Well folks, this recent TWAB has seemingly caused even more community outrage than what it probably set out to resolve.
The issue at hand, once again, is sunsetting. It's a topic of conversation that has continued from the time it was announced, through the time it was implemented, and now after a few seasons of it having taken effect. In this particular case, sunsetting in relation to reissued loot.
Note: If you are from /all, I left a small section at the end explaining what sunsetting is. Welcome!

Forsaken and Shadowkeep Sunsetting

Since the beginning of sunsetting, one of the top complaints was the sunsetting of loot tied to the Forsaken and Shadowkeep expansions. Some feedback was specific to Forsaken and Shadowkeep by name, while some said that DLC loot should not be sunset. While not the main topic of discussion here, it should be noted that some players may have different interpretations of what "DLC" includes, so keep that in mind.
Nevertheless, Bungie sunset the loot anyway, much to the disappointment of others.

Reissuing of Forsaken and Shadowkeep Loot

First, I want to make something perfectly clear here: a lot in the community did request that Bungie add new perk options to weapons if they were going to be re-issued. This is what Bungie has done in the reissuing of Dreaming City and Moon weapons by introducing them with new perk options, some tied to specific dungeons.
Yet, this still triggered pain points in players for a few reasons:

Players are unable to raise the infusion caps of existing weapons and armor that they have.
Due to (1), players having to re-grind for weapons and armor that they already have completely invalidates grind-time already invested.
Not all loot was reissued: loot that could be targeted via the Lectern of Enchantment was completely ignored. This leaves a lot of expansion weapons still sunset.
For weapons that were reintroduced, there is no guarantee that players will be able to obtain a roll as-good or better than their existing rolls.

Let us not forget the blaring issue here: Forsaken and Dreaming City loot was sunset just two (2) months ago, and the player base is now being asked to re-grind again for the sake of grinding.

Content Creator Fatigue and Unrest

In what appears to be a rare instance in Destiny's entire franchise history, the player base and content creators are more or less completely united on the feelings of sunsetting. The recent TWAB has functioned as a tipping point.
While some do not care for or do not agree with content creators, they are still very important for a video game. Content creators were responsible for Among Us going from virtually no players to having hundreds of thousands on Steam alone, and millions when considering its other platforms. The truth is, content creators function effectively like a marketing engine for games. While they are playing a game they enjoy, they are also advertising the game to their audiences. Content creators largely do not play games they do not enjoy, and do not play games their audience does not enjoy.
For the past two months now, many prominent content creators have taken to their respective platforms to discuss sunsetting, and with the exception of perhaps CammyCakes and a small handful of others, most have changed from being pro-sunsetting to indifferent or outright against it. These content creators collectively account for all areas of the game, as some focus on PvE, PvP, or both.
Some were against it from the start and had to endure loads of "internet abuse" for putting their foot down so early. Here are some examples:

Aztecross - "Dear Bungo, your players feel ignored."
Aztecross - In his most recent video about the TWAB, he comments his distaste for reissued loot.
CammyCakes - "Why Destiny players HATE sunsetting | How it can improve"
Datto - "Datto's Thoughts on Destiny Going Into 2021 - More Destiny Isn't Enough"
Datto - "Datto Talks About Weapon Sunsetting Yet Again - Season 13 Update"
Evanf1997 - "Destiny 2 Desperately Needs To Change" (Community feedback piece, includes feedback from other creators as well.)
Fallout Plays - (Not much I can specifically link to here as he has not made a very opinionated video or tweet recently, but he has mentioned a few times on stream his frustration with not being able to infuse his previous Astral Horizon up to the new cap. Here is his Twitter instead.)
Firing Range - Answers community questions, some which include sunsetting.
Firing Range - "Destiny 2 Sunsetting Concerns - Recorded May 19th, 2020"
Fireteam Chat - "Destiny 2's Sunsetting is Bad - Fireteam Chat Ep. 290"
Fireteam Chat - In episode 291, they talked more about sunsetting.
G1 Gigz - Doesn't have a particular comment about sunsetting, but it appears he believes in Bungie from a recent tweet.
Gladd - "I feel like sunsetting isn't quite what we had hoped for [...]"
Gothalion - "I honestly think they should reissue all gear. Get rid of sunsetting and go back to the drawing board."
Hush - "it's goodbye for now"
Hush - "goodbye, for now."
iFrostBolt - "SUNSETTING WAS A MISTAKE! Shatterdive Nerf, Reissued Loot, Etc" - This is really worth a watch. He plays through old Bungie ViDocs, starting at 0:24:00. Bonus moment at 00:41:00, where he discovers but does not realize the Destiny Content Vault being previewed.
KackisHD - Screenshot of a tweet from a Bungie developer and some commentary.
Mtashed - "Eh. I think sunsetting + reissuing gear is the final straw for me."
Mtashed - A video he posted after the previous tweet. A lot more charged.
nKuch - "I'm convinced sunsetting is one big elaborate troll, or maybe like an early april fools joke."
Paul Tassi - "Everyone Agrees, ‘Destiny 2’ Needs To Sunset Sunsetting"
Paul Tassi - "Sunsetting Is Going Off The Rails"
Real Gamer Hour - "RGH Episode #21: Destiny 2 is In Big Trouble"
Sweaticle - "The Decline of Destiny"
ZkMushroom - "I thought sunsetting was supposed to be a way to rotate guns and change the meta, not to make players grind the exact same weapons again.."
(If you know a content creator that has spoken recently about sunsetting, please let me know so I can add them to this list!)

Bonus: In Bungie's tweet for the TWAB, there is quite a bit of feedback about sunsetting and reissued loot.
This should be a no-brainer: content creators actively criticizing the game is not a good look. Even worse are content creators announcing that they are taking breaks from Destiny for an indefinite amount of time, or outright quitting. This markets to their audiences that the game is not fun to play. Destiny should be a fun game.

Players Putting Down Destiny

Due to the introduction of sunsetting, it has fatigued players to the point that they have quit the game, indefinitely.
Joe Blackburn made a point in his "Rewards" TWAB post to the effect of wanting to make every season a good season to get started in Destiny. I feel that this goal was already partially achieved through the availability of viable seasonal loot, as well as the availability of targeted loot farms, such as Nightfall-specific loot (which is now sunset). Sunsetting has the opposite effect as intended, as any returning player will face the reality that their gear is no longer viable. Without sunsetting, they may have not had the newest gear, but their current gear could be used in the meantime. Sunsetting means that all old gear is obsolete, period. When Bungie raises the power floor next season, all gear sunset at the end of Season of Arrivals will likely not be viable even in the base Strike playlist, leaving only the Crucible and possibly the PvE portion of Gambit.
Even targeted loot farms such as the Wrathborn Hunts are no longer appealing. It no longer makes logical sense to put any more time than absolutely necessary to obtain a weapon, because any additional time is additional waste through sunsetting. I can personally attest to this. I have given up on getting a Blast Battue with Spike Grenades, Clown Cartridge, and Chain Reaction. There is no point in me wasting time grinding for a perfect roll when the weapon will be sunset. I surely am not going to waste my time grinding a Blast Battue just to have it sunset and then reissued so that I can have the pleasure of grinding it again.
Player fatigue will continue to build as seasons go on. Paul Tassi argued this point perfectly. Every single season will be about loss instead of gain. Season of Dawn weapons are about to head out the door. Will these weapons be reissued two months later with the expectation that players grind them again? How about Season of the Worthy? Seventh Seraph weapons are some of the sleekest looking in the game and work well with shaders. They are also an integral component of the ecosystem of Warmind Cells. Will these weapons be sunset? Hopefully sunsetting will be reversed by then.
We are now two seasons into sunsetting in its current state. Seven months and counting. The feedback is immense and the damage it is causing to the game is becoming irreparable with players permanently quitting and content creators seriously considering whether they should abandon ship and move on to something else.
Bungie, for once I believe you need to actually listen to the community instead of simply hearing. Sunsetting, while may have made logical sense in some respects, has been a complete and utter failure in implementation. It is time to revert sunsetting and return to the drawing board. Try something else. This is not the way. It really feels like the game is collapsing in on itself, like a black hole. As a person who really got hooked on this game in August 2020, it is a horrible sight to see.

Addendum

I am amazed and truly grateful for all the feedback and attention given to this post. It is my hope that this catches the attention of the community managers Cozmo23 and dmg04, as it provides yet another hub of community and content creator feedback.
I spent my entire morning reading all of your comments. There are simply too many stories of friends losing other friends and clanmates, one-by-one, due to the state that the game is in. Personally, I cannot even get friends to try the game in its current state. They refuse to touch it. Sunsetting has scared new players away.
It is my hope that this is the turning point for Bungie.
For users visiting from /all who are not familiar with the game:

Sunsetting is a term used to describe the level-capping (levels being called power) of gear inside of Destiny. Since gear can only be infused (brought up) to a certain level, it will reach a point where it is no longer useful in end-game activities, or activities period.
Attempting to use a capped weapon will cause damage dealt to enemies to be significantly lower.
Attempting to use a capped armor piece will cause damage received from enemies to be significantly higher.

