As an observer who has had the opportunity to visit various wedding resorts in Daman, one can attest to the provision of excellent service by these establishments.
The wedding resorts in Daman display a deep understanding of the significance of weddings and make dedicated efforts to ensure that couples and their guests have unforgettable experiences. The staff members are known for their attentiveness, friendliness, and willingness to go above and beyond to ensure the smooth execution of every event.
They are readily available to offer valuable assistance throughout the entire wedding planning process, aiding in the selection of ideal venues, catering options, and personalized decor that perfectly aligns with the couple's preferences.
Additionally, these resorts often employ experienced wedding planners who provide expert guidance, alleviating unnecessary stress for the soon-to-be-wedded couple. From managing guest accommodations to coordinating transportation and collaborating with vendors, the wedding resorts in Daman are well-prepared to meet all the needs and expectations of their clients.
Thus, those considering a wedding resort in Daman can expect top-notch service tailored to their every requirement.

Doing my first event and I’d like to ask for some advice on lighting. I have a TTL Speedlight so far but that’s it. I can’t seem to find a clear consensus on what equipment is common to bring to an event.
It’s a formal drinks reception type thing in a hotel event space. I’m considering getting an on camera modifier like a Flashbender, and using that in combo with bounce lighting off walls. Would you use direct flash with a Flashbender though? I heard it produces good catchlights but surely that requires pointing it at the subject rather than bouncing. I don’t plan on using the light for every shot, depending on ambient light levels.
Also, is it required to have a tungsten gel if the venue lights are tungsten? Or do most event photographers go without and set white balance for the subject?
Should mention it will be all on-camera.
Thanks

Discord Username: JB Allye#1218
Character Name and House: Stanton Swann
Appearance: Stanton Swann is an older man, regal in bearing and strong-backed despite his mostly-grayed hairs and wizened eyes. He stands a bit shorter than the average knight, five foot and ten with a lean and powerful frame honed by constant exercise and battle. Scars line his body beneath plate, male and cloth, and a blade wound traces a white streak from the left side of his neck nearly to his ear.
Age: 45
Gift: Leadership
Skills: Strategist(e), Tactician, Cautious, Covert
Talents: Running, Horse breaking, Swimming
Starting Titles: Lord of Stonehelm
Starting Location: King's Landing, with Quentyn Baratheon.
Family Tree:

• Stanton Swann (MC) - 162 AC
• Carolei Estermont (spouse) - 169 AC
  • Shirei Swann (AC) - 187 AC
  • Serra Swann - 197 AC
  • Sylva Swann- 206 AC

Biography

"Shelter Beneath Our Wing"
Stanton Swann was born in the first moon of the year 162 AC to the Lord Ryger Swann and his wife, Lady Lynesse. He was the second born of their children, but the first to survive past his first year, and he bore his elder brother's name. An altogether normal child, at least by most standards, Stanton grew up healthy and mostly happy, though not without challenges. Ryger Swann was a harsh taskmaster and an equally stern father, and though Stanton would not be a man until his sixteenth year, he wasn't a 'boy' by his ninth.
Stanton took to his harsh instruction well, and though he was not the most skilled warrior in the Seven Kingdoms (not even the most skilled in his own keep), he was a very intelligent young man above all else, something that his father both appreciated and cultivated in the boy. In matters of state, he was competent, in matters of court, he excelled, but it was in tactics and warcraft that the boy showed his genius. His father, no slouch in command himself, was overshadowed by the son, and he hardly minded. Instead, he simply drilled the boy further.
By now, though, it was time for the future Lord Stanton to start doing the business of Lords, and part of that was squiring for a worthy knight. That worthy knight was Brus Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End, and while not as harsh as Ryger Swann, Brus didn't take it easy on the boy. In his own words, he knew 'the lad can take it'. Take it he did. Stanton proved a worthy second to the Lord Baratheon, and along the way would cross paths with, and befriend, his son, who he affectionately knew as 'Billy'. Though Billy himself would be afield as a squire, they spent some time together as children that would only become more common as they both stepped into lordship.
After his ascent to knighthood, and with it, his ascent to manhood, Stanton would return home a different figure than he was when he left. He walked with a newfound confidence and ease about him, with the look in his eye of a young man who had supreme faith in his own abilities and poise. Already a strapping young man, this made him something of a heartthrob within court, and he had no shortage of flirtations with various women of the realm in his wilder years. One such conquest, and the one nearest to his heart, was Carolei Estermont, second daughter of the Lord of Greenstone. Arranged to marry a Rosby man, Stanton would charm her into breaking her arrangements and eloping with him to be wed in Stonehelm, and through means that no man or woman in the House of Stonehelm can decipher to this very day, he was somehow able to convince the Estermonts that he'd done them a favor. Alas, the marriage was far less eventful than the courtship. Despite... vigorous attempts, the two could not seem to conceive, and Stanton worried that the troubles that plagued his own parents with their children had been passed down to him, after a fashion.
Sadly, the life of a lord is not all flirtations and dalliances. Soon enough, Theory would become Practice, and Stanton marched to war for the first time at the age of 24... alongside his friend, the Lord William Baratheon. Stanton was no warrior, or at least, not a particularly outstanding one, but as a tactician he was immaculate. Mostly an outrider for the Marcher forces accompanying the host, Stanton would claim few notable scalps of his own, but his men would demolish the flanks of the opposing force in concert with the royal army, and he would quickly acquit himself well as a leader of men, earning praise from his father and his fellow Lords alike. What few were willing to talk about openly, including Stanton, was his other, more... unsavory activities in the war. Stanton was the leader of the forces ordered to flush the would-be-usurper out of hiding in the Dornish villages and countryside, and he took to the task with grim determination, hunting his quarry with a viciousness and ruthlessness that disturbed his men, though they followed their orders without much protest. Many scars still line the Boneway, and Stanton can claim credit for a troubling number of them.
Though his father would linger on for five more years after the Red War, he would abdicate his seat in favor of Stanton due to his advanced age, leaving the 25 year old as the Lord of Stonehelm. By this time, he had finally had a child, born while he was away at war. A hearty baby girl, who his mother named Shirei. Stanton, uncharacteristically, was rather miffed at the situation. Seven years he'd been wed, and after seven years of trying the gods saw fit to spite him with a daughter. He would never share his feelings with his wife and daughter, however, instead doting on her in the same fashion he doted on his wife. Despite his actions in the war, the image presented to the realm was one of a devoted husband, a devout knight, a fair lord, and a loving father.
All that would subtly begin to change.
As he aged, Stanton would continue trying for a male heir, but once again, a long drought would plague his line. In that time period, William would be blessed with a family of his own, something that caused no end of private envy in Stanton, though he dared not speak it aloud, out of love for his dear friend. He would quickly take to the heir to the house of Storm's End, Quentyn, and even at his young age Stanton treated the boy with the same love and respect he held for his father.
That said, Stanton's subtle descent continued. Conflicts with the Marchers of the Reach over their new conquests drove a wedge between former allies, and Stanton was quite vocal of his personal distrust of their former comrades-in-arms, a position he still holds to this day with much more vitriol. Once a gregarious and outgoing man, Stanton would slowly become reclusive and stern, much like his father. A public feud with Richard Morrigan drew censure from William, and similarly verbose and public displays of vitriol towards their Reachman neighbors only served to make it clear that something was very wrong with Stanton Swann.
That wrongness would only elevate further with time. As he grew older, Stanton became paranoid that the Marcher Lords of the Reach were spying on their Stormlander neighbors, a belief that he came to hold so closely that he would pace the floors at night, seeking anyone who acted suspiciously. A long-time family servant, Lyle, would be found to be acting 'suspiciously' one night, and rather than act reasonably,... Stanton would beat the elderly man to death with a fire iron...in front of his daughter. As it turned out, Lyle had been skimming from the Swann coffers to afford better accommodation for his family, but Stanton had no proof of such a thing, or even a suspicion of it, before killing the man.
Stanton's new demeanor was not a temporary fit, and his episodes have continued, though much more commonly in private now, as William was able to convince his longtime friend to ease his temper, if only somewhat, and the one thing that hasn't changed about Stanton in his later years is his love for 'old Billy boy'. Even going into his fortieth year, the man had no sons, only two more daughters to his name, which meant that unless there were some miracle, Shirei would be the executor of his will and estate, if not the Lady of the house, as he himself had only one brother, and that brother is a Maester. Atop all this, his daughter was hardly a 'catch', a plain, mannish woman much like her father in her stoicism but not nearly as intellectually inclined. If anything, he wished more that Quentyn Baratheon, or Damon Morrigen, the nephew of his hated rival Richard, could be his son, but alas, such a thing was impossible.
Now an aging, bitter man, Stanton Swann turns his attention towards his legacy, that of a good man turned a bitter, wizened butcher by war and time. Skirmishes alongside the Carons against the Dornish, border disputes with the Reachman, and the appointment of his dear friend William as Hand of the King loom large over his head along with the state of his house, and Stanton has come to a realization. He cannot die without a male heir. He mustn't. And he would do anything, and he meant anything, to make that happen.
Even things that no sane man should consider.

