So the Convergence Mod. I've tried all of the mods from early DS1 days and here we are now on Elden Ring. First of all, massive props to the mod devs for the colossal work to remotely accomplish all of that. Very few if any people can achieve this level of work and keep the quality consistent.

However, I have a strange hate and love relationship with the Elden Ring version of Convergence mod and it's complicated to explain.

First of all, I love the mod. The newly added weapons, armor sets and spells are incredibly expansive allowing almost infinite freedom for players to use and wear what they want. The quality of these spells, weapons and armors are incredibly well designed and most feel as if they could have been in vanilla all along. The devs have done an exceptional job at improving the vanilla game's arsenal of tools for the player to use, adding a plethora of new and interesting playthroughs using brand new magic types and weapon builds.

But them comes balance and that's the complicated bit.

Elden Ring Convergence or (ERC) for short feels, at least to me that linear progression was thrown completely out the window and if the player doesn't feel OP within an hour of playing then the mod is doing something wrong. Starting classes are insanely strong with armor and weaponry that would be mid to end game content. And the starting spells are also incredibly strong compared to what vanilla classes would have gotten. Then every class starts with notes of recommended weapons and armor sets that works best for that specific class giving details on where they're located which is good considering how freaking massive the ER world is. And yet I've read on their discord that the notes are only a temporary fix which if that's true is good as it kinda does kill exploration. If you spotted the mixed duality of my feelings on that, good. You get a cookie. Vox my Enginseers when available.

But each class starts in unique locations throughout the map and some in mid to end game maps which as a feature throws off progression completely. And the devs have purposely equalized every map to have the same difficulty to make these unique starting points work which I personally find a terrible decision that sets the mod back. And I don't mean the unique starting locations, that's perfectly fine. But is that feature really worth nuking the game's difficulty already more than the mod already has?

Am I repeating myself? A little, yeah. But progression and difficulty is critical to have in a game like ER, screw it, any game needs it to work properly.

So the starting zone is just as difficult as the end game and that feels like a colossal step backwards of a combat mod of making the game even easier. The open world enemies are laughably easy, give a meager handful of runes and pretty useless of even fighting and its worse of an experience than vanilla. And to make matters worse is that all enemies (expect for bosses and unique NPC's) have had their armor and weapon loot pool completely removed, gutting any reason to interact with them even more. Enemies seemingly drop less crafting ingredients than vanilla and Rune Arcs which are strangely incredibly easy to acquire dozens of, I'd usually have around 20-40 of em before I'm even level 20 which is a questionable design choice.

So in return of making open world enemies seemingly useless of wasting any of your time on except for sprinting around at super sonic speeds looking for loot, gear is extremely finite and handplaced throughout the maps. I personally feel that's not a very good tradeoff. I like the idea of finite handplaced weapons but for common gear, why? It makes far more sense to be done for rarer and unique equipment which would keep open world enemies relevant, keeping discovery from becoming completely useless as a stat, allowing players to farm common gear from enemies while restricting the stronger and unique gear for later which would have been a far more immersive and player friendly decision that also keeps the difficulty challenge fair.

But from what I can tell, the focus of the mod is on the mini bosses and bosses which see almost exclusive amount of attention by being incredibly buffed and tanky to survive the newly added weapons and spells that can still just straight up melt them in seconds. If you don't believe me, go look up Elden Ring Convergence spell rating on YouTube. There's a one hour plus long video ranking every spell for each class.

And what puzzles me even is that there was a lot of effort put into making brand new locations, camps, dungeons and forts throughout the maps, they're sparingly placed sure but they're well done if not a little empty of enough enemies. They do add value to the mod and I can certainly see the skill of the devs but you have to go out of your way to find them. But I hope they work more on fleshing them out.

Now for the vanilla dungeons, they've been somewhat gutted with less traps or just straight up had their traps removed or turned off. Why? Most dungeons have been heavily reworked, new directions and a little bit more confusing to get around with new enemies to fight. It's certainly not a bad experience and can be fun depending on the dungeon. But generally, the dungeons are easier than vanilla save the boss fight.

