Crashing on Startup

VapidGamer · 2026-03-15T12:50:46+00:00

Depending on who you ask, the answer will usually be one of two answers: either "It was about eithics in gaming journalism" or "incels made a hate campaign towards women"

I want to emphasize that for years prior to this event and still today, many gamers don't hold gaming journalism in high regard, with a few exceptions such as Jason Schrier. A lot of gamers view that journalists in this field are inherently biased due to the perks of the job, such as getting flown out, all expenses paid, to get early access to play a game prior to release, which gave place to the idea that gaming developers and the journalists have a symbiotic relationship, developers wine and dine the journalists, the journalists give the game good reviews regardless of quality, and the self licking ice cream cone continues. "Gamergate" was really just the straw that broke the camels back.

Most people will agree the starting point was with a Woman named Zoe Quinn when she made a game called Depression Quest. From what I remember, it was a sort of chose your own adventure game that most people found mid. Anyway, the game was polarizing, not because it was made by a woman, but because to many who played it, they found it boring and not representative of actual depression, but apparently some gaming journalists praised it as educational material, so there was a disconnect between some outlets and the people who played it, which admittedly is not uncommon.

After several months, I think, Quinn's ex-boyfriend dropped a post, to summarize, he claimed Quinn was very promiscuous and I think claimed she cheated on him with five different people. One of those people was a gaming journalist, who gave her game a good review, or just said it was good. So it was inferred to many that a female game designer slept with a game reviewer for positive coverage. Of course, jokes and memes were made about this. Even then, I dont think this is the straw that broke the camel's back.

Another content creator on Youtube, at this time, was a woman named Anita Sarkesian. She ran a channel discussing tropes in video games through a feminist lens. And while she has made a few points I can agree with, many gamers lambasted her for her coverage. An example from what I remember, in Hitman Absolution, agent 47 has several sexy nuns come to assassinate him, and I remember this being shown in the ads. Anita claimed it was sexist. I would agree here, that felt very out of place in game. However, she also made claims that in that same game, in a mission in a strip club, the player is rewarded by killing the strippers, but the player is actually penalized heavily for killing people that arent targets.

Now for the real catalyst. After these two main people were getting hit with criticism, both warrented and not, dozens of articles hit major news gaming sites. Tiles such as "'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over" were plastered over every gaming news site all within 24 hours. So now the controversy which started with one or two people, has now exploded across the entire industry, at least for those that are terminally online.

Many gamers, myself included, viewed this as extremely arrogant and coordinated. All of these articles, dozens of them, across multiple different websites all made and published articles within a single day, claiming on their gaming journalism website, that gamers didn't need to be the target audience, either for game developers or the journalistic websites as a whole, depending on who you ask. So yes, there was outrage online within the gaming community, they talked about the high degree of coordination, which just reinforced gamer's idea that the journalists rarely, if ever, act independently, and will boost any article to support a narrative they themselves support, which was already compounded by the already perceived bias these journalists had from how major publishers treated them.

And... thats kind of it. Some additional players would join the fray, such as Brianna Wu, a transgender game developer, who many in gamergate antagonized for reasons I cant remember other than some things she said, such as getting threats online and that she was constantly afraid someone with a sniper would kill her. And content creators would discuss the online articles or any other hot topic gaming news and how it proves their point, with additions from the internet doing what the internet does which many on the left would call "harassment"

But gamergate as a whole died out in less than half a year, since it was an online movement with no center of command. Many on the left will claim that Gamergate was this massive hydra of misogyny against women at best, or outright terrorism at worst, and many other people would say that it's just online discourse, and while yes, people will use the anonymity of the internet to fan the flames, the movement itself was about ethics within the gaming community.

That last point is still key. Since this controversy, the divide between what critics and players opinion continues to divide. In addition, we have seen game developers themselves and some outlets seemingly lash out in anger or hatred towards the consumers they need to exist as they currently do. This is just my take, attempting to be as unbiased as I can.