For users who think that I should have written more about the community and less about content creators:
Got you covered. This post has a section on content creators because it seems that content creators and a majority of the community are seemingly unified on this one issue, unseen since Curse of Osiris.
I wrote the following a little over a month ago, in response to the "Rewards" TWAB by Joe Blackburn: Bungie, I really appreciate the “Rewards” update, but it seems that some community sentiments were completely missed
A note about Bungie Forums:
In the Destiny 2 forums, almost every post in the top ~10 is about sunsetting. Just wanted to include a shout-out to those folks as well!

Stardew Valley 1.5 released on console and PC!

A SIR_JACK_A_LOT Christmas Carol - My magnum dong opus on turning $35K to $1.75M (50X) in less than a year

(Spoilers Extended) The Optimist's Gambit: Why George RR Martin Always Thinks He's Closer Than He Actually Is, Part 2: THE WINDS OF WINTER

Intro

A year after George RR Martin finished A Dance with Dragons, he updated his fans on The Winds of Winter:

THE WINDS OF WINTER. Also known as "Son of Kong." Working on it. Lots to do.

Massive and very specific update on The Winds of Winter complete, George turned to another project:

THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE. The concordance. Elio and Linda are my partners on this one, a compendium of the history and legends of the world of Westeros. A coffee table book, lots of gorgeous art from such talents as Ted Nasmith, Justin Sweet, and others. Making good progress on this one of late, lots of great historical stuff that I think my readers will enjoy. Never before revealed details of Aegon's Conquest, the War With the Faith, The Dance of the Dragons, the Paramours of Aegon the Unworthy, etc.

Hm. That seems much more detailed. This would become a pattern for George in the early years after A Dance with Dragons’ publication. He’d update at length on all of the imaginary history he was inventing for The World of Ice and Fire while occasionally placing a single-yet-generous breadcrumb of an update about Winds into our porridge bowl of need.
This led to fans mostly being in the dark on GRRM's progress on Winds -- with more cynical fans wondered if George was working on on the book at all.
Here’s the thing: George was working on The Winds of Winter. I can prove it. And in 2015 when he optimistically predicted he could finish the book in six months, he had good reason for his optimism. What was that good reason? Because by 2015, GRRM had completed two plot arcs and had wrapped two major POV characters for The Winds of Winter.
You are skeptical. I will convince you. Follow me into the light.

The Leftovers

In his retrospective on A Dance with Dragons, GRRM talked about the chapters he cut to The Winds of Winter, saying:

First, my editors and I made some decisions as to where to end this book which involved shifting a few chapters back into the next volume, THE WINDS OF WINTER. With a series like A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, there are always judgment calls to make as to where to end one book and begin the next, since you're really dealing with one long story. Does this scene work best at the end of one book or the beginning of the next? Should this character go out with a cliffhanger or with some sort of resolution (be it permanent or temporary)? And so on. And so forth.

Then he talked about the identity of the POV characters that were not in ADWD that had chapters leftover saying:

Sansa, Sam, Aeron Damphair, Arianne, and Brienne have no chapters in A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. Several of those characters had chapters written, completed, and polished that have been moved into THE WINDS OF WINTER.

In the years since 2011, we were told or been able to piece together most of the chapters cut from ADWD to TWOW. They are: Alayne (Sansa I), Mercy (Arya I), Arianne I and II and Aeron Greyjoy (The Forsaken)
In that 2010 post where he talked about cutting Damphair’s chapter from Dance to Winds, he talked about how many pages he had on hand for Winds, saying:

The good news is that I seem to have written more than a hundred pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER already.

Five chapters/100 manuscript pages. Now, let’s turn to the chapters that were moved after Damphair's in 2010. In 2011, GRRM’s editor Anne Groell talked about how two major sequences were cut from ADWD to TWOW. These two sequences are the Battle of Ice and the Battle of Meereen. Originally, these two battles were supposed to close ADWD out, but GRRM voluntarily cut one battle to TWOW, and then Anne Groell convinced him to cut the other battle.
Knowing, now, that GRRM was working on an Asha Battle of Ice chapter in 2014 but released a Theon chapter as his first TWOW sample in December 2011 (right after he finished his ADWD tour and also before he planned to embark on new writing for TWOW), we can reasonably assume that the Theon sample chapter was originally written for ADWD before George voluntarily removed it to TWOW.
Switching to deduction, we can then determine that the Battle of Meereen was the sequence GRRM's editors urged him to cut late in the process. What Battle of Meereen chapters were cut to TWOW? Here, we turn to the Cushing Library and find a display card from the “Deeper Than Swords” event indicating that George cut three chapters from ADWD to TWOW in April/May 2011.
As to who the POVs were, we can make an educated guess that one of them was a Victarion chapter and another one was a Tyrion chapter. Both chapters were read in early 2012 at conventions shortly after GRRM started writing TWOW afresh. As for the third chapter cut, I think this was Barristan’s first chapter. Thanks to zionius_, we know that George was writing Barristan II in April 2012, but in early 2013, GRRM read both Barristan chapters and indicated that the chapters were “new to you but old to me.” That third chapter was probably Barristan I.
The final two chapters we can be relatively certain were written for ADWD and cut to TWOW were a Bran chapter and an Areo Hotah chapter. We only know that Bran was cut thanks to _honeybird who discovered that it was listed among “missing chapters” originally slated as among the final chapters of the book. Additionally, we know that in 2010, Elio Garcia Jr. reported that three Dorne chapters were moved from ADWD to TWOW. Two of those Dornish chapters were Arianne chapters. The third was likely an Areo Hotah chapter.
Post-2010, GRRM cut six additional chapters to Winds. Adding in the previously-accounted-for five chapters, George had eleven leftover chapters as a springboard for Winds. Fast-forwarding to 2012, GRRM told Spanish fan-site Adria’s News that he had two hundred “really finished” manuscript pages for TWOW -- probably all of his leftover material from Dance (100 pages/5 chapters cut in 2010 + 100 pages/6 chapters cut in 2010/2011).
The identity of these chapters gives us a springboard for understanding where George was when he returned to writing Winds anew in early 2012, but it's important to note that George started Winds with a much smaller sample of leftover chapters than when he split Feast and Dance in 2005. Recall, then, that he had 542 manuscript pages/22 chapters done for ADWD.
But there's another and perhaps even more important difference: From all available evidence, George did not have complete story arcs like he did when he split AFFC/ADWD.
In 2005, George believed that the amount of material he had leftover put him over halfway complete on Dance. That was not the case for The Winds of Winter in 2012 where he only had 200 of the expected 1500 manuscript pages completed.

Early Progress on TWOW (2012)

When George began writing new material for Winds in 2012, he faced a daunting amount of new writing to finish the book. And given his track record, any old and new writing for Winds would be rewritten, revised and restructured.
So, how was it that George thought he was close enough in 2015 to get the book out before Game of Thrones, Season Six aired -- just three years after writing new material for TWOW?
We’ll start with what we know of George’s early progress on TWOW.
As we talked about above, George had about 200 new manuscript pages for the book between January and June 2012 -- work he considered to be “in rough form.” As to what specifically was contained in those 200 rough draft pages, we know that:

George reported having a partially written complementary chapter set between the finished Arianne II and the unwritten Arianne III in 2010. Link
He was working on Barristan's second TWOW chapter in April 2012. Link
He was writing about the Dothraki in May 2012. (A Daenerys chapter) Link
George sent a “batch” (3-5) of Arya TWOW chapters to Jonathan Robert, artist for The Lands of Ice and Fire to help in the creation of the map for Braavos in early 2012. Link

That’s about the extent of what we know about those 200 manuscript pages. Given the benchmark that 100 manuscript pages = ~5 chapters, he wrote rough drafts of ~10 total new chapters.
Fast-forwarding to a year later, Anne Groell reported receiving a batch of 168 manuscript pages from TWOW for a contracted payment from Random House in February 2013, and George reported being “about a quarter of the way done” on TWOW a month later. My reading is that GRRM finalized 168 of the 200 draft manuscript pages or ~9 additional chapters for TWOW.
So, by early-2013, GRRM had 368 manuscript pages and ~20 finalized chapters for TWOW complete for TWOW.
However, Anne Groell reported that the 168 manuscript pages wasn’t everything that George had written:

I currently have 168 pages that he submitted back in Feb 2013 in order to receive a contracted payment, but I know more exists, because he keeps talking about chapters he hasn't yet sent me.

This throws a wrench into things as George having 368 manuscript pages complete for Winds lines up well with his statement a month later that he was “about a quarter of the way done.” So, how to square that circle? What I'd guess is that George sent all of his finalized chapters forward to his publishers while retaining mostly-finished chapters he still wanted to polish.
To sum it up: from what we know: In 2012, George wrote ~200 manuscript pages and was specifically working on the Barristan, Daenerys and Arya chapters.
Meanwhile, GRRM was making significant progress on The World of Ice and Fire.