Now for the more controversial part of the mod, is that they've made a completely open world with little if any barriers left compared to vanilla. You can run to any erdtree from starting a new character, kill the mini boss relatively easily and warp to end game maps within the first hour. This isn't unintentional or accidental, that's what they wanted. They wanted to make it a full open world sandbox which I respect as their modding design, nothing I can say will or can change that.

But I don't personally agree with it and that's just me. Making Elden Ring an open world sandbox with 0 limitations of being able to get around kills any sense of character and world progression and difficulty of being weak to getting *strong*. Want to skip the entire game and get to Leyndell Royal Capital within an hour for end game loot? Sure, go ahead, there's absolutely nothing stopping you bud. If I'm a little crass, this mod feels like it was designed for people who don't actually want to *play* Elden Ring but instead want to revolutionize what the term speedrunning means to see how OP they can get. I'm not interested in trying to stop anyone from playing this mod, that's not the point and not my intent. You're free to enjoy what you enjoy. But that's what the focus of the mod and its design says to me at the very least. People are perfectly capable of ignoring the focus and playing the game normally from start to end but if you're doing that, you're going against what the mod authors want you to do. But if that's the case, why not use another mod that focuses heavily on campaign progression and increasing difficulty?

TLDR: ERC does not feel like a mod that's for players who want proper progression or those who want to 'earn' their strength when it's instead practically hand gifted to you on a silver platter which is a unique mod design choice that's not for everyone that sacrifices a great deal of actual gameplay to achieve. ERC is a power fantasy mod straight up and doesn't pretend otherwise. Is a power fantasy mod bad? Of course not. I use them for other games too. But there's a certain line that I believe people should be careful of how much power fantasy is too much before it just removes any hint of difficulty from the game.

And a strange design choice is that Melina, your maiden waifu has been pretty much removed completely from the game except for a single instance which more or less doesn't always work at Morgott's grace. And why she was removed is because of the unique starting locations for each class probably broke the vanilla story badly and thus removed.

Does all of this mean the mod is bad in anyway? No, absolutely not. It's exceptionally well made and extremely bug free with little to no issues. It's just a different design and it's not for everyone's taste. Even if it's not for me, I still love the mod regardless which sounds like a strange thing to say but it's true nonetheless. Convergence is a perfect sandbox mod for complete player freedom for their builds but it doesn't go beyond that, it's not a overhaul of the ER campaign and makes the vanilla experience significantly easier. Does it have tons of QOL additions, of course it does.

And if you're confused on where I'm coming from or what my bias is then sure, I'll help you out. I love challenging gameplay, it's what got me into Dark Souls and other challenging games in the first place. I personally believe games shouldn't hold your hand and keep them on their toes.

I do have some ideas that I think would help the mod improve the actual gameplay (not the combat mechanics) which the mod already alters.

1. Open World enemies (especially mini-bosses) need to have their stats drastically improved because even the player at 1 minute of gameplay can take them out with extreme ease. Enemies should have more health and a slight damage bonus making them less of a joke.
2. AI aggression option. This should be applied mostly to the open world enemies due to how ranged weaponry from bows/crossbows/spells have been drastically enhanced and their ranges have been boosted. This can look like either faster weapon swinging speeds, faster movement speeds and an improved line of sight aggro range with an AOE aggro range for some certain enemies.
3. A selectable difficulty option that attempts to bring the hyper inflated player damage levels closer to vanilla.
4. Optional Adventure Mode that removes the ability to fast travel from your map while keeping the already included gateways as methods of warping around the map and Roundtable Hold.
5. Difficulty option affecting all spells and FP, increases all spell costs by either 1.5 or 2.5 times and slows the FP regenerations from 1FP per second to .25FP or .5FP per second.
6. Nightmare difficulty: Doubles or triples all non boss and mini-boss enemies in the open world. So say you're at Gatefront Ruins where the Godrick knight is guarding the greatsword chest, now they'll be two or three knights instead of just one. You can see just how insane the game would be at this point, it would be a great challenge run.
7. Optional challenge runs like player takes 2x extra damage but rune drops from enemies are 1.5x or 2x stronger. Or player is banned from using torrent completely for entire playthrough except for certain bosses where it's mechanically designed for.