AC

Character Name and House: Shirei Swann
Age: 21
Appearance: Shirei is a tall and lean girl that looks much like her father when he was a younger man. with a slight figure, sharp features, and deep brown eyes. She has a few scars of her own from afield and minor accidents with the family sword, but otherwise remains an unassuming, if not particularly beautiful woman.
Gift: Champion
Skills: Swords (e), Defender
Talent(s): Swimming, Singing, Woodworking
Starting Title(s): Heir to Stonehelm
Starting Location: King's Landing, with the Hand.
Note: Shirei is the current bearer of Swan's Song.

Biography

Shirei Swann is the first of the three daughters of Stanton and Carolei Swann, and from birth she was always a strong, boyish little thing, though not as much so as she is now. Stanton and his wife doted on her, as any good parents would, and Shirei grew up loved and healthy, surrounded by care and comfort. Among her household servants, an old man named Lyle, who had seen her father reared, was her favorite, and the old man would constantly watch over the little Lady as she played in the yard or caroused around court.
Shirei never knew her father as the world had known him before his turn for bitterness and hatred, only seeing how others reacted to the man. With her, he was mostly gentle, though sometimes his temper got the better of him, or he was harsher with her than was warranted. The man never struck her, never abused her, the most he did was perhaps raise his tone to her a bit too harshly, and he would always apologize upon doing so, assuring her that it was not her fault that he was troubled so. She believed him, of course. She loved her father dearly.
Alas, this perception of her father was colored dramatically by the death of her first and oldest friend. She was hardly ten when Lyle was caught 'acting unusually' by her father and beaten bloody before her, her mother, and her then infant sister Serra. The beating was an uncomfortably long one- Lyle, an old and frail man by now, was dead long before Stanton stopped swinging the iron. The experience traumatized young Shirei, and she's never quite gotten past it. She also hardly believed the tale that Lyle had stolen from the family coffers.
Aside from that, however, her childhood was fairly typical, though not entirely so. Family friendship with the Baratheons meant that Shirei spent some time around Quentyn, and she envied the heir of Storm's End's skill at arms, learning the sword and shield to better accompany him in the yard and join in on his carousing, whenever he stayed in Stonehelm for a short time. The same would be said for Damon Morrigen, nephew of her father's most heated and hated rival at court, who she bore very little ill will towards. In fact, as they were both about the age where one begins to think of such things, Shirei quite fancied him, though as the heirs of their respective houses, such a match was all but impossible.
Stanton did not discourage his daughter's pursuit of arms, especially when she showed quite the knack for it, and grew into a rather tall and lean woman, taller than him in fact. He didn't encourage it, either. If anything, to Shirei's dismay, the man seemed utterly indifferent, passing off onto her the family sword, Swan's Song, and telling her not to do something stupid.
Now a woman grown, unwed at twenty, and positioned that she may one day lead a House Swann that has alienated all but its closest friends, Shirei is uncharacteristically nervous under her mask of stoic acceptance. Fearing for her father's declining mental state and her own place in the wider world, Shirei nonetheless does what she sees as her duty. Currently, she's petioned her father to remain in King's Landing, partly out of loyalty to her 'Uncle Billy', and partly out of a desire to be away from her father for some time.
​

Timeline

• 162 AC, First Moon: Stanton Swann is born
• 170-174 AC: Stanton Swann is drilled relentlessly in warcraft and tactics by his father, Ryger. Ryger approves of the boy, and calls him a genius.
• 174-178 AC: Stanton Swann is squired under Brus Baratheon, and serves under him for a short time as a sworn sword, before returning home as a knight.
• 180 AC: Stanton Swann elopes with Carolei Estermont, and weds her, to a fair bit of controversy. Said controversy is resolved peacefully and without issue.
• 186-187 AC: Stanton Swann serves in the Red War under the command of his friend, William Baratheon, and while away on campaign, his daughter, Shirei, is born. Stanton commits to the massacre of multiple Dornish villages while on campaign.
• 190-195: Stanton Swann begins to noticeably change in demeanor, becoming more belligerent with fellow Stormlords such as Richard Morrigen and with the Marchers of the Reach, resulting in public censure from William Baratheon. He no longer causes public incidents after this, but outburts continue behind closed doors.
• 197: Stanton's second daughter, Serra, is born, after nearly a decade of attempting. Stanton, catching one of his servants 'acting unusually' in the small hours, beats him to death in full view of his family, who are awoken by the sound of shouting and a scuffle. Stanton's relationship with Shirei is permanently damaged by these events.
• 202: Stanton comes to the aid of Lord Caron during border skirmishes with the Vulture King, and fights alongside Quentyn Baratheon and his daughter. After these battles, Stanton bequeaths the family's Valyrian Steel blade, Swan's Song, to Shirei.
• 206: Stanton's third daughter, and likely final, Sylva, is born. Due to the strain of the pregnancy on the aging Carolei, she asks that they stop trying, and love their daughters. Stanton acquiesces. Stanton begins searching for means to extend his life.
• 207: Stanton and Shirei travel to King's Landing to celebrate Willian's appointment as Hand of the King.

I am seeking advice from anyone who can relate in any way, but mostly need to vent because this stuff actually lays heavy on me.
So, I (28f) have 2 siblings. My older sister (36), and younger brother (26). My parents have been together since they were 17. However their relationship/marriage has been anything but exemplary. My dad has always been very physically abusive towards my mother. I lived in one of those households where everyone feared my dad. Given my sister is 8 years older than I am, she witnessed and experienced way more in my home than I ever did in those short years before I was born. I have memories of seeing my dad beating my mom and sister on numerous occasions and for any reason. Sometimes it felt like he didn’t even need a reason. However, things in my household worked like a slinky going down stairs sometimes; where my dad would hurt my mom, my mom would in turn become offensive towards my sister and she turned around and was slightly abusive towards me. I was pretty depressed from an early age. For a period of time when I was small I truly felt like my family didn’t love me and I would often pretend to run away. My family found it funny at the time (I was probably about 5 or 6 when I felt this the most). My sis ended up leaving the house at 18, which was somewhat of a relief for me because she was always picking on me. A whole lot has changed since I was little. My dad is still a grouch, but he hasn’t hit my mom or anyone else since I was about 18. He grew up in a family that cusses a whole lot, and he remains that way to this day. But compared to all the physical stuff, words are just words at my parents house now. I’m sure anyone in that house would prefer to tolerate verbal abuse over anything else we have lived through on any given day.
It wasn’t until I was about 16 that my sister started showing more interest in building a closer relationship with me. Despite the way she used to treat me, it felt nice to finally have a good relationship with her. So we became close. She would let me in on the family secrets and gossip, and we would talk about our lives growing up. Eventually I brought up what she put me through as a kid in a conversation and she apologized. She also told me she had gone through the same type of conversation with my parents, where she confronted them for the way she was brought up. From what I gathered, there were lots of tears and apologies from both my parents.
Her family started growing pretty rapidly around that time, and as a single aunt I absolutely adored her children. She ended up moving to a neighboring city (about a 30 min drive), and it became slightly harder to visit her because of the distance. I basically went from being at her house every week- because she was about a 7 min walking distance away- to only being able to go over about once every 3 or 4 months due to the fact that our schedules hardly ever line up now. Sadly, I feel like we aren’t very close anymore.
Now to update you on more recent years; my sister now has 3 kids (16, 8, and 6). My younger brother has two kids (4 and 1), and I also have two kiddos (5 and 1). My brother- being 2 years younger- has always had the closest bond with me. We did everything together growing up, and now that we have kids all relatively close in age, we hangout about once a week or are in constant communication (we communicate through meme sharing on IG). Lol. My brother and I have a pretty close relationship with my mom. When we get together its nice. We have become a little tight knit family and help each other out whenever we need it. My dad and my sister have sort of decided to isolate themselves from the rest of the family though. My sis is very much “the black sheep” of our family, and my dad would rather just be alone. Speaking to him feels slightly awkward as he doesn’t really initiate conversation or express any interest in us. I feel like he might even be depressed, but because he has never really shown any true love for his family, none of us really bother to check up on him much. Still, I actually feel a little guilty for that too.
Things haven’t really started to bother me about my family until recently. Almost two years ago I got pregnant with my second child. Then a few months later we found out my brother was also expecting a child with his wife. Everyone was excited and of course we shared this news with our older sister, and she seemed happy for us when we announced it to her. However, she was a complete no show for both of our baby showers with zero explanations. We tried not to feel sour about it even though we knew for a fact she was off from work on those exact days. Then fast forward to this past winter. I got married. The venue we had chosen was coincidentally down the street from her house, literally like a 2 minute drive. However, she only stayed at the event long enough for me to see that she was present and she just upped and left with her whole family almost right after the whole bouquet toss thing. According to my brother who was sitting at the same table as her and her family, she left without even saying a word. I also wanted to mention how my father was nicely planted on a chair throughout most of the reception, and didn’t talk to anyone at all. He kinda just stared off into space or was fidgeting with a napkin on the table every time I caught a glimpse of him. I don’t know if I’m making it a bigger deal than it really was, but overall it was hard to not be a bit upset at them. I had a blast at my wedding regardless of this. I sure as heck wasn’t about to allow that from ruining what is supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life.
Then, after that it has just been nothing but no shows for the most part from both my sister and my Father. - My kids’ bday celebration held earlier this year; both didn’t show. - Easter family gathering; again. Both of them didn’t show. - My brother and his daughter’s bday celebration; Our dad finally showed. Sister did not.
At this point, my brother is fed up of trying to include our sister or our father in anything. Both have shown that they clearly don’t want to be involved in anything we do as a family. Even when it comes to doing something as simple as texting them just to know how they are… if someone else from the family doesn’t initiate the text, we will literally never hear from either of them. However, the only reason I keep insisting that we shouldn’t stop inviting her is because her children love spending time with us and all their little cousins. I have literally heard all of them begging their mom to bring them over to spend time with us. Not to mention that I have a pretty close relationship with my teenage niece (She kinda sees me as her ‘cool auntie’ and closest family member).
Should I just let my sister be? Should I keep pushing this idea that we could all one day become one big happy family? Like, it literally breaks my heart to think about our children not growing up around each other. The very few times that we have gotten together as a big family, it was so awesome. Everyone was so happy. I think?
I really don’t know what to think of all this. Any thoughts or advice on what to do would be nice. Sorry if this became very long to read or hard to follow. I just feel so strongly about my family and my thoughts about them are so jumbled.

