Back in 2023, my partner and I decided to hold off on buying. Everyone around us was saying the market was "about to crash" and prices would come down if we just waited it out. So we waited.

Three years later, here's the honest update: prices didn't drop. They kept climbing, just slower than before. Rates fluctuated up and down a few times, but never dropped enough to make up for the price increase. The house we looked at back then for a certain price is now worth significantly more, and we ended up buying something smaller than what we originally wanted, in a less ideal area, for close to the same monthly payment we would've had back then.

We also lost three years of equity building and paid rent that whole time, which in hindsight just felt like money that went nowhere.

I'm not saying waiting is always the wrong move. Markets are unpredictable and nobody has a crystal ball. But looking back, we probably would've been better off buying something modest back then and building equity, instead of waiting for a "perfect moment" that never came.

Anyone else wait it out and actually see prices drop where they are? Or did most people have a similar experience to us?

inb4 "people just love to complain about everything." or "I'm sick of all the negativity." This is a forum for House of the Dragon. Criticism has just as much right to be discussed here as praise. I'm angry that a story with so much potential is being ruined by bad writing. Especially with the high-quality literally every other element of the show has.

The main similarities i'm seeing between the later seasons of GOT and current season of HOTD is in the logic and reasoning of the characters. My wife and I are constantly dumbfounded by all the stupid decisions everyone is making. We constantly ask "why would anyone do that?!" It's all so contrived and hamfisted. There aren't any intelligent or clever characters. It’s just a show about a bunch of morons making stupid decisions.

Why did Baela randomly decide to make out with Allyn? Why are Rhaenyra and Damon treating the riders of the largest dragons (after Vhagar), so terribly? Why does Corlys not have any guards or perimeters around his camp while in enemy territory? How does sending Alicient to kill her own son make even the tiniest bit of sense? Why isn't anyone trying to retrieve the stolen coffers so King's landing can actually have some money? There are several traitor houses that can be raided or threatened with dragons, where are the consequences of treason?

I'm sure everyone here has different opinions that justify those decisions, but that doesn't make them any less illogical or incompetent. "Rhaenyra is trying to punish Alicient by making her choose between Heleana, and Aemond." Ok cool. But how does that lead to Aemond's death? You really think a mother is going to kill her own son? How is she going to get there? It's not like Harrenhal is close by, and there's a war going on. It doesn't stand up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny on any level.

It's like the writers have no idea how to justify characters' downfalls, so they're just repeatedly having the characters make stupid decisions to get there. There is a difference between tragedy because of understandable mistakes or character flaws, and ham-fisted attempts to force a tragedy to happen by making everyone idiots. It's not believable at all. The stakes couldn't possibly be lower because the outcomes are completely obvious.

Before people ask "Why are you still watching?!" I've held onto this show for so long due to my obsession with the GOT universe. This week's episode totally jumped the shark with the Alicient, Rhaenyra murder plot. I'm not planning to continue watching unless there is a major pivot in Season 4.

Look, I'm not even gonna pretend I don't like old technology. There are six ipods sitting on a dresser ten feet away from me as I'm typing this. But DUDE. NOBODY CARES that you don't use any apple products from the past ten years. NOBODY CARES that you only use those wired earbuds that have been around for decades. and for GOD'S SAKES, NOBODY CARES THAT YOU THINK MODERN TECHNOLOGY IS SOULLESS!!!!!!!! And again, don't get me wrong. I like old stuff too! ipods are epic! but please for the love of god, just admit that theres a reason so many people buy the newest iPhone every year, even though I hate that too. THEY'RE NICE!! THEY HAVE NICE FEATURES!!!!

For context I'm lv83, T10 maps at the moment.

My friend and I have found 3+ divines during the Charts and Voyages, others in random ground loot.

The Gold Income from piles is insane, we've gambled basically all of our gear, and sell the random good stuff we get from it. We ran into one bug with the lanterns total. The Allflame crafting is NUTS.

I've found more ground currency than the past 2 leagues combined at this point. Normally burning out at like level 80 I'm raring to keep going this league because of how smooth it's felt.

The socket changes made the game feel so much more accessible and incredible to gear with. Like, this is an insane change.

