• Rob Weiss is her favorite ex-boyfriend.
• He’s the one person that was a good guy, talented, creative, and inspired her a lot. They were together for 7.5 years.
• He feels the same way about her.
• He liked her dad.
• Her mom and Weiss got along well. Her mom painted a house (her own? Weiss’?) and wanted to see Weiss’ reaction.
• Doherty avoids obstacles now, instead of trying to plow through them.
• He was on vacation in 1991, and met her at Bar One. He knew who she was. He had wanted to go into the film business.
• He made a movie, went to the Sundance Film Festival, moved to L.A.
• 2 years later, Doherty was married. Doherty started dating him around 1994.
• They moved in together quickly after Doherty left her first husband.
• They got together right before her 23rd birthday.
• He was not successful, but not a failure. He wrote “Milk Bar”. He did “American Psycho”.
• They watched Clerks together.
• Doherty says he introduced her to the indie film world.
• They were engaged. But after her first marriage, she believed a piece of paper doesn’t mean anything.
• Doherty’s mom still wears her wedding band, even though Doherty’s father died.
• They connect with each other on a soul level.
• He has a child with another woman.
• Doherty learned she needs to listen to her gut.
• They broke off the engagement a week before the wedding.
• Doherty was still following what was happening with her first husband.
• Marriage is an antiquated notion to Weiss.
• There’s no woman that’s more important to him than the mother of his child. They had dated for 3 years. But he doesn’t need to marry her.
• Doherty says Weiss is a Math Changer. (See the podcast with Doherty and Les Snead).
• Rick (another ex) was a Buyer Beware.
• Weiss says Rick has different demons. But he’s a cool cat.
• Weiss loves his dad, but he would categorize him as a toxic male. He smoked until he had lung cancer. He served in the military.
• Doherty loves Weiss’ dad.
• Doherty still adores both Rob and Rick.
• Doherty’s soul connection with Weiss will always be there.
• Rob gave Doherty the diamond heart necklace that Prue wore on Charmed.
• Weiss still has some necklaces and rings that Doherty gave him.
• Doherty had a tattoo with Weiss’ name on it. She eventually covered it up with flowers. Weiss did not want to get a tattoo with her name on it.
• He now has tattoos. Such as his son’s name. Since he likes tattoos now, he thinks maybe he would have gotten Doherty’s name on his neck, if he had to make the decision again.
• The best moment they had was in Venice, Italy. They went to get something to eat late at night. The streets were dead. Some guy started to talk to them. They told him they wanted food. They followed him. He directed them to two other people. Doherty thought they were going to get robbed. Eventually they were lead to a restaurant. It was a 24 hour restaurant. And the food was delicious.
• They went to Amsterdam. They ended up at a hostel with 5 beds in a room. She didn’t want to do that.

​

• Doherty thinks it’s hard for Weiss, because he can spend 2 years writing a show. Then he pitches it, and the people he pitches it to don’t like it.
• Weiss tries to work on 10 things at the same time.
• If he had spent 2 straight years working on only one thing, it would hurt him more.
• Doherty had a birthday party at a bar, where there was a fight.
• They had only been dating for 10 days. They started on April Fools Day.
• Greg Vance gave Weiss a weird look. Weiss went up to him and his people and asked if there was a problem. He turned around to his right, and got headbutted on his nose.
• The fight spilled out onto the street.
• He doesn’t roll with a large posse anymore.
• He stopped drinking 5 years ago.
• He loved red wine.
• He can’t be hungover at 7am, with his kid, anymore. He had to set a better example.
• His son is his dad reincarnated.
• He’s been nominated 3x for Entourage.
• Doherty just found out Weiss was nominated at the Sundance Film Festival for Grand Jury Prize.
• Doherty was so excited when she, Jason Priestley, and Luke Perry presented an award at the Emmys.
• Weiss thought Entourage was going to be horrible. He didn’t think the audience would connect with the show.
• Doug Elin had wanted Weiss to play Billy Walsh.
• Weiss’ first impression of Doherty was that she was his dream girl. She was fun. She was spicy. She smoked cigarettes like a fighter pilot. Sexy, great style. Amazing cook.
• Doherty wants another relationship. She just doesn’t want to get married again.
• Weiss does better in life on some nights when he can take a bubble bath, get up at 5:30am, and does what he needs to do, without having a conversation.
• Doherty agrees, so why can’t there be a relationship where Weiss doesn’t move in with someone, and they keep their separate places? So they can have off nights as needed.
• He thinks the guy should be older, but has nothing against men who are with women 20 years older. Whatever fits one’s preference.
• He just wants a positive energy with someone.
• He’s not looking for someone to go on a cruise together with.
• Weiss and Doherty dated for 2 - 3 years before they got engaged.
• The proposal was basically Doherty going “give me the fucking ring”.
• When they were in Italy and France together, Weiss ran into an old friend. That friend was with his girlfriend, who had a 5 carat ring. Doherty then wanted a ring. So they got that friend to make a ring.
• Weiss asked for her parents’ blessing.
• Her parents heaped concerns on him.
• Weiss was surprised, because they had been dating for 3 years.
• Their relationship was from right after she left Beverly Hills 90210, to right after she left Charmed.
• She stopped living with him at some point, and got her own place.
• Dick Wolf offered Doherty a show after Charmed. But she had to move to New York. She didn’t want to do that. She was in love. Her parents were in LA. She says she was an idiot for turning it down.
• They were on again, off again a few times during those 7 years.
• Dating was more pure back then, compared to now. Now it’s transactional. Dating is now only with people that can help someone.
• Weiss calls it opportunistic. And leveraging.
• Now, people develop a fantasy relationship with someone. Then they meet them, and it’s different.
• It was easier back then, because you dated people you knew, from within Hollywood.
• Weiss has supported Doherty during her cancer.
• Weiss was devastated when Doherty’s cancer came back.

Note please don't call me dad.
But yes! Hello it's my first time on reddit! A little-lot about me:

1. I first used reddit as of posting this about 2-ish weeks ago but I've shadowed Reddit for much longer. I never wanted to make an account due to shyness, confusing rules, and the dreaded censorship that seems to plague every platform. (Plz don't ban me reddit, I beg.) However due to my introvertedness taking over more and more, now seemed like a good a time as any!
   
2. Yep! The name comes from a Nickelodeon cartoon, and if I have to explain from: ¹ how dare you. ² we can't be friends!
   
3. I browsed over hundreds of subreddits, always thinking if I ever did join - where would I start? I had ideas of where, but not-so-much when...And given said strict rules, I always thought I had a knit and knack for sentence structure, spelling and grammar as I've been complimented on my penmanship and organization skills...yet, reddit I'm sure will truly test me on that. I've been out of an English class for many, many years now. So forgive me in advance I'll try my best!
   
4. Speaking of many, many years - I'm not so young and not so old either! It's a mystery. And as per reddit guidelines to not share sensitive information - I suppose I will keep it that way. You'll just have to think of me as an enigmatic mr. magoo-like shape; formless in the hands of it's users, but an organized cut figure in staunch of his allies. Think of Inspector gadget except more mysterious. (And who trips on his own shoelaces.) So...basically Timmy's dad!
   
5. I'm a gamer, hobbiest writer and photographer, and a perspective teacher (in my former years) and I plan on adding a bit of each into their respective subreddit categories in some form of time. I write amateur poetry from time to time, stemming from natural & creative to erotic prose gasp! and when I feel like it - short stories. I tend to also gravitate towards shapeable wordless songs and giving them my own spin (like ost's), as well as coming up with songs lyrics of my own. I went to a magnet school in my younger years for all of the above forms of writing as well as screenwriting and playwriting. All of this is fun to me and that's the extent of it. Nothing more. If you stumble upon any of my former pieces searching for an answer as to why I wrote some of the things I said, or why I said them...it comes down to just whatever floats into my peripheral vision in that given moment; sometimes it's music that inspires me, and othertimes it's just what needs to be said. And hey, sometimes I'm blindsided by my blindspots. And other, other, some times I stop using the word "time" so often! Grrr!
   
6. As for games, I'm a replayer of not-so-old games that are not so timeless, but not-so new anymore eiGarrett! This is mainly due to financial tightness and that older games charm I can't forget. Games such as:
   

• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days (and all it's entries, except Unchained X)
• Resident Evil 4
• Uncharted 3 (and all it's entries, except Golden Abyss)
• Breath of the Wild
• Sonic Advance 2 & 3
• Yugioh 5d's Wheelie Breakers
• Yugioh 5d's world championship 2011: Over the Nexus
• Yugioh Tagforce 4 & 5
• Destiny 1 & 2
• Apex Legends

(There are others, but these are some games I hold dear that come off the top of my head.)
I've found games sometimes help shape and induce flow-like states to help us ease into transitions of moment-to-moment actions defining our playable characters, some. Or in other cases, defining ourselves most when we need to caught between a rock and a hard place...like in a gunfight...(I'm looking you Apex Legends, Uncharted, and Destiny.) But yes, in those instances - I've found that what help shape me along with some of the game's life-lessons taught to our characters, did indeed help shape me into the person I am today. (Inb4 someone says I identify as Harumo-chan the master of hoe-jitsu), lol no I'm saying the best parts about our characters can help shape us sometimes without us even knowing it. (But Harumo-chan did help shape me Timmy, why can't you see that?) More power to you then. The best parts for some and the worser parts for others i suppose. :P
6½. What i mean to the last point is, part of my strength I've found is from when I draw strength from other strong characters I've seen and what they've been through; (or put you through and thus you're going through the sh*t-show together.) Characters that have really inspired me are probably namely Sora, Riku & Roxas from Kingdom Hearts, Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Sonic, and Yusei from Yugioh 5d's. I know, very adult of me right? Mm, I am interested however where others draw their strength from? Which form of medium do they choose, why did they choose it and who do they draw strength from if not in a show or game?
I could talk about why I choose these individual characters but I believe that's best suited for another thread/post. P.s. as for tv shows though? A huge inspiration i draw from is Rick, from the walking dead. I don't watch many new shows anymore. (As for why that is, maybe that's also best suited for another post.)

1. Speaking of shows - I don't really have time to watch anime all that much but some influential ones I've grown to be very fond of are:

• Yugioh 5d's (subbed)
• Sword Art Online (subbed) and season 1 only
• Soul Eater
• Avatar: The Last Airbender (yes this counts lol)
• DragonBall Super (subbed)
• Soul Eater
• Gundam
• Golden Time (one of the first anime's I've cried to, though that was a long time ago, would be interesting if I have the same reaction rewatching it. All I remember is getting exceptionally emotional and invested which was out of the usual for me. Although I can't remember which part got me the most.)

There are others, and I've seen all series of Yugioh and DragonBall alike, but these in particular stood out to me. For DragonBall Super mostly due to the absolute insanity the tournament of power was and that last fight. I've seen other animes or stopped, started and stopped again as I couldn't get invested into them. That's why Golden Time really took me by surprise. Same with Yugioh 5d's and S1 of Sword Art Online. I am interested to see what other subreddits with differing views on what sorts of animes other people prefer or recommend I watch.
Same with games, music or movies.
To wrap up,
Tldr; you can call me Timmy (Timmm-aH!) For short, or even shorter than short - dad, just don't get weird with it, (unless?...no I'm joking, unless?...) and I'm here like anyone else to peruse reddit on useful or entertaining things!
Anything else I'll either edit this big jumbo post or add on later!
Sincerely,
Dad.

Hello Apes,
Here's another review of Roaring Kitty tweets, if you wanna check out previous days then links are below:
13th May
14th May
To reiterate, the description of each tweet is to the best of my knowledge the references made to allow you to make your own view in context and the speculation is pure speculation on my part, this is just for fun and shouldn't be taken as any financial advice, make your own decisions, I just like the stock. If you have anything to add feel free to in the comments and I'll do my best to update the post but given the amount of tweets now i don't have lots of time.
8:00am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790713748866371690
Description: This is taken from the film Easy-A and shows Emma Stone walking through school catching a lot of attention looking fine and what was an A sticker in the original clip has been replaced with the Gamestop play logo. The song is Sexy Silk by Jessie J
Speculation: The stock is sexy, particularly among the younger people. What was Easy-A is now Easy-Gamestop. Looking really great in the black.
8.15am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790717515523658119
Description: First we have a scene from the movie Prestige, with a Michael Caine voiceover about a magicians magic trick of making something disappear. The quote is "The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back." Meanwhile a person with a gamestop logo is being electrocuted to life a little frankenstein like and then a Gamestop logo bursts through an explosion. We then go to a fight scene with the song "back in the saddle again" by Aerosmith playing.
Speculation: The quote from the Prestige in full talks about the different parts of making something disappear. In full " Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"." The Aerosmith song also has some interesting lyrics, "Ridin' into town alone by the light of the moon" "I'm ridin', I'm loadin' up my pistol, I'm ridin', I really got a fistful, I'm ridin', I'm shinin' up my saddle, I'm ridin', this snake is gonna rattle"
8.30am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790721293089964126
Description: Not sure what film this is from but essentially we have a group of people looking for someone who is messing with them, they come across the infamous meme of death looking for Gamestop and then they track down Roaring Kitty alongside 893489 CHIMP located in Boston. We then get a message of Prep mode and arm ready for transport, hold pattern until further notice and a message again on a watch saying the same with a Gamestop logo
Speculation: WS looking for DFV and just coming across more memes, not really understanding it. As pointed out by many, 893489 is the hexcode for purple https://www.colorhexa.com/893489 which could be a direct reference to people DRSing. Final message suggests it's a hold until further notice, potentially a gamestop announcement who knows?
8.45am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790725065585439065
Description: We have a scene from Ozark where the wife of the money laundering family is alone in her bedroom reflecting to the sound of The Daily Mail by Radiohead. Some Gamestop logos on the wall which i think replace a picture of her family in the original clip. More reflection.
Speculation: Not sure about this one other than the family in Ozark were right on the line of legality when it came to what they were doing, essentially they were money laundering and in the end it cost them their family. SHFs messing with Gamestop to the point of legality could be what costs them their family of investors?
9.00am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790728848226521547
Description: This is a famous scene from Star Wars where Han Solo takes them through the asteroid field despite C3-PO's cry that the odds are so greatly stacked against them, approximately 3720-1 to be exact! "Never tell me the odds" says Hans Solo. The Song Come Along by Cosmo Sheldrake comes on as the ship navigates it's way through.
Speculation: This play is a high risk play as we all know but DFV doesn't care about the odds, so many people have told him how crazy he is but that doesn't stop him absolutely nailing it. The song has some interesting lyrics to pick a few, "Don't let moments pass along, And waste before your eyes", "We'll be here when the world slows down, And the sunbeams fade away, Keeping time by a pendulum, As the fabric starts to fray" Full lyrics here
9.15am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790732615022195139
Description: This is taken from The Chappelle Show "when keeping it real goes wrong". In this sketch Kitty replaces a lot of the words to relate to him and the scene ends with Wu-Tang being brought up.
Speculation: Really i think this is just DFV having some fun with this sketch, replacing the woofs for meows, it brings up Wu-Tang as well which was a talking point way back in the NFT marketplace chat.
9.30am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790736391124774975
Description: We have a clip of Moon Knight from Fortnite alongside the song Day and Night by Kid Cudi. This is the official fortnite music video.
Speculation: The Moon Knight in fortnite is considered a rare character. In fact the last time the Moon Knight was in the fortnite shop was Nov29, 2023. With that, it's a very valuable and sort after skin. Also worth noting about the Moon Knight, "For a quick run-down: Moon Knight is actually a former mercenary named Marc Spector. One day, when he's left for dead in the desert, the ancient Egyptian moon god Khonsu revives him. Along with a new lease on life, Khonsu gifts Marc with god-like powers to fight evil". Take from that what you will.
9.45am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790740164848861227
Description: Not 100% sure on the cartoon being shown but the rap is Mr. Niceguy by Will Smith.
Speculation: I don't think DFV is liking the public dissing he is getting from various media outlets but really he doesn't care that much as he can just nail some memes he has lined up like this. If you want the full lyrics to the song, you can find it here
10am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790743946764644659
Description: This is the epic reveal in fight club and DFV has replaced a lot of the words. In the original scene, if you haven't watched fight club, the main protagonist has put the pieces together to realise that he himself is actually the same person as the other protagonist in the film and it was him alone that accidentally setup a sort of movement against the financial elite. In this clip DFV plays off the two characters between DFV and Roaring Kitty.
Speculation: Roaring Kitty was the twitter handle and Youtube profile for Keith Gill where he would speculate on the stock because he just loved doing it. DFV was the reddit handle where he is associated to that other sub i can't mention here but you know where i mean. I think that DFV is saying that what started as a fun speculation of the stock became something bigger than himself with his other channel in DFV on reddit. Now the wheels have moved and in the film it ends with the financial institutions being blown up, perhaps something similar metaphorically is already in place right now. It's actually a great analogy from DFV about his situation.
10.15am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790747714440892825
Description: This is the scene in Breaking Bad where Walter comes clean to his wife Skylar about all the money he has made selling meth. Skylar sees him for who he really is in this scene and really it's the beginning of when Walter begins to really lose himself. There is a funny insert of Methamphetameme and a mention of Caroline who i believe is his wife in real life.
Speculation: I think this is just DFV having some fun and giving an idea of how nuts it probably was for him to talk to his wife about everything that has happened/is happening. I know to us DFV seems like some sort of oracle but to many people he would just seem like some of stock bro who is nuts, even his wife.
10.30am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790751492451754012
Description: This is from the oceans 11 film again where the gang are discussing about what they are and how they have come to be. DFV inserts "the Cohen crunch" as what everything could be called and also says "One could make the argument that because it was in fact Cohen joining the board that seemed to kick things off maybe it should be...". DFV then has a big reveal of the reddit user u/ avocado-in-my-anus.
Speculation: Is this all about Ryan Cohen? Is it about DFV? Is it about the Squeeze? Or is it about Avocado in my anus!? - If you follow to that reddit user you will see 3 posts, all on October 29th of each of the last 3 years, all saying Happy Cat Day posted to 3 different subreddits, "never tell me the odds", "next fucking level" and "woah dude". Why is october 29th so significant? See for yourself here
10.45am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790755264733626879
Description: First we have a clip taken from CNBC where they say "is Roaring Kitty the one running this company?". It then cuts to a classic superbad scene of lots of dicks being drawn.
Speculation: I would imagine CNBC's angle here is that in their opinion Roaring Kitty is the one helping the stock so much with his influence that he might as well be running the company. Judging by the fact we go to a load of dicks after that I don't think DFV agrees with that opinion...
11am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790759048985612468
Description: This is taken from The Avengers Endgame and it's where Peter Quill and Thor are told they should fight one another for the honour of the leadership of the Guardians of the Galaxy. They reply they don't want to go against each other and then there is a little humored ambigurity over who is in charge.
Speculation: This could be about DFV and RC. Not 100% which one is which but DFV is saying they are on the same side and respect each other in their view on what is best for Gamestop. DFV conceding he isn't in charge here and sort of plays into the last meme.
11.15am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790762813868175516
Description: This is a scene taken from Love Actually and you will most likely recognize Rick from The Walking Dead. In the original clip he is filming his best friend (and it turns out he actually is in love with his best friends wife in this film). It then cuts to some memes of Ryan Cohen and a clip from his stream about updating thesis regularly.
Speculation: I think this is summed up pretty well by u/ starhammer4billion. "In 2021, DFV was mad, that R.C. did not push the button/do the buyback and told us clearly that he did not like R.C. anymore with this meme. Now in 2024, he rewinds that meme and tells us, that he thought that at the time in 2021, but that the investment thesis evolved over time and he now sees R.C. as a supermodel. So basically he saw what R.C. was doing in 2024, which he did not in 2021 and he likes R.C. again now. Probably because R.C. pushed the button and also did some plan with loopholes and stuff that DFV may not have thought about."
11.30am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790766591526735887
Description: Here we have a clip from the music video Gossip Folks by Missy Elliot. Some of the lyrics have been replaced by Roaring Kitty. It tells the story of DFV and then there is a ton of emojis that read 😳💩😿🥜🐸🍦🤢👍👊💀🥸👀🤩⚡️🎮🚀🍄💥🍏🤨😵‍💫💜🫂👌🤝⛺️😼🎯👀🐶🇺🇸🎤👀🔥💥🍻
Speculation: DFV is saying this is going to go down again 3 years later after it all went down last time. The emojis i think tell the story so far too and maybe what's to come. I'll try my best to elaborate - it's really tinfoil but why not.

• DFV a bit embarrassed by how much it all took off originally, he was the focus of the world in Jan21 (embarrassed)
• All went to poo as GME dumped with the cheating tactics of the elite (poo)
• Sad kitty had to go to court and defend himself just because he was right and liked the stock. (sad kitty)
• Showed he had absolute nuts by doubling down on the stock again. (nuts)
• Papa RC posted frog and ice cream just around the time he was announced as chairman, the turnaround well and truly underway (frog and ice cream)
• Not sure about the sick emoji
• GME looking good again and making gains later into 21 (thumbs up and fist pump)
• DFV gets killed off from communicating and stock tanks, bear thesis in full swing about GME (skull)
• DD research is in full swing over what's happening to the stock and DFV is looking at it like oi oi (invetigating and eyes)
• DD gets everyone focused again and loving the stock, GME, power to the players and convinced it's going to do great again (star eyes, lightning, game, rocket)
• GME grows in the dark without revealing it's plan for transformation (mushroom)
• GME runs big end of 2022, all anticipation about NFT marketplace etc etc (boom)
• RC buying into apple and people wondering about some sort of partnership (apple)
• Turns out nothing like that happening as people wait for announcements (straight face)
• NFT marketplace is a disaster and not what people were hoping for (dizzy face)
• People start DRSing (purple heart)
• Love in the community is in full flow again as post after post about DRSing shares (hug)
• Everything is ok and all agreed on the DD and DRSing, happy to wait it out (ok and handshake)
• Not sure about tent.
• DFV comes back (kitty)
• Sees an opportunity to target the shorts again (target)
• Looks to Ryan Cohen, former owner of chewy to make a move (eye emoji in original looks to the right, dog emoji)
• Big announcement (microphone)
• US market sees this and burns to the ground (US flag and fire)
• Squeeze happens (boom)
• Cheers everybody (beers)

