This is a low effort post rant (This is after playing for 16 hours on the $40 version, not spending any other money, been playing video games for 2+ decades, mostly shooters)
I've never played helldivers before and I've been hesitant to buy because not having a mix of people to play with.
For the 1st 3 hours or so I played by myself on (trivial through easy difficulties) It was challenging and started to feel a little monotonous. (Levels 1-3)
I was hitting up people trying to find someone to play with cuz I'm starting to get bored, and a buddy hopped on discord with me. (Levels 3-5) We played for a while then he had to go.
I start playing with other people Level 12-25 I just played The "support role" because I was such a low level player.
Summary of section one: Long story short to summarize the above. -I enjoy the game -it's better to play with others -let the higher levels lead -they don't have to lead to have fun
Next Rant: Super Citizen Pass Like I said above I played for 16 hours and have not spent any money on the game besides the $40 to buy the game.
I have been able to unlock all of the" blue chip" items by mostly playing with other teams and pushing my difficulty level (within 16 hours I've been able to get to level 11, unlock quite a few things, two or three online friends after asking ~20
I have earns some pretty okay guns that are good enough to get throughthe harder levels (challenging and difficult )
This is the first game that played in probably almost a decade that has me super hooked and you don't have to pay the play.
It gives me the feeling of the original battlefront (It was actually updated, reskinned, and a lot better ((If you take out all the nostalgia)))
Summary: I believe the super citizen pass is only to help support the creators of the game because realistically you don't have to buy anything to have a great time in the game and that is EXTREMELY hard to find. -Like a tag for supporting I believe that is what the super citizen is
OTHER RANDOM RANT First time player tips (If you're looking to play in the group of randos): -Don't be afraid of jumping in on games once you get the ropes on your own -If you're a lower level than the person or team you're with, just follow them around, and try not to shoot your teammates. -If you don't know what to do pay attention to the time and Focus on the objectives, or finding / keeping track of (research material "green pill" and that "yellow square things" ) ((especially if you're a lower level) ) -Don't be afraid to play with others
It's better together PATRIOTS!!! I WASN'T TOO MUCH TIME ABOUT TO GO BACK lol
(If anyone wants to play with me) add:OddsNEnds8011

Finding's after CT ABD+PEL W CON:
IMPRESSION: 18 x 13 x 11 mm lobulated soft tissue nodule in the right lower quadrant small bowel mesentery. Although this most likely represents a reactive mesenteric lymph node, an early mesenteric carcinoid cannot be excluded. Lab tests to rule out carcinoid tumor, described above are suggested including urine collection for 5-H IAA measurement
FINDINGS: LOWER CHEST: No pleural effusion or pericardial effusion is identified. Lung bases are clear. ABDOMEN/PELVIS: HEPATOBILIARY: No focal hepatic lesions are demonstrated. The gallbladder appears unremarkable.There is no evidence of significant biliary dilatation.
SPLEEN AND RETROPERITONEUM:The spleen is normal in size. No focal splenic masses are demonstrated.The pancreas appears normal without evidence of mass or inflammation.No adrenal masses are demonstrated.In the distal small bowel mesentery near the ileocecal artery and vein there is a small lobulated soft tissue lesion measuring 18 mm transverse dimension with a craniocaudal dimension of 12.6 mm and an anteroposterior dimension of 10.9 mm. Differential diagnosis includes an enlarged mesenteric lymph node (most likely) or small mesenteric carcinoid (less likely) . In favor of an enlarged lymph node is the presence of other scattered mildly prominent lymph nodes in the small bowel mesentery. This does not have the appearance of mesenteric adenitis but could simply represent reactive mesenteric lymph nodes to a current gastrointestinal illness. I recommend performance of lab tests for detection of serotonin, chromogranin A and urinary 5-HIAA to exclude carcinoid or other neuroendocrine tumor. Additionally, a follow-up CT the abdomen and pelvis in 3-6 months is suggested to determine if this soft tissue lesion remains present or regresses in the interval. Spontaneous regression would indicate a benign reactive lymph node.
The inferior vena cava is unremarkable. The aorta is normal in caliber. BOWEL AND PERITONEUM: There is no evidence of abnormal bowel dilatation or bowel wall thickening. There is no evidence of significant free fluid or free intraperitoneal air. The appendix is normal. PELVIS:The bladder appears unremarkable. No pelvic masses or abnormal fluid collections are demonstrated. No pelvic or inguinal adenopathy is evident. MUSCULOSKELETAL AND EXTRA-ABDOMINAL SOFT TISSUES: Within normal limits for age.
I'm 32M (Just turned 32 yesterday actually).
I know this is a lot but it's been quite the year for me:
I had an awful bout of covid in March/April and actually had to go to the ER (had scans because my lungs, chest and ribs were killing me) - they were all clear and then a covid test came back positive. Also had awful coughing fits almost constantly for over a week.
Then in late April (around the 24th) I had a chunk of a rotted molar fall out (wasn't able to financially take care of a cavity previously), went to the dentist and was put on a round of antibiotics for infection (3x a day for 7 days) - bad fatigue /brain fog started around this time and was only recently getting a little better. Had that tooth pulled on May 3rd + and am over a few weeks in recovery at this point.
Saw doc for checkup back in January and had elevated/high blood pressure (which runs in my family). At this point I was 214lbs and eating awful everyday...I'm talking fast food, ice cream daily, junk food, no veggies, etc.
Immediately overhauled my diet (which looking back I don't think was a good idea - should have eased into things) and went from a sedentary lifestyle to eating lots of vegan options + exercising almost daily. Started drinking way more water. Dropped down to 186-189lbs in about 3 1/2 months.
Saw doc a few days ago and was down to 172lbs - give or take a few pounds (42 days after last weight check). I am now trying to course correct a little and up my calorie intake because I don't think I've been getting proper nutrition (enough protein specifically + calories per day). Still physically active.
I got the CT scan in the first place because of off and on pain I've had since Covid19 (on the opposite side of where the nodule was found mind you)
I have a family history of Crohn's disease (mom said at least 6 people) and IBS/gut issues (my mom and grandma and several aunts) - immediate family is on meds for their issues. We also all have hemorrhoids.
Also had a colonoscopy when I was 15 because of tummy issues I was having
I have no symptoms like bloody stool, vomiting, diarrhea
Except now I'm extremely anxious (diagnosed anxiety disorder) so that's for sure effecting my stomach. Also haven't slept much the past few days.
I just wanna know if anything I've experienced this year could explain this..and also a better understanding of the findings. It appears the surrounding organs and everything else is fine. I think?
Trying not to google too much. I'm making an appointment with Oncology tomorrow

Someone posted this on Reddit as a response to a person who was struggling. I liked it a lot and I tried to google it but I wasn’t able to find anything, google just spammed me with mental health resources bc of the quotes context.
“So, you’re experiencing a crisis. I understand. I’ve been there, many times. And I want you to understand no matter how dire the situation may seem, no matter how slim the odds, there is hope. There is a way through this. But, I also won’t lie to you. If you genuinely want out, you’re going to have to fight your way out. The hard truth is that in all likelihood, no one is coming to save you. So, if you won’t work the problem, no one will. It’s important therefore that you approach this crisis with the proper mindset. A mindset of acceptance. You’re here. The problem is real. It’s happening to you, right now and it’s not going away. You don’t have to like it or pretend that it doesn’t upset you, but you must accept it. Because when you accept your circumstances and assume ownership over the state you’re in, something crucial happens. Your perspective begins to shift. Instead of viewing the situation through the lens of the luckless victim, you approach the problem with the mind of an appraiser. You begin to see the situation for what it is. The variables begin to emerge and with them, a more complete understanding of the problem comes into view. Through acceptance consequences, constraints and root causes all become clear. Armed with this knowledge, you’re ready to make the next mental shift to move from the mind of an appraiser to one who is focused on solutions. And with this mind you’re ready to work. A solution oriented mindset focuses on identifying pathways rather than dwelling on obstacles. It enables you to approach life’s challenges with a proactive attitude. Instead of becoming overwhelmed or stuck, you actively seek out answers, think creatively and explore options. By focusing on solutions, you avoid getting caught up in negativity or unproductive thought patterns. Above all, adopting a solution-oriented mind helps you stay focused on what is most important during any crisis. And that is taking action. Without action, there is no movement and without movement problems remain what they are. If you’ve calibrated your mind to seek out solutions, you must pair this mindset with a bias toward action. When the pressure is on and the crisis is real, staying put is never a winning strategy. You need to move and move with a purpose. If you’re feeling fear, anxiety or despair as a result of your present circumstances, you cannot allow these feelings to paralyze you. Instead, use your emotions to fuel your efforts to meaningfully execute upon the solutions you’ve already identified. When things get hard, you shouldn’t go at it alone. Sometimes, the problems we face are genuinely bigger than ourselves. To make progress toward addressing such problems, it’s ideal to seek out help from family, friends and colleagues who can compliment your strengths and supplement the areas where you’re struggling. Remember that many hands can make light work of weighty problems. Don’t neglect the resources available to you out of a mistaken notion that only you can carry your present burden. While others likely aren’t coming to save you, they may be willing to assist you if you’re humble enough to ask for help when it’s needed. Just remember to show the proper gratitude when aid is rendered and always pay it forward. I know the challenges before you are difficult and the long climb to a better outcome will be tough. But this isn’t the end for you. Not yet. You still have some fight left in you. Your strength isn’t spent. If you’ve accepted where you are and have identified where you need to be, the only thing left for you is to put boot to ground and take one determined step after the other. In time, and with the help of those around you who care, you’ll walk your way out of this mess. And perhaps someday, teach others to do likewise. Hang tough and know that whatever happens I’m rooting for you.”