I am seeking advice from anyone who can relate in any way, but mostly need to vent because this stuff actually lays heavy on me.
So, I (28f) have 2 siblings. My older sister (36), and younger brother (26). My parents have been together since they were 17. However their relationship/marriage has been anything but exemplary. My dad has always been very physically abusive towards my mother. I lived in one of those households where everyone feared my dad. Given my sister is 8 years older than I am, she witnessed and experienced way more in my home than I ever did in those short years before I was born. I have memories of seeing my dad beating my mom and sister on numerous occasions and for any reason. Sometimes it felt like he didn’t even need a reason. However, things in my household worked like a slinky going down stairs sometimes; where my dad would hurt my mom, my mom would in turn become offensive towards my sister and she turned around and was slightly abusive towards me. I was pretty depressed from an early age. For a period of time when I was small I truly felt like my family didn’t love me and I would often pretend to run away. My family found it funny at the time (I was probably about 5 or 6 when I felt this the most). My sis ended up leaving the house at 18, which was somewhat of a relief for me because she was always picking on me. A whole lot has changed since I was little. My dad is still a grouch, but he hasn’t hit my mom or anyone else since I was about 18. He grew up in a family that cusses a whole lot, and he remains that way to this day. But compared to all the physical stuff, words are just words at my parents house now. I’m sure anyone in that house would prefer to tolerate verbal abuse over anything else we have lived through on any given day.
It wasn’t until I was about 16 that my sister started showing more interest in building a closer relationship with me. Despite the way she used to treat me, it felt nice to finally have a good relationship with her. So we became close. She would let me in on the family secrets and gossip, and we would talk about our lives growing up. Eventually I brought up what she put me through as a kid in a conversation and she apologized. She also told me she had gone through the same type of conversation with my parents, where she confronted them for the way she was brought up. From what I gathered, there were lots of tears and apologies from both my parents.
Her family started growing pretty rapidly around that time, and as a single aunt I absolutely adored her children. She ended up moving to a neighboring city (about a 30 min drive), and it became slightly harder to visit her because of the distance. I basically went from being at her house every week- because she was about a 7 min walking distance away- to only being able to go over about once every 3 or 4 months due to the fact that our schedules hardly ever line up now. Sadly, I feel like we aren’t very close anymore.
Now to update you on more recent years; my sister now has 3 kids (16, 8, and 6). My younger brother has two kids (4 and 1), and I also have two kiddos (5 and 1). My brother- being 2 years younger- has always had the closest bond with me. We did everything together growing up, and now that we have kids all relatively close in age, we hangout about once a week or are in constant communication (we communicate through meme sharing on IG). Lol. My brother and I have a pretty close relationship with my mom. When we get together its nice. We have become a little tight knit family and help each other out whenever we need it. My dad and my sister have sort of decided to isolate themselves from the rest of the family though. My sis is very much “the black sheep” of our family, and my dad would rather just be alone. Speaking to him feels slightly awkward as he doesn’t really initiate conversation or express any interest in us. I feel like he might even be depressed, but because he has never really shown any true love for his family, none of us really bother to check up on him much. Still, I actually feel a little guilty for that too.
Things haven’t really started to bother me about my family until recently. Almost two years ago I got pregnant with my second child. Then a few months later we found out my brother was also expecting a child with his wife. Everyone was excited and of course we shared this news with our older sister, and she seemed happy for us when we announced it to her. However, she was a complete no show for both of our baby showers with zero explanations. We tried not to feel sour about it even though we knew for a fact she was off from work on those exact days. Then fast forward to this past winter. I got married. The venue we had chosen was coincidentally down the street from her house, literally like a 2 minute drive. However, she only stayed at the event long enough for me to see that she was present and she just upped and left with her whole family almost right after the whole bouquet toss thing. According to my brother who was sitting at the same table as her and her family, she left without even saying a word. I also wanted to mention how my father was nicely planted on a chair throughout most of the reception, and didn’t talk to anyone at all. He kinda just stared off into space or was fidgeting with a napkin on the table every time I caught a glimpse of him. I don’t know if I’m making it a bigger deal than it really was, but overall it was hard to not be a bit upset at them. I had a blast at my wedding regardless of this. I sure as heck wasn’t about to allow that from ruining what is supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life.
Then, after that it has just been nothing but no shows for the most part from both my sister and my Father. - My kids’ bday celebration held earlier this year; both didn’t show. - Easter family gathering; again. Both of them didn’t show. - My brother and his daughter’s bday celebration; Our dad finally showed. Sister did not.
At this point, my brother is fed up of trying to include our sister or our father in anything. Both have shown that they clearly don’t want to be involved in anything we do as a family. Even when it comes to doing something as simple as texting them just to know how they are… if someone else from the family doesn’t initiate the text, we will literally never hear from either of them. However, the only reason I keep insisting that we shouldn’t stop inviting her is because her children love spending time with us and all their little cousins. I have literally heard all of them begging their mom to bring them over to spend time with us. Not to mention that I have a pretty close relationship with my teenage niece (She kinda sees me as her ‘cool auntie’ and closest family member).
Should I just let my sister be? Should I keep pushing this idea that we could all one day become one big happy family? Like, it literally breaks my heart to think about our children not growing up around each other. The very few times that we have gotten together as a big family, it was so awesome. Everyone was so happy. I think?
I really don’t know what to think of all this. Any thoughts or advice on what to do would be nice. Sorry if this became very long to read or hard to follow. I just feel so strongly about my family and my thoughts about them are so jumbled.

Hello!
Here is my feedback to the developers of MTGA which I would like for them to read and probably do something with it. This post is solely devoted to the non-core part of the game, which I consider to be a premium part of it: cosmetics. Let me start with the most recent events.

