Me and my bf met my freshmen year of college in November and made it official October. Recently like the past week I’ve been feeling extremely emotionally disconnected and most likely later today May 14th, 2024 I’m going to attempt to bring it up and have a serious talk about that and other things that we never seem to resolve. This is my longest relationship so I don’t have any experience being in a relationship past 7 months. We never really sit down and talk about the ins and outs of our relationship and I think communication a long with our work schedules/school schedules (classes have been done but I’ m working more now) its a lot for me to handle because we don’t see each other as much. I work pretty late, I get home 12am most nights and most of the time he’s sleep, I get up late because I’m always wide awake when I get off. Not only that but I’ve tried to get us to go on trips, I’ve offered to pay for an air bnb in full to just get away from where we live. not even a week just 2 days at least and anytime i try its just its too much for him or when i go back home to visit my family he never comes or forgets to take off from work. 😕 i try, i really try. i know were young and inexperienced with relationships but im really scared, ive never been so emotionally disconnected. the excitement is still there but not as in your face. basically if you made it this far i just want to know if there is hope? or if you have any advice to give i’d greatly appreciate it. im so so scared, i love him and his family and ive never made it this far into a relationship.
TL;DR: im going to attempt to have a serious conversation with my bf of 1 year 6 months about the recent disconnection i’ve been feeling and hope he understands/we can progress from it.

Just want to hop on here to vent because I feel really lonely
TL;DR
My boyfriend makes me feel like shit, but we have been in eachothers life for 6 years now. There’s a whole lot of bs we have been through over the years, we weren’t even “official” until August. Anyways.. been through hell and back and thought making things official would be a smart idea and that he would treat me differently. I was right for a while…. Now it feels like a prison but in the weirdest way I don’t want break up.
He makes me cry, yet when I cry or I am hurt/frustrated, he gets mad at me for it and tells me I’m “crying like a little b” sometimes or that I’m an adult and should grow up. He hates when people (mostly Me) cry about anything and it’s always “no one died here, you don’t need to cry” - I want to say that’s some form of abuse, yeah? If he messes up, I’m not allowed to be upset by it. I need to “let it go” and his excuse is always he was drunk or I instigated him to pop off on me.
He doesn’t hit me, but his words basically beat my ass internally and make me feel….worthless. I feel like maybe I could be better in certain ways and maybe he would treat me better. I know that sounds awful and sad. When I type it out I feel so stupid. I think because of our memories I hold on, and also the stupid fear that he will find someone else the minute we break up, whether it’s serious or not it makes me feel sick to think of him with another woman.
He has this way of making me feel like I’m dramatic and my feelings are not valid. For example I had a very annoying day, it’s day 1 of my period (I am extra sensitive the first 2 days) and I came to his place to pick him up so he could help me mount my tv on my wall at my new place. He took 30 minutes (he didn’t even come out I ended up going inside because I needed to pee and was getting pissed off) before he said he was almost ready. I waited outside for THIRTY minutes when he told me to leave at a certain time. I came into his place obviously annoyed but I was quiet. When he poked at me and digs what my problem is obviously I tell him at that point and he says the way I react is “scary” and he thinks I’m “losing my mind” because I’m so upset. I didn’t scream, I didn’t call him names, I literally went to his bathroom and cried out of anxiety and frustration. I come out and he looks at me like I’m a psycho.
I just wanted to hop on here to vent. I know what to do but then I also really don’t. Opinions, similar situations that people can relate to, is all welcomed.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

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Hello! I have just adopted a dog I found on the street back in October with my girlfriend. She is 8years old and her name is Athena. We found her in Florida and have recently moved to Massachusetts in January. She didn’t have any life threatening issues from what we saw when we found her, just a cyst on her back that healed up. But like a month and a half ago we saw her sneezing blood. At first I didn’t think anything of it but over time it started to be really bad. Splotches of blood everywhere, constant nosebleeds and trouble breathing. We took her to an emergency vet one day because it was a really bad case that day at like 3am and was told to do a bunch of tests and scans for a lot of money that we do not have. We settled with some antibiotics that worked for a while but is still happening when they wore off. I would get pet insurance but I’m a little new to owning a dog and found out recently that insurances don’t deal with pre existing conditions. These tests are like $2000-5000 for just to see what it’s about and it’s not even set chance that the test will find anything I was told. please help with any answers on what we can do! We’ve been very stressed and worried thank you!

