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[Sunbreak] Hitzone Comparison Damage Calculator with Dual Blade Analysis
I've revised this several times, so hopefully, I've ironed out all the mistakes. Please let me know if there is anything wrong with my findings, points you disagree with, or questions you may have.
Thanks to

• dtlnor for the MV datamining
• Pilgrim, author of the DB meta guides for initial data
• Gobul's Lantern for Lance data

tl;dr

• Hitzone Comparison Damage Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QIjL2FXYzRw1-RJp0t-W0Qh0zb5mCH1Vs2U9SWSb6VQ/edit?usp=sharing
  • Only supports RAW, ELE, Affinity, Critical Boost, Critical Element, Elemental Exploit, Elembane, and Anti-Species
  • Copy and edit/add your own stats, MVs, EVs, combos, and timings
  • Does not support dynamic stats. Use final ATK and Element
  • I would use a different calculator if you need more precise damage details
• Prioritize Elemental Exploit and Elembane hitzones most of the time
• Grounded is theoretically better for DPS with the Demon Flurry Rush buffs
• The best Grounded Spiral Slash combo is Demon Flurry Rush + Spiral Slash
• The best Grounded combo without Spiral Slash is Demon Flurry Rush + Rising Slash + Demon Fang + Twofold
  • Demon Flurry Rush + Slide Slash + Demon Fang can be better depending on the stats, but difficult to loop
• In situations where grounded hitzones are bad, Aerial is still viable
• The best Aerial Spiral Slash combo is Demon Flight + (Aerial Flurry) + Midair Roundslash + Grounded Spiral Slash
  • Skipping Aerial Flurry does not appear to impact DPS much if at all for Spiral Slash
• The best elemental Aerial combo is Demon Flight + Aerial Flurry + Midair Roundslash + Rising Slash + Demon Fang loop
  • Skipping Aerial Flurry loses DPS but Aerial Flurry does not always hit
• The best raw combo is Aerial Midair Blade Dance (Archdemon Mode) or probably Piercing Bind + Demon Flurry Rush + Blade Dance (Not thoroughly tested)
• There are niche scenarios where the hitlag on a low raw hitzone can increase DPS over a high raw hitzone

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Changes in TU5
3. Methodology
4. Results
   1. Grounded
   2. Aerial
   3. Hitzones
   4. Grounded vs Aerial
   5. Slide Slash
5. Hitlag
6. Conclusion Appendix A.1 Non-Spiral Slash Grounded hitzones A.2 Aerial Matchups

1.0 Introduction

This is a theoretical DPS comparison of Dual Blade attacks. I will outline the output and differences between Demon Flurry Rush, Aerial, Slide Slash, Spiral Slash, and their applications to different hitzones.
The main reason for this investigation was to determine which hitzone to attack. Given the enormous skew towards elemental damage for Dual Blades, it did not appear obvious which hitzone to target.

2.0 Changes in TU5

These are the relevant changes in TU5.
Figure 1: TU5 Dual Blade Changes https://i.imgur.com/mwpZ0h8.png
Text:

• Demon Flurry Rush
  • MV: 5x2 + 4x2 + 8x2 -> 6x2 + 5x2 + 10x2
  • Total: 34 -> 42 (+24%)
  • EV: 0.7x4 + 1.0x2 -> 1.0x4 + 1.2x2
  • Total: 4.8 -> 6.4 (+33%)
• Slide Slash
  • EV: 1.0x4 -> 1.3x4
  • Total: 4.0 -> 5.2 (+30%)
• Demon Slide Slash
  • EV: 1.0x4 -> 1.3x4
  • Total: 4.0 -> 5.2 (+30%)

3.0 Methodology

Previously for Rise, I had tested the frame data for Dual Blade attacks to try and get an idea of what the DPS or mv/s was on moves, but there was no way to measure DPS on Switch. The mv/s was just theory, but with the power of Steam and magic (mods), it is possible to test the real life DPS of rotations as well as easily record frame data if needed.

• The [A Worth Toadversary] mod allows you to adjust the HZV of the Toadversary
• CheatEngine can be used to adjust weapon ATK
  • Green sharpness at 85 ATK with a +10 ATK Petalace gives 100 EFR
  • Attacks will do the same damage as MV without suffering from yellow sharpness penalty. (95x1.05=~100)
  • Similarly, you can set your weapon ATK stat to -10 and adjust the EHZV so your element will deal the same damage as 10x EV.
  • Green sharpness at 0 ATK will give pure elemental damage
  • EHZV can be adjusted to deal 10x EV
  • Effects of hitlag can be observed by adjusting HZV with 0 ATK
• The Zinogre Dual Blades with green sharpness and 20 Thunder were used
  • Adjusting the EHZV to 37 means with Demon Mode, the 27 Thunder will deal 10 damage on a 1.0x EV hit
• The [Hard or Soft] mod can also be used to view the raw and elemental damage split for each hit if needed
• The [MHR Overlay - Damage Meter] by GreenComfyTea was used to measure the DPS, which can directly equate to mv/s or ev/s in the training room

The frame data used was collected through the training room against various HZV on the training dummy @60FPS and compared to actual DPS. It may vary slightly depending on what FPS your game runs at, and other factors I'm unaware of may also impact it. There can always be variations, so the expected DPS may not always line up 100%, but my tests have always correlated towards the same result.

4.0 Results

A simple calculator was made to cross-compare approximate damage against different hitzones and adapted to compare different combos. I haven't seen any hitzone calculators like this so I made my own. The time can be set to 1 second to evaluate combo damage instead of DPS, and different moves or combos can be added. The combos listed use the Attack Data table to create a formula. For example, DFR Demon Fang MV is AM9 + AM4 + AM5, which is Demon Flurry Rush + Rising Slash + Demon Fangs. Copy that to the next two cells to get the EVs and time added up, then divide to get the mv/s and ev/s.
Several different Dual Blade combos were tested to determine their effectiveness.
Figure 2: Dual Blade Combo mv/s and ev/s https://i.imgur.com/jdMkakL.png
The top 5 mv/s and top 5 ev/s are highlighted in yellow (ignoring low hitlag versions).
While Demon Flurry Rush on its own deals ~5.05ev/s (see Figure 1), it cannot be looped into itself.
Aerial style doesn't have high ev/s in comparison. This is the main reason it will lose out on DPS.
Piercing Bind does extremely high mv/s but cannot crit and has bad ev/s

4.1 Hitzones

The primary reason for this investigation was to determine the optimal hitzone to prioritize in a hunt. Spiral Slash can only be used on 45+ HZV (typically), but those don't always have high element. Spiral Slash can also miss hits even if it connects. Also, Wirebugs and/or openings are not always available.
Using the following stats: 408 RAW, 233 ELE, Purple, 40% Affinity, WEX3, CB3, CritEle3, ELEX3, Elembane
Figure 3: Example DPS chart for DFR > Twofold https://i.imgur.com/n6Yn7Ry.png
The raw damage dealt is shown at the bottom, while the (WEX) elemental damage dealt is shown on the right.
This chart can be used to determine which hitzone is best for this combo, and the target damage/hitzone can be changed in the spreadsheet.
From Figure 3, we can see that for DFR Twofold, a 20/25 hitzone is superior to ALL hitzone that only have 15 element. The same comparison can be made with Spiral Slash combos, and similar results can be found (not shown).
As such, there are situations where not using Spiral Slash can lead to more damage.

4.2 Grounded

• Demon Flurry Rush + Spiral Slash is typically the highest DPS when comparing the same hitzone
• Without Spiral Slash, Demon Flurry Rush + Rising Slash + Demon Fang + Twofold is probably best
• Demon Flurry Rush + Slide Slash + Demon Fang (+ Twofold) has very high mv/s, ev/s depends on hitlag
  • May be beneficial if you understand your positioning well
  • Can also be used to trigger Bloodlust slightly earlier
  • Note that Archdemon Mode has lower element stat than Demon Mode, but loops faster for better ev/s and is simpler
• Aerial can be stronger if there is no good grounded hitzone

4.3 Aerial

• Demon Flight + Aerial Flurry + Midair Roundslash + Grounded Spiral Slash
• or
• Demon Flight + Cancel Aerial Flurry + Midair Roundslash + Grounded Spiral Slash
• are the strongest Aerial combos
  • Within 1% of each other (for the stats I tested)
  • Note that Aerial Flurry can miss some of its hits because of its height
• Aerial Flurry directly into Aerial Spiral Slash resulted in less damage output
  • The last two hits of Aerial Flurry need to be cancelled for the fastest Spiral Slash
  • Aerial Spiral Slash also has increased end lag due to landing time which might increase on bigger monsters
• Without Spiral Slash, Aerial Flurry + Midair Roundslash + (Rising Slash + Demon Fang + Twofold) or (Blade Dance) loop may be strongest
• Midair Blade Dance (MBD) in Archdemon Mode is the highest aerial raw option available
  • Can also be used to trigger Bloodlust slightly earlier
  • Note that Archdemon Mode has lower element than Demon Mode
• Midair Blade Dance in Demon Mode deals less MV while being significantly slower

4.4 Grounded compared to Aerial

Archdemon Midair Blade Dance appears to be better for heavily raw skewed non-Elemental Exploit hitzones, which are very rare. Grounded combos appear to be better than Demon Mode Aerial combos in almost all realistic hitzones when directly compared. Grounded with Spiral Slash is superior to Aerial with Spiral Slash in all scenarios with element.
There are matchups where Grounded combos have a hard time hitting good hitzones and Aerial will be superior, or the iframe and mobility utility of Aerial allows for more attacking uptime or better wirebug management. Grounded may have to use Shrouded Vault or dodge more often to avoid damage while Aerial can use Demon Flight to iframe through attacks, which should be put into consideration. At the same time, it is difficult to have every hit in an Aerial combo land on the correct hitzone.
See appendix for more details

4.5 Slide Slash

Slide Slash can serve as a niche damage boost due to its very high MVs and newly buffed EVs, but missing any hits will cause a large decrease in damage. Its movement can be unintuitive to loop, and may overshoot or miss hitzones, which should be taken into consideration, but it can also be used to close gaps or reset positioning.
Demon Slide Slash has increased MVs over regular Slide Slash, but both are the same speed and EVs.
The Demon Mode combo is Demon Flurry Rush + Slide Slash + Demon Slash, which bypasses the need for Rising Slash, the weakest aspect of the regular combos. In Archdemon Mode, Demon Slash doesn't happen at all, making the combo faster at the expense of the Demon mode element buff and Demon Slide Slash MV buff.

5.0 Hitlag

The spreadsheet includes data for some low hitlag and high hitlag versions of grounded attacks. While there can be some small variance in regular hitlag, there is notable consistent differences caused by hitzones. Considering hitlag can provide some minor benefits to DPS for Dual Blades. The situations where a hitzone is chosen specifically for lower hitlag appear to be rare, but are outlined in the appendix. It is a benefit of high element hitzones that are already poor raw hitzones, and not a consideration when the elemental hitzones are the same or when they are low.
Low hitzones give less hitlag and high hitzones give more hitlag, with the following ranges and visual cues.

1. 0 to 24 (None, white, bounce)
2. 25 to 44 (Low, white, orange sparks)
3. 45 to 65 (Normal, orange)
4. 66 to 100 (High, orange with blue sparks)

Figure 4: Adding the effects of Sharpness: https://i.imgur.com/uiMeucA.png
Purple

1. 0 to 17 (None, white, bounce)
2. 18 to 32 (Low, white, orange sparks)
3. 33 to 47 (Normal, orange)
4. 48 to 100 (High, orange with blue sparks)

There is no appreciable difference of hitzone thresholds between using White over Purple.
Direct comparison for Demon Flurry Rush + Rising Slash + Demon Fangs + Twofold Slash

1. No Hitlag: 5.0ev/s (~2.08s)
2. Low Hitlag: 4.8ev/s (~2.16s)
3. Normal Hitlag: 4.3ev/s (~2.47s)
4. High Hitlag: 3.9ev/s (~2.67s)

DPS difference over High Hitlag:

1. +28%
2. +23%
3. +10%
4. +0%

I don't believe any practical No Hitlag hitzones actually exist except for Daimyo Hermitaur guarding, but I could be wrong. Because the hitlag is so low, inputs can be missed which delays the next hit from coming out quick enough, but it is marginally faster than low hitlag.
Low hitlag Elembane hitzones appear to be superior to High Hitlag Elemental Exploit hitzones at a cursory glance, even when comparing to Spiral Slash damage. This combination appears to be fairly rare.