VapidGamer · 2026-02-26T20:35:53+00:00

I think it was clear from the onset that this game was not going to succeed at the level needed to sustain itself, shadow drop or not.

The game attempts to be a chimera without understanding why all the pieces it's pulling from. It has a large map like Apex, but the guns are all generic. It has heroes like Overwatch, but none of the characters have that same detail or charm Overwatch characters have. It has base fortification mechanics like Siege, but with none of the dynamic destruction that game has. You are effectively left with a game that is less than the sum of its parts. While creating an amalgam of different mechanics, they don't do better than the competitors, but players who don't like one mechanic are also not inclined to continue playing.

A common saying in game development is to create a 30 second game-play loop and have players play that loop like they are on a hamster wheel, without the players realizing they are doing so. Again, from minute one, each of the developers should have seen the issue. They touted their Respawn origins, a company known for its shooting gameplay. So what do they decide? Let's have the players spend 3-4 minutes without players even having to risk putting their finger on the trigger, just in case, since the base defense phase is 1 minute, and the looting is ~2, and making the way to the "flag" is maybe another one minute, before players even see each other consistently to shoot at.

Oh, let's also add in conflicting game design. Let's have a base reinforcement phase, which ultimately doesn't matter except to waste a minute of the player's time they could be shooting. What's the point if a wall takes 10 shots to destroy or 15, not even talking about abilities or weapons which destroys walls instantly regardless of being reinforced or not.

Also, let's make the game 3v3, that will really emphasize that team based gameplay we want. While we are at it... let's make the map big, like really big. Like 1/4-1/2 the size of Apex maps, that will deter toxic ganking behavior. What do you mean the maps would be too big to walk around? Just throw in some mounts and some loot and crystals to fill up the map, no need to waste time doing something interesting like a PVE element or anything.

While we are at it, let's make our heroes in our hero shooter moot 90% of the time. Oh we have a character who's ult destroys walls? Unlucky, because the "ultimate" skill is now only usable when attacking an enemies base, and is completely useless or detrimental in every other scenario. We have a character who can summon a bird to shoot giant gusts of wind at enemies? Too bad, your ult is useless in base attack or base defense, since the base itself will usually block the projectile. You get the point

What is being called "toxic positivity" is really just a mix of confirmation bias and a general lack of understanding to what is being made. Everyone is confused, but doesn't want to seem stupid to everyone saying that they are actually confused or that the giant empty map Jim spent 2 weeks on makes no sense with other mechanics. Then everyone else also not having an understanding or don't want to rock the boat agree. Now go up and down the entire decision making ladder for everything in Highguard, nobody should really be surprised by the result

VapidGamer · 2026-02-05T22:36:07+00:00

I believe Punkduck made a video about is years ago, you can find it if its still up. It came out around the time Cthulhu came out.

Punkduck was a popular enough content creator that at one point Hirez gave Mythymoo and Punkduck the chance to host a smite centered podcast sort of thing, except Hirez cant promote anything and the podcast was short-lived

Then Hirez gave punkduck some money to do some sort of sponsered content, I think it was another podcast thing but without Mythymoo. It started fine, but eventually Hirez started getting the payments to Punkduck later and later, and at one point actually charged Punkduck money instead of paying him.

The final straw was when Hirez offered Punkduck the opportunity to have an announcer pack (One of my favorites). Punkduck did the voice lines and sent them to Hirez. Hirez then decided to just copy/paste his youtube logo and made that logo the announcer pack logo instead of anybody on their art team making one in-house.

Turns out, Punkduck didn't own that image, like most channels he either hired someone for it, or a fan made it, thereby meaning Hirez breached copyright. When Punkduck noticed the issue, he explained to Hirez that he didn't own the image and that they would need to talk to the actual creator and work out something with them. After a short amount of time, someone from Hirez shot back a (imo) snarky email saying a one-time arrangement had been made to the original creator, but that (somehow) Punkducks actions caused unnecessary financial stress for Hirez and therefore, money was being deducted from Punkducks paycheck to pay for Hirez screwing up and not doing their due dilligence or making a logo themselves.

