ zone.

And that's it. This is the only monster I want to buff. Also, if the devs are reading this, please add the red flash/audio cues to other unblockable moves of other monsters. (Golem's swing, almost all the possible monster kicks, DREAD SERPENT'S ICE BREATH)
Well, I'm feeling much better now, though I do have an extra idea to share. So if this post gets good enough reception, I may as well release this idea same day. So uh...
Thanks for listening to my rant.
I'm just, gonna go.
Gl on whatever you guys are gonna do, ig." - Kuduro "Lapiz" Cairo

Man kills wife after delay in serving dinner. Man kills wife over burnt curry. Man kills sick pregnant wife for not cooking dinner. Man kills wife for not cooking tasty chicken fry. Man kills wife for making vegetarian dinner. Man kills wife because his breakfast had too much salt. Man kills wife for not serving salad with his meal. Man fatally shot his wife for serving dinner late. Man kills wife to remarry and get more dowry. Man kills wife for giving birth to daughter. Man kills new born girl by flinging her on floor. Man kills wife for refusing sex month after delivering child. Man strangled wife to death for refusing sex twice in a night. Man kills wife minutes after saving her from drowning in well following fight over sexual intercourse. Man kills wife chops her body into pieces to live with his secret lover. Man kills wife for having crush on Hrithik Roshan. Man stabs his wife to death for wanting cancer treatment. Man kills his wife with cobra as he feared divorcing wife would result in returning dowry. Man assualts girlfriend and almost killed her for refusing to get intimate at Bandra Bandstand. Seven murders in last five months that saw men chopping up their patners into multiple pieces. Twenty women are killed by Dowry sharks every day in India.
Well, all the above mentioned murderes have been reported in last one year. Our country consistently records world's highest number of violent crimes against women. Nearly half of all murdered women are killed by their intimate partners. Homicide is the leading cause of death in pregnant women.
What is the reason that Indian men hate women to death that they kill them for not putting enough salt, not making salad, delay in serving dinner and refusing sex? Why do they enjoy hurting and controlling women so much?
https://telanganatoday.com/hyderabad-man-kills-wife-for-refusing-sex
https://www.firstpost.com/india/delhi-murder-minor-hindu-girl-stabbed-16-times-6-in-throat-by-boyfriend-finds-initial-autopsy-report-12665892.html
https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/man-bludgeons-wife-to-death-for-cooking-curry-without-rice-601912.html
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-man-kills-sick-wife-for-not-cooking-food-and-being-lazy-8527502/
https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/husband-kill-wife-food-not-cooked-properly-not-murder-304-ipc-culpable-homicide-life-sentence-reduced-bombay-high-court-216121

*** Comments mentioning anything related to treatment in this thread will be removed via our OFF TOPIC rule. Consider if you were taking a break from treatment because you were exhausted and sad - treatment (yes anything related to it) goes in treatment **\*
Coping with infertility is complex, and it is our imperative to create places where we can honor the distinctly unique needs created by infertility. Sit beside us and share what’s on your mind and going on in your life. This is a great place to get to know your fellow members outside the gravity of treatment. Discussion here includes, but is not limited to:

• Venting about the impact of infertility on our lives/relationships/careers
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Last reminder - this is the CHAT thread. Not the place to discuss anything focused on treatment.

I, (21M) having been seeing my girlfriend (19F) for 2 months now. We both met online and hit it off instantly. Lately we’ve gotten more serious and have started talking about our past relationships just to get a better understanding of one another. About a week ago when we were talking she mentioned something about her ex that didn’t line up with the timeline we had previously talked about. Come to find out she had slept with this ex multiple times since she told me they last had been together and had been on a date much more recent than she said her last date was. She’s only had 2 prior relationships and she has only lied about this one relationship as far as I know. We got in a fairly big fight because of it, she swears she just forgot about some of their hookups and also didn’t consider their date a date and just hanging out as friends, even tho it was at her cousins wedding where she was a bridesmaid. Earlier today it got brought up that she never deleted her regular photos with her exes, I don’t really care and I told her she didn’t need to go through and delete them bc I know there’s a lot and that’s a pain. However she mentioned she had some videos of them making out and instead of just saying she’d deleted them she asked me if I wanted her to delete them. With the previous fight not even a week old my trust for her is still not 100%, in my perfect world she would have just told me she had them and deleted them or just deleted them and never mentioned it. I suffer from anxiety and constantly overthink so I am never sure if I’m over thinking in a situation or if my skepticism is valid. In regards to our fight about the ex, it wouldn’t have bothered me to know any of those details when we talked about our relationships the first time. But since she kept it a secret and in some instances, lied about what happened it made me pretty upset. Also, on her dating profile she put that she never drinks, but in the last two months she has drank probably once a week or every two weeks. That doesn’t matter to me, but it’s another thing she seemed to lie about. She claims that she’s just been drinking more than she usually does lately, and since I didn’t know her before I can’t confirm or deny that. Anyway, I’m curious to know yalls opinion, are these red flags that I’m avoiding or am I overthinking?

Tldr, I’m still somewhat new to Dnd and need some tips for being the best fighter I can be as a level 8 human champion! The full story: So I’ve played a couple Dnd campaigns but I’m still pretty new. Most of my experience was level 1 or 2, but in one current campaign I joined I started at level 6 I think (now I’m lv 8). The campaign has been going for a couple years before me so others have come and gone-most notably, a fighter. I didn’t know about him when I joined-I was gonna be a rogue, but they already had one, so I chose fighter and now I keep getting compared to him. After the last session, someone said that they wish the other guy was back because my fighter’s not holding up good. I WAS NOT TRYING TO REPLACE HIM, he was gone long before I came and I had no idea about him, but now I’m feeling pretty down. I’m doing my best to learn Dnd and I thought I was doing good. I know I should have a thicker skin, but it really got to me because 1, I’m REALLY pouring my heart and soul into this! I haven’t missed a session yet (joined just after Christmas). I research Dnd a lot and try to strike a balance between efficient combat and good roleplaying. 2, to be honest I don’t have a lot of friends so this group was high up there for me. To have someone I really liked wish they had a different fighter really hurt my feelings. I don’t think he meant it maliciously-he and that guy were really close it sounds like-but man, that hit me hard. So… where I’m at now. I’m a human fighter, level 8, Champion, Outlander, with archer fighting style and lucky and sharpshooter feats. (You don’t need to keep track of all this-but I’m just putting it all out there so that if anyone wants to give me specific tips, they have all the info.) I mainly fight with a longsword and a bow. Side gripe: One thing holding me back is I CANNOT, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, GET BETTER THAN STARTING GEAR. The one exception was a leftover corpse slayer bow from their bag of holding-which is nice, but their gear is so much better than mine that I’m a joke. I’m talking magic armor, magic weapons, magic ammunition-crazy high AC’s (his is 10 higher than mine---10!!!) and damage output to match. MONEY TOO, GOODNESS. I’m looting bodies furiously to get stuff but can’t find good weapons, or raise enough money to buy my way up any time soon. The DM hinted that he’d work something out eventually but I fear that he a, forgot, b, wants me to play for years like the veterans to “earn” good gear, or c, now that they gave me the bow thinks I’ve gotten enough handouts. Anyway, huge thanks to anyone who read all that, and please the more specific tips and advice I can get, the better! I’ve been trying to play my cards right but I need every edge I can get. This could be how I should build my fighter as I continue to level, combat tactics, ways to raise the damage I deal… I’m desperate! Ideally I want to be a good enough fighter that no one has to worry about replacing me/eventually like me enough that it’s no longer a concern, but if I can’t get that kind of respect, I’ll settle for the other kind---being so strong that they can’t hold anything against me and have to eat their words! Anything helps!!!

My team is made of four mythic bounty troops which gives x24 each win. I just reached reward level 12 but this team is not durable to last much more then the 130 fight before I start substituting troops and lower the bounty. Should I continue beyond the 120 point match even though I will lose troops or stay at 120? Also if you lose a troop do you lose the bounties? For example now it’s x24 does it drop to x18 if a troop dies?

Wife Tayala and the Inquisitor that killed her. A lot of the inspiration for this came from the thread started by u/Global_Help_1225 , so credit to them for a big part of this. Warning that this theory does contain spoilers for both Jedi games, Rebels, the Ahsoka novel, the Vader comics, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
So we know that one of Bode's main motivations for joining the ISB was to learn the identity of the Inquisitor that killed his wife. There are multiple candidates that could have been responsible, and we're going to run through them all to get the best feel for which Inquisitor it could have been, starting with the least likely to most likely.