The Written World(book)

Let’s pause on Winds and switch over to George’s progress on The World of Ice and Fire for reasons that will become clear later on.
Shortly after returning from his ADWD tour, George began writing The World of Ice and Fire. As elio_garcia told me a few years back, George first wrote the history of Aegon’s Conquest which he sent to them in May 2012. Thereafter, GRRM wrote detailed histories of the various Targaryen monarchs, but where he really focused on was the history of the dance of the dragons.
By September 2012, Martin reported having 103 manuscript pages on the dance of the dragons. But even that was not the full extent of all he wrote on that event. In August 2013, George finished the dance of the dragons, writing 80,000 words solely on that particular Targaryen civil war.
Reasonably, many fans wondered whether The World of Ice and Fire detracted from George’s progress on The Winds of Winter. In terms of the sheer amount of time and effort it took to write the worldbook: probably, yes. However, as we’ll explore later on, George probably used his writing on The World of Ice and Fire as part of the process for writing The Winds of Winter.

Winds Progress (2013)

Switching back to Winds. By early 2013, George was only a quarter of the way complete on The Winds of Winter. Meanwhile, Game of Thrones was a few months away from airing the third season. So, George had to pick up the pace for the book to get ahead of the show.
The major issue in getting ahead of the show was that 2012 only had him finalizing ~10 new chapters, and in terms of completed story, he hadn’t finished writing the battles of Meereen and Ice that were supposed to close out ADWD. So, George seemingly continued work on the Battle of Meereen, writing and completing Tyrion’s second Winds chapter sometime between February and August 2013 as it wasn’t a part of the batch of chapters that Anne Groell received in February 2013, but he read the chapter at Worldcon 2013.
Meanwhile, in May 2013, George was asked point-blank by Portuguese fans what POV character he was working on, and he responded with “Arya.”.
Later in 2013, GRRM stated on his notablog that “you will definitely hear more of Jeyne Westerling.”. Given that we later learned at ComicCon 2014 that Jeyne Westerling will be seen in the Winds Prologue, we can speculatively-assume that George had written at least a draft or partial form of the Prologue by 2013.
Elsewise in 2013, we learned that GRRM requested Dothraki translations for The Winds of Winter from David J. Peterson (The creator of the Dothraki Language for Game of Thrones). This implies that George had Daenerys material written by 2013 and needed it translated from English to Dothraki.
So, again, in 2013, we see George working on the Battle of Fire, Daenerys and Arya (and also the Prologue).

The Locomotive Approaches (2014)

By 2014, two things happened. The first was that George RR Martin finished The World of Ice and Fire in March 2014. The second was that George realized that Game of Thrones was catching up to him.
First, The World of Ice and Fire. In March 2014, George RR Martin completed a chapter on the Iron Islands and finished the book. As he reported in that post, his completion of The World of Ice and Fire was late, owing to him being a slow writer but also due to him adding a lot to the book (Sound familiar?).
GRRM concluded his notablog post by saying:

And HEY, this means another monkey is off my back. Only a couple left gibbering up there now. That little joker monkey, HIGH STAKES. And... gulp… SON OF KONG.

Part of George’s nervousness about confronting the Son of Kong was based in how high of a mountain he had to climb to complete the book, but the bigger part is that he had a locomotive heading for him in the form of Game of Thrones.
In the early years after Game of Thrones premiered, GRRM wasn’t exactly dismissive of the idea that Game of Thrones would catch up to him, but he didn’t seem overly concerned.
By 2014, though, things had changed. Now about to air its fourth season, Game of Thrones was approaching the end of George’s published ASOIAF material. George, to his credit, was now cognizant of this, telling Vanity Fair in 2014:

“It’s my hope that they’ll [do two or three seasons for AFFC/ADWD] and then, long before they catch up with me, I’ll have published The Winds of Winter, which’ll give me another couple years. It might be tight on the last book, A Dream of Spring, as they juggernaut forward.”

The problem for George was that David Benioff and Dan Weiss were not interested in adapting A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons into multiple seasons. Instead, they were only looking at doing these two books in one season.
In response, George transitioned most of his creative output to The Winds of Winter. Sadly, we don’t know much of this output, really only being sure that George was writing: Daenerys and Asha.
On a brief appearance on the John Oliver show, GRRM appeared from his office with the computer screen on. Years later, fans were able to figure out that George was working on an Asha Greyjoy Battle of Ice chapter.
Onto Daenerys. In September 2014, in an interview with Galaxy Magazine (link unfortunately behind a paywall or in a hard copy), George talked about his writing for Winds saying:

“I’m going back to The Winds of Winter and writing the next scene—I’ve got Dany in a particular situation. I’ve just got to worry about how does this scene resolve? How do I end this chapter? How do I phrase this sentence?”

Finally, when George released the Mercy chapter, he talked a little about his progress, saying:

So far, I have not done anywhere near as much rewriting on WINDS... but of course, it is not done yet.

Fans took this as a qualitative sign of George’s progress back in 2014. The problem was quantitative. Information about how much of The Winds of Winter was done by 2014 is sparse. However, at a November 2014 charity drive for the Wild Wolf Sanctuary, George off-handedly said:

"I'm still in the middle of [The Winds of Winter], so it'll be some time before I write the scenes in which they die."

Provided that George wasn’t using “the middle of the book” colloquially, this meant that Winds was roughly halfway complete by November 2014, or had 750 finalized manuscript pages for TWOW. George had picked up his pace in writing TWOW, but he still had a long way to go to reach the finish line -- an additional ~750 manuscript pages.

The Deep Breath Before the Plunge:

Before we venture into theory territory, we’re going to take a tactical pause and assess all of the known chapters George completed for The Winds of Winter by late 2014.

Aeron Greyjoy: 1 Chapter
Asha Greyjoy: 1 Chapter
Areo Hotah: 1 Chapter
Arianne Martell: 2 Chapters
Arya Stark: 3-6 Chapters
Barristan Selmy: 2 Chapters
Bran Stark: 1 Chapter
Daenerys Targaryen: 3 Chapters
Prologue: 1 Chapter
Sansa Stark: 1 Chapter
Theon Greyjoy: 1 Chapter
Tyrion Lannister: 2 Chapters
Victarion Greyjoy: 1 Chapter

In total, that’s 19-23 completed chapters that we can be sure existed. If George was truly halfway done on Winds by 2014, that tacks on an additional ~19 chapters to bring us up to 38-42 chapters/750 manuscript pages completed for Winds by late 2014. For comparative purposes: A Storm of Swords was 1521 manuscript pages/82 chapters while ADWD was 1510 manuscript pages/72 chapters. What this means is that in a best-case scenario, George had to write or finalize an additional ~30 chapters/750 manuscript pages for the book to get to the finish line: a daunting task!
So, then why in early 2015 (four months after he said he was “in the middle”) did George RR Martin tell Entertainment Weekly that he could get the book out before Game of Thrones, Season 6?:

Having The Winds of Winter published before season 6 of Thrones airs next spring “has been important to me all along,” says the best-selling New Mexico author. “I wish it was out now. Maybe I’m being overly optimistic about how quickly I can finish. But I canceled two convention appearances, I’m turning down a lot more interviews—anything I can do to clear my decks and get this done.”

This interview was conducted in April 2015, and given what Martin later said about his publishing house setting an initial deadline of October 2015 to release the book, George thought he only had six months of work to do before the book would be done.
And that’s why I think George’s optimism about getting the book done by October 2015 was sourced to what he had already written, rather than what he had left to write. In that, I now believe George finished major storylines for The Winds of Winter by late 2014/early 2015.

The Completed Battles

Among the known completed chapters for Winds, one thing that stands out is how many of the chapters dealt with the Battle of Meereen and the Battle of Ice. From our best information, four battle chapters were removed from Dance, and George wrote at least three additional battle chapters between 2012-2014.
Let’s move into theory ground: in looking at the available evidence, it appears that when George got back to writing The Winds of Winter, he picked up where he left off: in Meereen. Completing Barristan’s second chapter in 2012 and then Tyrion’s second chapter in 2013 indicates that George’s initial forays into Winds were Meereenese-centric. But after 2013, we don’t hear about George working on Meereen.
Over to the Battle of Ice. The Asha fragment reads like the opening moves of the Battle of Ice, chronologically occurring almost immediately after the Theon sample chapter where Stannis tells Justin Massey:

“I want you gone before midday, ser. Lord Bolton could be on us any moment, and it is imperative that the banker return to Braavos. You shall accompany him across the narrow sea.”

To get speculative, it reads like George hadn’t written anything about the Battle of Ice between the Theon Winds chapter and the Asha chapter he was working on in June 2014. Yet we know that George had written additional Theon, Asha and Victarion Winds chapters by 2017.
All of this leads me to think that by the end of 2014, George had finished the Battle of Meereen, and I think it’s possible he completed the Battle of Ice as well.
That’s two major plot-points possibly complete by the end of 2014. Still, even with those story points hypothetically completed, George had only finished story arcs originally intended for ADWD.
And that’s why he wasn’t just done with the battles by 2014. He might have completed far more than that. Entire POV characters.