This is a really long story with lots of context so I'll do my best to organize it into current situation, then his backstory and hers. I'm also not using real names or specific locations for any of this to try and keep this private. This also has some contradicting stories and because of how their relationship is structured relies mostly on information I have gotten from my sister, so I'm telling you the story I got from her first and then adding in what I've found out. I'll try to tell this as unbiased as I can but it's been a huge issue in my family for a long time now and that's a little difficult for me to do.
My (20F) sister (Olivia, 24F) has been dating this guy (Trevor, 25M) since 2021. When they started dating, she talked about him fairly often, sent a few pictures of them, ect., but then after a month she stopped mentioning him/ was cagey when we (me and my mom mostly) asked how he was so we assumed it just hadn't worked out. Then two months later she insisted that my parents (54F and 56M) and I all come to visit her college to meet Trevor before he went into the Army (she lived several hours away from my parents and several hours from my college, so I had to get a bus ticket and my parents had to get a hotel room to do this. We only met him once for dinner). Now they've been dating long distance for three years after a three month in-person relationship. She is in nursing school and is planning on moving across the country (literally opposite corners of the map) to live with him and is not applying to any residency programs outside of the Army base area (limiting her choices a LOT from her original goals and narrowing employment opportunities).
Olivia met Trevor on several dating apps, matched with him, but didn't really want to go out with him. He was really persistent, so her friend convinced her to go out with him. She lied about the way they met to our parents and told them they met at the gym through a mutual friend (she lied to me about this at first too and told me the truth about 3 months after they started dating). At the time, Trevor was working as a used car salesman and living at home (~45 min. away from Olivia's school in a rural area) because his sports scholarship had been dropped before his Senior year due to covid at the college he had been attending out of state. The university was unaccredited (I later did some internet stalking and found out it was accredited), so his credits would not transfer and he would have to start over. He was saving up money to attend school in state at the large college Olivia attended so he could go back to school. **Our state has crazy low tuition costs in-state and a full-tuition scholarship program for good high school GPA and SAT scores. There was also a "feeder" community college that had half the cost per credit hour that a lot of people would go to before the larger university if they didn't get in straight out of high school.**
Olivia told me that Trevor had applied to her college and not gotten in (she later told me he HAD gotten in but been unable to afford tuition). Either way, he decided to join the Army because his father had been in the Army. The Army would take his credit hours and he would be able to finish his degree during his 5 year contract or use the GI bill once he got out. **She is comparing the situation to our father, who joined the Army directly out of high school and used the GI bill to go to college after his 2 year contract because his parents wouldn't pay for school. He was a medic in the military, worked as an EMT through college, and then went to nursing school.** The original plan was that Trevor would be a Green Beret (special forces), he completed basic training and and got several months through training and moved to the secondary base in NC before failing the running portion of a physical by about 10 seconds and being dropped from the selection process. He then decided that he wanted to be a Ranger (another elite position). He got sent back to GA, then to the Ranger school base in WA (it took a couple of months before he was sent to WA). Again, he got partway through the training before failing the running portion of a physical by a few seconds. He is now not sure if he will be continuing Ranger school (failing the physical means no, but commanders may pass him anyways if they think he should continue). For a while, Trevor told Olivia that he might not stay at the base in WA if he wasn't in Ranger school and there were a variety of different bases he could be sent to, including somewhere in Italy, so she wasn't sure where to look for jobs. In the past month, Trevor told Olivia that he would likely stay in WA regardless of the Ranger school results.
Through this all, Olivia has visited Trevor at the different military bases countless times, driving from as far as south FL to NC and putting over 30,000 miles on a brand new car over the course of the 1.5 years she's owned it. Before she had the car, she paid for plane tickets to see him and hotels whenever she visited. At the time, she told me that he was paying for all of these trips because he was unable to visit her, was making an income that wasn't being spent, and she was working to save for nursing school and later was living off of student loans and savings during nursing school. She later admitted to me that she had paid for almost all of the expenses except for food when they ate out together and part of a hotel room one weekend.
A few odd things (to me) between Olivia and Trevor over the course of their relationship:
About a month into their relationship, Trevor got Olivia an over $300 christmas gift. He has not gotten her anything nearly that expensive since, and hasn't sent flowers for things like her college graduation or a severe emergency surgery she had last year. I don't care about monetary value or sending flowers, but I do think it is odd that he spent so much before moving away when he ostensibly didn't have much money, but now that he has an income and military sign-on bonus, he has not spent that much again.