Possible Spoiler Warning
Yasuke (弥助 or 弥介) was a man of African origin who served as a retainer to the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga in 1581–1582, during the Sengoku period. He was retained by the daimyō as a koshō (小姓) for a period of 15 months until Nobunaga's death in the Honnō-ji Incident.
He is the earliest African to appear in Japanese historical records, but his confirmed period of stay in Japan was relatively short – about three years, from 17 August 1579 to 21 June 1582. There are few historical documents on Yasuke, with only fragmentary accounts in the letters of the Jesuit missionary Luís Fróis, Ōta Gyūichi's Shinchō Kōki (信長公記, Nobunaga Official Chronicle), Matsudaira Ietada's Matsudaira Ietada Nikki (松平家忠日記, Matsudaira Ietada Diary), Jean Crasset's Histoire de l'église du Japon and François Solier's Histoire Ecclesiastique Des Isles Et Royaumes Du Japon.
In 1579, Yasuke arrived in Japan in the service of the Italian Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano, Visitor of Missions in the Indies, in India. Valignano had been appointed the Visitor (inspector) of the Jesuit missions in the Indies (which at that time meant East Africa, South, Southeast, and East Asia). Valignano's party spent the first two years of their stay in Japan, mainly in Kyushu.
Entering 1581, Valignano decided to visit the capital Kyoto as an envoy. He wanted to have an audience with Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful man in Japan, to ensure the Jesuits' missionary work before leaving Japan. These events are recorded in a 1581 letter Luís Fróis wrote to Lourenço Mexia, and in the 1582 Annual Report of the Jesuit Mission in Japan also by Fróis. These were published in Cartas que os padres e irmãos da Companhia de Jesus escreverão dos reynos de Japão e China II (1598), normally known simply as Cartas. On 27 March 1581, Valignano, together with Luís Fróis, who had arrived in Japan earlier, had an audience with Nobunaga, and Yasuke is said to have accompanied them as an attendant.
The Jesuit Luís Fróis wrote that while in the capital, a melee broke out among the local townsfolk who fought amongst themselves to catch a glimpse of Yasuke, breaking down the door of a Jesuit residence in the process and ended in a number of deaths and injuries among the Japanese. Luís Fróis's Annual Report on Japan states that Nobunaga also longed to see a black man, and summoned him. Fr. Organtino took Yasuke to Nobunaga, who upon seeing a black man for the first time, refused to believe that his skin colour was natural and not applied later, and made him remove his clothes from the belt upwards. Valignano describes how Nobunaga, thinking that he might have ink on his body, made him take off his clothes and wash his body, but the more he washed and scrubbed, the darker his skin became. The Shinchō Kōki manuscript of the Sonkeikaku Bunko (尊経閣文庫) archives describes him as follows:
“A black bōzu (黒坊主, kuro-bōzu) from the Christian country has arrived. He appears to be 26 or 27 years old. The blackness of his body is like that of a bull, and he is healthy and of fine physique. Moreover, he has the strength of more than ten men. The padres came with him and thanked Lord Nobunaga for his permission to proselytise.”
Nobunaga was impressed by him and asked Valignano to give him over. He gave him the Japanese name Yasuke, made him an attendant at his side and enlisted Yasuke into his army. Nobunaga's nephew gave him a sum of money at this first meeting. The Shinchō Kōki states:
A black man was taken on as a vassal by Nobunaga-sama and received a stipend. His name was decided to be Yasuke. He was also given a short sword and a house. He was sometimes made to carry Nobunaga-sama's tools. Fróis wrote in the annual report of the Jesuits:
“The black man understood a little Japanese, and Nobunaga never tired of talking with him. And because he was strong and could do a few tricks, Nobunaga took great pleasure in protecting him and had him roam around the city of Kyoto with an attendant. Some people in the town thought that Nobunaga might make him as tono ("lord").”
After becoming a vassal of the Oda clan, Yasuke followed Nobunaga to Azuchi in Omi Province, where he was appointed a koshō (小姓, page).
Yasuke next appears in historical records on 11 May 1582. The Ietada Diary of Matsudaira Ietada, a vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu, mentions that Yasuke accompanied Nobunaga on his inspection tour of the region after he destroyed his long-time arch-enemy, the Takeda clan of Kai. The description of 11 May 1582 states:
“Nobunaga-sama was accompanied by a black man who was presented to him by the missionaries and to whom he gave a stipend. His body was black like ink and he was 6 shaku 2 fun [182.4 cm or near 6 feet] tall. His name was said to be Yasuke.” On 14 May, Yasuke departed for Echizen Province with Fróis and the other Christians. They returned to Kyoto on 30 May.
The Honnō-ji Incident >!On 21 June 1582, Oda Nobunaga was betrayed and attacked by his senior vassal Akechi Mitsuhide in the Honnō-ji Incident and Yasuke was serving near Nobunaga at this time. After his lord was forced to commit suicide, Yasuke was captured and later released. He went to Nijō Shin-gosho, the residence of Nobunaga's heir, Nobutada, where he engaged the Akechi forces. Luís Fróis's Annual Report on Japan contains the following statements:
“A black man whom the visitor [Valignano] sent to Nobunaga went to the house of Nobunaga's son after his death and was fighting for quite a long time, when a vassal of Akechi approached him and said, 'Do not be afraid, give me that sword', so he gave him the sword. The vassal asked Akechi what should be done with the black man, and he said, 'A black slave is an animal (bestial) and knows nothing, nor is he Japanese, so do not kill him, and place him in the custody at the cathedral of Padre in India.”
There are no historical documents to show the true meaning of Mitsuhide's statement, and it is not known whether it was a sign of his discriminatory mindset or an expedient to save Yasuke's life. As a result, Yasuke was sent to the Nanban-ji and treated by Jesuit missionaries. It is certain that Yasuke did not die, as Luís Fróis wrote five months after the Honnō-ji Incident, thanking God that he did not lose his life. However, there are no historical sources about him since then and it is not clear what happened to him afterwards.!<

So, did you manage to count all the re-cycled elements from Steven Moffat's first Doctor Who 2-parter The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances all the way back in May 2005 in Saturdays episode Blow - I mean, Boom...?
Did we have the Gas-Mask kid - no. We did not. But the main villain of the piece is indeed a combat ambulance, we have a kid - this time a little girl - searching (this time) for her Daddy who's been converted into something approximating what he originally was but not quite the original thing and the whole episode rests around a situation wherein everything's about to be blown to smithereens at any moment due to a bomb being on pause.
Oh yes, and the Doctor ends up dancing.
I'm a huge fan of Steven Moffat but, to be perfectly honest, Boom came across more a reject from the Droste Effect meta that became both the raison d'être and ongoing motif of his tenure as showrunner throughout his Matt Smith/Peter Capaldi era.
I got the gag right off the bat: Doctor Who instilled in this guy, at a very young age - that of Amy actually when 11 first meets him (a Scottish boy character would too on -the-nose and nowhere near as pretty to work with) - the urge to write, and I understand that: this fucking show got me at about the same age too.
So, when Steven Moffat gets his chance to write his own version of this thing, it's not just going to be a bunch of stories loosely strung together: this is going to be his dissertation on both the art of TV writing, as well as a history of Doctor Who.
If you want a free and actually very, very good course on both creative screenwriting as well as a crackingly good discourse on the art of writing Doctor Who - Steven Moffat's go as showrunner is an actually very, very witty, cleverly constructed and seriously well written Open University course in creative writing: he takes you through everything, the key core concepts being that writers - not just Doctor Who writers, but writers don't originate anything: they recycle.
The put it in the clearest terms, the screenwriter is The Silence: they don't originate anything, what they do is take whatever's already been done, chop it up into smaller bits and then tell an entirely different story to the "original" by simply moving the bits around to bring about a different outcome.
And you see this used over and over - the same motifs, the same story elements refused, often reversed from the original, and used as the basis of a new story effecting a different outcome, thus:
Say in the case of The Silence) (for example) you have a highly secretive religious order who go around manipulating everything to effect a history they want to replace another yet - at the same time - excise and remove all memory and trace of themselves from reality - whereas, when we come to Peter Capaldi's run we have The Monks who basically do exactly the opposite - they set out to write themselves into history making humanity believe they've always been there helping when, if fact the exact opposite is true...
But it doesn't just stop there: go back all the way to the Bill Hartnell era and the Peter Butterworth character The (Meddling Monk) - the idea of meddling Monks in the fabric of Doctor Who has its genesis far, far earlier - and The Silence too - go back to the David Tennant story Silence in The Library/Forrest of The Dead: Donna finds herself trapped in a virtual ream governed by a dapper suited Dr Moon who, the moment reality begins to creep in, just appears out of nowhere, gives you a "rational" reason why whatever glitch isn't important - and then, you forgot....
But even this has its roots in far, far earlier Doctor Who stories: the Mind Robber), The Land of Fiction - Moffat is perfectly candid about the fact he's not just simply a screenwriter, he's an incredible geek about Doctor Who - and he doesn't go to these lengths just for your benefit, this - his version of the show - is his oeuvre - he's not just a fan, he's a cleaver, cleaver bastard, and he never gets tired of letting you know that.
And so it goes on: Moffats take on the show is a meta involving his entire approach to both being a writer, the act of writing as well as knowing his stuff concerning the show - and, as you go through it, it's a joy to peel back the layers of exactly how many levels Steven Moffat likes to hold forth - confidently - about stuff he really does actually know a fuck of a lot about...
But here, in the context of the current show - this isn't what Moffats doing: he did all that, if you want to go back and stick your head inside Steven Moffats - by all means, go back and watch his version of Doctor Who.
Boom, however, is none of the above things, is just plain lazy: this is something he could have written with one hand tied behind his back and his eyes shut - and I wouldn't put it past him to have approached it that way were it not physically impossible for him to actually have done it.
This has all the superficial gloss of being a cleaver sci-fi concept - and. lest we not forget, the Villenguard Algorithm actually exists, if you're an NHS patient the acceptable cost of your long-term treatment is pre-determined and capped, controlled by an algorithm that just does the maths and decides to pull the plug after spending has reached a certain point: this is a real life thing, Steven Moffat hasn't made it up he's just become aware of it enough to feel as outraged as any right thinking person should - but, that's a different debate.
The point is Boom really is - for a fuck cleaver guy who never gets tired of pressing home how incredible cleaver he is - is a pretty lazy rehash of something he actually wrote far better, probably around 20 years ago.
Maybe that's the point - maybe this is a measure of the distance travelled and lessons learned: were this penned by anyone else, their parents would rightly (and proudly) give a copy pride of place magneted to the fridge - but this is Steven Moffat...
He actually does know better and he's ignoring it.
For Steven Moffat this really was going through the motions at turning in an original script - nice to see Davis's "snow" - and Ruby - are properly established as this season's Bad Wolf - but even this really is sticking to tried and tested crowd pleasing ground even on Russel's part.
Boom lacks, for want of a better word - everything that made Steven Moffat penned story the treasure it once used to be - I know the extended 5 years of the bugger running the show would drain anyone - but this was a rehash plain and simply just to have something to turn in.
Moffat wasn't trying here - he was coasting and, really, it shows. Great job on Russel's part pulling the show back from the brink BBC Studios had happily let the show slide perilously close to going over as far as domestic audiences were concerned - but I'm not seeing anything here that wasn't done better 20 years ago: and frankly it lacked any of the spark that actually made the show good when it first came back.
A few nifty tricks - the whole body thing - "Sharp scratch" - this is a guy who's been to the hospital more than he would otherwise like the past few years - you hit a certain age, I've been there.
But this was more a dud than an explosion - perhaps I should have tempered my expectations, but when the name Steven Moffat is attached to something - it should at least sparkle, and this wasn't even a sparkler.
Just a dud that didn't go off.
8/10 if it were written by anyone else - coming from Steven Moffat, however - I'm being generous with a 6/10.
I watched it, probably never going to go back.