1. Pre-orders

Now with the LotR preorders out we can compare them with what we had before. For 2 sets, starting from ONE, we had a split preorder which was known before that as Play bundle which was targeting those who don't want to buy packs (mostly those, who builds their collection through the drafts). I will still consider both play + pass bundle as one bundle since that's how I buy and it makes the comparison easier.
Both ONE and MOM play bundles were of the same value:

• Sealed token
• 2 draft tokens
• 5 Play-In Points
• 2 different mythic card art sleeves
• 2 different mythic cards + their styles
• Unique pet
• Mastery Pass

And compare it to the LotR preorder:

• Sealed token
• 2 draft tokens
• 5 Play-In Points
• Mythic card art sleeves
• Mythic card + style
• Mastery Pass

So if we pre-order LotR we lose a mythic card, its parallax style and a pet. If you take the pet's value from the store we are missing out on (1200 + 3000 + price_of_the_mythic_card) ~= 4200 gems or 20$. So we buy essentially the same product which we bought previously but now we are getting 20$ less content from a bundle which costs 40$. So get basically half of what you usually get. Not cool.
Yes, the pre-order can still be considered good in terms of gems-to-$ but it doesn't matter to me, because I felt like we had a contract which terms won't be worse as we proceed. Yes we didn't signed anything but since the things have been the same for some years I used to some particular treatment and wouldn't mind the terms to improve. But when the terms deteriorated it left me confused to say the least. That's why I choose not to buy any of the pre-orders this time (first time since IKO!): you violated the contract so I have to abstain from buying it, even if I want to—I just can't condone such a behavior. And given that my main game formats are Historic + Alchemy + Limited I'm the target audience for this set and pre-order, what an irony.
So whoever is in charge of this change just lost a customer who has been buying the product for 3 years (apart from me not playing during VOW-SNC). And even if the next set is done better than this one, like the old ones, the damage is still done, you lost some of the goodwill. From now on the pre-orders are no longer must buy for me. Nice!ly done.

2. Daily deals

Since the DD has been introduced we had the following unwritten contract:

• 40-50% off the most recent cards (mostly 50% with occasional 40%).
• 50-75% off the older cards.
• Occasional, but not rare, 80-95% off some card. Cards usually playable.
• All rare duals/triome land parallax styles within ~2 weeks of the set release. All at once for 50% off.

Personal story of how I dealt with these deals. I bought all the lands. Bought all the 60%+ outside of the cards I deemed unplayable. Bought most of the 50% if I could imagine playing some of these cards later. Many of the cards I ended up never using but that was ok. Also I was unwilling to spend more than 3000 gems per day, just a personal quirk. I spent a lot on DD styles. Anyway, it was always fun to check the DD every day and read what other people think about the cards offered: what is playable, how good they are etc.
Of course, there was a room for improvement for the DDs: more thematic sales, like tribals, deck that won something, most played cards in this month etc. (like a few days ago was the best deal in months, featuring Creativity card styles; both discount and card selection were great). Instead, some 7-8 months ago you broke this contract and filled the DD with uplayable cards, which sometimes are not playable even in the corresponding draft format, accompanied by the bad discounts.
Now we have 20%-40% for the new and old cards alike. Most of the time the card selection is boring even for bigger discount. There is nothing to read about the deals because it is mostly gloom and despair. In ONE you didn't even sell all the rare dual land styles which never happened before! I don't know what numbers are telling you but as far as I'm concerned you almost killed the thing that needed an improvement and it is sad. Why almost? Because I still have hope.
Now personal story of how my dealing changed. I do not buy anymore styles which I won't play today or tomorrow. They became expensive and I don't want to buy them. Only what is necessary I buy. And it doesn't matter anymore if it is 50% today because I know that everything else will be expensive tomorrow so I'd rather keep my money for what I really need. For example, recently the MOM Kogla card was offered for 50% and while before it was a snap buy (because I see myself playing it in some unknown-yet deck), now I just abstained because right now I don't have or see the deck I want to put it in. With this change I mostly stopped using gems to buy styles because the rare occasions I buy them, I can use gold which keeps growing for having nothing else to spend it on. Since the DD has been introduced I almost never had gold on my account until 6-8 months ago. Now I almost always have it. Oops.

3. Card styles

And finally I want to point out the most egregious part of the negligence toward the premium content and us, buyers. Implementation of the so called depth art card styles, or parallax styles as we, MTGA people, call it. Here are the problems with them that I know of.

3.1 Styles exist/existed but not applied to the cards.

There are many cards which were lacking styles before these styles were added through the spellbooks or conjuring of the corresponding digital-only cards (aka Alchemy). Most of them were also applied to the older cards but not all of them. Cards like Colossus Hammer, Blood Artist and Youthful Valkyrie all have styles implemented but you can't buy/apply these styles to the existing standalone cards. That should be fixed.
NOTE: this and later lists are not comprehensive and are here to illustrate the problem, not to build an exhaustive list of all the problems. I'd appreciate (and hope the devs would too) if you improve these lists by commenting with the cards these lists are lacking.

3.2 Styles for the tokens.

While you seem to have some kind of diligence as far as main cards are concerned you seem to casually ignore tokens which these cards are producing. The most egregious example is the release of MOM where no card generates a parallax token. Not a single one. The main theme with incubators and none of them are implemented properly. Guys, that's really really bad. You seem to not understand that for us, buyers, the token is as important as the main card. And I'm not just talking about cards like Sunfall or Ral's Reinforcement where it should be obvious. I'm talking about consistency: I want my part of the board to look consistent, which means all the permanents on my side should not have borders.
If I have cards that I can't make lose borders then the consistency dies and I stop caring about other cards, essentially making me not wanting to buy anything at all! One more time: tokens are as important as the main card, they all should be parallaxed. And if some card, having parallax style, produces non-parallax token then it should be considered a bug which has to be fixed. We don't know if the card worked before or not and we shouldn't bother to know that: no style, report, get it fixed. As simple as that; for everyone.
Speaking of which the following list presents you with the cards (category of cards, really) which used to produce the styled tokens but not anymore (and for some this "anymore" is how long, year, more than a year?): Wedding Announcement (staple card in virtually any white deck in Standard!), Verdant Command (squirrels), DnD treasures (Prosperous Innkeeper and many other playable cards), Legion's Landing. Is this list exhaustive? I don't think so but these I came up with anyway. What should we do with the styles we bought months ago? Should we ask for refund en mass? Thinking...
And there is another list of playable cards which to my knowledge never produced styled tokens: Saprolings (Slimefoot and Squee is now a playable card, sapros should be styled), Devils from “Ob Nixilis, The Adversary”, Rhino for Titan Of Industry, Cats & Dogs from Jinnie Fay, Angels from Resplendent Angel (staple in the angels).
So 2 lists, the first one is full of bugs the second is full of job-not-done. I know that, because I'm curious and have been playing this game for long. Average user doesn't and shouldn't know that. So for the avg user both lists should be the same: bugs. And bugs should be fixed. Since these bugs are in the premium content they should be fixed ASAP. The only thing that outclasses it is the core gameplay. And for these bugs there should be a separate category on a normal bug tracker where people can get some feedback, not this seemingly abandoned self-hosted User Voice where you post to oblivion.

3.3. Non-existent styles for the staple cards.

Now let's go to the territory of missed opportunities. The following list contains the list of cards which are staple in meta decks but never had the styles for them added:
Munitions Expert, Reckless Charge, Shoreline Scout's conjured Land, Regal Force from Freyalise, Sterling Grove, Parhellion II, Damping Sphere, Elvish Clancaller.
And here is another list with not staples but solid cards which saw and still see play in probably not tier 1 but solid competitor decks: Dwynen's Elite, Spawn Of Mayhem, Legion's Lieutenant, Champion of Dusk, Vicious Conquistador, Herald's Horn, Shaper's Sanctuary, Archon of Emeria.
And finally to some interesting example which we had with SIS (bonus-sheet subset to Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered, or SIR). We have styles for Falkenrath Noble, Kruin Outlaw and Barter in Blood but don't have styles for Snapcaster Mage, Avacyn's Pilgrim (and/or Young Wolf), Griselbrand. 3 whatever cards have styles while 3 playables with 2 of them iconic (?) do not. Who planned the implementation of these styles? Good game.
So this section is about missing opportunities. Why? Because you fail to present me with the options to buy. I want to buy styles in general but I snap buy the styles for the staple cards I can play every day and in multiple decks. We have tons of cards, mostly from the time when there were no paralax styles, still not implemented. But with SIR & SIS we had a newly introduced to Arena set which has most of the cards unstyled. Not cool.
I get it, you have only so much you can do with the resources you have. I really do and if you can't for some reason style every card from the past let's implement the priority queue where we, the users, will vote for what should be implemented next. You create a list of all the not-implemented card styles and we vote. You implement the top-voted style and remove it from the poll. That way we will see progress, have influence on what should be done next and you will see what styles people are not interested in and can be safely ignored. Implemented styles should be put into the patch notes so we know when to come back and vote again.
So that's how I see the final solution:

1. All new-to-Magic sets should be fully styled. It is your face, it is what new and casual users will meet with first. You can't tolerate half-baked premium content there.
2. New-to-Arena (but not to Magic, like SIR) should be fully styled if possible. If not then the priority should be deduced from the MTGO data (or other data you think is better) of the most playable cards in the formats Arena has some access to (Explorer ~ Pioneer, Modern ~ Historic, Historic Brawl ~ Commander) and implemented accordingly. The rest should be added to the vox populi list of delayed implementation.