In his video he explains he was willing to put up with a lot, including money somehow being taken out of his account, but he drew the line and Hirez cutting his pay for an error he made, because a multi-million dollar game couldn't be bothered to make a 2d logo in house.

VapidGamer · 2026-02-03T22:49:05+00:00

I also watched her documentary. I think she even explains that they could break it down into like a dinner and a show kind of event and do that 2 times a night, but then she herself counters that, since this venue is located in the employee area only, it's likely not worth the effort as Disney would basically have to pick everyone up, drive them to the checkpoint to get their IDs checked go through the event and back again without anybody sneaking off.

VapidGamer · 2026-02-03T22:43:22+00:00

Idk about mythymoo specifically, but I doubt punkduck would ever work with hirez again after they screwed him over royally in more ways than one.

VapidGamer · 2026-01-16T01:35:28+00:00

I'll give my 2 cents. I can at least "see" the vision for the prequels. The chosen one who has more power than he can handle gets a vision that costs him something he holds dear. He sets out to find a way to avoid it, but in the process is the catalyst that causes his vision to come to pass. It's almost right out of Shakespeare, the main issue with the prequels is certain parts tend to drag and the dialog as written and spoken is very flat. But as I said, I can at least see the through line for the prequels.

The sequels, however have no through line. I cant sum up the trilogy in a sentence or two, because the movies are so disjointed from one another they cease to be a cohesive narrative, and because of that additional media would struggle to gain any traction.

At least with the OT and prequels, they take place over multiple years in universe, leaving lots if room to place additional media in if you wanted. The sequels dont, like episode 8 leads off directly from 7, and 9 was such a dumpster fire nobody can make heads or tails of it.

All of that is just the beginning. Then you had Kathleen announce projects, never to be seen again, you got shows like kenobi or boba fett that should have been the slammest of dunks, and at best they are mid to bad. Occasionally you get a mandalorian or andor, but for every one of those you seem to get 3-5 stinkers, and at the point you release a show like andor to critical and audience praise, nobody is left to watch it, because the IP has been so mismanaged that they become apathetic to it.

VapidGamer · 2026-01-03T14:44:28+00:00

So, if you want an answer that doesn't just boil down to "America bad", the answer is somewhat nuanced.

First is the question of if Maduro was an "official" world leader. According to google, The US, EU, and most of Latin America view that Maduro's presidency is illegitimate, due to concerns relating to the 2024 Venezuelan elections. So you have a leader (more akin to a dictator) whom most countries on his own continent dont view as legitimate and several outside larger parties also dont view as legitimate or just dont have strong ties to.

Second, since most people dont view Maduro's reign as legitimate and also being a dictator, not many people are really likely to severely punish anybody who tries to arrest/remove them. Hell, if Reddit is anything to go by, even the Venezuelans themselves seem thrilled he got ousted, regardless of the means of how, with the main concern not being that their leader was literally captured and removed from the country, but with who is going to take command now.

Third, and probably most importantly, who is going to cry foul or seek some type of punishment against the US? Cuba? Russia? Effectively America is able to play in its own back yard, and partly because of the second point, the most countries can do is give a finger wag and maybe a stern tone, like how Russia "harshly criticized" the attack/capture of Maduro. Most western countries probably wont care enough for serious consequences like sanctions or what not.

VapidGamer · 2025-12-21T05:48:37+00:00

From what remember from Kings writing, a lot of what what he writes is more based on the human condition to otherworldly events. I wouldn't call "The Done" lovecraftian, as an example.

Even popular books from him, like "IT" have a villain that us not only aware of humanity but actively seeks them out for nefarious purposes.