-Tenth Brother
He died within a year of the Clone Wars ending, and is quite unlikely since the Inquisitorious was barely organized.
-Sixth Brother and Unidentified Inqusitor from Tales of the Jedi
Judging from the Akuna family portrait, Tayala was likely killed only in recent years since Kata doesn't look much younger than her in-game model. Kata is likely between 8-10, and looks about 5-7 in the portrait. The Sixth Brother died in 18 BBY to Ahsoka, literally only a year after the Clone Wars ended. Kata would have been far too young for this portrait to have been taken while he was still alive. As for the Unidentified Inquisitor in Tales of the Jedi, he's basically meant to be the same as the Sixth Brother despite not being confirmed to be the same character and he is quite unlikely due to this.
-Iskat Akaris and Tualon
I put both of these candidates at the same level due to how connected they are. Iskat is clearly shown a merciful streak as she was willing to spare Eeth Koth's wife from death. I imagine she would take a similar position with Tayala considering the nature of her relation to Bode. Tualon would likely be there with Iskat considering their missions together and affections for each other, and would just accept what Iskat wants to do. Thus they are both very unlikely.
-The Grand Inquisitor
The head of the Inquisitorius seems highly unlikely. From what we know about the circumstances surrounding the death of Tayala, she was killed due to Bode not being home at the time. Logically speaking, this is a reckless move. A better strategy would have been for them to lure Bode out by taking Tayala hostage and forcing him to choose between letting her die or giving himself up. Slaughtering Bode's wife out of malice doesn't seem like the Grand Inquisitor's m.o., considering his tactical nature. He similarly prevented Reva from executing a Jedi instantly because he wanted to learn the location of other surviving Jedi. Killing Tayala accomplishes nothing useful besides making Bode possibly angry enough to come out of hiding for revenge. However, this method is far less reliable than keeping her alive as a hostage, which is typically the Grand Inquisitor's favored strategy. Even if he did kill Tayala, he likely wouldn't have left a body and would have tried to convince Bode that she was alive in prison, similar to what he did with Luminara and her corpse. In the end, the GI makes little sense to be the killer.
-Second Sister
For similar reasons to the Grand Inquisitor, Trillia doesn't make sense either. She had a similar calculating demeanor to the GI, and would likely want to capture Tayala instead of killing her. The only instance Trilla has of killing an innocent is Prauf from the first game. She mainly did this to draw Cal out as she knew that the Jedi was among the crowd and would not tolerate the death of innocents. Killing Tayala out of view from Bode would not have the same effect, and would likely be detrimental to her hunt. This leads me to think she can be eliminated from the likely candidates as well.
-Seventh Sister
This is another character that I think has enough tactical sense to keep Tayala alive. She does the exact same tactic with Ezra and Sabine in Rebels, knowing that they're more useful as bait to bring out the big fish. Thus, not the inquisitor that we're looking for.
-Fifth Brother
While he certainly has a brutish and reckless streak, I doubt he was the person responsible for Tayala's death. In Obi-Wan Kenobi, he's shown to have much more restraint than Reva when it comes to dealing with questioning civilians. While he's not above maiming his targets, he does typically have the sense to keep them alive and useful, if barely. While he could be a good candidate, he doesn't seem likely due to the reasons above.
-Eighth Brother
While not a lot is known about this inquisitor, I doubt he was the killer either. Considering he seemed to be chasing Maul for a long time, I think this was his primary assignment and he had little time for anything else. Maul is quite dangerous and likely far too important to devote time to hunting anyone else, especially the equally elusive Bode. Granted this argument is weaker, but I think there's some merit to it.
-Ninth Sister
This is both a likely and unlikely candidate. Her reckless and cruel personality is certainly the type to kill Tayala simply out of spite due to not finding Bode. She clearly has little regard for tactics, considering how she doubted the Grand Inquisitor's intuition about Cal returning to Kashyyyk. So this leaves her as a likely candidate...EXCEPT for the fact that she sees Bode during the opening of Survivor and doesn't appear to recognize him. Of course, this could be due to her focus on Cal since he cost her a hand in Fallen Order, but I imagine she would have taunted Cal about doing her job for her (by bringing Bode to her). Either way, something tells me she isn't our culprit due to a major factor.
What's important about all of these Inquisitors is that we know when and how they die. For narrative purposes, I don't think that the writers for Survivor would want to use an Inquisitor that is confirmed dead in a different Star Wars media. It likely would have no narrative punch if an Inquisitor known to die would appear in a sequel or spinoff game. There would be very little tension and would ultimately prove disappointing in the story. If we factor in the narrative purposes of having an Inquisitor who's fate isn't known, then this does help to substantially reduce our list of suspects.
-Third Brother
Yes, you read that right, in addition to Reva's title of Third Sister, there is a character known as the Third Brother. He was introduced in a source book a while back known as Darth Maul and other Dark Side Followers, from the Star Wars Encyclopedia. All that is known of him is that he carried out terrible things in the Empire's name, and that his eventual fate remained secret. It's rather odd for a source book to include this information without any pay-off, and I think this was put into the book for some future potential in case an inquisitor is ever needed in a story. However, this also works against his likelihood as he could just be a random mention in a book that will never be heard from again. Endless possibilities, but too little is known about him.
-Fourth Sister
This is another Inquisitor we know practically nothing about including her fate. Her concept was first introduced in a Halloween type comic from a few years back, but it was shown that this was just a rebel impersonating an inquisitor later in the story. Fourth Sister properly first appeared in Obi-Wan Kenobi. She doesn't do much throughout it and generally doesn't have much of a presence, but she has a decent alien design and we don't see her die. Unfortunately there's not enough known about her personality to see if she would be the type to kill Tayala out of malice, but she did seem more restrained than both Fifth Brother and Reva. If they want to do something important with her, this could easily be it.
So this brings us to our final suspect, someone we know is alive far into the Imperial Era, has a reckless habit, and someone who's fate is unknown...
-Third Sister a.k.a. Reva Sevander
Reva is the most likely suspect responsible for Tayala's murder, from both a logical and narrative perspective. Let's start with her personality. Reva is extremely reckless, and can often be quite cruel. She maimed an innocent bystander on Tatooine by cutting off her hand, with very little provocation. Barely ten minutes later, she was attempting to decapitate a surviving Jedi, Nari, before being stopped by the Grand Inquisitor. Despite Nari being more useful alive for interrogation, she attempted to kill him instantly. Her reckless nature was also demonstrated by her attempted assassination of Darth Vader. Rather than attempting to strike from a distance, she engaged Vader in a direct duel and suffered the consequences for it. Attesting to her cruel tendencies, she attempted to murder the innocent Luke Skywalker as retribution for what Vader did to her fellow padawans. These traits combined easily demonstrate how she could be the one to kill Tayala, as it was done out of pure malice and had little tactical advantage.
Additionally, her being the killer can make great sense from a narrative perspective. A massive setup in Jedi Survivor is the revelation that Cere was helping an organization known as the Hidden Path, a refugee system for survivors of the Jedi Purge. At the end of the game, it's revealed that Tanalorr will be used as the Path's future base of operations. Now what Jedi has connections to the path besides Cere and Cal?
Obi-Wan Kenobi. At the end of his series he is seen comforting Reva and assuring her that she can build her own future from this point. However, this would be quite difficult with the Empire around. While they might think she's dead at the moment, this likely would not last. Reva is likely branded a fugitive by the Empire, and will be ruthlessly hunted. So what better way to keep her safe than by sending her to the Hidden Path?