Daenerys Targaryen the Complete

Let’s start with an uncontroversial statement: By 2014, I believe that George RR Martin had completed what he thought was all of Daenerys Targaryen’s chapters for The Winds of Winter.
Kindly drop the rocks that have suddenly materialized in your hands. I know that is a controversial theory. It was a joke! For this particular hypothesis that George had all of Dany’s chapters done by 2014, I started with the problem of “How the fuck did George think he could finish Winds by 2015 given how little of the book seemed to be done by that point? And then my research took me to everything we knew about Daenerys in Winds and then by accident, I stumbled on the split between Feast and Dance.
That accidental stumbling led to a whole essay on this topic. In that essay, I talked about how George believed he had Daenerys' and Tyrion’s ADWD story arcs complete before he split AFFC/ADWD into two separate books. This, along with the started-yet-incomplete Jon, Davos, Arya, Asha arcs, led to his optimism that ADWD would be finished by 2006.
I think something similar happened with The Winds of Winter. I think George had completed Daenerys Targaryen’s arc (and another arc I’ll unpack in the next section) by 2014. Is there evidence for this wild-ass theory? Perhaps!
In June 2014, George RR Martin was interviewed by James Hibberd and teased The Winds of Winter, saying:

“Well, Tyrion and Dany will intersect, in a way, but for much of the book they’re still apart,” he says. “They both have quite large roles to play here. Tyrion has decided that he actually would like to live, for one thing, which he wasn’t entirely sure of during the last book, and he’s now working toward that end—if he can survive the battle that’s breaking out all around him. And Dany has embraced her heritage as a Targaryen and embraced the Targaryen words. So they’re both coming home.”

For much of the book, they’re still apart. That’s a fascinating statement! Why? Because it might imply that George had written Dany’s story to its near or actual endpoint!
No, I don’t think this means that George was nearly complete on all of his story arcs. Just Dany's (and the other one). And that tracks with his non-linear writing style whereby he writes from one POV - until he runs out of steam before switching to a separate POV. As George talked about in that interview, sometimes, he gets way ahead on certain POV characters, and even has them completed well in advance of other POV characters.
In that vein, there’s something else odd about Daenerys. After 2014, we don’t hear about George working on a Daenerys chapter … at all. This radio silence on Dany in TWOW lines up with George writing Dany’s ADWD chapters. In 2003, he told a fan that Dany’s ADWD chapters were almost wrapped up -- eight years before he published them. George did write a bit more about Dany after 2003 and after the split of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, but the last we hear about him writing Dany chapters for ADWD was in 2008 -- three years before the book was published.
However, to be fair, in 2018, George had one more mention of Dany within the context of her aforementioned intersection with Tyrion, telling Entertainment Weekly:

In Winds, I have like 10 different novels and I’m juggling the timeline — here’s what’s happening to Tyrion, here’s what’s happening to Dany, and how they intersect. That’s far more complicated.

So, the counterargument is that what George was saying about Dany and Tyrion's intersection back in 2014 was aspirational. He planned for the two to intersect late in The Winds of Winter, but he had not written that intersection. And perhaps by 2018, he was still struggling with timing Dany and Tyrion’s intersection.
Here’s a counter-counterargument: George wrote one version of Daenerys and Tyrion intersecting by 2014, was initially satisfied with it, but in the years since, he grew dissatisfied and experimented with the event occurring at different narrative junctures in the Winds -- hence the “I’m juggling the timeline” wording.
At the very least, George juggling the timeline of character intersections by writing multiple versions of it is something George has done in the past. Back in ADWD, he reported writing three versions of Dany and Quentyn’s intersection, timing that to occur at different junctures in the story to see which one was the most narratively-satisfying.
Now, before I leave you all convinced that George had written all of Dany’s TWOW chapters by 2014/2015, there is a good counterargument. About a month ago, I sent the sketch of this theory to feldman10, and he responded by saying:

What I question given his writing style is how GRRM could have “finished” Dany years in advance if she is regularly intersecting with other POVs. For instance, if Barristan, Vic, and Tyrion do reunite with Dany at some point in TWOW (as I certainly hope they do!), I would expect GRRM would begin writing them as all one “story” (unless they split up again). That’s even more important if Dany reaches Westeros and starts interacting with the Young Griff team.
That's really because of the gardening approach. Given that writing style, how could GRRM possibly write Dany’s interactions and conflicts with those other characters without having written them all up to the same point, and therefore having decided what they’ve all experienced, where they’re all coming from, and what their respective gardens have produced?

These are all excellent points by Adam, and I appreciate the counterpoint and have copied and pasted it here with his permission.
And if you thought the “Dany is wrapped” theory is way too speculative, you’re going to love (hate) the next part of the theory.

The Dances of the Dragons

Remember how we talked about George’s progress on The World of Ice and Fire? Let’s bring it home here. Part of the reason why I initially brought up the worldbook is how it's tied into the plotting of The Winds of Winter. It’s almost as if George used his imaginary history as a set of guideposts for The Winds of Winter. But perhaps the imaginary history is more than a guide for the novel.
The theory: What I think happened was that George parallel-wrote the dance of the dragons alongside of his Young Griff story arc in The Winds of Winter.
Recall that in 2010, George had written two Arianne chapters that he cut to The Winds of Winter. Also recall that he had a partially-written complementary chapter and envisioned a third unwritten Arianne chapter. We skipped over the possible identity of that partially written complementary chapter, but here, we’ll talk about it. It’s very likely a Jon Connington chapter as he’s in a prime position to bridge events from the end of TWOW, Arianne II (Arianne goes to Storm’s End) to whatever George is planning for Arianne III.
Right after George published A Dance with Dragons, though, he decided to write another chapter in the Stormlands as werthead reported in August 2011:

As speculated by many, two large battles will take place early on, a ‘battle of ice’ (presumably at Winterfell) and a ‘battle of fire’ (presumably at Meereen). A third battle has been added, namely the assault on Storm’s End by Jon Connington’s forces. Originally this was going to happen off-page, but GRRM decided it really should be shown. Possibly because we’ve seen Storm’s End under siege forever and it might be cool to finally see the place under full-scale assault.

This was another spot where George was expanding Aegon VI’s story, gardening his way towards more satisfactory storytelling vis-à-vis a newly-imagined Jon Connington chapter. It also shows us that George was very much in the mindset of thinking through Young Griff’s storyline just a few months after the publication of ADWD.
And then similar to Daenerys, 2011 was the last time we heard about George writing one of our primary eyes on Young Griff in TWOW. Like the absence of Dany chapters, that is odd. With Dany, George played mostly coy with whether Dany would have chapters, because of the cliffhanger he left Dany on in at the end of her ADWD arc. But with Arianne Martell and Jon Connington, we already knew that Arianne would return as a POV, and George had all-but-confirmed that JonCon would return.
And yet, July 2010 is the last time GRRM talked about writing Arianne’s TWOW chapters while August 2011 is the last time we hear about George’s plan to write a Jon Connington chapter. But in the years immediately following ADWD’s publication, we have a whole body of imaginary history work which reads like signposts for where George was going to take Aegon VI and Daenerys’ story.
Here comes the speculation: I think the whole time George was writing a detailed account of the dance of the dragons for the worldbook, he parallel wrote Young Griff’s story arc in the form of Arianne and Jon Connington’s Winds chapters.
We know that George didn’t set Winds aside while he worked on The World of Ice and Fire as there are Winds chapters we know he was writing in the 2012-2014 timeframe. Logically, it makes sense that George stayed within the same sphere of creative inspiration as he developed the imaginary history in parallel with developing Young Griff's story.
There’s a paragraph which first appeared in The Princess and the Queen (an abridged version of the dance of the dragons) which has always struck me as explicit foreshadowing for Young Griff's story in TWOW. It's this one:

Every visible symbol of legitimacy belonged to Aegon. He sat the Iron Throne. He lived in the Red Keep. He wore the Conquerer’s crown, wielded the Conquerer’s sword, and had been anointed by a septon of the Faith before the eyes of tens of thousands. Grand Maester Orwyle sat in his councils, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard had placed the crown upon his princely head. And he was male, which in the eyes of many made him the rightful king, his half sister the usurper.

This paragraph is emblematic of something at work with the entirety of the dance of the dragons that George wrote: namely, that the entire historical conflict and civil war reads as backdrop for Young Griff/Aegon VI’s rise in The Winds of Winter and downfall in A Dream of Spring.
Is it so implausible, then, that GRRM was switching back and forth between writing Arianne and JonCon chapters while writing what became known as "The Dying of the Dragons" section of the worldbook? (Maybe, lol)

What Went Wrong

In 2005, GRRM predicted that ADWD would be published in 2006, sourcing this to how much Dany and Tyrion material was already done. If George had completed all the Dany, JonCon and Arianne chapters by April 2015, GRRM had good reason to believe he could get Winds out in six months. All he had to do was complete the POV arcs for characters supporting Young Griff and Dany’s stories as well as the “bottle storylines” and probably complete one more major story arc.
So, what went wrong?
In his New Year 2016 Winds post, George talked generally about the issues he had after his bout of optimism in 2015, saying things like:

Yes, there's a lot written. Hundreds of pages. Dozens of chapters. (Those 'no pages done' reports were insane, the usual garbage internet journalism that I have learned to despise). But there's also a lot still left to write. I am months away still... and that's if the writing goes well. (Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't.) Chapters still to write, of course... but also rewriting. I always do a lot of rewriting, sometimes just polishing, sometimes pretty major restructures.