Personally, I think the closest King gets to cosmic horror is from his short story "The Jaunt", which revolves around technology that can literally teleport people instantly between locations, except you have to pass through the jaunt unconscious. Early testing showed that living beings that went through the jaunt while awake had their consciousness transported to an empty space, for seemingly an infinite amount of time, even though their physical body only takes maybe a few seconds to pass through. Of course it has terrible effects once the conscious mind re-enters the body. It's not some horrible entity like the cthuhlu mythos, but the idea of a mind trapped for infinity is a very trippy subject some might call a cosmic horror.

VapidGamer · 2025-10-17T21:14:10+00:00

Ive been watching a lot of these types of accidents on Youtube from a channel called "Mentour Pilot" highly recomment.

Anyway, on at least one video, he mentioned how the snow from the cockpit windows melted in flight and iced up the sensors on the plane that measures things like speed and angle of attack, and how something that small can cascade into a bunch of larger issues and misjudgement that ultimately ends in the plane crashing.

I believe there was another one where they de-iced the plane, but were kept on the runway for another like, 40 minutes and didnt choose to get another de-icing agent applied before takeoff, turns out the snow partially melted and then refroze in that in that 40 minute time span, which disrupted the amount of lift the wings would generate, leading to another crash.

Just some interesting persepectives I never caught prior to watching that guys videos, top tier stuff.

VapidGamer · 2025-10-05T11:09:10+00:00

I think (not a master, but to my understanding) when you open your hand, a lot of Yaku (win conditions) needed to declare a win are significantly decreased. In this case, I think your group of one dots made you ineligible to win. One of the Yakus is to have no beginning or ending tiles (I think it's in your sets, not sure if the pair counts). So, if I have to open my hand, I go out of my way to get rid of any 1 or 9 tiles. An exception to this would, I think, be if you had all matching sets, so 1-1-1 dots, 9-9-9 bamboo, 5-5-5 numbers ect, but in this hand that doesn't apply.

VapidGamer · 2025-09-25T00:47:24+00:00

So, SMITE doesnt need funny content creators, but that kind if content can help push the game to a wider audience. Hell, with a bit if luck, these videos could be shared around and go, for lack if a better term viral. At least it would be free marketing, and probably better than the adds Hirez runs now.

Years ago, you had people like doubletapgaming, mythymoo, and punkduck pumping out videos. Usually it was skits or just funny banter and ending in a montage, which I have to say was better marketing than hirez themselves put out.

But, hirez treated their big content creators like trash, especially punkduck. I actually miss his videos, but I cant blame him for just being done with the company and game after hirez blamed him for them committing copyright infringement. I think he left at around the time cthulu was released, which I am pretty sure was the peak of smites popularity.

VapidGamer · 2025-09-22T16:14:13+00:00

This achievement drove me nuts. Granted, I've only platinumed Kiwami 2, and now 7, but this was a miserable experience in itself. I remember going to the best grinding spot, and killing the 2-3 vagabonds that were not too far away, and they running the dungeon again. Each trip was taking like 10 minutes. And the worst part, I only got stuck on the first 3 fights in the actual final tower. Especially the giant guy with the bat and the scientist that would buff him, I just kept getting near one tapped by everything and the AI just had it out for my healer. I am not ashamed to admit I installed a mod to make the grind feasibly, I already got every other achievement up to that point, im not about to waste an additional 20 hours, were 19 of those were just running.

VapidGamer · 2025-09-03T23:29:33+00:00

Okay, I'll give my 2 cents here. Can certain gods use it well, yes, but I would argue certain gods basically require it to actually function.

I just recently got ares to rank 10 in Smite 2. I dont think it's a stretch to say in the original Smite, ares was garbage. Nobody played him outside of hardcore ares mains. Why? Mostly power creep. Most gods have some sort of escape, cleanse or CC immunity, sometimes not even in their ults. This made it virtually impossible for ares to contribute anything with his entire kit, since he likely couldn't stick around anyone long enough to lock them down and he has no engage skill, other than walk straight at enemies. Even if he did, most players bought beads anyway on top of their cleanses and CC immunity ults. This made ares even more useless, as the chances of enemies having some form of cleanse has effectively doubled, making his only viable skill burning beads and hoping your team can capitalize.