3.4 A few words about other styles.

Sagas is another thing that is a bit controversial and inconsistent. Most of them are not parallaxed and, in my opinion, the saga permanent itself should not be parallaxed. It doesn't need this treatment they are good as is. But some of them still should have parallax styles. Why? Because some of them produce tokens or transform. You had Tymaret Calls the Dead parallax style implemented which reflects on the saga but not tokens. Instead it should produce parallax tokens and the saga itself can be unstyled (anyone have other opinion on that?). The same goes to other token generating sagas like History of Benalia and others. But the more important ones are the NEO sagas which transform into creatures. While, again, the saga permanent doesn't need to be parallaxed the resulting creature should.
So when you implemented everything mentioned in this post I will finally being able to have my side of the board fully styled in one consistent style. For which I paid real money because there is no way for a f2p player to style their decks fully and consistently. As far as I'm concerned it is a win-win for both parties. Because the other way to have your side of the board consistent is to not have styles at all. And that is lose-lose for me and you.
--
The last topic I'd like to touch is parallax lands. IIRC the last parallaxed non-full art basic lands were implemented in Eldraine and then you stopped (snow lands in KHM were also gorgeous). The only full-art lands which got parallax styles were Nyx lands from THB. It is the other thing that you are missing out: probably not every set has beautiful basics but LotR has some, why not implement the parallax lands there? Same goes to some full art lands. I get it that you need a square to have the land looks cool but some of them can be cut to squares and still look good, so maybe experiment some? Lands are sellers, aren't they?
Personally, I stopped buying lands after THB because they have borders. I really like my THB lands but don't mind to buy some others to have some diversity across the decks. Oh, and give the people who wasn't lucky playing during THB an opportunity to buy these parallaxed lands. Take their money they are throwing at you!
Anyway my long feedback post is finally over, not that I don't have anything more to say, I just think it is enough for now. I hope u/WotC_Jay and other people responsible for making decisions for this game will read it in words and spirit. If I was harsh in some words, I don't really meant it that way. I wish this game all the best and hence this post. But only you can make it happen, so...
Your Go

I am seeking advice from anyone who can relate in any way, but mostly need to vent because this stuff actually lays heavy on me.
So, I (28f) have 2 siblings. My older sister (36), and younger brother (26). My parents have been together since they were 17. However their relationship/marriage has been anything but exemplary. My dad has always been very physically abusive towards my mother. I lived in one of those households where everyone feared my dad. Given my sister is 8 years older than I am, she witnessed and experienced way more in my home than I ever did in those short years before I was born. I have memories of seeing my dad beating my mom and sister on numerous occasions and for any reason. Sometimes it felt like he didn’t even need a reason. However, things in my household worked like a slinky going down stairs sometimes; where my dad would hurt my mom, my mom would in turn become offensive towards my sister and she turned around and was slightly abusive towards me. I was pretty depressed from an early age. For a period of time when I was small I truly felt like my family didn’t love me and I would often pretend to run away. My family found it funny at the time (I was probably about 5 or 6 when I felt this the most). My sis ended up leaving the house at 18, which was somewhat of a relief for me because she was always picking on me. A whole lot has changed since I was little. My dad is still a grouch, but he hasn’t hit my mom or anyone else since I was about 18. He grew up in a family that cusses a whole lot, and he remains that way to this day. But compared to all the physical stuff, words are just words at my parents house now. I’m sure anyone in that house would prefer to tolerate verbal abuse over anything else we have lived through on any given day.
It wasn’t until I was about 16 that my sister started showing more interest in building a closer relationship with me. Despite the way she used to treat me, it felt nice to finally have a good relationship with her. So we became close. She would let me in on the family secrets and gossip, and we would talk about our lives growing up. Eventually I brought up what she put me through as a kid in a conversation and she apologized. She also told me she had gone through the same type of conversation with my parents, where she confronted them for the way she was brought up. From what I gathered, there were lots of tears and apologies from both my parents.
Her family started growing pretty rapidly around that time, and as a single aunt I absolutely adored her children. She ended up moving to a neighboring city (about a 30 min drive), and it became slightly harder to visit her because of the distance. I basically went from being at her house every week- because she was about a 7 min walking distance away- to only being able to go over about once every 3 or 4 months due to the fact that our schedules hardly ever line up now. Sadly, I feel like we aren’t very close anymore.
Now to update you on more recent years; my sister now has 3 kids (16, 8, and 6). My younger brother has two kids (4 and 1), and I also have two kiddos (5 and 1). My brother- being 2 years younger- has always had the closest bond with me. We did everything together growing up, and now that we have kids all relatively close in age, we hangout about once a week or are in constant communication (we communicate through meme sharing on IG). Lol. My brother and I have a pretty close relationship with my mom. When we get together its nice. We have become a little tight knit family and help each other out whenever we need it. My dad and my sister have sort of decided to isolate themselves from the rest of the family though. My sis is very much “the black sheep” of our family, and my dad would rather just be alone. Speaking to him feels slightly awkward as he doesn’t really initiate conversation or express any interest in us. I feel like he might even be depressed, but because he has never really shown any true love for his family, none of us really bother to check up on him much. Still, I actually feel a little guilty for that too.
Things haven’t really started to bother me about my family until recently. Almost two years ago I got pregnant with my second child. Then a few months later we found out my brother was also expecting a child with his wife. Everyone was excited and of course we shared this news with our older sister, and she seemed happy for us when we announced it to her. However, she was a complete no show for both of our baby showers with zero explanations. We tried not to feel sour about it even though we knew for a fact she was off from work on those exact days. Then fast forward to this past winter. I got married. The venue we had chosen was coincidentally down the street from her house, literally like a 2 minute drive. However, she only stayed at the event long enough for me to see that she was present and she just upped and left with her whole family almost right after the whole bouquet toss thing. According to my brother who was sitting at the same table as her and her family, she left without even saying a word. I also wanted to mention how my father was nicely planted on a chair throughout most of the reception, and didn’t talk to anyone at all. He kinda just stared off into space or was fidgeting with a napkin on the table every time I caught a glimpse of him. I don’t know if I’m making it a bigger deal than it really was, but overall it was hard to not be a bit upset at them. I had a blast at my wedding regardless of this. I sure as heck wasn’t about to allow that from ruining what is supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life.
Then, after that it has just been nothing but no shows for the most part from both my sister and my Father. - My kids’ bday celebration held earlier this year; both didn’t show. - Easter family gathering; again. Both of them didn’t show. - My brother and his daughter’s bday celebration; Our dad finally showed. Sister did not.
At this point, my brother is fed up of trying to include our sister or our father in anything. Both have shown that they clearly don’t want to be involved in anything we do as a family. Even when it comes to doing something as simple as texting them just to know how they are… if someone else from the family doesn’t initiate the text, we will literally never hear from either of them. However, the only reason I keep insisting that we shouldn’t stop inviting her is because her children love spending time with us and all their little cousins. I have literally heard all of them begging their mom to bring them over to spend time with us. Not to mention that I have a pretty close relationship with my teenage niece (She kinda sees me as her ‘cool auntie’ and closest family member).
Should I just let my sister be? Should I keep pushing this idea that we could all one day become one big happy family? Like, it literally breaks my heart to think about our children not growing up around each other. The very few times that we have gotten together as a big family, it was so awesome. Everyone was so happy. I think?
I really don’t know what to think of all this. Any thoughts or advice on what to do would be nice. Sorry if this became very long to read or hard to follow. I just feel so strongly about my family and my thoughts about them are so jumbled.