Later in the post, he talked about a similar angle, saying:

Even as late as my birthday and our big Emmy win, I still thought I could do it... but the days and weeks flew by faster than the pile of pages grew, and (as I often do) I grew unhappy with some of the choices I'd made and began to revise...

This is George’s gardening style at work: restructuring/rewriting/revising what he considered to be substandard writing. That’s part of the reason George failed to meet his October and then December 2015 deadlines.
But I think there’s a missing piece -- one which has only become apparent in George’s recent posts about the POV characters he’s reported working on in June, August and November 2020: the Dany/Young Griff supporting POV characters and the bottle arcs.
Back in 2005, George was optimistic that he could finish ADWD by 2006, because he merely had to finish Jon’s story along with cast of characters supporting Jon/Dany’s storylines. But what delayed ADWD was the supporting cast of characters – especially in Dany’s storyline as it related to the Meereenese Knot. George struggled for years to satisfactorily write a twisting path of POV characters heading toward – or away – from Meereen, and that, more than anything, delayed that book’s publication.
Turning back to Winds: In recent months, George has indicated that he was writing/visiting the following POVs:

Tyrion Lannister
Barristan Selmy
Areo Hotah
Asha Greyjoy
Cersei Lannister
Arya Stark
Victarion Greyjoy
Melisandre of Asshai
Samwell Tarly

The POV characters listed here are ones likely to be found in support of Dany’s arc (Victarion, Barristan, Tyrion), in Young Griff’s orbit (Cersei and arguably Areo) or bottle arcs -- ones temporarily independent from the rest of the story (Samwell and Arya).
So, in addition to the rewriting/revising/restructuring, I’d argue that what belayed George’s optimism of publishing Winds in 2016 was the supporting cast of POV characters. Those troubles extended beyond 2015 given that George was still working on these POV characters in 2020.

Conclusion (2017-2021)

In the years since 2016, George has optimistically predicted that he'd finish TWOW in 2017. But six months later, GRRM discounted 2017 and thought 2018 was possible. But by mid-2018, he admitted that Winds wasn't coming in 2018. Then in 2019, tongue-in-cheek said New Zealand could imprison him there if he did not have TWOW in hand by Worldcon 2020.
Unfortunately, data on what GRRM was working on is spare, but I'll give it a shot. Given that George talked about how important Lady Stoneheart's story is for TWOW in 2017, my theory is that GRRM made progress on Jaime and Brienne's chapters in 2017.
Meanwhile, you may have noticed that there's another POV character I haven't mentioned: Jon Snow. Will Jon have chapters in TWOW? Are they written? Yes. Perhaps some of his optimism in 2019 is sourced to him making progress on Jon Snow, perhaps even completing his POV arc.
In his last specific update on Winds (As of January 2021), George sounded optimistic once again, :

No, sorry, still not done, but I do inch closer. It is a big big book. I try not to dwell on that too much. I write a chapter at a time, a page at a time, a sentence at a time, a word at a time. It is the only way.

At the beating heart of all of this work that George RR Martin has put into The Winds of Winter is a desire to create a book that satisfies and captivates us. I believe this book will come, and when it does, all of the bleeding into the keyboard will have been worth it.

Lockdown 3.0 Things to do, plus help and support.

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

I promise, I’m not here to steal your prices!

Not exactly an IDWH, so much as a I Don’t Work There...
First time posting anything like this, but I’ll try to be as precise as possible. For this story, we’ll need to take a trip in the Wayback Machine, back to the far-flung realm of 1994. The internet was still a strange and unusual thing, the Super Nintendo and Genesis were on the waning edge of the console cycles, and I (as a 15yo) was into it. The high school version of water cooler talk was what games were we playing, did we know this, have we tried that, etc.
Coming into the holiday season, I was feeling my inner math geek come to the forefront, as the parents had long since told me about Santa, and instead I was given the directive: “You have this much money for this year’s presents. Make it last.” Yes, ma’am! As I had not been introduced to any sort of spreadsheet aside from margarine, I had to cobble together two sheets of notebook paper, draw out columns and rows, and list out all the games I was interested in for the rows, and the stores I was going to check out for the columns. A handcrafted work, but for my eyes at the time I was pretty proud of it.
Cue me tagging along with mom whenever she went shopping, where I’d split off to do my thing, and she’d take care of hers. All very neat and tidy for some of the more niche and/or departed stores of yesteryear - looking at you, Larger-than-village of the Circuits. All was going well, until one fateful day, when my parents and I were visiting the Mart of Sprawls, and the following situation occurred. Conversations are paraphrased, given the timeframe involved. I will be Me, Salesdroid will be SD, and Dad will be Dad.
After entering the store, the parents went off to the fabric area to indulge Mom’s sewing hobby, while I wandered over to shelf after shelf of electronics goodness. Pulling out my handy chart, I sent to work poring over my options, weighing one game here versus two there. A grand metagame, if you will, to wring every last penny out of my purchases. Only to be stopped dead in my tracks by the bane of shoppers: an empty rack. Hrmm. I wander over to SD, who was manning the register but not busy at the time.
Me: “Excuse me, do you have suchandsuch?”
SD: “Let’s check.”
We both go back, verify the shelf is empty, nothing in the overflow area beneath the shelves, etc. Drat. I pen down a quick N/A in the appropriate box, and go back to my task. After a few moments, I become aware that SD has not gone back to the register, but is standing there, staring at me.
SD: “What are you doing?”
Me: “I’m checking prices for my presents.”
SD: “Don’t do that.”
Me: “Uhh... what?”
SD: “Don’t do that. Competitors aren’t allowed to price-shop us. It’s not allowed.”
Me: “Whatever, dude.”
At that point, I excused myself from that aisle, and walk several over to the entire row devoted to PC games (Steam was not yet in existence). After a few minutes, I notice movement out of the side of my vision, and see SD standing at the end of the aisle. Check my other side, and SD’s clone was standing at the far end. They walk forward together in tandem and box me in.
SD: “You need to leave the store now.”
I was given no room to argue; they just forced me up to the front doors, and then stood there to make sure I didn’t come back in. Now, at the time, I was old enough to have a learner’s permit for driving, so I had my own keys to the car. I go out, sit there for a moment and fume that my plans for the day were shot, and then a stray thought hits me. My parents knew I was in electronics. If they showed up looking for me in a holiday crush, and I was missing, they would absolutely freak out. So I dig in the cup holder for a quarter, march all the way across the parking lot to the gas station on the corner, and reference my handy spreadsheet for the store’s phone number. Call in to the store and have them paged over the intercom. After two pages, they pick up the phone, expecting the worst. One of the grandparents is sick, police trying to find them to deliver bad news, something! What they were not expecting was my chipper voice on the other end of the line.
Dad: “Vemika, what are you doing on the phone? Where are you?”
Me: “I’m at the gas station; they kicked me out.”
Dad: “What?!”
Me: “Yeah! They said I was price-shopping for a competitor and kicked me out.”
And then I hear the words and tone of voice that any kid knows means bad weather on the horizon. Batten down the hatches, Harriet!
Dad: “Get. Back. Here. Now.”
I just about sprinted across the parking lot, as that command brooked no room for misinterpretation. SD and his cohort had already left by the time I got back, so the parents met me at the front door, I explained more fully what happened, and then they walked me back to electronics. SD must have felt the chill of the grave approaching, as he turned around to see me. Pointing at him. With Momma Bear and Poppa Bear over each shoulder. To say he turned white as a sheet would be an understatement, but without a word, he started walking away from us.
The sight of fleeing prey awakened the thrill of the hunt in Momma Bear, so she started chasing him, demanding answers. What happened? Why? Middle of the holiday crush and you kick a kid out of the store where anyone could have been waiting? Up one aisle this scene unfolds, down a second, and up a third before SD has hit his limit. In an instant, he whips around on his heel and smarts off to Momma Bear.
Insert coin Player 2 joins the battle! Turns out Poppa Bears are really protective of their Momma Bears.
What followed was a verbal volley so ferocious and three-sided, I had no hope of following all of it. I just knew that what was unfolding before me could charitably be described as a ‘tag-team mauling’. The conversation got so loud and animated that it attracted the store manager, who had to haul everyone into the employees-only area to sort through it all.
He talks to me first, I explain what I was doing, and hand over my spreadsheet so he can see it. He undoubtedly recognized that I was handing over all his competitors’ numbers, as after a moment he handed it back and said there was nothing wrong with it. He even opined that other store managers will come in to do just that, he’ll walk around with them, chat, etc. Very straightforward interaction, as he described it.
Mom and Dad went next, venting their spleens about the situation, and while it was a bit overdramatic, they still had a pretty good point about kicking a teen out without at least inquiring if a parent is nearby. They weren’t demanding compensation, nor did we get any. They just expressed their outrage and disappointment, and they left their cart full of items where it sat to be returned to the shelves.
As for SD, I didn’t hear about any fallout from his side. But I can say for a fact that the incident was reported, as about a week later I got a call out of the blue from the district manager for the store, to apologize again on the store’s behalf and offer me a challenge of finding a better price than theirs, and they would match it. Which is something I took them up on, several times.
Edit: Corrected a few typos which spellcheck let pass. Also: holy schnikes, I was not expecting this to get as warm a reception as it did; thanks to everyone who gave it a read!