6.0 Conclusions

The tl;dr from the top:

• Hitzone Comparison Damage Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QIjL2FXYzRw1-RJp0t-W0Qh0zb5mCH1Vs2U9SWSb6VQ/edit?usp=sharing
  • Only supports RAW, ELE, Affinity, Critical Boost, Critical Element, Elemental Exploit, Elembane, and Anti-Species
  • Copy and edit/add your own stats, MVs, EVs, combos, and timings
  • Does not support dynamic stats. Use final ATK and Element
  • I would use a different calculator if you need more precise damage details
• Prioritize Elemental Exploit and Elembane hitzones most of the time
• Grounded is theoretically better for DPS with the Demon Flurry Rush buffs
• The best Grounded Spiral Slash combo is Demon Flurry Rush + Spiral Slash
• The best Grounded combo without Spiral Slash is Demon Flurry Rush + Rising Slash + Demon Fang + Twofold
  • Demon Flurry Rush + Slide Slash + Demon Fang can be better depending on the stats, but difficult to loop
• In situations where grounded hitzones are bad, Aerial is still viable
• The best Aerial Spiral Slash combo is Demon Flight + (Aerial Flurry) + Midair Roundslash + Grounded Spiral Slash
  • Skipping Aerial Flurry does not appear to impact DPS much if at all for Spiral Slash
• The best elemental Aerial combo is Demon Flight + Aerial Flurry + Midair Roundslash + Rising Slash + Demon Fang loop
  • Skipping Aerial Flurry loses DPS but Aerial Flurry does not always hit
• The best raw combo is Aerial Midair Blade Dance (Archdemon Mode) or probably Piercing Bind + Demon Flurry Rush + Blade Dance (Not thoroughly tested)
• There are niche scenarios where the hitlag on a low raw hitzone can increase DPS over a high raw hitzone

The calculator can also be used to compare scenarios like different levels of Critical Boost, Critical Element, and Elemental Exploit, as well as how different stats affect the same combo. Reminder that it uses your final buffed ATK and Element from your stat screen.
The calculator can also be used for other weapons. Manually input their moveset and timings if desired, or set the mv/s and ev/s to the MV and EV directly. If you are trying to test a Charged Master weapon, incorporate Charge Master's buff directly into the MV and EVs.
Lance stats are already included since I happened to have my own testing data on hand, but the timing data may be outdated. Check Gobul Lantern's testings for probably more accurate data. It can also serve as a reference to visualize exactly how skewed Dual Blade elemental damage is.
Having briefly tested other weapons in the training room, the only weapons that might need to choose a hitzone with higher element instead of higher raw frequently are Charge Blade, Bow, Light Bowgun, and Heavy Bowgun. Every other weapon is almost guaranteed to be better off prioritizing high raw hitzones with minor element hitzones due to how much more raw damage they deal than elemental damage.
Because of this, Dual Blades appear to be the only weapon where hitlag can cause any increase in DPS, however small it may be. I recommend trying the DFR Twofold combo in the training room against high hitlag and low/no hitlag to get a feel for how incredibly different it actually is.
DFR Slide Slash appears to be a strong option if you know what you're doing. At normal hitlag, it is very close in element to using DFR Twofold, but deals more raw damage. At high hitlag, it is stronger than using DFR Twofold due to Twofold's increased hitlag. At low hitlags, DFR Twofold's reduced hitlag is stronger, but you can also add Twofold to Slide Slash to catch up a tiny bit. Twofold specfically appears to suffer against higher hitlag for some reason.
Never ever ever use Roundslash.

A.1 Non-Spiral Slash Grounded hitzones

The following is a list of monsters where Grounded non-Spiral Slash should theoretically perform better than Spiral Slash, but you should consider partbreaking for staggers and drops as well. If a comparable Spiral Slash hitzone exists, it is probably listed. Some monsters you can rotate DFR on low raw hitzone and then aim Spiral Slash on the WEX hitzone to take advantage of the hitlag difference and hitzone spread. There are also scenarios where you can trigger Spiral Slash on non-WEX hitzones by targeting a moving WEX hitzone, but they are rare.

• Aknosom
  • Legs 36/35 (Water)
  • Best hitzone by far and it's not close
• Almudron
  • Forelegs 23/30 (Fire)
  • Tail 55/25 (Fire)
  • Tailtip 65/25 (Fire)
  • Forelegs slightly win in theory due to the speed advantage
  • The tail and tailtip are probably still the better hitzones, but not always hitable. Also, Spiral Slash misses on the tailtip a lot when it flails.
• Apex Mizutsune
  • Forelegs/Fore claws 28/25 (Thunder), 24/30 (Thunder)
  • Best hitzone by far
  • Dragon comes close but Thunder's base element probably carries it over having Elembane
  • Thunder also does better if you have to hit something that's not the claws/forelegs
• Apex Rathalos
  • Wings 30/25 (Dragon)
  • Enraged Head 80/20 (Dragon)
  • Wings are marginally better due to the speed advantage when it is not enraged
• Aurora Somnacanth
  • Head Fin 45/25 (Fire)
  • Forelegs 35/20 (Fire)
  • Head 55/15 (Fire)
  • The Head Fin is by far the best hitzone, but if you can't hit it for some reason, the forelegs are still way better than the head if you can hit them
• Barioth
  • Thorns 25/30 (Fire)
  • Head 65/20 (Fire)
  • Thorns are the best hitzone by far if you run Elembane, until they break, but difficult to consistently hit
  • Switch to head when they're broken
  • Probably not worth running Elembane for this though
• Barroth
  • Unmuddy Head 22/40 (Fire)
  • Unmuddy Tail 47/25 (Fire)
  • Unmuddy Torso 36/25 (Fire)
  • The head is the best hitzone by far and it is not close (nearly double the damage vs the Forelegs)
  • Only problem is being so high off the ground, wait until it's downed?
  • Tail and Torso are much better than the forelegs otherwise
  • 0 fire when muddy
• Chaotic Gore Magala
  • R. Wingarm 20/25 (Fire) 20/30 (Dragon)
  • If you can find a way to focus this part... Otherwise, aim for the head
• Daimyo Hermitaur
  • Claws 25/35 (Fire)
  • Head 50/30 (Fire), 50/35 (Thunder)
  • The Claws with Fire are marginally better because of the speed advantage
  • Head depends on stats? Mine are about equal
  • If it's guarded, you get 0 hitlag (but bounce)
• Lucent Nargacuga
  • Cutwings 21/30 (Ice)
  • Enraged Head 65/25 (Ice)
  • Cutwings are the best hitzone when not enraged, switch to head when enraged
• Magma Almudron
  • Tail 24/25 (Water)
  • Head 55/20 (Water)
  • Tailtip 50/25 (Water)
  • Tail is marginally better than the head when it is not heated, but worse than the Tailtip, if you ever have to choose (never?)
  • The Heated Head and Claws are too good though
• Magnamalo
  • Hind Legs 38/25 (Water)
  • Best hitzone by far if all you want is damage
• Mizutsune
  • Forelegs/Fore claws 28/25 (Thunder), 24/30 (Thunder)
  • Best hitzone by far
  • Dragon comes close but Thunder's base element probably carries it over having Elembane
  • Thunder also does better if you have to hit something that's not the claws/forelegs
• Nargacuga
  • Cutwing 21/35 (Thunder)
  • Enraged Head 67/30 (Thunder)
  • Cutwings are the best hitzone by far until it enrages, then about equal to the head'
• Risen Teostra
  • Forelegs 38/25 (Water), Flames 38/20 (water)
  • Head 50/20 (Water), Flames 50/15 (Water)
  • Probably not running Elembane for this fight to begin with?, but
  • Forelegs are marginally better, but the head knockdown is important too
• Scorned Magnamalo
  • Hind Legs 38/25 (Water), Hellfire 30/20 (Water)
  • Best hitzone by far, but doesnt break anything for staggers
  • If you don't run Elembane, the Forelegs are slightly better until it Hellfires, then the Hind Legs win again
  • Thunder might average better if this is the only thing you target because of the weakness switching?
• Seregios
  • Wingarm 30/25 (Thunder)
  • Head 55/20 (Thunder)
  • Wingarms are slightly better due to the speed advantage, but they are really really small
  • Probably better not to try
• Shogun Ceanataur
  • Claws 25/35 (Fire)
  • Head 50/35 (Thunder)
  • Claw is technically better if that's all you hit with a fire build (lol)
• Teostra
  • Forelegs 38/25 (Water), Flames 38/20 (water)
  • Head 50/20 (Water), Flames 50/15 (Water)
  • Probably not running Elembane for this fight to begin with?, but
  • Forelegs are marginally better, but the head knockdown is important too
• Violet Mizitsune
  • Claws 24/30 (Ice), Broken 28/20 (Ice)
  • Forelegs 28/30 (Ice), Broken 28/20 (ice)
  • Enraged Head 63/15 (Ice)
  • If you're running Elembane, Claws/Forelegs are the best hitzone by far until they break
  • Still the slightly better hitzone when it's not enraged, maybe even?
  • Switch to the head when each claw break gives a knockdown?

A.2 Aerial Matchups

The following is a list of monsters where I've found equal or better success with Aerial. Your experience may differ.

• Anjanath
  • Very tall
  • Its legs are awful hitzones and its head and back feature its best
• Arzuros
  • Forelegs are too high off the ground to use Grounded style
  • Switch when it falls
• Astalos
  • Very bad elemental hitzones all around
  • No Elemental Exploit except when the tail is charged
  • Aerial features better raw output to compensate
• Barroth
  • Head and tail are high off the ground
  • Aerial won't bounce
  • Switch when it falls?
• Basarios
  • Aerial won't bounce while waiting for it to heat up
• Diablos
  • Fine with either, Aerial is very good at iframing and hitting wings and chest
  • Grounded is fine at hitting chest too though
• (Flaming) Espinas
  • Aerial might have an easier time getting hits in
  • Legs are the best hitzone though
• Magalas
  • Their movement makes it very difficult to target the head or wings with DFR the whole fight
  • Using Aerial feels significantly easier and my DPS is always better with Aerial
• Narwa The Allmother
  • Very very raw skewed matchup
• Raths
  • All variations of Rathalos and Rathian may be better with Aerial if they're not locked down
  • Their good elemental hitzones are so high up (head, neck, wings, back depending on which one)
  • Aerial style feels much easier to attack with and also land Spiral Slash with than trying to play grounded
• Tetranadon
  • Head is the best hitzone and is very high up
• Zingore
  • Back is the best hitzone