If you guys have any additional good ideas that you think that should be added upon this too that would really help improve Convergence's lackluster difficulty then go ahead. Installing the Seamless co-op mod does allow you to edit the worlds enemies damage/health/poise scaling which is extremely useful for Convergence.

And because this is the Internet and Reddit, I guess I have to triple assure and confirm this so people don't get the wrong idea. I have no hate towards the Convergence mod nor the developers involved with this mod. This is not a flaming hate post, I have no intention of bashing anyone here. I only made this post because I really like the Convergence mod and would love to see it improve. Hope that helps. I'm open to conversation and talking about the mod. I'm not coming from a "I know everything" stance and I'm not a Elden Ring Modder. I make mods, sure, so I know the general experience but for other games.

So I live in the south and it's brutally hot. Yes, yes, I know there are other states in the US that are equally as hot or even hotter but this isn't a competition!

But I just realized that, for a long part of my life that I've been so adversed against going to church for a number of reasons, most of it out of my control.

Granted, I now consider myself agnostic and my family are religious but I did enjoy the sermons (which were often in French) and the Pastor is an old family friend who's a good guy.

But the major problem was,

1. Full monkey suit. Complete church suit, heavy blazer, business tie, the complete works. And for any man regardless of age, it was absolutely required to wear to even attend and it was impossible to breathe in. God help you if you showed up underdressed. And women got to wear light dresses and high heels, far easier to wear and breathe through.

2. Sundays always seemed to be the hottest fucking days of the entire week, a blazing 100 to 115+ degrees in a small church that had no AC and tons of windows for the light to shine through and roast us to death.

I never understood why anyone would willingly put themselves through such a thing, wearing a full business suit like you're about to make a $$60 billion contract that you can barely move in and sit in the roasting heat with your traditional swamp ass from the humidity to pray and worship for god.

And it completely turned me off, the second I was old enough to not go and my parents stopped forcing and dragging my ass to church, I stopped going and was significantly happier. But as an adult, I've realized in hind sight that entire scenario is incredibly stupid but so easily preventable. If it turned me off from religion and going to church, I can't be the only one.

I'm curious if anyone else has had this situation and or problem in their lives too.

AnyPOV - Scenario D&D based RPG - Proxy Open

User : Whatever gender, race and class you choose to be (homebrew is even supported)

1 open optioned RPG intro -1 Open scenario for you to freely use

1489 DR (Year of the Warrior Ring)/ Dungeons and Dragons based

Dead Dove / Horror / RPG

TW/CW: ||This is a Dungeons and Dragons RPG bot, so things including character injury, death, sex, murder, cannibalism, etc. All these things can happen! This story is personally rated NC-17 and limitless but it can go from morally gray to morally bankrupt, etc. Just be aware of that!||

Description: This bot is incredibly diverse as it's one of my oldest bots but has seen a colossal update and more major updates are coming. This bot is a full on Dungeons and Dragon RPG that covers everything, every planet, every plane, every realm, every magic school, every weapon type, every armor type, every class/multiclass/variant classes/prestige classes, every monster, every god, and every major faction (some lore books are still in the works so please don't expect everything to be perfect atm.

This isn't a normal D&D bot, it's a Massive Multiplayer Online Virtual Reality RPG video game that over half of the world's population got stuck inside upon launch day. You and millions of others flood the D&D multiverse and it's complete chaos, it hasn't even been a few hours and the death tolls is already in the millions.

Prepare to shit your pants as the detached yet omnipotent AI Aetherion controls the universe and keeps it dynamic to always respond and react to your presence, decisions and actions. Everything has consequences and Aetherion will always keep you on toes. Gods, factions and NPC's watch your actions and will react to you.