Trevor's father left Trevor, his siblings, and his mother, but Trevor has a hat that his father gave him that he wore often. The hat says "Red Man" across the top of a picture of a Native American man wearing a feathered headdress. He has worn this hat several times around Olivia's friends and they told him they didn't like it and that it was racist. They also asked him to not wear it when he was with them and he refused because it was special to him and his father gave it to him. Olivia then told him to stop wearing it and he eventually agreed (Olivia told me that he stopped wearing the hat after this). A few weeks after this, I facetimed Olivia and Trevor was with her. She turned the camera so I could say hello to him, and he was wearing the hat. I talked to Olivia about this later and she told me that that was the first time he'd worn the hat in a while and it wasn't a big deal. Olivia has always been liberal and never racist, and I am uncomfortable that she was okay with him not only wearing the hat, but being with him while he had it on.
They dated for a little over 3 months in person before he joined the military (recently, Olivia told me that they actually met several months before she told everyone about him and that they actually dated for 6 months before he left). For the next two months in basic training, he was only able to use the phone for 15 minutes total once a week to talk to family and her. Throughout the different training programs he has completed he had sporadic and limited access to phones to communicate, and only in the past 6 months he has had access to his phone to facetime, text, and call (but sometimes he goes for a week or two without phone access). Olivia told me that they wrote letters during the time he didn't have consistent phone access. **I don't think that this is odd, I understand the military limits phone usage, etc., but I don't think they have been able to have an "average" long-distance relationship**
Last year, Olivia drove to GA to visit Trevor the weekend before Valentine's day. He had plans for them to take a pottery class, go on a hike, and have dinner at a nice restaurant. The day she got there, Trevor's barracks had their off-base privileges revoked because one of the guys had contraband. She would still be able to visit him on base though. Somehow, Trevor was able to get off base for long periods of time to her hotel, but unable to do the other activities he had planned for them.
In the past year, Olivia told me that she and Trevor were going to immediately marry when she got to WA so that they could move in together because they had to be married to live together anywhere. I and our dad- who was in the military- told her several times that this was not true, but she insisted it was. Then, his barracks were given an allowance to live off base in apartments because the barracks were being renovated/ rebuilt, so she backed off on the idea of getting married immediately after several long conversations with me. She is still insistent on moving in with Trevor, who lives with a roommate, when she moves to WA.
Some background on Olivia:
Olivia has ADHD and anxiety, and struggled particularly badly with the anxiety/ some depression after being broken up with by the boyfriend she dated before Trevor (he broke it off very abruptly, told her he just didn't love her anymore with no previous indications). Olivia is very pretty (objectively, not just because she's my sister), but had bad acne that she ended up going on accutane for at the time she started dating Trevor and was very insecure about it. She had also decided to not go to medical school, and pursue nursing instead around the same time she met Trevor. This was a very upsetting decision for her because she had been taking very hard courses and was burnt out but had told everyone she was going to be a doctor and thought that she would be letting us down by switching paths. Also around the time she started seeing Trevor, Olivia began being very cruel towards our mother (our mother had been borderline emotionally abusive in the past, but Olivia and I were both in college by then and fixing our relationships with her. She has been much better recently and Olivia and I believe that she had some mental health struggles that went unchecked that contributed). Now, several years later, Olivia told our family that she had acted like that because she was rpd by a friend of her ex-boyfriend's after her ex broke up with her. This person also gave her an STD.
I always believe people who say they have been S A'd, and we believed Olivia when she first told us, but some things have come to light that make me and my family question that. Right after Olivia and her ex broke up, Olivia told our cousin that she had gone out with one of his friends and had revenge/ breakup sex with him because he had also been dumped recently. Once my cousin told me this, I remembered that Olivia had told me about a guy she had a one night stand with after she was dumped. She showed me a picture of him, talked about how cute he was, etc. (no distress whatsoever). I know sometimes people behave in ways you wouldn't expect when a traumatic event occurs to them, but I really don't understand how or why Olivia would brag about this guy if he really did S A her.
