BREAKING: Ross Ulbricht has been pardoned by President Donald Trump

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) January 21, 2025

If you don't know who Ross is

FREEDOM!!

FREEDOM!!!! pic.twitter.com/itRuuyFAxe

— Free_Ross (@Free_Ross) January 22, 2025

You dumb BIPOCs were elected to make eggs cheaper and kick out immigrants, not to open on the most r-slurred fricking week in all of politics.

In his first week, President Trump:

• Renamed the Gulf of Mexico

• Withdrew from WHO for no fricking reason

• Froze medicaid, meals on wheels, student loans and farm subsidies because they're woke

• Prepared to enter a trade war with Europe over fricking Greenland and a trade war against Canada for no reason

All and all, an astonishingly shit first week that is a mind-blowing political failure

POV you're a West Virginian 70 year old Trump voter who didn't want to starve to death

So, a shitty first week. But kek on frens, that's not what it's about, is it? It's about winning. It's about the vibe shift. It's about being able to say r-slur in public, and honestly I feel that. You won. You totally won.

Just not on being unwoke. You dumb fricking r-slurs won on the economy;

Even immigration, Trump's strongest social issue, is a distant 4th to the economy. But all Trump is focused on is doing is scoring pointless cultural victories, like banning s from the military or ending affirmative action in hiring federally.

And this is the bombshell; Americans by and large liked wokeness.

The majority of Americans, with the exception of literal boomers, consider being woke a good thing. You don't like woke. Your friends don't like woke, I don't like woke. But no poll has come out to say outright that the American people by and large have a negative opinion of woke, wokeness or DEI. Yes, even DEI - it's popularity is backsliding, but it still commands a popular majority.

You dumb BIPOCs are fricked come 2026 and 2028.

@WootFatigue Frick you b-word neighbor

!metashit !grillers !music

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/1ie25sg/what_are_reasons_australians_wouldnt_want_to/ma42so8/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/1ie25sg/what_are_reasons_australians_wouldnt_want_to/ma42s0m/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/1ie25sg/what_are_reasons_australians_wouldnt_want_to/ma41clf/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/1ie25sg/what_are_reasons_australians_wouldnt_want_to/ma41hy4/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/1ie25sg/what_are_reasons_australians_wouldnt_want_to/ma43n8f/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/1ie25sg/what_are_reasons_australians_wouldnt_want_to/ma41uqv/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/1ie25sg/what_are_reasons_australians_wouldnt_want_to/ma40x6h/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/vexillology/comments/1im5t6v/flag_for_the_afrikaner_refugee_settlement_in/mc0qhfv/?context=8

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔘

It's funny how woke/SJW are posting on all these places thinking that anyone has the wherewithall to actually read any of it. I don't give a crap about DEI, all I care about is who has the best product and the best price for it.What's more interesting though is the psychological mentality for people thinking this is somehow useful. It's not, all I care about is product and price. This is same train of "organic" food which failed because the real issue isn't DEI but economics for normal families. (-44)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘

No one mentioned DEI, I just said I didn't want to support MAGA. No one will have the best price shortly.And the best way, and most American way to vote has, and always will be, vote with your wallet. I'm voting with mine. (19)

Just replace DEI with MAGA. Still don't care. The only thing I hate about MAGA is the tarriff/inflation which hits our wallets. Let's stay focused on the real goal here. (-23)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘

Craziness don't go away easily. Kirkland is in the middle of liberal population. You have nothing to worry about. Move on with your life. (-19)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

