Semi-interesting things about me: I just graduated high school a year early Going to study religion in the fall! ( all of them, not any specific one) I absolutely love cats and I have two, they’re my babies! I like mocktails and kombucha My favorite colors are either teal or dark green I’m an only child! My favorite food is cacio e Pepe, which is pasta I’m from New York but not the city. Any age can dm me as long as you are being respectful and don’t ghost. Have a good day everyone!

Semi-interesting things about me: I just graduated high school a year early Going to study religion in the fall! ( all of them, not any specific one) I absolutely love cats and I have two, they’re my babies! I like mocktails and kombucha My favorite colors are either teal or dark green I’m an only child! My favorite food is cacio e Pepe, which is pasta I’m from New York but not the city. Any age can dm me as long as you are being respectful and don’t ghost. Have a good day everyone!

My ex situationship and I go to the same high school but are 2 grades apart (she’s a 16ya Freshman and I’m a 17ya junior). There was an instant tension the first time we saw each other on a spring break cruise as we would lock eyes everytime we saw one another. After the cruise I had added her on Snapchat at the airport and we would go on to become each other’s best friends. A couple months later I decided that talking to a Freshman was too much for me so I ghosted her b/c I was scared of what ppl would think. I knew I had broken her heart but I didn’t think much of it.
I should mention that over the summer I had ghosted her, we would randomly see each other in public places like the airport or movie theaters. We live in a big city too which made it strange.
Fast forward 6 months: Me and her are snapping again and we decide to link up secretly. We instantly connected and could talk forever with each other despite what had happened between us before. We decide to keep our relationship a secret like some real Romeo and Juliet shit and it was so fun. One night when we were together, the secret of our relationship was released by accident to the entire school. I struggled with being ridiculed about being with a freshman but I didn’t care b/c I felt so connected to her. I had been with plenty of girls before but nothing had felt like this. There was something real between us and I could feel it.
About a month after everyone had learned about us, we had a long in-person conversation about how it was too much for her and so many things were working against us. She went on to say that maybe it would work out in the future but now wasn’t the time. This was only 2 days after our first date where I picked her up and met her parents. We went out to dinner then went to a horror movie where I held her the entire time. It went so well. The next day she began to pull away which eventually led to our conversation in my car.I had expressed how I felt and how she was the only girl I had really cared for but she was clear about her decision to end things. 2 weeks later and she gets with a guy in her friend group.
For over 2 months I’ve shrugged it off as a rebound, been in no contact, and done extensive research about when and how she would come back to me (Videos on attachment style and dismissive avoidance). Shes given mixed signals and given me false hope but I take it as she still feels something. I know it’s only high school but I really do feel connected to this girl and I can’t explain it. She made me feel complete and I don’t know if she’ll come back or not. She’s still with this guy. Do I move on or do I wait for her? It’s summer again and I’ll be a senior. Idk what to do.

I'm excited, I just don't want to be at the bottom of the pyramid. I had a Spanish class on the third floor (the third floor is just one hallway in the high school) so I understand the traffic flow and how people act in the hallways, but that's kinda it.