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I had been contacted by the magistrate to investigate a night wedding in the countryside that had involved the loss of human life. There seemed to be a recent rise in tourists involved in ghost dowries over the years. However, from my research I believe it was a man in search of night weddings for personal gain that was the cause of so many deaths.
When I received the request, I was nearby on Green Island, and addressing a rather unique matter even for my line of work. A little girl from the mainland had arrived two weeks prior and claimed to be the recently deceased husband of the grieving widow.
The child claimed to have woken up in the hospital where the doctors informed them that they had drowned and was clinically dead for 4 minutes when the body inexplicably sat upright in the gurney. This would have seemed to be great news, except when the child looked into the mirror, it was not their face staring back at them.
In old Taoist texts I have read of such events, where the bodies of the recently deceased are not put to ground quickly enough, and their souls are left to wander. They could get carried away by the Northeast or Southwest wind. Depending on the location from where they died. And possibly attach to an empty host.
This seemed to be the case, as the wife acknowledged that due to the wet season, they did not bury her husband's body right away. Because the grounds were so wet, that any graves would wash away, leaving corpses laying in the street. Still, I had the responsibility of testing the child. Whom passed a simple test of naming names. Where they used to live. The wife's habits. A conversation they recently had, and even childhood memories. All were confirmed by friends and family. But it would be the child's handwriting that ultimately convinced me. They were a perfect match, down to the signature.
Upon my approval, the villagers had no choice but to accept that this child was indeed the man come back to life. And when I left, he was sitting outside of his house cleaning fish as he had always done for 32 years, except now in the body of a 10 year old girl.
I didn't have much time to dwell on this case as I was needed at the aftermath of the failed night wedding. Ghost dowries have been in use for thousands of years, and traces of it can be found in many different cultures. From the Aztec to the Egyptians, and more recently from old Spain to the streets of Southeast Asia. Though in recent times, only a few remote places continued the practice, and there are a limited number of priests today who are qualified enough to handle such a case. Luckily, I had plenty of experience in this matter.
In my early years, I had married many ghost brides.
And was often asked, "But you're a priest, how can you get married?"
"Zhengyi Taoist priests can choose to take a wife or not. In fact, in order to pass on my Celestial title, I must have an heir."
The man looked distraught, "And you're sure this will stop her from whispering into my ear every night?" He clutched the bag rather tightly.
"Don't you worry," I took the bag from his hands. "Everything will be fine."
We would perform the customary vows and the following night the man reported no more whisperings from his daughter, yet a week later, the police raided my hotel in a different district. The man had claimed that I had swindled him. That his daughter had returned and continued her whispering of terrible, horrible things that he dare not listen. Clanking and banging away in the walls as he covered his ears in fear until sunrise.
Fortunately, I was allowed to prove my innocence.
I returned and stayed in the man's room, waiting with him for signs of his daughter. And surely enough, late in the hour, I heard the wretched scraping and dragging in the walls. The man stopped breathing in his bed and laid perfectly still. Even I was afraid to move as the most dangerous aspects of my job are in the unknown. My mind began racing, wondering if I had somehow botched the night wedding. Or worse, that the ghost bride wasn't his daughter at all, and I had inadvertently given this mysterious entity a special anchor to this world, a holy man.
The walls shook without reason. And a tiny noise could be heard near the man's bedside. He jumped off his mattress and ran to my side. The two of us watched as the noise traveled back and forth against the back wall like wooden clogs.
"My daughter did always carry around a rattle drum when she was little," the man whispered.
"Hush, don't let it capture your breath," I warned him. "Whatever this is, I don't believe it is your daughter. And because of the ritual, we may have increased its hold on this realm."
He whimpered, "Not my daughter?"
I held up my finger and traced the noise as it traveled in an odd form. I began to wonder if the entity was creating some sort of symbol.
"What are you drawing," the man cried.
"It may be creating a portal," I told him. "Now hush before it turns its attention toward us."
"Please, there must be something you can do?"
I reached into my bag and pulled out some incense. I lit the ends and began chanting. From my waist I pulled out a long yellow parchment. And drew on it a sealing spell. "Spirit," I called as I stepped forward. "I am a guiding light." The noise rattled with conviction as I drew closer. "Let me lead you to peace!" And with one quick motion I punched my hand into the wall, clutching the sealing spell in my palm, at the last place I heard the noise. To my displeasure I felt something wriggling in my grasp as something long and thin wrapped itself around my wrist, its end clawing at my forearm. I screamed when I felt its teeth sink between the soft flesh of my thumb and index finger. But I did not let go. Instead I pulled out this demon from the wall and threw it roughly to the ground.
The man screamed as he jumped onto a chair and screamed, "Rat!"
Yes. A simple field rat. That had a trap stuck on its tail which caused its movements to rattle in the wall. That had been rummaging near the man's nightstand because in one of the drawers he had left a bag of watermelon seeds.
Not all cases are this simple, and plenty are true to life supernatural encounters. Over the years my experience has taught me to be more cautious in my evaluations. Which was why when I finally arrived at the house of the massacre due to a failed night wedding. Every hair on my neck stood on end as I tried to be objective as possible.
But there was no denying that something heinous had occurred here. Bodies were still laying on the floor. Some with their faces in the dirt. Some missing their heads completely. And those with their faces up, were unrecognizable. And my first wife leaned into my ear and whispered to me, "This is the work of a ghost bride."
"How do you know?"
"I recognize her anger. It was mine before we were married."
"How do I know what?" A man walking toward me asked. "Are you the priest they called out here?"
He was average built, and in plain clothes, "Detective, why yes. I am here to assist you in anyway that I can."
The detective spit on the ground, "Assist me? As far as I'm concerned we're wasting valuable time carrying on with this hocus pocus bullshit. The killer's trail will be cold by the time we get through all this religious tape." He wafted the air in front of his face, "And the dead bodies boiling out here. This is all your fault as far as I'm concerned. Assist me," he snorted.
"Where there any eyewitnesses, Detective?"
"Several. But they're all saying the same damn thing. Spouting a bunch of nonsense. Which is why those religious nuts down at the station dredged you up."
"All non-relatives to the home owners?"
He snorted again, "Coincidence."
"Let us hope so," I told him. "Because the alternative is much worse." I walked the scene, going around the upturned tables, tracing the steps of carnage in the courtyard, to the main living room. There I saw the body of an old man, both hands clutching his chest, his face was completely missing. "Any surviving family members?"
"Some are still left," he grunted. "But we've gathered most of them under police protection."
"Have you located the husband?"
"Yeah, we're trying to extradite him."
"Extradite?"
"The foreigner took off in the middle of all the commotion. Boarded a flight back home according to our investigation. We've contacted the airline, and the airport security in America will hold him when he lands. As he is currently my number one suspect."
I circled the area in front of the shrine. Noting the spilled bowl and its contents on the ground. The position of the spoon next to it. Before standing in the spot on the left side where the effigy would have stood. "What about the bride?"
The detective shook his head, "What bride?"
"It was a night wedding," I told him. "There must have been a physical object acting as a stand in for the daughter's soul."
"Nothing more than bags of cotton usually," he paused. "But they did report that the stand-in this time was some sort of department figurine. A mannequin of some sort."
"Have you looked into that?"
"Why would I look into that. Are you crazy?"
"Right, you're right of course. You'd have to wait until after sunset to be able to figure out which mannequin serves as the ghost bride's earthly form."
The detective stormed off as if I had said something outlandish. Leaving me to my own devices, I interviewed a few of the neighbors who attended the night wedding, gathered some evidence and sorted with the other officers at the site, and then left for the nearest hotel in the city.
It had been a long month for me and I couldn't think of anything better than I would enjoy more than a cold beer. So after checking in I went down to the bar, where an ethereal creature sat alone. She was beautiful to say the least and I had to strike up a conversation lest I live a life of regret, "S'il te plaît ma chérie, dis-moi comment on t'appelle pour que quand je sois perdu dans les ténèbres. Puis-je demander la lumière."
"What?"
"Oh, American. I apologize. I thought you were French."
"On my mother's side," she brushed away her hair.
I noticed the ring, "Ah, you are married. My sincerest apologies miss."
"Newly married," she told me. "My husband speaking with the concierge."
"Activities on vacation," I mused. "How wonderful."
"It's nothing like that. It seems someone has left him a note. And we're technically on our honeymoon." She paused, "Though this isn't where we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be in Hawaii."
I ordered a beer with the bartender and sipped my drink, "Hawaii is wonderful, but this is also a beautiful island. In fact, when the Portuguese came here, they named it Formosa. Which translates to beautiful island. It may not be where you're supposed to be, but perhaps you'll find that this is exactly where you need to be."
The woman sighed, "I don't even know anymore."
"Ah, I know what this is. I've great experience in these matters. Having been married many times. You feel doubt."
She laughed, "How many times have you gotten a divorce?"
"Divorce?" I laughed. "I never leave a woman after we have been wed."
She looked taken aback, "Oh. I didn't know polygamy was so common in these parts." She glanced behind her to where a tall man was standing with what looked to be the hotel's concierge. "I guess we're in the same boat."
"It's not what you think," I told her.
"Where have I heard that one before," she rolled her eyes.
"Larissa!" The man called for her.
She stood up, "Well, it was nice meeting you. Tell your wives I said hello."
I smiled as she left, glancing at my sides. "If only you knew," I said while sipping my beer.
Now in hindsight, if I were not so fatigued after nearly a month of hard work and constant traveling. I would have perhaps picked up on the fact that she too was familiar with the concubine lifestyle. Which was unusual in itself for an American. Or perhaps I would have picked up on the fact that Larissa was an uncommon name. As I had read Jim's article. But there was no such luck, which is why, when I say that I am deeply regretful of what I read on the news later about the couple, I am truly at a loss for what I could have prevented. But that is not my story to tell.
After I finished drinking at the bar I made my way to the elevator and got in. When a man came towards me to hold the door, I called out, "It's full." He looked at me bewildered as I was the only person he could see in the elevator, before sticking his hand out to stop the doors from closing. Huffing and puffing as he glared at me angrily before pressing his floor number. Except the elevator pinged. The weight capacity light had turned on above our heads. "Like I said, it's full." The man shook his head in amazement. Pressing his floor number again. The elevator pinged again. Unwilling to budge. I sighed and got out, "I'll wait for the next one."
And wait I did, even in my room I waited for night fall instead of resting. The thoughts of a botched night wedding swirling in my head. For the many things that could go wrong. Because even though I had much practice in these matters, I was still always nervous before a fight. So when night fell, I was red eyed and exhausted, but better mentally prepared than before.
But when I arrived back at the scene of the crime, I was not prepared for all of the commotion.
"Ka-kin-eh Ka-kin-eh," a man shouted as the fire blazed.
I grabbed one of the men running by with an empty bucket, "What happened here?"
"T-the villagers, they set the p-place on fire. Trying to rid the evil demon."
I let him go and shook my head. The fools! I made my way toward the courtyard where I saw the detective from earlier moping his forehead as he was helping put out the fire. "Detective! This is terrible," I yelled as the flames licked the night.
"No shit dumbass, it's a fire."
"You don't understand," I told him. "Now the entity has nowhere to return. We may never find it."
He threw the bucket to the floor and whirled around, "Enough! I've had enough! Listen here, there is a fire. F-I-R-E. This a real problem. If it catches to the fields, it could light the newly laid fertilizer on fire and catch the entire mountain!"
"Detective!"
That was the only word I had to say before he punched me. It was a dark night out, but stars had suddenly appeared. He hovered over me and I thought he would strike me again but then suddenly he froze. "What is that?"
I turned my head and looked out into the field. The heat of the fire burning the back of my head as I tried to stop my nose from bleeding. "Where?"
Neither one of us moved as we watched the tall field.
"Right there." He pointed.
I reached up and threw his hand down, "No! You never point at entities," I told him. "Now you could be marked!"
He ignored me and reached for his gun, "Stop! Hey you! I order you to stop or I'll shoot!"
I looked into the field, scanning the endless rows before my eyes stopped and froze in horror. At one point in time the thing must have been a simple plastic mannequin. Standing in a department store perhaps. But now, it was twisted and gnarled. It's first dirty and unrecognizable. It stood on all fours sometimes threes as it swayed slowly back and forth. The thing was also without form because it didn't need to bend or move as normal people. It was still objectively, plastic. It swung its arms behind it and used that as leverage to run, turning its head - cracking the seams that had somehow still held and took off.
The detective rung a shot out at it. I think it struck but it didn't matter. Though the mannequin was gone. The detective must have lost his mind because he gave chase.
I couldn't let him go alone so I followed. Pulling out my long yellow parchment as I wrote on it the symbols for sealing, hoping the simple spell would work. As we entered the tall field.
It was chaos. The ground was mushy beneath my feet, and the smell of fecal matter assaulted my senses further. In the brush I had lost the detective, so I was forced to tell my wives to help me locate his whereabouts. They didn't often leave my side, and some were reluctant but ultimately agreed.
I stood in the field, waiting with bated breath as I heard further gunshots in the distance. I couldn't wait for my wives to gather as I tore after the detective. And just in time as I saw him standing, looking absolutely terrified as he shot blindly into the fauna until his pistol clicked. The mannequin lunged for him. But I got there first. Pushing him to the ground, causing both of us to tumble.
He was eating a mouth of dirt as I pulled him to his feet. "We have to get out of this field! The ghost bride will pick us off in this thicket!"
Stumbling, and running, the two of us were covered in more than dirt. Several times we heard rustling nearby as if something were running alongside us. But eventually we made it out into the open plain. The detective trying to catch his breath as he reloaded his pistol.
"Shooting it doesn't work," he panted. "But maybe I can disable it from moving."
"Shut up," I told him. "Listen."
He stopped for a moment and we waited. Then all of the stalks before us shook wildly as if a hundred people were running through it. The detective raised his arm but I stopped him as my wives ran out of the field.
They were terrified as they ran right through us.
I hadn't experienced the feeling in awhile but the coldness as their ghostly forms went through our bodies was cold as ice. It was enough to bring us both to our knees, clutching our chests as we struggled to breathe. I had passed through one or two in a row before. But never 10 or 20 at a time. I lost count.
"What was that," the detective managed to gasp, his fingers in a death grip around his gun.
"A blue procession," I told him. "Something caused all of my dead wives to flee."
We looked up as the leaves in front of us rustled.
"Is it..."
I shook my head, running forward to catch her. My 13th wife, Ah-ren. Her arm was missing, and a part of her shoulder. She was an innocent girl that had drowned when she was alive. Her innocence carried on with her to the afterlife where many souls generally grew up embittered. But never her, always sweet my girl, just weary of water.
"I didn't want to go," she told me.
"I know," I held her. "I'm sorry."
"It got some of the others too. But Meita got in its way and told me to run." She cried.
"Don't cry I told her. You know how you hate getting wet."
"I don't want to go. I wanted to stay with you. All of us together."
I watched as her soul splintered and disappeared forever.
I had never felt such fury. In all my years, a womanizer, a liar, a cheat at cards, a scoundrel, a bastard even. But an undutiful husband? Never.
Without thinking I approached the field and cast a spell that was been forbidden.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm purging the field. All beings alive or dead will forever feel displaced when they enter here. A feeling of unending dread and doom will overcome them, causing madness if they do not leave or are unable to. But I have no other choice." I reached into my side and threw a handful of salt. It landed on the ground as I chanted. The winds carrying it into the field, the small white morsels rolling obediently into the darkness.
"Nothings happening," the detective's word stuck in his mouth as a horrible scream echoed into the night. It sounded like two pieces of steel being twisted together.
"There," I took off after it. The jumbled figure of the mannequin fled toward the village.
We followed it through people's homes, and between alleyways; the villagers screamed and fled when they saw it. We barged through home after home as we chased it. Until we cornered it at an abandoned building at the edge of town.
"It was supposed to be a mall," the detective told me. "But the developers ran out of money."
We walked quietly into the empty building. Shells of stores stood in various degrees of construction. Checking a few of the fronts before venturing further inside.
"You've got to be kidding me," the detective said as we came near the center of the complex. There next to the escalators and the fountains was an army of mannequins of all shapes and sizes lined up like terracotta warriors. "They must have stashed them all here when the place was being built, and forgot about them when it closed."
"There are hundreds."
"We'll go through together. Quickly and quietly." He added, "Stay alert."
We moved through the rows, staring at all of the stuck faces, searching for one covered in grime and bullet holes. But it was more difficult than it sounded. Many of the mannequins were in bad shape, weathered, broken, laying in pieces on the ground. It was hard to tell if a pile of parts was indeed our culprit.
Slowly we began to clear the rows and I could see the other side in sight.
"There!" The detective shot his gun. The surrounding mannequins dropped like dominoes when the entity scattered. Falling down all around us, drowning in a sea of plastic arms and smiling faces. I was struggling to stand as I looked up and saw the entity come rushing toward us. The detective fired his gun blowing out a knee cap. I hurriedly reached for my parchment but could not find my pen. Another shot, but the scorned bride kept on charging unable to feel pain.
It jumped into the air and another shot blew a part of its face away. The detective screamed as it tore at him. Pieces of his sinew was launched into the air as he was torn apart. I rushed forward trying to help but the creature grabbed me by the throat and lifted me into the air. My feet searching for the ground as my lungs folded trying to breathe. The thing turned its head toward me and said, "Will you marry me?" As the darkness closed into the corners of my eyes.
The fight was leaving my body as I saw several of my wives rushing forward. Their ghostly forms ethereal as they began tearing at the mannequin, slowly pulling out pieces of her soul, causing the mannequin's arms and legs to go limp as they dragged her out.
I scrambled the floor blindly with my fingers searching for my sacred parchment but could not find it amongst the rubble and the ghost bride was fleeing, leaving the shell of her mannequin in a heap on the floor. My wives chasing her, screaming their fury for killing the others. For destroying their souls.
I chased after them into the open air, where she was being cornered. Crying as I approached, trying to escape into the Southwest wind. I knew what I should have done, but could not bring myself to do the right thing. Instead I bit my finger and drew symbols on my forearms with my own blood. Approaching the bride that never was and tore her soul into pieces.
When I was done my wives sat down around me before slowly dispersing as the sun began to rise.
"We did it huh?"
I continued staring at the sun, "Yeah."
"Well then," the detective said before disappearing. "Maybe in the next life I'll be sooner to trust you."
Later they would find his body in the abandoned mall. Still clutching his gun. The department gave him a 21 gun salute at his funeral and a medal as commemoration. I was just glad that his soul had not been eaten.
I, on the other hand, went back to the hotel. To the bar and ordered a well deserved drink. Where I saw a pretty woman sitting alone, "Did you know that in order for me to pass on my Celestial title, I must bear an heir?"
​
​
s