Edit\* As pointed out by u/ mmilad https://www.reddit.com/Superstonk/comments/1ctc9g2/dfvs_tweet_yesterday_with_emojis_are_all_rcs/ - they emojis do run in a sort of chronological order to a lot of RC's tweets, if you go to his twitter page and scroll through from his first tweet you can begin to tick off the emojis one by one.
11.45am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790770363627921776
Description: We have a pizza being cut in too more and more slices and dubbed onto the pizza are reddit awards along with DFV's last position update post.
Speculation: The amount of awards that were constantly being given to this post got so out of hand i can't even think how many notifications and reddit coins DFV must have got back in the day. Definitely a joke on DFV's part and just a reminder to how funny it was the amount of awards he was getting.
12pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790774146994966570
Description: This clip is taken from Spiderman i think the one where Spiderman goes dark but i can't remember exactly. The music is The Black Swan taken from Swan lake and it cuts to the movie of Swan Lake with Natalie Portman as the Black Swan and Kitty being dubbed on her face as she transforms.
Speculation: Black swan events are defined as "A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected from a situation and that has potentially severe consequences". When GME does squeeze, it's going to have severe and brutal consequences for the market.
12:15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790777913245421806
Description: First we have Snoop Dogg in his music video for Gin and Juice talking about drama in the GME then we cut to Scarlet Envy saying "is it me, am i the drama", "am i the villain?"
Speculation: Just DFV having fun with all the drama that is being caused through GME, through his memes and everything in a fun light hearted DFV meme of way.
12:30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790781688848450012
Description: The first clip is taken from Oceans 12 where Ryan is bring the gang back together for an even bigger heist of casinos. Then we have part of the heist where he is stuck waiting in the dining cabinet and cannot escape until they let him out, then we cut to 2 people talking, "waiting", "for what?", "for this". Finally we cut to Batman, i think in the Dark Knight where the Joker is in the hospital and plans to blow it up.
Speculation: Bigger squeeze than last time, band back together, GME holders for the last 3 years could be like the guy in the box just let out in time by DFV, we say "where the fck you been?", he has been waiting, waiting for this.
12.45pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790785463118348420
Description: This is taken from The Dark Knight rises where Bane states "it doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan", "no one cared who i was until I put on the mask", "was getting caught part of your plan?" "of course"
Speculation: This is taken online about Bane in this movie, "Everything that Bane did was never for himself, not really, we find out his real loyalty later and I think that is a big reason why he said who he is wasn’t important. He wasn’t there to impress the masses, he was there to execute a plan, to be the playmaker for a person he cared for. He wasn’t one who liked distractions and the concern over who he was, I took it as he saw as unimportant to what the plan was itself" DFV doesn't matter, the whole thing is bigger than him now, similar to the fight club tweet reference.
1pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790789242513433071
Description: This clip is the big reveal in The Usual Suspects. BIG SPOILER HERE TO THE FILM - The police chief realizes in the film that he has just been completely done by the person who actually committed the crime and he was right there all along in the station . In this clip the drawn sketch of the suspect is replaced with the 'ill do it again' meme.
Speculation: The mug has roaring kitty on it so I wonder if this really is DFV noticing a similar pattern to what is happening with the stock as to what happened before and has made that realization that it's time to come back and this is all on again. HF's digging the same hole for themselves.
1.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790793012936851665
Description: This is a clip showing Keith Gill and a narrator saying that investors were looking for someone to blame for losing big on Gamestop. Then it cuts to "shut up bitch" from The Rock in WWF.
Speculation: This is a lol meme and basically DFV saying people invest themselves it's not his problem. People did try to sue him if i remember so it's a bit of a fuck you to them.
1:30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790796790360363016
Description: This is taken from Seinfeld and is about how George goes so far just to zing a guy. DFV replaces some words and makes this about the previous tweet, some more fun on his part.
Speculation: The episode i believe this takes place is called "The Money" and the episode in which George actually flies out is called "The Comeback", jokes aside that's some interesting references...
1:45pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790800562654691686
Description: This is taken from the Saturday Night Live sketch 'old friend'. It's about two old friends reconnecting, DFV expertly chooses this and only has to change the last name of the Keith in the sketch.
Speculation: Everyone thinks DFV is nuts, i mean the guy is posting a lot of memes and taking away my work mornings trying to understand them. Maybe he just loves memes, who knows?
2pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790804340673789978
Description: This is a video of beat saber to the song freaks by timmy trumpet and savage. "The bass and the tweeters make the speakers go to war", "the mighty trumpet brings the freaks out to the floor", "where the freaks at?". Big tune and then the vibing cat makes an appearance.
Speculation: Hard to say much about this other than it's a fun song and makes you vibe just like the cat. People are coming to twitter to see his memes and we are all vibing out off of it.
2.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790808112741630320
Description: Shows a man being followed around by a man in a suit with a red right hand. I'm not sure what this is taken from but the song is definitely Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad seeds. For me personally this song is most associated with The Peeky Blinders.
Speculation: The man could be anyone short on GME and the man following him making him scared could be DFV or whatever else is going to pound on those shorts. If you want the lyrics to the song then you can find them here
2.31pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790812277530034448
Description: Shows a bear on a pink recliner with a kitty sneaking in the background.
Speculation: This was a direct response to a Jim Cramer tweet who was essentially poking fun at DFV by saying he should make more memes as it's not working on helping GME. Worth noting that this doesn't look like a scheduled tweet and was probably not planned.
2:45pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790815662203617755
Description: Shows Jim Carrey not 100% which movie it is though i recognize it with a red graph overlayed showing the stock price going down. His smile deteriorates but he seems to have some sort of demented plan in a weird way.
Speculation: Stock might be going down and that might initially take the smile off but the creepy smile at the end shows that it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, they are going to get it by the end.
3:00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790819440617033914
Description: This is taken from the Truman show where Jim Carrey plays a character who's whole life is a television show for everyone else to watch. He is unaware of this but starts to become more aware as the film goes on. This particular clip is where he is trying to get to the edge of the world to see behind the curtain and the director is trying to stop him with lightning strikes and storms and whatever else he can throw.
Speculation: They are doing everything they can to keep a lid on GME. Firing as many shots as they can but it's not working. Is this the best they have?
3.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790823211745063394
Description: This is a clip from Dunkey's best games of 2017 and here we see a game where it's just boss fight after boss fight and is really fun.
Speculation: This is a game for us, they can hammer down the stock and do what they want but GME holders just keep buying more and moving to the next level
3.30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790826988019528035
Description: This is taken from Tenet and is about inverted bullets. It talks about being able to drop bullets and bring bullets back up and move bullets without touching them.
Speculation: I certainly don't understand even a little of what is going on with the stock, but you can still have a feel for what is happening with the stock and it feels good right now even with the dip. Could be something to do with inverse hedging but don't know enough about that to speculate.
3.45pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790830761542664192
Description: Firstly we have the Matrix where Neo is about to fight Morpheus and then we have Alice in Wonderland with Alice going down into the rabbit hole. (The rabbit hole is mentioned in the Matrix too when Neo is given the pill option).
Speculation: The scene where Neo fights Morpheus is really the first time we start to see Neo believe in his ability to be the chosen one but also understand the power being able to beat the matrix. With the Alice in Wonderland it's about seeing how far the rabbit hole goes, things will get more crazy for sure and we are going to find out just how deep this goes.
4:00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790834536403574936
Description: Here we have the music video for Karma police by Radiohead. A man is running from a car at a hobble speed and then stops turns around and there is a trail of fuel heading towards the car that has stopped. He pulls out a box of matches from his back pocket and is just before to set the car alight by dropping a lit match on the fuel.
Speculation: Another Radiohead song, you can find the full lyrics here but to pick a line out "this is what you get when you mess with us". Whilst being slowly chased down, there is going to be a flip reverse based on the trail left by the shorts only to blow it all up.
8:00pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790894938277695671
Description: This is taken from the Shawshank redemption where the main protagonist has escaped from the prison after being wrongly imprisoned for many years. DFV has changed some of the narrators (Red) words in showcase his story of being wrongly accused in 2021 and having the flee out of the spotlight. He talks about pressure and time, he presents a lot of memes he has created over the years and then shows a particular screenshot of one of his streams.
Speculation: This tells DFVs story but also has some juicy parts. I think Red in this is a bit like the reddit crew (us) keeping tabs on his story but DFV is saying to escape like him it takes pressure and time (could be gamma squeeze, could be LEAPS, could be DRS, could be holding and buying, could be ALL of it) but all it takes is time and pressure. The memes he posted i wonder if some of those have found their way into various subs over the last 3 years without any of us knowing it came from DFV. The steam he screenshot has been spoken about a lot this morning but it seems to come from one of his youtube streams when GME last broke $30.
Hope you enjoyed these takes.
Love ya DFV

Introduction

Christian religious education is defined as the process where by Christian learning takes place. It often involves “teaching which enables practicing Christians to adopt and deepen their Christian belief, values and dispositions to experience and act in a Christian way. It depends to a greater extent on how this process is adopted and practiced in different churches.

Different practices in Christian education in local churches

At some degree of certainty that all Christian churches have a similar aim’s and practices. The liturgical aspect is of paramount importance in the Trinitarian belief and practices in that it serves as introduction to what Christianity is all about. This is where the process of Cognitive learning takes places it involves the worship service where hymns are sang, lessons extracted from the books of the bible are read, sermon often punctuated with exhortation, admonishment and instruction in righteous living is delivered and prayers are said. It also involves the celebration of the holy Eucharist which Jesus Christ himself, recognized as the head of the church, initiated based on experience acquired in the worship service, it can be seen as Christian religious education is a confessional churchly activity of evangelism, instruction and nurture.
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I assure that “Youth are the most critical of all critics when it comes to religion”. Today, common inhabitants do pray and accept the holiness in church for Christ which they are aware that Christ constitutes the sacred bread and wine, but do not entirely act upon worshipping and fail to confront the thoughts and feelings to masses which would spread dignity of godliness among selves. The moral lies in the fact that this creates lackness to reach spiritual beliefs through worship and liturgy resulting in declination the faith which affects the divine nature approaching positivity.
Christian education is a vital important part in youth development. For Christian education to be explored, generation of today should be brought into contact through various practices. In the early centuries, reformers emphasized and trusted true faith and doctrines, to change and reform behaviour as the only solution for salvation in Christian education. Christian school movements prove a challenge as a messenger to convey god’s given mission and honour god.

Traditional approach

This approach was practiced since many decades and is still continued to be practiced which helps in binding and governing the ethics and morality within the religion and belief. Since beginning described, in leaving our homeland to teach the gospels throughout the world through scriptures, god conveyed his message – by sending his son Jesus for us, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Church, and Baptism for building unity.
Christianity consists of three things – Religious faith, way of life and community of mankind towards salvation are most important. The most vital of all belief preached is that there is only one god. The term Christian does not imply on the fact that a Christian should grow up in a Christian community, but precisely accepts Christian faith and belief, follows and leads the path of life on which Jesus walked on and made mankind accept Christian community through involvement and participation physically and mentally, as a result, traditional approach is how the local churches and preachers go about conducting their services. The apostle’s creed was apparently developed to summarize the Christian doctrine for man who baptised himself.

Theological and Biblical approach

This approach is regarded as an abstract discipline which teaches what bible is written. It is the study of god expressing god’s thought. The movement of bible indicates the doctrines to the kerygma to didache, to theological ethics, to revealed truth, to the way of living in Christian community.
God’s salvation to the world, worshipping the holy spirit, baptizing people in the name of god, preaching gospels as the word of god, share Christ’s own body and blood as bread and wine in holy communion, repenting and confessing god’s forgiveness etc are the concepts of theological and biblical foundation to Christian education. Even though mankind is aware but fail to involve due to the increasing evil and greed.
The service is organized to accept the call of god and to love him and others and which aims to gather people to worship him in return allowing him to take control over the world and through his presence spread peace, righteousness, justice, joy and helps in the growth of the life in an individual through increased faith.

Activities organized and performed in different local churches through to these practices

Some churches develop the initiative of the worshippers by confessing their faith in the words of the apostle creed. Each activity is correlated and composes a range of varied elements. Their current activities reflect the lives of an individual and drive them for a purpose through various numbers of activities to attain a better quality of life.
Due to activities, all age group gain variety of skills through many spiritual centred activities. Church acts as an interpreter between god and the worshippers to support in training the composition of these activities which are far more complex to solve a disturbed youth. They have to thereby standardize their curriculum and activities in regards to implement it. Different denominations organize activities to resolve the aim therefore to meet the need of the youth. Curriculum should be more focused than just on providing knowledge.
Activities are necessarily planned to build youth commitment. I believe it is necessary to reach them, i.e. train them to be strong future leaders. They should be kept one step ahead, for their life is very challenging. I believe that the best way to outreach youths mind is to be a youth like them to understand their psychology as it differs from every individual. The same activities do get affected as the youth is choosy and subtle.

Changing activities for tomorrow

Here the question is voiced that, what substantial change can be brought apart from the current activities to eradicate the above upcoming and dynamic problems in nature with respect to behavioural management or of what medication of healing would work out.
I would comment, the activities in the practices should be expanded and conduct likewise programmes workshops on educating purity before marriage, sex, child abuse, exploitation, rape, adultery, adolescence sex, teenage mothers, drugs addiction, aids, and divorce. Workshops, seminars for sex, abuse, peer mentoring, identifying preventive measures instead of curative measures targeting the social, political and the economical factors would be effective for incorporating the overall issues to bring the insight of the good and evil sides of every consequence, discussion on essential real life skills. Our goal is to create “world changers”, inviting the sacrifiers of evil and giving and sharing healthy priorities to save ourselves and the world, before it becomes a terrible fate and a debt for our own selves.
As the world is in unsafe fists of crime, terrorism, corruption, violence, youth have been diverted to a fast-paced and expects instant opportunities. Perhaps, the approaches of these local activities tend to be helpful and may bring positive results but I still feel that there is something missing, to monitor the youth from within. In an article – Practical: The Role of the Full-Time Youth Pastor in the Local Church, by Graeme Codrington, Denomination: Baptist (All), submitted on, May 18, 1997, states that, “In a world that is so busy, and demands so much of all of its inhabitants, young people need a secure environment, where they can experiment and decide who they want to be. They need significant people to be there to help them through this process. They need role models to follow”.
Above statement eventually satisfies the fact that these folks are craving for friendly support socially and for stimulation. Overall factors which conglomerate are peers, parents, teachers, church members and Christian community. All factors rely on one common feature which constitutes leadership. Ironically, most youth do understand the surrounding factors but the factors themselves become tough unknowingly that they can’t quite control the situation which then becomes too late to recover. The task is questioned commonly as what kind of leader a person should be to prove creditability and capability to influence the youth to pursue the direction towards god? In an article again stated by, Graeme Codrington, Denomination: Baptist (All), – Practical: The Role of the Full-Time Youth Pastor in the Local Church, submitted on, May 18, 1997, “Young people are not just “little adults” (cf. Elkind 1984:18). They are complex individuals who are battling to deal with the awesome transformation of their bodies, minds, and emotions. They are in a time of transition and growth, developing from the birthed bundle of potential to a fully integrated, functional member of society. The church is in a unique position to assist in this process”. Church as a role model fosters spiritual growth in every youth making them responsible to participate in Christian faith; she is a sign for an entrance of the god’s kingdom to the world of salvation, repentance, justice and peace to bring equality. She struggles hard and performs her duties wholly and solemnly reminds parents to structure their offspring’s life in Christian formation.
Church members acting as supporters, preach to establish and to promote a platform and share to encourage several types of civic, cultural, religious educational associations. In an article by Arthur Paul Boer – What must a Pastor know? Reflection on Congregational studies defines on writer James Hopewell’s statement saying beyond the embarrassment. “He has also observed that churches are sometimes chagrined by the change of hypocrisy and lament that they cannot measure upto ideals of Christian community”. Writer James Hopewell referred by Arthur Paul Boer notes that Christian leaders are incharge and build a church thereby rise in hypocrites. I observe practically that, though the world is changing, church strategy is also changing in complementing the growth. It still targets the set mission. Even though, somewhere in the corner hypocrites do exist but church leaders aim to find out what is the outcome in the people from the traditional, theological and biblical practices.
Perhaps according my research, I suggest they experiment bringing out good approaches to youth’s growth. Instead of the current activities followed in churches I would want to suggest the approach can be focused to bring in the outcome irrespective to exploration and innovation of ideas and thoughts for internal and external behaviour of an individual related to the surroundings around him, deepening of commitments to the teaching, provide opportunities to analyse socially and theologically and viewing his life in a theological manner. To build a framework of an activity consist of – to have an experience “like us”, to sense new boundaries by exploring new links to every Christian among themselves and to god across social and cultural boundaries.
In addition, exploration and inventive programmes can be executed to judge youth’s spirituality. Daily opportunities resulting in disorientation gets support through mission of god. Integration conceptual activities also can help in building and to capture ‘a born leader’. Church leader serves them as task leaders in the corrosion and freeing the task of a disconnected mind by planning tactics and dividing the burden of other’s through consultation. As the purpose is commitment, to serve the lost, skill based leadership formation training programmes can be organized to develop an effective leader so as to sustain the capability and capacity of the leader to solve the complaints lies in the dimensions of the ability. Workshops on intersections to shape boundaries of an individual and communities through theological and biblical language, symbols, and rituals to attain certain centered objectives.
As growth of globalization is tremendous, these leaders come across and face new opportunities and challenges. I believe they help in building an integral performance in conducting entrepreneurial business-based activities, describing the activities because youth’s mind is business-oriented, therefore the activities are to be structured keeping business in mind involving biblical and theological approaches with the existing resources for a business oriented youth. They tend to produce facilitate management sources to sustain and develop faith and love. When the youth develops a church from within, he will be able to observe and analyse the holistic environment.
The activities require presence of not only church members but also worshippers for youth development in successful implementation of these practices. Some worshippers form in small groups, some large varied to race culture. Arthur Paul Boer also examines simultaneously that when a group of pastors were having service of congregation, one among them exclaimed in deep breath “It showed me I’m not alone”. So often in our churches we berate ourselves for problems we face: not enough men, too few youth, preponderance of a certain race or culture. He is clear with the fact that a single person fails, unity increases strength. We ourselves give birth to a problem and then strive hard to face it because as there are few leaders left to catch a grip to support a large community. Due to less number of youth, less support is achieved to sustain the laws and policies of the church and unable to accomplish god’s mission. It is not only one who contributes but many. Above mentioned statement “It showed me I’m not alone” expresses that each race and culture form their own group; build small churches for their own community within their own boundaries, where god expects togetherness, wholeness. It requires lot of efforts to help small churches grow whereas large church with mass contribution grows as their already exist efforts in large numbers which take over the chained actions for development. Whether single church group or many, big or small, the development is important.
On this contradiction, I would suggest that this also includes that in small group the development is paid more attention and given a close eye, problems are spotted quickly and easily to meet the challenges. No matter how large or small challenges occur, the way we approach it is unique and comprehensive as this brings out effects of development in the youth. Whereas in large it becomes difficult to assist as there are more than one individuals. Due to small groups according to races and culture, differentiation exists. But the important criterion is group commitment and work effort in all sets of practice for congregations in any race or culture for a healthy youth so that to accomplish god’s mission. As a result both objectives are co-related to each other.
To understand the nature of Christian youth it is a very distinguished and a unique phenomenon. Due to the increasing issues of ‘peer pressure’, this has led to the obstruction in the development of youth. There are negative as well as positive aspects of it. Negative aspects influence a weaker mind. It is the most consistent findings revealed in observation. Due to the inquisitive innocence, an innocent becomes a prey of the negative aspect, thereby exploited and develops an evil companionship where he adopts negative qualities and habits. But there is positive aspects as in there are some groups who work towards peer relationship. Here innocent gets an opportunity to identify his fear, weakness and have control over his own power. The peer mentors play the part in organizing programmes to understand the behaviour. They interact with the teens and open lines of communication, build up action plans to change the behaviour by using the discipline skills wherever necessary. As church members play an integrate role, it is a challenge for them to develop the youth and make Christian education reachable to them.
Teachers are responsible preachers. Youth growth depends on a teacher infact they are the true facilitators of our learning, are Baptist figures and true authors of an individual’s life book. They also act as the resource developer and planner setting the curriculum for the healthy growth of an individual, depending how the curriculum is designed with the kind and level of leadership skills to recognize the youth psychology. Parents play a significant role in Christian education. They are the promising leaders which shape up Christianity, infact are the real teachers of Christian education. Parents act as a moral standard and support, therefore can synchronize to their growing youth to be aware from their early hood to gain knowledge in Christian faith and this is done when they themselves too experience a fullness of church.
Misunderstandings and miscommunication between parents and their children are one of the issues which follow breakings in the development of the youth. Due to parent’s own principles, for respect and love of family values often creates harmness to the children’s growth which tempts them to behave against them. Thus youth becomes a totalitarian of his own life by going against the values and ethics and unknowingly gets stucked in the torturous situations. Most Christian youth, fail to act upon the 10 commandments of bible.
I must say, I myself as a youth in my real life experience have observed that the originality of the commandments has changed excessively and replaced with the following:
Thou must worship money
Thou must “lyrically” murder
Thou must have evil possession
Thou must have sex
Thou must enjoy drug addiction
Thou must prosper, worship own self
Thou must not feel guilty
Thou must have no respect for ancestral values
Thou must not serve, sacrifice
Thou must differentiate
Due to the above, youth fails to feel guilty in which guiltness is a part of our conscience creating a false belief system as an obstacle in his maturity and creating structure of his own. Under such circumstances he avoids promoting prayer, sacrifice, grace, redemption, worship and meditation, atonement. Considering money and sex are the only two things reliable to satisfy the needs, creating a limitation and a boundary for establishing personal spiritual growth and development.
In general terms, when the efforts of religious and educational institutions, society lack to perform the planned task for Christian education, a positive approach is expected and constructed to gain knowledge and teaching through parents and teachers. Youth must be aware of guiltiness which is a gift from god to help us in being and doing well.
Still the question is raised in a Journal: Volume 5 Number 4, October 2003 by Author Charlene Tan, “Can Christian teachers and parents teach Christian beliefs without indoctrinating their students and children?”
Yes, they can teach Christian beliefs without indoctrinating their students and children they need to be careful when a child is to be handled as their minds are immature. At times it is difficult to understand them because their way of thinking is varied. Firstly before going to the next process, the first process has to be resolved. As teachers and parents are the role models for the development. In order to develop and understand these three role models should be systematically developed first. Only by abiding this rule, they can achieve the development in child. But the point lies beneath that how teachers and parents can prove themselves as an effective source of development by keeping in mind the relative factor of Child’s mind compatibility and psychology? As there are variations in psychological behavior teachers and parents should be mentally prepared, be changeable and adjustment oriented accordingly.
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The political and current affair of the nation is affected by corruption and evilness rationally which gave birth to vivid factors like jealousy, modesty and so on, making human’s built a tendency to mislead the positive factors. The situations have made the teachers adapt those inequalities within them, affecting the surrounding factors. Parents have too due to their increasing self priority created barriers of understanding among their families.
Many people are often drawn towards the attention of the church because of their felt needs and not for spiritual needs.
For instance, it does occur that why the youth is tuned out of his own way? Even in their interaction with their own members it tends to happen with them that they fail to hear a word said to them – stating “I didn’t hear a word you said?”, even though it is obvious that they have said something relating to us. This proves a kind of negligence in contacting the positive mechanism which grows in the back of our minds. Such system blocks all the wanted and useful messages allowing us to hear and see only what our mind tells us to hear and believe. As this tendency is increased in the youth generation, it is creating gaps between a believer and faith of god.
The question is – How? How can we overcome this problem? Youth have themselves developed a capacity in mind to hear only what pleasures them without taking a decision that whether it is false or truth. My query is – How we can bring these groups of youth closer to god? Unconsciously resulting in unexpected calamities and unknowingly they are unable to repent it wisely. Due to this increasing factor, youth can’t get a grip of effective communication and develop themselves internally. Here the parents then enter the scene to play their role.

The main question lies whether the local churches fulfill and meet to mature disciples in Christian education?

As stated above, ‘youth’ are the most critical of all critics when it comes to religion. In this modern era, youth is distracted to church because they are building castles in air due to the unmaterialistic desire. Youth today have focused their vision to crave success and prosperity for their rising life graph; they exploit their own ones due to greed and selfishness. During the primary phase of struggle and hard work, youth craves to achieve prosperity, at the same time, do thank god and accept his involvement for success, but hand in hand, lack to follow the bibles ethics which says to respect others in and with unity. Due to the competition and growth politically, more often youth seem to push the fellow mates and strive to takeover their place. They themselves are unaware that they give birth to exploitation and inequality. And due to inequality, unity is declined, wherein bible does not specify inequality. In a book source, Pastor – “Rick Warren’ – illustrates in his book – The Purpose-Driven Church -“The issue is church health, not church growth!” declares warren. “if your church is healthy, growth will occur naturally. Healthy consistent growth is the result of balancing the five biblical purposes of the church.”
In addition to this he also declares that “If u concentrate on building people, God will build the church”.
I agree at a certain point with the above statement. I herewith would want to magnify on “How would one build a healthy youth for a healthy church”? In this sense I believe that both are co-related with each other. Again the issue arises in my mind ‘How will the church be healthy if the youth is unhealthy?’ The issue can’t be only concentrated on church. For a church to survive, the basic foundation is the youth and for the youth to be saved and attracted the church has to be healthy. In my knowledge it is a ‘Vicious Circle’.
Local churches upto some extent do specifically fulfill the discipleship through the practices and play a great emphasis in fulfilling and conveying the message of god to us, but still lack to read the minds and bring the youth closer to her, for which she has to upgrade her atmospheric appearance with new packages to reach the youth in a new taste due to the competitive modernism which is hovering on the youth.
The latter part can play the best part coz when first falls in place, everything else falls in place, from the beginning to the end, from all angles in all walks of life. Towards a healthy faith, healthy church can turn and seed a growth of spirituality through which mankind will grow spiritually from within thereby causing church growth.
Author Perry G. Down states in his book – “Teaching for spiritual growth” that ‘how can we best enable Christians to grow towards maturity?’ For this question he suggests three key concepts- ministry, believer, and purpose. But my understanding says that these concepts are incomplete somewhere to create a bond in reaching the results because today’s youth is attracted towards the unrealistic worldly matters, but has resulted in declination towards the god’s spiritual growth. The major role connecting these three concepts is commitment and effort. As the church ministry is the foundation pillar, the main aim is how much measure of commitment is valued and given to achieve the target successfully. Mankind is able to commit only when he chooses the right direction in fear and is able but this is unfortunate as the alien world tend to let us unidentify the type of strategies of growth for maturity. By identifying the type of strategies of growth, we can understand the level of growth required towards maturity at which we can be spiritual. Another reason for in growth is fear. As the youth fears to face unexpected problems, the efforts are less and require the hierarchy’s support.
Author Gary C. Newton stated in his book – “Going towards spiritual maturity” quotes the principle that “God is ultimately responsible for all spiritual growth”. The question arises at this point that if god is responsible for everything, what will be the purpose and role of human? I comment that while god supplies the resources like bible, church, Holy Spirit, baptism, it is also our responsibility to supply effort and commitment to utilize those resources and give results to god. In bible, Paul highlights this principle of his personal lifestyle and in his teachings comparing with the example of a soldier or athlete to illustrate the amount of sincerity and efforts. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27), Paul states that “In a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize”. I herewith conclude in a Christian race all runners (ministry, believers, purpose) will fail to get a prize if there is no effort that is commitment from everyone.
Along with the concept of ministry, believer, purpose; effort is also the key concept and it has to be achieved from the youth as well. A healthy youth will gain efforts only when the growth will favour them from within, when the forces of the ministry believers and youth will collide with each other to form a healthy growth.
This will create a mutual relationship between god’s provisional resources and our active involvement in process which is more clearly in Philippians 2:12-13: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is god who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose”. This principle is intricate but the application is clear.
If one is to grow towards maturity in Christ then one must cultivate and demonstrate the efforts with passion, Philippians 2:17-18: ” But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you be glad and rejoice with me”.
Therefore the conclusion lies in the above concept, both; effort of the youth along with the work of ministry, believers proves in the healthiness of the church. In the book “Youth At Risk” by Peter Christian Olsen, 2003, he highlights four basic needs which he has clearly created an awareness of the effects that affects the development of youth:
Acceptance – belonging
New beginnings and second chances – forgiveness
Significance – generosity
Freedom – independence
I agree with his confirmation that he examines in deriving the above developmental needs from the provision of the Almighty’s resources as the absence of these needs do intentionally contribute in how they shape the personality, maturity, responsibility and stability of emotions. He emphasizes Christian community in respond to the needs determining that, the resources will be polishing youth through support during the fear and avoid them from destruction. At times the concepts will be foreign, indigestive for youth because unable to realize its importance. Rather the community need not re-interpret or change the language but simplify their thoughts and improve their visionary and understanding by change in structure through a friendly communication by becoming an effective leader to bridge the gap between the church and the youth. Therefore forces and efforts are needed for decision making which is an effective key in respond to ministry believer and purpose for a possibility of a healthy youth to build a healthy church, which will make the church flourish.

Supporting surveys

According to a survey, some findings proved that church fails to answer every question of the youth.

Q.1 In what way and sense is Christian religion, faith and church viewed by today’s modern youth?

Youth of today’s modern era is firm on the point stating that inspiration is lacked in religion; they feel that the world is divided through religion and is the major factor which is affecting the growth. A 17-year-old Jude from Kent says confidently that “He does not agree with the church who talks on subject morality” and is “Overfilled with traditionality”.
Youth pick their ideas which suit their taste through various religious beliefs. There are few in bunch who strongly believe, there exist only single religion which has controlled the truth. Young generation refer to perform all activities as per their own desire which in return less importance to the religious belief are being given, which gives birth to the side effects of the conduct.

Q.2 Why do young crowd feel that Christianity is not a ‘happening’ cultural activity?

An 18-year-old Marcus said that he left church when he was 15 because the teachings did not amuse him and it did not interest him of anything as a youth.
The major quest, a struggle for a religion is to impose an exertion of force of involvement in terms of attraction. I usually attend church service wherein I find young ones missing the services. I kept questioning myself that, where the young crowd has disappeared? Surprisingly the young ones have taken charge for the attendance of the church. In this consequence the church should give priority to change its curriculum and its way of presenting the services with new attractive packages for enhancement.

Q.3 Are the young preachers practicing different approaches in Christianity declining. What are your suggestions?