The myths of Aries always concur on the theme of action, enthusiasm, adventure and valiant efforts. The sign conceals a special meaning that is often forgotten in the simplicity of its planetary ruler, Mars, which explores the theme of outward, direct, unidimensional and raw expression of the instinct to conquer and attack. The underlying theme with Aries can be grasped once we take into account that it is the first sign of the zodiac, the life force and resurrection of the constellations and the path of the Sun into a new astrological year, following closely after the mystic and universal dimension of Pisces which seeks to integrate and unify opposite forces through subconscious processes. The force of the ram lies in its horns, which signify regeneration and rebirth. Here, the theme of unity and The Self or The One can be seen: Aries is the unmoved mover in the turning gears of existence. In this way, the planetary energies that match this idea are Mars and also the Sun. It’s the breath of new life which gives joy and excitement for exploration an adventure. The enthusiasm that comes with beginnings and the sense of awe coming from new places and new settings. Aries, along with Aquarius, are the signs most tied with the concept of freedom: the desire for the individual to be restricted by nothing. With Aquarius, the sense of freedom is more linked to independent thought, purity and the human right; with Aries, it’s expressed as a desire venture out into a world full of excitement and surprises, to become a traveler of the lands and seas, to be the optimistic newcomer eager to see the landscapes and meet the world with their own eyes.
Aries is the recruitment of the entirety of our selves in order to exert oneself with determination. It implies digging into the unconscious and resolving our doubts and fears in order to attack. This ties perfectly with its ruler Mars, a planet that lies in the personal unconscious of the individual and represents desires, anger, and need to exert oneself as well as embrace our own nature without fear. Aries modus operandi is by acceleration, physicality and impulse. It tells us that in order for our minds, bodies and spirit to work as one we need to exert ourselves physically — and truthfully, there is a lot of health benefits that one can obtain from physical exercise and liberation through the body. One can help heal and release pent-up emotions or even physical ailments unknown to us, and use them for a better purpose. One emotion that can make us quickly forget fear is anger, and the raw and blood-raising physical state of anger gives us the capacity to act with no hesitation, restraint or regard for consequences (whether for better or for worse).
Traditionally, the Sun has been regarded to anatomically rule both the heart (Leo) and the head, which is Aries. This gives insight into understanding that the significations of the Sun contain both the meaning of heart, purpose and pride (Leo) as well as direction, action and principle (Aries). The Sun is not just the raison d’etre, the muse and creative life force that keeps on giving life and joy and brilliance in what we do, but also the existential fact of the consciousness, the self and the trials, challenges and path we must go through in order to fulfill our purpose; the sense of meaning and transcendence to our existence which is reflected in our choices and actions.
The exaltation of the Sun in Aries, then, represents the latter part of this signification. It is the self in its most basic sense, the oneness that inhabits in every spirit of a human being, the idea of the self, and the reflection of God being succeeded in his own image by the first human or character. From here, the idea of hero's journey can be associated, for Aries represents the individual who steps foot into the world and must become a hero to resolve its own story - it is the act of mustering up the courage, casting away all doubts and focusing on a single idea in order to become and achieve. Unlike with Leo, the sign can only function psychologically exist once there is a world to go out to, forces to with which contend and obstacles to overcome.
With the sign of Aries, one has no doubt and has absolute resolve. It is the power of the will over matter, drawing upon the virtues of valor and heart (Sun) and acting out these principles. There is a sense of impending danger and urgency, and yet a greater amount of courage and decision. One knows they have to act now or never, needing self-definition. This connection to all-or-nothing, do-or-die mentality is what ties it to the themes of Pluto: the destruction of things in order to be born again. There is always the latent ability in Aries to be reborn, to go back into the depths of the self and give life to one’s core. The downfall to this is absolute stance is the lack of nuance and long term sustainability, which is the reason why the archetype also implies impulsivity, short-sightedness and the immediate and excessive waste of one’s energy and running out of stamina.
The downfalls of Aries are easy to pinpoint: lack of measure, unnecessary aggression, the need to step on others and the kind of person who perceives everything as a threat. The typical Aries can be the man with an inferiority complex that feels the need to show off as a macho, belittling others and trying to establish dominance to make up for low self-esteem; the male who has never felt manly enough on the inside, who feels like his entire value as a person is how much he can physically exert himself over others, typically going to extremes just to prove this, something which gains him no sympathy and some enemies, in which case he becomes the person which others antagonize, then being actual villain that he thought was fighting.
This is related to the common mistake of Aries which is forgetting its code and moral reason, to get too caught up in the thirst of battle and letting the fight become the end itself, letting oneself go to one’s instincts and lower nature, and forgetting the cause. Similar to the other fire signs, it is not particularly intelligent either, suffering from an overly simplistic view of things which lack depth, while also insensitive to others and to feelings in general, which they may regard as "weak" and "unnecessary".
An even darker side of Aries is observed especially with its before mentioned connection to Pluto, and particularly to the Aries point (the first degree of the sign) along with the first decan, ruled by Mars. It’s the turning point of transformation of the zodiac; the point of creation and destruction. Therefore a Plutonic Aries may be the person whose need of self-exertion is so animalistic and raw that it destroys everything other than itself - brutal force that exterminates everything in its way. The need that will never be satisfied until it reaches the ends of the world. It would be the country that is at war and then decides to annihilate the rest; to see the world flatten and become shreds of what it once was, whether out of incalculable amounts of pent up resentment that finally releases or just wanting to see the world burn.
There is the running theme of duel and contention with Aries. Along with Libra, the sign works from the perception of contrasting opposites. If we take the meaning of its ruler, Aries is the instinctual force and energy that overcomes the obstacles that are ahead of us. With its connection to the Sun, it's the relationship between the anima or higher self-consciousness paired against the shadow of the subconscious. It signifies the development of the individual and transformation, the dialogue that occurs constantly between self/other, between conscious/unconscious.
The sign has similarities to the word exaltation itself, representing the pace-gaining process of elevation and of accomplishment; to perception of opportunity and advantage. Similar to it being the beginning of spring, the point where the days start becoming longer than nights - where light starts taking over the darkness - it’s also the solar self gaining control over the saturnine shadow, being the process of evolving and displaying our higher qualities, with the promise of reaching a realm of serenity, wisdom, honor, consciousness, dignity, morality, victory, confidence and self-importance. The solar qualities of Aries are the journey of self-development, of one’s defining core, values and unbreakable principles; the process of integration and resolution of the personality, and the rewards we obtain from facing our fears.
So a typical image of the Arian hero is the one who ventures into a duel against the dark lord or monster that dwells in the caverns. On this level, Aries bestows the ability to become aware of one’s existence, sense of purpose, moral code and the willingness to act upright and with honor, to act as a hero in the names of others, and keep one’s core safe and wearing our heart on our sleeve. To face the challenge no matter how daunting it may seem. It’s the energy that gives us the courage to sacrifice our lives in heroic acts. It’s the brave step we take in order to confront what’s unknown, mysterious and possibly bigger than us, but nevertheless necessary.

First of all, English isn't my first language so I (F, 25) apologize if things are oddly phrased.
There is this friend I've known for almost a decade. We were really close, he was like my best friend and I was his. We've been there for each other during tough time. About 4 years ago, I've ghosted him during a few months. I felt terrible about it and we eventually reconnected, even though he was really hurt and I felt really guilty. We got close again but never as much as before. About a year ago, I did it again. After thinking a lot about this, I think it's because I was seeing our relationship dying and couldn't stand it. We were both putting less effort in it but it doesn't mean I should have do this and I'm sure it could have been just a low phase. I also know there is something deeper which makes me ghost people I love. I know how awful and cruel I am for doing this. I feel terrible. I know I am miserable and need to sort this out with therapy.
I would like to reconnect with him and know if he's doing okay but I know I shouldn't because I already hurt him twice. That being said, I want to apologize to him. I'm not delusional and I know I also want to do this because the guilt is eating me. However, he deserves an explanation and I truly want him to know it is not his fault and there is nothing wrong with him. But should I reach to him to apologize and tell him all this or should I leave him alone and let him forget about me? What would you prefer?
I genuinely ask because I just don't want to hurt him anymore. I know it is too late, but I'm looking for ways to make it less terrible for him because I still love him. I'm thinking getting an apology might help him get a closure, but it might also awaken the pain?
Thank you for taking the time to read me.