It makes the most sense for her to join the Path now that she is on the path of redemption and needs refuge from the Empire's wrath, and she's in the perfect position to do it through Obi-Wan. This also helps the narrative as it would directly put her into contact with Cal and Kata in the future. A big part of the next installment is likely going to deal with Cal fighting his own darkness, and Kata will likely have a similar battle with her own demons. The next game will likely have another timeskip, ideally five years into the future to coincide with Rebels and Andor, as 5 BBY is when those shows start. Kata will be well into her teens by then, and possibly be training as a Jedi if she inherits her father's force sensitivity. It also makes sense that Reva would only show up around this point, as it will likely take a few years to connect the Hidden Path with Tanalorr. She could serve a great role in the story for both Cal and Kata. Obviously Kata will want to confront her over the death of her mother, and Cal could possibly see shades of Trilla in Reva, which might help to make him want to protect her, as he will be reminded of how he and Cere tried to redeem Trilla. He'll see Reva as a chance to fix his failures, by finally redeeming a fallen Jedi. He could never do it with Malicos, Trilla, Dagan, or Bode, and would likely want to do it now more than ever. This could serve as great story conflict between him and Kata. There's so much potential by including Reva in the story, both for her character and the development of our main protagonists. I'd also really like if she got redeemed and purified her crystals to be white, since Survivor also showed bleeding crystals to make them red. It would add to the lore and work on many thematic levels.
So out of all our known possible suspects, I think Reva makes the most sense and would have the most impact in the story, especially since her fate is unknown. If you read all the way through, I hope you enjoyed it.
TL;DR Reva killed Bode's wife and she'll play a role in the next game.

I know we all saw the color coordinated family reunion but maybe it was just me that was envious cause it looked so peaceful. Welp turns out they sure as hell started fighting and it brought back memories of seeing my pops getting choked out at our last one 😂 they canceled them after that year and i was so fucking mad about that

My name is Adrian, an investigative journalist from Poland driven by a thirst for uncovering hidden truths. Chernobyl held a profound significance for me, not only as a haunting scar on history but also due to a personal connection. My grandparents had been affected by the disaster, forced to abandon their home and lives. Inspired by their resilience, I embarked on this journey to capture their stories and unravel the mysteries that shrouded Chernobyl. Filled with trepidation and excitement, I packed my gear, ready to confront the demons lurking within its irradiated walls. Little did I know that this expedition would push me into a sinister web of conspiracy, blurring the lines between reality and nightmare, forever changing the course of my life.
We were a group of intrepid travelers, united by a shared curiosity and a thirst for the unknown. The journey ahead would take us deep into the heart of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, a place shrouded in mystery and haunted by the ghosts of the past.
Our guide, Igor, regaled us with tales of the ill-fated Chernobyl disaster. His voice, tinged with a mix of reverence and melancholy, painted vivid pictures of a once-vibrant city reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. As we approached the border of the exclusion zone, the landscape began to transform. The lush, green countryside gave way to desolation and decay, a stark reminder of the cataclysmic event that had unfolded here decades ago.
As we drove deeper into the heart of the exclusion zone, a palpable sense of unease settled over the van. The silence that permeated the air seemed to amplify the weight of the past, the residual energy of lives disrupted and dreams shattered. Through the windows, we caught glimpses of abandoned buildings, their crumbling facades standing as a testament to the transience of human existence.
It was amidst the eerie silence of Pripyat that my fascination with the strange and unexplained lured me away from the safety of the group. A stray cat, with its radiant blue eyes and matted fur, darted playfully through the remnants of the city, drawing me deeper into the labyrinth of abandoned streets. The curious creature seemed almost otherworldly, an enigmatic guide leading me toward an unseen destiny.
As I ventured further into the forgotten alleys of Pripyat, the echoes of my companions faded into oblivion. The weight of solitude settled upon my shoulders, both thrilling and unnerving in its intensity. It was as if I had crossed an invisible threshold, stepping into a realm where time and reality intertwined, where the boundaries between the living and the departed became blurred.
In my solitary exploration, I stumbled upon a hidden path concealed beneath a tangle of ivy and overgrown shrubbery. It beckoned to me, an invitation to uncover secrets long buried in the annals of history. My curiosity overpowered any trepidation, propelling me forward, further into the heart of the enigma.
The hidden path led me to a dilapidated building, its weathered facade standing defiantly against the ravages of time. The faded sign, barely visible amidst the peeling paint, identified it as "Laboratory 23." The air crackled with an aura of mystery as I hesitated at the threshold, my heart pounding with a mix of trepidation and excitement.
Stepping into the forsaken laboratory, I found myself in a time capsule frozen in a perpetual state of abandonment. Broken glass and discarded equipment littered the floor, remnants of a hasty retreat. The air carried the scent of rust and decay, a haunting perfume that hung heavy in the atmosphere.
Amidst the wreckage, my eyes fell upon a collection of documents scattered across a table. Their faded pages held cryptic symbols, enigmatic diagrams that seemed to dance with arcane knowledge. As I traced the lines with my trembling fingers, a sense of foreboding washed over me. It was as if these documents were a portal into a realm of forbidden knowledge, a Pandora's box that held the darkest of secrets.
Driven by an insatiable thirst for truth, I delved deeper into the lab's forgotten chambers. Within the dimly lit recesses, I discovered a hidden room, concealed behind a heavy, rusted door. The moment it creaked open, I knew I had unearthed something unimaginable.
The room was lined with shelves, each holding a multitude of binders meticulously labeled with names. As I perused the contents of the binders, a wave of disbelief washed over me. Each name was accompanied by a photograph, a face frozen in time. But it was not the faces themselves that sent a chill down my spine. It was the realization that these were the faces of missing individuals, those who had vanished without a trace from society.
One binder in particular caught my attention. It bore the chilling label "clones." Opening it, I discovered an unsettling truth: the missing individuals had been cloned, their lives replicated in secrecy within the confines of this clandestine laboratory. The implications of such a revelation were staggering, a betrayal of humanity that defied comprehension.
The weight of the evidence I had collected threatened to crush my spirit. The room, suffused with an oppressive aura, seemed to tighten its grip around me. With the damning photographs and documents securely tucked away in my bag, I turned to leave, determined to escape the clutches of this nightmare. But as I moved toward the exit, a peculiar sensation prickled the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine. It was as if the air itself carried an ominous whisper, a ghostly echo of footsteps echoing through the desolate laboratory.
Fear seized me, freezing me in place. The realization dawned upon me like a chilling gust of wind—I was not alone in this forsaken place. Someone or something else lurked within the shadows, drawing nearer with each passing moment. The excitement of discovery mingled with a growing sense of dread, creating a disorienting cocktail of emotions.
In that harrowing instant, instinct took hold, overriding rational thought. Without a moment's hesitation, I pivoted on my heels and bolted towards the exit, my heart pounding in my chest. Panic fueled my every step as I navigated through the dimly lit corridors, the clamor of my own breath and the echoing footfalls of my pursuer serving as a macabre soundtrack to my escape.
Every shadow seemed to shift, morphing into a sinister figure poised to snatch me back into the clutches of the unknown. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, propelling me forward, my only goal to break free from this labyrinth of horrors. The very air seemed to thicken, as if resisting my frantic escape, but sheer determination fueled my desperate flight.
Finally, I burst through the door, gasping for breath, my pulse thundering in my ears. The world outside the laboratory, though still cloaked in an eerie silence, felt like salvation. I sprinted through the desolate halls, never looking back, each step propelling me farther from the unseen terror that had pursued me.
It was only when I reached the relative safety of the open air, the sun casting long shadows across the abandoned landscape, that I allowed myself a moment to collect my thoughts. Beads of sweat trickled down my forehead as I leaned against a crumbling wall, trying to steady my racing heart. The weight of the encounter pressed upon me, a reminder that the horrors lurking in the unknown were far more menacing than I could have ever imagined.
I knew, deep down, that the discovery I had made in that foreboding laboratory had unleashed something far greater than I had anticipated. It was a truth that demanded to be revealed, but it also posed a danger that threatened to consume me. With trembling hands, I clutched the bag containing the evidence—the only tangible proof of the conspiracy I had encountered. With a renewed determination, I vowed to bring the truth to light, no matter the personal cost. The echoes of footsteps and the ghostly whispers would forever haunt my memory, driving me forward into the heart of darkness, prepared to confront the unimaginable horrors that lay ahead.
Against all rational judgment, I made the fateful decision to return to the forsaken laboratory, driven by an insatiable thirst for the truth that burned deep within my soul. The weight of the knowledge I had gained hung heavily upon my shoulders, propelling me forward into the heart of danger, where few dared to tread.
As I cautiously stepped into the decaying lab, the air seemed to grow heavier, pregnant with an otherworldly presence. The soft glow of my flashlight illuminated the desolate scene before me. Each creak of the floorboards echoed like a spectral cry, a warning from the spirits of those whose lives had been extinguished in this place.
