Whether you were in the US or not, how did you spend this objectively best holiday?

Sal and I spent most of the day preparing our meal. Somewhat...it wasn't exactly taxing or intensive. But it was fantastic. Unfortunately no family, but it's still nice just being the both of us.

The Shalmar Islands were a small group of islands in the central Aesean Ocean. Once Lanlanian territories, the islands were granted independence in 1509, after the indigenous population's separatist movement gained international attention and pressure mounted on the Lanlanians. The islands economy had been built on servicing the Holy Lanlanian servicemen and women that were stationed or passed through there, and quickly tanked when they suddenly withdrew.

Located in the middle of nowhere before the age of globalization and having a minuscule market, the islands found it difficult to recover. Nonetheless, Nylander foreign aid kept them afloat. The islands developed a largely self-sustaining economy on the backs of their fisherman and agriculture. More recently, it began acting as a flag of convenience and a valuable transshipping port.

Under Nyland's influence, the islands have nurtured a budding democracy. The President was both head of state and head of government and checked by the Jelaniti, Shalmar's legislative body. A small island nation in a largely peaceful world, Shalmar had little to worry about beyond pirates--which it countered with a small fleet of armed boats led by the Aesean-class RSIS Morlo patrol boat provided by New Alden. On land, the Republic was defended by the Nyland-trained Republic of the Shalmar Islands Self-Defense Force.

Uromaj, Shalmar Islands
Wednesday, 25 Zechyr 1596

President Ulrik Thorssen was elected by the Jelaniti in Dosa after his predecessor was removed following a vote of no confidence. He was a stout man, ethnically Shalmari, though as Lanlanianized as the rest of the country. His predecessor, Lizette Garlund had been removed and arrested on corruption charges. No one expected that her cousin, General Rikard Buttahede, would react as aggressively as he did.

Thorssen and his government certainly didn't, as he boarded a plane to the nearby Republic of Papuwa on a state visit.

Folkestad:
It was Tuesday evening at Young Messianics. The local NMP youth meeting. 30 10-16 year olds would be in attendance at the group tonight. On the agenda weapons training. they would be teaching how to fire the AR 15 and young messianic values class. They were going to teach how to be prepared. Ingbar Bergström formally off the army was tonights instructor. His first 35 minute session was on identifying the enemies. He said duing the session "So who are the enemies of this nation?" . The group of 30 youth started responding , the responses came in quick "Akhadics" said one , "The political elite" said one, "Culture stealing immigrants" said another to each which he responded often praising , they'd clearly been reading up. The responses continued "Immigration enablers" , "The gays", "The trans". He then said next "So what do we do?" when few answers came he dived into the lecture on how to fight them , he talked about Messianic Patrol, practising your weapon skills so you can "be prepared" for if they come for the messianics. The lesson for this week was over in 35 minutes before they were to move onto the gun, martial arts and knife training.

They had a selection of guns to fire the Semi-assault rifles, the pistol and the long range hunting gun. They also have a selection of small knives. The first session in the training was the gun training. They would take it in turn to hit the targets , and were taught human anatomy they were of course taught to "only defend" . There were points for the most accurate. They were taught the gun safety so they didn't accidentally fire. Then during knife fighting and defense they were taught areas to hit if they were attacked to ensure the enemy could not hit them back and they were taught to the pressure points in the next session to control the body "if attacked". The training was of course "for defense only". Though it had been clear to the youth defense was open to interpretation. They would now be prepared. One of the youth seem particuarly keen to learn and at 14 was interested in signing up for the Messianic patrol. He had a messianic tattoo and a homophobic tattoo on his arm. Otto Byström would surely make a good political candidate later on.

Amaziah Perrier-Abbott and Seth Abbott were returning home after attending the Orchestra in town together. They had had a good afternoon so far , they had gone for the pre-show meal and met up with some local friends in Eretzora where Seth often visited. Seth had enjoyed having his 12 year old cousin over. They looked forward to getting home to tell Rachel all about the concert. They had enjoyed the week holiday so far and Amaziah was due to be there another week. It had been great catching up with his cousin and spending time with probably his closest family in bond, even more close than his brothers. They went to the park and played a game of hide and seek together. Another hour passed and then they left for home , they walked the most direct route to save time. They decided to cut through the Joğarıtöbe , a belay part of the the settler town .Little did they know of the problems to come, they got looks as they went through and then a duo of belay youth approached. They started swearing at the boys and cornered them . Amaziah started getting scared , Seth was trying to comfort him as the boys shouted "How dare you come here? You looking for trouble" , they continued shouting and calling them names. Then it happened they pulled out the knives and ran towards Seth and stabbed him , they caught him by surprise. Seth shouted in Alstern " Run get away from here" but Amaziah couldn't he had froze and was trying to process the situation. Then he unfroze but he wasn't going to let his cousin die. There was no way he'd leave him there, he decided to try and save him in a second. There was no question. He ran towards one of the boys and tripped him up but then it devolved into a tussle , the Belay boy got him on the ground then started stabbing away just like they had to Seth. Seth was screaming out in pain as he kept losing blood, he'd been stabbed 5 times.Then the other Belay boy saw what was happening and joined in the frenzy on Amaziah stabbing him, Amaziah screamed out for help as they kept stabbing him having already made sure he could not get up. He cried out for help, he just hoped for someone anyone to help him. Indeed the neighbours mostly Belay had seen what was going on but they could not be bothered to help. Why was it their concern? It was just another Alsteneri invader boy. Amaziah started praying as they continued the attack , Seth tried to get up to help Amaziah staggering over but then the once boy just focused on him again. This was not going well.