Hello, I can't sleep and Im getting pills for it. I have been awake for 48 hours now. And things are a bit of blur. But I have realised that I have picked up and extreme urge to write. I dont know how or why, but I crank out amazing short horror stories in 20minutes, and cant remember why. i realise that there are symptoms regarding sleep deprevation but whats happening doesnt match anything I've seeh. So yea the compulsion to write is weird and I have developed an obession of posting them to reddit (this I swear is not one), lying and not knowing why to commenters. I had posted a list about of game I like but not that much, the list was a thousand words, and I spent an hour of time doing nothing else making this list, all of knowledge I'd forgotten about. You can find the rest of the messy mesy story, and I lied and said I was high in one post, and took down countless others. I dont even use reddit that much, always that it was a bit weird, and though. I was mostly wrong, I thought I would come here. I have ADHD and focusing is hard for me, and i have never been so hyperifxated on something like that in my life. And then i started a little log to see where im at during my sleepless night. Each hour. I logged. And Logged And logged. I didnt realise how much i was hallicinating, but I think I was in REM sleep and I somehow retained perfect ability to type on keyboard without seeing and look. I thought that everything I was typing made sense, but after kinda snapping out of it, I realised in horror kind of. So i took my photo booth opened, it and ran a video of me. I was in REM sleep for sure, and i was typing unbelievbly fast. I remember everything, I could think and then my hands would type it. I know it sounds weird, but like my imagination, my subconscious thoughts were being projected somehow. Heres all 3000 words and counting of it. the last couple where I do the test make it unclear, but unless someone actually replies to this, I will save images and photos for later. I am currently still hallucinating but not as badly so pardon my misspellings.
Now I Swear on My Life this is real, none of my friends believe me, my sister does though. please help me
Here it is
-1am feeling tired didn’t get to sleep until three last night, so this sucks
-3am haven’t done any work went don’t disturbing internet mystery rabbit hole. Also what will my screen time look like? Not good.
-5am- That’s when it hits you, the birds and the light, worst feeling ever. Microsleep hit, and I hallucinate myself watching a video. WTF.
-8am-I have been writing a short story for the past 3 hours, wtf is wrong with me. I get out of my room at 8:30, and something shocking, happened, I looked in the mirror and I have a six pack? At first I thought hallucination and dismissed it, went and had nothing for breakfast apart from some ice cream. I am scared.
-9am-taken medication feel fine. I have not eaten much and I am aware it is taking a toll on my weight. I have six pack and look shredded. This is not a good thing.
-10am- all my 2500 word essay got deleted. I notice sleep deprivation and medication, has a weird affect. It masks the affects of sleepiness. I feel fine, no fatigue, could work for ever. I have a 1 hour tutor session, let’s see how that goes.
12pm- Finished tutoring session - felt easy speedy and fine. Am heavily addicted to reddit. I feel like the dexiamphetamine is having an affect on my body which makes me entrenctched into whatever I am doing.
2pm- Got to get ready for kickboxing class junior leadership thing. My face is riddled with pimples. This is caused by a lack of sleep and water and proper nutrients.
5pm- I got home, feel fine, it was really cold though. No signs of cognitive decline like I usually show. Actually I take that back, things have become to become distorted, my eyes are messing with me as a result of the micro-hallucinations I am experiencing. I took 2 more dexiamphetamines, probably a bad idea.
8pm-I feel amazing, but at the same time little work as been done on rave. I am completely and utterly obsessed with writing stories, I spent and hour and a half texting my adventure to London, and I begun to get really descriptive. I am not in a good mental state(Not as in depressed, as in I can’t judge if what im doing is weird, it has to be right?).
9pm- Symptoms are really starting to show now. I have been listening to sad songs whilst I write my English, it is a story so it’s going well.
9:30pm- I have spent too long over many hours compiling a list of things I’d like to see in fallout 5. What the fuck, I am at the point in which I can’t take a step back. Computer screen distorted at time. When I am typing, I keep thinking about how to do the hashing technique using curved lines with a ball point pen. I have wrote probably over 800 words disputing claims about my fallout 5 post.
10pm- I have possibly written an amazing English assignment. My dread in which consumes me, about this assignment is keeping me motivated whilst I listen to music(mainly sad music.) I love the start of the song violent crimes by Kanye west, I had that on repeat for a while until I moved onto other sad songs, because I didn’t want it to burn out (its a great song)
10:30 in bed now feeling weird. I was wondering around and yep im hallucinating, and it sucks ass. Minor ones at the moment, which are good, but it’s more like my mind will think something is there that is not. Does that make sense? But then in the hall way, it was dark and as I turned on the light I saw some fucked up face. Alright now im scaring myself jeez.
10:50 So right now typing this the visual hallucinations have definitly set in, it’s weird that I am conscious enough to witness it happen in real time. This doesn’t feel real. How to describe what I’m seeing, like waves silk-like distortions of everything. Right now I look up and I see like silky distortions of the corner of the roof distort and move. It is significantly worse in the dark, as brain has to make up for a lack of what is there. I turned the light on and yes it is better. They are still there but are minor and less apparent. Legitimately everything scares me, my body is jumping, I guess as my brain is focusing as much maybe, and then when I do hear something out of the ordinary it spooks me. I don’t know why but I feel like all of sudden im just gonna go crazy and it’s like a race against time, but it will be slow and I will see how long I can last. Typing has become significantly harder as I loose control of my motor skill which has happened in a short time of 30 minutes. Wow creepy peripherals make up visuals, idk why that is
-11:20- Taken videos as updates. I feel like this is the quiet before the storm. My brain is making things up and it’s pissing me off. It has revoked my right to type, and everything that is not in my direct peripheral now is some sort of the thing. Like bro every key I type my fucking brain slows down, it’s taken me song long to write this one thing. I can’t think of what I want to say to next, that’s a big one. The changes come on so rapidly and everchanging