As the attendance of the youth in church has declined, but on the other hand people practicing approaches are increasing in numbers. The following is revealed through one of the youths that more the deepening are the studies of the bible, more a person becomes a hypocrite of the Christian leadership and unintentionally accepts and performs the lifestyle of the clergy right or wrong at times unknowingly. In such case, the practices are affected and become different from those which are to be precise. Seen are still some true Christian youngsters who are different in their attitude and conduct, but in spite of such difference, they are not involved into the immorality and violence activities with other youths. They present themselves as they are from a different unknown religion, but practice the religion and it

Written 5/8/2024- updates attached below

I tried posting this on kendrick almost a week ago and it got no response, I messaged the mods to ask about Karma restrictions or account age requirements and they never replied. I made a new account and it was the same issue, but I found out last night I wasn’t fully banned, so I figured I’d throw it up and see if anyone finds it valuable. It’s written for people who have no prior knowledge of the rap game/music business. I don’t have to go as hard on obscuring names this time. One of the influencers I mentioned in my last post is known for doxxing and threatening violence against people who mention the many contradictions in their stories. (Sorry for any typos/mistakes I want to go to bed.)
Origins
I believe the current Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef is either completely or partially fabricated by certain industry leaders or the parties involved in an effort to distract from something bigger going down behind the scenes. If you were an influential label owner facing major accusations, and you needed to deflect media attention from yourself, recreating one of the most defining moments in rap history during the social media era would be a way to do it. It also wouldn’t hurt that two of the biggest rappers in the world were already sending shots at each other in their music for years prior. The public consensus is they are simply two famous rappers who hate each other and fighting over the spot for the top like in the 90’s. Only people who were directly involved could paint a more cohesive picture of the whole story. Even when all the cards drop, there is a good chance the average person won’t be able to find direct sources on their own and will continue to support their favorite artists and dismiss any evidence of their crimes like the drizzy subreddit or Ak fans.

As I said the beef between Kendrick and Drake has been brewing in the background for years, with both rappers sending shots and sneak dissing each other over the course of at least 8 years. The most agreed upon origin story is the first diss was the 2016 Big Sean and Kendrick collaboration, “Control,” and Drake responded with, “The Language”. Things stayed relatively lighthearted for a while and both were intentionally vague for many years. Before I go deep into the Kendrick and Drake stuff, it’s really important to examine some of Drake’s prior beefs because they add a ton of context to my theory. In my opinion Kendrick and Co. started scheming all of this some time around Mid 2020-Mid 2022, well after the whole Pusha T beef had transitioned into the Kanye beef.

What exactly started the beef is debatable, but at the time many attributed it to rumors of Drake pursuing Ye’s ex Amber Rose. Unfortunately the timeline isn’t 100 percent clear, and if I included every detail this would be at least 200+ pages so I’ll stick with the important stuff. The ultimate outcome of the Pusha T battle in 2018 was the revelation of Drake’s son Adidon that he had previously been hiding from the world along with getting Ye directly involved in the beef.

Here are some more examples of Drake antagonizing Ye and of him trying to use women as pawns to get material for his diss tracks. The Drake line, “Yeah, I probably go link to Yeezy, I need me some Jesus, but as soon as I start confessin' my sins, he wouldn't believe us," could be a reference to sleeping with Kim Kardashian, trying to double down on his threats to harm him or his family, or it could be a double entendre. Another example is using the name Kiki in another song, which was apparently one of Kim’s nicknames. Some other possible examples include the theories he may have tried the same thing with Kendrick’s wife Whitney around 2020-2021 in an attempt to use as ammo against Kendrick, which I’ll go into later. I don’t listen to much of either artist's music, but there are probably many of other examples in Drake’s catalogue that I’m leaving out. There is also his song Omerta released in 2019, which I'll go into below.

“Your baby mother call me when she lonely My tailor see me twice a week, he like my homie Forever grateful, forever thankful Diamond necklace, but she wears it on her ankle”

(Probably referring to Kim Kardashian since she had a few pictures with her wearing diamond ankle bracelets and was trying to make it into a trend.

“I plan to buy your most personal belongings when they up for auction”

(There were various rumors floating around for a while that Drake was blackmailing Ye with something and he was fighting to keep it from the public. I thought about it and this line might be referencing a sex tape with Kim or her little sister who me was very touch before she turned 18. In 2022 there was a whole storyline on Kim’s show where Ye flies to LA to prevent her second sex tape from being released.)

West Hollywood, know my presence is menacing
Cosa Nostra, shady dealings
Racketeering, the syndicate got they hand in plenty things The things that we've done to protect the name are unsettling But no regrets, though, the name'll echo Years later, none greater
Death to a coward and a traitor, that's just in my nature, yeah
(Drake and Ye both frequented the Delilah Nightclub located in West Hollywood and lived closeby on the same street for a while.)
"I don't carry cash 'cause the money is digital
It's the American Expresser, the debt collector"

(Sounds a lot more like it could be crypto to launder or send large amounts of ill gotten gains. It started becoming mainstream around them)

"Last year, niggas really feel like they rode on me
Last year, niggas got hot 'cause they told on me
I'm 'bout to call the bluff of anybody the fold on me"

These lines stood out because they could be referring to Ye telling the public about Drake's alleged threats a couple months before the songs release. This happened not long after the release of Sicko mode which was towards the end of 2018 as well. Ye was discussing the incident on Twitter and reached out to Drake and Travis to talk to him in private. In the next set of tweets Kanye publicly accused Drake of threatening him and his family in a major way. Surprisingly Ye seemed genuinely scared and amongst his, “crazy rants,” some of the stuff he said makes a ton of sense in hindsight. This also the beginning of his second serious public struggles with Bipolar disorder after being committed in 2016 shortly after an on stage rant where he calls out Jay Z for selling out and says he's afraid he might kill him.. As someone who shares the same diagnosis, I have a pretty good understanding of mania and psychosis and firmly believe that it's important not to write people off right away due to their mental illness. Some of my most thoughtful, creative, and productive periods were inspired by mania. Industry bigwigs have also been using mental illness to discredit influential black celebrities and visionaries going back decades, but it really picked up in the 80’s.

Dave Chappelle has gone into this a lot in the past and claims he experienced something similar before he quit show business and dipped to Africa. Their stories have a lot of interesting parallels if you’re familiar or curious. I remember he actually visited Ye at his house in Wyoming after he was reported to have had a, "mental breakdown," during his presidential run in 2020 thus marking his third breakown in six years.. The reason I put it in quotes is because it happened right after he publicly accused Kim of cheating and delivered his legendary speech on abortion. Dave went as far as going on live tv and telling the public he wasn’t crazy, he was just really struggling because he was the only one at the time fighting against the narrative, which can often be a suicide mission or a ticket to obscurity. These are three examples of someone speaking up and being deemed crazy, two years later came the nazi stuff and I'm sure we'll have plenty in store for 2024.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the very common pattern of artists dying or having their careers destroyed either after they try to leave their label or threaten to reveal industry secrets. A few more interesting industry connections I made in my research include the connections between:

T.U.G. records and J Cole's independent label Dreamville are both managed by Interscope Records, whose parent company is Universal Music Group.

Universal Music Group also hac Drake's label OvO label as well as Ye and Kendrick's old labels on their roster before they left to form their own independent labels in 2022 (around the same time the disses between Kendrick and Drake started escalating). Finally Bad Boy Records, which is owned by Diddy, and Motown Records who own Diddy's other R&B label Love Records, are also both owned by Universal. This means every label I mention is currently or was previously owned by Universal Music Group.

Ye tried for years to get out of his contract with Defjam, which happens to be ran by Jay Z who is known to be a close associate of Diddy. Jay would always used his money and power to fight against it. Ye even spoke out publicly on a few occasions, including when he said Jay Z was trying to kill him during one of his concerts. My theory is after years of getting nowhere and having his reputation skewered, in 2022 Ye finally said, "Fuck it," and dropped all the anti- Semetic stuff intentionally in a successful attempt to force his label to into using their morality clause, which requires labels to drop an artist if they're accused of any major controversy that could hurt the label’s profits. For the fourth time in four years the media reported he was having a breakdown. Even though they tried to punish him by cutting off all of his sources of income and freezing his accounts he still managed to bounce back pretty quickly. It was often reported how much he was losing, but it rarely discussed how he still was filthy rich in spite of the retrictions. His label wanted to discourage other artists from trying the same thing. My theory is he might have bought Kim or Kylie's alleged sex tape and used it for his own leverage. For Kendrick, his transition to his independent label ApLang went a lot smoother, but he had to split ownership of his new label with the previous manager owner Dave Free. Sadly it's still difficult for new or more niche artists to establish themselves without the some help.

He may be a lot of things but Ye isn’t dumb just because he has a mood disorder and the guys at the top know this, which is why I think he has really played up his diagnosis when it benefitted him. He’s still one of the most talented musicians in the game and I really think he sees his bipolar like a superpower as he says. It’s like his own invisibility cloak. He can go off his meds for a little, make an album after staying up for 72 hours, go on a “psychotic” twitter rant dropping facts throughout, then start up again once he makes enough news headlines. I think it’s worth noting the first divorce rumors in 2020 coincided with Ye’s abortion speech during his presidential run and the cheating accusations. that led to him dropping out and moving to Wyoming, and a couple months ago in February 2024 he was committed again.

The point I’m making is bipolar is complex, but pretty manageable especially if you have a ton of money to find meds that work for you and a good doctor and can keep substance abuse and stress at a manageable level. I think Ye is smart enough to know this, but it’s just safer for him to really play up the mental issues in the media. He’s proven he can literally say whatever he wants after getting cancelled and the average person is just going to write it off as psycho babble. While bias in health care is a sad fact of society, if you can use it to your advantage I say go for it. It might’ve just kept the microscope off of him long enough to plan his attack.

Ye v. Drake: Quotes of 2018
(Start of the beef, drake threats, and suspicion towards Kardashian family. )

“ It’s not about rap. It’s about family. We have to be close as a family and never let these people infiltrate just for radio spins”

“We need to show the world that people can talk without people ending up dead or in jail.”

”This is a man speaking to a man that has been placed in the program to fuck with Kanye West head and set me up“

”See when you care about your family you don’t let no man push you to do nothing that could risk your freedom“

These first four tweets by Ye were all in reference to perceived threats made by Drake after their beef escalated circa 2018. He began speaking on the industry and talking more about his psych hospital commitment two years prior and how he thought they were going to kill him. It's pretty obvious how the whole thing was planned by the sketchy doctor who called it in and his physical trainer who has a ton of connections to weird shit involving his celebrity clients.

I found interesting that Ye might not have been the first major league rapper whose life Drake threatened. During a similar period of mental illness the up and coming rapper XXXtentacion accused Drake of stealing his flow and dissed him a few times. Not long after he made a post online saying if he dies, it was Drake who did it. There are tons of conspiracies online, but none of the evidence is strong enough to draw a definitive connection. Also while it maybe be coincidental, Kendrick’s latest album Mr Morale also painted the picture that Kendrick was dealing with some serious personal issues. Some lines throughout the album may have been used to bait Drake into escalating, but it wasn’t until The Weekend, Future, and Metro Booming dropped, “We Don’t Trust You,” then Drake and J. Cole dropped, “First Person Shooter,” which was followed a couple days later with, “Like That,” where Kendrick started the chain of events that has led us to today.

Kanye vs. Drake: Quotes of 2020

Summary: Ye runs for president and gets suppressed for saying what very well could be the truth and was immediately deemed insane by the media. Kim did a couple interviews and everything he said was immediatly false. There is almost guarenteed to be some sketchy shit going down revolving her and her family. Ye was absolutely terrified of her keeping the kids away from him and it seems like there are still efforts being made to this day to paint a certain image of him for ulterior motives.

Below are six more quotes from a fan taking a deep dive into his 2020 tweets courtesy of u/ thehatstore42069 on Yeezy
”NORTHY I AM GOING TO WAR AND PUTTING MY LIFE ON THE LINE AND IF I AM MURDERED DON’T EVER LET WHITE MEDIA TELL YOU I WASNT A GOOD MAN,” West, 43, wrote in the tweet, adding, “WHEN PEOPLE THREATEN TO TAKE YOU OUT OF MY LIFE JUST KNOW I LOVE YOU”

"I need a public apology from J Cole and Drake to start with immediately... I'm Nat Turner... I'm fighting for us."

"the utmost respect for all brothers" and said "we need to link and respect each other... no more dissing each other on labels we don't own"

"Ye is constantly trying to tell people that his family does not have his or his kids best interests at heart. He goes on to list others, linking them together with the thinking emoji. These people include rap artist Drake and Larsa Pippen, wife of Scottie Pippe. Kim K is goddaughter to Pippen's daughter, showing how close the families actually are. All of these families that associate with Ye through Kardashian connections, as well as Drake, have been accused of the same thing Kris has. EVERY SINGLE ONE of these people have mixed race children that are groomed from a young age to fuck around with celebrities so the parents can remain famous. Drake on numerous occasions has been accused of grooming girls and then getting handsy on their 18th birthday.”

“These labels want their artists to make them money and they dont care about anything else. When Kanye says things like this in an attempt to expose him, the first thing they wanna do is drug him up and put him back in the studio.”
“Righteous indignation is typically a reactive emotion of anger over mistreatment, insult, or malice of another. It is akin to what is called the sense of injustice. This is how they keep the black man down. Keep people outraged about trivial things and distract them from the real issues in the world. The real problems in the industry. If you tell people enough times that they are unequal or discriminated against they start to believe it. Drug them when they step out of line and toss them aside when the checks run out. Ye is realizing he is pawn in a bigger game, and now that he has all these roots in the game such as Yeezy or the Gap or his music, too many people cant risk (Afford) a Ye who speaks his mind.”
(End of quotes)

Amongst the twitter rant, Ye warned about the predatory nature of record deals and discussed trying to get out of his own deal, and said again how his life may be in danger if it wasn’t already and was doing anything he could to protect his kids. The most fascinating part to me though is the public call to arms he made to Drake, J Cole, and Kendrick on twitter. After inviting them to all link up, he said, “It’s time to get free, we will not argue amongst each other while some guy we don’t know in Europe is getting paid and putting that money in a hedge fund.” I believe if Ye was able to pull off this meeting, there is an ever so slight chance that all four artists might be working together to take down a greater enemy. Weirdly there have been times throughout the last couple years where these supposed enemies were photographed together being friendly or praise each other in interviews, then out of no where the disses would start flying again.

To wrap things up I want to share my a few of my theories about the Drake/Kanye beef

A. Everything is exactly as it seems and the beef is over. Ye let his mental illness ruin his life and career so Drake simply picked another target after Ye stopped putting out disses. All of these connections are just a coincidence and all of this was choreographed to boost Drake and Kendrick’s music sales and possibly distract people from the Diddy trial and possibly the complicated geopolitical issues currently facing the U.S.

C. There is also the possibility that all four rappers are in cahoots and Drake’s dirt isn’t as extreme as people are theorizing, at least in comparison to the rest of the business. This could explain why everything has played out like a movie and how they were able to predict each other’s moves so well. This could either mean they’re all just trying to boost their sales or they’re all trying to take down the “slave masters,” as Ye calls them, and change the dynamic of the music industry in favor of the artist.

D. They may be trying to help their friends in the industry who are being abused or in shitty contracts. I know a lot of famous rappers have done a lot of collaborations with Jhene Aiko and Anderson Paak, who were both signed to T.U.G. records which I mentioned above in the connections to Universal Music Group. Considering they are both frequent collaborators with all of the artists involved on both sides, it’s not unlikely they may have played some part in influencing the takedown.

T.U.G was started by Chris Stokes with his partner Ketrina Askew. Back in the early to mid 90’s were gaining popularity attracting lots of young up and coming talent. They often collaborated with Diddy and his associates. In the 2000’s Raz B from the boy band B2K claimed he was molested by Stokes and his friend Marques Houston, then quickly retracted his claims. Years later he came forward again and said we was bribed into silence and that the rest of the victims were bribed with hush money and had another singer corroborate his story and they came forward together to level the accusations. After some of his former B2K members made fun of him for his claims and accused it of being a shakedown, Raz B revealed Stokes and Houston had preyed a lot of the children associated with the label including at least one of the former bandmates and paid them off.

I thought it was worth noting that the second whistleblower named Quindon Tarver died young in a car crash after mentioning his abuse again a few years prior. He seems to have left the industry not long after the incidents occurred and has few credits to his name. To this day Raz B is still trying to get his justice, while Stokes and his partner Askew, who was also involved in the abuse are still running the label to this day. Askew also has a ton of lawsuits, accusing her of using shady tactics to try to foreclose on houses. (Don’t quote me if a lawyer wants to take a look just google her full name), and has been tied to a ton of LLCs, similar to Drake. This is a good example of a shitty record deal, but I'm sure they have countless other friends in the industry who have even worse. While they were never convicted even Chris Stokes' wife confirmed it to be true.

E. The theory I personally think fits the narrative best and is the most realistic conspiracy is that Kendrick and possibly J. Cole went to the meeting, but not Drake due to his close relationship with Lucian Grange, the president of Drake’s label. Silence often speaks louder than words and this could explain why Kendrick was so ruthless and put so much effort into finding dirt on Drake. Ye, Cole, and Kendrick co-writing would be like the rap allstar team and if J. Cole wasn’t involved, it would also answer the question of whether or not he baited Drake into the battle by asking him to feature. I don’t think Drake is really their primary target though, which would explain letting him off easy. Compared to his bosses and their bosses he’s a small fish. If you take the big guys down you stand a better chance of landing a bigger blow on their operation.

Another really interesting connection is Kendrick and Ye were both signed under Universal Music Group and they both got out of their deals around couple months apart in 2022. As we speak U.M.G’s CEO Lucian Grange, who is often acccused of giving Drake special treatment, is facing charges related to sex trafficking by no other than P Diddy. This could very well explain the timing of it all. The craziest timeline would be Diddy masterminding all of this and using his connections to get it done and all the allegations are bullshit. The guy does seem pretty confident all things considered and constantly posts himself in his Batman costume which could mean he’s a vigilante.

It seems like there's a slight religious angle as well. (Ye and Diddy are both very vocal advocates of Christianity and Drake and Lucian Grange are both Jewish.) Obviously this is a reach, but they’ve been saying rap music was specifically promoted by mostly white label owners in the 80’s to help in the ongoing effort to expedite the systematic oppression of those living in black neighborhoods and the destruction of their family systems. Apparently it was an intentional decision to heavily promote rappers that promoted the very things that were destroying their neighborhoods. (So people know I'm and atheist and have zero agenda, I just thought it was interesting, please stay away from anything antisemitic. War is wrong on both sides.)

*** If my favorite theory is true, there is a possibility the Kendrick and Ye are going after Drake due to their mutual disdain for him and because he’s got a ton of power to dominate the charts and hog the radio airtime like Meek Mill and OG Maco claimed years ago. Even him dropping a record the same day as you could really fuck your album sales up. I’m also sure some of the many rumors throughout the years have had a least some truth and he will most likely snitch to avoid cell block one. I think that Drake could have been instructed to instigate this whole mess in order to draw attention away from the UMG charges brought about by Diddy. Or on the other hand it could be that Kendrick, Ye, and possibly Cole, may have had intel that Drake was going to be involved in the Diddy trial and are just gonna let the receipts show themselves. It might not have been the original plan, but they’ve already accomplished their mission of humiliating him, assuring he couldn’t use his influence to slide through the cracks, and taking over the throne.

Please take everything I say with a grain of salt I have no connection to this world or lifestyle. Regardless I believe all of the knowledge above does a pretty solid job at painting a picture of what may have let up to this and what may have been the source.
——————————-
More details found the last couple days…

Drake and Diddy Connections+Coincidences

Drake- In the P Diddy wig video from 2016 he talks about going to party with Drake, Cash, and The Weeknd in Toronto. Drake is also one of Birdman’s protégées who is known for being a predator and is rumored to have used label artists to lure young women.

Travis Scott- Interview where he comes out and says Diddy tried to lure him. Still has a long history of associating with him, video of him running from Diddy, his connection to Ruby Rose while underage.

Tim Westwood- Diddy had connections with sex offender Tim Westwood who also inspired the Drake song, “Westwood”. They also both were victims of drive by shootings along with The Weekend and they were all facing some type of allegations.

T.I.- Also has been associate with Diddy through the years, in 2021 his kid died and 11 women can forward at the same time to accuse him and his wife of drugging and assaulting them. Clearly someone wanted to fuck his life up. Possibly due to him getting arrested so many times for wild shit and people wondering how he continued to get away with it shining a light on how powerful industry lawyers are. He also had recently talked about having a gynecologist check to see if his daughter is still a Virgin, which sounds like it could have been an industrty secret. Could have been because he worried about someone trying to take advantage of her to get to him? Regardless that shit is fucking insane.

50 Cent- Has been saying pretty much the same thing as Travis Scott and has trolled Diddy for most of his career. It came out that his wife was a sex worker who was possibly recruited Diddy to help ruin his career. It sort of worked, which raises the question if 50 Cent is the only victim.

Ray J- Him and his sister worked with T.U.G. records when they were very young. Chris Stokes in the nineties who had connections with Diddy. He has been involved in a lot of sex scandals and allegedly may have played a part in Whitney Houston's death. (Which is also allegedly connected to Michael Jackson's death and both were deemed suspicious and happened during their final tours when their masters (song rights), became more valuable than their lives. Sony Records and Tommy Motolla, who also abused Mariah Carey when she was trying to start her career. These are just a few of the alleged examples of labels taking out musicians when they were worth more dead, another is the signing of high risk artists and requiring them to get life insurance so they can profit beyond releasing all their posthumous records. Also the ever so common story of the rising star artist that die at 21 after their first album or two.

He also partied with Diddy in Vegas with along Floyd Mayweather and a bunch of other famous industry people and athletes.

Tory Lanez- Tons of blackmail, also was signed by Interscope under UMG. got sent to prison for ten years after trying to leave his label. Also history of SA and and other allegations of violence towards women.

French Montana- On Diddy's label, close with Rick and Khaled, tons of drug and sexual assault allegations, also dated a Kardashian. Generally grimy.

DJ Khaled- Diddy said he could get anything in Miami, either referring to drugs or women, could explain his connections and lack of any notable talent. (New update, he was one of the first to promote Chris Alvarez’s instagram not long after he turned 18).

Rick Ross- Diddy said some weird shit about him and licked his lips and kissed him at a show. Ross is also signed to Bad Boy under Diddy. He ended up getting involved in the current feud and spamming social media nonstop dissing and threatening Drake.

A lot of the back and forth was both of them threatening to release dirt on each other. One strange coincidence I found was Drake recently trolled Ross about the 20 million dollar renovation to his home on Star island, where Diddy is currently residing. It’s rumored back in the day that P Diddy was caught in a room full of rich guys on ecstasy possibly at the beginning stages of a gay orgy. Drake also mentioned in the same tweets about Rick Ross that Birdman owned a house on the island and asked Rick Ross why he didn’t help him out.

Considering Ross is so sketchy and Drake claims the house isn’t that big, that’s a ridiculous amount of money. He may be covering up evidence, or creating tunnels in his house to escape if shit pops off and Drake might know what’s good. Interestingly enough Ross is very close with French Montana and also signed to Bad. He said his beef was related to something involving French, and Drake’s tweet popped up the same day the info came out concerning the Chris Alvarez stuff.

The famous line from U.O.E.N.O.

Meek Mill- “OG Maco called himself defending his friend Quentin Miller by substantiating the ghostwriting claims and agreeing with Meek. He hit up Twitter saying, "Some of us been knew. Meek just put it in the air. Sucks to have to compete with 6 n****s and get compared to”

Meek mill also had a short beef with Drake, some disses included lines referring to TI’s homie pissing on Drake at the movie theater, which is also interesting considering the current case against him. He also dropped a line saying Diddy almost got a domestic charge when he smacked Drake, which could either be saying that Drake is like a woman, or saying he was Drake’s boyfriend/sugar daddy.
( If you made it to the end comment with the number 8)
I thought it was interesting how the beef just kind of disappeared and even Meek said it didn’t seem genuine. Considering the allegations against Meek in the Diddy trial, and his rumored affair with Kim contributing to ending Kanye’s marriage, Meek Mill definitely did some dirt on him.

“Niggas frauds I told the truth, don't ask me shit
All this industry fake enemy and rap shit”

“Money make a sucker that told look trill again”

One of the many chapters in Drake's history in which he is seen paying his way out of trouble and starting beefs randomly.
“Now when that shit went down with Chris, you wrote a check”
This line is referring to Chris brown beef, another beef that was lost to time. All I can remember off the top was someone throwing a champagne bottle at the other’s entourage.