I'm coming here because I'm desperate, this community is often in line with my own values, and only have one more therapy session before I need to deal with this, also my therapist just helps me figure out what I want she never tells me how to fix things. so I need the group brain to help me.
tw: SA,
On June 30, 24 days from now my parents will be hosting a BBQ to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.They've invited all of their kids and grandkids so they can take a picture of everyone together. My dad texted me informing me that it's being hosted and that it's important to him that I (and my family) attend. Even if it's "just for the picture." Last fall we went through a low contact phase due to their conservative attitudes, politically incorrect sense of humor, them acting like victims in the gender conversation and them insisting on never excluding family. I do love them however so we all agreed on shallow conversations and visiting their farm to collect eggs and see my parents about once a month. I have BPD and PTSD and had several traumatic experiences growing up, none of which were their fault, they definitely did the best they could with what they knew and were capable of. I'm the youngest of 7, (26 F) I grew up with sibling 6(27M) and the other 5 were in their mid to late teens when we were both born and already moved out (just so you know my parents were already tired of kids before we were born). Sibling 6 was my very best friend we were inseparable, at 6 years old he started to battle with a liver disease that slowly was killing him and all we could do was wait for a transplant. For the next 7 years my mom supported him in the hospital, I felt like I rarely saw her. My birthday parties were often canceled cause there were no adults to plan them, we had campouts in his hospital room instead of nature, I took on cooking dinners, picking groceries, and tidying up and the only parental attention I really received was left over from my exhausted mum, or from my dad who worked way too much and was becoming a non-functioning alcoholic. I didn't mind any of it. All I wanted was for my best friend to survive and he did. Soon after he returned however he SA'd me. He was (14 and I was 12). After a while of feeling responsible and holding that weight, I eventually told my mum and she had him apologize and my dad just never acknowledged it. My sibling then did it to a 9-year-old I used to babysit and at that point, he was 14. As soon as she told me I told her mum and they called the police and my mum was mad that we didn't go to her first. She asked me not to tell people about it cause it'd change the way people looked at him and ruin the life he was just given through the transplant. All this to be said I never felt like I was a priority, worth protecting or being safe. I've done a lot of self-work and I've taken a lot of space from my family. I'm trying to avoid black-or-white thinking and find a way to feel like I have a family. My parents have always refused to not invite him to family events so it was my choice to celebrate things with my family or be the one person sitting out so I often went and just dealt with my feelings after. that is until I became a mom and I saw my brother hugging my 2-year-old and every hair stood on end. I need to protect my kid like my parents wouldn't. I can't be putting my child in a position where he thinks this is a safe person to be around. So I put my foot down, I decided I was done going to events he was at and I'd just celebrate separately with my parents or the siblings I talk to. I asked them to stop inviting him but they insisted that they'll not exclude one of their children to please another. Fine. that's on them. I then asked to just stop being invited myself and we can just have a relationship that is as if I'm an only child. They agreed, Just to continue to invite me. My therapist asked "what's wrong with being invited and just declining?" because they do accept my no but the problem is that the invite leaves me feeling not chosen, not protected, not valid. I don't know what is my disordered thinking and what's real. I don't know how to respond to the BBQ invite. It feels like this picture is more important to them than supporting my desire to not be around my abuser. It would be easy for me to cut them out 100% if I thought they were bad, evil people but I just don't believe that. I believe they're parents desperate for their family to be functional and pressuring me into conforming may seem like the only way to do that. I empathize with them, the idea of having to exclude one child to help the other seems f'd up.. I'm just tired of being collateral damage.
TLDR my parents chose my sibling over me constantly and now they want me to put my feeling aside so they can have a picture of us
Edit: Oof thanks I'm feeling supported and empowered.
I'd like to clear a couple of things up:
My therapist is fantastic I just meant she won't tell me a script or what to do. she just helps me figure out what I think and feel so that I can decide how to act. She's the whole reason I've taken any steps back by asking how I wish I was supported? or what could I do to show my son healthy boundaries and how to advocate for ourselves and our needs? She asks if I found out he was still doing this and it wasn't "a puberty blip" as my parents treat it, how would I feel about having spent years bringing my kid around? That's how she helps me decide what I want.
I wasn't considering going. Not seeing him again and not having my kid see him is a boundary I'm unwilling to waiver on. I just need to know what do I say to my parents, Do I try again to explain how I feel or do I just say I'm not interested? should I still keep some relationship with them or scrap it all? they couldn't even respect my request to not be invited.