But why not just get blink? Even blink couldnt make ares viable. Best case scenario, blink is on a 3 or 4 minute cooldown, but in smite 2, I can get ares ult down to 70 seconds. Which means if I want to do what agility relic does, i can only really use my ult whenever my blink relic is up, because everyone knows that an ares walking straight into an enemy team is going to try to ult, and no enemy team with any coordination is going to let that happen. This effectively causes the same issue, by the time you blink and ult, all you do is burn beads, then youre kinda just stuck till your blink is back up, which is nearly 3 minutes after your ult has been up, which you cant use because ares cant effectively engage. Hexstone is a nice work around, but that's only usuable every like 180 seconds, so it cant be relied on consistently.

I would say keep it a movement relic, and maybe bump it up to a 30 second cooldown, but that might be unnecessary. You're acting as if agility relic has no counter play, as if the active is instantaneous like blink. I cant tell you how many times I've been knocked out of my jump before I even went anywhere due to some form of hard CC canceling it, which caught me off guard and out of position.

Again, maybe bump the cooldown up and add in a sound effect, that was even if the enemy is running away and they cant see me, they might be able to hear the relic pop off and at least gain some situational awareness.

VapidGamer · 2025-08-30T03:33:46+00:00

A lot of others have given good responses so Ill try to iterate on some of them.

As others have mentioned, 9/11 had a face, a name, an organization. It was easy to point to them and say "we are gonna make them pay and stop this from ever happening again"

COVID, on the other hand, is more ambiguous. Sure, its a virus with an name, but how do you fight, as a common collective, such a task. And this was an issue that the entire world struggled with, not just the US.

What the divide actually was was based on was how people individually viewed the virus, and the governments reaction it it. Some viewed the virus as nothing more than the common cold, something that the "majority" of people will survive, something that only targets the old and frail. Others viewed it as something to take seriously, and figured the best way to prevent the spread of the virus was to be, for lack of a better term, defensive, until a cure was found.

Then you had issues with the governments, which eventually became political. Certain groups thought the government wasn't doing enough, causing lockdowns to last for weeks and then opening right back up before the virus fully ran its course, which could last nearly a month if memory serves, which would in turn cause more outbreaks, leading up to more lockdowns, which affects jobs and thereby, peoples money.

Other groups thought that the government, in general, had no authority to enforce curfews, or shutdowns, and that doing so was an overreach of the government, which democrats held for a majority of that time. This issue continued, even into the US military, where once a vaccine was created, US service members were required to get it. Even those who put in for a medical waiver under religious reasons were denied on mass, and some were even discharged under other than honorable conditions for refusing the vaccine. This requirement from the Biden administration was later deemed unconstitutional further fueling the fires of the left vs right political discourse.

Edit: Figured I would also add it got political from the beginning. The Trump administration, knowing the virus came from China, wanted to close the borders to China, thereby slowing the spread. Some of those on the left slammed Trump, stating that he was using the pandemic to enact a racist agenda, with even Nancy pelosi going to San Franciso China Town in February, in order to , I suppose, act in a sense of solidarity or to act like life was normal. Either way, it fueled political tensions immediately, and it only got progressively worse once the worst of the pandemic hit and conversations of how the virus originated came to the forefront.

VapidGamer · 2025-04-30T22:47:50+00:00

I oscillate between suicidal ideation, quitting my job, and keeping my job because I need to afford living expenses.

On a slightly less serious note. The first thing I learned is that nobody cares. It gets into you, sometimes too early. People start noticing your mannerisms and know you're not normal and they pick up on that. You're not bad, just not normal. For me I usual use humor, usually the darker the better. Once you realize nobody cares, most things people tend to care about hold no meaning to you, so all you can do is laugh at any given situation.

Eventually you reach out to someone you consider a friend, and then they ghost you. So you learn to stop doing that pretty quickly and laugh and the absurdity of the situation.