So are you a capitalist or a constitutionalist.In your world, I am responsible for not only voting my conscience, but am then responsible for the economic stability of people who express ideals that are inimical to my belief systems. Under that logic, I am being punished for valuing things like free speech (if Musk is a special government employee, and he's actively banning political views from X, then this is a violation of my rights), separation of church and state, equal rights, etc.The moral gymnastics you are doing here is amazing. You've said it yourself, you really don't care, as long as people take care of your business by shopping at it. That's unbelievably selfish and completely morally vapid. (0)

are the two mutually exclusive?Didn't say you're responsible for others, but I did point out the harm that you'd cause (it would take a LARGE group of boycotters to have an impact, so when I say "you" I mean the entire r/kirkland subreddit) and the futility of your efforts (ya aint gonna change anybody's mind, but you will most likely entrench them). I can't tell you what to do, but I can let you know how stupid and futile it is.I think you misread. I pointed out the harm a boycott would do to businesses - not only the target's business but affiliated businesses and employees. And while it could include my business, the point I was making is the interconnectivity of all of us in this community. So how much collateral damage do you think is acceptable to punish someone for legally and constitutionally exercising their right to vote?Again, boycott criminals, child male feminists, and real Nazis. But when one group of people tries to punish another group for voting in their own self-interest,... (2)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

If a business posts QANON or MAGA paraphernalia at this point in the game they are advertising that they support an openly fascist regime. Where do you draw the line? (0)

What do you think will happen? If you boycott Spud Fish & Chips* because the owner voted for Trump, which do you think is more likely:a - The owner sits in a dark room with a glass of scotch and re-assess his life and choices. He thinks, "wow, maybe I AM wrong and I shoulda voted for Kamala"b - as sales at Spud Fish and Chips take a 10% hit, he lays off two employees and reduces his orders from local food and supplies vendors. He has no idea why sales have dropped because all the people who disagree with him ARENT engaging with him - they're boycotting. All he knows is what FOX news tells him, and he blames it on Bob Ferguson's climate policies. * I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE OWNER OF SPUD VOTES! I'm just using him/her as an example. Anyway, boycott child male feminists. Boycott real, avowed racists and Nazis. But don't boycott people who are exercising their Constitutional right to have an opinion (no matter how misinformed it may be) and to vote on it. Because that's waaaayyy too close to firi... (2)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Calm down my dude, I'm just asking for info to be more conscious in my decision making, as most commenters agree lol. (3)

And I'm agreeing!! HATE!! HATE!!! HATE!! Let's do this shit!!! (-3)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/goggleblock

Score: 🐮🐮🐮🐮🐮(+5🐮)

Number of comments: 14

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

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NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!

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!nonchuds !lgbt !cuteandinvalid WTF??????? Fricking Trumps America

No idea what I'm expecting here in terms of advice tbh.

I was involved with a man who I regarded as my soulmate, things were looking serious. We talked about marriage and the future.

He was from a Muslim background in the Middle East. I'd always been interested in his religion (Islam) and had been studying it. After a couple of years with him, I took the step of converting. Everyone in my family and friends were supportive as they knew it was my choice. There was never any pressure from him.

After converting, we scaled back on the physical side of things and both said it would be best to get married. I was all for this, loved him to bits and wanted my life with him and believed he felt the time.

Unfortunately, his parents back home in his native country had other ideas and wanted an arranged marriage to someone of their choice... After months of trying to make them see reason, he wasn't strong enough to stand by me. So I ended our relationship as I could see it was going to end in tears.

I feel so alone in Islam now. I live in a small semi rural area with no mosque, no community to speak of and I've been shying away from wanting to move on. I feel at a crossroads. There's no chance of meeting a Muslim man here. I feel so lost without him, although I feel ending it with him was the right thing to do as he'd never go against his parents' wishes. Even though he was almost 30 and well-educated.

I'm no so much looking for a husband.. It will take me a long time to get over losing him. He was the first man I ever really loved and imagined a life with. I'm just feeling a bit isolated in terms of being "the only Muslim in the village" so to speak. It's a small and very "white", middle-class community. My ex and I met at uni in a big city, where it's more common to see other Muslims and different nationalities.

I'm feeling so many different things, feel like he's thrown me under the bus. I made so much effort and sacrifice for him, changed my whole way of life and even aspects of my diet and appearance. Yet he couldn't even just stand up for me (with his parents) when it mattered. He claimed to be in love with me (I was his first), yet didn't feel able to have any firm discussion with his parents about marrying me and going through with it.