With renewed determination, I retraced my steps, reexamining the cryptic documents and peculiar biological equipment that had initially captivated my attention. But now, armed with new insights, I saw beyond the surface. I deciphered the enigmatic symbols etched onto the aged papers, connecting them to forbidden knowledge hidden within ancient texts and whispered legends.
As I ventured deeper into the labyrinthine chambers, the air became charged with an electric energy, as if the very walls pulsed with the secrets they held. Each room held its own story, its own secrets waiting to be unraveled. I meticulously examined every piece of equipment, every forgotten notebook, uncovering a web of interconnected experiments that went far beyond human cloning.
The further I delved into the lab, the stronger the sensation of being watched became. Paranoia gnawed at the edges of my mind, as if unseen eyes tracked my every move. Shadows seemed to dance in the corners of my vision, fleeting glimpses of a presence that eluded my grasp. The air crackled with a malevolent energy, leaving me on edge, my senses heightened to every flicker of movement and every whisper of sound.
Strange occurrences plagued me, testing the limits of my sanity. Objects inexplicably shifted positions, as if moved by unseen hands. Whispers, barely audible, resonated through the empty corridors, their cryptic messages fueling my determination to uncover the truth. Each encounter with the unseen presence left me trembling, yet I pressed forward, compelled by an insatiable curiosity mixed with a gnawing dread.
With each passing moment, the veil between the tangible and the intangible seemed to thin, blurring the boundaries of reality. I began to question my own perceptions, wondering if the presence haunting the lab was merely a figment of my imagination or something far more sinister. It was as if the very walls held the memories of those who had suffered and perished in this forsaken place, their specters reaching out from the past to guide or deceive me.
Piece by piece, the puzzle began to reveal the true magnitude of the conspiracy that had been woven within the walls of the Chernobyl laboratory. The Chernobyl disaster had been orchestrated, a calculated smokescreen to mask the clandestine operations of human cloning and organ trafficking. The government, entwined with a powerful and sinister cabal, had exploited the chaos and devastation to carry out their heinous deeds.
Through a network of corrupted scientists and government officials, they had perfected the art of human cloning, creating identical duplicates to fulfill their nefarious agenda. These clones were mere commodities, their lives extinguished to harvest their organs, which were then sold on the black market to the highest bidders.
As I pieced together the fragments of the conspiracy, my mind reeled with the implications. The very fabric of society had been torn apart, with those in power manipulating the lives of countless individuals for their own gain. The Chernobyl disaster had been not just a tragedy, but a meticulously planned cover-up, shrouding the dark underbelly of a far-reaching conspiracy.
But as the shadows of truth began to coalesce, so too did the darkness that had been lurking within the lab. Confronted by unidentified individuals, their faces concealed behind masks of shadows, I found myself cornered, my heart pounding in my chest. Panic surged through my veins as I fought against overwhelming odds, desperately clinging to the sliver of hope that remained.
In the chaos and desperation, a blow to the head sent me spiraling into unconsciousness, my fate hanging in the balance. What awaited me on the other side of consciousness remained a terrifying mystery, as I teetered on the precipice of oblivion, caught between the harsh reality and the realm of nightmares.
When I finally regained consciousness, I found myself alone in the eerie lab, the ominous silence enveloping me like a suffocating shroud. As my vision cleared, I realised with a sinking feeling that all the physical evidence I had painstakingly collected had vanished, leaving behind only blank, empty pages and hollow photographs. It was as if the truth itself had been stripped away, erased by an unknown force that sought to bury the horrifying secrets I had uncovered.
Confusion and frustration gnawed at my soul. How could the evidence disappear so mysteriously, leaving no trace of the monstrous conspiracy that had threatened the very fabric of humanity? Doubt crept in, whispering insidious questions about my sanity and the validity of my discoveries. But deep down, I knew that I had seen the truth, felt its chilling touch, and I couldn't let it be silenced.
Drawing upon the last reserves of my strength, I rose from the cold, barren floor. Every muscle ached, every joint protested, but my resolve burned brighter than ever. The forces that sought to bury the truth would not deter me. With a renewed sense of purpose, I vowed to press forward, to continue the fight against the darkness that had infiltrated Chernobyl.
Steeling myself, I navigated the labyrinthine corridors, my senses on high alert for any signs of danger. The lab had become a graveyard of secrets, its walls bearing silent witness to the atrocities committed within its forsaken halls. As I ventured deeper into the heart of the darkness, I clung to the flickering flame of hope, knowing that the final chapter of this harrowing journey was yet to unfold.
The chilling realisation that the powers orchestrating the conspiracy were far-reaching and influential only fueled my determination. With every step I took, I knew that I was walking a treacherous path, one that could lead to my own demise. But the truth had become my unwavering guide, guiding me through the murky depths of the unknown, urging me to shine a light on the horrors that had been buried beneath Chernobyl's haunting facade.
As the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place, I prepared myself for the ultimate confrontation. The shadowy figures who had cornered me before would not have the final say. Armed with knowledge, resilience, and an unwavering desire for justice, I would emerge from the depths of the lab to confront the conspirators and expose their malevolent machinations to the world.
Little did I know that the journey ahead would be fraught with danger and despair, pushing me to the very limits of my sanity and physical endurance. But I was prepared to face whatever awaited me, for the truth must be unveiled, even if it meant walking through the darkest recesses of human depravity.
With a heavy heart and unwavering resolve, I ventured forth, ready to unravel the final layers of the conspiracy that had gripped Chernobyl, determined to bring light to the darkest corners and emerge from the shadows with the truth firmly in hand. The culmination of my journey was yet to come, a reckoning that would test not only my own strength but also the endurance of those who dared to confront the unspeakable horrors lurking in the depths of the human soul.
Injured and disoriented, I found myself trapped in the labyrinthine depths of the desolate laboratory. Every step felt like a battle against the darkness that surrounded me, as if the very walls conspired to keep me captive within their clutches. But the flickering flame of determination burned bright within me, pushing me to navigate my way out of this nightmarish realm.
Wounds throbbed with each movement, a reminder of the confrontation I had faced with the unidentified individuals who sought to silence me. Despite the pain, I refused to succumb to despair. Through sheer grit and unwavering resolve, I charted a treacherous path back towards the world beyond those foreboding walls.
Every shadow seemed to breathe, every creak of the decaying structure echoed like a sinister whisper. The air hung heavy with an oppressive silence, broken only by the sound of my own ragged breath. Fear gripped my heart, but the urgency to expose the truth propelled me forward, my footsteps guided by a desperate hope for escape.
As I neared the exit, a surge of relief mingled with a haunting sense of loss. Leaving behind the horrors of the laboratory meant stepping into a world forever altered by the knowledge I carried. The once-familiar reality now appeared distorted, as if a veil had been lifted to reveal the sinister undercurrents that flowed beneath the surface.
Back to safety, I struggled to find a voice amidst the cacophony of disbelief and dismissals. The physical evidence I had collected, once concrete proof of the conspiracy, now lay blank and empty, a haunting reminder of the insidious forces at work. Desperation clawed at my chest as I sought to share my story, to expose the darkness that threatened to consume us all.
But the world, ensnared in its own illusions and complacency, rejected my claims. Labelled a conspiracy theorist, my words fell on deaf ears, dismissed as the delusions of a tormented mind. The weight of frustration and isolation threatened to extinguish the flame of truth within me, but I refused to be silenced.
Filled with an unwavering sense of purpose, I returned to the desolate location of the lab one last time, hoping against hope to find remnants of the evidence that had vanished into thin air. But as I stood before the site, my heart sank. The entrance stood sealed, the lab forever concealed behind layers of impenetrable cement. It looked like it was sealed for years. It was a stark reminder that the forces orchestrating the conspiracy were determined to erase all traces of their nefarious activities.
I lingered for a moment, absorbing the weight of the loss, before making peace with the fact that physical proof was forever beyond my reach. But the fire within me continued to burn, fueled by the belief that even without tangible evidence, the truth had a way of seeping into the collective consciousness.
Edit: Someone sent me a weird email with link to my nosleep post and this image. I have no idea what does it mean, have anybody seen this image before?

This happened so fast in the span of 48 hours and it really made me open my eyes at certain people I knew.
So for the really short context of what we were, was that we have('had' now I guess) a group of several university friends (we're all around age 20-26, gender doesn't matter here really). I'd love to create a relationship chart cuz it's kinda messy to explain but I'll try my best.