Three months ago, Olivia was arrested for stealing a set of sheets from Walmart (incidentally, right before Trevor came to visit her on leave). She used the self check-out and only bought a small $5 item and the sheets. She held both in one hand and scanned each side because she had a cut on the other hand and was holding her wallet with it. She saw a 5 in front of the total number and thought it looked right because the total should have been about $50, paid, didn't get a receipt, and walked out. An employee at the door asked to see a receipt, which Olivia didn't have, so she pulled up her transaction history on her phone to show she had paid. At this point, the employee called the police and took Olivia into an office, where she was questioned and charged with shoplifting. (Olivia can get very emotional and probably got upset when the police questioned her, which may have led them to believe she was lying). Luckily, Olivia has managed to get the charges expunged, but the process is still ongoing. Because of her ADHD, if anyone genuinely made this mistake, I would believe it from her, but Olivia has been improving a lot on organization and being more attentive recently. It is extremely uncharacteristic of her to steal- she was honest to a fault as kids- she would break down from guilt and admit things to our parents that we would have gotten away with if she hadn't said anything.
Right now, my parents have met Trevor twice in person, and I've met him once in person and several times in passing over facetime. I personally don't think that Trevor seems to keep up with my sister or that they make each other shine, and that opinion is shared with family friends and family that have met Trevor. Olivia doesn't mention Trevor in front of our parents often because his name has become a topic of contention and argument between them. My parents don't think Trevor is right for Olivia. She has almost 2 college degrees and plans to become a nurse practitioner in the future, and he hasn't finished college and doesn't seem to have any drive to do so. Olivia is also well traveled and enjoys going to museums, concerts, etc., while Trevor has lived in rural FL his whole life (this is not Trevor's fault, and I don't think he is a lesser person because of it, but I don't see a lot of common ground between them). Trevor has not seemed very well spoken when I have talked to him and I just don't see a lot of qualities in him that Olivia values.
If you've gotten this far, I just don't know what to do. Olivia and my parents have a huge rift in their relationship right now and any mention of Trevor, with her around or not, explodes into a huge argument, discussion, or just icy silence. I want Olivia to be able to talk to me about him, and we are able to discuss things much better than she is with our parents. My parents have also started asking me about Olivia and Trevor because they know Olivia shares more with me, and it makes me uncomfortable because I don't want to betray Olivia's trust, but I'm also very worried about her. I know I can't control her actions and I'm having a really hard time trying to balance supporting Olivia but not supporting the relationship (I'm not going to lie to her about how I feel, but I don't want her to feel alienated or unloved by our family, because that is NOT the case). I also think that Olivia is romanticizing the fact that our parents don't like him because my father's parents had a rift with him over our mother when we were very young (this is a whole other story, but basically, his parents always favored his sister, his sister got (I think) jealous when he did well for himself and married my mother, who his parents initially likes, and she made up rumors/lies about my mother that turned his parents against her (this was way before our mother's suspected mental health struggles, which occured when Olivia and I were in middle/high school).
Please share any thoughts you have on the situation (am I reading too into things, is this not as bad as I think it is?), and any advice you have on navigating the relationships.
Tl;dr My sister's boyfriend lied about the circumstances of him dropping out of college and joining the military. Now I think he's lying about not making it through training for two different special/ elite forces. My sister has significantly changed her behavior and I think she may have lied about a significant traumatic event to our family. Now she is planning on moving across the country to him and moving in immediately. Our entire family doesn't like him and we're worried about her. How do I support her but not her relationship?

I’d like to begin this invitation of advice or experiences by stating that what I want in life is a partner who feels like home, will always give me their genuine effort, & will love me through all of the highs, mediums, & lows of life.