Summary: A demolition firm struggles to take down a damaged building for their mysterious clients
I Was a Foreman at the Grazer Tower Demolition
By now Grazer Tower has faded as a household name but to some the rumors and madness surrounding it refuse to die. The demolition of the massive three hundred twenty foot octagonal hotel left a gap in the Atlanta skyline but little fondness in anyone's hearts. I have no particular first hand insight into the freak lightning strikes on the 30th floor atrium which killed 13 people but I am willing to tell my side of the story about the demolition effort leading to the botched implosion. I tell this as a full, open, and honest disclosure. The legal maneuvering and ink has dried, all of the dead are buried, and all the bleeding stopped. The scars remain, the pain persists, the things I saw there are burned in my head even after they've been discredited into the conspiracy theory woodwork of the internet. The lightning storm struck on a Sunday afternoon and the next day for all we knew the bodies were still warm when a lawyer representing the owners of Grazer Tower entered our corporate office. I look back on it now with open and clear eyes and realize it was all very strange from the start when my Lead Foreman, Tom, and I were called into the meeting in progress.
The lawyer and now our client, looked like a fairly normal man in his mid thirties aside from his impeccably white suit which was ironed to the point of looking like stone rather than cloth. Beside the white suit his lips were an uncomfortable maroon and glossy. Besides this he spoke in a plain, clear, and disarming manner refraining from legalese and maintaining a firm but not imposing eye contract with whomever he was speaking directly to.
He told us in no uncertain terms he was instructed to contract with our firm to take down his client's building. Tom and I were shocked when we heard this after all, the lightning disaster, while tragic and perhaps undeservedly tarnishing in the short term to the Grazer Hotel's reputation, did not render the structure unusable nor unsafe to its surroundings. The worst damage was that the steel dome of the 30th floor atrium had collapsed into the vaulted restaurant and ballroom of the 29th floor but that's where the structure damage started and ended, in fact aside from the 28th, 29th, and 30th floor, city engineers working overnight already declared the building sound. So while perhaps still time consuming and costly, repairing the building was definitely possible and cost effective but owners, to make an analogy, were basically insisting on totaling a car after a minor parking lot fender bender. They gave us a specific date by which the building needed to be taken down. When our Boss, Jim, rebuffed the lawyer, not only because the date was challenging and soon but also because it was possible we could have it dropped BEFORE the date specified. The lawyer insisted the building go down on the date given – not later and not earlier. Jim swallowed hard and then glanced at Tom and I. Then the lawyer involved the name of the head of the owner's group, a Mr. Rohmer.
Mr. Rohmer, according to the lawyer, was offering our firm one hundred percent of the cost upfront and another twenty perfect of the total cost plus any overruns – stating if the implosion came early or late, it would mean all very little – no, that's no a typo, that's how the lawyer phrased it from his client, Mr. Rohmer. With that detail out of the way, you can see how the car totaling analogy breaks down considering the owners did not stand to profit from it's demolition – in fact quite the opposite.
The lawyer chuckled a bit to break the tension. He explained his clients and Mr. Rohmer in particular were an unorthodox bunch and then even insisted he wear the white suit in any of their dealings. The lawyer produced a tablet PC from his messenger bag and leveled it to Jim. On the tablet was all the banking confirmation codes ready to go for a direct deposit into our firms account alongside a contract. Jim seemed to hiccup or belch in excitement as he hurried around the short side of his desk to sign it since his stubby t-rex arms could not reach across his desk.
The firm was committed, we were committed – I was committed and I started to mentally cramp up over the challenges we all faced. The Grazer Hotel was in the middle of a dense urban grid. It had to be precise drop with virtually no margin for error. Jim poured us a dram of scotch from the bottle hidden under his desk. None of us a second thought about Rohmer's cryptic remark – after all, how often did you get a one hundred twenty perfect no-bid contract walk in off the street, out of the blue?
A combination of exhilaration over the money and anxiety over the work load kept us all from sleeping that night. Jim and Tom ended up going out and having a wild night to celebrate while I went home to mentally prepare not only myself but also my wife and kids. As a family they were staring down a month and a half of late nights and weekends with no dad. My wife was frustrated until I told her about the bonus and then she said she'd fill the lonely time making plans to send the kids to Disney World and then find a place for us to spend alone together. The promise of a much needed vacation after this only super charged the butterflies in my stomach further in anticipation of this challenging season ending.
As the assistant foreman I had office and on-site duties. Most of it was coordinating between the two. This included personnel, setting up site security – including guards and cameras to keep urban explorers and vagrants of out the dangerous site and satisfy OSHA hazardous work place safety requirements. The most challenging duty was site prep which included disposal of furnishings, removal of windows and other flourishes of the structure's facade which could become deadly shrapnel during an implosion. Fortunately, despite all of this, the nagging questions about permits and clean-up contracts were already handled by the lawyer. Rohmer's group also waived any rights to furnishings which means they could be unceremoniously hauled out in any way we chose to and disposed of.
Now I suppose some of these things should have came as red flags to me – or at least some one in the company but we all justified it as the group must have connects and short cuts to permits and it was a relatively new building, only about twenty years old in fact and furnishings – whether old or new probably weren't of any antique or sentimental value. All in all these were blessings since they freed our hands a bit and made a near impossible deadline more possible.
Of course the good news came with some bad news. The city engineers forbade us from working at the 28th, 29th, and 30th floors – unless we brought in a separate crew to stabilize those levels first. This was quite the fly in the ointment for the controlled implosion plan we sketched out. The 30th floor wasn't as much of a problem but the 29th floor ballroom and the weakening of the 28th floor meant we can't inspect for how compromised they were by the steel atrium dome. For all we knew if we blew the 27th floor on down the dome could shift and topple over the top three floors outside of the implosion safe zone, imperiling people and nearby structures.
I raised holy hell about it while Tom stood calm. It could take months to stabilize and clear those floors and far more money than I thought our eccentric client would pay in overruns. Jim waved me off mid sentence and simply told me he'd take care of it. That was good enough for Tom so it had to be good enough for me. I went back to my job – securing site and planning drop.
Although we had a problem with the top floor our saving grace lie in the basements. It had a three story subterranean parking garage, a basement level pool, and a utility sub-basement. We could easily smash the first ten or twelve floors into that deep footprint. Also the utility sub-basement gave us a clean cut off from the grid and a fairly convenient way to protect the surrounding grid without interruption. Still, at least part of our team would take have to take three weeks out of our six and change to handle the utilities.
The first week was hectic, they always were but we hit no major snags. By the end of it were on schedule and all of the parts were coming together. We thought maybe, just maybe, we were well on our way to an early Christmas bonus but nothing could prepare us for what was coming.
If you work on a site long enough and work anywhere on the site security reporting chain you're bound to get a few questionable reports from your night guys. Let's face it, for folks who are wake all night five or six nights a week poking around with flashlights chasing shadows, every building every where is haunted. I've been on the site security chain for thirteen years so it was easy for me to dismiss reports from the night guys about unusual glows on gutted floors and stairwells, elevators which moved on their own with no one calling for them or inside when they opened on a random floor, or the security cameras and cellphones constantly going offline on the 27th floor and the utility sub-basement.
I wasn't convinced anything of concern was going on until I got called on site by the test drilling team. This team was responsible for sampling the support materials to determine where it was best to place the explosives and what explosives would be best to use. They reported the interior supports were designed in an unusual way with a honey comb of unorthodox metals and concrete not reported on the building's records or blueprints. Specifically, they reported the concrete was impregnated by some kind of metal veins which gave off a bright shimmer. I was asked to come identify it but they claimed it disappeared by the time I arrived.
I was irate at the team and their supervisor for having me to come on down on site for something that sounded so wrong to begin with. They showed me a grainy cellphone video and told me they would swear on a stack of Bibles the sparkling compound welled up in the test coring like mercury, turned blood red and bled on the floor before disappearing into the torn up carpet. I chastised them for making this up and threatened to get new sub contractors if they kept wasting my time. I spoke with a separate sample team on the lower levels and they too discovered some unusual metal compositions – ones which were different then the ones found the top floors. One of the engineers speculated that the contrast in metals between the top and bottom floors could be cause the building to hold an electrical charge, like a battery or like a capacitor. Either way, the engineer said it would require more explosives than initially thought to take down the structure.
A couple of weeks later we were painfully behind – glass removal in particular was going slow because those contractors claimed they were constantly losing their toys. They also claimed one night to have cleared the top five floors on the east side of all their glass – only for all the windows to appear fully intact the next morning. I was forced to end their sub contract due to misrepresentation of work accomplished.
The glass wasn't the only thing slowing us down. The wire and plumbing removal was hindered by the wires somehow were fused to the pipes and in some places, the pipes were fused to the load-bearing members – we thought maybe it was due to the lightning strikes but that really didn't make sense since all of the wiring and plumbing otherwise seemed to work fine before we turned off the utilities. The only thing going for us was the helicopter loophole. Instead of accessing the 30th floor through the condemned floors we were able to get work teams on the atrium floor by helicopter. The bodies of the 13 were removed before we started working and before the atrium fully collapsed into the ballroom but the teams working on the roof reported many unusual artifacts including stained glass and Greek letters comprised of unusual amalgams of metal.
All of the strangeness culminated in the disappearance of one of the night time security guards named Phillipe. I say disappear because his girlfriend filed a missing persons report with the police and when they came to investigate Tom was busy with the atrium operations so the job fell to me. I walked the investigator through guard's smart phone filed reports from the previous evenings. Admittedly I was behind on my end approving the reports so I was embarrassed when things in the report took a turn. His reports including the same odd glows the others were reporting in the stairwells and seeing metallic veins throb on the walls.
His last reports stuck in my head: Report: Sub-basement 4 clear, 0312. Report: Sub-basement 5 clear, 0305. Report: Sub-basement 6 clear 0237.
His “all clear” reports documented levels of the building which did not exist and the further he went into the areas which did not exist, the automatic timestamps went backwards in time. It made no sense – unless he was confused as to where he was due to intoxication and there was software glitch with the timestamps. I was forced to give the investigator no firm explanation.
It's easy to write off a high security guard – they're flaky by their nature and have plenty of reasons to ghost a part time gig and even to pull prank on their final reports. I almost wrote it all off until I saw his girlfriend – apparently his fiance, handing out missing persons fliers outside of the site gate one morning. She seemed absolutely heartbroken and I got stabbed in the gut thinking maybe this wasn't a ghosting and prank after all. Seeing is believing and the next week I started to believe. Tom was finishing up on the atrium level. We used some heavy lift choppers to remove the rest of the frame and glass. Now we could get a better look into the section which collapsed into the 29th floor. We started by using a series of video drones to investigate the melted twisted dome through the collapsed roof. We quickly learned that the drones were being interfered with as their feed would cut out or their batteries would die almost immediately upon entering the ballroom.
So, we had to cut some corners, against city regulations, we let Tom and two others rappel in from the roof on secured anchored lines with helicopter over watch support. We needed to do this because we needed make sure that collapsed wreckage would not move and potentially change the implosion direction. Tom got twisted in his gear as he tried to lean into one of the holes in the roof. He slipped and fell in, disappearing from sight. We frantically radioed for Tom as the other two workers abandoned their own attempts to peer in and scrambled to Tom's aid. Tom was pulled out of the section uninjured but he appeared to be in shock, he looked wild eyed and shook as he was put on the helicopter and lowered back to ground level. Within minutes, Jim called us back to the office to discuss the near miss.
Two weeks to go and week behind, a missing guard, and now a near fatal accident. That for Jim, was the last straw. Tom and I had run out the rope Jim gave us to hang ourselves with. Jim slammed his hand on his desk as he catastrophized, red in the face, nearly breathless, he yelled we could very well kiss that twenty percent goodbye with the way things are going. He pressured Tom to go on the record after his dip into the structure that the atrium debris ball in the ballroom posed no threat to the implosion. Tom was elsewhere. He stared off in a thousand yard stare before replying to Jim that it posed no threat. Then Tom headed for the door. Jim screamed at him that he wasn't done chew us out but Tom only said he had to get back to it. I supported Tom and followed him. He and I headed back to the site to secure the night shift changes – another night not at home and having a late dinner.
I asked Tom in the car ride back what he saw in there. Tom was fixed in a trance and barely responded. He said it was wild. When we got back to the site, Tom separated from me through the gate while I strolled across the street to grab us some dinner from a street vendor. As I stood around waiting for two gyros and two cokes I could help but be mesmerized by the gutted tower. It seemed to breath in the spotlights inhaling puffs of the dust and dirt on the site and then exhaling it. A faint glow, barely perceivable against the light pollution, seemed to brighten, dim, and fade from the upper floors with each of the building's breaths. I was transfixed on it and it was the first time the building gave me an eerie feeling.
I got back on the site, food in hand, there was a buzz in their air as the night shift streamed in and the day shift streamed out. I barely had my hardhat seated corrected on my head when the site's emergency alarm blew. The interim foreman tossed me a radio as I was swept with him and our site occupational safety and emergency personnel to the basement.
Our increasingly panicked footfalls blotted out the squawk of the radios but I could hear one name again and again in the equally panicked messages – Tom Tom Tom. Whatever was happening was happening to Tom.
We reached the pool level and a trail of gasps proceeded me into the pool. There was Tom in his vest and hardhat face down in the middle of the pool with crimson oozing out him into the cerulean tiles lining the drained pool. We piled in from the ladders and shallow end to get to him. It was apparent when the first folks reached him that he was dead. They hauled him out on a stretcher and to our shock he looked like he had been dead for much longer than possible and his skin was water logged despite there being no water. He had died of fall trauma possibly despite the pool only being six feet deep. The paramedics also claimed he had water in his lungs. Then I noticed he was wearing his rappelling harness weaved in his vest – but that made no sense – he took it and his vest off when we were getting chewed out by Jim. Why would he put his rappelling gear on again.
I was the assistant foreman no more. Now the buck stopped with me. As they took Tom to the morgue we all knew the show must go on – our client demanded it, Jim demanded it and Tom would have wanted it that way. The same police investigator from the guard's disappearance met with me over Tom's death. They said it was standard procedure with work place deaths. I gave him a copy of the footage on an SD card and left the moment after it left my hand.
I had the recording queued up to the time of the commotion. The video we provided had a poor angle and was focused on the door to monitor access – the comings and goings of people. It was shift change so people were filing in and out Tom was somewhere in the crowd. The pool was one of the areas which required both foot patrols and constant video monitoring. I hit the rewind button on accident and watched his body lie there and lie there and then the timestamp sped past the 1900 hour mark. We were in traffic from meeting with Jim at that time. This was impossible but I kept my finger on the rewind button. Around 1400 the camera shakes a bit and there is slight glow reflecting on the doors so I let it play back to the shake. There is a soft green glow and then could hear a heft thud in the room. I gulped knowing that was Tom falling into the pool around the same time he fell into the hole in the roof. The soft glow turned brighter and brighter like a laser shining into the lens – something that wasn't present on the rewind. There was a flash of an incomprehensible shape or form on the screen. I was physically hurt in my eyes like I had just stared into the sun. I was left dazed with the shaped burned into my eyes with each blink. Then the camera system shorted out and a tiny puff of smoke left the memory module. The cameras blinked off wall to wall, the whole system was dead.
With the cameras fried, regulations required someone high in the company to be on site or we'd have to leave for the night. So I stayed knowing we couldn't afford to lose an hour much less an entire night. I circled the pool between approving payrolls and directing the increased security guard traffic required to monitor more areas. I was thinking about what I would say at Tom's funeral. I was thinking about Tom's family and what they would think about his apparent suicide.
I was forced to patrol the rest of the sub-basements as well since most of the guards were at the site perimeters or higher levels. I would have to follow paths of Phillipe, the disappeared guard, and all of the other guards who had mismatched timestamps on their increasingly strange reports. If not for today's incident and the recording of Tom's death, I would have stood fast to the idea that these reports were the product of night jitters and drugs but now, no.
I gritted my teeth as I exited the pool area to patrol the lower levels. I hated this building I muttered to myself. I couldn't wait to see it all rumble. I thought about which part I'd like to keep from the site to place in Tom's casket – then I realized it probably wasn't going to be an open casket funeral. I was lost in my thoughts and hatred for the building as I roamed through the parking garage into the utilities basement. I lost track of where I was as I weaved down stairwells.
I shown my flashlight on the wall and the floor level sign said “Sub-basement 999”. I stopped cold in my tracks. I was hoping it was a prank but I knew it was no prank. Then I thought maybe I'd have some answers. Maybe I would finally see what all the strangeness was about. But then I freaked out about Phillipe's disappearance and turned to run back up the stairwell. I ran up four levels to what I thought was the lobby and I pushed the door open.
My jaw hit the floor when I saw a black and white galaxy – the stars were black and the space was white with gradations of gray. The whole room was just white outer space and the whole universe swirled fast counter clockwise. I tried to breath and when I did the galaxy shrunk before my eyes until it was the size of a tiny of marble and then even smaller to a speck of dust. I reached out as it floated towards me. I stared at the speck in a cold sweat. As I stared, I was looking deeper and deeper into impossible detail. In the dust I found the milky way galaxy, I found our solar system, I found Earth and then I found North America, and then I found myself back in the pool room dripping in sweat.
Time seemed to skip and space was malleable in that hotel. As we approached the deadline to drop it, some jobs which would take hours took days and some jobs which would take days took minutes. The anomalies seemed to swarm tonight and day and yet we pressed on. Tom was buried and I couldn't go.
We met the deadline and the city came out in numbers to watch us drop the thirty floor structure. They gathered nearly two blocks away clad in ponchos and dust masks bracing for the implosion triggered by half a ton of high explosives.
I was so burned out and demoralized. My mantra became “this is for Tom, this is for Tom” and it was the only thing carrying me to this day. I chalked up all the anomalies and even my own experience on 999th sub-basement level as a reaction to shock, loss, grief, and exhaustion.
We were on the thirty minute countdown and Mr. Rohmer's attorney was designated as the trigger man. He stood there with Jim and I in the command trailer with the detonator remote. The remote triggered a two minute countdown on the charges from a master control station in my command trailer. All the charges had to be hardwired old school style because we were getting too much walkie talkie and radio interference from inside the structure for any other method of trigger to be reliable. I was too tried to make a stink about insisting I do it. I just wanted it to be over but suddenly a freak thunderstorm brewed up over the city. The skies were overcast and we were on the verge of having to abort the implosion until the next day – despite the next day being a day past the deadline. If we didn't abort and went through with the implosion, there was a strong chance the shock waves from the blast would bounce back off the lower cloud base and shatter windows and ears across the city.
I sat in my command chair at the perimeter in dismay, almost in tears as it started to rain. I felt my heart drop into the acid of my stomach as I ordered the suspension of the implosion for the day. The lawyer, surprisingly, did not resist. I watched as the crowds dispersed from the viewing lines and police started to permit traffic back through the streets surrounding the site.
Then a group of unauthorized personnel threw open the door of the trailer. They were a mass of men and women clad in pressed white suits, stoney faces with thin maroon lips, one of them carried a white covered book.
The attorney dropped his eyes and head in deference to elderly man at the head of the congregation. The attorney addressed him as Monsignor. The man introduced himself as Monsignor Rohmer and he placed his hand on his attorney, calling him a cousin of the congregation, stating there will be no postponement and no delay.
Rohmer, a man I judged to be in his late 50's or early 60's was bald and covered it with a white derby hat. He was tall, about six five, and thin, so thin his suit fit him like snake half shedding its skin. His was face long and his cheeks thin and worn like a mountain side. His voice was steady and low like waterfall. Everything he said bloomed with authority and confidence. He ordered the building would be dropped in twenty minutes.
I told him I didn't care if he was the owner, the building could not be blown in this weather and I snatched the detonator out of his attorney's hands. Rohmer, moving faster than I believed humanly possible with some kind of martial arts move swiped the detonator from my hands. Simultaneously, he had two of his followers press Jim against the wall. They put him in a sleeper hold and he slumped down to the floor barely getting a word out. Then Rohmer gestured to his flock to follow towards the building.
They left in a fast deliberate almost choreographed walk like a flock of geese flying in formation. I grabbed the radio to get police help but I realized that was hopeless. I watched as our trailer was shrouded in the same interference we experienced in the building's interior. The CCTV monitors flickered out and the radio squawked static. Then I realized Rohmer had no control over the detonation and no way to contact his followers still with us in the command trailer. So I did what I had to and pulled the master key out of the master detonator in the command trailer and chased after the flock. I needed to know what was happening I needed to see with my own eyes what all of this was all about.
The Congregation had reached the lobby and I saw the trailing end of the clad white congregate into the stairwell. I darted at my best speed to follow them.
I reached the stair well door. I found Rohmer standing on the top step, apparently waiting for me. I was out of breath while he began to speak to me in his booming voice. He explained to me that if the building did not fall in the next twenty minutes, all of Earth would be pulled, sucked, inside out and down through the building into the black and white universe. The entire building, but especially the atrium dome, he continued, was designed and built to create and then temporarily contain an impossible shape, a living form, a 4 dimensional object, a tesseract, when struck by lightning in the presence of thirteen self-sacrificial Congregate members. This shape would slowly expand and cause space and time anomalies before growing so large inside compared to its size would pull us all into place with no life.
The shape was still in the process of forming even as we spoke, he said. It would reach critical mass and dimensional contortion and the only way to stop it was to disfigure and crush it in the hotel's collapse. He led me into the pool level where his entire congregation was sitting cross-legged where Tom fell. A green pulse, like a laser, came down from the ceiling into the group's center, where their white book lay open on blank pages. I had a feeling this glow was being projected down from the ballroom where the dome of the atrium was taking its final fourth dimensional form.
After a loud chant from the white clad followers, the book slammed shut and turned from a brilliant white shimming cover to one black as night. As they passed around book, their white suits turned black and the formed a single file line. Rohmer left my side and pulled the detonator from his suit. He showed it me and tossed it at me. In my panic I reached out with both hands to catch it but I forgot I still had the master key in my sweat slick hand and it fly out and fell at the foot of Rohmer.
I asked what he planned to do with the key without a lock and a jammed detonator. Rohmer bent down and grabbed the key and looked me without a hint of concern. He took the new black book into his hands and opened it facing the wall of the pool. A new green pulse launched from the book and flickered on the tiles. An octagonal outline appeared to frame a hazy image of a tropical beach. One by one Rohmer's congregation walked into the side of the pool, into glow and seemed to arrive safely on the otherside of the beach.
Once all his compatriots were on the beach, he turned a page in the book and reopened it, projecting another octagon portal on the side of the pool. I could see his destination – it was the command trailer. He stepped through portal and yelled to me from the other side that I had two minutes. The portal sealed.
I could hear the warning sirens we installed going off above me. Needless to say, I made it out, just barely. I reached the perimeter fence screaming to anyone who was in ear shot to run away. The building imploded as planned but I was caught in the dust cloud and developed tinnitus severe enough to be comparable with combat veterans.
The shock waves from the explosions were reflected off the cloud base and channeled down the street by other skyscrapers. Virtually every window in a two block radius around the site was shattered and hundreds of people were hurt in the resulting stampede and vehicle collisions caused by fleeing from the flying glass cascade. Parts of downtown looked like a war zone for weeks afterward.
Rohmer and the rest of his group, including the lawyer, had disappeared out of the trailer in another portal leaving a suitcase of gold equaling the twenty percent promised. Our company was fined, sued, and threatened with criminal charges and eventually put of business. There wasn't much left after paying the cities fines and lawyer fees.
Though I was spared any direct sanctions, I forced into an early retirement. I've had time to research Rohmer's group. There are at least six mentions of figures like Rohmer on the deepest parts of the conspiracy web. They seem to show up at a locale experiencing paranormal activity with a white book and then leave with a black book. Their departure usually marks the end of any strangeness. I can't be sure but this congregation seems to be summon demons, which they exorcise, by trapping them in their books. Trapping maybe a poor term to use since, as in the case of the Grazer hotel encounter, they can apparently cleanse the anomalies and then use the book containing them to weaponize a portion of the traits of whatever their unholy creations posses.
I suspect Rohmer and his congregation, now with the ability to teleport, are accelerating their plans, to whatever ends these paranormal means enable them.
Theo Plesha - Sequel to "Flush" by Theo Plesha on The Chilling App