FT: Liga de Quito 0-0 Botafogo

Venue: Rodrigo Paz Delgado
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LINE-UPS
Liga de Quito
Alexander Domínguez, Facundo Rodríguez, Richard Mina, Leonel Quiñonez (Bryan Ramirez), José Quintero, Jhojan Julio (Sebastián González), Mauricio Martínez, Ezequiel Piovi, José Angulo (Juan Luis Anangono), Alexander Alvarado, Renato Ibarra.
Subs: Walter Chala, Daykol Romero, Brian Heras, Adrián Gabbarini, Óscar Zambrano, Jefferson Arce, Danny Luna, Jimmy Mina, Ángel González.
^{____________________________}
Botafogo
Lucas Perri, Víctor Cuesta, Adryelson, Hugo, Rafael (Leonel Di Plácido), Carlos Eduardo, Tchê Tchê, Marlon Freitas, Janderson (Júnior Santos), Joao Victor (Luis Henrique), Gustavo Sauer (Lucas Fernandes).
Subs: Philipe Sampaio, Roberto Fernández, Raí, Daniel Borges, Kayque, Luis Segovia, Carlos Alberto, Douglas Borges.
MATCH EVENTS via ESPN
17' Rafael (Botafogo) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
45' Substitution, Botafogo. Luis Henrique replaces Victor Sá.
45' Substitution, Botafogo. Leonel Di Plácido replaces Rafael.
52' Marlon Freitas (Botafogo) is shown the yellow card.
64' Víctor Cuesta (Botafogo) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
65' Substitution, Botafogo. Júnior Santos replaces Janderson.
66' Substitution, LDU Quito. Juan Anangonó replaces José Angulo.
68' Hugo (Botafogo) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
78' Júnior Santos (Botafogo) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
79' Substitution, LDU Quito. Sebastián González replaces Jhojan Julio.
79' Substitution, LDU Quito. Bryan Ramírez replaces Leonel Quiñónez.
84' Substitution, Botafogo. Lucas Fernandes replaces Gustavo Sauer because of an injury.
^{Don't see a thread for a match you're watching? Click here to learn how to request a match thread from this bot.}

I held a wedding-like event back in May of this year in PA. I hired a caterer from NJ to provide services for this event. They did not fulfill the agreements laid out in the contract. For example, we agreed on one menu but for the event, the menu had changes that we were not told about. In the contract, any changes were supposed to be ran by us, the couple, and have us sign off if we approved or not approved of the changes. This did not happened. When I emailed the caterer my concerns (along with proof of the food that was offered, my contract of the menu and the menu that was displayed at the event), I had asked how they can rectify the situation. They responded very hastily and accused me extortion and said that they would not do anything.
I'm trying to figure out if I have a case to go to small claims court and if so, what are the first steps to take? I've never been in a situation like this before. I'm disappointed because my venue suggested this vendor so I went with them. Just today I noticed that when I look up this caterer, they have had four 1 star reviews in the past year (we had booked this caterer over a year ago).
P.S. Is this considered business law or consumer law?
Thanks for your help.