Ty Dolla $ign- Huge feature artist, close with Ye. Grew up in the industry and talks about growing up on the road and being in the studio with his dad and Rick James who was should have already been in prison for life for dragging, torturing, and S assaulting multiple women and children throughout his career and was himself a victim of the industry. May be part of Ye's motivation, considering their recent close working relationship.
The end.
Courtesy of,
The Randomest Moniker

Shortly before a final paper with pre-assigned topics was due for one of my last courses at Columbia University, our professor sent us an email telling us to forego the previous parameters of the essay, and to instead write about the events that had occurred not even forty-eight hours earlier, as well as our reflections on them, to be done in any manner we chose. Here is a very lightly revised version of what I submitted: read it, ignore it, upvote it, downvote it, hate it, love it.
I am prefacing this essay by stating that it is the culmination of several intense emotions that I have been dealing with over the last few weeks, more specifically, the last several days. It is a free-form expression of the many things occupying my mind, and, as such, it may seem overwhelming or disjointed. Nevertheless, I will do my best to convey my feelings into something representative of my beliefs, and my time at this institution.
My time at Columbia University has been bookended in an almost comically bad way; it started with Zoom classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now it ends with Zoom final exams due to the lockdown of Columbia’s campus after protests regarding the Israel – Palestine conflict reached a fever pitch not just within Morningside Campus, but the international stage. My classmates and I missed in-person orientation, and now, given recent developments, we will not have a University Commencement, a fact I found out not from Columbia, but a New York Times alert, somehow lowering my opinion of this administration’s handling of recent events even more. While the circumstances around my time at Columbia have now both begun and finished in the same manner, I am proud to say that I have not. I do not mean that Columbia has simply made me a better writer, a more critical thinker, or more well read, although it certainly has done those things, sometimes forcing me to when I was not particularly in the mood to do so, but those improvements pale in comparison to the maturity and empathy my time at this university has given me.
When the decision to transition to remote learning during the Spring 2020 semester was made, occurring only a short time after I had received my acceptance letter (email), my first thought was how the pandemic would affect my transfer from community college to Columbia in September. Admittedly, this was a selfish perspective, considering the tremendous challenges that many would endure during the ensuing lockdowns and other upheavals of life. My concerns were solely focused on myself because I was on a simple track to graduate, place my degree on my resumé, and continue my trajectory of military service to college to employment, leaving little else to consideration, to include other people who were not in my immediate circle. Sitting here now, two weeks from graduation, with a job at a Fortune 500 company lined up, I should be happy, with the plans I had made years ago coming to fruition. Yet I cannot help feeling a sense of sadness and concern for the school I have spent years of my life at, and for the world as a whole.
James Hatch, a former member of the United States’s elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU, for short, more commonly known by its nickname, Seal Team Six, famous for its involvement in the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the rescue of the Maersk Alabama Captain Richard Phillips from pirates, amongst other things, spent over twenty years in the military. After being wounded on a mission to rescue American serviceman sergeant Bowe Bergdahl from enemy forces, he was medically discharged, and would eventually attend Yale University. While there, he wrote a piece titled My Semester with the Snowflakes (please give this a read, it will help people who have never been in the military understand its culture, along with some of the challenges veterans face when transitioning to college), where he details his initial discomfort with being in a vastly different environment than the military, surrounded by individuals who possessed opinions and beliefs contrary to the ones he was accustomed to. He recalls witnessing a student protest the country he spent over two decades serving by coating her hand in red paint, and leaving a palm print on an American flag, and details his shock when a classmate of his explained to him what a “safe space” was, as well as his pride when he began to understand the nuances of life both inside and outside of the nation he dedicated twenty-six years to.
I can relate to Mr. Hatch, (despite my service paling in comparison to his, as well as the fact that Columbia is far superior to Yale), because, like his friends who make fun of him for attending college with a bunch of “snowflakes,” mine do the same. More significantly, however, his personal growth during his time at school is something that I have experienced myself. When I started at Columbia, I did not even know which major I would choose, and was largely lost in a world very different than the one I had come from. Despite this, I made the decision to avoid communities such as MilVets and the students who made it very clear that they came from a military background, with their style of dress and demeanor, not because those organizations and individuals are a detriment; I know for a fact that MilVets has helped countless students succeed at Columbia and beyond, and the veterans that I have relationships with are all phenomenal people, but because I wanted to pressure myself into being exposed to something different. I was uncomfortable at first, but this turned out to be the right decision. I learned as much from simply talking to people whom I would normally never converse with about topics and ideas that I had never encountered as I did during classes about great works of art, polar and Cartesian coordinates, literature, astronomy, the list goes on.
If the protests about the Israel – Palestine conflict had occurred when I first started at Columbia, I would have been frustrated by the students taking up space, forcing us to be funneled on to campus by restricted access points and identification checks. Likely irritated by the disturbance of the quiet during finals season, I would have agreed with the people who called for students to simply focus on their assignments and stop inconveniencing others by shouting about something occurring on the other side of the world. Instead, I decided to learn about the conflict, educating myself about both sides of a war that has roots extending back millennia. While Columbia University did not agree to the demands of the protestors, they achieved something else they surely desired, reaching a goal they did not state to President Shafik and her advisors: they brought attention to their cause by educating at least one additional person about it.
After reading, talking to people, listening to input from students within various classes, and understanding that things such as the intertwined nature of financial workings, as well as conflicts not just in the Middle East, but all over the world, are a level of complexity that baffles some of the most brilliant minds of ours and previous generations, I will leave my thoughts about Israel and Palestine separate from this paper. I recognize that it is important to choose a side, as remaining impartial helps no one. However, when every news agency, group and individual makes their voice heard, satirical sources such as The Onion make these kind of posts, or Adult Swim’s Rick, the nihilistic, narcissistic, psychopathic, misanthropic lead character from the series Rick and Morty, addresses the conflict in this manner, I feel that it is better to relegate myself to a much smaller part of this debate, namely the occurrences on Columbia University’s Morningside Campus.
During basic training for the United States Army, a sense of brotherhood and camaraderie is hammered into recruits’ identities. When you graduate and are assigned to a unit, one where you could be thousands of miles from home on the opposite side of the country, or even in a completely different country, serving on one of the international bases, approaching someone who you have never met before is easy. Talking to them about shared experiences and stories you have in common, and the bonding that occurs, is the product of an indoctrination process and lifestyle that has existed longer than any of us have been alive, and is proof of its effectiveness. This sense of familiarity tends to continue even when one leaves the military. The Veterans of Foreign Wars community is a place for prior servicemembers of all conflicts to share a drink, a laugh, and sometimes a tear. When I go to the Veterans Administration Hospital for periodic check-ups or the occasional injury, men and woman wearing hats commemorating their service during Vietnam waiting for their appointments greet me with a smile and a handshake, as if we have known each other for years. While working at a golf club’s greens department before I transferred to Columbia from community college, a coworker of mine who had served in the Gulf War had heard from our supervisor that I had been in the Army, and he introduced himself to me on my first day, before anyone else, telling me that if I needed anything, I only had to ask. This camaraderie has expanded to encompass not just veterans, but first responders such as firemen, EMT’s, and the police as well.
Underneath the picture on my driver’s license, the word “veteran” is emblazoned next to a star, written in bright red text and all capital letters. I know for a fact that this one-and-a-half-inch indicator has helped me during interactions with law enforcement on multiple occasions. Only earlier this semester, during Presidents’ Day weekend, I went upstate to spend time with my family. While driving back, in an effort to make the seven-hour trip at a reasonable time, I was stopped for going twenty miles-per-hour over the speed limit. The officer who pulled me over, initially reserved, became noticeably more friendly when I handed him my license and registration. Ultimately, he gave me what amounted to a parking ticket for my actions, rather than the point-incurring, heavily fined moving violation he could have charged me with.
The ‘Thin Blue Line,’ as it is known, is a reference to the idea that the police are the barrier between law abiding citizens and criminals, order and chaos. The most common representation of this concept is a black-and-white American flag, with a single blue line in the place where a red or white stripe would normally be. This style has been expanded to include numerous other colors representing other first-responders: green for the military, red and white no longer to be interpreted as the traditional stripes of the American flag, but instead meant to represent the fire department and paramedics, and even grey for corrections officers. Seeing the appropriation of one of the most iconic symbols in the world, one that flies above the White House, schools, homes, national and international events, and even the Moon, I can say, as someone who has been unwillingly entangled within that appropriation, is nothing short of terrifying.
The fact that these entities and their supporters have literally sewn themselves into the fabric of the symbol of our nation makes one think that there is little room for the countless other occupations, aspects and people that make up this country. The idea of the police being the sole protectors of our society is patently absurd, and all one must do is point out the many instances of police brutality occurring over the years to refute it. I find myself thinking of how much power the officer who stopped me just three months ago had over me. Initially, I was happy that I had received a slap on the wrist, but recently I have found myself wondering what if my license did not state that I was a veteran, would he have charged me with a ticket that would have had much more serious implications? What if he was simply having a bad day, and he decided he did not like the look of me, or the color of my car, and I was the one who he ultimately decided to vent his frustrations on? This traffic infraction, an incredibly small incident compared to all the turmoil in the world, one that involves two strangers, supposedly bonded by our professions, on the side of a quiet, New York highway, serves as a metaphor to me, reminding me of the power structures at play on a much larger scale.
On April 22^nd, 2024, I received this email, one of the many Clery Crime Alerts that students are automatically sent. An affiliate of Columbia University had their car stolen at gunpoint by two masked men on Claremont Avenue, not even a five-minute walk from campus. I skimmed the report, and almost immediately forgot about it, recognizing that crime is an inevitability in major cities, and that I needed to start my commute to school. Days later, on the night of April 30^th, 2024, I received another email from Columbia, containing one of the most ominous messages I had ever seen, one that put the kind of fear in my heart that not even the alert of an armed carjacking could. Columbia’s Emergency Management Operations Team, offering no explanations, specifications, or even a greeting or sign-off, wrote in bold letters these three sentences: “Shelter in place for your safety due to heightened activity on the Morningside campus. Non-compliance may result in disciplinary action. Avoid the area until further notice.” Due to the protests on campus during recent weeks, President Shafik testifying before Congress, Columbia’s role as one of the main catalysts for student protests around the country, and the occupation of Hamilton Hall occurring in the earlier hours of that day, it was not hard to figure out what the email was referencing. Over the next several hours, I followed news agencies, remained glued to the Columbia subreddit, and listened to WKCR, in awe of these eighteen- to twenty-two-year-old students putting themselves at risk to deliver on the ground, accurate, unbiased coverage of one of the most significant events in the school’s history.
While tracking the events from multiple perspectives, to include the social media accounts of those near and on campus live streaming them, I held out hope that the university would make good on their promise from several days earlier to not invite the NYPD back, but a frightening picture began to unfold, one that I was intimately familiar with. One WKCR reporter stated that 114^th street had so many officers on it that he could not see the asphalt of the road beneath them, and I knew that the staging area the NYPD had chosen was one of the best routes for moving towards what the military, and presumably law enforcement, would call an ‘objective.’ The officers cleared the smaller ‘objective,’ the largely unoccupied tents in front of Butler, and then moved towards Hamilton Hall, ordering even those not associated with its occupation to disperse, raising my stress levels and likely those of others, as it is rarely a good sign when police do not want their actions recorded and archived. After the initial entry to campus and clearing of areas and people in the immediate vicinity of Hamilton Hall, came the Long-Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, a device that makes a megaphone sound like a whisper, and one known for its crowd-control potential, capable of producing sounds loud enough to cause damage to ear-drums, nausea, and headaches, ordering individuals to clear away. The NYPD began its execution of tactics in a way that my fellow soldiers and I used to rehearse, tactics I never dreamed that I would witness outside of the military, and certainly not by police officers who vastly outnumbered unarmed students on their own campus. The NYPD created a perimeter, or a ‘second layer of security’ to both provide reinforcements for the officers entering the building, and to prevent the fleeing of what are called ‘squirters,’ or individuals who attempt to escape the building after the raid begins. While the ‘breach’ team moved towards the front doors, using tools from a ‘hooligan kit,’ such as bolt cutters, hand-held battering rams and crowbars, a siege machine was brought in to allow access from a window; when taking over a building, the idea is to enter it from as many different directions as possible to better disorient and overwhelm its occupants. Flash-bang grenades, described as non-lethal, but known to have harmful effects, were thrown inside, presumably before entering any room, hallway, or otherwise enclosed area to minimize the resistance of anyone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of what can only be described as an assault on the visual and auditory senses. According to the Manhattan District Attorney, one of the officers inside Hamilton Hall had what is called in the military a “negligent discharge,” meaning his firearm went off unintentionally. While no one was hurt, the question remains why at least one, and more likely, numerous other officers were carrying guns loaded with live ammunition in the first place, when they so drastically outmatched the protestors in numbers and equipment. Additionally, a negligent discharge is an act of incompetence that would result in an active-duty soldier facing serious consequences, and derision from his peers. So far, the officer remains defended by his coworkers, and unpunished by his superiors.
As all this unfolded, I communicated with my friends from the past and present. My friends from the military checked on me to ensure that I was okay, as did my friends from school. The difference in how they viewed these events highlights what I believe is the change in myself that I stated I am most proud of at the beginning of this paper. My friends from the military were commenting that the assertion of order and control by way of militarized tactics was necessary, not concerning themselves with the human toll and destruction of trust that came along with it. Conversely, my schoolmates lamented the brutality and overstepping of boundaries that the NYPD and Columbia’s administration committed, one that turned a place meant to be a beacon of free speech, expression, and ideas, into what is now a police-state with strict control over who enters it.
My education inside and outside the classroom at this institution has challenged, thrilled, and changed me. Sitting here now, at the end of this paper, the end of the semester, and the end of my time at Columbia University, I am left feeling confused and sad regarding recent events, but also hopeful for the future. I know from experience that the students, teachers, and culture of this school have the power to encourage critical thinking and initiate personal growth. If it did those things for me, surely it can do the same for others

I see a lot people that post in frustration and worry that they’ll never be “good” at programming, so I wanted to ask for some feel good moments you’ve experienced on your journey to learning programming… I recently had a pretty awesome moment that boosted my confidence, in my programming ability and knowledge.
TLDR: Hobbiest, worked on a personal game project over a year ago, came back to it to improve it, and found my code was well organized, well written, easily adaptable and expandable. Made me realize the studying I have done actually stuck, and maybe I’m not as green as I thought. :-)
I am a complete hobbyist, I work on projects solely for the joy of learning a new skill that just so happens be making video games, which I grew up loving, but have never understood how to program.
I started learning Unity and C# during the tail end of the pandemic, and I quickly discovered I really enjoyed coding, and making games, but understood that, realistically, at 37 years old, I would not be changing careers, so just took the process at my own pace, I worked through the C# Players Guide(5th edition, I think) I completed almost every tutorial series on GameDev.TV that had to do with Unity or C#, and watched many topic specific videos on YouTube, Udemy and skillshare…on topics like AI, Pathfinding, Procedural Generation, ShaderGraph, 2D, 3D 2.5d…
Rick Davidson, Penny de Byl, Brackeys, CodeMonkey, Jason Weimann, Tarodev… amoung many others, have been my teachers. I have made many small tutorial projects, and a couple larger “intermediate/advanced” tutorial projects, but nothing that was really my own, I’d just been enjoying the process of learning and making simple fun games.
Well, a little over a year ago, March 2023, I decided it was time to start my own project. I had no delusions of grandeur, I had no plans on actually releasing anything. I just had an idea for a game, and I wanted to see if I could build it from scratch. So I did.
My game plays like a 2 player board game, Two Factions: Good Vs. Evil, both factions with Three races to choose from (Humans, Dwarves, or Elves, and Demons, Monsters or Undead) with dice rolling, a hex grid game board, different phases for each players turn, combat between units( a basic attack that did a predetermined amount of damage), the goal was to collect 7 “energy” nodes randomly scattered on the board, 3 on each side of the board and one on the center Hex.
Each side takes turns moving their 3 unit types (a collector, a warrior, and an Overseer), around the board, trying to eliminate the other players collector, and collect the nodes before the other player. If a collector is destroyed you have to use collected energy to span a new one. Its all set in a fantasy setting, and the scene is set to look as if your playing a board game in a medieval pub.
I did some really complex (at least to me) things too. Each match is set on a procedurally generated game board, set to look like the chosen game board environment (ie, grasslands, sand dunes/desert, volcanic wastes, wintesnow).
I built my own state machine to manage each players turn. With multiple states, an optional “magical misfire” state, that only occurs if the player rolls a 1 during collection.
I built my own Camera Managment system utilizing cinemachine, it’s simple but it keeps track of which camera is active, controls the camera movement for each players camera… etc.
I built my own player notification system, that allows for timed notifications system that both sends to notification panel for immediate display, and also a log for players to refer back to if needed.
I have multiple managers to keep things compartmentalized, and as OOP as possible.
I created multi base classes that all have numerous heirs, and came up with ways to make everything customizable and unique. Each player has a choice of 3 factions, all with their own UI, their own HomePieces, each unit is unique, and it looks pretty good because I have been using humble bundle since I started learning to get a very large collection of synty model packs, and high quality UI assets.
After 3 months. I had a working game loop, a very customizable game board generation system, and had pretty much accomplished what I set out to do. Everything in my initial development document had been implemented. However, the gameplay itself wasn’t very fun. It all worked and looked pretty good, but it just didn’t have any umph. (I have not added any “juice” either, so it was pretty stale) I decided I had reached the point where I was a little lost on where to take it. I had been spending A LOT of time working on it, 4-5 hours a day on top of my full time job working customer service at the airport. Yes, I was enjoying it, but I burnt myself out, and I started getting frustrated that I seemed to be stuck. I could not think of anything useful or fun to add. I had ideas, but I couldn’t think of how to implement them… and if I did try something new, I couldn’t work out how to get it to sync up with every thing else, and things just kept breaking. I thought “I’m too deep at this point, and I must have too much spaghetti in my code.”
I felt happy with where this project had ended, as it was complete, and everything I had put in my initial planning document was implemented and working…and, I was actually really proud of some of the systems, like the hex grid generator, and the procedural terrain generation, and all the ideas I had about how to initialize the whole thing and get it all working over multiple scenes, with multiple players… I learned a lot, and really enjoyed it over all. I was happy, but felt I had taken as far as I could. Even though I had ideas I wanted to do, like different actions for each unit, different spells for each faction type, etc.
As I said, I was feeling burnt out, I had enjoyed the process but, it had taken its toll. So I took a break from Coding. Not really knowing how long it would be.
I got really into Oxygen Not Included, and spent hundreds of hours building colonies, and trying to reach the temporal tear… I have yet to make it, sadly. I then spent a while playing My Time at Sandrock, and happily built up my workshop, while helping uncover the conspiracy of the stolen water, and returned the desert to a lush oasis… I played many other games in between as well, finding myself analyzing the mechanics, the presentation, the feel… Then the itch came back. I hadn’t even opened Unity in almost a year. I had had a lot of ideas in the in between. Specifically ideas about what I could do to improve the game I had created. So, I thought”I’ll try something simple, see what I remember…“
I found, it was like hardly any time had passed at all. I was a little fuzzy on some things, and I needed a few reminders of syntax and other small things that popped up, but any issues or forgotten techniques were quickly remedied and remembered.
However, I was nervous to revisit my game. I remembered how frustrated I was when I decided to take a break. I just KNEW I had too many dependencies, I just KNEW everything was spaghettified mess and I would be in a nightmare of refactoring to clean things up. Plus, I had read so many Reddit posts about revisiting code, even from just a couple weeks ago, and the programmer not remembering anything about it… like they couldn’t even remember writing it, let alone what it did… So I thought it would be a futile experiment to try and improve my game.
But, I was curious if I could improve things, and add some of the ideas I’ve had. So, I opened up the project, and played my game for the first time in almost a year. I noticed a few issues right away, remnants of my final attempts to improve my game while at the end of a burnout, that I frustratingly couldn’t figure out how to fix at the time. Like the player pieces spawning in the wrong rotation (facing away the opposite of where they were supposed to face.) or the game board generation, if the board wasn’t viable, it was supposed to reset and start over to generate a new board… it was, but the finalization of the regenerated game board wasn’t receiving a certain list of prefabbed terrain tiles, and would spawn those as null, so nothing would appear, where there was supposed to be a terrain tile. So I decided tackle those two issues first.
I dove into the code… and to my surprise, where I expected to find a mess of random variable names, or confusing methods, that do multiple tasks, creating a grid of confusion… I found logical code that made sense. Properties were named in a way that I knew exactly what they were for and what they contained, I could follow the path way of calls and understood what was happening, where.. it had been almost year and I hadn’t even looked at this code, and I understood what was going on. I refactored/rewrote a few areas, and got the unit spawning rotation and the generation reset issues resolved. Surprised at how well I was understanding my old code. I decided to be a little bolder, and rework how moving the players units worked. Originally during the movement phase, the player would roll a D6 and could move each of its units, any number of spaces up to their dice roll, on the board. I wanted the different units to feel more unique, each with their own “stats” as it were, so I added a few variables, reworked a few lines of code, and soon enough I had the movement I was liking for, each unit with its own distance, no dice roll needed. Also, it was fairly easy. I was able to make the adjustments to the code and get the results I wanted without breaking things, without effecting any other aspect of the game, as intended, in a way that made total sense working with the other systems. I am now fairly certain that my frustration and inability to get the result I wanted or expected, was due to burning myself out, by not prioritizing my mental health over my enjoyment of coding.
I have since begun work on improving my game again, in earnest. With a healthier work/life/coding fun balance. I have been working for a couple more months since picking it back up. And I have been able to implement entirely new systems, such as a gamePieceAction system that allows each unit to have unique attacks and abilities, Allows for different types of ability use during the different phases of the turn, so collectors can have collection abilities, were warriors have combat abilities, and each players home can have support abilities like healing units, buffing units, etc…
I have added a FogOfWar system that disallows the players to see each others moves, and I have come up with a lot of ideas for how to improve things, and it’s all working and fitting together without causing a huge headache and without having to refactor half the code to work, my initial attempt was actually pretty good, and I am able to implement the ideas that I think will make it more fun, maybe I’ll get it to a point that I can share it for others to play too, and I am excited to be back to doing something I truly enjoy. Thanks for reading!

I'm sure most people have been told that "Europeans do not like Americans" or "Europeans are very rude, especially if you're American" - If you have heard these things, I'm pretty sure a Boomer was the one to tell you that.
Today's story takes place at a café in Paris, France. Pre-COVID - Happier times, maybe.
One night, my wife and I are sitting at a table on a cafe's patio, people watching, drinking Aperol Spritzes and waiting for our croque madam/monsieur.
At the table next to us, two boomer couples sit together. They're long time friends. The wives are extremely excited. It was their first full day in Paris - a trip they've been wanting to go on since they were teenagers. They rehashed their day - getting macarons at Ladurée, walking the Seine, and spending the rest of the day at the Louvre.
The husbands are discussing the opposite. They are curmudgeons. The prices are too high at this café. "20 euros for a cheeseburger!" - They haven't realized that tax is included in all the prices, or that France's food isn't as industrialized as it is in the U.S. One husband pulls a small piece of paper from his wallet with the exchange rates printed on it. "Those cookie sandwiches were pricy too. Did we really need the fancy boxes?".
Thankfully, the women have learned how to tune out their husbands. But this becomes more difficult, for the wives and for the people sitting near them. The husbands are hungry. "The waiter isn't even paying attention to us", says one husband. The other husband raises his hand - "Scuzi. SCUZI!"
The wives stop their debate on which princess/actress from their childhood used Ladurée boxes to store their jewelry. They both turn red, lower their heads, and clutch their Rick Steves guide books. One wife leans over to her husband and whispers "That's Italian. We are in France."
"It's all the same thing here." says the husband, as he waves the server over.
\**Side note. As a husband myself, it can be fun to playfully embarrass your wife. Every married women under 45 has been referred to as "MY WIFE" a la Borat.****
This is where it gets good. We all know, once it gets going, the Boomer can be an unstoppable force. Barreling forward, consuming everything in its path, leaving destruction in its wake, only stopping when it gets what it wants.
The Parisian Server on the other hand can be an unmovable object. If treated with respect, they will go out of their way to make sure you have a great experience. If slightly disrespected, well, good luck getting anything.
The server arrives to their table, with a sense of humor. "Si signore" he says.
The husband that waved him over orders for the table. "The ladies will have cheeseburgers and we will have the bacon cheeseburgers. With french fries."
"Okee dokee" says the server in an attempted American accent. He gathers their menus and walks away. "He didn't write anything down. I hope he doesn't screw it up." notes a husband.
The wives go back to excitedly conversing about their trip. One says, "I can't wait to see the Monets tomorrow!". "Ugh. Too blurry" her husband responds.
\**I now say "Too blurry" every time I see a Monet. My poor wife knew I am a forever child when she agreed to marry me****
A little time passes and the server arrives with their order. "OK. Cheeseburgers. Cheeseburgers with bacon. And, FRENCH fries. Or as we say in France, Frites" - One of the wives giggle, and the server leaves.
The couples inspect their meals, as is customary for the Boomer when they receive food. The server placed the bacon cheeseburgers in front of the women and the cheeseburgers in front of the men. Also, there is no ketchup.
"God Dammit. He got it wrong! GAR-SON!!!!" yells a husband. The server arrives, "Oui Monsieur?"
"WE ordered the bacon cheeseburgers. THEY got the cheeseburgers. And there's no ketchup!". "Ah. Oui." the server responds and he proceeds to switch the plates to the appropriate diner. "I go get ketchup" and walks away.
"I knew he was going to screw it up" a husband says. The other husband responds with "He didn't have to be so rude"
The server returns. Both hands full of ketchup packets. Places dozens of the single serving packets on their table. "Voilà! Ketchup!"
Shocked, one husband asks "You don't have a bottle of ketchup?". "No" says the server. "Only ketchup for the children", and leaves.
My wife and I continued to order and drink cheap Aperol Spritzes. Enjoying the shameful show of grown adults opening and emptying numerous ketchup packets on to their food while complaining about anything they can think of.
The Boomers finish, pay, and depart. Leaving a five dollar bill on the table as tip.
The server comes to clean their table. Picks up the five dollar bill and places it on our table. "For good Americans"

You know they can't actually outlive me or do anything like what I can do and I will out exist them Mike was Rick Bush have a lot longer
And I can't just say that they're Lucifer there not everyone knows it especially my Galaxy Sierra and everything else and I'm real unlike him call me Brian is a mistake just makes me angry
Like I said some people wanted to make me their enemy
I don't think I'll live as long as I do well.
And I don't think they matter anywhere near as much as I do.
I really don't care about their words they're not even I want to know
Like I say some people think that they can do things for me in the last minute or something Rick Bush knows my reputation you can't copy who I am you can't be me I will outlive them I don't have that much longer
Is anything they've been doing with my name I'm going to make them regret
There are nowhere near anything like what IS
Are there kind of funny than trying to be Lucifer's like you're never going to be Lucifer dude just give me a pathetic loser you can't do what I can do you don't have any technology like what I have couldn't even kill me I'm way more valuable than them and I actually do have 14 Galaxy spheres they don't are 1944 idiot
And I don't need anything from them I don't want to pay for them
I said they probably think they can do something or whatever it's like now they kill everyone and everything and I can bring them back I 14 Galaxy which are probably trying to use or whatever it's like you won't be able to use them don't know you're fake
You can't use the name of a center star sphere and my name doesn't make you able to use the spear just makes me hate you that much more and we're and we're guaranteed to actually torture you
Like I said I can tell more about them they care about me
And I'm the one that's supposed to be having a good time here so we'll see how they like having most existence angry at them and myself I need can I find that they think a name actually helps
You think you don't know that's not your name do you think they don't know that's not your name do you think it made it doesn't make me angry we think you're into you actually in I have trillions of years to spend getting to know the people have been annoying me very painful way
Like I say I know what happened when Rick Bush actually kind of want what you really didn't win and how bad it was I know that you're going to fail.
And I know how angry I am
Like I say they're nothing to her to me big bush never will be anything like me
I mean just from all this crap it's really annoying pointless like that it are you kids show only one where I'm really angry and I'm an agent 14 galaxies that some people would have been didn't work to their will like I am I going to be how much longer will it be
Rick Bush Lily can't exist on much longer I was going to let him use this for very long he's from 1944 I've angered me he's trying to like blah blah blah eyes like the thetic
Humans will never rule existence or be anything
Like I say there's no making this better for making this up to me and I think it's funny to get out of so long and they're so short of time
Then why listen to me I want to do all this s***
I hope it's worth it cuz I'm not worried whenever Nori 80 trillion years old on the most ancient person and he distance itself and Harper centriole in the one person that they wish they were no one person that's going to make them regret using my name
Like since I've been using my name and I haven't been using my in the house considered to say you know what your mother's keep the f****** see if it does you any good cuz you never going to be me or have her education or everything they know you're not me.
I have taken saying that use blocking and deceptions and crap and cause I don't do that
So I really think they have it coming
How do you say I hate when people act cocky and all this s*** I think it's going to be later on no not going to act cocky earlier that s*** and I know you can be regretting
It was fine they actually think I actually listened to their f****** s*** like I care like this entertainment now I'm angry have been annoying to me for very long time
Like I said I'm not scared of him I know I'm going to make them regret I know they're going to suffer for incredibly long time longer than there than I could ever imagine they deserve it cuz they don't have anything no they don't have anything real do they act like idiots real people don't act like that.
So it's like I say every word I say is true. I deeply regret it you don't have got twenty or so years left and then that's it and then it'll be my turn
And just because I'm going out waiting Rick Bush instead of being like him and shooting him it's like oh yeah you want to do this way I make me more angry he's already done just about everything there's nothing more you can do I'm in but and all he does is blocking and I me I know I know everyone is I know how real I am I'm way more valuable than he will ever be and like I said I get to get to really make Rodney and everyone else suffer for this
I'm saying that they would actually be torturing and made to suffer just for my pleasure they really think my name matters that much that my name on them wouldn't wouldn't be known like I say I can actually go through time and space and have everything unlike them Maywood know them as fake
So you know 32 for you to eat at your place or whatever else I guess I wonder if it's worth it cuz I'm not going to be some nice and they know it just like Rick Bush scrabbling for more time he's not going to be more time is that I'm more important than he is you can't be me
And I do like him slowly but surely guy
Some people can't take frustration all that that Kim you know the thing is so funny and they're so young I never see yours like I have seen I never exist in a way that I have existed they're about to fail and be tortured my AFib I actually think my name will make a difference on their head
I will make them deeply regret what they've done of course did you actually tell me you know that's part of being a particle of genetic inventor my name won't save him from that