-11:40-Brain is sending in backups. My typing speed has increased but my ability to spell words correctly is failing. Right now it’s just not fun. No major hallucinations, just a feeling of dread mixed with a nice side of a painful ass headache and a need to go to the toilet. I find it weird however that when writing, usually a mundane task, my brain kind of goes on autopilot, and I have some sort of visual hallunciaiont, this is weird for the reasons stated, and that my hands seem to be moving themselves, and I am watching them, similar to that somen in black mirror, with the museum. BTW black mirror is NOT something you would want to watch like this. I had dream about white Christmas once, and I felt like I was stuck in there for a million years. #existential crisis right. Ok weird, so it seems like when I disassociate my brain keeps typing, I am having a bit of neural input it seems, but my brain fog which was so present all but 2 minutes ago gone. Ok yea noises are starting to appear a bit. Butt cheeks were clenched. I feel like a lifeless dummy rn. Waiting for next phase. (Prayer emoticon). Also why does my fingers just magically know where all the buttons
12am- And the clock hits twelve. Half way there. At the end of this I will have successfully completed 42 hours. Its not a flex or anything I am aware, its just what choice do I have, try and sleep and be constantly reminded of the overbearing weight of the assignments all due this week?? I don’t want to think about that, no-one does. My fucking bad I managed my time wrong im a fucking kid after all. I am going Canberra college next year and this week has been a step in the wrong direction for me. After mum left everything went to shit. I cannot control myself, I am addicted to gadgets. I need to watch my computer to go to sleep or the google home. I have a compulsion to reddit, and I eat like shit. Chicken in some sort, lie about having vegetables. If I even tried to make a food diary of some sort for these last few days, I would be put on fucking trial for the murder of any chance of bitches. I treated my body like shit. The best word I can describe this week in is - Grunge. Like fucking living in your own shit. That’s how I feel. Everyrnight same routine, go on computer, watch videos until 12, watch google home go to bed. But not really.. Instead I would appear to stay up to 2am or 3am and go to bed, eat some food or something I don’t fucking know. I know I am sleep deprived. It is showing in my works. Weird addiction to writing, my adhd hyperfocuses on something. Drawing and Writing. As I write this my brain tries to seduce me into its gaze. The room or just the essence of living is moving, right to left, like im in a slide, and then left to right, and then so on and so forth. I am afraid this is what happens when you eat nothing but sugar and sugar and sugar, don’t sleep and drug your self on drugs. Skin is just a warning, my body brain will be infected I need to stop. I cannot live unregulated.
12:13am- My eyes heart, everything’s shadow is big and I don’t know how much more of this I can take. It is hell, and Im not even at the micro sleeps. They sound low-key cool. I am waiting to go out, make myself a wrap with butter, and get around the computer as I mindlessly do nothing. I don’t watch YouTube want, other way round, and thoughts of my intentional original purpose, to do work for school, left the window a long time ago. I close my eyes for a split second and I ee a teddy bear. They keep appearing, things are melting, this is it baby, as Jeff Kinney would say, we in for the long haul. I want to keep typing and I don’t know why, partly because it is cool that I have kept typing this long, and partly because what else do I do. Wait for it to consume me. If I had a pen and paper, I could have drawn the images I see on my computer screen, vague but the all have cross hatchings, a term I am learning. And what happen to monkey type, I swear I searched it. Is it the micro sleep? Is it coming. Yea. Maybe not.
12:30am- Writing these becomes a scapegoat for my mind to kinda control me and I don’t like it, so Im going to keep it short. No differences, Battery low I will have to brave it out of room soon. Hallucinations minimal, and chicken in peripheral which is toy and bedsheet, but I can’t see it as anything else. Cute little reference my brains making, but I have two finder files, and my brain this its two cookie monsters lol. Also eyes are still heavy. I have gained complete and even I would go as far to say enhanced motor control, I feel like I can type fast, and I hear every single click on the key and It freaks me out. I intentionally leave errors in here, not many but some, and my stupid ass thinks im going to read this and think it’s all mysterious. Upon further reflection, I may have been having depth perception hallucinations. What is weird is no vivid hallucinations but everything is something if that makes an inkling of sense. Im not really all there any more. Weird how that works. Time perception is completely altered and distorted. I could have sworn twelve o’clock was ten seconds or 1 hour ago. I cannot swear on either, but ten seconds ago? I could have sworn on one, I cannot remember which one anymore. Speaking my thoughts does not make cohesive notes on my problem and predicament, I should refrain, but sometimes my brain naturally does this. Yea saw souls of the damned again when I blinked, weird, and now liminal shit im seeing, because my brain is like ooh scary I should scream now, and then it pumps out all this shit. It has been 6 minutes since I started writing, that sounds about right, but at the same times that was long, very long, marcy long. (Kill her long). I chicken which is a building waves a hammer at my building. It is the side bar on the right side of my MacBook.
12:37: wanted to wait until 12:40 but time sucks ass and is an illusion. You many know by now that my posts have ramblings of random topic and will veer off. This was not my intention, if I write for longer than a minute I loose my grip on my brain, it starts writing what It pleases. I have to think really hard about what I want to write, even then it just autofilled it. Lucky it’s right. Computer percentage critically low. 9%, yet I am filled with joy and dread right now. I think this could be caused by the effect of my dexi’s that I took, like a long term effect, or rather just the lack of sleep. I am deeply disturebed but interested by myself. I now have real hallucinations now. Files are quickly changed to name. And a beigeish green blood phases through my door fast. If I look at my hands wrong they look like they are encrusted in dry blood. I had to think if blood was the gang or Blud was the gang, that is how you know sjits gone down the drain.