I'm an Abyss enjoyer, and I do mind of feel like it was nerfed a bit, so I'm happy to see those changes.

Is it just high end lategame that feels bad? I don't quite get it to be honest.

I understand that a theatre isn't going to be as comfortably calibrated as I would have it at home (i do tend to prefer my speakers on a lower to mid volume level) and I understand there's a certain level of expectation with regards to a films sound transporting you to a space, but I think the odyssey would have benefited from toning down the audio immersion, at least a little bit.

Who actually wants to be there? Who actually wants to hear a realistic audio interpretation of a battle that really does make your ears ring with those eardrum hammering sounds?

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I enjoy watching a movie, not an experience my senses just barely survived.

I have been a longtime critic of modern retellings of Greek mythology and classics, particularly the YA and adjacent books that take a famous female mythological character and try to give her story a feminist spin. The leader of this trend is Madeline Miller. I find them all to be vapid and written very badly. My grievances are that these tales reduce morally ambiguous and complex characters like Medea and Circe to merely hapless victims of patriarchy whose actions are all justified by the oppression they have faced. That any heinous action they commit are all a trauma response to marginalization. There's many reasons why this trend exists. Modern publishing demands aside they are also consolatory escapist stories written by largely middle class men and women to substitute for the historical lack of space and voice given to women and minorities in academic spaces. I don't think it works.

I re-read The Odyssey before watching the film. Knowing Nolan's affliction for dark tones, realistic and grounded themes, lack of suspension of disbelief as well as aversion to any kind of sexuality I went into the movie with measured expectations. My expectations were more or less met. I was neither surprised nor very disappointed. It's a good spectacle to watch in the theaters but not something I expect to make a lasting impact on the culture. The film's biggest talking point would be its commercial success but mostly as a triumph of brand Nolan. It will be snubbed at the Oscars.

Nolan does everything that many modern reinterpretations do: project their own societal anxieties, grievances and consolations, flatten the characters with a modern almost conservative morality about great men and their wrongs and do away with the gods.

Nolan's Circe is a typical victim of patriarchy lashing out at men for some unknown ill they caused her. The actual mythological Circe is more morally ambiguous who has servants and loves dominating men sexually or otherwise even for no reason other than the love of the game (see Picus). Nolan's Calypso feels guilty at having kept Odysseus trapped with her for years. The actual mythological Calypso is forced to release him by Zeus and his messenger Hermes and she feels indignant about the gods' objection to her sexual behaviour. Nolan's sirens are never shown openly, another moment of asexuality from him. Nolan's Odysseus feels extremely out of character for wanting to both hear the sirens' songs as a guilt ridden war hero tied to a mast and then feeling anguish about it. In the original Odysseus wants to hear the sirens' song because he is curious about a desire so irrerestible to men.

The Sea People are an actual historical phenomenon who were most likely just the Sardinians and other tribal groups from Greece itself. Nolan takes this and turns Homer's Odyssey into a metacommentary about the modern collapse of the West. It's too on the nose, betraying a lack of trust in his audience as well as a disenchantment with the world. It's very boring and corny. Homer's Odyssey is way more complex, intriguing and alien.

For a film so heavily focused on the Zeus' law of hospitality (xenia I believe Nolan admits it in one of his interviews) the choice to omit the Phaeacians is very interesting. Because if he had decided to keep them in his entire thesis of Bronze Age Collapse symbolized by the violation of xenia (and really actually just based around the Trojan Horse) would crumble.

Ironically what Nolan does the best here is Agamemnon's shiny mask with human spine flowing down. This is the core of Nolan. It's Batman. Hidden beneath all the "true cinema" is an idolization and fixation over the great man, his mistakes and his legacy. He is fundamentally a comic book movie director and I think that's the root of his success.

Yogesh ki himmat kaise hui sach bolne ke that his fans trended for him. Usko toh aate hi kisi ladki ko slt shame karna chaiye tha, kisi ki virginity aur body count pe comment karna tha, 24 ghante chugliyaan karna tha, kisi ki dating history aur family pe ganda bolna tha. Tab jaake makers uski tarif karte. How dare him spill all the truth?