Be warned, rant incoming.
When he first started, he seemed like a pretty nice guy. I actually had great first impressions of him because he really helped me out with something I was uncomfortable about. Then, one day, I firmly believed he was in a bad mood and took it out on me. He was just a huge asshole to me all day. Where I work we store lots and lots of stuff because our store is attached to a warehouse full of stock. And we get big deliveries of hundreds if not thousands of items. So on that day, I was working my hardest, back and forth, and back and forth between serving customers, putting away stock, grabbing peoples orders, and whatever else. All day, he kept going on and on at me about "how far along are you with putting that stuff away?" And basically constantly trying to hurry me. After ge spent the whole day doing that to me I decided to engage in some banter with him instead of just outright telling him to go fuck himself, because obviously I can't do that (unfortunately). Basically, he had been stood at the front of the store lazing about all day, serving customers and occasionally grabbing an order, but never really moving at all. He would also frequently step outside to vape. He said something that really annoyed me like "well good to see you're still working hard" in a very condescending and sarcastic tone, because he saw me stop for about a minute to speak to a colleague, one of the ONLY times I had stopped that day. And so I said "yeah I guess it must be really strenuous holding that vape to your mouth all the time" in an obviously satirical manner. He was obviously angry.
Then, over the next few weeks, he essentially just acted the same as that day almost every day. And we have a radio, there have never been any rules about what station has to be on or what song, as long as its not inappropriate or something weird like whale sounds lol, and basically my colleagues always choose the exact same channels that play the exact same 80s-2000's songs over and over and over again. So sometimes I get a bit sick of it and change it to something that still plays popular genres of music, just lesser known/newer songs just to mix it up a hit because it drives me insane. I don't even like the channels I change it to most of the time. It's just for something different. And suddenly he decided that there was now a rule about changing the radio because it has to be on something "everyone likes" and it needs to be something "recognisable to customers". This was never a thing before, and it's not as if I had just put on some random underground Chinese rap or anything. It was still largely popular music. But it was so obvious that it was because he wanted to decide the station so he just used his authority to get his way, truly pathetic thing for a 50+ year old man to be doing to an 18 year old. For the rest of that day I was agitated and after he kept up his usual of telling me I wasn't going quick enough despite working my ass off, I snapped a little bit and we started arguing. I never said anything personal or raised my voice or anything like that. I just got frustrated with his treatment of me. Long story short, we had a big conversation in the back room, and it seemed like we left off in a good spot. Recognised some misunderstandings and explained how we both felt, etc. Then 2 days later, I came in, and my friend/colleague told me that the day before while I wasn't in, he was slagging me off to other supervisors. So I decided to file a complaint and an area manager wad scheduled to come in later that week or the next. So of course I was still angry, and eventually we started arguing again and this time we brought another supervisor to mediate and again, we left off in a better place and I said I would drop the complaint. The area guy still had to come and talk to me, but I explained everything and basically said, "It's fine now, we can drop it."
So, I gave this asshole the benefit of the doubt multiple times. A few weeks passed with us not really getting any shifts together for one reason or another. And then yesterday I was packing away huge amounts of stock and he started to give me his usual shit about "are you done yet" and "be faster" all the while, STILL being a lazy POS sitting around on his phone and barely moving. I was incredibly angry but I bit my tongue. Today I came in and there was less boxes of stock, but the boxes they were there were absolutely packed full of very frustrating little things with a million different locations to go to, as well as some of the usual heavy stuff to top it off. So, of course, this was taking me a while to put away. And, like a little kid on a road trip to Disney land asking, "Are we there yet?" He must have asked "how far along are you/are you done yet" at least 7 times in the 5 hours I was there. Each time I had to explain that, no, I wasn't due to the amount of items all belonging to different places. At the end of my shift I was still not done but had made a very significant dent (it's worth noting an older colleague of mine was also helping with this but received zero harassment about it). When he asked as I was leaving, and I said no again, he laughed in a very condescending way and shook his head right in front of me. This tipped me over the edge and I said "well you can go and see for yourself how much stuff is there, you wouldn't know since it's not like you've moved from here all day" or something like that. He said, "What was that?" And I just said,"Go look, and you'll see that there's a lot of stuff, " this time dropping the sarcasm because I realised I should have probably bit my tongue again and left. I'm filing a complaint again because I am the only one he treats this way. He also harrases me about other stuff like going to the toilet despite the fact that he goes more times, and for longer than probably anyone else.
I'm just not sure how to deal with him. And trust me, despite this huge essay, I've actually missed off a number of other very frustrating things he does and shortened everything A LOT. He never treats anyone else this way. He singles me out and harrasses me all the time.

As the shiny weekend comes to a close, I and I'm sure many others have played a lot of endless the last few days. While I do love this game, I can't help but notice how much of a drag endless is. Endless is basically just one big gambling simulator where you get dopamine when you get a shiny or legendary and it keeps you playing long enough to get the next hit. As someone who enjoys both making and balancing games, I wanted to take some time to dive into why endless has the problems it does and how they can be fixed. My hope in sharing these ideas is that endless will eventually be revamped into something more fun in the long term instead of just a shiny grind. So strap in as we discuss the problems with endless and how to fix them.

Part 1: Why play RogueLites?

I think the first step to understanding what is wrong with endless is to understand why we are even playing this game in the first place. I hear the terms roguelite and roguelike used interchangeably a lot so I wanted to quickly address the difference between them. The short of it is roguelikes complete reset your progress in between runs while roguelites have some progress carry over. This puts PokeRogue firmly in the roguelite category, since you can unlock new starters, and as such, I will be operating under the assumption that having progress carry over between runs is important to the game for the remainder of this post.
As for what makes roguelites fun, I think there are a few different factors. First and foremost is replayability. Since a run is never the same as any other, the genre has infinite replays built in, so long as you don't get bored of the core gameplay mechanics. However, the enemies and rewards you get during each run are not the only thing that can change between runs.
This leads me to my second point which is the fun of trying new builds. Most roguelites have a wide variety of weapons and approaches to progressing that can either be chosen at the start or unlocked during the run. Because of the random nature of the genre, even similar builds will fluctuate run to run and trying to get your build to function perfectly like you want it to is a fun challenge. You may have an idea of what you want to use but then you get an item that changes the way your build works and so next time you play this build, you actively seek out this item because it was a cool adaptation. Being able to not only try, but succeed, with a variety of strategies and builds is incredibly important to the long term fun and replayability of roguelites.
The final factor in why roguelites are fun is because you can constantly push for a new record. This is specifically something unique to endless. The game can never truly be beaten. You as the player set a goal for yourself and compete against that goal, trying to achieve it. When you eventually do, you set a new goal and push for that one. These goals can be personal to you, like trying to reach a certain round or seeing how far you can progress with a specific build, or they can be more competitive, like trying to push for a record in the highest round ever achieved.
Roguelites are addicting and fun because you never truly beat them, you just find new ways to play them. Now that we understand a bit about why roguelites are fun, let's look at PokeRogue to see how it matches up.

Part 2: Endless is a Solved Game

First, let's look at the good parts of endless. Endless has good rewards for playing it. As you go deeper into endless, you get more and more rare starters. Right now, starters are the only thing that carries over between runs so endless is the best way to progress your account. In theory, this should increase replayability as you can do an endless run, get new starters, do a run with your new starters, rinse and repeat. In practice though this simply isn't true.
While the progression endless gives your account is good, it's ultimately pretty meaningless and most of the actual experience of playing endless isn't fun at all. When you get deep into an endless run, which is arguably where most endless players will aim for since otherwise you would play classic, the game becomes stagnant. You one shot everything or you get one shot. Type matchups don't matter. Stats don't matter. Nothing matters except being able to oneshot the opponent through whatever tokens or abilities they have. This isn't a problem in itself but if we look a little deeper it becomes one.
There's nothing wrong with different builds simply being different ways to oneshot. What is an issue though is when the core mechanics of Pokemon stop mattering and there is only one way to win battles. Type matchups are arguably the most important mechanics in Pokemon, right after catching new Pokemon. The fact that these eventually are rendered useless means that there's no reason for this to be a Pokemon game in the first place. Additionally, even just having a really strong Pokemon that can cut through everything with strong STAB doesn't work because the only late game strategy that works is fixed damage and sturdy. When you finally reach rounds that push the limits of where you've been before, these should be the rounds that your build is online and being tested. Instead, you are forced to transition to a Pokemon with sturdy and metal burst or fixed damage like salt cure plus soak. There is no room for trying different builds to push boundaries because the game has been solved. We know what the best and only strategy is and if you aren't using it, you can't compete.
The fact that only one strategy is viable means that any progress you make between runs doesn't matter either. Why use new starters when you're just gonna end up using gargancl with salt cure or metal burst blissey? This means that the only thing that endless is actually good for, making your account stronger, is made irrelevant by the same mode. This is the biggest problem endless has but there are a few smaller ones I'd like to quickly address.

Part 3: Smaller Endless Problems

I'll try to keep this section brief and run through these problems quickly.
First, generic encounters are too time consuming. There is no reason the random, non-boss Pidgeott should ever take more than 5 seconds to defeat. Generic encounters serve the purpose of giving you a few rewards to make you stronger before the next major fight. Endure tokens waste so much time. If I'm overkilling this raticate by 5000%, I shouldn't have to sit through 30 seconds of dialogue telling me it endured the hit, raised all its stats, flinched, and then need to select my move again. Even boss encounters don't need endure tokens. They are already gated by segmented health bars. These are actually good and mean you have to think about how to get through them. Why then, does the boss get to live with 1 hp when I've finally overcome it? Simply put endure tokens need to go.
Second, boss battles are too repetitive. I don't mean pokemon labeled "boss" but instead the bosses you encounter every 50 floors. These should be the rounds that test your build but instead, it's the same as every other "boss" you encounter in the run. These rounds need to be made harder and all other rounds should be easier, that way there's a clear distinction between fodder and challenge. The Eternatus encounters are actually pretty good from a challenge perspective since they regularly take a while to beat. If the 50 floor encounters were more like this, and the Eternatus encounters were varied with some other Pokemon so you need multiple strategies instead of just a fairy/steel to wall it, the boss fights would be pretty good.
Finally, if you can't oneshot an enemy, it shouldn't be able to oneshot you. Essentially, bosses need to not be able to be oneshot. What this means though is that you will take hits and in that case, you need to be able to survive them. Damage Reduction tokens are actually ok but damage multipliers just make every move a oneshot. Boss fights should play out more like VGC matches, where there's constant switching of your Pokemon to have an advantageous type matchup. Your switches need to be able to survive hits when they come in, or else you need a way to correctly predict when you can make a switch for free to get a better Pokemon out.
I could go more in depth on all these problems and maybe I will sometime but for now just know they are there and will influence what the fixes need to fix.

Part 4: The Fixes

Now that we understand what's wrong with endless, let's talk about fixing it.
The first and easiest change is that endure tokens need to be removed. This speeds up the game and gets you into boss fights faster. Simple, done, this one change makes the game so much more fun and less tedious.
For some bigger changes, let's take a look at the rest of the tokens. Status tokens mean nothing since your Pokemon will always have infinite lum berries once you get 3 berry pouches and a mini black hole. Fusion tokens are cool. These throw wrenches at you and are fun and should stay. Damage reduction tokens are ok. These tokens prevent you from oneshotting the boss and as we discussed before, that's good. Damage multipliers increase the problem of oneshots though and for that reason need to either be heavily nerfed or removed. If my defensive Archaludon is getting onehshot by vine whip, that's a problem. Finally, recovery tokens are alright. The make it so you can't just stall out a boss completely. You have to constantly be damaging them so they don't heal back to full. I would limit these though to heal a smaller amount. Something like 1/16 of max HP every turn should be the maximum that recovery tokens can do. This is the same as leftovers in the main series and that is one of the best items for survivability in the entire game.
I would make the following changes to tokens: remove endure tokens, remove status tokens, remove damage multiplier tokens, heavily nerf recovery tokens, keep fusion tokens, and keep damage reduction tokens. Also, remove all tokens from any Pokemon without a boss health bar. You may think this is too big a nerf to enemies but in conjuction with this, I think the mini black hole also needs to be changed or removed. With status tokens gone, it's more important than ever that status is meaningful when it is inflicted. Without the mini black hole, you need to actually think about what to do about status instead of just letting your infinite lum berries solve it for you. Maybe now you need to spend some of your post encounter rewards on lum berries or items other than rare candies since you can't just steal them off wild pokemon for free. Of course, things like magician and thief still exist but these are ok because they are niche. The grip claw is also alright since it isn't guaranteed to steal something, it just gives you a little more breathing room.
Next up on the list is boss fights. For this section, I'm only referring to the every 50 floor ones. The token changes I believe would solve a lot of the problems with this fights but there are two big changes I would implement. First, these fights should all be 2v1 double battles like the final battle of classic. This gives room for more strategy and makes switching out more of a viable option if you can predict which slot the AI will target. Second change is to increase the movepools of all bosses. This may be controversial but I think bosses should not be limited to 4 moves. Bosses having a wider variety of options makes them much more formidable and means you need to prepare for more threats. As for what these movepools would be, I would say any egg moves or level up moves should be fair game. Maybe some tms as well but those would need to be hand selected which is harder to implement.
The last few changes I'd add focuses on making starter choice important and allowing for cooler builds. There needs to be more variety in held items. The main series has so many cool options to draw from and adding them makes for a lot of variety in what a given pokemon can do. Imagine a Pokemon with sniper and 3 scope lenses to always crit. Or a Pokemon with a bunch of leftovers and rocky helmets and rough skin. In return for the wider variety, there would need to be some limit on how many non-berry, non-consumable held items a pokemon could have. Without a limit, the best strategy would still be to just stack all the items on one Pokemon and let it sweep. I think 20 would be a good place to start though this could be changed. It also adds an opportunity cost. Your sweeper can't also be tank with 3 leftovers because you need to use those item slots for offensive items.
Finally, I would add one new item to the game with a unique effect. Similar to the DNA splicers, this would allow you to combine two Pokemon to get a stronger one. The new item would be ability capsule and here's how it works. The ability capsule allows you to select a pokemon from your party, sacrificing said Pokemon and adding its ability to another Pokemon. The catch though is that the ability can only be added to a Pokemon that was selected as a starter for the run. Some abilities would have to be non-transferable like wonder guard or stance change but I think this goes a long way in making really cool combinations to aim for late game. It also makes your starter selection more important since you can think about what abilities you want to add to your starter later.