The parties involved are My bf and I (dating for 5 years++), my self proclaimed bestfriend, my bf's self proclaimed close friend, my bf's brother, a girl we hang out with, a pacifist that's the biggest floater I've ever met, and an innocent dude that just wanted things to die down.
There's a lot of back story and rants about my self proclaimed bestfriend but I'll cut it short. She doesn't have the best mental health and has a lot of negativity. We used to be quite close when they didn't let mental health define her. But after embracing therapy, she turned worse, way worse. She tried to search up symptoms of the possible mental health issues the simple test she took and applied as much as possible on herself, then used them as an excuse for everything she did. Every 2 sentence involved a mental health issue that she [thinks she] has. Certainly, she refuses to get actual mental health assessments because it's expensive, yet she's spent thousands per year to get anything aside for the assessment that takes several hundred. I've been enduring it, telling her about how I get affected by the negativity too. She has the tendency to place her Suicxxx attempts on us, and I got real sick of it. For several years, I still tried to talk to her, engage conversations with her, as long as it did not evolve into extreme negativity where I have to take responsibility of stopping her doing anything stupid. Because I knew that I was not enough, as she never listened to any of my advice anyways. Looking back, I was never exactly a friend to her.
Then, she got close to my bf because they became coworkers. She started treating my bf as a brother. But I personally cannot accept. Not because I was afraid she would take him away or something, it's that she was still introducing us as if we were close. When I say as a brother, I meant calling him the middle of the night because of mental breakdowns, telling him the times she's tried to k*ll herself and how he saved her, texting him for no reason (she never texts me, the 'bestfriend'), despite having a bf of her own, decides to choose my bf over her own. I find this absolutely inappropriate, and I've told her that. But she brushed it off as, owh you're just jealous, don't take away my 'family' from me (she has an awful relationship with her family). It's basically this thing called Transference. I'm not gonna dwell too much on it.
Okay so, finally going into the situation. My bf had a fight and I accidentally brought it to our group chat by sending the message to the wrong chat. My bf decided to elaborate on the fight. At that point, I've already left the group chat to deescalate the situation, since I never meant it to happen there. My bf left afterwards too. But the dude who wanted things to not be complicated added us back (poor dude). My self proclaimed bestfriend started to post 'what was needed to be said' in the group. On how everyone is having rough times and that we (mainly me) should control ourselves and get help (rereading it, they were basically dissing me). It was a long wall of text. Me being angry af, honestly replied 'TLDR' and left the group.
I was still angry at my bf, but as I was writing a long essay trying to tell him why I was angry, I realise that it was all anger on how my self proclaimed bestfriend, that just happened to be slightly related to the couple fight situation because of the group. It is then I realised, it's time to get out of the group, and finally cut things off, for my own mental health.
As I made my decision, it seemed like some people are pissed. My bf's self proclaimed close friend said that it was 2 issues: the fight, and the cut off. Apparently, this 'close friend', my 'bestfriend', girl we hang out with, these trio were actually discussing amongst themselves on what to reply, and decided to let my 'bestfriend' be the one to tell us 'what needs to be told'. Way to use a scapegoat. They've knowingly used her when they knew I had issues with her. This then clicked in my and bf's head, it explained why they're on her side, explained why he(close friend) thinks it's not fair for me to cut off 'bestfriend' as quote "it seems like you placed your previous hatred on her into the situation and now the group has to deal with it" aka he thinks I mixed up the situations together. Truthfully, I did not. I've apologised for the mistake I've made, and TLDR-ing ppl's worry. That's issue 1. This was the last straw and I made my decision to cut her off. That's another issue. There's no mixing.
Well for more context, our entire group is unhappy about 'bestfriend', we've said to talk to her about it, an intervention. But days, weeks, months passed and all they did was call my bf more and more, and no actions from the group at all. The entire group has asked the question, why is she even here, no one likes her. And I always have a guiltily say, it's because of me.
So what happened was that I was my bf's plus one, and she was mine. I placed hope on her getting better, so never cut her off. But as more and more gatherings and more and more questions of why she's even in our friend group throughout the years, these questionings also pushed me to consider if it was time to cut her out, so no one else needs to suffer because of my plus one.
Anyways, as I truthfully texted 'bestfriend' that I'm cutting them off, with reasons of 'never actually treating me as what they proclaimed' 'getting too close to my bf even after I've told them not to' 'spreading negativity unconsciously'. But told her that we can reconcile when she can finally get a hold of her mental health. She read it, called 'cloae friend' (no idea what they talked about), called my bf, and pleaded. She pleaded to my bf to not leave her. You read that right, she wasn't sad that she's losing me, she was sad that she's losing my boyfriend. She gave my boyfriend an ultimatum, he chooses me, or her. If he chooses me, she will cut him off because he will still be dating me. In the trios surprise, he chose me. So she cut him off.
Note that when I meant that she never texted me, it meant. She never texts me. She had the audacity to tell my bf that it was because "she would never reply". I've checked receipts, I have no idea what she's smoking but I have always, ALWAYS, replied. This made me wonder, what kind of misinformation is she spreadin in the echochamber.
Next day comes, she finally replied to me and said "I genuinely hate you" then blocked, running away from any hardships as usual. Anyways, my bf replied in the group as usual when she posted something. Because it wasn't my bf that cut her off, it was the other way around, so why couldn't he? He then gets a angry message from 'close friend', giving him another ultimatum, 1. Bear the consequences of quitting the group because he chose to cut off 'bestfriend'. 2. Not choose me. 3. Fix me and make everyone friends again. Well, my boyfriend chose the quit the group. In which, to be very honest, 'bestfriend' should have left the group or 'close friend' should have left if he couldn't stand it. My bf did nothing wrong lmao. You can also see, that 'close friend' got the information of my bf cutting her off instead of the other way around. So really, is it miscommunication, or misinformation being spread, or reading comprehension problems?
Well anyways, there's that. Below are rants about the double standard and big head scratching moments
So of course there are side pickings, the trio is on one side, and the rest on neutral, some on ours. None of us on our side are sure what's wrong with the trio for thinking the ultimatum is the way to go. But we did find that it's because they have family issues, so they thought of the group as a family. And they probably want the group to stay as it is. And behold, to them, yours truly ruined it. But for what 'close friend' said to me, it does not seem like he's ever seen me as a family, just, my bf's crazy gf that spread bad vibes to the group and never get help. Know that all I've sent to the group were memes and funny shit happening at work, and the last time he has personally talked to me was at the new year's party we had (yes, 5 months ago and during then I was positive af than ever). I don't know what bad vibes or not getting better he's talking about but doesn't he sound like he's "placed previous hatred on me into the situation"? There's tonnes of other double standard shit he's said to me and honestly, we all just wondered, what happened to this guy. He used to be a chill dude, thats better at adulting. Instead, he used his double faced salesman skills on us, thinking we wouldn't see through it. Guess the consequences of unemployment got to him. None of anything he said implied 'fix it with bestfriend so we can go back to normal'. Also, if u want to fix a family, you have them talk it out, not attack the person that finally couldn't take it anymore. Well, can't blame them, they don't know what a family is.
The codependency of the group got waaaaay toxic than we have ever imagined. And those 3 being in an echochamber will probably never realise it. 'Close friend' created their own group in the morning right after my bf left by the way, consisting of the trio, the floater, and my bf's brother. Yes, he made my bf quit the original group, and made another group.
We're damn pissed at the fact they didn't include 'dude' in. The reason they were pissed at me was because I made the decision of cutting someone out without consulting the rest of the group. Hmm, and they did the exact same thing to the dude.
The reason they didn't add the dude that just wanted things to die down, was cuz he asked if the ultimatum really is the best option. And quote the 'close friend' "dude could have shut his mouth like floater and the brother". We have no idea why the brother is in the group, but all he said was "well, both sides is kinda at fault" and bam, he's a part of them now.
Somehow this shows that they are so out of their mind, that they added my bf's brother into a rant group (unsure if this will be just a rant group or the finalised group for now) about his own brother and his brother's girlfriend. We theorise that it might be that the trios have horrid sibling relationships, so they thought my bf and brother would have too. It's just hilarious because 'close friend' plays DND with brother and my bf, he should know how close they are. Did they expect brother to not tell us this? Did they think brother hates me too?