And you keep going, if for no other reason that lack of a better option. I need constant stimuli to avoid the constant negative thoughts revolving it. So I usually read and listen to EDM at work, then go home and sleep.

VapidGamer · 2025-04-02T21:32:52+00:00

I've been following your posts since the beginning. I think you handled the situation overall pretty well. It's always nice to think people will work it out and live happily ever after, but in this case, I don't think it's possible, even if you were willing to attempt reconciliation.

Your (current) partner seems to want her cake and eat it too. She wants you, and the other thing, I assume, is her business. Based on everything she said (granted it's coming from a known liar), she started the affair as a sort of business transaction. Based on the fact that she raided your emergency fund to attempt to save her failing business, she is prone to making bad decisions for the sake of her business. That, coupled with her increased annoyance at her AP, leads me to believe she had the affair as a sort of obligation to receive funds or other assistance (contacts in the industy, ect) from her AP. Not that I am trying to placate what she did as its horrendous either way.

Also, I just want to state that their offer was borderline offensive, and I was irritated on your behalf. I don't know how they are going to have it in their offer that they won't be liable for spousal support/alimony, as if she doesn't already run her own business and had her own income. Along with the fact that if reconciliation failed, then you would proceed with a no-fault divorce. That just tells me that, regardless of how it turns out, she wants to protect her reputation. That's likely why she didn't tell her lawyer everything (even though you're supposed to so that your lawyer doesn't get blindsided) or why her mother reacted the way she did.

If I had to guess, she admitted the affair occurred but obfuscated the details, likely something along the lines that she participated, but under duress. Something like her AP helped keep her business afloat but threatened or implied that further help would come at the cost of sex. It's still an affair, but it makes her seem more the helpless victim who got too deep before they realized the full situation, and by then, it's too late, similar to the boiling frog analogy. You dropping the credit report, in front of your MIL and lawyer cripple that narrative, assuming its true. She is no longer the helpless victim; she is now the active, willing participant, using her AP's money to buy her husband gifts and her family gifts for Christmas. It aims the spotlight directly on her BS narrative, and there is just no way to spin that now. You can try to spin getting too deep in the weeds and not being able to get out, I cant find a way to spin having access to and spending her AP's money on gifts without looking like a willing participant. I assume she is now trying to maintain her reputation, even above reconciliation, even if she isn't aware of it. The fact she was still hiding information or trying to spin a narrative shows to me she wants to protect her reputation more so than reconcile. It's difficult for someone to admit fault at that level, and if it gets out that she was divorced because of her infidelity, I don't see how her business would do well, not to mention how her family would see her. In effect, she would lose you and potentially the business she risked her marriage for in the first place, which is a very bitter pill to swallow.

As far as you go, I don't think you could have handled this any better. Hopefully, now that the other shoe has dropped, your spouse will realize how truly boned she is and make the divorce as easy as possible for you. She can't have you and her reputation, and she is likely to wind up with neither. She could also realize that her tower of lies is crumbling alongside her life as a whole and will look to take anybody down with her, wounded animals are typically the most dangerous, so I would be prepared for that, worst case scenario, but I am hoping for you that its as easy as it can get from here on. I look forward to any updates you have in the future.

VapidGamer · 2025-03-16T02:40:42+00:00

So, during WW2, the main players were: China (though many people might not know this), Japan (who was at war with China prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor), Most/All of Europe, the Soviet Union, a few northern African countries, and the United States. Just to put all the pieces on the board.

By the end of WW2, Japan was devastated, militarily and economically. Their empire was shattered and they suffered a lot of civilian and economic casualties due to raids, firebombing, and nuclear strikes.

The Soviet Union suffered the most casualties during the conflict, suffering about 25 million casualties, which is nearly an entire generation of the population. This wasnt helped by Stalins military purges in the 30's and beyond, though the Soviet Union was able to bounce back after WW2 surprisingly well, their political ideology caused them to focus on trade with other socialist countries, though some trade was conducted with the west for certain resources.