1:00: It is officially one-ocklock and I let my brain take the rails once again(don’t let me down). So right now Im feeling fine, but sometimes I will have clear clarity and feel fine, no hallucinations, no nothing, and this will be followed by an intense one that will not be scary just like kind of convincing. One instance I don’t want to forget is me looking through my old video from a couple hours ago. One of them my arms look weird and photoshopped linked down bellow, and I have like a led type trip. I think it could be inspired by those weird ass instagram reels I watch, but Idk, It was me and that pose, changing shape a bit and material. I was real glossy and like twisted and moulded and back to normal it was weird. I couldn’t see my arms, especially my forearms the same after that. One phenomena which is uniquely odd is the compulsion to write here. I can understand a lack of time knowledge and perception, as it is natural of one when under these conditions, but have loose your sanity to a point where you are able to mindlessly drone on about things happening to you, is weird, weird. It initially started off as an idea, one sentence or maximum short paragraph talking about each hour and how the where different to the next. Also just got jumped scared by the image thanks bitch. Whilst righting this I am aware I made a mistake (writing), I feel like I have some consciousness left, but if I don’t blink it really hit me. So I keep blinking to report back to base. Yea the head is tilting sideways turned into like a fucking dragon praying mantis thing for a sec. Right now I feel alright, the dream is supposed to get to me but it is hard for it to pass, I know that I am supposed to feel creeped out but I don’t, I like it when for a second my brain will just think of something and loose it. One truly weird thing is me being able to hallucinate pictures through the writing. Always cartoons, depicted silly and offbeat. I don’t know why though. Yea Ididnt wright that by the way what the hell. The good ole noggin did. My head stopped hurting, and my neck has softened the blow a bit, and takes a bit of pain not much, and the my neck is also is cricitacl condition, after seeing Moby at the fucking side bar again. This time it wasn’t a chicken this was Moby from fucking Moby and ted. Ok now its ahicken peeking its head out back to straight what the fuck am id doing llama fr fr fr
1:13-computer is low, very low, at 4%. I am back by the way, I got sucked in again but got out and read it really quickly. The fr frfr is from the Tyler the creator song fr fr fr this time. Ya know. Ok so not this time but next time iwirite a paragraph or a time, I am going to record myself, and then when I regain my sanity, I will watch the video to see what I look like, when I am truly not with it. I don’t know if the same thing will happen with this paragraph but I hope not. This notice was just a short one but stay safe. One last thing that is not helping me, I am now scared again, I heard stomping in the kitchen , and I know it could be fake but everything there is stomping in the kitchen I am able to know because if there is at this Time of night I feel my heart drop, and I did which helps add to the case. I don’t eellike investigating but igueess if that is my best option then I will but now is not really there right time. When is ithe right time officers saying gtyring to gain media attention from the main. Never get the fuckout of my house.
1-18am(the test?) So this is the test but I obviously need something to talk about and I have a topic. So basically I think I have cracked the case to the nonsense rambling in which I don’t understand myself. It is a literal projection of what is going on inside my mind. You know how sometimes people will take things literally and then you’re like no I didn’t mean it like that, well it’s kinda the same thing. I say something insidede my head but it comes out through my fingers. And it’s odd because it come with such swiftness and such durability. Right now I a doing it it yes made a spelling mistake whilst looking at my green gamer screen. I don’t know how or why this done. I am back to realign. And yea this is odd, not quite the feeling that I get when I completely disassociate. I am starting to think that maybe I am begging to miceslepe these series of events and include e the within the paragraph, it happen a little bit there, and unlike try to be the bait for other final charges, this on has no backing against it. There it is again, little less than the first time, but my mind wonders and my hand followed. What if I thought some truly despicable stuff, something that would surely get me banned from ever participating in it agin. Now no I have to read this later I don’t really want to hut then again, i if it fits thehe description then we have t o. Brain disrupted my train of thought, I think I had important breakthrough, Never imind I id, the breakthrough was that when I am looking or blurring my eyes, the top of my head the curtain and y alien arms along with the righting combnined to create some sort of card with a circle in the middle in which I can only presume is a play ng car. I am currently doing right now let’s describe. So I hastily have the some sort go grounding I am loosening it,. It is a hashing draw g clear as dal, with I big leak on the right side and spills over, probably
1.28am- the big move. Just kidding I just have to get out of bed. Let’s see who wins me our bed.GUESS FUCKING WHAT BABY I WON. So I should probably start with the obvious what the fuck Is actually happening. Yea will I thought I was fully conscious, dogs barking keeping me in there. So my subconscious is a weird weird weird thing. Yea fuck it’s happening again, I didn’t mean to type that. Ok so talk about more later, but if I can spit it out in time, I enter a state of REM sleep when I start typing, and my brain doesn’t understand what is imaginary and what’s not so it fills in gaps, and whilst doing this, inadvertentltly transposes your visual in real life, and your imagination, until it creates a weird state in which nothing is quite real and nothing is fake. God that sounds so pretentiously ominous. In the video my eyelids flicker, which is why this is my main theory, but what amazes me, is 2 distinct things. The first is my ability to type whilst looking away from my computer or with my eyes closed. I don’t misspell words, which is confusing as when testing this to the best of my ability whilst in this state, I don’t get very good results at all. The second is the fact that I am fully aware of what is happening. I am able to translate what is happening in my mind to the document, with a little bit of brain fog mixed in, which is obvoiusly going to happen in things like this.