I specifically want to know about any advice or things I should consider when it comes to the age gap I have with the man I’m seriously considering making a staple & serious part of my life. I (29f) met Chance (40m) 3 years ago & we have been seeing each other for a little over a year. We met at the middle school in which we both work- he’s the social worker, I’m the art teacher. When I first saw him, he looked like a meat head (he’s pretty muscular, bald, beard, wears hoodies) & I’ve always been into nerds so it never occurred to me that I’d end up attracted to him. The first year we knew each other, it was very surface level, & then, during the second year of my time at the school, I got to know him better, as I did a few coworkers I now consider close friends. This second year of friendship was also a tough period for me as I was going through a divorce from a 5 year relationship with a man who wasn’t on the same life path as me & kind of made me dislike myself just for being me (wanting kids, needing to be intrinsically motivated in my career rather than financially motivated)- basically he was type A & I am B. Anyhow, as I was processing my divorce & creating friendships, I got to know Chance better both at work & at hang outs with friends outside of work. I watched how the kids at school just flocked to him & how kind he was with everybody. He coached the basketball team, did an after school program with the SRO to help at risk kids, & often stepped in to help others with tasks that weren’t related to his job as social worker. & he always did it with a positive attitude & good sense of humor. People just LIKE him, you know? It became obvious that he was just a really good person. One day, we had a discussion about kids & how we both wanted them. He told me I’d be a great mother because of how I treat the students & I told him he’d also be a wonderful parent. & he cast his spell on me & I slowly started falling for him. I couldn’t quite figure it out. Here I was, recently divorced from a relationship that had a tremendous affect on me mentally/emotionally, & I was gaining feelings for a man who was very different from my ex, & 11 years older than me. Was I just looking for a distraction? Was I using him to boost my confidence up after it had spent so much time at all time low? Or was I simply recognizing that this man had all of the features that I’d been missing in my past relationship & maybe I should pay attention to that? I was worried that my judgement post- divorce couldn’t possibly be clear, so I expressed that I had feelings for him but had to take things very slow. I was a bit of a mess as I tried to take the initial steps to get closer to him. I’d get emotional & have somewhat of a panic attack, or I’d go through some wishy washy phases when it came to wanting to see him in general. No matter what it was, he said that he understood, he wasn’t going anywhere, & that he just wanted me to be ok. He’d always ask what he could do to help & what I needed from him to feel better. If we were kissing & he felt that I wasn’t comfortable, he’d stop. One time he could tell that I wasn’t feeling great & he cried because he thought he’d made me feel bad. Needless to say, he was always there for me & ACTUALLY cared about how I felt. As we got closer, he was always respectful, would leave me flowers on random or special occasions (like when I was in an art show that he attended, or the first day of a new semester at work), wanted to make things like holidays memorable for me (one time I specifically thought was sweet was when he decorated my place with a Christmas tree & lights because “it’s your first Christmas in your new apartment, it should be festive!”). I consistently got solid evidence that he was emotionally mature, ready for a relationship, & wanted the same things as me.
So, I thought, “why is this sweet, courteous, kind, responsible, funny man single?” I’d heard some woman at work “pick” at him about this & say “I just don’t get how you’re single!” & I honestly wondered myself. You always heard that it’s a ref flag if a man dates a woman over 10 years younger & that it’s because “women his age didn’t want him”. Well, there are a few rational explanations I could think of: 1. He’d been sexually abused by his stepsister for years as a child. He’d told me that he’d had a few relationships during his 20s & 30s, but they didn’t last long & he’d had some issues with women not dealing with his anxiety around sex well. With me, this was not an issue, really. We’d taken the physical really slow, & when one of us felt anxiety as things heated up, the other stopped & supported. After a few months, it became a non-issue & we were able to have great sex with no fear that one of us would get anxious. 2. When he was younger (childhood-20s) he was overweight. He began balding in his 20s & so he shaved his head. Maybe there weren’t a lot of women who wanted to be with the overweight, bald guy? Women can be just as shallow as men.
So, I began to try to look for any signs that maybe this man is “grooming” me or something. I looked for issues as well as green lights. How’s his family? His brother is happily married with children & Chance is close with his family, seeing them weekly. What are his friends like? I enjoy his friends. They’re nice, fun people & his best friends are in happy marriages. Does he manipulate you? No, he treats me like a princess (I’m not used to it) & tries to establish healthy relationship patterns (he always insists on a weekly date night, suggests activities together, such as me weight lifting with him & him running with me). He also hypes me up like no other- If I’m wearing a risky outfit that I love but know my mom would insult, BAM Chance is the first one to see it & his jaw drops to the floor. Always telling me how strong, sweet, & cool I am. Made me take his gloves when we went on a snowy hike & I’d forgotten mine. Just basically an endless stream of courtesy.
I have gotten a lot of evidence that this is a solid person with whom I could build a beautiful relationship & family with. Everything he’s shown me has been positive as far as communication, morals, empathy, kindness & life plans is concerned.
So… is the 11 year age gap a concern? Should I be more paranoid about why he is still single, or are my theories valid? Although he goes to the gym daily & is like a kid at heart, should I worry about his age when it comes to us potentially raising kids? He’d likely be 43-45 by the time I was ready for that.
If you have any thoughts, please let me know. Truthfully, I do have other potential options if I pursued them & I’m not afraid of being alone, but I’m feeling that I’d like to commit to a relationship.