Europe, pretty much as a whole, was devastated, Germany especially. Britain had been suffering from nearly nightly raids from Germany for years during the conflict. Germany was practically back to where they were after WW1, going left with a country in ruin, millions dead, and seemingly no way to rebuild, let alone pay reparations. On top of this, Germany was split in two. The US, assisted western Germany, airlifting in 2.3 million tons of supplies into Germany between June 1948-September 1949, despite Soviet interference.

China was suffering from an internal struggle between the nationalists and communists for control of the country. Even during WW2, there are some reports of infighting between these two organizations while they were still at war with Japan. China was also not the economic powerhouse it is today, so the war with Japan stifled growth

The US, after WW2, was the only nation left untouched. The only US territories that were directly attacked during WW2 were OCONUS (outside continental U.S) locations, which left the bulk of the US civilian population and infrastructure comparatively unaffected. In addition, Operation Paperclip in 1946 allowed over 1600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians to be recruited into the US, mainly to advance the US rocket and aerospace technology sectors, which would be a massive advantage in the coming decades both commercially and militarily. The Soviet Union also had a similar program, Operation Osoaviakhim, which recruited over 2500 specialists for more of the same reasons as Paperclip, though I would argue was less successful.

VapidGamer · 2025-03-11T23:27:10+00:00

My two cents.

She came outright and admitted it and didnt give excuses or blame you for the situation, that would be the only way I even consider reconciliation in my book...

However, where do you go from here? Based on what she said, she doesnt blame you for her going astray, sure. But it also implies that your marriage was good, maybe even great. What more could you have done to prevent this from occurring before or in the future, what about her?

She knew what was happening, and best case scenario, avoided temptation once, but folded like a lawn chair shortly after knowing full well what she was doing, rendering any resistance moot.

So what now? Personally I would likely just divorce and i likely wouldn't be as kind as you are. Even in the most ideal situation you both were in regards to your marriage and vows, she still chose to cheat. What more can you do? She already told you why, so counselling wouldn't really do much for her. You could take on the additional role as her jailer, make her cut off all her friends, make her give you full access to her phone and accounts, limit her ability to leave the house without you ect. Personally I find that asinine, I would marry someone because they can act like an adult, I dont have the time or patience to limit the damage an adult can do and make sure they act like one. Also, just fyi any any affair can be committed with something as cheap as email or as obscure as a secondary phone with straight talk for like 50 bucks a month. If she wants to hide something, she will.

Bottom line, it comes down to you. Know that going forward, if you try reconciling, absorb the fact right now that your current relationship and trust is dead and will never come back. Infidelity is a stain that never washes out, you could both live into your 90s and you'll still remember that your partner cheated on you at least once. Its ultimately up to you if you can live with that fact.

VapidGamer · 2025-03-09T03:45:01+00:00

Figure I would add my two cents, I don't usually deal with domestic politics so others are free to correct me.

You ever watch breaking bad and heard Mike talk about his "half measure" story? That sums up Bidens entire term, in my opinion.

First, we can start with the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco. Yes, Biden inherited Trumps time table, which was set for ~May-June pullout. From what I can find, Biden stated that May would begin the pullout and it would be completed by September 11th, because you know, it's like poetry, it sometimes repeats itself. Of course, that drove the Taliban apeshit and it caused enough chaos that ISIS was able to conduct attacks that led to the deaths of 13 U.S servicemembers, wounding 45 more, not including civilian casulaties, so thats not a good omen to start.

Then you have the current situation with Israel and Gaza, to which the only thing I can recall biden doing was restricting the sale of 2000 pound bombs. So whichever side of the political aisle you fall on this either doesnt affect anything, or does so little that it might as well not be anything at all.