Local and Global networking isn't the problem

Popheads Album of the Year #30: Taylor Swift - Folklore

Artist: Taylor Swift
Album: folklore
Released: July 24, 2020
Label: Republic
Listen: Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / TIDAL

Introduction

Most of you probably know who Taylor Alison Swift is, whether you voluntarily learned it or not. Born on December 13, 1989, two numbers that will come back in her music a lot, she was born in West Reading, Pennsylvania. As a young girl, she was already interested in music and singing, her parents named her after singer-songwriter James Taylor after all. She was writing songs since she was 10 years old and moved to Nashville and started performing by 11. She started recording demos and meeting with executives from her tween to early teen years. Eventually, she met Scott Borchetta, the owner of a brand new label called Big Machine Records and wanted to make Taylor the first artist signed to him, which the 14 year old agreed to.
Taylor Swift released her first studio album, Taylor Swift in 2006 at age 16. The album got small success at first, but eventually songs like ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’ became hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Her next two albums, Fearless and Speak Now, became even bigger, getting top 10 hits and the former winning the Grammy’s Album of the Year award. She made a bigger pivot to pop music instead of country as her songs were getting bigger & bigger and her fanbase was growing exceedingly fast for a country act. Her next album, Red, was an experimental album for her. It featured her first singles that were 100% pop, and some of her biggest songs yet. In 2014, she released 1989, her biggest album with 5 top 10 hits, and the album that cemented her turn into pure, sugary pop, but still didn’t compromise her sharp writing. In 2016, some phone call was released that about being a bitch or something, idk I’ve never seen the zimmerman telegram. Taylor was against Germany trying to ally with Mexico in WWI, so in 2017 she released Reputation, an album with a totally darker aesthetic and vibe than she’s ever done before… which she abandons midway through and goes back to making more synthpop cuts.

How did Taylor head into 2020?

In November 2018, Taylor left Big Machine Records. Normally, a label switch wouldn’t mean too much, but while switching, her masters were bought by Scooter Braun from Scott Borchetta, with her not even aware they were up for sale. Scooter Braun is the manager of artists like Justin Bieber, but Scooter tried to make feuds between some of his artists and Taylor, so she already had animosity towards him behind the scenes. With this acquisition, Taylor was furious. Someone who she trusted since she was a teenager working with someone who had treated her poorly for years, all behind her back. To get back at them, she has promised to record all her previous work that is now owned by Scooter. In 2019, she makes her relationship with London boy Joe Alwyn public. Getting back to the music, she not-so-subtly kills the snake and releases her 7th album, Lover. She released the lead single, ‘ME!’ to, uhh… reviews. Lover had some of her sharpest writing yet, but also some of her most childish songs as well, both covered in big pastel paints, sometimes, literally. She planned a worldwide tour, Loverfest, in 2020, but sadly that was all closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With Taylor spending 2020 alone in VIP, she went back to her normal, lack of social media presence ways.
Then on July 23, she shocked all of her fans.

Tracklist

the 1

The opening track of an album always needs to grab the attention of the listener. “I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit” does that job well. 'The 1' is a song that isn’t about Taylor's story, plenty of songs on 'Folklore' aren't. It’s a classic “the one that got away” story. Boy and girl meet, but they break up due to a lack of passion from the guy. However, despite what she tells herself, there’s still a big part of her thinking about what else could’ve happened had they still been together. As someone who can plot a 5 episode soap opera about me and someone hot guy who randomly shows up on my twitter feed, I can absolutely relate to daydreaming and overthinking about an unobtainable relationship about someone. She even tries to imagine him moving on to make it easier for her to move on, to no avail. A jaunty, yet melancholic, piano-driven song, it’s a lovely opener for an album that’s gonna get a lot less jaunty from here on out.
Favorite Lyrics: If one thing had been different/Would everything be different today?

cardigan

’Cardigan’ is the SMASH #1 HIT SONG that SERVED LONGEVITY! It’s also the first part of the fabled “teenage love triangle trilogy” on the album, along with ’August’ and ’Betty’. The trilogy is about 3 teenagers: Betty, James, and an unnamed 2nd girl. Betty and James were just two high schoolers in a relationship together. Yet, over the summer, James cheated on her with unnamed 2nd girl. ’Cardigan’ is the song from the point-of-view of Betty, starting off with her reminiscing about their relationship and the good days. However, on verse two and chorus two, she talks about her realization that James was *good* friends with someone else besides her, and she broke up with him. Later on, she admits to herself that she does wonder if he was the one for her, yet expects he’ll come back to her anyway, which he does over on ’Betty' (her mind, it amazes me). One of my favorite parts of this song is how the title phrase “and when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone’s bed, you put me on and said you were my favorite,” changes in meaning throughout the song. First, it refers to how he made her feel a beautiful love, just like a comforting cardigan. Then, it shows that she realized she was just a 2nd choice, having the lie of “you’re my favorite” said in her face while being tossed aside. Finally, on the last part of the song, she's feeling depressed after the breakup, but he shows up on her porch asking to be taken back. Also, I think this is one of the bottom 3 songs on this album, MOVING ON!
Favorite Lyrics: You drew stars around my scars/But now I'm bleedin'

the last great american dynasty

*plops history book on desk* Rebekah Harkness is not one of the first names to come to mind when you think of Taylor Swift. Rebekah was a woman who died in 1982, Taylor wasn’t even born then! How is she an analogy for Taylor in this song? Well, Taylor purchased her Holiday Home in 2013 and eventually started learning the history about her. Rebekah married the son of an oil tycoon who, upon the death of his father, owned a large share of the oil and lots of money. Seven years later, he died of a heart attack, leaving Rebekah with all the money, but also a lot of the press at the time put an unfair amount of the blame on Rebekah, saying she destroyed the “last great American dynasty.” After being bored in her new 13 million dollar holiday home, Taylor noticed the parallels between Rebekah’s sexist narrative of being the cause of the death of a dynasty, and her own narrative of sexist tabloids and the internet, known breeding ground of misogyny. Rebekah was having a wonderful time herself, living her life and “ruining everything,” Taylor was doing the same and being unbothered by the narrative surrounding her (mostly). This is one of my favorite songs on the album, and the catchiest song on the project, there is so much to love about this. HOWEVER, apparently Rebekah actually stole her neighbor’s CAT and dyed it key lime green, so this is literally unplayable.
Favorite Lyrics: There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen/I had a marvelous time ruining everything

exile ft. Bon Iver

Have you ever wanted Somebody That I Used to Know but Justin Vernon is Gotye and Taylor Swift is Kimbra? Well, what the fuck, are you psychic or something? Anyway, 'Exile' delivers on your specific demand and gives the picture of two sides of a shattered relationship from an unexpected meeting after the breakup. Through one set of eyes, it was a surprising end to what seemed to be going well, and seeing her move on from them so fast is a cruel gut punch. Through another, it was a flawed relationship that was doomed early on and he still can’t understand what they had was not true love. After they each get a verse and chorus to themselves to make their case, we get the bridge. The bridge is the climax of this breakup as well as the song itself. After a final cry of ”So I’m leaving out the side door”, he just tells her to get the fuck OUT. He’s done crying over her and he totally knew they were an unstable couple too. He talks about how she never tried to communicate, all while she tells him that he did bother trying to listen to her communications. There was so many signs given out, but the lack of communication doomed everything and left what once was a budding romance into two people stewing in their anger and assertion that they are not the villain in this situation. It’s a heartbreaking song, and honestly should’ve gotten a fucking music video and proper promotion omg, I know its a cliche at this point, but Taylor please hire me to pick out your singles for your secret 3rd album that probably isn’t even called Woodvale.
Favorite Lyrics: You didn't even hear me out (You didn't even hear me out)/You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)

my tears ricochet

If I ever see Scooter Braun or Scott Borchetta, its on sight. ‘My Tears Ricochet’ is one of the reasons I needed to explain the exposition on why her move from Big Machine would come back to haunt her. This was the first song she wrote for Folklore, and the only one she wrote completely solo. It describes, “an embittered tormentor showing up at the funeral of his fallen object of obsession.” She sings from the point of view of a ghost looking over her own funeral and seeing her abuser (and possible killer?) at the wake as well. She then talks about how fake he’s acting to get everyone to think he’s a victim in this whole ordeal as well, now that his beloved is gone. While there are plenty of descriptions that fit this character, there are plenty of obvious real life allusions to Scott Borchetta. Referencing how he would comfort her after she was in public feuds, how all their good years together are forever marred by the betrayal, and how he still gets to own her “stolen lullabies” that she created herself. All this while he tries to blame her for this whole drama. Anything to save face at the wake, while he owns all her stolen lullabies. It’s one of the most beautiful songs sonically, but also one of the most furious, and that fury is deserved.
Favorite lyrics: Cursing my name, wishing I stayed/You turned into your worst fears