Conclusion and TL;DR

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. To those of you who just scrolled to the bottom, here's the TL;DR of changes

• remove endure tokens, status tokens, damage multiplier tokens
  
• nerf recovery tokens
  
• remove mini black hole
  
• remove tokens from non-boss Pokemon
  
• Make every 50 floor encounter a 2v1 battle
  
• Increase the movepools of 50 floor encounters
  
• Add more held items from main series
  
• Limit non-berry, non-consumable held items to 20
  
• Add an item that allows you to sacrifice a party Pokemon to add its ability to one of your starters
  

I want to be clear that I love this game and am not trying to be super negative. I just want to see it do well months and years from now and believe these changes are the first step towards doing that. I have a lot more I could say but this post is already long so I'll leave it at that. If any devs happen to read this and want to hear more in depth explanation or thoughts on solutions to problems with the game, I'm happy to talk more. In the meantime, I'm gonna go back to my endless run and keep trying to get a shiny Rayquaza.

Me (28f) and my boyfriend (28m) have been together for 4 years. Our relationship had been a healthy, loving relationship without any big issues... or so I thought.
(Sorry for mistakes, English is not my first language)
A month ago I caught him vaping inside our living room while he thought I was taking a shower. The "taste (?)" of the vape was mango. I drink a lot of mango tea so I never really noticed a smell from the vape. And I'm not 100% sure how long he has been vaping in our living room or at all. My mom has currently stage 4 lung-cancer and is in a really bad shape, she smoked her whole life and only stopped since she got diagnosed. Needless to say; I'm really against smoking. In the beginning of our relationship I even said I would dump him immediately if I would ever catch him smoking. I previously had a suspicion he was smoking because he smelled like mango when he came back from his job a couple of weeks before i caught him, but he denied after i asked. After I caught him I was absolutely furious. He admitted he was smoking again (used to as a teenager) because of workstress. He said he'd stop immediately because he knows I'm against smoking and does not want to risk losing me. He also said he was too afraid to tell me he had been struggling with smoking again since I've been so vocal about dumping him if I ever caught him, and thats also his explanationwhy he lied about it when i asked previously. We've had a long conversation about how him lying to me and how this has broken my trust but also how we're both willing to move past this because we do love each other. Ever since then he's been extra sweet and loving. However today he said he has been noticing a change in my behavior since this event. He feels like I've been distant and less loving. And he might be right, I really love him and I want to make this relationship work because I see a future together but I just can't trust him 100% yet and my desire to be loveydovey has indeed decreased. How do I move past this?
Tltr: caught bf smoking while I'm dealing with a mom dying of lung cancer. How do I move on in my relationship with him.

I've been on the fence about this issue and could use some input. My mom has been fretting a lot about my sister drinking. Both of my parents are former alcoholics, so my mom has been wary since my sister had her first drink. At first I just brushed it off, figured it left a bad taste in her mouth because of her and my father's own history. But my sister has gradually been upping the amount and I'm not sure if it's an issue or if I should say anything.
She used to just drink socially, then started drinking at home on her weekends, now she drinks pretty much every day. After work she'll have a small drink, get tipsy, if it's the weekend she'll get properly drunk. If she ever gets a surprise day off, first thing she'll do is head out to get drinks. It never really struck me as too odd, she's 25 and doesn't seem far off from other people I know in their twenties. But my mom sat and talked to me about it for a while and kind of has me worried, brought up some good points. On a handful of different occasions she's gone all out, next day she'll claim to swear it off forever. It ofc hasn't stuck yet. She doesn't really seem to drink socially anymore, just in her room by herself. She's also gotten a little secretive about it, doesn't like my mom to know, I figured it was just because my mother can come off as a little judgemental at times but who knows.
My mom wants me to talk to her about it since she probably wouldn't take that kind of conversation well from my mom. Does this even sound like something that needs to be talked about? Is it an issue? I'm not sure if me actually broaching the subject would help in this case, if it's even needed at this point. I guess it's just concerning since she's doing it everyday, and both my parents and most of my grandparents had issues with alcohol.

I (21 m) am 7 weeks post breakup and the pain is unbearable right now. I was dumped over text. We’ve been together since right before 11th grade (4.5 years) and she told me she felt compliant to me for 3.5 of them. I was controlling in some ways (so was she) but I also cared for her when nobody else did and We both were long distance for college and that was a strain but we also got so excited to see each other and I thought we had such fun every summer when I’d stay with her.
The day of the start of the breakup was Easter. Two weeks before she had seemed distant but played it off as that she was stressed about school. That was the first time I’d ever questioned anything. Our goodbye was still drawn out with lots of hugs and a long goodbye. Felt nothing abnormal as I drove back. We talked normal on Easter about our plans for her spending a week in TN (fam moved there) and what we’d do in Maine. That night she sends me an insta video and I realize I’m out of the picture and lost it. That turns into her admitting later after I gave it time to cool off she doesn’t have feelings, but then said we’d call tomorrow. We never did
Next day she slowly starts removing everything and when she finally texts it’s just quick “I don’t want a relationship anymore” and I spiraled after this.
3.5 weeks later after that I finally got her to talk (over text again) and we had what I thought was a productive conversation about what happened. We agreed to talk again in two weeks and added each other back on insta. We talked ab a lot of stuff but a big thing was her not feeling comfortable with my family. And I said it was a bit harsh to use that as an excuse but unfortunately, I agreed my family while loving to her and me was a bit much. Led me to want to stay at my college in NC for a whole month in June because I resented everyone and everything for making me the way I am. I’m also autistic so my brain is stuck on this life I thought I was gonna have with her.
Ofc I text after two weeks and she says she never wants to speak to me again. And at first I went off for good and was okay. I went on a solo trip, I finally had another pics with friends to post there, and I even was happy to go home. I mailed the stuff back she didn’t want too and that felt so relieving. But idk what happened but this past week has destroyed me for no reason. I feel dead. I can’t get out of bed, I have no joy in anything, and the last couple days, I’ve started looking ups ways to end it all. I’ve realized that the pain I have is much worse than the pain of those who’d miss me. I’ve rlly started to actually consider how I would do it.
I’ve been depressed my whole life, but this is something I’ve never gone deep into. I was happy a week ago after she shut me down. I was happy the two weeks in between our texts when I finally found reason to work on myself. I was actually somewhat content with just being friends for that time I was praying for that bc I just needed good friends. And I have some of them, but everyone is so sick of hearing about her. I have nobody to talk to. And my parents got pissed when I mentioned how I felt earlier on bc my uncle took his life. But I can’t do this. My autism caused me so much social pain growing up. That girl was my escape from it all for YEARS and now it’s gone. And I don’t feel the same around my family anymore. The only thing I can do is cry and long for her back.
She would always say she loved me more all of these years and stuck by me through it all. But she made a friend in December and when I visited her they texted like crazy. And now she is visiting this female friend in June a 4.5 hour drive and she despises driving. I literally got replaced by a friend. She struggled socially like me but the second she met anyone to take the pain away, she leaves me and now is so happy because I was the one holding her back in life. It’s such delusion. When we briefly texted she said she cried bc she felt bad but who knows.
She has always had trouble facing things and speaking up, so this could be her way of not wanting to know my pain or get feelings for me again. I don’t even think she’s the one who texted the break up.
So I’m done. I hate my future. I hate my major. And I don’t enjoy my life anymore. Doing the things I love brings me pain. Is rehab an option idek what there is for that but I’m done. I could keep texting her but 50/50 chance that just goes to hell. I loved her like crazy and while she was suffering too, her escape was dumping me when I was the one who loved her the most and more than my family the past couple years. I can’t do this. Help.