I like purple. When this season's weekly ultimates were leaked, as they always are, my eyes were immediately drawn to the funky purple patterns of Orchid Cluster. It's a little ugly, but I still want it. I make a note to check the weeks until it comes up, and hope the challenge isn't too grating.
Too many weeks later, here it is, locked behind a deceptively simple challenge.
TLDR: even in their dumbed down form, Challenges still take your normal gameplay and strangle it, reduce it, force you to do things you may not want to do or that - extremely often - are not useful to your team. And even if you don't care about them, every player ON your team is potentially a player who does.
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On the surface of it: Get an enemy Spartan with any pistol immediately after switching to it.
The logic this implies: switch to any of the game's 4 pistols and kill someone within about a second of doing so. On the face of it, this is an example of a 'good' challenge - it instructs the player in a core method of getting kills, draining shields with one method before finishing with a reliable headshot weapon. (Well, only two of the pistols can headshot iirc, but I digress.)
But despite doing this repeatedly, it triggered once in total. Out of five. So, what am I missing?
Oh, ok. Turns out that, insofar as my experiments have led me to believe, you need to do damage to them with *weapons only* first. Melee into switch into headshot? Did not work on any occasion. Grenade into switch into headshot? Sorry, buddy, we don't do that kind of thing around here. Ok, fine. Solely utilize your assault rifle or, if you nabbed one, plasma pistol/pulse carbine to get their shields down, then pop them after a switch. Incidentally, I used the sniper rifle during one game, but every body shot I landed into a pistol switch + headshot? Nothing.
... But that still doesn't work 100% reliably, so what else are we missing? Oh! All the damage \must** be yours. If the enemy has even so much as a graze on him from an ally's assault rifle spray from across the map, sorry pal! Outta luck. You did not qualify. Try again.
Y'know, in this team-based shooter. Oh, I guess I could try Ranked FFA - the only current form of FFA in matchmaking is Ranked - but the same issue would apply there anyway, where 1v1s are rare and more often become 1v1vGuy Who Jumped You Both For The Double Kill.
So no, I queue up Quick Play, a game mode with an assured Assault Rifle and Sidekick starting loadout, and then just try to get into constant 1v1s with people with the very specific motion of Reduce Shield > Switch > Shoot Head With Pistol. Grenades? Subdue that reflex. Melee? Not gunna help. Objective? What objective, I'm not here to play your game, I'm here to complete a boring, irritating challenge that couldn't fit its requirements into the limits of its text string and so just kind of lied about them instead, or at the very least omitted half of them.
With all these requirements met, I get the last Quick Draws I need in one game. Oh, and the enemy capped the flag three times while I did so, but hey, I'm sure my team don't mind that one of their teammates was playing like a weird bot the whole game. Or when I grabbed camo purely to wait for someone to walk past me so I could spray their back and get an easy shot on the head in their panic and surprise.
Towards the end, one of my attempts failed - a fight I could have easily won, were I not playing like a rigid freak. The game helpfully chimes in with a death screen hint on the right, insisting upon me The Golden Triangle. The pillar upon which Halo is built: Guns, Grenades, Melee. Grenades, which this medal seemingly detests. Melee, which this medal turns its nose up at.
I'm reminded of a dozen other challenges in the normal pool that are still like this, that still change the way you play the game for the sake of busywork. Get kills with X weapons - hey! What are you doing conforming to The Golden Triangle of shoot + melee?! That's not a kill with the Zumba Wumba Gun, that's a kill with melee! Oh, you died. Well, peep our hint screen, dear player, and let us educate you about The Golden Triangle--
I shut the game off without even looking at my new visor, and give silent thanks that the remaining ultimate rewards this season don't appeal to me.