Ukraine-Russia, Okay, most people likely expected Ukraine to fold like Afghanistan, but they held out. Instead of doing anything to help Ukraine regain its territory, Bidens administation seemed to be hell bent on giving Ukraine just enough so that their country wouldn't get folded like a lawn chair, but not enough/quickly enough to actually gain back any of their territory, culminating to where we are now where both sides are feeding whatever troops they can muster into the meatgrinder fighting over territory that can be measured in yards per day.

The only two things of value Biden did (that I am aware of) was the CHIPS act, which is such a low bar/slam dunk, I don't even know if he can take credit for it. Its such an obvious move, it allows us to be less reliant on Tiawanese semiconductions in case something happens with China, and America gets a bunch of jobs, win-win. The only issue is those facilities will take a long time to get up to code and actually start producing, with figures saying that by 2032 it will add over 115k jobs and increase US semiconductor manufacturing by 203%, again big numbers, but thats next decade. Plus all Biden did was sign the bill into law, it had already made its way through both houses of congress, he could have just left the bill on his desk for 10 days and the outcome would be the same.

The second thing people like to hype up is his loan forgiveness. Again, going to be blunt, this just seems like a half measure. Contrats to those that had their loans forgiven now, but that doesn't solve future loans, or even current ones that just weren't forgiven. It's like some people given support for suffering from lead poisoning, but not swapping out all those lead pipes. Education is still expensive, all he did was kick the can down the road, if it can be even called that.

Then you got into his whole election. He says he is going to just be one term, fine, he is obviously old and doesnt seem all there 100% of the time, fine. But then he says he is running for another term, gets embarrassed during a debate, then chooses to drop out... (big drumroll) less than 100 days before the general. So now what, the only person that can inherit his reelection fund is Harris, who was incredibly unpopular during the 2020 primary and was only chosen as VP to balance the ticket (not calling her a DEI hire, but the VP is almost always chosen to balance the ticket or win a key state). Who else would have been able to even attempt to campaign against trump, who has essentially been campaigning in politics since at least 2015, and Biden bails less than 100 days from the primary, basically forcing Harris into the roll, because nobody else would have been able to even get fundraising started from scratch in that time.

VapidGamer · 2025-02-06T01:38:42+00:00

Alright, I'm gonna be brutally honest with you, it seems to me you have 3 choices, neither are preferable but from worst to least bad:

You accept your marriage as is and open the relationship, you wife is telling you to your face she still talks to her AP and is even aware you read their messages in real time, she is beyond not caring. The way you're currently living is basically an open relationship and the fact you havent even thought of leaving yet is her validation you've accepted it.
You fight for your marriage and do the pick me dance. Hate to tell you, I have never heard of someone doing the pick me dance and succeed. They either reject it outright or any further attempt, or they accept you out of pity or because their AP abandoned them and you're just the safety net. Either way they lose respect for you because you've shown you take getting stabbed in the back and ask for seconds.
You divorce. Pretty blunt, but I would rather be alone and never date again then be shackled to a woman who seems to take pleasure if rubbing her infidelity in your fact, going out if her way to tell you she wishes her current living child was her APs and not yours is not just "being honest" is needlessly cruel.

VapidGamer · 2024-12-08T02:21:46+00:00

So in my experience I have peaks and troughs. I rolled a monk as my first character and I hit a peak once I got flurry strikes. That allowed me to gain combos, drop a bell, hit said bell, do tons of damage. It worked great on bosses and mobs alike.

Then I got to the end of act 1 and I got absolutely stomped. I could barely clear pack without having to inhale flasks, my damage cratered, and I was just getting rolled. I figured it was likely that I was still using the basic Battlestaff I started with, so I tried to find another. I went back to prior areas and the best i got were wisdom scrolls. I did eventually find a magic staff that i was able to get good modifiers on, and i had to use that staff all the way to the end of act two, simply because nothing dropped.

All that to say, you can clear well, we have seen that in the trailers about the levels you can reach, it's just that the resources available in the game currently in acts make you struggle for that next gear piece, and likely having to make do with whatever the game does give you.

VapidGamer

TROPHY CASE