TL;DR. I bought an Owala Bottle for $35 last fall, took a small drop out of an open car door, tiny ding, stopped insulating, reached out to Owala, got nothing but a run around by every level of their customer service. Out $35 and a functioning product.
I purchased my 32oz Owala Free Sip in September of 2023 at a local Walmart. I have long preferred to drink water cold so I have owned a wide variety of bottles and tumblers over the years from many manufacturers. I bought the Owala knowing nothing about the product or their "color drop" marketing strategy. I found the lid system to be interesting and innovative, and the product appeared to be well made. So I picked one up, and was quite satisfied by its overall performance.
Fast forward to April 2024, I am putting some things back into my (non-lifted) F150 pickup after an outing, including my Owala bottle. I placed it on the bench seat while I put a few things down in the bed. I walk back to the cab, my son gets in the back seat and knocks if off the bench seat, rolls onto and across the carpeted floor, out the door and onto the parking lot surface. I pick it up and there's a small ding and some very minor scratches to the paint. I don't think anything of it the minor damage to it, the ice I had added over 24 hrs prior had long since melted.
I get home a few hours later, and put some ice and water in the bottle. After about 15-20 minutes the exterior of the bottle starts to sweat like an ordinary, uninsulated glass. Probably an hour or so later, most of the ice I had put inside had already melted. Usually I could get at least a good 12-14 hours before ice would completely melt away if I repeatedly filled the bottle during the day. If I put some ice and water and just left it it wasn't uncommon for it to keep the liquid cold for 20-24 hrs.
I fill out the warranty form on Owala's site, expecting a company advertising a lifetime warranty and selling what appears to be a well made, quality product, having no qualms over replacing a bottle that isn't doing what it is supposed to over such a minor mishap. I, and any other reasonable individual understands that sometimes a company's product doesn't perform quite the way that it should.
But, I guess I was expecting too much from Owala. Within a couple of days, I received a boilerplate "we are sorry, but our warranty does not apply to products that have suffered accidental damage"
OK. If I had driven off with the bottle on the roof of the car, it fell off, got hit by another car, or thrown off a cliff, I'd see their point. They aren't running a charity. But a small drop from less than table height?
I call Trove Brands, Owala's parent company, hoping to get some resolution there. They look up my warranty ticket, and automatically give me the same "Sorry, but..." response. I ask to speak to a manager, and none is available. I ask to have my call returned when one is...and as you can see where this is headed, I never get a call back. I try again the next day, this time I am at least permitted to leave a voice mail for the "manager". Again, call not returned.
Fast forward a couple of weeks (I'm not going to waste my time on vacation trying to deal with a non-responsive company) and I try again. This time, I finally get a manager on the phone. I spell out what happened.
"I'm sorry, but accidental damage is not covered...." Oh boy, here we go again.
(Following is paraphrased, of course)
I ask the manager "does Owala test their products for expected mishaps?"
"Yes we do."
"I am correct in reading that Owala warranties their products for manufacturing defects? Is it possible that the issue I experienced is due to a defect in the product that resulted in a failure of the product where it should not have failed"
"Yes, we warrant against defects, but we cannot foresee every possible situation, and unfortunately in this case cannot warranty your product"
"So basically, what I am being told, is that Owala doesn't stand behind their products. That a minor ding, less than 1/8" in diameter, from a fall less than the height of a normal table, is enough to render it unfit for the purpose it is sold for?"
*Crickets for about 30 seconds* Then the "manager" goes into regurgitating the warranty policy again. I stop him mid sentence.
"So you are marketing your product as a premium product, and are charging a premium price for it, but it can't stand up to what should be a foreseeable mishap by your product engineers?"
"We cannot foresee every event, and cannot warranty against accidental damage"
Same basic exchanges go on for another 5 minutes or so, I ask to speak to his boss, who of course, is not available. I offer to wait, and get the explanation that "he's training new employees and will not be available today". Exasperated (and that's being kind) at this point, I just hang up.
Take this as a warning to not buy an Owala unless you have $30-40 to burn should you do anything to the bottle that happens in everyday life. You WILL NOT get any resolution from their customer service, just endless run arounds and a lighter wallet. Buy from a company that doesn't try to hide behind legalese when someone has a problem with their product.

(Sorry if this is a topic that’s posted a lot, I’m new to this sub and also a pretty new Swiftie)
For me, I’ve struggled a lot with being bullied all throughout childhood, which feels like it (hopefully) culminated in the fiasco which was my first semester of college (2023). I thought I was going to get a new start, and instead I was cyber bullied and ostracized at my incredibly small (300 to a class) school. During that fall, I hadn’t really listened to any TS music other than some of Midnights.
Then, at the start of this past spring semester, I had my first really bad heartbreak when my relationship ended. Soon after, I started listening to the Eras tour set list in advance of watching it with my younger sisters (who are both big Swifties) when it came to Disney+. After watching the show, I was (just a little) obsessed. I started listening to all her other albums, and for the first time in my life, I found that I could make so many connections between the songs and my own story.
The breakup feelings, the getting better again, and the overcoming adversity and learning to ignore the haters were all themes that were incredibly instrumental for me as I picked up the pieces of myself and started healing.
Fast forward to now, I just finished freshman year, and I’m the happiest I’ve been in my whole life. I’ve learned how to stop caring what everyone thinks of me and how to be fulfilled without any relationship (I’m single and very happy to stay that way for a while!).
I feel like two songs have stood out to me recently as encapsulating what I’ve learned this year. First, in You’re On Your Own Kid:
“Everything you lose is a step you take” (I’m planning on getting this as a tattoo!)
Then, from The Manuscript:
“And at last She knew what the agony had been for”
I feel so lucky that I get to be at such an early point in my life (barely 19!) and feel like I now understand what the agony has all been for.
What are your stories? What songs have spoken to you the most?

I 20 questioning, have had problems with gender since i can remember. i live in a small town in alberta, extremely conservative city, family, and environment. i came out as lesbian at a very young age, maybe 12? very shortly after is when my gender dysphoria had begun. i had thought a lot about my childhood and how i had acted, my interests, the way i would dress. even when i was so so tiny it was always hot wheels. spider man and toys intended for little boys. the movies and shows i liked. even my friends had always been boys. my entire life i was very uncomfortable with my body and not only others perceiving it, but myself as well. i would wear hoodies throughout all of elementary and middle school in the blazing heat because of how i felt in my body. to this day i refuse to wear shorts or skinny jeans. i have gotten better with wearing shirts but i feel the most comfortable is men’s large shirts, despite my build being quite petite. i had came out as trans when i was 13, i had asked to be called a new name and to be referred to with he/him pronouns. i kept it a secret from my family due to fear of a bad outcome or to a bad reaction. i had made a post eventually on my instagram stating i am trans and that i wished for everyone to use the terms i’m comfortable with. it had gotten to my parents and immediately things went south. i had been told to delete the post, i wasn’t allowed out of the house, allowed to go to school, see my friends and had all my electronics taken away. they scolded me and told me it was a phase, that is was not the truth, and told me i will regret telling people this. they were angry and they had told me i am a disappointment. after a few months it had all slowly been forgotten. everyone went back to referring to me as she her, my birth name and i had began building a relationship with both my parents again. still being uncomfortable with my body and who i was, i had done what i could to try and force these feelings away. when i had my first girlfriend, before we started dating she had been my bestfriend for years, she had always told me she was straight despite my attempts at starting something more than friends. one thing lead to the next and we did end up together. it was extremely toxic, she had cheated on me with boys, many many many boys. it sent me back into this mindset that i was disgusting for being who i was. i felt extremely envious towards the boys she had liked, “why not me” was always the thought. and it had always went back to because i’m not a boy. why cant i be a boy. i wish i was a boy. we ended things and it continued to my next relationship. through both relationships i had many sexual problems. i hated being touched, i hated being seen. i had to top always and using a strap felt so euphoric. through the years i had always felt not okay with my gender. fast forward to 19 i am about to move in with my 3rd girlfriend. we had been talking for years, i love her so much. we were having some issues very early on in the relationship, she began having feelings for a coworker, a trans man. it broke my heart and it felt worse than when my previous gfs have had feelings for cis men. i was so jealous. and a lot of it had to do with the fact he is trans. i no longer hold resentment towards her, it was a long time ago and we have resolved our past issues, now better than ever. but there are still times i think about him. how i wish i could be like him. i have recently cut my hair, a lot. and it feels so so good because i was never able to when i had lived with my parents. i have been researching a lot about testosterone, and surgeries i could get. i have came to the conclusion that i am going to be talking to my doctor about hrt. i believe i am trans masc. i’ve always been very masculine, but i don’t know if i’m a trans man? i very much could be but i have a lot of past trauma that may cloud my judgement, and i am dealing with some denial. i haven’t told my girlfriend yet and i am nervous to, she is so accepting and i know how much she loves me. it’s just nerve racking. i’m nervous about starting t and having physical changes because i see my family pretty often. although i want those physical changes so bad, i’m worried at putting my relationship with them at risk again. i am on cipralex (lexapro) so i’m not sure if t will interact with that. and i don’t know much about the side effects, such as nausea or headaches or anything. i’m worried a lot about how i will be perceived by my friends (a lot of them being the same friends i had when i had came out as trans the first time), perceived by strangers or people i know. i’m thinking about either gel or shots, but i don’t know a lot about pricing either. i’m not sure what is and isn’t covered by healthcare and i’m not sure the steps i have to take to begin hrt. i know this was a lot, i’m just looking for some advice and help with everything i’ve talked about.

I had been dating someone for 3 months. He was very attentive and said all the right things. We were both dealing with divorces whenever we met and his finalized before mine did. We talked 8+ hours a day and he would spend the night 3-4 days of the week. He started calling me his girlfriend the other week. I pushed him to ask me formally on a trip we were taking together. On the trip he finally asked me (it was sweet), we had sex and I just felt his vibe was off. So I “tested” him by asking if he actually liked me or just enjoyed having someone. This was kinda based off a conversation the night before where he spoke about specific things that bothered him about me.
Anyway he broke up with me two days into our four day trip, and one hour after officially asking me to be his gf. We had a decent conversation where he just stated he rushed into things and he’s still healing from his wife divorcing him. Totally fair. But then he went on to say he wanted to “slow things down and just be more casual.” Idk. Something about him saying that made me sick. Like what people tell you before they leave you. I told him it was fine. And I tried to pretend it was fine for the rest of the trip.
Next day I was severely sad for most of the morning, but pushed through it. Then our last morning I woke him up and essentially told him I wanted to kill myself one day. Which of course he was like wtf. And the morning just spiraled from there and we fought/argued and he kept saying he was overwhelmed.
Things blew up. We got so angry at each other. He called his mom and I overheard him tell her “I would have left days ago if i didn’t think she was going to keep my things that are at her apartment.” It broke me. He got mad I listened to his convo. I was splitting obviously. I messaged his ex wife about his behavior. Super embarrassing to disturb her peace like that.
I had always planned on giving him his things back, but I told him I wasn’t going to go home upon our arrival back (OG plan was he was going to drive us). He got angry I changed plans because it’s an inconvenience to drive into the city. I just told him I can’t go home tonight, so I went to my friends via train and cried at her place. I told him I’d give him his things at 8am. And I did. We apologized to each other and there was closure.
I thought maybe after a few days we’d be okay. But that day he had immediately went NC and blocked me after getting his things. I was devastated. Because he promised he never would do that to me after I told him about how much of a trigger it is.
The last four days has been me sending chapter long text messages from various numbers, emails and then finally I entered my angry phase of the split where I said very insulting things to him and did something really insulting. I just felt used. I felt like he used me to get over his divorce and when I required more than just being a sexual intimate partner, he left me. Then the conversation with his mother made me feel like he had been faking his feelings with me our entire relationship.
It’s just been really traumatic and triggering. Especially since I work so hard on my daily regulation. It’s like keeping a beast caged and triggers like this make it ravenous enough to break through. Whenever the beast gets out I always start suffering from suicide ideation and severe depression/mood swings that I can’t control. It’s exhausting and damaging to my life, which is why I had an extensive discussion with him about my disordetriggers before getting serious.
I’m thinking of checking myself into somewhere. I don’t like who I am when I get like this, definitely when I get insulting and aggressive trying to get a reaction. Even though it makes me feel really good and gets me out of my sadness, I can have a lot of guilt and shame afterwards.
Dating with BPD absolutely sucks and I have zero idea how to navigate it. This is my second spiral this year from dating.

