Lycan

My advise would be to 1) If you find that communication practices are difficult for you and you have a hard time expressing your views on something, seek out professional help or if you are still in your youth commune with a legal guardian or school councilor. 2) As a general rule of advice as someone that struggled with anxiety in middle school to high school and got through it quite well and had a good social life in college and after, you need to look at the person you are talking to. Communication is not done soley with words half of what we communicate is done through involuntary facial/body gestures and pauses in our speaking. These are processed by most in the brain subconsciously to provide a much wider gambit of information about the person you are speaking to. Some people have difficulty either displaying these involuntary gestures or perceiving meaning from them in which case see point 1).

Hey - sorry for the necro, I know I'm new here (kinda - I had an account before but it was a while back and I'd forgotten the username) and I don't know how I stumbled upon this thread but I really liked the way the OP was worded. I am in a bit of an odd situation -- I'm a 25 year old Male who voluntarily lives alone (I have an adequate if not exhausting social life and get out a lot though) and have been a closeted gay since like....well ever. I am not in any way asexual or anything along those lines but would score very highly in conscientiousness to the point where I don't feel a strong 'need' for a romantic partner for emotional stability in the way I know factually that some people do. I have fallen in love once with a straight friend which... well it would take me 10 posts to explain the horrors of how that affects you...He doesn't know, is married, and we still talk often. Yea.... definitely not making any mistakes there! Anyways, the main reason I've chosen to stay in the closet for 25 years has nothing to do with a fear of bigotry or some sort of systemic BS as I'm rather cocky and would probably enjoy that quite a bit. More it has to do with the stereotypes associated with how gay people look/behave/act as I do not relate to that sort of persona even slightly. Most of my friends probably take the fact that I've never dated anyone to mean I'm asexual or something because I think that seems to be more likely in their minds than gay (I've even heard them say as much when we were drunk one time). That's kind of the reason I liked the way you explained your situation in the OP - it seemed like your problem also wasn't so much the hatred but all the assumptions about how you're going to suddenly start acting. The fear of being known as the "gay person" is frightening even if people don't do so with any malicious intend. In fact, I don't even blame the stereotypers for most of the stereotypes - I think that while its wonderful the LGBTQ+ community has worked to improve legislative equality they have been horrific at demolishing cultural stereotypes and are the reason there are so many false stereotypes about how gays act by constantly showboating their 'prime' examples of 'gayness'. I'm intelligent enough to know that stereotypes dissipate in seconds through private conversations with most people (they'll only assume you're going to talk with a lisp until you get a sentence out) so it's really not that big of a deal but it's what I find frustrating. I don't necessarily identify with the fear of social rejection but I am also a bit younger than you and the culture has shifted quite a bit in the last 10 years. Though the unfortunate thing about being my age in today's world is my generation seems to like to 'act out' and get praised for it (thanks social media) so of course I'd get all these accusations of being gay cause its cool now. Whole point of all the way-too-long rant above here ---->>> Anyways I didn't know I was going to go into such a long backstory or make it about me but I am basically wondering if you relate in any way to the idea that so many people that try to 'represent' you are kind of forcing in some idea of how you should behave/act? I of course can't be ungrateful to these kinds of people as people like me were once being thrown off of cliffs (and in some countries, still are) but god damn you can't just like the same sex without them sending you a manual on how you're supposed to act now. Again, I'm somewhat new here so it's a little odd for me to be posting here but it seems a lot less vulnerable to me than posting on a larger more general site like reddit and I liked the OP... I don't think I'll be coming out for at least the next few years because I do not see much of an up side considering my lack of necessity for deep emotional relationships but I also don't have the desire to end up having my first relationship at 50 with another man that's already got gray hairs... (at that point I would have already chosen to forsake it and just die alone. Ah, the wonders of being someone who thinks too much... PS: I know being gay is different than trans and the topic is trans, but I still related quite a bit. I am impressed with you for being able to hold together a family and such a successful job while dealing with all this crap. Props to you -- keep it up

I think AA can be saved - it is kind of a waste of time considering the rewards and how long it takes but the concept is good as it requires you to build multiple teams to succeed and not just have one that dominates every time. On a separate note, I've always liked the idea of an actually challenging mode where you can use heroes until they die and have to replace them with other heroes but not punish you for having them die. Idea would be that it is hard enough that you should be expected to lose a lot of units and very difficult to reach the top of the 'tower' - rewards vary depending on how far you progressed up the 'tower'. Game really needs something challenging that has nothing to do with having 3 +10 Mythics sit in the back with a bonus unit while your 5th unit solos....