It’s really been killing me slowly to be alone but what really happened is I had a struggling ass childhood and I dated a girl in high school and she liked me but would big time and had issues so I ghosted her after high school after dating her for 3 years I felted exiled from everyone and blocked everyone in my hometown also deleted my instagram because I didn’t wanna think or hear about her. But it’s been so tough she moved on but I still check up on her social media ,never talk to any new women but only hookups because I can’t see myself being vulnerable to women anymore. I stopped doing what I love and always stayed in bed wasted my parents hard work I’m now 25 and need help wtf should I do

Hey everyone,
I'm a Canadian citizen currently living in Jordan. I'm planning to attend college in Canada and would appreciate some advice.
I've completed most of my high school education here in Jordan, but I'm considering moving to Canada to attend school for my final year. My main concern is how this will affect my classification for admissions purposes at Canadian colleges. Specifically, would completing one high school year in Canada allow me to apply as a Canadian citizen rather than an international student?
Any insights or experiences you could share would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance for your help.

What is a Horde Battle?

(If you’re a member of the Abyss Watchers on Fridays, read no further. Also contains minor spoilers for the Out of the Abyss campaign.)
Battles where the heroes recruit a large number of allies and then take the fight to the enemy boss, be it a giant monster or a terrifying leader of their own army, are a staple of fiction that I have found to be mediocre in 5e DnD. Actually rolling for 20+ allies is extremely slow, and the action economy and bounded accuracy mean that even 5-10 allies that are relevant to the party in strength rapidly trivialize anything that isn’t powerful enough to instantly kill a party member with one round of attacks. If the monster targets allies instead, well, then the heroes are taking no damage and urgency is lost. As such, I’ve created a system for running many-against-one battles that I’ve recently tested and found to work quite well, for me at least: Horde Battles.
The way Horde Battles work is two-fold: firstly, the party recruits powerful allies, both individuals and factions, to aid in the battle. Then, you designate each faction’s contributed damage per round, how many rounds they’ll survive, and whether or not they are helping block damage on the front lines. Special factions may contribute in other ways like buffing the party or disabling enemy abilities, and I’ll provide examples of that below.
Then, you set up the battle on the map with just the boss monster enemy and the heroes, but describe the pitched battle going on around them “offscreen”, to borrow a term. At the top of the initiative order, all surviving allies deal a pre-calculated average damage to the boss monster and their allied hordes, and then during that round, all damage dealt by the boss monster is “divided” amongst surviving frontline allies and the party. This way, a demon lord that swings for 4d12+7+4d6 isn’t outright killing a PC with no death saves if it crits, as only 1/X (with X being equal to 1 + the surviving frontline allies) of its damage is dealt to that PC and the rest is invisibly dispersed across their recruited warrior helpers. Describing a sweeping blow that cleaves several fighters in half before it stops on contact with your player is a fun way to do this.
This style of battle hopefully makes the enemy feel terrifying and insurmountable at first, as the party hears the damage numbers being dealt to it without it perishing, yet also makes the fight doable over time as they take less damage and have allies dealing more. The final few rounds are especially tense, as allied factions begin dropping, and the party goes from taking ¼ damage to 1/3, ½, and then finally face the threat of that 4d12+7+4d6 swing coming at them and them alone. By this point, however, the boss monster has likely been whittled down by all that extra damage dealt by recruited allies and the party has a fighting chance of putting it down then and there.

Designing a Horde Battle

The first step in designing a horde battle is to get a rough outline of the possible friendly factions and characters to bring into it. For larger factions like an army, the city guard, or a wizard’s college, calculating out their group damage per round against the boss monster with all of them alive, and then designating how many rounds they could survive as a group against that boss monster is typically enough. For individual NPCs, you can do that, but I often prefer to have them give specific buffs- one sorcerer doesn’t contribute or block damage, but rather hastes two party members for the duration of the fight, for example, or the city’s high priest grants Bless and Heroism to all party members.
Remember that in 5e RAW, the action economy means that a large group of regular city guards will do a shocking amount of damage even to fairly strong boss monsters, so I recommend giving the boss immunity to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing or at least resistance to it in order to offset that. Furthermore, the city might have 100 guards, but only perhaps fifty of them are available on a moment’s notice to join this battle, and only maybe twenty of those at a time can contribute thanks to overcrowding, and of those twenty many of them will miss their attacks. The purpose of this system is to make the players feel like heroic leaders of their assembled army, so having their recruits do respectable damage is important, but having them do more damage outright than the players do might make the party feel like they weren’t even necessary.
There are then two ways to decide on health for the boss- a version where you balance the monster around the party’s allies, and a version where you need to balance the party’s allies around the monster. In the case of the former, I’ve included an example excel spreadsheet I used to calculate how much damage the various allies would deal over a projected five-round battle, with a final form-fillable box for how many hit points I would give the boss for the party alone to chew through. That way, assuming I wanted the boss to have, say, 200hp for the party to get through, then I would add the projected 5-round damage of each faction as the party recruited them and end up giving the monster anywhere from 400-700 health total.
“Isn’t this removing player agency?” Somewhat, which is why you just don’t tell them you’re doing it, same with fudging the occasional dice roll. When running a monster battle like this, failing to remember to recruit one faction can be over 100 health’s worth of difference, and my earnest belief is that it would be more unfair to TPK the party over one mistake like that than it would be to just quietly reduce that 100 health down to, say, twenty, so that the players are still punished but not with death.
If you are uncomfortable with the prior method of health generation, then my recommended alternative would be to just start the boss with mid-to-maximum possible health, and then make sure to nudge the party into remembering all the possible factions. This is more honest but also a bit more railroad-y, as the ability for players to forget and make mistakes is what makes them feel good when they do remember that ally or faction they missed out on.
A middle ground would be to increase the boss monster’s health by ~80% of the damage of each faction. That way the extra 20% is taken out of the damage the party would have to deal, and thus the fight does get noticeably easier with each ally brought to the battlefield, but never trivialized.