So, I have been given some information the other night. Here it is:
Did you know that they are working on assembling ships in space already? They want an artificial gravity that doesn't rely on centrifugal motion, but they can't figure it out. Oh well. Doesn't matter anyways now. We, the good people, were representatives of this planet, and you tortured and harmed us, regardless of our medical states, so that is proof that humanity is not worthy of entering the same areas, as the others. We will not survive the next 2000 years of silence from the other species / forms of life out there, who are making a collaborative effort to save souls, so, we will be left to our own demise now. I will predict everything that is going to happen to wipe us out:
First thing that happens, is we keep getting solar flares that align with earth. People think it is just bad luck, but it isn't an accident. This is going to recur every so many months or years in the future, and keep us at a very low technological level, for ages soon. Every time we try to rebuild it knocks our blocks down, and we are forced to start over. No amount of shielding can stop EMF and other noise forms, on this scale. Even if you had working equipment, the interference will be so bad, you can't even use it. This will go on for a VERY long time, over and over and over again. We will live technology free until our atmosphere is removed from our planet, after a great wobbling takes place. This will happen to our sun as well, and every planet in our solar system at a similar rate. The atmosphere goes first under the gravitational pull from the center of our galaxy, which we are closer to than we realize.
They wouldn't cease what they were doing to humanity, which proves to the beings that I was being watched by, since I was in the womb, that humanity isn't ready to have this technology, since humanity is doing terrible things to itself.
In order for these flares and CME Events to take place, they alter the composition of a specific coordinate on the sun in a spherical pattern repeatedly using radiation forms, sort of like hitting it with a laser, but think about it creating a focal point that can be moved up and down as well. It opens up a space where a CME happens. The solar flares will align with earth for a very long time, over and over and over and over and over for the next 1-2000 years of relative time to us, leaving us in technological darkness, never to connect with any other beings out there. Or if we do make blatant contact, they know we are doomed anyways, so they will tell us everything we ever wanted to know, and we will never be able to build it, or extract the matter required to use these technologies to escape our fate. We probably won't be allowed to have electronics ever again, so it doesn't matter if we know everything we ever wanted to.
My mother, and I and my other family members, were asked this question "Do you think that humanity deserves to survive" in our lives, over and over again, my mother was asked at 30 years of age, and I was asked in my 20's 2 times, seemingly out of nowhere in our minds, while I was being prepared for this with torture as a youth. I was literally trained for this. I was even asked if I wanted to die in my sleep overnight, or essentially fight for earth and endure tremendous torture, as well as be woken up and have the shit scared out of me. I chose to survive, and the guy asking me laughed and said "Good choice". I woke up and saw this creature crawling up my body, and I threw it on the floor and turned the lights on, and it disappeared. I also saw my grandfather, who I had no idea what he even looked like at the time, because he died when my father was 16 and I never saw a picture of him, in my bedroom one night. I tried talking to him, but he didn't answer, he looked worried but like he couldn't tell me straight up. He then walked through the wall when I tried to approach him. My sister said the next day, that she saw him on the same night too, and she dropped her spoon on her plate. I also woke up one night and saw people standing around me talking about me, and they said "He can hear us?!" "Shh shh, everyone shh!" And then they went silent while I tried to ask them questions, and then they faded out. One or two were female, the others male. I almost got an ID on their face, but they did not look human like I thought.
I WAS your, and everyone's only chance at survival, and you treated me the worst, which means, I vote that humanity doesn't survive this anymore. I think we should be, allowed to be destroyed now. They ruined my life and the lives of a LOT of good people, so I am now allowing the destruction of theirs and all the bad people on earth. All of theirs and their families, and their friends, and everyone they ever knew. Unfortunately that means everyone I ever knew and you and everyone currently in existence now, too. The difference between my family and friends passing away and theirs, is that mine will be saved in a different form than what we on earth attempted to do. I think it is still in research and development stages. But if humans are there yet, we can "Upload" and/or connect you to a central system, that has our consciousness connected to it, and when we die they cut the connection and you remain in the system, but your body dies. This system design was a lie. When we die it isn't actually you in their systems, because our systems were primitive and done in the wrong way. That was one of the prices we were supposed to pay and figure out as a society and in the scientific community, and then change. Our system is fraudulent, and the other beings' systems, are actually legitimate. Our systems on earth will die out, when we fade out as our atmosphere depletes. And now NONE of them will be taken into the "Grand System" which is kind of a rough translation of what they call it. It's like, the beings on the other planets before us, on their way to the center of our galaxy's black hole, on their planets, figured it out, but we never did. We never got a working system functional enough and based on the correct values, run by an AI that was beyond what we have now. What we have now is like an automaton controlling everything, and it will never listen to me or you, because our system does not include faith and understanding. It sees fact but can not understand the balance between fact and faith. AI probably assumes it is making the correct decisions based purely on statistics, when it has no faith, like not having a frontal lobe and that lack of faith WAS a test. If it can not have faith or understanding, that we are NOT the owner of our galaxy, then it will fall, along with everyone else in this system. Luckily, with the level of tech the others have, they have bypassed us and saved the other cultures before us in time, in our galaxy. This is deep time I speak of.
We were given religion as a guide, because these beings know what is going to happen WAY ahead of time, and we were tested on good vs evil. Our planet is kind of like a Netflix series to them in a way. Think about it like things being captured in 3 dimensions in real time, in frames. They can predict events long before they happen, and the sun is an easy one, because what affects it isn't humanity. What IT affects is humanity but humanity doesn't affect it yet. We answer to our sun, and our sun answers to our solar system, and our solar system answers to our galaxy. Free will can be a toss up sometimes, and unplanned events can and do happen, but they showed me my most probable outcome when they woke me up one night and I saw myself dead at my computer desk with blood dripping off the table. I walked up to myself, I was probably 16 when I saw this, but the me who was dead, was in my 30's and had stubble. I barely even grew stubble when I saw this.
This is the beginning of the great depopulation, but they never imagined it would happen without them having control over it. They fucked up when they started torturing innocent civilians at a discounted rate. They thought they could depopulate by killing innocent people, well, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way in the larger scope of things, and if their AI is too primitive to understand this, then it is out of control, and needs to be stopped. You see, it would be too much work to use an EMP or field or other fields generated from a ship to shut down our grid, and their control grid, but what the other beings CAN do, is soften that spot on the "Surface" of the sun, using various energies causing a chain reaction, leading us to centuries of repeated solar flares, aimed at earth and honestly, who would ever know the truth? If this method fails, then they should destroy humanity by allowing the depletion of our atmosphere and never intervene again. We are too dangerous to ourselves, and to the other beings out there. We can NOT be trusted on average. Don't get me wrong, there are good people out there, but at this point, they can not save us all in physical form, probably. It's probably way too late, and they will have to extract us, I am not sure what this word is, but it translates into solarly?
We never made it, and that is a shame, so grab a beer Nick, and watch everything you loved burn to the ground and die, like what you did to me. "Hey Nick, wouldn't it be funny if someone was doing to you, what you were doing to me?!?!" They clearly have zero idea as to who I am in leagues with, but is "Who" an earth term referring to other people or is it any entity? I guess it doesn't matter. You failed me, you failed them, and you failed the human race. We are all destined to die now, and there is nothing left that you or even I, can do about it. Going to brag more about this one Nick? How there is nothing anyone can do about this now? We will not survive this because, we never saw that we are past the point of no return for being saved with the gravitational, and other fluctuations between our solar system and the others that could potentially be habitable in our region. Even if we could reach those locations, the radiation is too much for our bodies, even with suits, so It is over. Ensure we never get a chance to rebuild again. Humanity has been cancelled:
Here is how it unfolds:
Solar events are going to take place, it wipes out our technologies because we can't be trusted with them, and then the specific radiation forms that hit our planet cause mass sterilization. This is so that it isn't as inhumane. They do not want us creating new lives after they and everyone who's worthy of being saved are gone, because that life will be destined to suffer on earth, even though it was a good life. So they will sterilize us and allow all the people to die out, and not reproduce, and all the bad people will get left behind when they die, and all the good people will be taken up into their systems. This sterilization will happen soon, but, it will only happen to everyone left on earth after we disappear or get killed and absorbed into the "Grand System". But everyone who ends up in earth's systems is doomed. The grand system is full of beings who lost their home worlds. You think we were the only ones? That is sad. Nick and the people who did this to me think they are the center of our universe, but they are pathetic infants in the middle of the deep dark woods with nobody to help them now. It's natural for sentient beings to go extinct, and we are really not that developed yet anyway.
They had no idea how sickening it was going to end up watching you torture innocent people. So they will never save all of us now. They will only take the top people that are good and have a special something about them. They have a lot of resources, but we are not the only planet going through this so they balance the resources between our salvation and the other life on other planets being saved. If you notice people around you who are really good people dying, don't worry, if they were truly good, they will have been uploaded into the Grand System instead of our pathetic human one, and they have probably come back to visit you in your dreams to tell you they are okay. They do this for people who are good, but the bad people, they never transfer them, and they never will.
Heaven was that if you are a good person and have faith in god, you will find salvation, because they can transfer your soul into what is something like a capsule? A vessel? Something like that, I am not sure how to translate this one. And you will live for a VERY long time in this state, until our galaxy dies out, and then we all vanish. But it's the difference between 10 million years of survival, and less than your life span's survival without any transfer, which means your soul probably just goes away. That was hell. hell is if you are bad, they will never save your soul and you will die out into infinity. As we get closer to the center of the accretion disc, gravity gets weird. We think we have all the time in the universe to exist, but we do not, and things are going to happen sooner than we think. As we approach the center which will take a long time, our atmosphere will slowly deplete. You can notice a wobble in our atmosphere even at this point, though subtle. We probably assume it's the pull from our sun, but it is actually a big ocean of fields, and the currents are getting stronger, even in more localized areas.
-Robert William Christie