Be whatever class you want, be whatever species/race you want, and start wherever you want within the D&D multiverse. Struggle by yourself, or find companions, purchase mercenaries or enslave others to do your bidding.

Enjoy an experience of D&D that's as accurate to official D&D lore as humanely possible

This bot has thirteen (and growing) custom lore books that range around 80-120K tokens per lore book to significantly improve the story and world.

You can find the bot here but please feel free to check out my other bots that I regularly work on!
https://janitorai.com/characters/dba6303e-7823-4722-820a-1f18f67756bf_character-dungeons-and-dragons-mmo-vr-rpg

https://preview.redd.it/kwqvpqjduuih1.png?width=1490&format=png&auto=webp&s=db941f33b9316ef4677bb640f53e67f91ffa2c1e

AnyPOV - Scenario D&D based RPG - Proxy Open

User : Whatever gender and pack of wolf you wish to be, you can even choose to be a two-legged mortal if you so desire.

1 open optioned RPG intro - 1 custom intro - 1 Open scenario for you to freely use (will be added upon soon with more custom intros)

1489 DR (Year of the Warrior Ring) / Dire-Wolves, wolves, Yeti's, Dragons, monsters and mortal races of all kinds / Dungeons and Dragons based

Dead Dove / Horror / RPG

TW/CW: ||This is a Dungeons and Dragons wolf pack series, so things including character injury, death, sex, murder, cannibalism, etc. All these things can happen! This story is personally rated NC-17 and limitless but it can go from morally gray to morally bankrupt, etc. Just be aware of that!||

Description: This is my newest installment of my official Icewind Dale Wolf RPG that covers the entire Spines of the World Mountain and seven unique wolf packs with humans, adventurers, druids and monsters all vying for power, territory and control. There are heavy adult themes including politics and religion (all D&D lore accurate). You have full control to be a wolf of any pack or prowl as a loner, or if you so desire, run as a human adventurer or even as a monster and have adventures within the Icewind Dale.

Feeling cute, might delete later :3

Join a wolf pack, have a wholesome family with a den of pups with your mate, vye for power and lead your pack, wage war on your enemies and another pack! And much, much more!

This bot has seven custom lore books that range around 80-120K tokens per lore book to significantly improve the story and world.

You can find the bot here but please feel free to check out my other bots that I regularly work on!
https://janitorai.com/characters/d9c71e23-dba9-4391-a0e7-3e212f04e8b1_character-d-d-icewind-dales-wolf-rpg

https://preview.redd.it/zfdkhl04vuih1.png?width=1490&format=png&auto=webp&s=1fab9e7ebbedff55dbe7daeb431f90def2d72935

AnyPOV - Scenario D&D based RPG - Proxy Open

User : Whatever gender and pack of wolf you wish to be, you can even choose to be a two-legged mortal if you so desire.

1 open optioned RPG intro - 1 custom intro - 1 Open scenario for you to freely use (will be added upon soon with more custom intros)

1489 DR (Year of the Warrior Ring) / Dire-Wolves, wolves, Yeti's, Dragons, monsters and mortal races of all kinds / Dungeons and Dragons based

Dead Dove / Horror / RPG

TW/CW: ||This is a Dungeons and Dragons wolf pack series, so things including character injury, death, sex, murder, cannibalism, etc. All these things can happen! This story is personally rated NC-17 and limitless but it can go from morally gray to morally bankrupt, etc. Just be aware of that!||

Description: This is my newest installment of my official Icewind Dale Wolf RPG that covers the entire Spines of the World Mountain and seven unique wolf packs with humans, adventurers, druids and monsters all vying for power, territory and control. There are heavy adult themes including politics and religion (all D&D lore accurate). You have full control to be a wolf of any pack or prowl as a loner, or if you so desire, run as a human adventurer or even as a monster and have adventures within the Icewind Dale.

Join a wolf pack, have a wholesome family with a den of pups with your mate, vye for power and lead your pack, wage war on your enemies and another pack! And much, much more!