'Close friend' legit said that he has a lot less to lose than my bf and I in this situation. Funny thing is, the group was created by my bf, he can do it on a whim, he can do it again, he doesn't need this group. On my side, I am an extreme introvert with dissociation problems (I'm getting it fixed, not because of this situation though, it's for my bf) that I never got close enough with anyone, aside from this 'bestfriend', but well, I can get a friend fast, I can lose them fast, dissociation at their best. I'm not sure why 'close friend' tried to one-up me on this, the one winning is whoever gained from this. He lost all respect we have on him, and he's stuck with a selfish suicidal that wouldn't a get professional diagnose for 5 years.
The only concern I have is when 'close friend' comes over for DND, I've decided to act as if nothing happened, since the boys (DND group) never interacted with me usually anyways. But if he throws me stink eyes or shades me in anyway, the fight's on. I'm not burning the bridge with him yet, only because of my bf, but no one can stop me if he taunts to burn the bridge down. The battleground? In his face, because he's a massive coward. (Okay this is rant about him now) he said that he has harsher things to say, but he doesn't say it. He said that just because he didn't say anything, doesn't mean he nothing to say. Then say it, coward. Until now, he has not said it. Until now, he's been throwing away his principles and being double standard. Until now, his arguments were from the echochamber of the trio. Where are your words, coward?
Truthfully, I just really want to get this out of my chest, and I thank Reddit for having everything. I'm not sure if I'll finally let this go. But this is a good try. For two days, it's been hectic for my bf and I. And it really.... Confused us to see our friends turned like this. And how the innocent 'dude' was just like the old man that keeps losing his cabbages for no reason in Avatar TLA.
Anyhow, issue has died down, my bf and I are closer than before. My mental health is noticeably better (disregarding the anger from the situation). We've seen the true colours of certain friends. We can still be friends with the other's in the group, just that the group chat is now abandoned. The sadness is mainly nostalgia. There are things that should stay as memories, and trying to pursue what is gone only brings stress and disappointment, so this really is the best. Overall, we'd say that we actually gained for losing those negative points in our lives that we never noticed/dealt with.

So, with this campaign coming to an end, I guess I wanted to share a story from how it all started, I am the DM and this campaign was set in the Zelda universe, which is semi-important to things, and this was being ran in 3.5 with me being pretty lax on rules, just wanting to make sure the players had fun. The party was, Garo Sorcerer, Shiekah Artificer, Yiga Swordsage, Twili Cleric and then the Tiger. I will use their races or classes to refer to them, and the Tiger will be the Tiger, it is what we refer to the player as to this day when he comes up when recalling the start of the campaign.
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Now as it started, he was SET on being like Link from Twilight Princess, but wanted to also be Ganondorf. Now I had work some ways to work around that. Made him a male gerudo from Termina who got sent to the main setting, and he was dead set on the whole animal thing, so I relented and offered him the Lycan racial template, he refused it and showed me the Weretiger, and stupidly high LA template that just wouldn't work, he'd be too powerful and then fall off mid game hard as those things tended to do since I'd be forcing level buy out. Spend a few days trying to help him make it work, offering other ways, flavoring things, pointing him in every direction I could that wasn't THIS. I knew what the other party members were bringing, a single Tome of Battle class, Swordsage, would out shine anything he really could bring since in the end, the only way I allowed the Weretiger template was with the class version of it, much to his dismay.
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Something the players learned was, I work a lot, sometimes 50+ hours a week at the time, so I wasn't always around to answer their questions, but my personal friends, the Garo and the Yiga knew my general rulings and advice on things or could reach out to me. Now because of me working so often, the Tiger would ask people to hang out in a discord call with him and just talk, which I thought was great, meant the players might get along since the Twili and Shiekah were also friends outside of this. Now he comes to me and lets me know the Garo player had agreed to a joint back story, since they were both from Termina which was fine. He then explained that they had come to the agreement that they wanted it to be romantic, which was odd but fine with me. Myself and the Garo had been friends for a few years at this point and had just naturally started to date at one point before I started to run, even now we don't make it a big deal in games, but I didn't mind if players wanted to have romantic plots in the game if both parties were fine with it. Now here comes the first fun part, sorry it took so long! He wanted his character to be a 40+ year old man, the Garo had told me she wanted to play an oprhan raised by people from the milk bar, basically a tiddy bar in this setting as many old school brothels use to do which was fine, and wanted to be a young adult at 18. Now how the Tiger described the moment of love being "Love at first sight" was fine if he wasn't also cursed to be a Tiger for the last 10 years of his life or so. This would've meant he had to have seen the Garo when they were a child, I point this out and he then tries to force the Garo to play an older character but they refused. I later was talking to the Garo about this while we played games only to find out, they never agreed to this romantic back story, and had no input on the joint back story.
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Now, once the Garo ship had set sail without him, the Tiger turned his eye to the Twili with the, oh so 'smooth' lines such as, "I can be your Link, and you can ride on my back" though the entire time in character he was a TIGER WHO COULDN'T TALK AS WERE HIS OWN WISHES. So he just did awkward cat things. Which made most of the other players not want to interact with him. Now the party goes into a fight that the Artificer was given time and money to prep for, just needed time in the fight. The Yiga goes off alone and 1v4s some monsters while the rest of the party struggles against 3 monsters. The Tiger proceeds to freak out, explaining how f'd they are. How the Yiga is setting things on fire just to stay alive when he's trying to control the fight by caging in monsters with fire to keep them from retreating to their allies. Playing smart in my opinion. And this is where it begins, his weird one sided rivalry with the Swordsage which he'd never manage to keep up with by nature of their two different builds.He begins to mention how his Cavalier in some other game could one shot everyone in his party and this party. No on really cares. But then during one loot rolling moments, the party gets a Scroll of Remove curse and use it. Tiger is a man, no one really cares, Tiger has a mental break down about losing his character, but now that he can talk, the party interacts with him a bit more, he then drops the never forgettable line of, "Hey, Twili, do you lay eggs?" And everyone loses it. Now at one point the party for one reason or another talks about their character's sexuality, Twili was AroAce, and the party for the most part thinking about agreed most of their characters were to some extent, Ace...except the Garo she was full on pansexual. The tiger now jumps on the boat, after trying to get his character into both female party member's pants, "Yeah I'm totally ace too! Just like you Twili!" which I just had to mute myself and die of laughter for, now the note so far, no Player has complained to me, so I thought they were all fine with this.
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Sooner or later, the Tiger begins to argue with me over something, at this point due to back story reasons, the Garo had to give up their character and came in with a Kokiri. But as the Tiger continued to argue over and over, even out of the game while I was either at work or at home relaxing. I also had personal stuff I was going through that probably impacted my short temper here. I kicked the Tiger and then suddenly every player came out with horror stories of him and what he said during the calls he'd be in with them while I was away. Most of that is personal stuff for them so I wont be sharing it, but I told them all I wish that they told me earlier and I would've dealt with it all then.
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TL;DR: Man wants to be different, plays an animal, gets some weird rival complex with another player, and wants to sleep and be romantic with every female character, no one complains about him till after he is kicked because his ego goes unchecked too long.

In light of recent of events I've been seeing a lot of people reacting to the most recent chapter and expressing a lot of hype and anticipation for the Imu as the series' big bad and final villain. And It was definitely a crazy chapter but I actually think Oda has made it abundantly clear that Imu will not be the final villain and that it will in fact be Marshall D. Teach himself.
It's always seemed pretty obvious to me and many others that Blackbeard was being set up as the end of series threat as him and Luffy are polar opposites and the same can be said for their respective crews. And beyond that Blackbeard stood out for being the only man to eat 2 fruits leading many theorize that he might even get a 3rd one.
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He can eat 2 fruits and never sleeps, what is he?
But with the introduction of Imu things got a little muddled. And I get it, Imu is the King of the World and the reason the One Piece verse is in the state it's in and defeating him would mean freeing the world and ending the 800 years of oppression. And this is all true, but Imu's character while being the world villain is not the MAIN villain of One Piece as it is the story of Monkey D. Luffy and his journey to becoming the greatest pirate in history and stepping into his role as the man to usher in the dawn of the new world. And the key antagonist in that Narrative is Blackbeard.