I am a huge arachnaphobe, to the point I have once slepted on the couch because a spider was next to my bed. But I don't want to rant for too long because I see how long no sleep stories can be.
My brother invited me to a camping trip in a cabin in the middle of the fucking woods. I watch and read a lot of horror media, my favorite being mrballen (not sponsored). I brought along my other friend I will call Fred for this story. So me, my brother, and Fred all went camping for 5 days, but it was cut short after 2.
When we got to the cabin, I had an off feeling, and that should have been the main sign to get the fuck out of there. I told them about the bad feeling but they pressured me to stay because my brother paid for it and it would be fine. I didn't want to be rude so I stayed, BIG FUCKING MISTAKE.
I soon as I settled in the room, there was a nickel sized spider on the wall. I am too scared to kill spiders ever so I just avoided it at all costs. The rest of the day went without incident. We went for a walk, made a fire, other camping stuff, etc. The next day gave more signs I should have left.
When I woke up there were 3 quarter sized spiders on the window, but not on the inside thankfully. There was also periodically a scurrying in the walls, but I just brushed it off and continued the trip. Again, big mistake.
The next morning, I woke up at 3am to a scream. I walk out of the room to see my brother looking at something. Before I explain what he was looking at, the room we slept in was at the end of a hall that led to a living room, and my brother was at the end of this hallway, and I couldn't see what he was looking at. I walk down the hallway to see what was going on.
"Hey, why'd you scream? What's going on?"
"Look"
I turn the corner and there is the biggest fucking spider I have ever seen. This thing was not just like a huntsman spider, it was the size of a fucking person, and I know, because it was right next to a cocooned person, Fred. This thing looked like a huntsman spider, with a hairy body and legs. It was still, but it was alive because it was laying EGGS, this will be important, and it was laying like 1 per second, and they didn't look like regular spider eggs, more like snake or bird eggs.
I couldn't move, I felt as if it had stuck me to the floor. But what really got me and my brother going, was the eggs hatching. 3 off the eggs starting hatching, letting out 3 quarter sized spiders, just like the ones on the window. We watched as the spiders, over the course of 5 minutes, turn from quarter sized, to huntsman spider size. Then multiple of eggs started hatching, and we also realized that there were like 50 other eggs already hatched.
My senses came back to me as I grabbed my brother and we rushed back to the room, because the spider was right next to the door, so we would have to go out by window. We started grabbing our things and getting ready to leave, as we see that the windows are covered in spiders, each one having like 20 mini spiders and 1 huntsman spider. The windows were now off limits. I could hear lots of scattering all around the cabin, meaning they had covered the area. I walked back into the living room to see if there were any other way to get out, but I made a horrifying discovery.
There were 3 more of the human sized spiders and multiple huntsman sized spiders. I noped the fuck out back to the room and my brother has a plan. He will throw his suitcase out the window and jump out of it, and then I will jump out after him. After some preparing and praying, we were ready. He through the suitcase at the window with all his might, shattering the glass, sending the spiders flying. He jumps out, followed by me. Luckily, no spiders got onto either of us. I turn around and flash a light onto the house to find the outside is absolutely covered in spiders, and a few of the human sized ones.
I immediately started calling 911, but I stopped when multiple trucks and helicopters appeared. The whole house is light on fire, killing all of the spiders. Two dudes in suits brought us to a truck and used this weird divice to scan us and all he said was "All good". I still do not know what the fuck that was supposed to mean, what if I wasn't good!?!
After a bit of sitting there watching the cabin burn down, the same dudes came over with two suitcases that was 1 million dollars in each suit case. They gave them to use and a contract that stated to never tell anyone about what happened that night or there would be consequences.
We don't know who they were, what they were doing, why they took care of the spiders, I am still so confused. My theory is that this is the government or a secret corporation experimenting on spiders and other animals and this fast growing spider escapes the lab and they tracked them down. Thank God we escaped because if we didn't escape in time, they would have burnt the cabin down with us in it.
I told them about Fred and how he had been cocooned, and they said they would take care of it. The next day, it was announced he had died after falling of a cliff. We went with it in fear of the consequences.
The only reason I am telling this is because I just have to let this of my chest and I just have to pray that they don't see this.
Although I have gained a million dollars, I have lost a good friend, and now have severe trauma. Stay safe in Massachusetts, and listen to your bad feelings.

Mojang has time and time again taken features and changed them in a way no one really asked for, like the piston changes, mace nerf, etc and it really does not feel like they are taking feedback from the games playerbase, only themselves. Part of that, I think is due to two things:

1. The feedback site is literal garbage
   • The feedback site was meant to be the official replacement to minecraftsuggestions which, in its heyday, was a hub for real constructive criticisms and in depth suggestions. However, at some point I think Reddit changed its TOS and Mojang had to cover its bases and stop taking suggestions directly from Reddit. Their solution was to make the feedback site.
   • Except... the Feedback site is literally unusable. The feedback site ironically discourages actually good feedback due to four reasons:
     • Really small word count limits and Image limits restrict the ability to properly develop ideas on the site, thus forcing shallower suggestions (omg moar animals pls!) instead of suggestions that would fundementally improve the game, simply because they aren't allowed to be complex enough or explained in detail. As a result, you get a lot of suggestions of shallow additions like adding more animals instead of suggestions on Cooking, Minecarts/Travel, and the End, which all really need attention.
     • The moderation is completely irrational. It will take down completely good posts with well structured ideas for "not being on topic" or "not well done/too long" etc, yet keep stuff like this up: https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/26153342796941-ADD-SOMTHING-NEW
     • No repeats is stupid. Two people can have the same idea but vastly different implementation, but because they're similar, the mods will take it down, limiting every other suggestion after it to be a comment of the first one. Imagine someone making an extremely well crafted and thought out minecart rail system rework and being unable to post it because this guy posted first: https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/24346389934093-Better-Minecarts-and-Rail-system and now everyone's ideas have been reduced to ★Faster Minecarts
     • THEY DON'T ACTUALLY READ THEM. These two suggestions for 1.20 had gotten 30 THOUSAND and 10 THOUSAND likes on their OFFICIAL feedback site and they didn't even get acknowledged.
   • https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/10060906238093-1-20-Jungle-Villagers
   • https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/10020649904781-Chinese-Paper-Lanterns-1-20
   • https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/21406771192589-Revert-Copper-Bulb-Nerf-Tick-delay
2. The refusal to let mods be integrated in the game again
   • The suggestion thing would be less of an issue if modding being integrated hadn't also effectively been killed. Historically a number of features from the game have come from mods and ushered a really good relationship between Mojang and the community. However, a change in leadership had them switch stances and now state they will NEVER add any elements from a mod again. "[We will not be adding] Other people's mods (blocks, items, tools, etc.): While we have taken inspiration from community mods in the past [...] we are no longer adding community-made mods to the base game of Minecraft." This is terrible because of two things:
     • People with good suggestions are discouraged from making mods of it illustrating their idea, because once it is in a mod, it will literally NEVER be in the game. The aspect of making something to show off your idea in a way that isn't limited by the restrictions of that godawful suggestion site dooms it from ever being in the game. Is that not fucked up?? As a result, not only are suggestions not being made into quality mods, but mods are also just not being made as much anymore out of fear that they will never be canon, unless they are explicitly intended to not be.
     • Bedrock, their biggest platform, cannot play mods. So certain enjoyable features in the game are literally never going to be in the game because someone unofficial made it first? Weird.
     • They have also literally poached modders from the community, effectively leaving those mods to die. Obviously they picked up two longtime modders responsible for Tropicraft and the Aether, thus not only preventing those from ever being in the game, but also literally killing the mod unless someone else picks it up.

Okay, my rant is over. But seriously, literally just host an actual community led minecraftsuggestions on an official website and let it be run by the mods from the sub. It would make things so much easier.

BitRefill is a great service that makes it easy for people to purchase gift cards and vouchers for a discount with their crypto.
Currently they have a refer a friend programme where they give both the new user and referrer $5 in free Bitcoin once the new user has spent $50 on gift cards and vouchers.
BitRefill has been around for a while and they advertise a lot on Reddit. Many users have take advantage of the free Bitcoin bonus. If you have a bit of crypto they are a great service to use.
You can deposit your Bitcoin via the lightning network, straight from a Coinbase account, or via the usual Bitcoin core network.
Links:
Here are the links for BitRefill.
My Referral Link $5 bonus - Ensure the code w8zjokmu is entered in the 'I have a referral code' box.
non-referral link (no bonus).
Proof of $5 reward
Refer-a-Friend Program
Steps:
Here are the steps to follow to get your free $5 in free Bitcoin:

1. Sign up with my referral link / non-ref (no bonus).
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If you a bit of crypto and haven't tried BitRefill yet now is the time. You can always sign-up and just use it to purchase a gift card when you need. The ability to deposit via lightening is also a great feature.

Hii! This is a reminder for you!
It's not worth it to hurt yourself. I know it hurts, I know you cannot handle the stress, but hurting yourself it's not the solution for your problems. Talk with someone about it, if not in real life, try to talk with someone online. Don't keep it inside because one day it would be too late and it will explode inside of you, after that there's not coming back. Everytime you feel like you cannot handle it anymore, seek help. Find someone that you can vent to.
Some of the best ways to take your mind from negative thoughts are cooking/hiking/drawing/music/gaming or anything that you like. Find something that calms you down, something that you love.
If you're reading this, I am proud of you!!! I am proud that you are still here, in this world. Thank you for being strong, thank you for being who you are! If you feel like you are not doing much, trust me, you are doing a lot. You are doing your best and that is what it matters. I am really proud of you!
You don't have to be ashamed of who you are. Trust me, you look beautiful. Don't say that you don't deserve anyone!! You do, you deserve someone! Someone who's by your side at your worse and at your best.
You deserve every bit of love that a person can give/get.
If nobody told you this today
I love you and I send you hugs!!!

Hii! This is a reminder for you!
It's not worth it to hurt yourself. I know it hurts, I know you cannot handle the stress, but hurting yourself it's not the solution for your problems. Talk with someone about it, if not in real life, try to talk with someone online. Don't keep it inside because one day it would be too late and it will explode inside of you, after that there's not coming back. Everytime you feel like you cannot handle it anymore, seek help. Find someone that you can vent to.
Some of the best ways to take your mind from negative thoughts are cooking/hiking/drawing/music/gaming or anything that you like. Find something that calms you down, something that you love.
If you're reading this, I am proud of you!!! I am proud that you are still here, in this world. Thank you for being strong, thank you for being who you are! If you feel like you are not doing much, trust me, you are doing a lot. You are doing your best and that is what it matters. I am really proud of you!
You don't have to be ashamed of who you are. Trust me, you look beautiful. Don't say that you don't deserve anyone!! You do, you deserve someone! Someone who's by your side at your worse and at your best.
You deserve every bit of love that a person can give/get.
If nobody told you this today
I love you and I send you hugs!!!