Lehran because he will be a mythic and therefore actually usable. Other wanted units like Boyd and such will be released as a 4* w/ no prf and in today's meta I won't actually be able to use him. The only character that comes to mind that I would actually want to pull for that would likely be meta is Lehran. Sephrian would be ok too but likely not mythic - probably just a GHB unit that may or may not be good.

The arena order changes and blackout AB is very strange. All I can think is that some of their content is 'binned' to update automatically at certain times. There are some rumors about how we were supposed to have a feh channel but due to the protests (social media blackout), they may have cancelled or postponed since they couldn't market it on twitter and whatnot. I think there's some justification with this as it could be that there were some lingering events/changes that may have been 'binned' to update that they could not change in time or forgot about. Often times in a feh channel we get immediate changes like event rewards (akin to Book IV Midpoint) and then drastic changes like new game modes and what not a few weeks later - perhaps the midpoint celebration event was binned and the other content is either still on schedule for release or postponed. I'm still hoping for AB being replaced with something else or simply removed w/ a new way to get the rewards. I don't think anyone cares about pair up heroes which is the whole focus of the game mode...Only one I really like is L!Eliwood b/c he's such a great support unit.

I highly doubt that this is a visual glitch. For one thing it was actually moved down below. I am not sure how it is coded but I know generally UI is done quite manually for games. Thus they would have had to manually darken it and also manually reorder it. Considering there is no apparent reason for them to be messing with any of these modes other than to update bonus heroes, I highly doubt this is an accident. It looks to me like its grayed out because you wont be able to play it next week and it will be replaced with something else but they're giving you a 1w grace period to collect your rewards before a new game mode replaces it. I know some people liked the game mode, but I don't think IS is particularly proud of it. It didn't really have much of a purpose behind a way to get some of the new items. The mode itself was quite wonky in terms of how it worked - particuarly when it came to the scoring system. Datamine spoilers

Appreciate the response. I hear you on the wanting to lose hp so I'll swap to either SS or LND. Probably SS because I do actually find at +10 most units can take a hit EP every once in a while in a screw up and LND4 would be troublesome for that. Will also throw Desperation on him - chill skills are nice but it can go on my dancer... I'm not sure I understand the logic behind spd smoke / atk smoke over def smoke? The idea w/ def smoke is that some targets have too much def for you to kill so being able to choose your attack order to attack a weaker foe first and use def smoke to finish off the second (14 extra damage). And he can't proc galeforce a second time after using def smoke 3 on his first turn so one shotting shouldn't be an issue. Unless you're worried about subsequent galeforce units going in and struggling to get a galeforce proc off? I would also be interested if you happen to have any ideas for a non-galeforce build. Not opposed to galeforce for any reason just wondering what other options are out there.

If anyone can think of a better build for this man, let me know. I've been away from the game for a while and am not sure how I feel about his build. It's really useful sometimes and useless others.... I went w/ sturdy impact over firesweep b/c A) firesweep wasnt a thing yet and B) I wanted to make use of his def somehow since he has it. https://imgur.com/GYLMoKv

For me, it was summoning Ephraim for the first time. When the game came out there were a bunch of heroes and I rerolled a bit for MRobin. Never played Awakening but I remember pre-si being able to hard counter half the units in the game (colorless & green) was considered pretty OP. I think his statline was pretty decent as well. Anyways, I was really dissapointed that Ephraim wasn't in the game and when I saw he was going to be added in the first new banner I got really excited. Woke up the morning, got him on my first summon and freaked out. It's crazy thinking how excited I was to pull a unit...things are so easy to summon that after 3 years and quitting for 4-5 months two different times I still have over 175 unique 5*s. And even if I miss a favorite unit that just came out, I know they'll add an alt or seasonal version that will be powercrept or I might like more. It's hard to get excited about new units coming out these days... Wish I could go back to the early days when I could see all my 5*s on one page... I'd since rerolled when Jaffar and Ninian came out and got both of them and that's the account I'm on now. Ephraim is actually my favorite fe character over Jaffar but there was no way I was going to get him on my main when he was on a 3 colorless banner. I really should build up some of my other first 5* units before I forget which ones and merge over the sort by obtained. Jaffar might be pretty difficult to build in today's meta now though - especially if I go through with my plans to build H!Jaffar.... I have pulled an Ephraim on my main account but he's not really used except to counter red units in AA b/c he's -def and there are so many other Ephraims now that are way better (duo!ephraim, looking at you). edit: Now that you got me thinking about it, I actually remember the last unit I was really excited to obtain. It was Sothe and I got 2 of him and a Micaiah even though we all knew Sothe was probably going to get demoted... I have since +10'd sothe and I think Micaiah is +2 b/c I off pulled her a couple times after. Wanted to go for bridal duo mic&sothe but I just returned to the game and trying to save orbs for summer units so I don't think I can risk it.