I feel that being Muslim, this would put non-Muslim men totally off me. Especially with all the negativity around the religion in the media and so on. I don't even have anyone to do Ramadan with, or even talk about the religion.

tfw only muslim in the village

also he absolutely knew he was eventually going to marry someone else, but as she said, they were engaging in the 'physical side of things' and moids will be moids if you let them do that

Girl, you are so young- too young to be living such a miserable life.

Get all your ducks in a row and LEAVE HIM.

Guys, we aren't even a month in. This is just the beginning.

We have a 2nd Amendment for this reason. This is the gun nuts wet dream but they're sitting on the sidelines cheering the destruction of the US Constitution.

>spend the past 100 years calling them gun nuts

>cry when they don't come to aid the Fed

9 11 is canon in mlp

— domomajig (@stonydomo) January 28, 2025

@whyareyou I didn't actually think you were fricking that r-slurred but I thought it was fricking funny reading out "why are fricking you r-slurred"

!vibecheck !r-slurs !edgelords

If you want to make your own, you can use this

Neat hindenburg x sphinx action

USS Preble firing a HELIOS laser weapon. pic.twitter.com/z7iLk0uylt

— Ashton Forbes (@JustXAshton) February 3, 2025

https://armyrecognition.com/news/navy-news/2025/us-navy-transforms-naval-protection-with-helios-lasers-power-on-uss-preble-at-sea

The US Navy released a new photo of USS Preble (DDG-88) firing her HELIOS laser weapon. pic.twitter.com/oL4rMsA4Xu

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) February 3, 2025

Source (page 399)- https://t.co/wHOW2JHGcr pic.twitter.com/gVHzdkgEQa

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) February 3, 2025

Darklands Series

1 - Darklands LP Part I

2 - Darklands LP Part II: Charles Bronson Edition

3 - Darklands LP III: Nuns and Coins

4 - Darklands LP Ep IV: Introduction to Equipment & Combat

5 - Darklands LP Part V: We finally briefly go out into the dark lands

6 - Darklands LP VI: We actually start a quest!

7 - Darklands LP VII: We reach our destination

8 - Darklands LP VIII: Raubritter confrontation & learning how combat works

9 - Darklands LP IX: I'm not giving you my goddarn alchemical materials

10 - Darklands LP X: We actually do some alchemy!

11 - Darklands LP XI: The Main Plot

12 - Darklands LP XII: Halloween Edition

Episode XIII

Welcome back. I know it's been a while. I apologize. Last time we slaughtered the Satanists at their sabbat (at least the ones we couldn't save) and found out where their base is. We now have a clearly defined mission: Assault the Fortress Monastery in Denmark and break the next seal. (Or Schleswig-Holstein or something, I'm not opening up that can of worms.)

That means hiking across the entire Empire from Teschen nearly at the border of Hungary all the way to Denmark. No doubt we'll run into a few adventures along the way.

At least that was the plan until we had to make a detour.

Long story short, I had written a whole episode but I was wondering why my guys were suddenly getting hurt so bad in fights. It turns out their armor had burned up. For most of them, it was down to very low quality. Poor Nathan was completely naked. This has got to be from the potions that the witches threw at us at the sabbat. They didn't do much immediate damage but they've derailed our plans for months. Now we've got to make enough money to replace that armor. Which means I have to grind.

All the stuff I've showed you about how the game works, I gotta go back and do more of that. Kill bad guys, make potions, travel around, learn about new saints and alchemical formulas, trade. I'm not complaining. I love doing this. But in this episode we won't be following the main plot and hitting the Fortress Monastery yet. So instead I'll focus on the random encounters.

Did I ever mention that about half of the game is random encounters? These pop up when you're traveling on the world map. There's, I dunno, at least a hundred of them. You never know which one will hit next which is what keeps you on your toes. That's why "grinding" never gets boring. I haven't mentioned many of them yet because each episode was designed to teach about specific gameplay mechanics and it would be distracting. So I guess this is going to be the episode about random encounters and the smaller less important places you run into on the map. I'm still cutting a lot out and just including the more interesting ones.

Our new goal: Go wander around and do Darklands stuff until we've got a lot of money and then go back to Dresden and buy high-quality armor for everyone.

Let's Go!