I know that they're really rare to breed but I've tried over 1000 times and I'm beginning to wonder if I can even get them (I'm breeding two random legendary monsters to get them)

I'm 24 ftm and have a partner (she/they) the same age. We've been together for 1,5 year. She has borderline and I'm autistic, so there's the first issue (they are very sensitive to potential rejection and I often have trouble expressing myself in a way that doesn't trigger those thoughts in her). The second issue is that i suffer from a lot of dysphoria. I dissociate. I also have some religious trauma that might still be present, despite some therapy. I rarely think about sex but my partner suggests it pretty often (a lot less the last few months though). This all shows just the surface of all the things that make having sex and really just thinking about sex complicated and anxiety inducing for me. I feel so stuck and broken. I just want to have a "normal" sex urge and not dissociate. I have some hope for when I will have started taking hormones but idk...
Most of the time I feel like an alien and sex feels like something foreign. I know this might sound like I'm ace or something like that but I've had a really high sex drive before so that just makes everything so much more confusing.
Fyi, my partner and I have spoken about this many many times.

I'm a 24 y/o trans man and have a partner (she/they) the same age. We've been together for 1,5 year. She has borderline and I'm autistic, so there's the first issue (they are very sensitive to potential rejection and I often have trouble expressing myself in a way that doesn't trigger those thoughts in her). The second issue is that i suffer from a lot of dysphoria. I dissociate. I also have some religious trauma that might still be present, despite some therapy. I rarely think about sex but my partner suggests it pretty often (a lot less the last few months though). This all shows just the surface of all the things that make having sex and really just thinking about sex complicated and anxiety inducing for me. I feel so stuck and broken. I just want to have a "normal" sex urge and not dissociate. I have some hope for when I will have started taking hormones but idk...
Most of the time I feel like an alien and sex feels like something foreign. I know this might sound like I'm ace or something like that but I've had a really high sex drive before so that just makes everything so much more confusing.
Fyi, my partner and I have spoken about this many many times.