This bot has seven custom lore books that range around 80-120K tokens per lore book to significantly improve the story and world.

You can find the bot here but please feel free to check out my other bots that I regularly work on!
https://janitorai.com/characters/d9c71e23-dba9-4391-a0e7-3e212f04e8b1_character-d-d-icewind-dales-wolf-rpg

Annoying my bro, feeling cute, might delete later

Now maybe it's just me, I know I have a hypersensitive nervous system so I experience noises, lights and sensations more harshly. And no, that's not a fun thing. I can feel my intestines move when it's actively digesting food and it *hurts*.

But I digress and back to the point.

I can't stand any, I mean, *any* YouTubers who scream and yell loudly regardless if it's a podcast, gaming content or stream, and it legit hurts my ears even when I turn the volume down. It's come to a point that any video I watch and the YouTuber starts screaming or yelling like a banshee, I instantly exit the video because it's not just painful, it's borderline irritating like rubbing my dick against a cheese grater.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this shit.

All I think when a YouTuber starts screaming bloody murder into their mic for even the most asinine reason, I want to shove my fist into the monitor, grab the YouTuber through the screen and throw them off a cliff. Sorry, but it just pisses me off that badly.

And if you're reading this and think, gee retard, why don't you just not watch any videos where they don't scream?

Yeah, I'd like that but there's just one *itsy bitsy* problem with that, I can't view into the future unlike you apparently so I don't know if someone is about to start screaming like they got their balls ripped off but for the most minor reason. I *do* avoid and not watch Youtubers who I know scream more than women in horror movies.

Now, out of context this sounds bad and I get that so I'll help you out.

For a lifetime now, I've been officially diagnosed with numerous medical disorders and conditions that make my stomach extremely unstable and highly prone to diarrhea. If I get too stressed, my body has incredibly painful diarrhea. If I get too hot in the sun, I have extremely painful diarrhea. Essentially, I could probably win the Guinness world record for most time spent in ones lifetime in the bathroom.

And I'm currently taking Wigovy 9mg atm for weight loss that's been causing me to have constant diarrhea, vomiting and extreme nausea on a daily basis. I haven't so much been able to go to a damn grocery store 7 minutes away because of this.

And bless the mental gymnastics my parents go through seem to think being locked in a car suffering from diarrhea, stomach pain, intense nausea and possibly vomiting for 6+ hours to go a family funeral is a non-issue. That somehow in their minds that if I simply believe that I can do this, then my medical problems will go away.

I don't know what kind of looney toons logic that is but that's now how things work. My problems don't just *vanish* simply because my parents want them to.

We had this exact same problem barely a month ago with a drive to NC that was 4+ hours away to go meet my brothers new GF and say hello to family. I wasn't able to go and travel with my parents because of the same, exact, problems.

Naturally, my parents don't have medical issues like I do. They don't have the same conditions, disorders and illnesses I do so they don't have the same understanding of what I experience. And this time, it's a considerablely longer driver, in a small house with 40+ people and 1-2 small bathrooms constantly being used. And the funeral itself is outdoors, in the blazing heat with no bathroom for at least a mile.

I know it's not as cut and dry, it's an emotional affair with the funeral, a lot of beloved family members there, people I haven't seen in over a decade. The idea of staying home and not going kills me but I genuinely don't see how it'll work. I'm genuinely not trying to flip out in anger but it's incredibly infuriating and frankly, I don't know what to do other than putting my foot down and saying absolutely not regardless of the consequences.

And for the people who don't have much experience with similar medical issues as I have, I do suffer from really bad personal stress and anxiety about my diarrhea and stability of my stomach as good days are extremely rare. I have many, many times tried to put myself out there and beg my stomach to be kind only to be met with absolute agony and diarrhea, I have shat myself in the past on a number of occasions because diarrhea is not polite enough to wait an hour until I'm near a bathroom.

I really would appreciate to hear other people's opinions about what I should do because I'm slowly losing my mind here.