It’s crazy how brilliant this album is. It somehow still feels underrated and has an arguement for being possibly thee best album - not just in grunge but possibly in the history of rock, or honestly all of music in general! The fact that it’s a tribute to Mother Love Bone’s Andrew Wood (vocalist and amazing piano player) - with a few former members and all of future Pearl Jam since Matt Cameron eventually became the full-time drummer - just makes it an album formed completely from the heart and full of soul. This band was literally the polar opposite of a cash grab opportunist band. Apparently the band just wanted to make music in a stress free manner with little expectations, and boy did they surpass any that may have been placed upon them. Saying that even feels like a heavy understatement!
The fact that the project’s lead vocalist was a very close friend of Wood’s in Chris Cornell - who also died tragically - makes it even more touching. Side note, but Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains was supposedly very close to Wood and obviously Cornell as well. Wood permanently left his mark on the Seattle scene a year and a half before before it even became mainstream, and if you listen closely you can tell every bands’ sound - musically and lyrically - got quite darker following his untimely passing. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
When he heard the tragic news, Cornell initially wrote two songs in the heavenly (no pun intended) Say Hello 2 Heaven - cleverly released as a single - and the unbelievably EPIC Reach Down. The former is a beautiful, bluesy song which passionately shows Cornell’s full vocal range and beautiful lyricism. Reach Down is simply put, one of the greatest and most epic songs in existence. Eleven minutes long with a guitar riff that is bone-crushing and very likely the best solo I’ve ever heard, especially when you consider McCready’s headphones flew off about halfway through the recording it - forcing him to sort of “wing it” (lol) without having a backing track to hear. Not one second of the song fails to capture one’s attention - which is nothing less than astounding considering the length of it. Cornell could’ve stopped there and had an epic dual single or even an EP considering he already had nearly 20 mins (17 minutes and 37 seconds to be exact) of material! This easily could’ve been all that was written… but then fate intervened in the best way possible!
Former Mother Love Bone rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament - primary songwriters for MLB and earlier in Green River (another legendary grunge band) - wanted to collaborate with Cornell to put themselves in position to write and play music before the time off caused them to get rusty with playing or songwriting. With this in mind, Cornell wisely enlisted the other soon-to-be Temple of the Dog musicians (Gossard, Ament, Mike McCready and Matt Cameron) and a masterpiece was about to be born!
The album’s lead single, Hunger Strike, is a brilliant piece that features a fresh and truly immaculate young voice from San Diego in the incredibly charismatic Eddie Vedder, who was actually auditioning for Gossard and Ament’s new band that you may have heard of (Pearl Jam). The story goes that Cornell - hard to believe - was having trouble hitting the lows as he wanted them to sound and Vedder simply took the mic and naturally delivered the vocals exactly as Cornell had wanted them to sound! I think it’s safe to say Vedder passed his audition with flying colors due to his incredible power, elegance and charisma (and quickly developing song-writing). The song’s drop D tuning and the darker sounding post-chorus riff give it a very proper grunge edge. Say Hello To Heaven and Hunger Strike quickly became staples of ‘90s radio stations worldwide.
Digging deeper, Pushin’ Forward Back (the third single) and Your Savior combines Mother Love Bone’s street rock approach with Pearl Jam’s more serious hard rock sound. The former features a powerful rhythm guitar riff, soaring lead riffs, Cornell’s finest vocals and the best backup vocals you could ask for from Vedder. Skipping ahead to track eight, Your Savior provides some extremely impressive (and aggressive) drumming, guitar tracks and again Vedder’s unmistakably brilliant sounding backup vocals that could not complement Cornell’s lead vocals any better! This is definitely a favorite among favorites for myself, and perfectly follows the track Wooden Jesus in my humble opinion.
Call Me a Dog and Times of Trouble are, without doubt, two of the most beautiful ballads I’ve ever heard. The former slowly builds up momentum with lovely piano playing and a quieter guitar that seemingly gets louder as the song goes on until it reaches a crescendo, as the bridge hears Cornell belting out some seriously high lead vocals and then McCready blazing through with another divine solo! Times of Trouble is a very interesting piece of music to say the least. It was actually also used for Vedder’s auditioning as well as this albums in the absolutely alluring Pearl Jam song Footsteps, which had a more stripped down approach. Times of Trouble on the other hand features the music’s absolute full potential being unlocked with a more solid production, a more eventful buildup that includes gorgeous sounding piano and even a harmonica solo for good measure. This is blues rock at its absolute finest!
Wooden Jesus continues the beautiful ballad sound, with probably my favorite bassline of the album and adding another layer to the music with a what I believe is a very prominent and majestic-sounding banjo (if not it’s an acoustic) during the second verse and Cornell just absolutely owns it vocally on this track McCready’s criminally underrated guitar solo ties it all together perfectly. Four Walled World - along with Times of Trouble - captures Chris Cornell’s bluesiest sound I’ve ever heard on record, and the extended outro allows him to get some serious wails out along with another epic McCready solo. Four Walled World is a very strong track and gives me vibes of Pearl Jam’s soon-to-heard songwriting. In particular Four Walled World sounds sort of like precursor to Pearl Jam’s Deep. I’m not sure why exactly but they remind me of each other. Both have very bluesy riffs although Deep is definitely a harder edged track (love the phaser effect on it). But listening to it now it is more bluesy than I remembered for being one of the heavier Ten tracks. The main riffs are what sound similar to me.
All Night Thing is among the best album closers I’ve ever heard, settling the album and night with a beautiful ballad that feels a bit influenced by The Doors due to the use of an organ for the main melody (courtesy of the great Rick Parasher). I love that they went this route for the closing song. It makes me want to restart the album when it finishes so amazingly like that! This album has shades of Led Zeppelin all over it and I mean that in the best way possible. Heck even Chris Cornell and Robert Plant have very similar vocals imo and virtually identical vocal range at four octaves (although I’ve heard five for both as well) with the ability to croon or wail with the best - well they are the best lol.
The album is perfect from start to finish. Everyone served their purpose immaculately. Every single note, chord, lyric / vocal on this album feels perfectly placed. From the opening tracks that Cornell penned as soon as he heard the tragic news to the full on blues rock of the middle to the end of the album. I love the Mother Love Bone flavor to many of the tracks - particularly Pushin’ Forward Back and Your Savior imo. All Night Thing is among the best album closers ever in regards to softer gentler closers, which also includes Mother Loce Bone’s Chloe DanceCrown of Thorns (Shine EP and Apple - but without Chloe Dancer for the latter for whatever silly reason as both together created the “Stairway to Heaven of gen X”). Also including a piano - again courtesy of Rick Parasher - in a few songs was absolutely poetic being that it was Wood’s instrument of choice. I just wish he could’ve been the one playing piano on a Mother Love Bone and Soundgarden collaboration where they still somehow find Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready. If this album shows us anything, it is that tragedy can often sparks a passionate flame that otherwise cannot be equaled. Mind Riot by Soundgarden is further proof in this particular case.
Also my other picks for best softer album closers - so excluding all harder songs, or this will go on forever lol - plus closing with a gentler song I’ve always preferred as it feels like the albums way of saying “goodnight” which the first of these songs I’m going to list literally does! Jane’s Addiction’s Classic Girl (Ritual de lo Habitual), Pearl Jam’s Release (Ten), Pearl Jam’s Indifference (Vs), Alice In Chains’ Over Now (Tripod), Nirvana’s Something in the Way (Nevermind), Led Zeppelin’s Tea for One (Presence), Aerosmith’s You See Me Crying (Toys In The Attic) Aerosmith’s Home Tonight (Rocks).
Thank you to those who took the time to read my review of my favorite album of all-time! Rest in Peace to the great musicians / producers and human that were Andrew “Andy” Wood, Chris Cornell and Rick Parasher (producer for Temple of the Dog’s eponymous album and Pearl Jam’s Ten). You will all live on forever through your incredible music and be forever loved! Thank you from the bottom of my heart ❤️

For context, I post cool teams that I made using some underplayed path or tactic, and on the last one, Unorthodox Gameplay 3 : Monarchnesis, a fellow user u/Alexandergus (COME, SAY HI TO EVERYONE) asked me to build a team with not only Anamnesis, but Berserker Helion as well... And as the title says : ASK AND THOU SHALL RECEIVE
Sidenote: If there's too much text for your liking, dear reader, feel free to skip to the summary part down bellow ;)
So, with that out of the way, let's get to strats!

Occultist

I took inspiration on a setup that ShuffleFM (Darkest Dungeon youtuber,twitch streamer and really good reference) showcased on one of his teams. The concept is that you have a Virtuoso Jester using Encore on Occultist, which proceeds to Chaotic Offering on his bonus turn, generating an Unlimited Power Token(UP). After that, when the regular Occ turn rolls in, he gets the second UP because of the turn start effect, which he originally used to nuke someone with Warlock's Burning Stars turn 1; on my case is to perform Aspirant Anamnesis and open the first turn with a really strong cleave, I also run Burning Stars as an option for larger enemies like size 2s or bosses.

Jester

As for the Jester, since I'm basing my entire schtick on Encore, I'm also running Solo and Finale. That's because you can actually use the dazed in your favor and the cooldowns sync. EG: Encore turn 1 > gets dazed and pushed to last turn 2 action order > Solo > Forward 3> gets Speed token and Jester, specially Virtuoso is really fast > goes first on turn 3 > uses Finale > Back 3 and dazed >If encounter's still going, Encore and Repeat. I topped him with Inspiring Tune for Stress heal (literally the best in the game) and Razor's Wit for poke.

Helion

Now let's talk about Helion. She likes the cleave since it helps her kill rank 4 in 1 turn with Iron Swan, specially ordained and modified enemies like elite and sturdy, not only that but as she's Berserk and is at Rank 1, I run Bleed Out as a strong option after I dealed with the backline; Bleed Out doesn't even have a cooldown, it "just" grants you winded tokens, which means you can spam it to stack monstrous bleeds. I just did act 3 and had 18 bleeds on the last phase for 5 turns (I crited). Another synergy is that after you cast Burning Stars at a chonky target, it gets combo; Bleed Out on Berserker on a combo tarket has 63% BLEED PIERCING. It's basically guaranteed (unless you're using this on Warlord, this bastard has 100 base... He's a VERY good reason to not go overboard on bleeds; not only that but if your whole team wants to bleed someone, you'll end up fighting for the same trinkets). For the rest of her kit, I had Toe to Toe for Taunt, Rooted and movement, Adrenaline Rush for heals and Bloodlust for really long fights and as an alternative to remove Winded tokens that isn't dependent on Adrenaline Rush's health threshold AND grants 30% more damage against bleeding targets. With Jester Encore, you can mix a ton of good sequences, specially in later stages of the fight, granting Helion bonus actions, for example stacking Bleed Out faster, or clearing winded with Bloodlust/ Adrenaline Rush/Toe to Toe+ and then hitting again with Bleed Out.

Plague Doctor

And to stitch the team together, I chose Plague Doctor as the Rank 4 hero, but not any Plague Doctor; Physician. I managed to weld together Physician, Anamnesis and Bleed Out and it's ...GOOD? The thing with Physician is that, except for Magnesium Rain that has a cooldown of 3 turns, she doesn't have a damaging skill to use. Instead, her supportive capabilities are enhanced, and they're great with this team because she provides much needed utility with crowd control, corpse clearing, heals and offensive tokens.
Usefulness Utility listed bellow!

• Turn 1 she can use Emboldening Vapors on Occ to boost Anamnesis and Burning Stars, not only that but on this path this skill grants 2 Strenght Tokens instead of 1, with a cooldown of 1 turn or 0 when upgraded.
  
  • She can blind and daze the two backrow enemies wit Blinding Gas+ to delay their actions long enough so Helion and Occ can make quick work of Rank 4 before the target does something WHILE Rank 3 is Blinded!
  • Magnesium Rain is good for chip damage, dodge clearing and corpse removal(therefore, Bleed Out setup)
  • Heals are as great as ever!
  • Even Ounce of Prevention gets an honorable mention for better handling heavy DOT enemy comps and diseases, like creature dens and the Sprawl; and at this path even grants Stress Damage RES
  But one of the reasons I really liked Phys here is because the team can make full use of her Disorienting Blast, which not only has +20% Stun Piercing on upgrade with combo, but grants Vulnerable as well. A problem I had is that some key heavy hitting skills from the rest of the cast are heavelly reliant on position, like Leper's Chop hitting Ranks 1 and 2, PBS hitting 1, Pistol Shot not hitting 1; so it was kinda like a gamble most of the time. But Finale and Burning Stars hit ALL ranks REALLY HARD ; which means that it doesn't really matter where the enemy ends up, it's going to get CLAPPED. Helion also makes good use of it in later stages of the fight, where your Magnesium Rain is on cooldown and the enemy is standing at rank 2, where rank 1 is a corpse and rank 3 and 4 are cleared. You can try to fish it and grant vulnerable at the same time; it's good!
  

Maps

For regions, try to prioritize the Shroud, for the bleed trinkets for Helion and Ocultist and other trinkets for the Jester, like Seamen's Boots and Compass.
Defensive trinkets on Helion aren't bad either, since she's gonna eat 80% of the hits thrown at her, so Tangle isn't a bad choice. Burning Stars ignores Block and Blinding Gas can help by "dodging" some heavy hitting moves.
Sprawl can be okay because of burn trinkets that can up the usefulness of Mag. Rain and speedy trinkets for Jester
Foetor is the lowest priority map to go, literally no one wants blight buffing trinkets and you even risk getting your heroes sick; I'd go if the map mission grants a good reward but that's about it.

Lair Boss matchups

• You can wreck Levi, specially with a bit of scaling since Bleed Out+ gives good damage with 6 points of bleed; the hand has 24 hp and the bleed by itself deals 18. Burning Stars is a Nuke as well as Finale. BTW he has a trophy that DOUBLES BLEED CAUSED. Just saying
  
• Dababy can be dealt with by Helion using Toe to Toe to lock her on Rank 1, which halts the hungering shenanigans from others behind her; try to get Holy Water to get rid of hunger tokens on Helly so you can Toe to Toe again. Other than that just play as normal with the Encore > Chaotic Offering > Emboldening Vapors > Burning Stars setup, use D. Blast as well to try and get Dababy out of Rank 1.
  
• Librarian is okay, try to have a few throwable items on Jester to spend his dodge tokens and try to Encore > Solo > Finale him. Helion can eat the Blinds thanks to Toe to Toe.
  
• The General is the one I worry the most, he has a huge healthpool and only takes 1 action per turn, which makes DOT tick slowly and gives him plenty of time to stall and disrupt you with his stress inducing attacks, Waking Dead and, if you don't deal with the root, Nightmare. I'd avoid fighting him if my team didn't scale enough and I'd bring Cause of Death+ to speed things up.
  

Pets

They are pretty flexible on this team. I like the Rabbit here since everyone has trouble tanking hits, so the bonus HP goes a long way if you get it rolling(HMMM FLAPJACKS). Some good optins are: - The Tick to get the blood for guaranteed crit tokens and huge damage and bleeds - The Owl helps the debuffs from PD to stick and can provide good flow of Combat Items - The Pliskin can be good since the team is squishy and can use more sustain between fights - The Slime if you like running over debris and don't want to deal with negative tokens - This last one is highly experimental and I still have to test it, but it got to my attention that Larval Carrion Eater can be good as a Crit token Generator, specially since Anamnesis cleaves the whole party. On turn 2 you'd have only 1 UP at your turn which means you can either heal or Sac Stab something. If you have Stab+, you can use it on a corpse, kill it, generate another UP, heal 30%, gain a Block Token and a Crit token for next round, and on that round you'll have 3 UPs at your disposal to spend. This translates to 2 Anamnesis / Burning Stars casted on sequence, since you would spend 2 on this turn, and you would generate another one at the beginning of your next turn. Try this at your own courage and peril (and tell me the results later!)

Summary of the team:

Rank 4: Physician Plague Doctor
Emboldening Vapors Disorienting Blast Battlefield Medicine Blinding Gas* Magnesium Rain*
You can swap these with: Indiscriminate Science+ (heals without limited uses, good for Act 5), Ounce of Prevention for DOTS and disease prevention, Cause of Death+ if you want to nuke some large target that has a ton of bleed stacked into it, after Jester's Finale, you can use since he moves you into rank 3
Rank 3: Virtuoso Jester
Encore Solo Finale Inspiring Tune Razor's Wit
Rank 2: Aspirant Ocultist
Chaotic Offering Anamnesis Burning Stars Sacrificial Stab* Wyrd Reconstruction*
You can swap one of these with Binding Shadows if you're worried about shuffles, on Aspirant it moves you Forward 1 and can generate you a stack of UP
Rank 1 : Berserker* Helion
Iron Swan Toe to Toe Bleed Out Adrenaline Rush Bloodlust*
You can swap Bloodlust with: Raucous Revelry for a heal not dependant on limited uses, stress heal, and on upgrade, DBR Wicked Hack for better damage at rank 2 Breakthrough for Shuffles
As for the * on Berserker, is just that maybe it's a good idea changing the path depending on which act boss you're going against; the ones that came to mind are act 2 and 3. Vs act 2, Bleed Out gets absolutely no value so there's no reason to run Berserker, I'd recomend changing to Ravager for easier management of the lungs. You can also change to Carcass to better deal with high damage since apart from this path she doesn't generate blocks; I had her take every inn item I could buy to give her a better chance at survivability against the Focused Fault, but even then I got a few Deathblow checks; would recommend either running Cause of Death on PD with Berserker, or changing to Carcass to tank with Yawp. I'd also recommend not running Bloodlust if you're running Cause of Death on PD, since it clears all DOT for instant damage, making your turn go to waste, in this case just use Toe to Toe+ to get rid of Winded.
phew... this took a WHILE. Feel free to ask any questions about the team and tell me if you'd want some help with a specific path you'd like to play. ASK AND THOU SHALL RECEIVE
Heheh, have a good one! PS: I'm going straight to bed, but I'll try to answer you guys tomorrow. Good night!