DRAGI ZMIJANAC: “It is a challenge to be the leader of this great global movement!” Founder and President of the First Children's Embassy in the World MEGJASHI - MACEDONIA
https://preview.redd.it/1hz5adgry73b1.jpg?width=688&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57bd5ad684d37f617bd81b483439333b081bbb98
INTERVIEW
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DRAGI ZMIJANAC: “It is a challenge to be the leader of this great global movement!”
*Being a pillar and the head of the First Children’s Embassy in the world MEGJASHI is a feeling and experience that only you a familiar with. There were no working conditions, you were the one who created them over all these past years completely oriented towards children, you were alone against the established rules and patterns of behavior, prejudices, discriminations, institutions, loopholes in the law, and above all the mentality of the environment that we live in, as a transitioning society. MEGJASHI is grounded by the milestones of your struggle for children's rights, you leave values ​​behind you, and traces. What motivated you to embark on this great struggle, maybe the fact that you are a parent yourself?
- In the beginning, we were the three pillars - Gorde, Kole and I, and as time passed, more pillars were built into this global children's movement called the First Children’s Embassy in the world MEGJASHI, which represents children and has been fighting for a fairer world for children for 30 years. Since you already asked me about the feeling and experience that I have experienced throughout all these 30 years, the one thing that I can emphasize is that you cannot build something significant and motivating only if you want it, if you are dedicated and believe in what you are doing. It takes persistence and courage in order to see the outlines of the structure, from the very beginning and in the first few years. Now when I look back, I have to admit to myself that everything has to be earned, through work, belief, perseverance and honesty. When you strongly want something and believe in what you are doing, the Universe has your back. Change does not happen overnight. You need to stand strong, be mobile, resilient to attacks and blows and come out stronger after every battle. Defending and fighting for a fairer world for children is not only difficult, but also inspiring. I saw this challenge as an opportunity to be a driver and leader in this great worldwide movement called the First Children’s Embassy in the world. Recognizable and recognized all over the world. It is the pillar of success. Everything else builds upon it, complements it, changes it and pushes it forward. We are here and exist because we are needed. I often joke when I say that if this embassy, ​​the first one in the world, whose heart is in Macedonia, did not exist, it would have to be invented. And, since it exists and continuously proves itself, creates, creates, it should be selflessly supported and helped. In one of UNICEF's manuals, the author, Ms. Sue Gilbert wrote: “Macedonia is famous for children’s rights, because that’s where the First Children’s Embassy in the world, MEGHASHI, was formed”.
The conditions when we started working to help and support children affected by the war in former Yugoslavia were tense, the war had started. Gordana Pirkovska Zmijanac, who is the initiator and founder of the First Children’s Embassy in the world MEGJASHI, appealed for the care of children affected by the war. At her strong insistence, the editor Ljubisha Nikolovski allowed her to make an appeal for solidarity, for help and care for the children affected by the war, on the prime news block of the Macedonian national television. The appeal reached Macedonian citizens. And that's how it all started. It was on April 12, 1992. While Gordana was on MTV, I was at home, I recorded her appeal, the phone rang continuously, I registered all the calls and requests from citizens to take a child under their in their homes. It was real solidarity and humanity in action. That's how we started, as an informal citizen initiative. Due to the fact that we agitated and mobilized all state institutions and demanded the opening of children's resorts, hotels, etc., we realized that we had to get formalized as an organization. On April 29, we had the Founding Assembly in the “Karposh” Youth Home (Pionerski dom), and we got officially registered as a civil soviety organization at in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, back then, on May 25, 1992. Otherwise, I draw the main motive, inspiration and incentive in this struggle from my childhood. I grew up in conditions of social and educational injustice and neglect. I grew up in a family with a single mother. I grew up in a dysfunctional family. The conditions were hrash. Not to mention bordering on poverty and social injustice. But for me as a person it posed a major challenge - to either become strong or to break down. I chose the fight for justice and it has been my guide all these years in my life. It is my life energy, mission and vision. I know that I was not born by accident and I have a task to do something. At least to change and improve things a little. Injustice affects me. And that's why I'm often rebellious, I speak loudly about it and I'm not afraid to raise my voice. My voice is the echo of millions of children. That's how I bring myself up and enter from one battle to another. I know it's difficult, painful, uncertain, but I'm waiting, I'm patient and I'm watching even the smallest changes as a big step forward towards a fairer world for children.
*It is subtle job to deal with children's rights, first of all you need be familiar with all the laws, as well as the mechanisms of their functioning in reality. At the same time, it is not easy at all, because we live in conditions in which society, instead of facilitating, gives resistance against the citizens and their needs, many rights are violated, and many crimes against children are concealed in a well-organized manner. Did all that resistance scare you, this entire situation around you that created pressure, did it discourage you at times?
- Sometimes I feel that our work stagnates. That's the initial impression. There is an improvement in the defense of children's rights, but the state institutions sometimes seem to shift the responsibility between each other. They are not sufficiently efficient and mobile, they do not implement violence prevention in time, they only impose sanctions when there is a case of incest or death, which is a belated measure. The level of abuse of children in Macedonia is constantly increasing, and this is due to the aggressiveness, loneliness and alienation of children, they are increasingly left to fend for themselves. First of all, the most important thing is that we broke the silence surrounding children's suffering, we spoke publicly about all the problems that children in Macedonia face, which were previously shameful and scary to talk about, we encouraged children to talk about violence, to recognize us as protectors of children's rights, as their advocates. Of course, we have instruments, indicators, how to reach information about the problems that children encounter. In 1993, we opened the SOS telephone line for children and youth, now known as “Hello, Bushavko” 070 390 632. This hotline for children has been operating for 29 years, so far over 21,000 children, parents, guardians, relatives have contacted it to report child abuse, violence, violation of children's rights. We use our mechanisms to resist and often with the help of the media we exert pressure, sometimes we can be even louder than what is expected of us, to push the state institutions into working with maximum functionality and efficiency, in defense of children's rights. To respect the best interest of the child. The motto of the Children’s Embassy MEGJASHI is that “All the ideals in the world are less important than the tears of a child”.
*It has been proven that in order to improve a child's right or at least to initiatite a change, unfortunately, one has to see or experience the worst example or incident. After all, we can't do anything about those sad and devastating facts or terrible statistics, but we can build a fairer children's world on their foundations and on the basis of lessons learned.
- In the fight for a fairer world for children, we upturned many taboos, stereotypes, opened up and initiated the solution to many problems affecting children, prioritized the importance of respecting children's personality and their best interests. We broke the silence about the children suffering from sexual abuse, from physical violence, from the problems they have when their parents’ divorce, from the sadness due to the secrecy of adopted children not having access to their biological parents, from the everyday problems that children encounter, from bullying, from the fact that there are still children without a birth certificate, children whose labor is abused, children who are not included in primary education or are prevented from completing their education. But what worries me the most in recent years is air pollution and the carcinogenic particles that children breathe. Air pollution is one of the leading causes of death in children because that air permanently crosses the blood-brain barrier and permanently damages a child's developing brain. Due to the negligence and absence of measures against the extremely polluted air in Macedonia, the most basic right of the children is violated and threatened - the right to life according to Article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by the Republic of Macedonia in 1993.
*You were a scanner and with your work you brought to light the fact that, in fact, children are not deviant towards society, but that society is completely upside down towards them. That what they do is, in fact, only a response to the irresponsible behavior of adults and that all of us together bear responsibility.
-Society and state institutions are often deviant towards children. Instead of being their support and help, they often act against their needs and interests. Very often when they do not act properly or act wrongly, the state does not have a mechanism to sanction those who are responsible, but rather protects them. And so the problems only deepen, and the state and institutions become complicit in the dysfunctionality of the system. There are many examples in practice. The alienation between the child and the parent is a deviation that adults and society are responsible for, and such direct and irresponsible behavior affects the proper growth and development of the child. It is difficult for parents from dysfunctional and broken former marital relations after leaving the marital union to be participants in functional and responsible parenting. Joint and responsible parenting even after divorce should be focused on what is most important, which is the best interest of the child. The child should not feel guilty about the divorce and should live a normal life, receiving attention from both parents equally, because the termination of the marital union puts an end to the marriage, but not to the process of parenting. The mother and the father are equally important and significant for the correct growth and development of the child and under no cirscumstances should a child be put in a situation to choose between them. Divorce is the end of marriage, not the end of parening, the child needs love from both parents during the process of growing into a healthy individual to avoid deviant phenomena in adolescence. The child is not to blame for the divorce and must not feel any remorse. The child should not feel guilty about the divorce and should live a normal life, receiving attention from both parents equally, because the divorce of the marital union is the termination of the marriage, but not the termination of parentage. The mother and the father are equally important and significant for the correct growth and development of the child and it should not be put in a situation to choose under any circumstances. Divorce is the end of marriage, not the end of parenthood, the child needs love from both parents during the process of growing into a healthy individual to avoid deviant phenomena in adolescence. The child is not to blame for the divorce and must not feel any remorse.
*Society really swallows up children's rights. The youngest seem to be the most discriminated against and have no way to defend themselves from the adults, unless another adult helps them. Young people need to know that there is a solution to their problem, even though it seems like the whole world has collapsed on them. You indicated this through numerous engagements and campaigns. What would you single out in particular?
- We live in a completely divided society along ethnic, social, educational and any other lines. We live with rude and aggressive, violent behaviors towards those different from ourselves. We live in a segregated society in which students from different ethnic communities study in different schools. Although we each speak our own language, we rarely understand each other when it comes to building trust, shared values ​​and life. That's why we decided to launch the campaign “Foster Peace”, to stir things up and be part of the change, acting both individually and as a civil organization, and on a collective level. At the same time, let's ask the state to be more mobile in terms of what we ask of it, to nurture, build and promote values ​​such as empathy, solidarity, responsibility, dialogue and non-violence.
*Generally, it is a great injustice - with their existence, children paint the world with the warmest and most cheerful colors, and the world often shamelessly paints their childhood in the darkest, gray, sad colors, in the color of tears. We all need to change our attitude towards
children and we must educate them about their rights. You have done a lot in this direction. What is most valuable in all of this?
- One of the most difficult traumas that can happen to a child is sexual abuse. And this trauma is shrouded in silence for many years. But we raised our voices and spoke clearly and loudly about these traumas suffered by the children and sought solutions. Both preventive and punitive. The strong advocacy, support and lobbying of the First Children’s Embassy MEGJASHI for stricter sanctions against sex offenders, incest perpetrators, pedophiles, especially towards children under the age of 14, bore fruit, three out of our four recommendations were accepted and I think that in this way there is an opportunity to put this pathological phenomenon under control, especially when it comes to recidivism. What we advocated for was accepted, drug therapy or chemical castration, a minimum of 15 years in prison, but they did not accept the wearing of electronic bracelets after the pedophile leaves the prison institution. We believe that chemical castration should be mandatory as a measure, especially for recidivists and that it should be established immediately after leaving the prison institution and the pedophile will thus be helped not to repeat the crime, because the Children's Embassy advocates for lifetime in prison for every repeated offender. This is not corporal punishment, because it affects the psyche, i.e. the mental disorder that the pedophile has because he is not able to control his drive and libido, and in this way we believe that we are helping the pedophile, as well as the children, not to commit these crimes again.
*All of the people in the Embassy have experience in all directions, profound, extensive, long-lasting, and each of you can write a thick book of experiences. Can you recall which was the most difficult moment for you in all these 30 years, and which was the brightest and the greatest source of pride?
-”The girl fell on the rolling pin and lost her virginity”, this is how the case of the then nine-year-old girl, who was raped by her mother's friend, ended somehow. Case closed! In cases of sexual offenses, the procedure for determining the origin of the injuries cannot be performed by a gynecologist, but exclusively by a forensic medicine expert. But back then no one reported the case to forensic medicine, where if there had been a case of rape, it would have been discovered due to the specificities of the injuries. It is interesting to note that the two injuries that the gynecologist found could not have been caused by one fall, or even by any rolling pin, but were done on at least two occasions. So, the case was closed, there were neither suspects nor was anyone accused. Macedonia will remain the only country in the world where “virginity is lost by falling on a rolling pin!”
Then, we helped thousands of children affected by the war in the former Yugoslavia, responded to the challenges of rescuing and evacuating children from Bosnia and Herzegovina and taking them into care in Macedonia. We responded to the Kosovo crisis and worked with the children in the camps in Radusha, Bojane, Chegrane, Stenkovec 1 and 2 in the period between 1999 and 2000. During the conflict in Macedonia in 2001 we opened a Shelter for Internally Displaced Persons and took care of 16 people, they were taken care of at the Children's Embassy MEGJASHI during a period of five years. Three babies were born here - Alexander, Marija and Nikola. We responded to the migrant crisis. We had a rapid response humanitarian action to help the children from the flood in Skopje, the children who fled from Syria and were taken care of in Turkey. We also adequately responded with humanitarian aid during the COVID-19 pandemic, by distributing aid to the competent institutions and providing them with overall protective equipment, gloves and masks…
*You moved a world from inside to outside, from invisible to visible, you instigated changes. Going back through the timeline, you can see how quixotic your work was, but then you add things up at the end, when it all comes together, you manage to see the scope of work and the conclusion that nothing was in vain. That MEGJASHI became a “moral” home for any child, barefoot, hungry and starving, but also for those who have a roof over their heads and dream of higher goals... That MEGJASHI became a school for transformation towards democracy and children's rights and managed to impose many positive changes. *Was it worth it?
- The state is more focused on the legal amendments and what the legal norms stipulate, and less or in some parts it is not mentioned at all how those legal provisions are applied in practice. There is no established system of monitoring how the laws are implemented, nor is there any information that an adequate analysis has been made as to what funds are needed for the implementation of the laws. The omission in the protection of children's rights usually occurs during the implementation of laws, and in certain cases it happens due to legislative gaps and inadequate regulation of certain issues. For example, there are laws where it is stipulated that the child has a certain right, but it does not specify how the child can exercise that right, through which procedure, before which authority and in accordance with which law. Such legal solutions are unenforceable in practice and instead of promoting children's rights, they represent an additional obstacle. But yes! It was worth it. The Children's Embassy has not only become a school for transformation towards democracy and children's rights, but also strengthens and encourages children's activism and participation. Namely, Macedonia is one of the few countries in the world that has managed, for the second time, to prepare an Alternative Report on the situation with children's rights in Macedonia - from the children's perspective. To submit, present and defend it in front of the members of the Committee on the Rights of the Child at the UN. Children state that they are victims of various forms of violence, among which bullying is the most common, and emphasize that schools should do much more to educate children to prevent this type of violence. They point to the problems in education, which are numerous, including the poor quality of teaching, insufficient care for hygiene, inadequate conditions for children with disabilities and insufficient care for children's mental health. However, they believe that polluted air, especially in winter days, as well as illegal landfills, factories near populated areas are part of the environmental problems that children face, and they believe that there is neither sufficient awareness nor sufficient care on the part of the government. Not to mention any liability and criminal prosecution. They listed many other problems that children face. We expect the specific recommendations from the Committee on Children's Rights to arrive soon. But, also specifically their implementation and realization by the Macedonian state. Our engagement will still be necessary here, because in every report so far there were numerous problems that children were facing, that have been noted down in the reports sent to the Committee, and are repeated.
*The hard-working team of the Embassy, very gently and carefully, with filigree-like precisions, weaved a network of children's rights. And, with your relentless persistence, you made people to increasingly realize that children's rights are not one or two and that there is no right dosage for fulfillment of children's rights, they need to be exercised down to the last percent. And no matter what is settled, new rights always arise that the heirs of the world deserve. *According to you personally, what is the first most inviolable and supreme right of every single child, wherever he/she may be on this Planet?
- The right to a healthy environment. The right to life. The population most affected by air pollution is children. Air pollution has a harmful effect on children's health. The negative effects of air pollution on children begin even before they are born. The polluted air that pregnant women breathe can lead to damage to the fetus and its development. Polluted air also leads to reduced body weight at birth, premature births, various anomalies in newborn children whose mothers were exposed to polluted air during pregnancy. Children who breathe polluted air have an increased number of upper and lower respiratory tract infections. As a result of frequent infections of the respiratory organs, permanent damage to the lungs and chronic diseases that last a lifetime can occur, such as asthma, allergies, chronic bronchitis. As a result of polluted air, there is also a disturbance in the development of the central nervous system in children, a change in the immune system, and the occurence of malignant diseases. Air pollution directly affects children and their right to life. Namely, according to data from the World Health Organization, more than one in every four deaths of children under the age of five is directly or indirectly related to exposure of children to air pollution. Children are particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of air pollution. Children inhale a larger amount of air, and thus a larger amount of harmful substances.
*What other message would you like to send?
- In the upcoming period, we plan to focus on achieving the following long-term goals of the organization, such as respecting and understanding the rights of children and children's personality; promoting and advancing the culture of peace and non-violence among children from an early age, mobilizing, updating and undertaking initiatives and actions for the benefit of children; joint and responsible parenting even after divorce, children having the right to find out who their biological parents are, the right to a healthy environment and clean air, and the struggle to mobilize and build functional institutions that act in the best interest of children.

http://www.megjashi.org.mk/content/pdf/MONOGRAPH%20%20First%20Childrens%20Embassy%20in%20the%20World%20MEGJASHI%201992-2022%20,%2030%20years.pdf

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Story lads. I'm an emigrant who's been gone 10 years, and in that time I've developed a chronic pain disorder and have a bunch of unresolved injuries that triggered it. I am working all the time to try turn the tide but with my lease up in September I am thinking of going home to my parents, quitting working for a while, and focusing solely on my issues until I'm able to work again.
It's a very difficult battle. I've seen every kind of specialist, and one area of my injuries (hand/wrist/forearm) has specifically been noted for a surgeon to review.
Thing is, I'm not sure of the landscape with health in Ireland now beyond what I remember it being: bad, very bad. I don't want to be on waiting lists forever and I'm currently on one here (Ontario, Canadad) just to get a consultation. The wait times are pretty bad here too - just in case you thought Canadian healthcare was top tier, I have news for you.
Some people have told me to go to Quebec or even Thailand to shell out for private care but obviously I would like to avoid that as it would cost thousands.
What is the state of things back home? Does anyone know how long it would take to get on a list to be seen and then treated? Any idea of the cost?
Thanks in advance.