So, in addition to the sort of Steam Black Friday sale that's going on now, Steam's also opened nominations for 2019 Steam Awards, a completely meaningless exercise in mass popularity in which a big-name "Meh" will win in each category. In spite of this, I still nominated my picks for the awards.

https://store.steampowered.com/SteamAwar...6934034157

Go ahead an explain yours, if you bothered, or comment on how I'm wrong. Even though I'm not.

Imperial Kingdom of Hôinôm | Fein, 1595

It was 1595. The war had raged on too long but was now over. Unfortunately the side James wife backed was not quite successful. James in prison was scared , what would happen? Would he be found guilty? What was his future? . He had tried not to get involved in the civil war as much as possible, he just wanted to make sure his little boys were safe.

The Goldecian government was now concerned , one of their princes was in danger and they had 2 young citizens who needed help. They decided something needed to be done, they had tried to get the kids out before and James for safety but it had been too late once they realised they had a problem. A message was sent from the Prime Minister:
To the government of Hoinom

We write to you today with regards to Mr James Lloyd-Jones-Lâm, Peter Phúc Lloyd-Jones-Lâm,Estelle Quý Lloyd-Jones-Lâm and Mrs Tuyêt Lloyd-Jones-Lâm. We write today asking you to come to the negotiating table in neutral territory that we may discuss a deal over our future relations and the safety and security of members of our royal family. We would seek to establish a basis on which we have future relations and ties that benefit both our peoples. But for this to happen we need to ensure the safety and security of our citizens.

We would like to discuss arrangements to transfer Peter Phúc Lloyd-Jones-Lâm and Estelle Quý Lloyd-Jones-Lâm to Goldecia to live with relatives in the palace. We believe since they are children of the royal family this is the most appropriate setting as this would place them in the care of the family that very love and care about them. Furthermore we would like to discuss a possible deal in regards to James and Tuyet that could see them have freedom in return for conditions. We understand if you desire they do not oppose your government or want them involved in politics and suggest maybe these could be part of the terms of such a deal and diplomatic settlement of the issue. We would be open to negotiations in regards to helping with the rebuilding of your nation and society through our Foreign Aid Programme and even possibly a deepening of trade ties which we believe would benefit both our nations. We would like to meet with you to discuss in more detail in a neutral territory. We very much hope for a positive resolution to this issue for both our governments and nations.

Yours sincerely Marianne Stewart Adler

With the full independance ofNew Zealmark elections have to be held.
These are the parties

• Imperialist party: the party that is currently ruling new zealmark and always won the popular vote. Is willing to keep the status quo settled after the war
  
• Leftists for NZ: a socialist party: wants a fully independant NZ Free from Ishnalla and
  
• Commune For NZ: the communist, want NZ to flourish and don't care who is helping them as long as it benefits the people of NZ
  
• the new right front: a rightingparty that is against svarna control, includes rightwingers and facists
  

What are your major Banks/Building societies and are they domestically owned or foreign owned. Use the form below.Put owner in brackets.

Yes. To combat the decline of actual playing together that is completely not His fault, His Most Esteemed High Imperial Celestial Apostolic Majesty, King Alldays, Chief Administrator has determined that distributing participation awards is a good idea. Because we're all lame millennial that need that stuff. There could be a few different participation rewards:

• You'll get a pretty ribbon when you participate in so many role plays started by another player.
  
• Campaign Masters/Thread Starters will also get pretty ribbons the more threads they start.
  
• The Campaign/Thread Master/Starters will have the option to award an MVP with an extra fancy ribbon at the end of the campaign/thread.
  
• The Directorate may also (read: don't count on it) issue an MVP award in particularly exciting role plays.
  
• Should the Directorate issue a reputation point for participating in someone else's expansion/NPC campaign/role play? (I'm thinking yeah.)
  
• An ribbon for having a developed wiki article for your nation?
  
• Ribbons for other kindsa articles? (History...uuhh....)
  

But secretly this is so I can say "I tried, you can't complain" should you guys object to my taking over half the map alone cause no one would RP with me.

• A player may get a fief per post (regardless of forum...except spam. because fuck spam).
  
• A player may get x number of fiefs per MVP award.
  
• Fiefs may be traded for a choice of video game from Administration's (read: me) collect of unclaimed video games (I currently have 18 pages on unclaimed keys on humble bundle).
  
• Should a player get fiefs per campaign/thread they start or participate in? (This may devalue the fief.)
  
• Should we enable pay-to-win and let you trade fiefs for pixels on the map? (You gets 10 fiefs per dollar you donate.)