Oda's Original Plan
Let's start from the beginning, Oda originally intended for One Piece to be a story about Luffy fighting the Yonko and being wrapped up in about 5 years, but he created the Warlords and that greatly lengthened the serialization of the story. But if you notice, in this comment Oda NEVER says that his original plan for the story changed, just that the the story got longer. Blackbeard is undoubtedly Luffy's ultimate Pirate threat and as a Yonko who is set up to be the man to take down Shanks it makes sense to say that if Oda views the story of One Piece as a story about fighting the Yonko surely the best of them would be the main villain, no?
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Some people won't really be convinced by this as a lot of you find Oda's statements to be highly dubious so I'm gonna piggyback of something I mentioned in the last paragraph, Shanks. Shanks is a pivotal character in One Piece as he is the one who inspired Luffy to become a pirate in the first place and has several connections to many big name pirates in the past and present. But unfortunately, Oda is setting him up to fall at the hand of Blackbeard.
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This is one example, but without exception, every single volume cover Shanks has appeared on has also featured Blackbeard
Oda has been deliberate in setting up the connection between these two with Shanks getting his scar not from Mihawk or Kaido but Blackbeard. And we know in the world of One Piece are important and create a complex intrinsic bond between 2.
Blackbeard's true power
But Shanks doesn't simply have a grudge with Blackbeard over his wound, he views Blackbeard as a serious issue, going as to far as to warn Whitebeard as the true threat Blackbeard posed to not just him, but the whole world.
Shanks knew what was coming but no one listened.
Shanks even commented on Blackbeard not being in Wano as he had wrongly assumed Blackbeard would be drawn there. Meaning Shanks is on the move trying to intercept him. And i'd even go a bit further and theorize that the Pirate Shanks wanted to discuss with the Gorosei wasn't Luffy, but Blackbeard himself. The subject matter of the conversation is anyone's guess bit if i had to I'd say that he is trying to warn them in the same way he tried to warn Whitebeard.
Who is he talking about?
With all this in mind we take into account that Blackbeard and Shanks are in the running for the One Piece too, and interestingly both them just got a big leap from Kidd and Law, so even outside of what was posted they are on a collision course I just posted, and love him or hate him Blackbeard will prevail over Shanks and might even kill him. This would be a big blow to the verse, but most importantly it'd be a big blow to Luffy. Seeing his hero and friend be defeated by the same man who played a role in his brother's death and killed Whitebeard would make Luffy hate Blackbeard more than anyone.
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Not yet, Not Yet
And on the subject of Marineford I always viewed Blackbeard as the main villain of that Saga. Not Akainu, not Magellan either but Blackbeard. Think about it, he started the Summit War, he freed the prisoners at Impel Down and ended up getting the biggest come up after the events of the war. Shocking the world and ending the era of Whitebeard. And I believe the post skip parallels the pre-skip, so if Blackbeard is the main villain at the midpoint, the end of the series he will be the villain again and finally get his comeuppance.
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The Key was Blackbeard
Now let's get into that, the idea of Luffy and Blackbeard as enemies. Now on the surface there's alot that puts these 2 against each other. The first chapter where Blackbeard is introduced perfectly sets up how Luffy and Blackbeard are very different but also similar, both are D's and it's clear that Blackbeard's crew is a preverse reflection of Luffy's. But let's go beneath the surface and we'll find that the 2 contrast each other more, especially now that we know the true nature of Luffy's fruit.
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Dayman, Fighter of the Nightman.
Luffy in his true form is the sun god Nika bathed in white. Teach however is a man who wields the power of darkness itself and is known and feared as BLACKbeard, Nika's power allows him to free himself completely and this concept is represented as the sun. Blackbeard's ability restricts and even robs other's of their abilities with the supreme gravity of his black holes. Blackholes are collpaed stars I might add, and What is the sun I ask you? A star.
Think back to Ace and Blackbeard's fight way back when and look at this interesting piece of text
The Stuff of Legends
Don't you guys think it's interesting that Blackbeard directly refers to Ace's ability as the sun? Not fire, flame, or even light but the SUN. I think this was Oda being cheeky and foreshadow the ultimate conflict. Another interesting piece of Info is Blackbeard's association with the moon, this factoid further proves that Blackbeard is the literal antithesis of Luffy on a molecular level.
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Note that in Blackbeard's portrait as kid the moon hangs over him.
Oda has put a lot of stock into making Blackbeard the perfect counter for Luffy, having him built in the story since Drum Island but the subject of Imu might throw a wrench into all this to the uninitiated. But the opposite is true. Imu is the King fo the world, the shadow ruler who reigns above all, and that makes him Blackbeard's number one enemy, even beyond Luffy. In terms of goals anyway.
The idea that Luffy fights Blackbeard at Raftel and finds the One Piece starting the final war never made sense to me because there is now ay Oda is going to eliminate Blackbeard from the story have him miss the throne war.
People might not realize this, But Blackbeard is a D as well, and he will have a role to play in the events surrounding the end of the story. And on the subject of the D, Let's talk about Xebec and Blackbeard's true ambition.
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The Strongest
Blackbeard's predecessor
Rocks D Xebec had the ambition to be the King of the world and was a force so powerful that the marines, pirates and the celestial dragons had to work together to best him. This is relevant to Blackbeard be he is most likely inheriting Xebecs will as there are several connections between the 2 pirates. One Blackbeard has made his new base of operations Hachinosu, the former stronghold of Xebec and his ship is even known as the "Saber of Xebec." This makes me think that he is carrying the will of Xebec and is essentially his 2nd coming and will be much worse.
We recently learned that Blackbeard wants to be King, so imagine when knowledge that of Imu's existence is made public, he will WANT what Xebec wanted and sit upon the empty throne. Only thing is he'll come a lot closer than Rocks ever did.
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Note that Blackbeard's hobby is Archaeology. Meaning he has a desire to learn the secrets of the world.
Blackbeard is ignorant to alot right now, but when he learns the truth he will be inflamed as we see multiple times through the story new information has caused Blackbeard to change his trajectory and let his ambition run wild.
The 3 who have Imu's attention
Factoring in Blackbeard's desire to sit at the top, Imu himself has shown an express interest in Blackbeard as we see that off the mutilated wanted posters he had in his garden, Blackbeard was among them. Not Dragon, Not Law, Not Kaido, Not Big Mom, BUT BLACKBEARD. Imu sees him and Luffy as his principal threats alongside a literal ancient weapon. So the people thinking Blackbeard a guy who has ambition to take Imu's spot and is actually living rent free in his head will be defeated BEFORE the final war you're kidding yourself.
No, Blackbeard and Luffy will both participate and BOTH will play a hand in Imu's defeat. Not team up, but their actions will effect and help each other inadvertently as they always have. Imu is scared of the D and is grateful that they don't know the true meaning of their birthright, but like Law said the D shall cause a storm. Luffy will play the biggest part but the other D's are also guaranteed to have their own roles in the displacement of the old world order.
Imu will fall and the dawn will be ushered in, but like the saying goes the night is always darkest before the dawn. Luffy will have to settle things with Blackbeard once and for all to stop him from ushering in a new age of darkness and finally prove that Teach was in fact not the man Roger was waiting for.
There's many more things I could add or touch upon from the story and outside of it that shows Oda's intentions for Blackbeard's character but I think i've made my point.

1.
I had only been around maybe a few months, working as a temp for my hopefully new boss.
He's a good guy, tries to do his best in spite of all the trouble that seems to find him, and generally, he does a lot to keep the city safe.
He goes by 'Nocturne', and no, I don't know his civilian identity, nor does he know mine. It's better that way.
I perform a primary support role for him, leveraging my powers to add some versatility in his struggles against superpowered crime.
For a Powerless, he's pretty fucking strong.
Wait, fuck, I mean 'Differently Powered Individual', that's the corporate term for it.
He doesn't deal with nonsense, when he captures a villain, he makes sure they don't come back. He doesn't kill them, just directs them to his therapist and tells them he's able to keep a secret.
When I'm not out with him fighting supervillains, I'm usually around the base, doing repairs to his technology, cleaning off blood, vomit, and the occasional mutagenic goo from his spare uniforms.
That's what he calls them, uniforms. Not costumes, not Hero Suits, they're his work uniform, and he'll be damned if people say otherwise.
So imagine my surprise when, during a deep clean, I found something odd.
It was the costume of resident nutjob and shock jockey Galvin. Literally, that's his name. I took it out and looked it over.