Wall Street strategists get more bullish as stocks go higher
Today's Takeaway is by Myles Udland, Head of News at Yahoo Finance. Follow Myles on Twitter @MylesUdland and on Linkedin.
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For the second time in as many weeks, a prominent Wall Street strategist has raised their 2023 price target for the S&P 500.
In a note to clients on Tuesday, Lori Calvasina and the equity strategy team at RBC Capital Markets raised their year-end price target on the benchmark index to 4,250 from 4,100. Last week, Savita Subramanian and the equity strategy team at Bank of America Global Research raised their price target on the index to 4,300 from 4,000.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 closed at 4,205.52; the index has gained 10% so far this year.
In raising their forecasts for the stock market this year both strategists cited a number of factors.
Calvasina's work takes in the output of six key models that span earnings, sentiment, and political factors among others. Subramanian's team uses five indicators for their model.
Both firms also offer a range of outcomes for the S&P 500, with RBC presenting a bear case (3,800), a base case (4,250), and a bull case (4,600) for the index. BofA has a similar framework, with its five model outputs ranging from 3,911 to 4,599 for the index by year-end.
But the work from both firms also offers investors with another reminder that there is, in the end, one key force pushing stock prices higher or lower over time — earnings.
With 97% of the S&P 500 having reported first quarter results through last Friday, earnings for the index were down 2.1% from the same quarter last year, data from FactSet showed. At the start of first quarter earnings season, the S&P 500 was set to see earnings fall 6.8% from last year. This 2.1% decline, then, marks a massive improvement.
Investors are rarely interested in what has happened or what is happening as much as they focus on what will happen. And though first quarter earnings confirmed the "earnings recession" we'd argued would be the headline theme of the period, this "recession" is not moving markets.
Calvasina now sees the S&P 500 earnings at $213 per share in profit this year, up from $200. Subramanian sees earnings at $210 per share against a prior forecast for $200. A positive change in the future rate of change for profits results in higher stock prices today.
Add to this the enthusiasm for AI's possibilities and this "better than feared" earnings downturn has bolstered investor confidence in the market.
Both Calvasina and Subramanian make references to AI in their outlooks.
Calvasina writes that AI "provides a new, long-term secular growth story at a time when economic growth is expected to stay weak." Subramanian notes, "Corporate America has shifted [its] focus to structural benefits — efficiency/automation/AI and have bought themselves time to adapt via long-dated fixed rate debt."
But whether AI and its related efficiencies pushes corporate profits higher in the years ahead or not doesn't matter, necessarily. All that matters is investors see the decline in earnings turning back to growth sooner than feared. The price of any stock is a reflection of the net present value of the company's future cash flows. Investors are forever haggling over what price to pay today in exchange for earnings and dividends tomorrow. And the market today isn't sending any mixed messages about its answer to that question.

I’m not saying that happy/content/strong people don’t exist, but it seems almost rare and short-lived anymore.
More and more, many people are unable to talk or hang out because they’re depressed, anxious, or overwhelmed. People are also gaining more and more weight and feeling unable to get themselves outside or to the gym. Like a collective feeling of lonely, anxious, and even angry.
I really have to dig to find great news or happy moments (that aren’t fake/staged) as much anymore. I know it’s still out there, I experience it myself and also follow a lot of awesome accounts on Instagram and subreddits on here that are filled with things that made people smile or good news out in the world, people rescuing animals, etc. but even with the “happy” stuff everyone is just so critical and rude in YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, tik tok, and Reddit comments. I don’t even have any social media besides Reddit and Instagram but still hear about and see screenshots of all the toxicity out there on other platforms.
A lot of my friends, family, coworkers, and other random people I see/hear about are just not having a good time overall. Even people I used to know who were very open, kind, loving, and positive have retreated or become depressed. Everyone is getting offended and raging about everything. Customer service hardly seems to exist anymore. Also statistics showing that people are feeling this way more overall.
Does anyone else notice this, too? Any evidence that I’m 100% wrong? What would people need to do to help fix this and spread more happiness? For example, I think people have way too much to keep on top of all the time - work, family, cahouse/health bills and maintenance, lack of community, lack of mental health support, covid issues, etc. but I wouldn’t know how to fix that and also know that doesn’t apply to everyone. Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.

Ok.
I will start saying, by no means I consider myself better judge of anything than anybody else. And even when I consider something silly, I don't consider silly those who like it. People are just different, and so are tastes. So, let's just skip all the defensive/offensive and the proving each other wrong, shall we?
I also wish to say, it's not that I dislike this series. It's actually one of the best I've watched, all considered. But I do not resonate with its relatively mainstream style of narrative. Let me take some things at the end of S4 as an example.
My guess is that in order to build some sort of "credibility" that Olivia can possess extraordinary mindblowing abilities to the point of being the battery for a new Genesis, the writers forced some scenes. E.g. when Olivia is pointing her gun at Jones while he's trying to kill Peter, and two guards arrive and order her to put the gun down. They do not ask her to show her credentials when she says she's FBI, and they don't ask Jones to stop hitting Peter with a fucking crowbar, although they are two and could work in team so that one takes care of Olivia while the other stops Jones. This illogical behavior imo has only one purpose: leading to the scene where Olivia puts her gun down and discovers her new power: human puppeteer. Btw I personally find the idea quite laughable, and even more so the execution, with Olivia moving Peter like he was a human-size action-figure or an avatar of a videogame, instead of e.g. telekinetically immobilizing Jones, or whatever.
Then, Olivia and Peter find the immobilized September, and the red-haired girl (whom I bet 99% of you, like me, knew since a while that she is bad news) points a gun a them. Olivia could disarm her with the powers that she already showed, after all it's a threatening situation and that's what triggers her powers, but the writers needed her to show more powers to prepare us for her role as powerbank of the apocalypse. So she just does some talkjitsu and the red-haired shoots September. Perfect opportunity to show new "Flash" powers and move faster than the Observer-proof gun's bullet.
And so, we had Walter causing the fissure between worlds. We had Peter having to save or destroy one or both worlds. Now there is Olivia being Mrs Apocalypse. Old-school narrative stereotypes, imo.
I was not particularly happy but I was ready to enjoy what was left of the series. Yet, suddenly the observers became the main antagonist. And I don't have enough energy left to process the feeling of "what did the writers smoke?". The Observers believed that by changing things in the past the future would change. Kind of grandfather paradox or things like that. According to the plot of S5, the Observers needed to preserve the timeline so to ensure that they would exist. At same time, they have the remarkable ability to change things in the past without compromising their own existence. Their whole plan to invade the past is based on this ability. The amount of things that changed with their invasion would otherwise most inevitably lead to them not being created at all. But if they are so good at changing stuff in a precise targeted way, why didn't they simply changed the things which would lead to the depletion of earth's resources and therefore to their need to invade the past? After all, unless they intend to live in a time loop (going in the past, stay until the earth is depleted, go back again, etc etc), they will need to avoid such depletion anyway. So, why not just avoid the depletion and stay in the future?
And Walter again there with his typical "I can't remember, I am so dumb". In all timelines.
Somehow, I lost interest. I won't be finishing watching S5.

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 42%. (I'm a bot)

A rare all-white albino panda has made another appearance in new footage from China's Wolong nature reserve.
Back in April 2019, the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan province in southwestern China released a picture of the all-white panda, which at the time was 1 or 2 years old, captured by an infrared triggered remote camera.
The reserve released new, recently captured footage of the panda dropping in for a visit with a mother panda and cub, which were resting in a tree hollow.
Typically, a mother panda would be very protective of the cub, Wei Rongping, a senior engineer at the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas, told the Shine digital news site, an English-language service created by Shanghai Daily.
"This female panda was extremely 'calm' and did not conform to the general rule. One possibility is that the female panda is the mother of the all-white panda," Wei said.
The giant all-white panda has no spots and red eyes, leading experts to consider it an albino and the only one known to exist, according to several outlets including the official Xinhua News Agency.

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From The Guardian--I consider this to be a positive indicator for the North American Land and all of its peoples. I am not, however, altogether sure what, exactly, it indicates.
A challenge to live everyday life better and with a much deeper awareness and appreciation for the Land?Tthat's how I'm looking at it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/30/wyoming-white-bison-calf-rare

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 78%. (I'm a bot)

SEOUL/TOKYO, May 31 - A North Korean satellite launch on Wednesday ended in failure, sending the booster and payload plunging into the sea, North Korean state media said, and the South's military said it had recovered parts of the launch vehicle.
North Korea had said it would launch its first military reconnaissance satellite between May 31 and June 11 to boost monitoring of U.S. military activities.
The North Korean rocket plunged into the sea "After losing thrust due to the abnormal starting of the second-stage engine," KCNA reported, in an unusually candid admission of a technical failure by the North.
WARNINGS ISSUEDNorth Korea appeared to have rushed its satellite launch after Seoul's recent space rocket launch, a South Korean lawmaker said citing his country's intelligence agency.
Lee Choon Geun, honorary research fellow at South Korea's Science and Technology Policy Institute, said it was a rare opportunity for South Korea to retrieve part of a North Korean rocket, and perhaps even the satellite.
In data provided to international authorities before the launch, North Korea said the rocket would fly south, with stages and other debris expected to fall over the Yellow Sea and into the Pacific Ocean.