I've started and stopped writing this post at least two dozen times over the last few months. Ever since the shutdown announcement, I've felt like I wanted to express my feelings the best way I know how: an overly verbose and, (probably more than) somewhat meandering screed. But every time I sat down to really put thoughts to the proverbial paper, there's been something holding me back. Whether it was a timing that didn't feel appropriate, my own insecurities about trying to distill years worth of emotions into something that was even remotely readable, or just general procrastination (let's be honest, it's at least 50% that), I sit here now realizing that the May 15th shutdown for the RT website wasn't the actual "last day" for everyone. So, my first apology should be for missing the mark here entirely. My second should be for how long I anticipate this being.
Even now, I'm trying to really formulate how to begin what all I want to convey. I guess I can start on a day that's come to, in a very cosmic coincidence sort of way, represent some of the worst times in my life. April 25th. In this particular case, let's go back over a decade, before "Funhaus" had started, to April 25th, 2012.
It was getting late. My best friend—let's call him Ryu—and I had just finished playing some Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm on 360. I had invited him to come hang out at the place I was living at the time (both of our boss's basement) since he'd been in a bad place recently. His ex-gf had called me earlier that day and asked me to do a wellness check on him. They had broken up recently and he wasn't taking it well. We were chatting about where we were going to try and grab a late bite when I saw some movement outside of the front door. Before I had time to process what was happening, several armed figures entered his house. He was pinned to the couch, and I felt a searing pain flash across my face as I was punched in the mouth, lifted from the couch, and slammed to the ground; jettisoning my shoes in the process. We were handcuffed as they searched the house. I thought it was a home invasion. I fully accepted that I was going to die if they were going to try and move us. Luckily for me, a few moments before I was planning on trying to make a run for it, a detective came in and led me outside. I was met by a dozen cop cars, SWAT vans, and other law enforcement vehicles. Turns out, his ex-gf had called the cops and swatted us with a false rape claim. I was booked for "obstruction of justice" and spent a few hours in the county drunk tank before my parents could come post my bail. As I was leaving the jail, I caught a glimpse of my friend sitting in his cell waiting to be processed. The light completely gone from his eyes; soul darkened. I knew in that moment I had lost him forever. Three months later he committed suicide in his car.
A few years later, I was working a retail job. I had gotten the gig from a friend—we'll call him Sky—who also knew Ryu. In fact, Sky had trained Ryu at a previous company, and then Ryu trained me. Sky went onto to this new company, and Ryu followed shortly after. Unfortunately, due to his arrest, Ryu was let go from his position. I was now picking up where he left off. Following in the footsteps of the only person I had ever considered an "older brother". One morning, Sky says he's found this hilarious new YouTube channel. It's these guys. They used to be called Inside Gaming, but they went rogue from Machinima and started something new with Rooster Teeth. It was called "Funhaus" and they did comedy gameplays. I was vaguely aware of all the words he said. I knew RvB but hadn't kept up with it. I knew all the AH personalities because I was (and still am) hopelessly addicted to achievements. But until this point, the only real YouTube stuff I kept up with was Extra Creditz. It just wasn't something I really consumed in that way. That was all about to change.
Funhaus was an instant rabbit hole for me. I think it was about six months after the channel launched that I was introduced and I cleared the back catalog in two weeks max. The humor, the gameplay, the way everyone riffed on one another. It was the first time I actually listed to an entire episode of a podcast. I was fully bought in. It also didn't hurt that both Sky and I agreed that Lawrence reminded us so much of Ryu that it was almost uncanny. From the weeb tendencies, to the bombastic pontificating, to the frame of glasses he wore. It wasn't a perfect facsimile, but only being a few years removed from the incident it was an oddly comforting form of catharsis. And so, I began my daily ritual of watching the newest Funhaus video. Monday's in particular I remember opening the store and eating my chicken biscuit every morning while watching the newest Demo Disk. I would often get asked by my teammates, "What are you watching?" and they'd have to politely sit through a short dissertation on Funhaus and why it was the funniest thing on YouTube. There was one such conversation that always stood out to me that went something like this,
Co-Worker: "You know kliq, I see you in here on your lunch break every single day watching a video on your phone. About half of the time you can't even breathe you're laughing so hard. So I looked over your shoulder the other day and it's just three white dudes playing a video game? How can it be that funny?" Me: "Lemme show you something."
I pulled up the gameplay of James yelling at FIFA 2006 and I had converted another fan.
The years from 2015-2019 are some of my favorite Funhaus memories. Not in a "I hate Future Funhaus" way, but just as sort of going through my mid-20s and starting to become a person. I know it became a common joke to talk about the parasocial nature of YouTube channels around this time, so pardon me for this bit of cringe, but in a very real way I felt like I had discovered several long-lost older brothers (and one sister). I knew that I didn't actually know these people. But the caricatures they played while performing for the camera became a very impactful part of my life. Much in the same way that a good character in a book or a TV show can resonate with you in ways you wouldn't expect, the Funhaus crew informed a lot of my sensibilities. They taught me about comedy, they gave me different perspectives through which to the view the world, and, in a very real way, helped me navigate away from some of the online cesspools that I would have otherwise probably succumbed to. It was during this time that I also met the crew. I went to a PAX East Panel where I was front-row for the "De-pah-ted" gag over and over. Afterwards, we went to world's oddest meet-up location (a children's science museum) where everyone queued up to meet each person individually. Everyone was incredibly kind and funny. The next year the meet-up was smaller, but I trudged through the snow to stand in around the upper floor of a mall to chat with Lawrence and Peake. The next day Lawrence was MCing a competition and I won some free swag after beating some people in Jenga. (We never did figure out how to eliminate multiple people.) This was also around the time that I finally signed up for RT First, specifically to watch Arizona Circle on repeat.
It's around here that my Funhaus story takes a turn and it's really the reason I feel most compelled to apologize profusely to everyone that worked there. The pandemic hit me hard. In 2018, I was laid off from a job and spent six months unemployed with absolutely nothing. I was paying my rent on my credit card (among other things), and would buy my friends groceries on my cards to have them pay me cash so I could pay the minimums. I had to move across the country for a new job and I left everyone I ever knew behind except my wife. But for those first two years, I knew I had Funhaus to keep my spirits afloat. Then the lockdown. I fell behind on everything. I still remember the last video I watched all the way through. It was the murder mystery yacht video where everyone dressed up. For whatever reason, I just... stopped. Before I knew it, I was six months behind in my videos and then everything happened with Adam and I sort of just floated away.
I kept telling myself I would come back. I kept saying I could still catch up. But suddenly it was 2021, and then 2022, and I still hadn't watched a single video. I would see Reddit posts about how "I miss the old days" and "What's with this new cast", but whenever I would see a clip, I would laugh as hard as I always had. For whatever reason, I just couldn't come back and watch episodes. Toward the end of 2022, I was experiencing the lowest point I had in nearly a decade. I was extremely depressed and could barely focus on life. I decided then that I was going to restart at the beginning. I was going to watch the entire Funhaus catalog for a big, grandiose project that I would publish for their 8th anniversary in 2023. I made it about six months deep into the catalog before I succumbed to more despair. I had to take time off of work. Then, on April 25th 2023, I was laid off from my job. (I told you this day sucked.)
Fast forward to this year, and I'm realizing that I'm watching some of my absolute favorite people in the world present their last versions of themselves on stream on the one-year anniversary of me realizing I was jobless again. I cried all the way through that stream. James's speech at the end had me in absolute shambles. I almost still can't reconcile that this is all ending. I know that some people reading will probably think it's gauche to compare Funhaus ending with the death of a best friend and losing my own job, and I wouldn't necessarily hold that against them. It's funny how certain things link themselves in our minds. One of the hardest things to reconcile about losing Ryu was that I wouldn't be able to do certain things with him anymore. We couldn't watch the newest cours of anime, we couldn't talk about the fact that Bayonetta actually got a sequel, or that I finally managed to finish all of the Final Fantasy XI achievements before he did. In the same way, that feeling of missing out on the unknown future is what breaks me down to my core. It is highly likely that we'll never see all of those incredible people in the same room together in the same way, and the world is worse off because of it. That really applies to Rooster Teeth as a whole as well. I've always been more of a Funhaus fan that RT in general, but I really can't understate how incredible the talent at Funhaus always was.
I'm sure everyone wanted to, over the years, work at Funhaus because they liked the cast, or they thought being a YouTuber was a glamorous job. Some might even go so far as to say it was their dream to work there. I am one of those people. But, I literally mean it was my dream. For as long as I can remember, I have had extremely vivid dreams of just working at Funhaus. Not necessarily being on camera, not even like doing a gameplay. I mean I would dream about sitting down at a computer and getting instructions on how to edit a video. Or, I'd be interviewing for a position to intern/help out. I'd be in different offices throughout the years, answering emails, creating production schedules, just interfacing with everyone as if they were my co-workers. In fact, just this past Saturday I had one of these dreams. Probably from realizing that the 10th was everyone's actual last day. But I showed up, and talked to James about an edit on the "final video". We compared notes, and then him, Bruce, and Patrick all walked out together singing a Tenacious D song as they shut the doors to the studio. (Look, I didn't say they always made sense.)
Again, I know there's a certain level of, "You don't actually know these people," at play here. And I'll readily admit that we don't know each other from... uh.... Eve. But, that never mattered to me. Sure, I always thought, maybe if I could get a job there and prove myself that a natural camaraderie would develop like any good workplace. But that didn't matter to me as much as just being part of something. I ardently believe that the Funhaus crew are some of the most talented entertainers to ever put their likeness to video. In the same way, that someone might want to act alongside Tom Cruise or be in a Steven Spielberg movie, I wanted to work with Funhaus. In 2021, when I turned 30, I wrote down a list of "30 people in my 30s" that I had aspirations to do something with in terms of media creation. Despite not having watched them in some time, Funhaus was still top of my list.
So, I'm sorry. I'm truly deeply sorry. I'm sorry that I fell of watching the videos. (The grand tragic irony is that when I heard the news about the shutdown, I started watching the newest videos and was laughing just like old times.) That I wasn't there in the trenches when things were roughest. That I wasn't able to, in the only way a random viewer can, support the channel and the people within, in the same way y'all had (unknowingly) done for me for years prior. I know that a single view probably doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of how thing shook out. But I can't help but feel some complicity in the declining view count. I know people move on from projects, or they morph over time, but I truly wished I could've tuned into the channel decades from now and still heard the comforting voices that had become so familiar.
I don't really have a great way to end this section of the post. If you've read through all of this it probably means you're either taking massive dump and you're hitting your second flush right now, or some of these sentiments resonate with you too. In either case, I thank you for affording me the opportunity to express my thoughts and feelings here. I'm honestly not sure how fluid this will end up being, and my editor brain is telling me I should re-write about 90% of it. But it's now or never.
To any past/present/future Funhaus employee who might see this, thank you so much for all you've done for people over the past decade plus of entertaining. If I can oblige just a few more moments of your time, I wanted to speak directly to each of you as a final expression of my adoration and thankfulness.
u/fh_James - It's truly fitting that the first and final shots of film posted to the Funhaus channel are of you. It took me a while to truly understand how much of the backbone of the channel you were. Throughout the years, you always challenged the way I thought about comedy and how to make things funny. You were constantly one-upping yourself with the way you crafted your humor. This, coupled with your deep sincerity, loyalty, and strength of character always made me think you'd be the "last one out". Thank you so much for all of your work on Funhaus, thank you for Talking Stalkings, for Arizona Circle, and for everything else. Thank you for answering my tweet about a limited-time "Sonic Makeup line" that allowed me to enshrine myself in some small way in Funhaus lore. Your ending stream speech touched my heart deeply, and I hope that you are able to take some time to yourself before find the next big thing. (Obviously, steaks.) I still have hope that one day I'll be afforded the opportunity to work with you on something.
u/FH_Elyse - Thank you for bringing such a genuine warmth along with sharp, witty comedy to the channel. Funhaus would truly not be 1/10th what it was without your contributions. The characters, the off-scene work (the pony-tail clip is still hall of fame), and everything in between. I'm so happy you've branched out into doing creative writing work, and I hope you continue to find success there. I also want to thank you for being the only reason I could convince my wife to ever watch a Funhaus video. She adores you and thinks you're so funny. Having you come on finally allowed me to share a small part of Funhaus with her and for that I'll be forever grateful. I'd also be remiss to not include one of my favorite anecdotes. After you joined, we were talking and I mentioned that you and James were married, and my wife asked, "Which one is he again?" I pulled up a picture and she replies, "Oh, the hot one. That's my girl."
u/FHJacob - Funhaus's badboy the OG "editor". Thank you for all the years of hardwork you put into making the "Funhaus" style a thing of beauty. I was so happy when you started doing on-screen videos. Your absolute unabashed passion for different nerdy endeavors is truly infectious. The ending to Star Boys was incredible and watching you and Rahul quote the entirety of three movies at once another will always be something I treasure. One day, I hope you can school me on some Gundam lore.
u/FHBruce - I know you've moved on, but not only were you an integral part of my formative Funhaus experiences, but there's something I've always wanted to tell you. In your "Goodbye" video, there's a section where everyone is describing your management style and how you led the team during your run at FH. When that video dropped I immediately sent my manager at the time the section where Omar is talking about your leadership. That whole portion of the video I have maintained is how I think everyone should talk about their leaders, and is something that I strive to work towards in my own personal job currently. I know that is but the smallest window into your management style, but it's pushed me to be a better overall leader. So thank you.
u/rufhaus - Autumn, I'm not positive if you were ever technically "Funhaus" but I loved your stint on Inside Gaming and Sugar Pine 7, and I think you've more than enshrined yourself in the eternal codex of this channel. Very happy to continue to see you thriving, and obviously much congratulations to both you and Bruce for your child. I'm glad we all got to experience your talent throughout the years.
u/FH_Omar - Speaking of you Omar, thank you so much for everything you've done over the years at FH. I still remember the "Where in the World is Omar" bits on Open Haus, and learning that you were super into heavy music. I was like, "This dude has dope kicks AND can crowd kill. Let's absolutely go." I mentioned above that you talking about Bruce in his goodbye video was inspirational. In having watched all of the current "goodbye" content, and the way that everyone has talked about you since, I hope it's not too out of line to say that I think you've probably embodied those exact same principles in your leadership. Again, I have only what I'm seeing externally to go on, but from the way people talk about you, to the emotions you've worn on your sleeves during the shutdown, I believe that you're an awesome person to work for and with.
u/SirLarr - Lawrence, I should take a moment to apologize for ambushing you with what I'm sure was a very confusing story to hear at children's museum. "Hey dude you remind me of my dead friend so that's part of why I got into Funhaus," is maybe the worst first sentence I've ever spoken to someone in real life. So again, I'm terribly sorry. But I also want to say how awesome it was to watch all the stuff you did over the years at Funhaus. I know from still watching your content now that there's some level of grime that covers those years and they aren't the fondest to look back on. But I do think things like Time 2 Hakk, Quintessential Gamer, Hard Nettin' were such touchstones of Funhaus content that will live on forever. From an outside perspective, it seems like you're doing well, and I'm excited to keep seeing you on BYTT and IGv3(4?).
u/RyanRyanReddit - Ryan, my dude. I literally don't know if I could even adequately describe just how much you've made me laugh just by literally being you. I have a file in my notes app called "Real Life Stories" where I have a few words that trigger a specific memory from my life about some absurd happenstance that I found myself in. I feel like every time you tell a story, you're pulling from your own file like that but it's five thousand times longer and more interesting than mine. You're a supremely talented and funny dude and I'm so glad you were brought into Funhaus and ended up staying as long as you did. I hope to see you on Survivor 47/8/9! (I think I have Charlie for this season.)
u/hohnjolland - John, the perfect musical addition to the team. I'm so thankful for all of your awesome tunes, sick edits, and willingness to dive into the bit over the years. You brought an different vibe / flair to the videos you were in that always had me thinking, "Why is this dude the coolest person in the room." I've got my sub to Pour Choices Kitchen locked and loaded, and it has somewhat got me considering picking back up my own mantle "Chef Dude Jour" again. I hope that PCK is successful or you're able to explore other avenues as well. Also, I'm the guy from Gastonia that was in the chat. DM the location of that fish place in Lincolnton.
u/FH_Jon - Jon Deux. Man. I still remember when you first started appearing on videos. The chaotic energy, the commitment to bits, you've got some absolutely all-time classic FH moments under your belt. I'm super thankful that you got to be part of this crew and share your weirdness (complimentary) with the world. I know you put up the video a few months ago about your mental health, and I hope that things have gotten better. As someone who also struggles with depression, I know how devastating that can be sometimes. I truly wish the best for you man. Thanks for all the laughs.
u/linzbot - We're approaching territory where people were onboarding right as I fell off, but literally every single video I've seen since the announcement, not to mention your contributions to the streams has filled me with joy. I'm so glad you made the transition from Cow Chop to Funhaus, and, if there's nothing else I can say in adulation, it's that you blessed us with the absolutely perfect sign-off to something that meant so much to all of us. I had to pause at least a dozen times watching that documentary to cry, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. A truly stellar capstone to a truly stellar run.
u/mc_lotta / u/snackary__ / u/HandsomeMaster2 - It would be somewhat disingenuous of me to applaud the entirety of y'all's run at Funhaus because I, foolishly, missed so much of it. But what I do remember is how this trio absolutely crushed Inside Gaming, and how excited I was when I heard everyone had made the jump over to FH. Charlotte, your sardonic quips and joke delivery have always made me laugh. Patrick, I watched the entirety of the Demo Wheel run and I was amazed at how incredible a foil to James you were. Then, I watched a smattering of other content and realized you're the perfect foil in nearly every video. I'm so excited to see that both of you and Jacob have started up your goblin activities. Zach, I'm sorry I missed your true FH run. I was supremely stoked (and unfortunately subsequently saddened) as a fellow games industry person to see you rocking out on CoD socials. Hope you're doing well.
u/Gargarbinks - Brian! Screw it. Inside Gaming is basically Funhaus, so I'm including you here too. I've been watching you deliver gaming news for ages and I'm so thankful that you were part of this entire journey. Loved seeing you on Inside Games (legally distinct entity) and I hope the games industry never loses you. If anything, I know at least one other person who will freak out if Dragon Quest X makes it's way westward.
u/MadMattBT - No idea if you still peruse these parts or use Reddit anymore, but I just wanted to say, in addition to all the amazing work you put in as an editor, as well as the absolutely CLASSIC appearances as Hitman, thanks for being open about your faith and ideals while working at Funhaus. As someone who is also a Christian, it's always nice to see people who are comfortable enough in their beliefs to not only poke fun at themselves, but also embrace other viewpoints.
u/harmonygrits - Really getting into the archives now, Joel, I know your run on FH was short(ish), but I really did enjoy whenever you'd be involved with a video. The whimsical, but also oddly parental like vibe you brought to videos (despite your most well known meme maybe being liking something called "Unicum") were always a delight. Since then you've showcased your skills in for other content creators, and even now you've been giving away your fount of knowledge for free in some very interesting Medium articles. The industry itself might be in a worrisome state, but there's hope that people such as yourself will find a better path forward.
u/Spooleo - Spoole. The original "Goodbye" video. Thanks so much for all the laughs during that opening era of Funhaus. I'm not sure I ever agreed with the 1 Dollar 1 Hour premise, but it certainly made for some entertaining videos. And hey, your current gig ain't so bad itself, yeah?
u/charalanahzard - I was so supremely stoked when you first started showing up in videos because you fell so naturally into the format it was uncanny. I had enjoyed your games industry coverage up till then, so I thought I was getting the best of both worlds. So supremely thankful for your time at Funhaus and even now continuing the Deadly Premonition dreams alive and well on your stream. Not to mention the slate of podcast content you've been producing for some time now. As someone who is also hopeful to one day write for games, your journey has been inspiring. I hope to see your book come out as well! (If that's your goal!)
u/RahulKohli13 - Dunno if you consider yourself a Funhaus "member" or not, but given how much joy you've brought me through your involvement with their videos, it wouldn't feel right to not include you. Boyfriend videos, Sundered, Talking Stalkings, and everything in between, I couldn't be more thrilled that you were part of this journey. Also, selfishly, I miss you posting on Twitter. Those last few years were just great fun, but I understand why you left. I try to watch everything you're in. Mike Flannagan has an eternal fan because I just wanted to see more Rahul Kohli. You even reinvigorated my love and passion for football. YNWA. (I assume we just never talk about this season again, yeah?)
u/mandodoesstuff - Mando! Your Funhaus run is definitely in my personal time away from the channel, but one thing that consistently happened during that period was I would see clips with you in them and I would always, always laugh. I thought you were incredible during Last Laugh Season 2, and I've caught some of your RTP rebrand and subsequent Zazlav diss tracks. You're an incredibly funny and talented dude and I'm absolutely following Midnight Snack to see where the next thing takes you. (Yes, y'all should make a Patreon.)
u/filmDstryr / u/thenasacova / u/adambrouillard - So I couldn't find any of y'all's actual Reddit accounts, but these are your handles elsewhere so maybe this will work? For some reason the three of you are tied together in my mind as all having started at relatively the same time and were always the "Oh, there's Dan/Don/Bones!" excitement when you'd show up in a video. Dan, I loved your stuff on Filmhaus and Board as Hell, and I hope that Funhaus Avenue... I mean "Fhave" takes off. (Yes, I made that joke on Twitter already). Don, I still randomly quote "Michael Transactions" till this day. Just all-time incredible character work. Bones, I'll never get your insanely cool random nickname that's only used at Funhaus. To all three of you, thank you for your tireless efforts across all your time at the company, and for helping create some of my fondest memories.
u/therickreveche / u/ekombokom / u/HeyYoItsGabz - Rick, Justin, Gabs; first, I'm not positive if any of these accounts are actually y'all, so I apologize that I couldn't sleuth down your official accounts. Second, I completely missed the entirety of y'all's FH run and that sucks. Rick, I saw your work on the finale stream with the climax of what I assume to be an astoundingly good FH Wrestling show that I fully plan on watching in it's entirety. But I know that each of you contributed your talents, time, and effort to creating content on the channel and for that I'm forever grateful. I'm sure that as I (re)watch everything it will make me feel even more foolish for the time I missed out on.
I think that's every on camera person from the entire run. I've been writing for *checks clock* five hours now, so I'm going to feel like a real chump if there's some sort of glaring omission from this list. I also had originally wanted to see if I could track down a list of all the editors, interns, and other employees throughout the years that were either never on camera or only on there briefly, but I couldn't find a cohesive enough list that felt "right", so I'll just dedicate this final paragraph to everyone else that has ever contributed to this behemoth undertaking. No matter how "small" a part you may have played, it all worked toward a common pursuit that has impacted millions of people's lives over the course of a decade. I'm so thankful for everyone who ever walked through those doors and sat down to work on Funhaus.
Okay, this was even longer than I anticipated it being. If anyone has read this far, I just want to say... please get off the toilet. I'm sure your legs are asleep. If you're still taking a dump go see a doctor immediately, that's not normal. See ya!