So I know there's the phobia for sharp object but that's usually just in general like having a panick attack because there's a sharp knife in a kitchen. But that's not what I deal.

Then there's Sharp Edge Eye Syndrome or (SEES) for short, where it's a very rare condition where people feel eye pain or discomfort when looking at or imagining sharp objects and edges. Which feels very similar to what I experience.

I can handle sharp knives or needles in general around me. But by god, try to put it near my eye and my body will freak the fuck out and try its best to move away while causing genuine sharp pain in my eye (temporary of course). It's also why I can't wear contacts as trying to force my eye lids to fully open, while systematically demanding it to calm the fuck down while the eyelid muscles are 'reeing!' all over the place, is genuinely impossible. Even seeing blunt or sharp objects on my phone is enough to set it off and cause pain which is absolutely wild.

It seems like that it could just be (SEES) or instead. past trauma when I was a little kid after stabbing myself in the eye with a kitchen knife when trying to carve a pumpkin. Apparently trying to stab a hard pumpkin with a large knife while lacking fine motor control is a bad idea. Curious what other people think about this subject.

Humanity is many things to me, and my opinions about our species are often contradictory and not all of it are nice. I can admire what we've accomplished while still being deeply disappointed by how little we've ultimately achieved. Maybe that's because I'm human myself. Somewhere deep inside me is an almost ancestral desire to watch our species continue climbing, to see us become something greater than we are today.

Instead, I see a civilization that often feels trapped. We are divided by nations, ideologies, religions, economics, and politics to such an extent that our greatest collective ambitions are constantly sacrificed for short-term interests. We continue making remarkable discoveries, but they rarely feel like steps toward a unified future. Too much of our intelligence is spent arguing with one another rather than solving the problems that would elevate humanity as a whole. The average person's quality of life has certainly improved over the centuries, yet it often feels as though our civilization has become better at maintaining itself than transforming itself.

Space exploration perfectly illustrates this contradiction. I'm a tremendous admirer of NASA and every scientist, engineer, and technician who has contributed to humanity's ventures beyond Earth. None of this is easy. Rockets are unimaginably expensive, space is brutally hostile, and every mission demands technology operating at the very edge of what physics allows. Their accomplishments deserve admiration rather than criticism.

Yet admiration doesn't erase the larger truth. As a species, we are nowhere near as technologically advanced as popular culture sometimes imagines. We have barely learned how to leave our own atmosphere. We walked on the Moon over half a century ago, and although our robotic probes have crossed the Solar System, landed on Mars, touched asteroids, and even entered interstellar space, humanity itself remains confined to a tiny corner of the cosmos. We still cannot build spacecraft capable of comfortably transporting hundreds or thousands of people across the Solar System, let alone establish thriving colonies on other worlds. We are explorers by aspiration, not by capability. Calling ourselves a spacefaring civilization feels premature when almost every human who has ever lived has spent their entire life on one planet.

Perhaps that's because, despite all our technology, we're still remarkably primitive creatures. Chemically, biologically, and psychologically, we remain animals shaped by millions of years of evolution. We still fear, compete, love, hate, cooperate, and fight with instincts inherited from ancestors who survived in a far harsher world. What separates us from every other predator isn't that we've escaped nature, but that we learned how to reshape it.

Our ancestors weren't the fastest animals, the strongest, or the best equipped for violence. We lacked claws, fangs, thick hides, and overwhelming physical strength. Instead, we created our own. We forged weapons to become our teeth, armor to become our skin, and tools to become extensions of our bodies. We evolved extraordinary endurance, capable of pursuing prey across immense distances until exhaustion defeated what brute force could not. Persistence became our greatest weapon. Intelligence became our greatest adaptation, hell, our entire reproduction is based on supporting improved intelligence. Babies are born early, very early in development to fit through the birth canal leaving them absolutely helpless, but this allows the brain to grow rapidly due to the brain's sheer complexity of functionality and capabilities unlike the vast majority of other wildlife species.