Example: The Battle of Gracklstugh

I recently ran one such battle in the Duergar city of Gracklstugh. A brief background of the situation is a local cult of Demogorgon had nearly finished breaking open a rift between the planes in the city harbor and threatened to summon Demogorgon himself. The party stopped them, but the rift was too close to fully-opened to be left alone- in five days’ time, Demogorgon would break out. The only way to prevent it would be to open the rift early and let through a lesser demon, one of his lieutenants, to relieve the pent-up pressure and fix the rift for good. The lieutenant in question was Groyle the Fleshender, from the MCDM supplement Kingdoms & Warfare.

Groyle the Fleshender

Groyle has ~400-700 health (based on factions recruited. If I were running him flat, I’d make his HP 575), immunity to nonmagical physical damage, and has an Abhorrence ability that grants him resistance to magical physical damage. He attacks four times per turn at a +13 to hit, with a horn (4d12+8), two claws (4d8+8) and a bite (8d10+8), as well as swallowing, and has some other unique passives and villain actions that I won't get into, as the purpose here is to give you a ballpark of his tankiness and damage output rather than an actual specific statblock to use. Just make sure that the boss has plenty to do and is an interesting fight at the baseline, as with any other normal fight.
While Groyle is alive, an Abyssal Rift is open, and through it pours a horde of demons. When dealing the Allied damage for the round at the top of initiative, the first 90 damage dealt is spent on killing the most recent batch of demons that came through the rift, after which damage is dealt to Groyle. In the unlikely event that the allied damage did not exceed 90, then the remaining hit points would be manifested as surviving Dretch demons placed onto the battlefield. Important to note that you should deal Themberchaud’s damage first if he has been recruited, as he automatically destroys the demons, then Stone Guard and Clain Cairngorm damage next, as they are capable of damaging the rift’s demons but not Groyle himself.

Recruitable Allies

The Iron Maiden: This is one of the two allies automatically given to the party, a Duergar ironclad in the harbor. It does not tank damage, but attacks for 12d10 magical piercing damage with its cannons, after which it must spend two rounds reloading before it fires again. Given that I expected this fight to take five rounds, I expected this to fire twice, with a possible third barrage to finish off Groyle if things went horribly wrong.
The Stone Guard: The other freely provided allied faction, and the defenders / police force of Gracklstugh. They are also the tankiest faction, able to withstand 5 rounds of Groyle’s attacks before falling back. They deal 10d6+30 nonmagical bludgeoning damage, reduced by 2d6+6 each round as their members are injured or slain. Important that the faction that lasts the longest is the one given for free, so that even if the party misses out on several other factions they’ll only be taking half damage at maximum for five rounds of the battle.
Clan Grimmerzhul: A particularly important clan of weaponsmiths in the city, if the party completes a few odd jobs and wipes out the Grey Ghosts for them, they’ll help in the fight. They have enchanted weaponry but less numbers, so they can withstand 3 rounds of fighting and attack for 6d10+15 magical bludgeoning, reduced by 2d10+5 each round.
Clan Cairngorm: A clan of stone giants living in their own cavern just outside the city. If the party helped to stop the Demogorgon Cult from mutating them into insane Ettins, and especially if they party saved the initial ettin that they encounter just after entering the city, they’ll help and can withstand 4 rounds of fighting. They deal 12d10+24 nonmagical bludgeoning, reduced by 3d10+6 each round.
The Grey Ghosts: If the party chooses not to wipe out this thieves’ guild, they’ll chip in with their psionic blades. As stealthy fighters, they won’t contribute to tanking, and they aren’t particularly courageous either, so they lose a third of their members each round as they lose their nerve and flee. The Grey Ghosts deal 3d6+9 psychic damage, reduced by 1d6+3 each round.
The Amethyst Knife: A rival adventuring party of psionically enhanced assassins, this group was in town hired by the Grey Ghosts. If the party avoids conflict with them and pays them in sufficiently valuable magic items or knowledge, they’ll stay an extra day and help take down the demons. The Amethyst Knife are also hit-and-run fighters who don’t contribute to tanking, but they deal 4d6+10 magical slashing and 4d8 psychic damage each round, although the magical slashing stops after the second round as the martial members become injured and have to hang back. They also empower the party with Psionic Luck Dice for each member, which they can expend to reroll one d20 result.
House Baenre’s Slaveknight: A corpse of an ancient elven warrior raised by Zin-Carla and bound to serve a Drow girl named Lilie Baenre, if Lilie is convinced to join the battle by the party, he will fight to protect her. Lilie herself is only able to provide a casting of Aid for the party, but the Slave Knight contributes to tanking round one, attacks and smites twice for 4d6+14 magical slashing and 6d8 necrotic, and then takes Lilie out of danger on round two, attacking once more for the same damage on his way out.
Themberchaud the Wyrmsmith: If the party provides sufficient tithe to Themberchaud, provides him with proof of the Keepers of the Flames’ plots to kill him, or gives him the egg of the wyrmling intended to replace him, he will help the party. He flies overhead out of range of the demons, but uses his breath weapon for 18d6 fire damage on Groyle. His breath weapon automatically destroys the Rift Demons if they are still alive that round, regardless of their hit points. After using it, he waits 2 rounds to recharge before using it again. Themberchaud only lands to fight if the party is mostly incapacitated and Groyle is threatening to destroy the city.
Deepking Horgar Steelshadow IV: The Deepking is under the thrall of a succubus when the party arrives in Gracklstugh. If they manage to free him from the enchantment, his gratitude is such that he fights alongside them against Groyle when the time comes. When the fight starts, he grants the party resistance to fire damage and the benefits of the Heroism and Bless spells for the duration of the fight, and although he doesn’t directly tank damage, he deals 2d8+5 magical slashing and 2d6 fire each round.
I have linked the filled-out excel spreadsheet I used to calculate the average DPR and health that Groyle would need to have for the battle, with each optional faction toggleable on or off. I started with 200 HP, which I thought was reasonable for a solo boss against the party, especially given he took half physical damage.