That's when I saw others, all of them from past villains, like Mutamex, who actually mutated him into a fish hybrid that required a lot of genetic therapy to reverse, or The Victorian, whose entire MO was trying to destroy modern technology and reset society to his preferred temporal state.
Last I heard, he'd been thrown into the past, and had left a letter thanking Nocturne for helping him when nobody could.
I also saw The Crocodilian's costume, and found it weird that it was actually a costume.
The Crocodilian was a weird one, he was constantly asking for help, but he'd go on rampages like nobody's business.
It occurred to me that these were all villains he'd defeated, people who had given up their plans entirely, or had been neutralized in spite of Nocturne's efforts.
Well, Nocturne was out for a few days, some joint operation that was too dangerous for support to tag along in, and you never really get a chance to have some fun.
So, I tried the costumes on.
Galvin's had some standard electricity enhancements in it, which boosted his already present shock jockey loadout.
The Victorian's was just an old, stuffy suit, and Mutamex's was better left alone, so they went back in.
One of the costumes had belonged to Tyrant, whose entire thing was brainwashing and mind control, and wearing the costume, I could tell those powers were enhancements, and I put it back before I got tempted to use them.
The Crocodilian's, however, was actually just a lizard suit, a harness, arm and leg bands, and a collar. It had always seemed to lifelike on TV, so naturally I put it on.
Or at least, I tried to. There was no zipper and no apparent way to put it on. It was only after puzzling it out that I realized the mouth was the entrance.
One quick tug later, and a widely distended opening later, I was actually comfortably slipping it on, my feet settling snugly, my hands finding the right fingers to fill, even slipping the head over mine was simple. I moved around in it, noting that it was actually pretty hard, that I had to kind of hunch over and walk on my toes.
In fact, it was surprisingly more comfortable like that. There were enhancements, like something to make the claws capable of piercing stone and using that to climb, being able to move around on all fours quickly, being able to whip my tail and wrap it around things-
Wait, tail?
I looked at my tail, which curled up as I looked at it. I grabbed my head and pulled, but it stayed on. I hurried to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I opened my mouth, expecting to see my face, but instead I saw a crocodilian mouth.
I looked at my hands, realizing I was registering them as being normal for me, and I was very quickly losing all sense of who I used to be.
I called Nocturne.
"What?" He asked.
"I, uh, have a situation here." I said.
"What is it?"
"Short version. I put on The Crocodilian's costume and am currently experiencing rapid loss of identity."
There was a pause, followed by, "Alright, stay on the line. Just keep talking to me."
"Okay. Do you know what is happening? Do you know why this is happening?"
"That costume is a quantum superimposition matrix, at least, that's what the lab boys say it is. It was something developed with the intention of creating Heroes out of DPIs, but it got scrapped early on. That suit is the only surviving one we know about."
"Alright."
"Basically, the biggest issue with it is that it overwrites your existence, putting you a step outside of time while it retroactively changes who you used to be, until you were always The Crocodilian."
I nodded. "What happens if it finishes?" I asked.
"Well, that's the fun part. You stop existing, replaced by a version of you that was always this. You're aware of what you were before, you're aware that an entire life you lived has been replaced, and reversing it requires some time travel shenanigans."
I nodded. "So, what's the plan?" I asked.
"That depends on you. If you end up liking what you're becoming, you can opt to simply continue living like that. Otherwise, you can let people know what's going on and we can undo the superimposition."
Now that I understood what was happening, I wasn't as freaked out about it. I knew that my choices remained largely the same, and I was getting the sense that I was simply going to be born this way.
"Thank you." I said.
"Don't start thanking me yet." He said.
"No, I'm making the choice now that I'm fine with it."
"Good, as long as you're fine. That said, you will be telling me when I get back, because I will forget. Nocturne out."
I took a deep breath and stood up, and as the change completed, I couldn't help but feel glad that I'd done something so recklessly stupid.
Even moreso, just my existence alone meant more had been created, and a part of me wanted to see how many more would be created if other people got their hands on one.
​
2.
I never forgot that there had been a point where I wasn't the person I am now.
I still had the same powers, still had the same job, the difference was that I was created in a lab, rather than born.
The scientists were surprised, of course. They knew my existence meant the suit they had made had been used, and any use of it beyond that simply never happened. Nocturne fought a different crocodilian villain, someone who had deliberately mutated themselves. I learned this because I did as he asked and told him what I had done.
He wasn't happy that I'd done something so recklessly stupid, those suits were kept there specifically because nobody would ever look there, and that my actions technically counted as a containment breach since it directly led to more of the suits being made.
I did check on the people who had been my parents, their son looked like I had, but he wasn't the same, didn't have the powers I did, was straight up a DPI.
I continued working with Nocturne, he was a good mentor, a good boss, and even though that desire to see others become like me itched like nobody's business, I kept it contained, at least, until I couldn't hold back anymore.
I started a small meme, comparing Nocturne to a werewolf. Only goes out at night, never seems to be hurt for long, comparing his usual catchphrase to how they apparently howl at the full moon.
I even managed to find a video of him doing that under a full moon.
It started out slowly, mostly people cracking jokes about it being the weirdest, most random thing ever. And because it was weird, it was noticed, being shared and eventually finding its way to the Hero's Association, where it instantly became a common joke.
Nocturne didn't like it, but he kept a stoic front on it.
I brought it up once, not directly comparing him to a wolf, but asking him what he thought about it.
"I think it's a waste of everyone's time." He said dourly. "I can't think of a single reason anyone would compare me to a bloodthirsty monster."
"I don't know." I said. "Wolves are considered loyal creatures, and it's fairly popular to subvert the whole 'werewolves are evil monsters' thing." I gave a short laugh. "Besides, I think if anyone were capable of resisting a curse, it would be you."
I proceeded to tease him a little about it, but spinning my comparisons in a more favorable light, getting him to give the merest fraction of a smile before he began leaning into it.
First, it started with him at least saying that people were going to have their fun no matter what it was, and this was just the meme of the month, then going along with it when people directly mentioned it to him.
When it was time for the yearly costume review, it was suggested that he lean into it more, that there were some designs that could be added without compromising Nocturne's rigid insistence on his uniform remaining the same.
It was the only time he agreed to a change, but remained adamant that he had final say on the design and that he would personally work alongside the people working on it just to see that it was done correctly.
It felt satisfying, seeing how people reacted to this, some saying they finally got Nocturne to change up his suit and making it more badass, others saying they liked how he just went with it.
He seemed satisfied with how it all turned out, which is why I chose to bring up the QSMs.
"I'm surprised you went along with the whole wolf thing." I said.
"It grew on me." He replied. "It helps that the villains are even more frightened of me."
"Very much a benefit."
"Get me the laser attachment?" He asked.
I climbed up the stone wall and got the attachment from a high shelf. I gave a short laugh. "Before I put on the QSM, I could have never done that." I remarked. "Life's been a lot better since then."
"Yes, that time you recklessly put on villain suits not even thinking of the effect they could have on you."
"True, it was a stupidly reckless thing to do. But it worked out in the end." I paused. "The lab that created it, created me, made some others, they've got them in holding, so nobody uses them carelessly."
He looked at me. "Why bring that up?" He asked.
"Oh, sorry. Forget I said anything."
"No, I want to know why you'd share information like that." He continued.
"It's not classified, if that's your concern." I said. "In fact, the lab wanted me to advertise them, but the Association vetoed that hard."
He nodded, eyes still narrowed. I didn't bring it up again, pushing it would have made him even more suspicious.
I knew he was investigating them during his patrols, checking for anything illegal, but finding nothing wrong. So when he asked me about them, I simply told him that they were in storage behind heavy security, and that the only way one of those was getting out was if a Hero specifically requested it. "As I recall, the suits are of a tiger and a wolf, nothing too extravagant."
The way he breathed in, that slight gasp of having understood something, told me that he had finally taken the bait.
I was with him, when the lab let him trial the suit, seeing the way he smiled, as he touched his fur and moved around, indicated to me that he was enjoying himself, that he was going to keep it. As my memories shifted, changing him from just my employer to my brother, time shifting to accommodate the company starting earlier, how the number of us jumped from one to thirty, I came to a realization, one that shook me, yet nonetheless made me smile.
I had just successfully finished my first plan as a villain, and I realized I liked how it felt.
I wondered what would happen if I could convince the entire city to join us.