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Thanks to u/cmdr_shadowstalker, u/TitanSweep2022, u/An_Insufferable_NEWT (For trying), u/AlienNationSSB, u/Kazevenikov, u/LordHenry7898, u/Ravenredd65, u/Adventurous-Map-9400, u/Swimming_Good_8507, and u/Death-Is-Mortal. As always, please check out their stuff.
Previous First
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“War Room”
Imperium Claimed Fuies Space - The Coffer
Twenty Earth Years Prior to Liberation
​
“No, no, no. I won't humor any more of this,” Captain Mar’lu Moravi exasperatedly protested.
Despite this, Admiral Jar’mson soldiered on with presenting her opinions. “That’s too bad. Your cousin has requested my fleet be present, and seeing as I outrank you, your opinion is secondary to my orders..”
He heard an audible sigh emanate from Captain Moravi’s microphone, but she did not attempt to stop the Admiral for the time being. It was a source of immense entertainment to be a fly on the wall for these conversations. It was truly magnificent to see the mighty Imperial war machine's attempt to scheme its way out of a mess that it itself had created.
“It is a well-known fact that the Imperium’s vessels far surpass anything the Alliance can hope to make. Moreover, from your early engagement it’s clear that the only reason these so-called mercenaries were able to win is because they acted with the element of surprise. Now that we have the advantage, I am going to suggest to the Duchess that we engage and destroy the Edixi fleet so that we can begin orbital bombardments of enemy positions.”
There was silence on all lines. Personally, while he believed the Admiral’s choice to be rather rash, he was not necessarily in disagreement. The Alliance’s vessels never won in any simulations he had ever seen unless they had a three to one advantage. There was no doubt in his mind that when it came to war, the Imperium ruled the waves.
Stars… The Imperium ruled the stars. He doubted that there were any pre-space naval vessels left in the arsenal.
Back on topic, the state of the Duchess’s original invasion fleet was pitiful at best. Only four vessels remained, and one was a requisitioned blockade runner that was more concerned with funneling supplies to the front than it was with dealing a crippling blow to the enemy fleet.
“Admiral Jar’mson,” Captain Moravi began with clear frustration, “since I have humored you, would you humor me?”
“Certainly.”
“I’d like you to look at your external feed at heading three-three-five and-”
“Why?” the Admiral interrupted.
“Because it’s important!” Captain Moravi snapped.
Jar’mson remained unconvinced. “I don’t see how looking out at the stars will help us deal with the enemy fleet.”
“There’s a watchstation! There is an Alliance watchstation! It’s far out, not in this system, but if I fucking squint I can see the blinking from it’s lighthouse!” Captain Moravi shouted, her voice becoming distorted with the increase in decibels forced upon her microphone. “We aren’t in core. We aren’t even in the frontier! This is the periphery! We are right on the border with Alliance space.”
While Mar’lu Moravi descended into her tirade, he attempted to find this supposed watchstation. Watching the heading on his feed, he saw nothing but distant, glittering stars. Heeding her instructions, he squinted and waited, but still nothing. He was ready to dismiss the woman as delusional, but then there it was, a faint blink of bright light in the distance. It appeared again four seconds later, then again after another four. There was a watchstation out there all right, and fairly close too.
“Let's suppose we do crush these mercenaries. We drive them out of the system, bombard their remaining ground forces, etcetera, etcetera. There’s gonna be a bigger fleet with a ‘contract’ from the Fuies Diarchy out here in a week!” Moravi lamented.
“We can-” Jar’mson started, only to get a taste of her own medicine as she was interrupted.
“It took you nine months! Nine months! It’s going to take ages to replace any losses we suffer out here! It will only take the Alliance a week!”
Finally feeling a need to add his own input, he attempted to defend their slow arrival. “Captain, we were requisitioned by your cousin from the opposite end of the Imperium. Of course it took us months to arrive. If Admiral Jar’mson makes a report detailing just how dire the situation is here, a far closer fleet can be pulled to aid us.”
“I reported the dire nature of the situation last time. I lost three quarters of my fleet for Empress’s sake!” Captain Moravi exhaled, grumbled something inaudible, then returned to the microphone. “The reason you’re here is because all the other fleets have more important tasks. Tasks I doubt will be aborted to deal with what amounts to a property dispute.”
She sounded utterly defeated, and yet they had not yet begun to fight. There was still hope of a turn around here, he was sure of it.
“The only way we win here is if we take the whole planet and eliminate any and all leadership. That way the Alliance mercenaries can’t claim to be helping anyone,” She explained tiredly to a semi-silent audience.
“Why do we have to respect this charade at all?” Jar’mson asked. “We all know that the Alliance is just funneling their poorly disguised armies here.”
He actually knew the answer to this one. Saving his fellow Captain the strain, he answered, “Because if we don’t respect the Alliance’s ‘mercenary companies’ the Consortium will cry foul about us not respecting businesses. There was a big stir after a fleet refused to allow these mercenaries to honor their contract during a campaign some hundred years ago that almost became a proper war after the Consortium found out we were ‘prohibiting honest and ancient business practices.’”
“Right, moving on,” Captain Morvai said, forcing them back on topic. “Everything depends on the ground game right now. So, how many Marines did you bring?”
Marines? This was a security fleet, designed for protecting the Imperium from pirate raids and detaining defectors. They only brought enough Marines to conduct boarding actions and shore up city garrisons in the event the rabble they battled ever made it planet side.
“Ten thousand?” Admiral Jar’mson replied, most definitely highballing the estimate.
“Ten thousand…” Captain Moravi repeated hollowly, her voice sounding like her soul had left her body.
“Affirmative. They’re mostly trained for boarding actions, but they do have some experience defending cities during pirate raids.”
“This is a war, not a raid…”
An awkward cough emanated from the Admiral’s line. “We were told to arrive as soon as possible and be prepared for orbital combat, not a ground war.”
“I ferried a million woman army. It was all we could afford…”
Jar’mson tried to salvage the situation. “We could turn back and-”
“I’m bringing my cousin into this meeting.”
------
Kayta had just finished polishing his boots when an alert pinged on his datapad. Picking it up, he was informed that he was to report to the ship’s small hangar bay for an immediate briefing. The ping also awoke his sleeping son once again, who vocally decried the datapad and all it did.
Slipping into his uniform, he threw on his freshly polished boots and marched over to the crib. Picking up Janis, he realized he didn’t exactly know what to do with him. There was no way he was bringing a child whose favorite activity was crying to a briefing, but he couldn’t leave the child alone, could he? No, even if everything went swimmingly, that was going to earn him an earful from Janis’s mother and he didn’t desire a lecture on child rearing from a common woman. Janis was his son, and he had put the effort into making him, she just helped.
Carrying his boy in one hand and his datapad in the other, Kayta wondered if the Coffer offered a daycare service. Certainly someone should have thought of it. No, that was wishful thinking. He certainly wouldn’t have considered it. He would have just shamed the offending fools for not using protection.
The crying continued as he made his way through the bowels of the ship. Before, he had joked that Janis was trying to become a cliff singer, but with ever offending decibel Kayta began to wonder if his son was seriously considering a life in the arts. “You’d better not try and make a career out of this,” he scolded while descending a flight of stairs. “A man with dreams of singing is destined for a dingy bar. If they’re lucky that is.”
Clipping his pad to his belt, he drew his sidearm, a HSW-16 ‘Hand-cannon’. Showcasing the weapon to Janis, he cooed, “Wouldn’t you rather grow up with a more regal job, like an officer? You get great pay, plenty of useful idiots to boss around, and a cool gun. I personally like the cool gun.”
His son looked at the pistol, eyes growing wide while he chewed on his fingers. Blinking, Janis reached out and tried to touch the pistol with his slobbery hands.
“No,” Kayta forcefully reprimanded while holstering his weapon. “I’m not cleaning spit off my pistol.”
The crying resumed. Did children have a ‘mute’ option? If they did, Kayta really needed to know what it was. There had to be some way to solve his problem, otherwise he’d be suffering more stares than usual from his fellow servicewomen.
As he turned a corner down the final stretch to the hangar bay, the Goddess saw fit to offer him an out. Walking out of the hangar bay soot covered and sweat drenched was the ever ignorant Gallenuis Le’vang. He was foolishly waving goodbye to a group of women who were most definitely gawking. Kayta wanted to reprimand him, but it would be a far better lesson for the engineer to learn the consequences of fraternizing with the wrong women the hard way. He had to learn that way, and he was all the better for it.
Kayta waited for the amazing display of ignorance to end before striking. Slipping beside Gallenuis, he politely tapped the oblivious engineer on the shoulder. When Gallenuis turned around to greet Kayta, he happily deposited Janis into the unsuspecting man’s arms.
“Terribly sorry,” Kayta said, not being sorry at all, “but I have an important briefing that doesn’t allow for infants. I’d be eternally grateful if you just watched over him for a few minutes.”
Gallenuis was too busy being stunned to offer a proper reply, but that was all Kayta needed. If push came to shove, he’d just claim he had ordered the engineer to watch over the child while he partook in exercises critical to Marine success. It wasn’t the worst excuse he could come up with on the spot.
Moving towards the hangar, he was able to hear Gallenuis finally find his words. To his surprise, the engineer was more concerned with talking to Janis than trying to escape his new task. “I, uh… Oh! There’s soot on you! Time for a bath.”
Ignoring any further remarks from down the hall, Kayta slipped into the hangar bay and proceeded to ignore the flurry of remarks from the common enlisted women as he made his way over to a section designated for officers. After one lewd remark almost penetrated his mental shield, he reminisced on tales he had heard of Edixi discipline. An army of indoctrinated women more concerned with following orders than their own libido just sounded too good to pass up. Alas, the Imperial Marines had little concept of such discipline.
What he wouldn’t give to have just one woman who followed orders. That was just a pipe dream though. The day he found a competent woman who cared more for service than sex was the day that the Deep burst into flames.
Finding his place in the formation of officers, he desperately hoped that none of his peers noticed that he had been the last to arrive at the assembly. It appeared that their briefing had already begun and Kayta was only catching up midway through. Colonel Sho’task was busy going over a map of the planet and pointing out a multitude of points while blittering on about strategies.
For a moment, he actually felt secure. That was until the eyes of the old Colonel fell upon him while talking about terrain. She stopped midway through her sweep and glared at him while finishing up her explanation. The moment she did, she pointed directly at him. “Lieutenant, care to elaborate on where you’ve been? Officers should know to arrive at a briefing fifteen minutes before it’s set to begin.”
With the eyes of all his fellows now glancing at him, he tried to play for sympathy. “Colonel, I was taking care of my son when I got that alert. I had to find a temporary babysitter before arriving here.”
The Colonel scoffed. “If having a child was going to impede your ability to serve, maybe you should have used some protection! Your irresponsibility is not my problem, nor is it the problem of the rest of the officer corps!”
He froze in shock and indignation. How dare she say that to him! What gave her the right to mock him?
Satisfied, the Colonel relaxed her pose. “If you are late again you will be issued a citation. Now, as I was saying…”
While she resumed her lecture like nothing had happened, Kayta stewed in silence. That insult would not go unanswered, he swore it. Pulling out his datapad, he started taking notes. Not on the Colonel-that would come later-but rather on the planet and its primitive inhabitants. Petty revenge would not be enough. He needed to outshine her first. Then, and only then, would he be satisfied enough to ruin her.
------
Tardiness was rarely tolerated in the navy. If you said you were arriving at a certain time on a certain date, you were going to be there. There was no discussion. No ifs, ands, or buts. The only acceptable excuses were one with proper documentation. If your equipment was failing, if your ship was under attack, or if there was a serious mutiny, those were some reasonable excuses for a delay.
For years the Captain had grown used to that level of expectations. It had been expected of him, and he grew to expect it of others. It was only when he found himself screaming at his three year old daughter for failing to leave the playground on time did he finally soften his stance. While his crew was not his daughter, he did start to extend them similar courtesies. He hadn’t given up on discipline, but he couldn’t allow himself to fall down that hole again, it was a slippery slope he feared that he would never re-emerge from.
Duchess Moravi was seriously testing him though. When her cousin had informed the conference call of Captains that the Duchess would be joining the call in fifteen minutes, he had expected the Duchess to arrive in around fifteen minutes.
“Do you think it would be alright if I used the bathroom?” Admiral Jar’mson asked for the third time.
“Just give it a minute,” Captain Moravi replied. ”She’ll be here soon.”
“But it’s been an hour!”
Captain Moravi remained unfazed. “Yep.”
Pretty soon he’d be asking to be excused to the restroom as well. He had spent his unexpected free time reading up on the local peripheral news and sipping on his remaining ruk, and his favorite drink was finally starting to catch up with him.
A brief electronic wail signaling the arrival of a new member emanated from the console. Despite the wail, he could hear his fellow captain sigh in relief that their plight might finally be at an end. He even heard Captain Moravi grumble out some sort of thanks to the Goddess, though what it was would forever be a mystery.
“Thank you all for being so patient with me,” the sickeningly pretentious voice of Duchess Alvanti Moravi greeted them. “My dearest Molin’ari was suffering from another crying fit, and I had to attend to that first. I do hope my cousin has been keeping you entertained in my absence. She’s very good at riling up a crowd with her soldier of fortune stories.”
“She’s been informative, if not a bit obtuse madam,” Admiral Jar’mson replied hastily. “I was hoping that you could authorize our fleet too-”
Before Jar’mson could finish her thought the Duchess interrupted, “Oh you’ll have to speak to my cousin about that. I don’t know the first thing about your fancy boats. I’m more of a boots on the ground woman myself.”
He didn’t need to hear more. None of them did. Yet they were subjected to it.
“I’ve been slogging it out down here with my women, bravely leading them from my palace. There have been some setbacks, but no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Soon I’ll capture Barras and the whole planet will capitulate!”
Jar’mson asked the question on everyone's mind. “Then why were we called here…?”
“Because my cousin suffered a horrible loss of her fleet and you’re the replacement pieces in this great game!” The Duchess spoke with neither care nor concern. It was as if she didn’t know just how dire her situation was.
But the Duchess wasn’t done yet. “Oh, Mar’lu! You remember how yesterday you told me to send a general to oversee affairs on Chipuan?”
“Ye-”
“She lost it! I told you this is why you stick to managing the boats and I stick to the soldiers!” Just as quickly as the sudden angry outburst had appeared the Duchess mellowed out again. “But it’s okay. We’ll call it a learning lesson. I know more than these old hags anyway.”
“I told you that Chipuan was lost and that you should be sending generals to oversee these kinds of operations in the future-”
“We. Will. Call. It. A. Learning. Lesson,” the Duchess dictated with a thinly veiled snarl. ”Now, I’m off to plan this siege. Have fun up there!”
There was another wail, then the Duchess’s line left the call. The Admiral made a noise as if to protest, but with the intended target now gone, there was little she could do but sputter awkwardly before falling into silence.
Captain Moravi, exasperated once again, brought the meeting to a long overdue end. “Just go to the bathroom Admiral. I never even got to tell her about her reinforcements.”
Standing up, he waved for Officer Maraz to disconnect them. Nothing more was going to be gained from sitting around awkwardly. If the Admiral needed him, really needed him, she’d hail him.
He was ready to sit down and just observe the feed of space again, but the hiss of his bridge doors opening drew his attention once again. Walking in was one soot covered senior engineer Gallenius Le’vang. In his arms he carried a swaddled baby that most definitely did not belong to him.
Passing the Captain with a quick salute, he walked over to Officer Maraz and deposited the child on her console. “Tell Kayta sorry, but I can’t bring children into the engine room. I did give him a bath though, but I think I just got soot on him again.”
Giving the child a quick pat on the head, and ignoring the now cooing bridge crew, Le’vang casually walked towards the exit as if he hadn’t caused an unnecessary disruption. Turning to the Captain as he left, he informed, “The bridge door locks are broken. I’ll fix them later.”
The Captain looked to the unfolding scene of women crowding around Officer Maraz’s console, then back to the engineer.
“No,” he said, “you’ll fix the door right now.
-----------------------------
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Forgive my tiredness, I may have stayed up a tad bit too late last night playing the Unification mod for Dawn of War with some old friends. At least I can say I won...
Against the survival A.I.
After three hours.
To all you wonderful readers; have a good day/night/whatever wherever you are, and I will see you...
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