How it went

My players reported feeling impressed with the experience, and especially how it felt awesome taking on something well above their pay grade that they normally wouldn’t face until much later on in a campaign, with the help of their gathered allies and a pre-prepared battlefield. They recruited all allies except the Grey Ghosts and the Amethyst Knife, and they ended up successfully killing him on round 4 without any party members going down despite being only level 5.
For my part I also thought it went swimmingly. The damage numbers for Groyle worked out better than I could’ve hoped, as almost everyone in the party was below half health by the end and if Groyle had gotten another turn off he could’ve outright killed a PC. The only change I would’ve made would be giving him perhaps 50 more health, as he died to the artillery barrage on round 4, and it would’ve been a bit more cinematic if the artillery barrage instead left him low enough for a PC to get the final blow in.
If you do use this system or a variant thereof in your own games, or if anything jumps out to you as problematic or improvable, then please let me know!

Brand new Cory parent here. Trying to determine if this cory is sick or about to breed. Close-up Ruby Faced Cory chilling Chilling in plants Another from underneath Searching Surface (vid)
10g tank, planted with pearl weed, java moss, some amazon frogbit Fairly new, ~8wks, cycled from ~2wks ago. Residents are 4 Amanos, Ramshorn and Bladder Snails, 6 Pygmy Corys.
Recieved 7 Pygmys day before yesterday; one died within 12 hrs appeared to be stress. Appeared to go pale, couldn't swim properly. The rest appear fine to my untrained eye.
Today I noticed this one was a bit red under the chin, and resting on the floor more than the rest. She(?) then proceeded to swim around in the plants near the surface a while. I since did a ~1.5gal water change, as nitrates are still on the high-side. Once they came out of hiding she repeated the search of the surface, at one point resting on a floating plant leaf, underwater; appear to list to one side (almost like falling asleep, then resumed swimming approaching surface and sinking (upright) then I found her chilling in the plants, then resting on the bottom.
I see both red spot disease, and 'might be breeding' posts about similar(?) coloration. The other five are schooling and this one sits on the floor.
Tank params: pH ~7.5 (reads min and max on the API tests. well water is ~8, i mix with bottle spring water ~6, and have some ADA aquasoil in the tank) 0/0/~20 (nitrate is orange, not red) Amano shrimps seem fine, have molted. Added 2 drops of Prime over a couple days when I got the amanos a week ago.
If it looks more like injury/disease, what would be treatment? Thanks!

I’ll go first! My cancer had a high success rate, so I didn’t beat the odds exactly, but I am now a professional model and going to my dream school! I am a public speaker and have met with a lot of people in the cancer industry and am hopefully making a difference :)
Also just wanted to say I hope this can be one of the more positive threads in a realist and sometimes scary topic. Please read or respond if you just need support or want to support others!

Last night I had a dream. A really nice dream.
I was getting ready for something, until I just looked in the mirror just before I put my shirt on. I eyed my plump, chubby belly, sticking out and seeping over the waistband of my pants. I just...stared at it. Realizing I was fat. Something I've done in real life many times.
Then someone else walked into the room. A girl I knew from high school whom I had a crush on. She saw me looking at myself and told me I was the most gorgeous man I'd ever seen, and that a big gut wasn't going to change that.
I embraced her tightly as we playfully argued over which of us was better-looking.
Then I woke up, and the moment just vanished.
I felt like shit.
First of all, she has a boyfriend, so fuck me for just seeing her as "mine", good to know where my priorities lie.
And second, it just...makes me feel pathetic. Instead of just trying to get out there and putting in the effort to find love, I just sit here, lying in my bed, hoping I'll just run into "The One" riding her loyal steed.
I want a sense of belonging. Someone to talk to every day. Someone to love and admire and for her to do the same to me. Someone who can make me a better person.
And, yes, I'm only eighteen. I have plenty of time for relationship shit, in my life. But I'm literally the only person in my family above the age of, like, fifteen who does not have a partner. My sister, my cousins, all my aunts and uncles, it makes me feel lazy. And undesirable.
So instead I stay up late and talk to goddamn AIs and listen to ASMRs of women saying they love me like the piece of garbage I am.