Before going into it, I want to mention how this post was inspired by three things. One was user u/HastyvonFuego2 and their post on going down the rabbit hole on the Kendrick sub last week. It was also inspired by Childish Gambino’s first album release in nearly 6 years where I have been sitting on this idea for a while but he inspired me to finally post this week like he did (never posted on Reddit at all before so be gentle if I am not doing it right)! I was also inspired by an interview Bino gave to GQ about breaking down his most iconic characters. In this interview he says how This is America started out as a Drake diss but then he realized the song was too hard for just Drake so he kept working on it. He also talks in this interview about how all culture is about compression. Which means that yes, This is America is about the gun violence and police issues in America, but compressed in this video is also more about where that culture comes from which he shows is from a small handful of rap moguls, namely Drake, Diddy and Jay-Z (bear with me on this long post, I think/hope it will be worth it). At the end I talk briefly about how Little Foot Big Foot might be in this same vein of cultural compression.
[Intro: Choir]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go away
The beginning of this song has no background music yet, which really gives it an ‘in the beginning’ feel. Then Gambino starts doing his dances with weird facial expressions. I will explain as we go through his video how those expressions and dance moves represent different famous rap moguls. One easy look to pick out right away is Jay-Z’s famous lip curl/growl look that Gambino gives with a head nod repeatedly. The colonial pants have been a hot topic, but since it’s only the pants that are colonial, Gambino is saying the bottom or basis for this violent culture in America is ultimately colonialism. The lyrics ‘Go Away’, are likely foreshadowing the rap moguls wanting other popular rap rivals to ‘go away’ or they will make them (aka murder them) for profit.
[Bridge: Childish Gambino & Young Thug]
We just wanna party
Party just for you
We just want the money
Money just for you (Yeah)
Usually you want money for yourself and to party for yourself, so this is a bit odd. But what Gambino is referring to is similar to these Diddy ‘freakoff parties’ we are hearing about where people who want to be famous are really partying for these rap moguls so they can get close to them. Where they suck up to them saying that they want to earn the mogul money from their songs.
I know you wanna party
Party just for free
Girl, you got me dancin' (Girl, you got me dancin')
Dance and shake the frame (Yeah)
Then this almost feels like the Diddy rebuttal where he’s like ya I know you want to party and you want to do it for free. Like Katt Williams says, “you gotta tell Diddy no”, it is never free to go to those parties. There are always consequences. When you are partying you are dancing, but shaking the frame could refer to how those boundaries/edges are being crossed, lines are blurred, etc.
Then in the video, the fellow who was playing the guitar gets shot and things turn dark from happy music. I believe that this guitar tune is meant to represent 2Pac and Nas’s song Thugz Mansion. It’s one of the original greats from ‘in the beginning’. Nas famously has always had major issues with Jay-Z too (More on why 2Pac and Nas later). It also represents how it was these moguls who murdered 2Pac like Jaguar Wright and Katt Williams keep saying. Where these murders only lead to more money and fame for the killers when the dead artists’ and their music are exploited more easily.
Also note that the gun gets taken away by a school kid after the shooting, more on this later as well.
[Verse 1: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Blocboy JB & 21 Savage]
This is America (Skrrt, skrrt, woo)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy)
Look how I'm livin' now
Police be trippin' now (Woo)
Yeah, this is America (Woo, ayy)
Guns in my area (Word, my area)
There is a song called Guns in My Area by Lil Weiner and Baby Chapox that paints a vivid picture of the everyday struggles and conflicts faced by those living in communities affected by gun violence. More compression of other songs and the American gun culture.
I got the strap (Ayy, ayy)
I gotta carry 'em
I am almost certain this line is referring to 2Pac’s song Changes. Throughout This is America, Gambino takes lines from Pac’s song: “They get jealous when they see you with your mobile phone” (referred to later in this a Celly, that’s tool) “That's the sound of my tool, you say it ain't cool, My mama didn't raise no fool”
“And as long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped, And I never get to lay back” It seems like Gambino broke up these lyrics and scattered them throughout his song. This plays into the theme that everyone is using 2Pac and enriching themselves off of his image and music. I show below how this particular section of the video represents Diddy meaning that Diddy himself is exploiting his music (and alleging that Diddy killed Pac?). We could see this exploitation play out at length with how much Diddy milked the death of Biggie like in Every Breath You Take.
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go into this (Ugh)
Yeah, yeah, this is guerilla (Woo)
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go get the bag
The song Gorilla War by $uicideboy$ and Ramirez talks about getting a bag repeatedly in the course. Also in Otis with Kanye and Jay-Z their lyrics talk about going gorilla (I talk about this song more further down), so it could be referring to this as well. It seems like Gambino is trying to pull out lyrics from all across the rap culture and embed them in his song to highlight the ‘cultural compression’.
Yeah, yeah, I'm so cold like, yeah (Yeah)
I'm so dope like, yeah (Woo)
We gon' blow like, yeah (Straight up, uh)
I think that all of the school kids in the video represent all of the rappers that are signed with these big labels. Which is interesting because they are the ones facilitating the guns for the moguls in the video. You can see that the mogul is really focused on the kids and gets agitated and directs them to follow him whenever they stray off a bit like they are his pupils, or like he owns them. Then all of a sudden the camera comes into a scene where you can see more kids shooting a rap video and all shooting money from a Supreme gun. The camera zooms out almost to show you that this is the mogul’s whole rap empire they are looking over, all of their kids in one place (this empire already includes some chaos in the background). It’s subtle but hilarious, Gambino puts fricken chickens on the ground where the kids are filming the rap video. He is directly calling all of these rappers complete chickens for playing up this lifestyle and being the cause of so much chaos rather than coming out and telling somebody what’s really going on. Trying to get their money over everything else.
[Refrain: Choir & Childish Gambino]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
You go tell somebody
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Get your— Black man)
This is where things start to get interesting. Gambino is literally saying, go tell somebody about this! We all know what’s happening, why don’t you go let people know how bad it is? But like Jaguar Wright said, who do you tell when these moguls have the cops and feds paid off? This video is literally Gambino putting it all out there in this extremely popular song for everyone to see but yet we still just see the dancing and the violent chaos of people and police in the streets and not the root cause that is hidden in plain sight.
The vast majority of those who reviewed this video until now think this scene represents the tragic church shooting in Charleston in 2015. I think it does, but we also have to look at this from an angle of compression.
The people in the choir are all of the people who are currently singing the rap mogul’s praises and who are focused on going and getting what’s owed to them, get their money (who are also profiting off of the dead fellows music since it goes back to the original tune). You can see that each choir member has a distinct look to them. Think about who you are hearing about now who is about to be implicated in these freak offs and evil deeds. Is that Will Smith in the back left corner!? The short bald fellow in the front left maybe Kevin Hart? Rick Ross or TD Jakes maybe the bigger guy towards the back right? When the camera zooms in on the choir right at first to show their faces, doesn’t the guy in the bottom middle look like an uncanny version of Jordan Peele? Or is that meant to be Cuba Gooding Jr? Then just like the guitar fellow at the beginning, bang. You may be singing Diddy’s praises now, but he will cut you down whenever he suddenly feels like it.
I think almost for sure this initial section of the music video is Gambino acting as Diddy, because right after he shoots the choir, he does the elbow pump/chicken dance. At 3:14 in Diddy’s video for P.E. 2000 he does the chicken dance (he is up first in the video and I think Gambino is trying to say here I first present to you the first public enemy of 3 in this song). That elbow dance signals that it was Diddy and this is the end of his section.
[Chorus: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Slim Jxmmi & Quavo]
This is America (Woo, ayy)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Woo, woo, don't catch you slippin' now)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy, woah)
Look what I'm whippin' now (Slime!)
There have been many accounts of celebrities being given fancy cars after suffering abuse at the hands of these moguls. So these lyrics are saying that you better not slip up and tell people what’s really going on. And if you don’t look at this sweet carecord deal/movie contract I am going to give you. Beiber told this story about Diddy wanting to give him a luxury car.
Now suddenly, the dance switches from the chicken dance to a sudden bicep flex to signal us that we have now moved on from Gambino representing Diddy to our next mogul.
[Verse 2: Childish Gambino, Quavo, Young Thug, 21 Savage & BlocBoy JB]
This next chunk of the video is all about Jay-Z. I think this is the case because he throws his arms up in a bicep flex just like Jay does in the Otis music video at 2:38. And it makes sense Gambino would pick a dance move from a video with a huge American flag in the background to fit the ‘This is America’ theme. Gambino is mocking him saying, who are you really, the pretty guy or this hard gangster like Gambino shows in his dancing. Also right before they pan to the kids on the balcony, Bino also does Jay-Z’s signature lip curl look a couple times so we know it’s him and to signal the end of his section.
Look how I'm geekin' out (Hey)
I'm so fitted (I'm so fitted, woo)
Jay-Z is famous for making the fitted Yankees cap famous, it’s his signature look. More signs this verse is about Jay.
I'm on Gucci (I'm on Gucci)
Jay-Z has been seen in full wallpaper Gucci sweat suits but could also be referring to Gucci Mane who he hung out with at Beyonce’s tour around the time this song was released.
I'm so pretty (Yeah, yeah, woo)
I'm gon' get it (Ayy, I'm gon' get it)
Watch me move (Blaow)
These lines are probably referring to Jay-Z having a hidden preference for men, especially with the way Gambino flicks his wrist in the video when he says I’m so pretty.
This a celly (Ha)
That's a tool (Yeah)
On my Kodak (Woo) Black
I think that “this a celly, that’s a tool” harkens back to 2Pac’s lyrics in Changes where he sings, “They get jealous when they see ya with your mobile phone” then shortly after that he sings about the sound of his tool, referring to shooting a gun. But Childish flips these lyrics on their head. He is saying that it’s really the phone that’s a tool to be using, not a gun. And pans up and shows (the school kids specifically) on the balcony filming everything going on below. He’s telling the kids/other rappers, use your phone as a tool, you can record these bad deeds when you get blackmailed into being at the freak off. That’s how you can kill them and their career, not with a gun. Go tell somebody! There is also the reference to Kodak which plays into the picture taking theme, but also because Kodak Black has been accused of assaulting a teenage girl in a hotel room. So we have a good idea of what Gambino suggests all the kids start filming and collecting evidence of.
Ooh, know that (Yeah, know that, hold on)
Get it (Woo, get it, get it)
Ooh, work it (21)
Now we are onto Drake’s part. In the video Gambino starts doing the BlocBoy JB dance called Shoot. Drake is known for doing these little viral dance moves like in Hotline Bling. But not only that, this dance is also used in the song that both BlocBoy JB and Drake collaborate on for their video Look Alive. It starts at 2:07 in the Look Alive video. So this is Drake’s dance to signal his part is now starting.
Note this is where the pale horse rides by also potentially saying that Drake is one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. Interestingly, Drake’s collab with BlocBoy JB was pretty much the apocalypse for BlocBoy’s career, who hasn’t had a hit since.
Hunnid bands, hunnid bands, hunnid bands (Hunnid bands)
Contraband, contraband, contraband (Contraband)
I got the plug in Oaxaca (Woah)
They gonna find you like "blocka" (Blaow)
Again, we know this is Drake’s section because his song 10 bands starts out by saying “10 bands, 50 bands, 100 bands” almost identical to Bino’s lyrics here. Also Blocka was famously used by Biggie in his song Gimme the Loot which could be referring to Biggie's demise like Pac’s and making money from his death. Everything in this industry originates from pushing drugs, which has been alleged through the trafficking that Diddy, Jay-Z and Drake do through their private jets likely connected to their bosses, the Clive Davises and Lucian Grainges of the world. This escalates rap beefs and the whole culture to the next level where murder is often a consequence for young rappers in their prime when international drug lord money is involved.
An interesting point is this is the only time where Childish was about to shoot someone in the video, but where he didn’t have a school kid either handing him the gun or taking it away carefully from him. (Maybe also a diss at Drake that even though he acts hard he doesn’t shoot, he gets his horseman of the apocalypse to do his dirty deeds for him instead perhaps?). This is the beginning of the end for the rap mogul as he no longer has his kids doing his bidding for him. A simple message to show how the violence can be stopped, that these shootings can end when the kids stop enabling them. So then as soon as he can’t react in that moment and shoot someone his anger is forced to chill out, as shown by smoking a J, and to go back to exploiting the dead man’s music instead. If you don’t put a gun in someone’s hand when they are heated, those feelings too shall pass - kinda feel.
[Refrain: Choir, Childish Gambino, & Young Thug]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
America, I just checked my following list, and
You mothafuckas owe me
Whose voice does that sound like!? It sounds a lot like Diddy to me, public enemy #1. This is basically saying that the moguls are the ones who we all owe it to for all of this glorified gun violence in America. That we owe them way more follows and likes for what a massive influence they have had on the violence and chaos we see in America today.
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
(1, 2, 3—get down)
In Moneybagg Yo’s song 1, 2, 3, he also has a line that says “1, 2, 3, let’s go!” in a similar vein.
But something interesting I came across was Nas’s song Get Down where they use a sample from James Brown's “The Boss” that sounds extremely similar to the way Gambino screams “Get Down!” Which would fit well if the guitar singer from the beginning is meant to be Nas and Pac doing Thugz Mansion.
Also make sure you check out Nas’s song Get Down so that you can hear how much Jay-Z outright copied this song for The Story of OJ. From the musical structure with the piano and interwoven samples right down to the theme reiterated by the sample at the end of Nas’s song: “If that’s how our people are gonna get down, how are we ever gonna get up?”
SZA
Finally to wrap up the video, I have been stumped for a long time as to why SZA is randomly at the end of this video sitting on one of the cars. But I think I finally know why and it reconfirms that this last scene is all about Drake. If you watch Drake’s music video for Worst Behavior (not very Canadian of him to spell behaviour that way I might add) you will see Drake rapping and dancing with a few cars surrounding him and one of those cars has other rappers making cameos in it. In Gambino’s video SZA represents that car with a famous cameo. I think this is further confirmed when the black edges of the video start closing inwards at the end of This is America, the exact same way that Worst Behavior ends. So why SZA as the cameo then? Cause it reminds people that Drake is a p*do.
This is from an article in the Rolling Stone: In 2020, Drake revealed publicly that he and SZA had dated over a decade ago, well before she was an established artist (her earliest music goes back to around 2012; her critical breakthrough, Ctrl, came in 2017). On 21 Savage’s “Mr. Right Now,” Drake rapped about a newer fling who was a fan of SZA’s: “Yeah, said she wanna fuck to some SZA, wait / ‘Cause I used to date SZA back in ’08 / If you cool with it, baby, she can still play.” A few days later, SZA responded, corroborating Drake’s claim with a slight correction: they dated in 2009, when both would have been over 18. Since SZA would not have turned 18 until late 2008, she wanted to set the record straight. “in this case a year of poetic rap license mattered 🥴lol I think he jus innocently rhymed 08 w wait [sic],” she tweeted. “I just didn’t want anybody thinking anything underage or creepy was happening . Completely innocent . Lifetimes ago . [sic]”
If you have to specifically say something isn’t creepy and distance yourself from it being lifetimes ago, it usually is creepy. Drake would’ve been 22 when she was 17. Metro Boomin also happens to be on the Mr. Right Now track. He is currently in trouble for resurfaced old tweets showing how Metro used to tweet disgusting things about what he wanted to do to underage girls. Interestingly, Metro Boomin is also now beefing with Drake.
Drake doing his dance on the car of the original musician’s music seems to be accusing Drake directly of stealing 2Pac’s music. Orlando Brown recently said the cryptic statement that “Drake is Pac” which likely means he stole 2Pac’s approach/style/audience after his death. Gambino did some good foreshadowing here too with the recent AI release Drake put out of 2Pac.
This dance scene also signals that the Drake section is now over.
[Outro: Young Thug]
You just a black man in this world
You just a barcode, ayy
You just a black man in this world
Drivin' expensive foreigns, ayy
You just a big dawg, yeah
I kenneled him in the backyard
No, probably ain't life to a dog
For a big dog
The outro lyrics speak to how these gatekeepers keep black men down and control them with things like being forced to wear a dress to become famous or to submit to homosexual/p*do acts.. In the video, as I mentioned above, the black edges close in on Drake’s dancing scene in This is America. But they don’t completely close and end things like they do in the Worst Behavior video. Instead, in Gambino’s video, the camera pans to show the mogul running for his life with Young Thug’s lyrics almost like a quiet echo in the background. He isn’t running from the cops though, he’s running from the kids and from the public. When I mentioned earlier that the kids not handing over the last gun before Drake’s scene signalled the beginning of the end for the moguls, this is that conclusion. Where it is showing that if all the kids come together to stop enabling and rather expose the moguls, people will be chasing these bastards down once we realize what has been going on behind the curtain. Then the song that Young Thug is singing can just be a quiet echo of the way things were in the past.
If you don’t think Gambino would be this deep and that I went too far down the rabbit hole, do a Google search on the calculations that he came up with for why he sings about loving until 3005 in his song. He seems to go real deep with his lyrics. So a big question this leaves us with is, what did Childish Gambino witness in the rap industry? His whole rap career plays out like he is trying to avoid industry norms.
Even in Sweatpants, he has lyrics like:
No hands like soccer teams and y'all fuck boys like Socrates
You niggas ain't coppin' these, niggas ain't lookin' like me (Nah)
Nah, I ain't checkin' I.D. (Nah), but I bounce 'em with no problem
Seems like he is trying to make it really clear across his catalogue of music that he isn’t a p*do but that other rappers are. Where he is saying that he doesn’t need to ID his potential partners because he can tell they are obviously too young and that’s not hard to do.
Tell 'em, Problem (Problem!)
I'm winnin', yeah, yeah, I'm winnin' (What?)...
Rich kid, asshole, paint me as a villain
So who was trying to paint him as a villain, Drake? And that’s why the diss was originally meant for him?
Don't be mad 'cause I'm doing me better than you doing you…
Better than you doing you
Fuck it, what you gon' do? (What?!)
He’s taunting the other rappers cause he knows they can’t say shit if they are creeps. He has the same sentiment in Bonfire “It’s a bonfire, turn the lights out, I’m burning everything you mother fuckers talk about.”
Childish Gambino has always refrained from talking about the meaning of This is America whenever he is asked, and I can only assume that all of this is why.
Little Foot Big Foot
Now with his new release, Little Foot Big Foot and applying cultural compression to it, it has me wondering if he is referring to Megan Thee Stallion and the Nicki beef? People like Nicki (calling Megan Big Foot) have been claiming for some time she wasn’t even shot in the foot by Tory Lanez. There were many people laughing and making fun of Megan over getting shot. Which could be an interesting story for Childish to tell to represent how crazy this violent culture has gotten that people just laugh and blame the victim now when you get shot. Also a good metaphor for things like ‘shooting yourself in the foot’ for not having a lawyer look over potentially predatory industry contracts like in the beginning of his video. That you want to get in the cool kids club so bad you overlook it. Not as sure on this one though since the song just came out and I have only heard it a few times.
One last thing that is really interesting, there have been tons of artists on podcasts like Shay Shay talking about the strings these ultra rich moguls can pull. Like buying awards or gatekeeping people from being in the industry at all. There was even a story, I think maybe it was Gene Deal who told it, that when Killer Mike won at the grammys that Jay-Z was so angry he made sure to mess up his night by getting him locked up as soon as he left the awards stage. These moguls are extremely powerful and have an incredible amount of sway in the world/industry. If you check out Gambino’s profile on Youtube, his old music videos keep getting taken down, like Bonfire for example is just gone. Fans have been having to upload the videos themselves. There is a reply to a comment, on one of the fan uploaded vids, from Gambino’s account himself when someone asks why the videos are being taken down. His account just replies “Noone knows why :(“ Seems a bit odd all things considered and like maybe he has been at the mercy of these gatekeepers for going against the system.
I am so curious to know what the rest of you think about all of this!

Where to start. It's going to get long so the people who do read it all fully, I truly appreciate you and thank you for reading my hurt.
I met this girl at work back in December and things were not good from the start. She said she didn't want to be in a relationship cause she had just got out of one 3 months prior to me talking to her. The very 1st day I meet her at work I ended up coming to her house. We didn't do nothing but smoked, drinked. talked and watched Rick and morty, it was awesome and I knew then that I really wanted to pursue this women since I only desired to know her as a person. Things went good after that we talked more and hung out more times. It was building into something.
Move forward a month she starts to get cold feet tells me that she wqsmt ready for a relationship and ended things. Well to my surprise a week later she wanted to work it out and told me that she's never been with a real caring man before and she was scared it was too good too be true and ran away from me and our relationship. We talked about it and I told her to not give up on me cause I would never give up on her. Things went good after that. Until I started to see some changes in her behavior.
A couple months passed and during those months she would hangout with a friend who was a bad influence on her. Her friend always wanted to go out to the club and would put her in some fucked up situations where then she would call me to come fix or just come pick her up. This happened more times then I could remember. One time I was getting shit faced with some buddies and she called me at 2 am to come pick her up since she was too drunk with her friend. It was a 3 hour drive and I went to help her knowing it was a horrible choice due to me being drunk but I loved her and cared about her way too much so the answer was quite easy to go and help her. Another time she was with her same friend and I caught her going live on tiktoc with her friend and she was in bathtub in her bikini with hwr friend and in the mirror I could see another man standing there mid 40s close to 50 without a shirt on asking them if they needed more drink and towels. I commented on the live and she immediately took it down and blocked me. Th3 next day she said she didn't know who that guy was and proceeded to make excuse after excuse. She told me she was sorry and that it won't ever happen again that she wanted to be with me and only me. we dont talk for about a week after this cause i couldnt believe she would do such a thing to me. That was betrayal to me, trying to be sneaky behind my back getting caught then lying to me about it. She came to my house unexpectedly and gave me a letter professing her love and commitment to me something she's never done before. It showed me change and effort, so I took her back (stupid I know but I really wanted her and gave her every chance to change into a better person) a couple weeks if not a month after that incident, she goes to a casino with that same friend. At this point I told her that it wasn't a good idea to keep contact with this friend cause she doesn't care about our relationship and puts her in some fucked up situations all the time. But it was hard for her since this friend was someone she knew since they were 10 it was hard for her to hear my words. So she calls me at 5 am the night she went with the casino with her friend and tells me that she absolutely needs me that she was kidnapped and needed me to come save her. Sp that's what I did. Drove over an hour and 30 min to get to her. She was walking with her friend when I found her and she couldn't remember where she parked her car she said it had to be in the casino parking lot but we couldn't find it. Where was her car? Just a block away from the people who "kidnapped her" at this point I was done. She done lied to me so many times and took advantage of my heart. I told her that after I help her that we are done. She goes to an extreme and says she's going to kill herself and to just drop her off wherever. I lost a friend due to suicide so this one hit at home and I couldn't let her go thru with it, also cause I loved her and still cared for her, of course. We end up taking a trip the day after for 3 days to get away and help her balance her life again. It seemed to work fine. She was so into me and said she wanted to marry me and have kids and start a family. I was excited yet felt it was too much of a rush. So we waited.
Just last month in April she really wanted a kid and by this time things have gotten much better she wasn't hanging out with that bad friend anymore and she would always come over to stay the night or I would go to her place. It was perfect and everything I ever dreamed off to be honest. So we try to have a kid. To complete us and our relationship. She missed her period in the beginning of May and she was pregnant. Something she thought she couldn't become cause she said she tried many times before with her past partners and it never worked. We were both excited. Just last week she told me she wasn't ready for a kid and wanted an abortion. I asked her why since this was the very thing we had hoped for for some time and she simply said it was due to money and not having insurance the bills would be crazy expensive and that she wasnt ready. I supported her decision since we could always have another baby down the line if she wasn't ready then she wasn't ready. I can respect that. A couple days after that she tells me that she doesnt see herself with me and that she doesnt love me anymore. Just out the blue. After everything we have been through. All the times I forgave her and took her back just to be left out in the cold without her giving me a chance to fix whatever the problem may have been. When she told me she didn't love me anymore and that she lost feelings it made me very confused and lost. Why try to have a baby then just a week ago? Why come back to me asking for forgiveness all those times if you were just gonna play me in the end? I asked her these things and she could only say sorry. That's it. That's all I got. I kept asking why how could you do that out of nowhere was it the baby? She just said she lost feelings a long time ago and doesn't love me anymore. Okay then why try to have a baby with me if that was true? why did she make me believe that she was really down for me and committed to me. These answers I'll never know. Since she just tells me sorry and to move on. But real love doesn't work that way. I'm finding it hard to cope with. Last thing she asked me was if I was going to help with the abortion cost. I told her yes cause it was also my responsibility and not just hers. The abortion is the 21st of this month and I dread each day closer to that date.
Thanks for reading.

Judo is extremely underrated in MMA. It is definitely under-represented as well, due to a multitude of reasons (MMA is no-gi, Judo doesn't train leg attacks, IJF bans its top athletes from cross-competing, most MMA is in the USA where Judo sucks and wrestling is world-class, etc etc), but Judo is still very much used in MMA. The problem is many times, nobody recognizes it. American MMA commentators are also almost always completely clueless when it comes to Judo, which doesn't help (you need not go any further than Karo Parisyan basically going through half the Gokyo on his opponents, only to be greeted with the same OH MY GOD ! JUDO THROW! by Joe Rogan). There are many fighters, both superstars (Islam, Fedor) and not (Gregory Rodrigues, Luana Pinheiro) who heavily use Judo in their matches.
Over the years, I have actively been looking for Judo in MMA. I am going to share my list of fighters displaying high level Judo in MMA, as a reference point for anyone looking to see how the art is used in MMA, or even for anyone just looking to see some banging throws. The list is by no means exhaustive. I would love for people more knowledgeable than me to add fighters I may have missed.
Disclaimer: Let's focus on Judo use in MMA. There are several fighters who have a background, even a black belt, in Judo but don't really use it (Amanda Nunes, Valentina Shevchenko, Merab Dvalishvili, Shinya Aoki, Seika Izawa, Fabricio Werdum, Ronaldo Jacare Souza just off the top of my head). Also yes, Morote Gari is a leg takedown, and it is in the Judo syllabus. Almost nobody learned double legs in Judo, let's not go to these extremes.
Karo Parisyan
The OG of Judo in MMA, the man who single-handedly put Judo on the MMA map. Judo is displayed in all of his matches; several Youtube breakdowns and highlights exist as well. He also put out a Judo for MMA instructional which is gold, if you can get your hands on it. Unfortunately he got derailed by personal issues (I hear he's doing better now thankfully). Huge variety of throws, he used throws nobody else has used before or after against very high level opponents. Shoutout to his kimura grip hikikomi gaeshi that he almost beat GSP with.
Ronda Rousey
UFC champion, Olympic bronze medalist, WMMA pioneer - you know her, everyone knows her. Extremely one-dimensional, but a pioneer for her time. Her entire game plan was clinch JUDO THROW juji gatame (armbar). Shoutout to her textbook use of hip toss into kesa gatame into roflstomp (vs Alexis Davis). Her matches with Miesha Tate are also among the best MMA matches (male or female).
Fedor Emelianenko
PRIDE champion. Arguably the Heavyweight GOAT. Probably the best example of Judo adapted to MMA (together with Islam), as he did not rely on Judo as much as Karo or Ronda, but perfectly blended it with his striking to create an unstoppable force. I'd heavily recommend watching Sonny Brown's Fedor breakdown on Youtube, or pretty much any one of Fedor's matches, they're awesome. Shoutout to his use of the overhand right to switch stances when initiating clinches (as a R-handed Judo fighter fighting out of an Orthodox stance).
Islam Makhachev
UFC champion. Ideal example of Judo adapted to MMA. Yes, he's a Dagestani, and he has been training in MMA all his life, so obviously his style is not purely Judo, but it's obvious to anyone who knows where to look that his grappling base is more Judo than wrestling based. Shoutout to him submitting Charles Oliveira, the most prolific BJJ specialist in MMA history, with a Kata Gatame (arm-triangle choke, routinely taught in Judo as a pin with submission potential). His style is also very different from Khabib, who I will not include in this list for the opposite reason; his grappling base was significantly more wrestling based (although he did execute some ridiculously perfect Judo throws on occasion). The entire Khabib camp uses both Judo and wrestling though.
Jon Jones
UFC Champion. Contender for all-time GOAT. Is Jon Jones a Judoka? Nope. Do his matches feature Judo? Absolutely. You only need to watch one of his highlight reels to see a variety of Judo throws, Osoto Gari, Harai Goshi, Tai Otoshi, Sasae, a variety of Kosotos, along with his wrestling-based takedowns. He also uses a lot of inside trips, obviously from wrestling, but he's still a good example of how to use Ouchi Gari in MMA.
Jimmy Hettes
UFC former fighter. Old-school prolific grappler. Very high level Judo and BJJ. Did not have many matches, but they were all grappling clinics, and every one included a multitude of Judo throws (mainly Harai Goshi).
Kayla Harrison
PFL tournament winner. Double Olympic gold medalist. Her recent UFC debut against Holly Holm featured a Harai and a brutal Osoto Gari into a finishing choke.
Yoshihiro Akiyama (Sexiyama)
Heavy Judo base. Struggled in the UFC, but had some banging throws. Still competes at almost 50. Also his nickname was Sexy, can't go wrong with that.
Hector Lombard
Judo Olympian. Heavy Judo base as well, with very slick throws, although he preferred to stand and bang. Was once one of the hottest non-UFC MMA prospects, his career took a massive dive after he got popped for roids.
Satoshi Ishii
Judo Gold medalist. Heavy Judo base. Fought in a variety of promotions around the world, an absolute dog but with average results. He got brutally destroyed by Cro Cop, then went to train with him in Croatia, then denounced his citizenship and became a Croatian citizen. Lol. Also trains with Danaher, and has a bunch of no-gi Judo instructionals at ridiculous prices (because Danaher).
Serghei Spivac
UFC Heavyweight contender. Ragdolls everyone with sloppy but effective Judo throws. Shoutout to his landing in Kesa Gatame too.
Luana Pinheiro
UFC fighter. Judo black belt, (I believe) Olympic alternate. Uses Judo as her main offensive grappling base, has taken down all of her opponents with the same Harai Goshi / O Guruma hybrid.
Gregory Rodrigues
UFC fighter. ?Relative unknown. I personally never heard of him, until I randomly came across one of his matches were he executed one of the most brutal Harai's I've ever seen into a finish. All of his matches feature some degree of Judo, mainly uses Harai. No recorded Judo rank on his wiki (he's recorded as a heavily credentialed BJJ blackbelt), but it's obvious he has Judo training. Also very good wrestling and kickboxing (yes, he's very exciting to watch). Shoutout to his match against Brunno Fereira, a Judo black belt who escaped top position from Rodrigues by securing an Ippon grip, rolling to his knees, and chucking Rodrigues forward with a kneeling Ippon Seoi before brutally KO'ing him a few seconds later.
Tagir Ulanbekov
UFC fighter. Khabib's camp. Uses a lot of clinch takedowns. An absolute specialist in step around throws (I believe it's called "Polish" in wrestling?) - in Judo terms it would be Kosoto Gake +/- Ura Nage depending how you finish it.
Ayaka Miura
ONE Championship fighter. Heavy Judo base. Shoutout to her use of Kesa Gatame to finish opponents.
Rick Hawn
Judo Olympian. Twice fought for the Bellator championship. Unfortunately, I have not watched any of his actual matches, so I cannot confirm how much Judo he uses (I'd love for someone to chime in). Still has a highlight-reel standing Ippon Seoi Nage into KO, so I had to include him.
..
Honorable mention to Yoel Romero, an absolute unit of an athlete. Olympic silver medalist and World champion in Freestyle wrestling, fought for UFC gold. Obviously not a Judoka but he has the cleanest Sasae you will ever see in MMA, as well as a bunch of beautiful step-around throws and inside trips you've probably learned in Judo.

So long story short I am at a new location where we everything is fed off a 5g phone connection for now, for the next 8 days. I know - awesome time to have this sort of internet. Can you all please help out with screenshotting stuff, saving the post links to your reminders app, saving the posts to archive.is - and keeping the link so I can come back to it. If you can’t do that just screenshots are fine.
Thank you all.
Ape historian.
Oh also - from another user - GameStop tweeted the oh sorry moass my bad TODAY in 2021. Dfv chose to come back today.
Oh another also. Rick of spades contribution is not forgotten but lost digitally. I am sure there are copies somewhere around.
Anyway - if price hits 500$ by Friday end of the bell 15th May 2024 I will do what Rick of spades did. I shall not fail with this promise .
Edit - so it’s clear -price has close at or above 500$, not just have a 500$ pause for 3 seconds and down to 499 for the rest of the day - the safe zone so to speak
Ape historian
Another edit - if you come here and you don’t know what’s going on - there is a library of the last 3 years of content - my site is a good starting point but there are many many others
apehistorian.com

This short story is a part of the Mieran Ruins Collection. The rest of the stories can be found on this masterpost.
The beach was a symbol of relaxation. It was where children played in the waves while the parents relaxed in the sun. Well, the parents let themselves bake in the sun until they realized they lost their kids. Then, they panicked and searched across the sands annoying everyone. Eventually, a helpful volleyball player showed up with the kids. You thank them until. Wait, why is your spouse staring so long at that volleyball player? Sure, they look like you did younger. Well, more like a young fit version of you. Okay, they looked nothing like you did, and why was your spouse standing so close. This was a disaster. We should've never came here on family vacation.
To most people who haven't had such a dramatic experience, the beach was a nice place. It represented a freedom from modern stresses and a chance to enjoy the sun. Sandcastles lined the sands like an army defending its territory. Shells were collected as if they held monetary value. Such a shame this culture was destroyed by the Mierans.
Humans had always liked to take breaks, but the location was limited by time and resources. When the world was destroyed, the breaks turned into a night where two people guarded the door rather than three. The prime real estate became the pond a few blocks away to keep an eye on the supplies. Tourist traps became rusted as there was a lack of tourists to trap. Except for the dumbest people.
"Hurry up, we are going to be late," Polly yelled. Jim fell down the stairs. He had a beach towel on one arm and a tuxedo on his other.
"What is that for?" Polly grabbed the pants.
"You said bring a swimsuit," Jim said. Polly shook her head.
"Why I am surrounded by idiots." She turned back to the stairs. "Check-in ends at four pm."
"Isn't it your friend who's in charge?" Olivia walked down the stairs carrying a handbag full of vacation essentials. Her dress was loose and flowing.
"He told me that he wouldn't make exceptions," Polly said.
"That makes sense. If you were my friend, I wouldn't make exceptions for you too," Olivia replied. Polly ignored her which angered Olivia.
"Reid! Frida! Get down here," Polly yelled. Frida ran down the stairs. She was most excited about the possibility of hunting. As such, she had a crossbow, a harpoon, and a flare. Her prey wasn't sharks; it was crabs. Reid followed her down in a swimsuit. With every step, he practiced flexing and posing. His body was adequate. His biceps were present, but they didn't bulge. If he held his breath, his torso acquired some definition. In total, he was making a fool of himself.
"I'm ready to mingle." He shimmied at the bottom step. Polly and Olivia reacted with horror while Jim nodded his head.
"We're going to be so popular." Jim put his arm around Reid who shook him off.
"Just me. You can be my wingman," Reid said.
"Sure thing," Jim replied.
"Whatever, let's get going," Polly said. The five of them made their way out of their small house. The road to the vacation was long, and it took a few days travel by foot. They didn't plan on travel time. Fortunately, Frida was skilled at capturing beasts (some of which were mutants) and tried all plants to ensure it wasn't poisonous (Jim tried them as well because Frida was likely immune to all poisons). After their journey, they reached Pacifico City.
It was one of the few cities established after the war. The military ran the country, and Pacfico City wanted to cater to their needs. Multiple resorts sat close to the beach. By the resorts, there shooting ranges and ATVs for pleasure. There was an assortment of bars and restaurants as well. Each had its own signature dish or cocktail. There was one issue. The customers never came.
The upper brass couldn't leave. The new military was disorganized, and vacations were an opportunity to be removed by force. The soldiers were forced to stay by their commanders. If they were going to be miserable, everyone else was going to be miserable as well. The result was a sad city filled with abandoned resorts. The weapons and ATVs were stolen by raiders who put it to better use. The bars and restaurants had their supplies looted, and the workers moved on.
The vacation house in question was a dingy hotel far from the beach. When the five arrived, a man sat behind the desk with his mouth open. A fly flew in and out of it. There was a wall with keys behind him. The man didn't react when they entered. He did perk up when Polly hit the bell on his desk.
"Welcome to Tropical Fun. You missed check-in time," he said.
"Rick, it's me. Can't you make an exception," Polly replied.
"Check-in ends at four. It's half past five." Rick pointed at the clock. Olivia looked down.
"That clock isn't moving," she said. Rick looked down.
"Oh, I've only been working here for a few months. I inherited it from my uncle. He died in a mutant iguana attack," Rick said.
"Sorry for your loss," Polly said.
"Don't be. I hated him." Rick turned around. He gave them two keys. Before arriving, it was agreed that Olivia would get a room by herself. Reid and Polly were okay with this because Jim and Frida slept on the floor. The floor was preferrable when they saw their rooms. Reid's bed was simultaneously too hard and too soft, Polly's was always wet, and Olivia's had mutant bed bugs. The rooms smelled like burnt cabbage. The bathrooms were filled with flies and rodents.
"Well this is a disaster." Reid looked out the window. "There's no one here to enjoy my show."
"Their loss." Olivia was hiding in the other room because she was scared of bugs. She wouldn't let them know.
"No, every cloud has a silver lining." Reid turned with a smile on this face. "We are going to restore this city to its former glory."
AstroRideWrites