Uh oh. Looks like we pissed off the wrong people. The Wild Hunt isn't a DLC for some game about a dour gray man collecting s*x cards, it's what the witches send to hunt you down when they identify you as a threat. Those b-words are pissed off about what we did at the sabbat. I guess we'll have to deal with them eventually.

Well I'm not gonna let this sod hut just sit there looking sinister at me. Let's have Yuna ask St. Dorothy of Montau for some insight. She lived in this region, dying just recently in 1394 as an anchoress in the land of the Teutonic Order. She'll know what to do.

Well that's pretty bad. I don't consider even Yorkies and Cavaliers to be "slavering hounds from heck" but they can come pretty close when they want attention. Time to kick down this door.

She has some potions, so she might be some threat. But as we've seen before, wolf teeth can't penetrate chainmail. Sure enough, her alchemy degrades our abilities a lot but the wolves aren't able to take advantage and she goes down fast.

What would Satan not want us to do? What would really piss him off? We're going to forgive her.

Let's hope this works out better than every time I've ever tried to save a woman from herself IRL amirite.

We come across a cave. This is one of those sites where somebody sent us on a fetch quest long ago. Nathan uses his agility to climb up a cliff and throw the rope down to bring the rest of the party up. Now we've got to deal with the dwarf who has the item. I got 16 gold florins, which is a lot more than we'll get paid for the quest, but who cares? It will give me a little bit of fame which is worth more to me now. If I need money I've got a bunch of dead guys' armor and surplus alchemical potions.

Redactor is making some serious fricking money at this point. He can reliably make potions and sell them at a profit. The only problem is that the materials required are scattered all over the country so I've got to keep traveling to keep him supplied.

Ugh, one of these guys. He seems pretty sketchy to me. In the past we had to pay these guys off because they really will curse you if you don't and you can't just kill a friar because you think he's bullpooping you. But not this time, pal. You're a Dominican? Let's see what St. Dominic has to say about this.

We get out of paying him a little bit. More importantly we may have saved his soul. This guy has been led pretty far astray but hopefully they can get his shit sorted out down in Rome. (You can also pray to saints who specialize in calling out liars with the same effect except the text is completely different. In that he admits that his curses are from the power of Satan, not God.)

Against the Wild Hunt we all gotta stick together. My party is pretty weak at Woodwise and especially Stealth, so I have no confidence in our ability to use subterfuge here. We are really good at fighting though. I'll just take them on head-on.

Bigfoot is from Oregon, so this is just my ordinary day to day life. We defeat the hellhounds and rescue him of course.

I've got a hunch that this fruit will permanently increase someone's strength by a few points. Who to give it to? Both of the girls are at 32 strength (we already upgraded Sasha this way) and I'm at a mere 31. This is an intolerable situation. Girls can't be stronger than me. Redactor gets the apple and a bump up to 35 strength.

I go to Prag and ask if the King of Bohemia needs me to do any quests for him. This is Wenceslsaus (Vaclvav) IV, a really important guy. Prague had a golden age when his father and him were ruling. Both were also the Holy Roman Emperor and made it their capital. This is when the famous Charles University was founded for example. But soon the situation will spin out of control. He was deposed as Emperor a few years ago. Disputes about religion, nationality, and plain old factionalism are debstabilizing the kingdom and he is barely holding on to power. His death in 1419 will be the start of the Hussite Wars.

A Hussite wagenburg. Wagons were lashed together into a defensive wall and defended by guys with crossbows and guns. Apparently it was a pretty effective tactic because they repeatedly defeated the combined forces of all of Europe.

(One part of the game that never ended up getting implemented but still has vestigial traces of it in the data files is the Hussites. They're suspicious of you because you're German, but if you can talk them down from violence they'll warn you about the Knights Templar. I guess we're all on the same side after all. The game's designer told me that there was supposed to be a lot more regional content like this but they didn't have enough time to include much of it, so the whole game world is pretty much based on the mythology of western Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe. It's too bad. There's so much more you could do with this setting.)

Anyway, the Emperor's aides at least consider giving me an audience before telling me to frick off. I guess at 123 fame ("slight reputation") it's hard to get a face to face meeting with one of the most important people in the world.