Decades ago, in high school, I did something really awful. (Not violent, not threatening, etc., but just mean to one person.) I've felt badly about it for decades. Shortly after that, the other person apologized to me in person (we both got in trouble over the incident, and the other person must have felt as though they did something wrong, too), and I may have apologized to the other person when they apologized to me. I also wrote a letter to the other person a few years ago, apologizing. I also have done a few things to help their community, and I've gotten significant credit for that. But I still feel terribly about what I did.
I looked up the other person online and they live in another city that I visit every now and then, and near where I stay. I also live now near the other person's parents.
They likely all hate me, and they have every right to. But I'd like to let the person know that, as an adult, I am really sorry for what I did. I'm not asking for forgiveness, but I'd like to just let them know that I've totally changed.
Would turning up on the person's or their parent's front door one day to apologize be totally crazy?

So eto gusto ko lang mag post about sa life ko na pagod na ako Galing ako sa pamilya na may kaya naman, pero broken family. Nung bata pa ako kami lang ng totoong mama ko ang magkasama pero suportado ni papa. Tapos kinuha ako nila papa kasi may kalokohan ginawa ang mama ko pero mga nasa around 10-11 years old na ako neto. At simula nun wala na kami connection ng mama ko pero I dont feel bad kasi mas pinili pa niya kalokohan kesa sakin.
Never ko na try magkaroon ng childhood life dahil sa murang edad andami ko na iniisip na hindi dapat iniisip ng isang bata. Ang dami kong tanong. In short naging aware ako sa mga ganap sa buhay ko pero di lang nila alam na ang daming ko naiisip at na rerealize at madami ding tanong na di masagot.
Nung nasa elementary, high school, senior high ako competetive pa ako acads at sa chess fide rating pumapalo palo naman rating ko. Pero di ako santo syempre may bisyo din hehe inom dito inom doon tapos smoke smoke. Btw Graduate na ako recently lang.
Then I have this 1 girl na sobra ko mahal tumagal kami mag almost 3 years, she was my first. to make the story short nag cheat siya, ayun ending nag break kami.
Ngayon naman ang dami ko iniisip sa future ko lalo na ngayon, na parang di ko kakayanin tong board exam, papano pag di ako pumasa, papano kung nag tagal ako na di pa nakakapasa paano na future ko. Stop telling me to pray because never na ako nag pray nung grade 5 ako. F*ck parang gusto ko nalang walang gawin na nakakapagod tong utak na to. Nakaka drain maging ako, Nakakapagod matuto, Nakakapagod magpatuloy sa buhay, nakakapagod lumaban.

just looking for someone to kill some time with.
I'm from canada, and I'm a teacher. So feel free to hit me up with any questions about that.
I also taught English abroad in Korea and Vietnam for a few years which was an amazing experience.
I can really chat about anything, and I'm down for whatever, no limits
Open up a chat and ask me anything!!

I need advice on this topic. I’m going into my freshman year being a varsity wrestler. I went to a 2 week open gym for upcoming wrestlers at my high school and the coach said he saw great potential in me and put me on varsity. Part of me is happy about this and the other part of me is scared and doesn’t wanna try too hard.
It’s not because of the hard work but more about what i’ve seen through my siblings. I have 4 much older siblings. 3 of them is 10+ years and the other is 5 years in age gap. My oldest brother who I’m just gonna call Mike (26M) played football all throughout high school. He was on varsity his freshman year and his senior year he went to state. He got offered on scholarship to play for a school in Nebraska but after one season got a bad shoulder injury that no longer allowed him to play. His scholarship got revoked and with no money to pay for college he was forced to drop out and join the army.
A similar thing happened to my brother who we’ll call Jack (19M) He also played football made varsity sophomore year and was the first sophomore in 30 years to be a varsity captain at his school. I remember going to all his games and seeing how hard he worked. A lot of football players in my middle school even knew and looked up to my brother. When coaches found out I was his little sister they held high expectations for me. Jacks senior year my parents drove him all across the country to go to camps D1 schools that were scouting him were holding. In the end he only got one offer from a D2, no scholarship. This broke Jack. His entire life was football and since he was little he dreamed to play for a big school. He took the same route as Mike and joined the army. With no scholarship and no money it was his only option.
I moved after Jack graduated.
Sports terrify me now. I love and enjoy wrestling but I’m scared to put my all. I feel like if I don’t try as hard and the same thing that happened to Mike and Jack happens to me it won’t hurt that much. I just need some advice on this and what I should do and how I overcome the fear of failure.

What does you and your staff do differently in the playoffs to gameplan/prepare your kids then you usual do regularly?
I've never coached in the playoffs before, I've played for teams that have gone to the playoffs but never really coached at the High School level. I'd appreciate any and all tips for the Playoffs and how to be successful! This is my first year coaching at the HS level and I truly believe that my team can make the playoffs and potentially a run to Regionals if things shake our way.