mirrorball

We all have songs that, when we hear them, they get insanely personal immediately and you get attached in ways most people don’t. For me, the song on Folklore that I relate too much to is 'Mirrorball'. Without delving too deep into my own problems, I’ve always felt like I don’t know what my actual personality is. I’ve had several friend groups throughout the years and each one I played up a different side of myself, technically, I still do to my family with me still being in the closet. This is why I relate to this song the most of all the songs on this album. Taylor is a mirrorball. What does that mean? It's got multiple different meanings for this song. It means she reflects people’s wishes onto them, that she tries to be the brightest thing in the room, she has a lot of visible cracks and when she’s shattered, she’s broken into a million of unrecognizable pieces. She’s entertaining to everyone, but she specifically loves entertaining boyfriend, knowing that he’s the one person who loves her for herself. Even on the bridge, where she references COVID-19 shutting down all her planned performances, she recognizes that now only performing for an audience of one, but she's still happy performing for him. Mirrorball is full of so much heart that it really does shine on this album.
Favorite Lyrics: I want you to know/I'm a mirrorball/I can change everything about me to fit in

seven

'Seven' reveals that the real folklore was friendship all along. It’s a fictional song about a childhood friendship that’s now only vague memories of the time spent together as one of them moves on with their life, thinking about childhood innocence and how great their friendship was as well, despite not even able to recall what they looked like. One of the things I love about this song is that while it does show a beautiful image of childhood, it still alludes to darker themes than just normal childhood memories, such as abusive parents and how innocence will always leave a child at some point. Now, there is some debate over whether the “hide in the closet” line does refer to a queer relationship, but my answer is most likely no, as it’s the only mention of anything like this in the song. Of course, I might just be “gal pals”-ing this song, but it’s open to interpretation. One of my favorite lyrics on this song is “And just like a folk song/Our love will be passed on,” tying it in to the album’s theme. The love will be told through memories down to her kids and grandkids, maybe one day mentioning this love to their kids, even offhandedly. I love the piano line of this song and the lyrics really bring up an image of childhoods past, from playing pirates, throwing tantrums, and rope swings over a creek, which uhh…. be careful around them, kids.
Favorite Lyrics: And though I can't recall your face/I still got love for you

august

Now we have the second song in the “cheating high schooler love triangle story three parter” after ’Cardigan’. ’August’ is from the point-of-view of the unnamed girl that James cheated on Betty with. She recalls her lovely summer fling with James, full of nervousness, beautiful beaches, and teenage love. The production on this song is some of the best on the album, giving a perfect feel of a lovely August day relaxing on the beach with someone’s man. Unnamed Girl knew that this love was fated to only last the summer, if that, but she still held up the hope that James would just be hers. She was ready to just drop everything and become his, and even drove to him to try and convince him, all this backed by an explosive bridge and outro. UG does come back to her senses on the final line of the bridge, knowing that she wasn’t losing James, he was going back to who he shouldn’t have left to begin with. It’s a very bittersweet song, but a shining light on the album.
Favorite Lyrics: August slipped away into a moment in time/'Cause it was never mine

this is me trying

'This Is Me Trying' is an overthinker’s worse nightmare. Sometimes, you realize that you made a big mistake in a relationship and you want to see if there’s any chance of repairing it. This song is her trying (duh) to come back and accept all her mistakes to be taken back by her ex. While there at his doorway though, she starts worrying about how her words might not come out like she wants right now, unlike how sharp they were when she was angry. So what does she do? She just lets them know the simplest way possible, this is me trying my hardest to apologize and repair any possible relationship we could have. This alone would hit real hard as a song, however, this song also has more explicit references to Taylor herself than most of her “character songs” on Folklore, especially on the second verse. She delivers some of the most painful lyrics on the whole album in these verses. Verse two alone talks about being told her problems are all in her head, alcoholism, trying to get ahead so much that you fall behind, even in class, and oversharing with random people on accident. It paints a scary picture of Taylor’s own mental state at the moment and in her past. While I do think that some of these are just part of the “character,” its hard not to think that Taylor put a little more of herself than normal into the lyrics of this song.
Favorite Lyric: I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere

illicit affairs

Taylor says “FUCK the 6th/7th commandment (depending on what holy book you’re reading) on ‘Illicit Affairs.’ She writes a story about being involved in an affair with a married man. What started out with stares at a party, now leads to hot, regrettable sex in parking lots. She gives out some advic- I mean, details about how he hides his true intentions when heading out for another secret rendezvous. While most of the verses are just the normal details of how they’re hiding their meetings, by the bridge she confesses that she knows how conflicted he’s actually feeling. Calling himself a fool, and acknowledging that despite how strongly he feels for her, he can’t tell anyone else in his life these feelings, lest he ruin his reputation. Tbh, I still am conflicted on whether or not this song is against cheating or if its still reveling in the thought of it, but I'm not conflicted on whether or not this song is great.
Favorite Lyrics: They show their truth one single time/But they lie and they lie and they lie/A million little times

invisible string

From a song about Taylor destroying a marriage in secret, the natural path is to go right into a cheery love song about her and Joe. ‘Invisible String’ is probably the most Evermore sounding song on Folklore ~~which is not a good thing~~. But this song is good! It’s an adorable little guitar pluckin’ song about fate bringing Taylor and Joe together. It’s based off of an Asian folk myth and maybe the adorable 2015 game Unravel of how a red string connects two soulmates together through their pinkies and into their hearts, guiding them to right places and times until their meeting. In this song, she mentions some of the minute details of their relationship that she randomly made note of as they realized they were connected together by fate. She even manages to make sitting in a taxi cab listening to Bad Blood sound somewhat tolerable. Listing off his shirt working at fro-yo shops, the autumn leaves in a park they walked around in, and waitresses that know who she is, she leaves a cute idea of how their relationship grew. She also briefly mentions how she used to be hateful to her old exes, but over time realized that she’s recovered enough to listen to The Jonas Brothers again. ‘Invisible String’ is very comfy, and I think this was put before the next song to show the listener that “Hello! I am happy and in love! No need to worry too much about me!”
Favorite Lyrics: Green was the color of the grass

mad woman

’Mad Woman’ is a lesson of composed rage. Taylor explains what most people already know: society will paint a mad woman as crazy, delusional, etc, and try to shame her for being angry. However, Taylor has embraced her anger and will get as angry as she pleases because she’s tired of holding back. And of course, who else does she point that fury towards but Scooter and Scott. She knows that she’s living rent free in their heads, and lawns apparently and revels in that fact. Taylor even mentions how they used some women in their life (mainly Scooter’s wife) to leave the most offensive posts about her, while the two men were in defensive mode when the feud first went up. Taylor calls out Yael specifically mentioning that she knows that Taylor is in the right here, but “goodwives” always have to agree with their husbands. Which lowkey feels misogynistic but you know what they say, no one likes a non-misogynistic woman, what a shame she went non-misogynistic.
Favorite Lyrics: They say "move on," but you know I won't

epiphany

You know what, I’m gonna say it. ’Epiphany’ is a good song. Sure, it’s not the best on the album, or top three, or top five, maybe not even top ten, BUT it is definitely not the worst as so many people claim. It’s two different moving stories through the eyes of a WWI soldier, specifically Taylor’s grandfather, and a nurse during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Why did she decide to connect these two? Obviously it’s because [Note to self: write something smart here so people can get on your side about Epiphany being better than Peace, Hoax, and Cardigan]. Both paint equally grim pictures of being surrounded by loss, whether it be men on the battlefield of a war or ordinary people needing to be put on ventilators to breathe. Verse one and two both end with the depressing line 'some things you just can’t speak about,' which I interpret as both of these events are clearly traumatic yet most people wouldn’t want to hear about such depressing topics, so people have to repress them. The harshest part of the song comes at the bridge and outro where the only hope they have has to come to them in one of the few times they’re able to sleep, with that hope being very unrealistic in many cases as more bodies pile up on the battlefield and in hospital beds. It’s a real depressing and all too real song that deserves way more praise.
Favorite Lyrics: Just one single glimpse of relief/To make some sense of what you've seen

betty

The conclusion of the “TLTCU” (Teenage Love Triangle Cinematic Universe), ’Betty’ is confusingly a song through the perspective of James trying to make things right with him and Betty. Again, she’s singing from a perspective of James. Taylor is not being a lesbian on this song, anymore than ’Epiphany’ was Taylor’s coming out as a World War One veteran. James explains how he knows his introversion at the school dance made Betty have to enjoy herself with other people at the dance, which sparked jealousy in James. He was walking home dejected one night when Unnamed Girl ^{^TM} pulls up to him and says “Wanna go to my cool beach house and possibly fuck?” and James couldn’t resist, I guess. Little did James know, Inez was watching them from the corner, and she was definitely not keeping that to herself. Eventually, Betty was doing her best to avoid James, like you typically do to cheating exes you’re still forced to see at school or work. James was always curious of just crashing a party with her and just spilling his guts to her and asking her back, wondering if it will work or she’ll just beat the shit out of him. Either way, he finally gets the right mix of courage and desperation to go to her party. The song ends on a big question mark before we could get Betty’s answer, leaving the audience to guess what Betty says. But let’s be real, if your cheating ex showed up at your party uninvited and asked you to take them back, would you actually say yes in any case?
Favorite Lyrics: Would you have me? Would you want me? Would you tell me to go fuck myself?