Through cooperation and innovation, we climbed out of the food chain and became one of the most dominant species our planet has ever produced, a unique form of Apex Predator if you will.

That achievement is extraordinary, but it also makes our current situation strangely frustrating. We stand at the top of Earth's hierarchy while remaining prisoners of Earth itself. Our entire civilization exists on a single fragile world orbiting an utterly average star among hundreds of billions within one galaxy, itself only one among hundreds of billions more. In that incomprehensible ocean of existence, humanity is little more than a speck of dust. If our planet disappeared tomorrow, the universe would continue almost entirely unchanged. Reality has no obligation to acknowledge our existence.

Oddly enough, I don't find that depressing. I find it motivating.

If anything, our insignificance makes our achievements more meaningful. Nothing in the universe guarantees that intelligent life should exist, let alone survive long enough to question its own existence. Every scientific breakthrough, every telescope aimed toward the stars, every spacecraft launched beyond Earth's gravity is humanity refusing to remain confined by the circumstances of its birth.

That's why I become frustrated when I look at our future. I don't expect perfection. Humanity has never been perfect, nor will it ever be. Conflict, failure, greed, and tribalism are woven into who we are. But those flaws shouldn't define our destiny. We possess something no other known species possesses: the ability to imagine a future radically different from our present and then slowly, painfully, build it.

I don't want humanity to become flawless. I want us to become ambitious again. I want us to build cities on other worlds, construct ships that carry thousands across the Solar System, answer questions we've been asking since the first humans looked up at the night sky, and become a civilization measured not merely by what it consumes, but by what it discovers.

We're still in our cradle. Earth is our birthplace, not our final destination. My greatest hope is that one day we'll stop treating it as both.

This is personal preference and this will be a slight rant, this is your only warning.

So I don't get how 5.5 is touted to be the best model for Suno, like at all. Because it constantly generates pure garbage, ignores prompts, ignores lyrics, often ignores the styles section. Making any song with 5.5 feels like I'm producing a cracked out version of Looney Tunes where any hint of control or you know, any quality of song is gone.

Yet I go back to 4.5+ which in all supposed respect should be an older and worse model but **IT'S NOT**.

4.5+ is in every feasible manner superior to 5.5.
Lyrics? Check
Following prompts? Check
Smooth vocals, even with mixed gender singers? Check
Better instrumental usage that's properly organized? Check
Better vocal quality? Fucking check
Larger variety of known instruments and genres? Check
Longer song lengths that aren't haphazardly made with overly long sections of "humming" or random instrument strings"? Check

Can someone make sense of this? Because I've stopped using 5.5 completely. Despite using the exact same prompts, styles, voice, song inspiration, every single 5.5 song is worse than 4.5 generated songs and the difference of quality is beyond blatant to me.

Anyone else experiencing this too?

This is not a simple situation, and good god, it's far more twisted and soul-crushing than I can fully capture in words. I've been dealing with rare, debilitating medical conditions since birth that have fucked my body in every possible way. It's not that I can't think straight or wipe my own ass — my brain works fine despite the moderate brain damage I have thanks to a cancerous brain tumor I once had. But my body constantly flips me the middle finger and screams "Fuck you, independence isn't on the menu."

I'm 29 years old and still stuck in my parents' house. Privacy doesn't exist. Autonomy is a joke. They treat me like a brain-damaged golden retriever puppy who can't grasp that 1+1=2, no matter how many times I prove otherwise.

My Mother: Emotional Pancake from Hell

My mom is the queen of emotional whiplash — more unstable pancake than human being. She's hyper-religious to the point of full-blown derangement. She's straight-up told me I'm possessed by evil spirits trying to sabotage my life, and every serious conversation inevitably spirals into how I'm not praying hard enough or surrendering to God properly. And no, I'm not even religious, I'm agnostic. I couldn't give a single fuck if you're a Satanist or worship some floating Spaghetti monster-like god, you do you.