After a lot of grinding I get, I dunno, maybe 100 florins from quests and selling dead people's armor. Back to Dresden. It's enough to finally get everyone fully fitted with 34-quality chainmail. Nathan is even strong enough (barely) to wear partial plate armor without encumbrance penalties, at least if he's not wounded. I've got some backup armor in case ours gets burned up again.

We can carry that around because while Darklands has harsh penalties for weighing down your people with equipment too heavy for them in battle, outside of combat you can carry as much as you want. I routinely end up carrying around 30 sets of armor after a jaunt through the countryside killing a few people as I go along. It might seem surprising that this is allowed given the extreme attention to detail and realism in other parts of the game, down to measuring the time of day using medieval units instead of hours. But I'm not complaining.

Compare it to Bethesda games. In Bethesda games I spend probably 1/3 of my time either hauling loot back to the store to sell or deciding which loot is worth picking up. And of course you can't just go directly to the store. You go to the city and then walk down the same goddarn street you have a million times before to go to the store. Why? What in God's name would justify wasting my time like that? Why can't I just walk up to a city and immediately access the trading screen? This isn't cutting edge technology. Betrayal at Krondor came out a year after this. In that when you reach a city it switches from 3D mode to a picture of the city and you just click on the shop and bam, you're there. Why can't that evil little leprechaun Todd Howard do the same for us 30 years later?

Meta

Anyway, I think we're ready for the Fortress Monastery now. TBQH it's been many years since I actually played the game to this point. (It's taken me something like 50 hours to get this far.) So I can't remember how tough the Monastery is, but I believe it's supposed to be mid-game content.

There's a couple big mid-game quests that I wanted to show you first, but they only spawned in distant places like Aachen, so if I tried to go there it would probably have disappeared by the time I got there. I guess I'll do those after the Monastery.

BTW I am playing pretty much optimally here using every trick I know. I'm trying to go into everything way overpowered because if I lose it means I have to savescum and that wastes a lot of time. There's a lot of stuff that I'm skipping over because the game has so much content and so many features that I'm afraid I'd die of old age before I got to the end. My plan is that after I win I'll go back and show you this stuff, at least if @kaamrev badgers me enough.

I trust everyone understands the seismic impact of what's occurring here with Trump effectively letting the water that's been long diverted into the ocean, to flow down into California.

Imagine the visible impact this will cause as the state greens quickly and the water flows… pic.twitter.com/rDy3AEYmvi

— AwakenedOutlaw⚒️ (@AwakenedOutlaw) January 28, 2025

Oh nevermind all he did was turn on a few federal pumps that had been down for maintenance for three days

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trumps-claims-military-entered-california-release-water-flow-state-says-did-not-happen

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

A big sorry to you from the U.S.Just know that at least half of us want nothing to do with these tariffs. (-37)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

As a red blooded 'merican. I'd flip it off with you. (-11)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

And a flappy head. (199)

Can confirm. We all look exactly like South Park portrayed us.  (31)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

He even has Canadian hands (927)

Bro I'm so glad this was the first thing I saw 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 (4)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Just because a president is dumbo, and 30% of voters elected him along with his team, doesn't mean you should hate an entire country for it. This is the problem with people today—you don't realize that hatred starts from small things. Then one day, you wake up wondering, why do they hate us back? and suddenly, there's a war. Hate me or disagree with me all you want, but today it's this guy, tomorrow it will be another, and so on. This is how hatred toward an entire nation grows—because of a single person who comes to power. One leader's actions shouldn't define an entire people. (1)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

There are a lot jokes… but in reality this post is sad.The orange frick, his administration and the policies they are enacting has made an average citizen in arguably our closest ally nation feel it necessary to give us the finger.Instead of "making America great again," these pieces of shit are destroying our standing on the world stage (which was already shaky to begin with). (1)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/CaBBaGe_isLaND

Score: 🐮🔘🔘🔘🔘

Number of comments: 2

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Maximum angriness: 😡😡😡🔘🔘

Minimum angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

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