Dear Rick. May I call you "Rick"? Okay, cool.
As we are both professional audio/music producers, YouTube often suggests your videos to me. Honestly, I had listened to a few some years back and simply thought, "eh, it's not for me" and tapped the old "not interested" option which, for some reason, YouTube interprets as "show me more."
While deep in a lengthy snake soldering/crimping project yesterday, a video of yours came on. Being mid-solder joint, I decided, "ah well, go ahead then."
The reason I'm writing is to challenge a frequent refrain of yours that is an arbitrary dividing line between pre-y2k music that was largely still recorded in the traditional methods of the day versus the more modern, de rigueur use of beat quantization, pitch correction, vocal alignment, extensive processing, etc.
Now, your commenters tend to lob a lot of "ok boomer"-type insults, waving your perspective away as an old man yelling at the clouds. Which is, of course, fairly lazy and doesn't posit anything about 'the new way' versus the golden days of yore.
I have a different issue with this. Your argument is intellectually dishonest and I know that you know that I know this. For one thing, genres have evolved to openly embrace this sound. Rather than trying to soap up less-than-perfect performances by untalented players, it's a maximalist approach that is gleeful overuse of these techniques.
Sure, we can blame some of this on the tools to do so becoming automated processes that don't require much actual knowledge, understanding, or technique by the engineer / producer. That's fair. And I actually agree that most modern rock mixes are the very embodiment of "the dog catching the car". We've reached the mirage of sonic perfection and found it often to be lifeless, lazy, and uninspired.
But you're repeatedly hammering at the point that, prior to the DAW-ification of mordern recording, the performances were never edited, drums weren't quantized, vocalists weren't pitch-corrected or aligned to be in unison. That's simply not true. You know it's not true. We did it all the time.
I actually learned how to work on tape machines, though admittedly during a time (mid-90's) where I was a huge advocate and early adopter for ProTools. If you were to pull out the original multitrack drum reels (don't forget to bake the reel) for many of the recordings you hold up as "authentic", the tell-tale "thwap thwap" of splicing tape passing over the tape machine's rollers would plainly state otherwise.
During the 'first wave' of sonic perfection in the 1980's, drummers were recorded to click tracks almost by default. Drum sounds were retriggered in the 1980's all the time. Ever listen to a Mutt Lange-produced Def Leppard record? Those were the precursor to modern metal production - albeit doing so took a fair bit of intuition and know-how. You know how I know this? Because I learned these techniques from the people who did them all the time.
Pitch correction and vocal edits was very much a thing in the tape era as well. Samplers / sampling delay units were often pulled in to duty with a MIDI sequencer synchronized to the 2" tape via SMPTE. A great performance with a bunk note? That was easily solved with an Eventide UltraHarmonizer and a MIDI CC message. Was it more difficult than "hey, siri, fix my shit"? Of course it was. We solved problems back then. It was fun.
Let's take "Nevermind" by Nirvana for example. You have repeatedly held this LP aloft as representing a 'truth' in music. And while it certainly isn't an edit fest, it's documented that not only was a click track used occasionally, but Digi SoundTools was brought in to save the timing on the closing song. Also, while Sound City, it's booming A room, and their hallowed Neve 80-series certainly impart a nice wooly analog quality, it was mixed by Andy Wallace. Andy makes no apologies nor secrets about many of his mix techniques and they definitely are making use of many of the tools you disavow.
I've gone on too long about this already, so let me just leave you with this. All that is old is not gold. "Blood Sugar Sex Magic" is FM radio drivel. All that is new is not inherently bad. Check out the new Whores LP "War". There are arguably some modern production techniques in there, but it is a ferocious slab of fearless rock and roll. I even agree with you about these techniques being used by default has long since eclipsed its "sell by" date. But you have released dozens of videos harping on this singular point and are knowingly being both divisive and pedantic for clicks.
Hey, as a fellow former Ithacan, I'm not here to attack you. I just want to help. Us old people can be a tremendous resource to 'the kids' by passing on some of the sage wisdom that comes only from real world "doing", not hour after hour of hack YouTube "content". You're not moving things forward by insisting everything should go ten steps back.
Just a thought, Mr Beato. Have a good day.
- bc
TL;DR: You're holding on too tight. What is once was, it will never be. Be the change you want to see in the world.

"I played major league baseball for parts of 10 years, and I played in the magnificent city of New York, and as a child in St. Croix that was beyond dreams. Yes, I am a happy man." -- Horace Clarke
The worst stretch of Yankee baseball since the Highlander days, the mid 60s to the mid 70s, is remembered by those who lived through it as the Horace Clarke Era. Unfairly or not, the bespectacled switch-hitting middle infielder from the U.S. Virgin Islands came to symbolize all that was wrong with the Yankees in those sad years.
Horace Meredith Clarke grew up on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He was just the fifth player from the U.S. Virgin Islands to play in the majors, and the first Yankee. His father had grown up playing cricket, and because there were no youth baseball leagues on the island, young Horace played softball. He said he didn't see his first baseball game until around age 13, when he saw some U.S. Navy sailors playing.

“We were poor kids in St. Croix. We played on a field which was right on the ocean and had no fences. We couldn’t afford baseballs. So the coach made the lefthanded batters hit righthanded and the righthanded batters hit lefthanded. This was so they couldn’t hit the ball so far. It saved us from losing the baseballs in the ocean.”

Clarke was spotted by a Yankee scout in the Caribbean and assigned to the lowest run of the Yankee farm system -- the Kearney Yankees in Class D ball. Imagine being an 18-year-old kid from St. Croix in the Caribbean, and arriving in Kearney, Nebraska in the spring of 1958. The culture shock must have been overwhelming. Maybe not surprisingly, Clarke hit a disappointing .225/.322/.283 in 187 at-bats. He said the biggest adjustment wasn't the cold weather, but night games played under the lights, something he'd never done before.
The following year Horace was in the Florida State League, and he thrived in the warmer weather, hitting .293/.375/.366 in 571 at-bats. He also stole 34 bases that year. The year after that, he was back up north, playing for Fargo in the Northern League, and hit .307/.389/.369 in 537 at-bats. The following year was Amarillo in the Texas League, where he hit .300/.364/.429.
Then the next three years in the International League, where he hit .281/.345/.352 in 1,494 at-bats while playing shortstop and second base.
But despite Clarke's promise, he was blocked by Bobby Richardson. By the time Clarke had reached Triple-A at age 24 in 1963, the 27-year-old Richardson had already been a four-time All-Star, a two-time Gold Glove winner, and had won three World Series rings... plus the MVP for the 1960 World Series, the only time in baseball history a player for the losing team won the award!
But the Yankees knew Richardson was planning on retiring, so they kept Clarke waiting in the wings. He opened the year with the Toledo Mud Hens, then the Yankees' Triple-A team, and then after a month he finally got the call to the show.
Fifty-nine years ago today, on May 13, 1965, Clarke was sent up to the plate in the 7th inning as a pinch hitter to make his major league debut in a game the Yankees were losing, 4-1, to the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park.
Clarke, facing Dave Morehead, beat out an infield single. It was a promising beginning. But, as if scripted to be symbolic of his career, Clarke's success was short-lived as the next batter bounced into a fielder's choice. Forced out at second base, Clarke watched the rest of the game from the dugout. The next day he'd get the start and go 0-for-4.
Hitting .250/.298/.269 at the end of June as a utility infielder, Clarke was sent back down to Toledo for two months to get more regular playing time. It helped. When he returned on September 3 -- coincidentally, also against the Red Sox -- he went 3-for-5 with an RBI. Overall that month, Clarke hit .273/.298/.327, and for the season, .262/.298/.299 in 115 plate appearances. But the Yankees, the reigning A.L. champions for the past five seasons, finished a shocking 77-85, all the way in sixth place.
That off-season, Phil Linz -- the harmonica playing utility infielder -- was traded to the Phillies, opening up a roster spot for Clarke. Richardson, though only 31, had told the Yankees he would retire at the end of the 1966 season, and the Yankees wanted him to mentor Clarke as his successor.
Clarke started just seven games over the first half, but a series of injuries forced him into regular service. Over the second half, he played almost every day, hitting .276/.334/.404 in 300 plate appearances. He was mostly used at shortstop, where his defense wasn't great, but in 16 games at second base he looked good enough that the Yankees were confident he could be a regular there. Yankee fans were no doubt a little sad when Richardson officially announced to the press on August 31 that it was his last season, but at least we knew who would be playing second base the following year.
Indeed, second base was the least of the Yankees' problems. New York finished dead last at 70-89 in 1966, the team's worst performance since 1925, as injuries fell Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Elston Howard, and Whitey Ford.
Entering 1967 as the starting second baseman, Clarke hit a solid .272/.321/.316 (94 OPS+) in 633 plate appearances while leading the league in fielding percentage, assists, and range factor as a second baseman. He also stole 21 bases in 25 tries, a second-best .840 SB%. His 3.7 bWAR that year was better than any season Richardson ever had -- his career high was 3.2 bWAR in 1962.
The following year, the Yankees finished 83-79 -- above .500 for the first time in four seasons -- but a whopping 34.5 games out. Clarke had one of the worst years of his career, hitting .230/.258/.254 (60 OPS+) as he played through injuries all year.
He rebounded in 1969 to .285/.339/.467 (101 OPS+), with 33 stolen bases. It was, statistically, the best season of his career (3.9 bWAR). But once again the Yankees were terrible -- 28.5 games out.
In 1970, Clarke again disappointed, hitting .251/.286/.309 (68 OPS+). The Yankees won 93 games that year, but it amounted to naught as the Orioles ran away with the pennant, going 108-54 to win it by 15 games. In fact, it was pretty much over by July, with the Yankees 7 games out at the All-Star break.
It was around this time that Yankee fans began focusing their frustration on Clarke. One New York sportswriter routinely referred to him as "Horrible Horace". Miscast as a leadoff man -- he had a career .308 OBP -- and criticized for "bailing out" on double plays, manager Ralph Houk years later offered a tepid defense of his second baseman:

“I know I got a lot of criticism for playing Horace Clarke as much as I did, but he was a lot better ballplayer than anyone gave him credit for. He did a lot of things good but nothing great, and that was his problem. Besides, I didn’t have anyone else.”

The lack of a replacement was certainly an issue. In 1971, there was talk in The Sporting News about a prospect named Fred Frazier being the heir apparent to Clarke at second base. That year, Frazier hit a disappointing .261/.316/.313 in Triple-A; the next year, .216/.302/.281. The year after that, he was in the Orioles organization. He never made it out of the minors.
In fact, Clarke was the only constant in the Yankee infield in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Yankees during the, ahem, Horace Clarke Era had holes everywhere, with a revolving door at first base, third base, and shortstop. For five years, from 1967 to 1971, Clarke was the Opening Day starter at second base; during that same stretch, there were five different third basemen, five different third basemen, and three different shortstops. Between 1967 and 1973, he started 1,017 games at second base, or 90% of all Yankee games.
But that, explained Yankees PR man Marty Appel, was kind of the problem. "Fans especially didn’t like the second baseman, the beleaguered Horace Clarke, whose major flaw seemed to be longevity. It wasn’t his fault that no one better came along, and he was a better player than the fans gave him credit for. But because he was out there, year after year, he came to stand for this disappointing run by the club."

"I always did my best. I always played as hard as I could. I never was concerned about how the fans reacted to me." -- Horace Clarke

The following year Clarke hit .250/.321/.318 in 696 plate appearances, but the Yankees again were out of it, finishing 82-80 in 1971.
Yankee fans had been miserable since 1965, but frustration with the team in general -- and Clarke in particular -- reached a boiling point in 1972. It had been seven years since the Yankees had been in the post-season, and 1972 was the first year the Yankees had the playoffs within our grasp since winning the pennant in 1964. (The "closest and latest" the Yankees had been since the 1965 season was 9 games out of 1st place on September 8, 1970.)
On September 12, 1972, the Yankees were a half-game out of 1st place at 74-64, with 17 games left to go in the season. The Red Sox were in 1st at 73-62, the Orioles tied with New York at 74-64, and the Tigers a half-game behind at 73-64. Over the rest of the season, the Yankees went a heartbreaking 5-12, while the Tigers won 13 out of 19 to win the A.L. East.
There was plenty of blame to go around for that collapse, but Yankee fans were particularly irate at Clarke, who hit .225/.267/.296 during those final 17 games.
To his credit, Clarke never complained about the boos from fans or the criticism in the press. As quoted by Dick Young in the New York Daily News in 1972:

"Sure, I would feel bad when I saw in the papers that, 'the Yankees can never win the pennant with that guy at second base.' But why get mad. I figure that's his opinion, and he's entitled to it. I must have been able to do something. Don't tell me a ballplayer can fool a manager for seven years."

Years later, Thurman Munson said his adversarial relationship with the media was based on how Horace Clarke was treated.
In 1973, the 34-year-old Clarke hit .263/.317/.308 (80 OPS+), his defense was no longer among the league leaders, and the Yankees were once again double-digit games behind by Labor Day.
It was finally time to move on. That off season, the Yankees acquired 23-year-old utility infielder Jim Mason from the Texas Rangers and installed him as the starting shortstop for the upcoming 1974 season; Gene Michael, the Yankees' on-again, off-again shortstop since 1968, was moved to second base; and Clarke to the bench. It wasn't exactly an earth-shattering move -- Mason was coming off a season in which he hit .206/.273/.290, and Michael .225/.270/.278. If anything, the two represented a substantial downgrade from Clarke's numbers. (By bWAR the previous season, Clarke was still the best option of the three, 0.6 compared to Mason's -0.7 and Michael's -0.9.)
After hitting .234/.294/.255 in 53 plate appearances as a pinch hitter and spot starter, on May 31, 1974, the Yankees finally ended the Horace Clarke Era by selling his contract to the San Diego Padres along with minor league pitcher Lowell Palmer for $25,000. At the time of the deal, Clarke was still the Yankees' best option at second base as Mason was hitting .214/.287/.307 and Michael a putrid .134/.224/.179!
Six weeks later, the Yankees tried to address their second base problem again by acquiring former All-Star Sandy Alomar from the Angels. Alomar, who fathered major leaguers Sandy Jr. and Roberto, played for the Yankees for the next two and a half seasons, hitting .248/.287/.302... again, worse than Horace's career average of .256/.308/.313.
And yet getting rid of Horace Clarke immediately turned around the Yankees' fortunes. With Horace, the Yankees were 23-27, the worst record in the American League; without him, a second-best 66-46. New York finished 89-73, just two games behind the Baltimore Orioles.
The Yankees finally found a solution to the second base problem on December 11, 1975, trading previously forgotten Yankee Doc Medich to the Pirates for Dock Ellis, Ken Brett, and a 20-year-old prospect named Willie Randolph.
Meanwhile, Clarke went to San Diego and hit .189/.255/.200 in 99 plate appearances. He was released at the end of the season and retired. He was a frequent attendee at Yankee Old Timers' Games, and promoted baseball in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He died at age 81 on August 5, 2020, from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.
The Clarke Side

• Horace's nickname was "Hoss". Yankee play-by-play man Bill White loved to draw out the "s" sound.
  
• Clarke had a reputation of being timid on double plays -- the team's pitchers thought he was apt to hold onto the ball and hop aside rather than try to get off a throw if it meant getting barreled over by the runner. (And in those days, runners came in hard -- just ask Willie Randolph!) Yankee pitchers complained to the press about it, and fans started watching for such plays. Any time the 175-pound Clarke didn't complete a double play, the boo birds came out. To be fair, despite his reputation as being afraid of contact, Clarke led the league in double plays turned as a second baseman in 1969 and again in 1971, and finished in the top five every year he was a regular.
  
• Clarke was the last Yankee to live within walking distance of Yankee Stadium, at the Grand Concourse Hotel. His commute to work was a three-block walk... which could be a problem sometimes. Sportswriter Dick Young reported Clarke had an awkward moment when a fan, "this kid, maybe 11 or 12," walked up and asked: "Hey Hoss, how come you can't make the double play?" Clarke replied: "Well, we can't all be stars. I guess I'm just a lousy ballplayer."
  
• Clarke had an unusual batting stance, a throwback to the Deadball Era. He stood with his legs far apart and he choked up high on the bat. Not surprisingly, he had just 27 home runs in 5,243 career plate appearances... but apparently all of them were of the over-the-fence variety.
  
• The first of those 27 home runs was a grand slam! It was off Floyd Weaver of the Cleveland Indians on September 21, 1965. The two-out grand slam in the 4th inning helped power the Yankees to a 9-4 win.
  
• And Clarke's second career home run? Another grand slam! It came on July 16, 1966. Clarke came up with the bases loaded and one out in the top of the 10th of a 5-5 game. Clarke crushed Jack Aker's offering to deep right to clear the bases and give the Yankees a 9-5 lead; Pedro Ramos pitched a perfect 9th to preserve the victory. Whitey Ford, who had entered the game in the 9th inning in relief, got the win. Clarke's first and second home runs were the only grand slams of his career!
  
• Aker was later Clarke's teammate with the Yankees from 1969 to 1972, and the sinkerballing reliever was one of the pitchers who criticized Horace about bailing out on double plays.
  
• Long before John Olerud made it cool, Horace sometimes wore a batting helmet while playing the field. He never explained why; some speculated it was because he'd once been hit in the head by a thrown ball.
  
• Clarke said he grew up listening to Yankee games on the radio, and Phil Rizzuto -- a similarly undersized infielder -- was his favorite player. Horace was 11 years old when the Scooter won the A.L. MVP in 1950.
  
• Mickey Mantle, his knees shot, moved to first base for the final two years of his career. Clarke, the regular second baseman both of those seasons, said that Mantle told him to get every ball he could. Horace led the league in range factor as a second baseman both of those seasons.
  
• The Sporting News reported on March 14, 1970, that Clarke had a "novel twist" during salary negotiations for the upcoming 1970 season. He told the Yankees he'd take less money in salary if they helped him secure a $1 million loan for a construction project in the Virgin Islands. Sportswriter Dick Young speculated: "It's a very simple gimmick. First you get the Yankees to lend you $1 million for an investment. You bank it at seven percent. That brings in $70,000 a year. Then you negotiate your contract with the independent feeling that you don't have to play baseball for a living." Clarke and the Yankees eventually agreed on a more conventional contract at $32,000 -- and no loan.
  
• Check out Horace Clarke's leadoff single on Opening Day in 1970, called by Phil Rizzuto! #23 playing first base for the Yankees is not Don Mattingly, but previously forgotten Yankee John Ellis.
  
• Clarke set the major league career record -- since tied by Joe Mauer -- of most no-hitters broken up in the 9th inning. Both players did it three times in their career... but Clarke did it three times in the same season! He had 9th inning singles to break up no-no's by Kansas City's Jim Rooker on June 4, 1970, Boston's Sonny Siebert on June 19, 1970, and Detroit's Joe Niekro on July 2, 1970. No other hitter has broken up more than two no-hitters in the 9th inning in his career, according to the book Baseball's No-Hit Wonders by Dirk Lammers, but Clarke amazingly did it three times in 24 games spread over 28 days. Mauer's 9th inning heartbreakers came over a six-year stretch.
  
• Clarke went 5-for-6 with an RBI in the second game of a doubleheader on April 19, 1970 -- and had 11 other games where he had four hits. In terms of fantasy scoring, his best day was either May 21, 1969, when he went 4-for-6 with three runs scored and three stolen bases, or July 22, 1971, when he was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and three RBIs.
  
• Clarke was involved in one of the most surreal moments of baseball history on the final day of the 1971 season. The Yankees were playing the Washington Senators -- not the original Senators, who had moved to Minnesota to become the Twins in 1961, but the expansion team founded that same year to replace them. Rangers owner Bob Short, who had bought the team three years earlier, announced he was moving the team to Arlington, Texas, to become the Rangers. (Coincidentally, in 1957, Short had bought the Minneapolis Lakers and, three years later, moved them to Los Angeles.) The final home game of the Senators at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., was on September 30, 1971 against the Yankees. The game was tied, 5-5, but the soon-to-be Rangers scored a pair in the bottom of the 8th to take a 7-5 lead. In the top of the 9th, Felipe Alou and Bobby Murcer grounded out to bring up Horace Clarke. Before he could get to the plate, however, a fan ran onto the field and pulled up first base, prompting hundreds more fans to run onto the field in search of their own souvenirs. Clarke and the Senators ran off the field and the umpires called it a forfeit in favor of the Yankees.
  
• Horace wore #20 all 10 seasons he was with the Yankees. It was never a particularly popular number before him, as the only player who wore it more than a few seasons was Tiny Bonham (1940-1946). Bucky Dent wore #20 from 1977 to 1982, and previously forgotten Yankee Bobby Meacham from 1983 to 1988. Another previously forgotten Yankee, Mike Stanley, wore it from 1992 to 1995, then Jorge Posada had it until Stanley returned in 1997 and reclaimed it. After Stanley left the Yankees, he asked Posada to take it back, saying that number should belong to a catcher. And now it always will, as it was retired for Posada in 2015.
  
• His obituary in The New York Times noted that among major leaguers from the Virgin Islands -- "a relatively small roster" -- Clarke still holds the records for games played, hits, runs, RBIs, and stolen bases.
  
• After he retired, Clarke helped promote youth baseball in the U.S. Virgin Islands. One of the players he mentored was Jerry Browne, who played 10 years in the majors between 1986 and 1995 with the Rangers, Indians, A's, and Marlins. In his SABR biography, Browne credits Clarke with teaching him baseball fundamentals.
  
• According to the book Where Have All Our Yankees Gone? by Brian Jensen, Clarke played a uniquely Caribbean instrument called "the vibes." "The vibes is like a xylophone, marimba-related type sound. It's a keyboard-type related instrument." Clarke said he played the instrument during his Yankee days, but -- unlike Bernie Williams, who frequently strummed on his guitar in the clubhouse -- only during the off-season. "When I was with the Yankees, ya know, the instrument that I had, the vibes, I was doing it, ya know, but never in the clubhouse, though. Once you are in the clubhouse, it is all work, ya know. That was never so much allowed. I had the instrument all the years that I was a Yankee but I was involved with baseball. That was my full time and I didn't have full time to play music but, ya know, in the off-season I would have a vibe and try to learn a song by hearing from a tape or a record and that's what it was." After retiring, Clarke played the instrument with a local band called Out of Nowhere.
  
• Of the 15 major leaguers to have been born in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the only other Yankee was Elrod Hendricks, a backup catcher for the Bombers from 1976 to 1977. Jabari Blash, born in St. Thomas, gets an honorable mention for the three months he spent as a Yankee during the 2017-2018 off-season. Blash was acquired from the Padres for Chase Headley on December 12, then traded to the Angels for a PTBNL or cash considerations. I guess we got the cash, because apparently no player was ever named.
  
• There's a Horace Clarke High School in Jamaica, but it's not named after the Yankee. It's named after the Horace Clarke who was a member of parliament in Jamaica from 1972 to 2002.
  
• Also not him: Horace Clarke, a teenager shot and seriously wounded by a Blackfeet Indian named Owl Child on August 17, 1869. Clarke's father, Malcolm, was killed in the same attack, which was purportedly revenge for Malcolm Clarke having attacked him two years earlier... which Malcolm claimed he'd done because Owl Child had stolen horses from him... which Owl Child said he'd done in revenge for yet an earlier dispute. The pursuit of Owl Child resulted in a massacre of at least 170 people, mostly elderly men, women, and children. As for Owl Child, he escaped to Canada and was never seen again.
  

"I remember the first game I played in Yankee Stadium in 1965. There were more than 40,000 people in the stands. I had just come from my country where there are 30,000 people in the entire country. That was some adjustment." -- Horace Clarke

Overall, Horace Clarke hit .257/.309/.315 in 5,144 plate appearances as a Yankee. His numbers aren't quite as bad as they appear, as he played during one of the lowest offense eras since deadball... an 84 OPS+. That ranks him ahead of fondly-remembered Yankees like Shelley Duncan (81 OPS+), Rick Cerone (80 OPS+), Miguel Cairo (80 OPS+), Bucky Dent (72 OPS+), and... Bobby Richardson (77 OPS+). And while many complained about his defense, his defensive metrics -- such as we have for his era -- indicate he was at least an average defender. He led the league in range factor three times, in fielding percentage once, in assists six times, and in double plays twice.
People tend to think about Clarke -- if they think about him at all -- as either a terrible player, representative of the teams he played on, or a good player who was wasted on bad teams. The truth is somewhere in the middle. As sportswriter Maury Allen said, he was "an average big-leaguer on below-average Yankee teams."
And in fact, Clarke's 16.0 career bWAR as a Yankee is twice as much value as the player he replaced, Bobby Richardson (8.0 bWAR). But Richardson was a fan favorite, while Clarke was scorned. But of course... Richardson won three rings. And Yankee fans love a winner!

"New York is New York. You don’t win, you’re going to hear about it. I was in the middle." -- Horace Clarke

Had Clarke come along a few years earlier and been part of the early 1960s dynasty, he might be remembered fondly as a scrappy infielder, a Tony Kubek or a Bucky Dent or a Scott Brosius -- a good but not great player who had some memorable moments.
Instead, Horace Clarke defines an era of futility.