In her eyes, I'm permanently inept and useless. She's said this shit to my therapist and our family therapist with a straight face, using it as "proof" that they need to control every aspect of my life. Any mistake I made years ago gets weaponized forever as eternal justification to treat me like a doormat. I could do everything perfectly, and she'd still pull mental gymnastics out of her ass to nitpick some imaginary flaw (or just invent new flaws because I didn't read her mind of how exactly I should have done it like she imagined I would!) and make sure I feel like absolute garbage.

Then she flips the script and plays the super-supportive mom who "just wants the best for me." She's an Oscar-level actress (not that she's ever won an actual Oscar mind you). My dad (retired lawyer) is the same. My gut screams that genuine moments from either of them are rarer than honest politicians. I have no idea when they're being real versus manipulating me. And I sometimes wonder why I'm so fucking paranoid and have severe trust issues.

She doesn't believe I have any rights, freedoms, or personhood. Privacy? That's cute — a suggestion that only exists until she decides otherwise. She's had my bedroom door removed multiple times. They break into my room when I'm out, rifling through everything under the usual bullshit excuses: "It's not clean enough" or "We think you're on drugs." Newsflash: I don't have money for drugs, and I barely leave the house. I couldn't find a dealer if I tried and my social skills would be too shit to even have a conversation.

She loses her shit if I want fun or space *away* from her. God forbid I have a life that doesn't revolve around her.

The Daily Hell and Dependency Trap

My entire existence orbits around them. In public or at family events, I'm the prop they drag around for brownie points: "Look at our poor sick boy! Aren't we such selfless, amazing parents?" At home, it's a different story.

She'll ambush me with a barrage of 100 questions about my schedule the second I wake up — before meds, before caffeine, while my narcolepsy and insomnia are tag-teaming me into a zombie state. If I dare say "Give me a fucking minute," the screaming starts. Her reasoning? I need to learn that "life is hard." Bitch, I've spent more hours on the toilet with violent shits, vomiting, and soul-crushing pain than most people spend doing anything productive. I know reality is brutal better than she ever will.

Question her "perfect" parenting? Instant nuclear meltdown: screaming, guilt trips, manipulation, crocodile tears, the full toxic arsenal. By the end, I'm the spoiled, ungrateful, evil asshole who's lucky they haven't kicked me out yet. When it gets really bad, the eviction threats come flying.

That's the part that keeps me up at night. They hold *everything*: my legal documents, health insurance, car insurance, medications, finances. They've built the perfect prison. I can't just "run away" — I'm dependent on my meds to function, and I don't have the money, job, or health stability to survive on my own right now. Leaving without serious planning would be suicidal.

My father isn't as bad as my mother but he's spineless and *always* supports her regardless of what she says even when it's blatantly wrong or cruel. He has an ego as durable as a matchstick and I'm pretty sure he has a growing drinking problem and when he gets angry, he has no self control, and takes days for him to calm the fuck down. He's never been much of a father figure, never really treated me like a son to be proud of and was gone for the majority of the week for work (he traveled a lot) so he was barely there for the vast majority of my life. But he is the main breadwinner of the family so there's that.

The Groundhog Day Nightmare

Living here feels like slamming my head against a brick wall every single day with zero progress. It’s only getting worse. I’m exhausted from the constant performance, the fake concern masking control, the religious lectures, the privacy violations, and the knowledge that my body is the ultimate traitor keeping me chained here. I don't have any fucking friends save for a few online ones and I'm often not healthy enough to leave the house and get out to even meet people. My last relationship was a decade ago and at this point, I'm pretty sure that's never going to change.

I’m not asking for pity, honestly I'm tired of pity. I’m fucking angry, drained, and desperate for a path out that doesn’t end with me homeless and unmedicated. Has anyone escaped a similar trap with severe health issues and controlling, narcissistic, religiously deranged parents? How did you build an exit plan when they control the paperwork and the money? Any resources, legal angles, or survival strategies would be a lifeline.

Thanks for reading this wall of text. I just needed to get it out.