peace

https://i.imgur.com/aw8hgR0.png. Yeah, I am not a fan of this one, folks. It’s a cute song about how Taylor knows her life is crazy and she might not ever be able to give Joe a normal romance, but she still loves him the same. But, is it just me or is the instrumentation and the vocals/lyrics go against each other at several points on this song? It’s like someone tried to make a poor mashup of two different tracks, and believe me, I know a thing or two about shitty mashups. The song also once again throws some shade at Scooter, Scott, and Kanye, but it feels real out of place for a love song, even if it’s about her crazy life. Really, I just feel like anything 'Peace' tries to do, some other track does it better.
Favorite Lyrics: All these people think love's for show/But I would die for you in secret

hoax

Wait, there’s a song called Hoax on this album?

the lakes

‘The Lakes,’ aka that song that made everyone realize swifties have lower reading comprehension than we thought, is the bonus track on the deluxe version of the album. I’ll be honest, I was originally not a fan of this song until about 4 days ago, listening to it again for this writeup. There’s something beautiful with these strings and the plan of just packing up all your stuff and your beloved and just living near beautiful lakes forever. Just ignoring all the bullshit from everyday life and “being superstar Taylor Swift” life, and living with your BF while nature moves around you two. I adore the bridge on this song and how it makes living at the lakes seem as gorgeous as a Monet painting. Who knew putting a good song on the physical copy would actually work to drive up album sales?
Favorite Lyrics: I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet/'Cause I haven't moved in years

What happened after it’s release?

When folklore was released, you had a choice: do I listen on streaming or do I get a physical copy, or do I get the other physical version, or the other physical version, or the different physical version, or maybe another physical version, or the other CD/Vinyl option, or the “Meet Me Behind The Mall” version, or the last version I could own physically? And then after a few weeks you had choices on streaming: do I listen to the album, or do I listen to “folklore: the escapism chapter,” or do I listen to “folklore: the sleepless nights chapter,” or do I listen to “folklore: the saltbox house chapter,” or do I listen to “folklore: the yeah I showed up at your party chapter?” And then you had the choice of listening to Cardigan (Cabin in Candlelight), Betty (Live from the 2020 CMAs), or Folklore: the long pond studio sessions (From the Disney+ Special) [Deluxe Version.] We love Taylor for giving her fans so many ways to listen! Oh, she also dropped another album called Woodvale or something.

Discussion Questions:

#1. How do you like folklore compared to her other albums?
#2. What’s your favorite song from the album? And because we need some drama, least favorite?
#3. Folklore deals with many different themes of stress, anger, love, feminism, cheating, and more. Which themes were handled the best and/or the worst?
#4. Many people criticized Taylor for “using an indie aesthetic” at a time when many actual indie artists were struggling due to the pandemic. Do you think these criticisms have merit, yes or no? Why? And will you make me regret asking this on popheads?
#5. Did you watch “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions?” Did it have an affect on your enjoyment of the album or certain songs?
#6. You can’t prove that the ghost of Rebekah Harkness *didn’t* possess Taylor Swift and force her to write a song about Rebekah’s narrative to lay her soul to rest and let her pass into the afterlife, like an episode of the mid to late 2000s tv show Ghost Whisperer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. Therefore, I will believe this is exactly what happened. What are some of your strange interpretations/headcanons on this album? (Bonus points if you don’t mention Karlie Kloss)

play steam games without internet video

Steam allows users to both play online and offline games. If you have a bad internet connection or if you prefer to relax and indulge in your games without going online, you can enable Steam There is only two games from Valve that does not require Steam and thats the orgianl Half Life (and the blue/red shift expansion), without the latest patch. Also the orginal CS (pre 1.5). most games bought on steam need steam to run, though some - mostly older - titles can be run without it. you can run steam-dependent games without net as well if you use offline mode but it's a bit wonky and to be able to use it, you need to be online first and make sure all the games are updated and stuff, only then will you be able to run them offline. Steam asks me to have an internet connection,to play the game without the internet connection.So yeah,it's nullifying itself,basically. Offline mode doesn't really work,because it wants me to be online at all times for offline to work. If not connected to the Internet without Origin running, the game will not start as Origin won't sign in. Basically, you need an Internet connection to start games that require Origin sign in. Otherwise, the game won't start until you are connected to the Internet. On Steam, if you are not connected to the Internet and you start Steam, it allows you to run it in Offline Mode assuming if Steam remembers your account and you can run games that require Steam which most non-EA or non-Unisoft I can make that choice on Steam. If I can't have that on Origin games, I won't choose more games from there. Actually, I didn't. It was Amazon I bought from and they directed me to Origin for download. I have frequent internet disconnects, some last hours. That's why I want games I can play without needing the internet connection. You can play Steam games offline as long as they're single-player or local multiplayer games and fully up-to-date. Here's how to use offline mode. I was just wondering if games bought off steam are playable without an internet connection. I'm in the process of moving and I probably won't have internet for a little bit. I'm guessing not because you have to log in to play. Any help is much appreciated! Sometimes it's important to walk away from the online community to truly get immersed in a story. Here are the top 5 best offline PC games you can play without using the Internet. If steam needs to update and you don't update it, then lose access to the internet you can't play any of your games, so always try and keep steam up to date. 9 years ago GameSpot

play steam games without internet top

FREE - How to play in LAN online/offline ANY steam game ...

Hope this vid helped.Give a like, dislike, subscribe to see more in the future I´ll show you here how you can play all the Games who you ever played on Steam without Steam! Good Luck! Have Fun! Join my Steam Group: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/GeniusPieTrap Steam Offline Mode allows you to play games through Steam without reconnecting to the Ste... Download link: https://mega.nz/#!wAgWzJKQ!mtw5QAL-839u85gKPV7NhYG5XaUnY4gD1gjEDxTjh8ASite to find steam appid: https://steamdb.info Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/ Welcome to a new video. During the last weeks I was experiencing myself a period of offline gaming. In this video I will give you some tipps and tricks how t... In this tutorial i 'll show you how to play Steam games without Steam. :D

Solved: Can't play Origin sign-in games without Internet

play steam games without internet

play steam games without internet - win

CC Global Gaming

H1Z1 - Last man standing shooter game

Online Jigsaw Puzzles

is there any quick fix for playing steam games without internet?

Is there any way to start steam and/or play games on steam WITHOUT an internet connection?

Hello again friends, my internet is out so a quick window popped up as i tryed to play SE in Steam online mode. I clicked this window is SE loading screen without reading it. Now... none of my worlds show up. Its as if i never played the game i check and my files are still on the Drive?

The game is not being connected to the servers. Internet connection is fine . Also steam is running without any problem and I talked to few of my friends who were shown to be playing and they have the same problem. I tried both using the -d3d9x launch option and also withot it.

I go to a boarding school were looking for a free lan game that we can play without the internet preferably without steam

Is it in any way possible to access Steam without an internet connection and play games?

How do I play (steam) games without my internet working

Can you play this game without internet on android/steam?

why wont steam log on to let me play single player games without internet?

I'm going to be staying with my grandparents for 2 weeks without internet. How can I insure I can still play my steam games?

Fuck You, Steam. I paid for these games and now can't play them without an internet connection? If I had pirated them, I wouldn't be having this problem. Class Action, Anyone?

Bungie, the January 14th TWAB Has Further Tipped Players and Content Creators Against Sunsetting. References Included.

Forsaken and Shadowkeep Sunsetting

Reissuing of Forsaken and Shadowkeep Loot

Content Creator Fatigue and Unrest

Players Putting Down Destiny

Addendum

Stardew Valley 1.5 released on console and PC!

About the update

Bugs and known issues

Gameplay questions for 1.5

Modding FAQs (PC only)

A SIR_JACK_A_LOT Christmas Carol - My magnum dong opus on turning $35K to $1.75M (50X) in less than a year

Introduction

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Ghosts of Christmas Present

Ghost of Christmas Future

Q&A / AMAA

(Spoilers Extended) The Optimist's Gambit: Why George RR Martin Always Thinks He's Closer Than He Actually Is, Part 2: THE WINDS OF WINTER

Intro

The Leftovers

Early Progress on TWOW (2012)

The Written World(book)

Winds Progress (2013)

The Locomotive Approaches (2014)

The Deep Breath Before the Plunge:

The Completed Battles

Daenerys Targaryen the Complete

The Dances of the Dragons

What Went Wrong

Conclusion (2017-2021)

Lockdown 3.0 Things to do, plus help and support.

I promise, I’m not here to steal your prices!

Local and Global networking isn't the problem

Popheads Album of the Year #30: Taylor Swift - Folklore

Introduction

How did Taylor head into 2020?

Tracklist

the 1

cardigan

the last great american dynasty

exile ft. Bon Iver

my tears ricochet

mirrorball

seven

august

this is me trying

illicit affairs

invisible string

mad woman

epiphany

betty

peace

hoax

the lakes

What happened after it’s release?

Discussion Questions:

play steam games without internet video

play steam games without internet top

FREE - How to play in LAN online/offline ANY steam game ...