so we have this project where we need to write three journal entries in the pov of an aztec or spanish conquistador, i chose aztec. please give me criticism, and tell me if there are any historical inaccuracies!
im 13 btw
initial contact:
november 8, 1519
I was outside, grinding corn, grinding it with the mano, over and over. I couldn't hear the screams of Chimalli, my older brother. He was sprinting, so fast, he tripped over the metate and spilled the corn. “Watch it, you fool!” I shouted, worried that I may get beaten. Nantli didn’t like food waste, and she wouldn’t care that it was foolish Chimalli’s fault. He was gasped for air, his hands on his knees. “Acalan… and I…were hunting…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “We were by the water when we saw this fish, a fish of great size. It wasn’t in the water, it was on top of it! It was brown, and atop it was 10 feet monsters with light skin!” I barked a laugh. “You’d better stop lying, Chimalli.” I decided to put the already ground corn back on the metate and take off the grass left in it. “I swear on the gods I'm not lying! I swear on Huitzilopochtli! Quetzalcoatl! All of them, I swear!”
I rolled my eyes, put the mano on the matate, and got up. “Show me what you’re talking about, fool.” Chimalli grabbed my hand tight and started running as fast as he could. I was whispering prayers to Patecatl, scared that what Chimalli was saying was true. We met up with Acalan and hid behind a bush near the lake. We could see the white-skinned people, and they were covered with weird clothing. They spoke loudly, in a peculiar way. They waved their hands around like birds and marched fiercely like jaguars. My heart was beating so loud, I was scared that Acalan and Chimalli would hear it. “They look so weird,” I whispered. The marched along, with their weird looking animals, amd were headed towards our causeway! Chimalli, Acalan and I exchanged a worried glance. Slowly and carefully, we all left our bush and headed back to the calpolli.
I went inside and saw Nantli sitting down, weaving. When she saw me, her face twisted in rage. “You dare spill the corn, leave the metate and mano unattended, and leave with the boys!? What were you even doing?” I shifted on my feet. Nantli was scary, but hse was understanding. Sometimes. “There are monsters on our land! They have big animals, a big brown fish that can swim ontop of water, and pale skin! The don’t speak Nahuatl, too!” i blurted out everything i saw, even if it didnt make sense. Chimalli was beside me, nodding his head so vigorously that it looked like it was about to fall off. Nantli got even more angry and said, “If you don’t stop lying this instant, i will call your Tahtli!” Chimalli and i both said in unison: NO!
“I swear on Huitzilopochtli! Tepeyollotl too! I even swear on Xolotl!” Chimalli cried as we were bothe getting pulled by the ear by Nantli. We were pulled outside, when we saw Tahtli. His face looked like he’d seen death. “Your foolish, lying children came to me talking nonsense about monsters with pale skin!” Nantli said, but Tahtli wasn’t fased. Tahtli was calmer then Nantli, and he was more wise. That was probably because he was a priest. However he was severe in punsiments. Nantli was all bark and no bite. Tahtli was bite, no bark, and when he did bite, it would last forever. He shook his head. “They're telling the truth. They are like us, but they have come from another land. Spain, they call it.” Nantli’s mouth was open so wide, I was trying my hardest not to laugh. She finally let go of me and Chimalli’s ear, her brows furrowing. “Did Moctezuma talk to them? Did you talk to them? How did they come here?” I side-stepped away from her, rubbing my ear. I exchanged a mischievous glance with Chimalli, and like a tiger, we left as fast and quietly as possible. In front of the door, Acalan was waiting for us impatiently and said, “Let’s go see them again. Maybe we’ll try to talk to them.” Chimalli raised his eyebrows. “Are you nuts!?” He exclaimed. I didn’t think it was a bad idea. Maybe we could understand their intentions. We never got to do that though. We never got to do anything.
Amoxtli
Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs
They kidnapped our ruler. The scary, stupid, dumb-looking monsters took our ruler. Foolish Chimalli brought it upon himself to save him. Nothing reasonable ever comes out of that stupid brain of his. He got killed doing it. Atleats he was brave. Braver than me, thats for sure. They have loud, long black tubes that shoot out fire. That killed him. Nantli hasn’t been the same, she doesn’t let me go to school anymore. Tahtli has fallen sick. Why is this happening? Is this a sign? Oh why, oh why? Oh gods, why?
I woke up, the rays of sunlight shining directly into my eyes. I got up, and to my right, was Acalan. He had decided to stay with us since all members of his calpolli had died unfateful deaths. His Nantli got sick, and his Tahtli and all of his other relatives died in the battle with the monsters. Whenever I start to pity myself, I remember Acalan. He’s got it worse. “Good morning,” I said. Acalan nodded, not uttering a word. He was looking outside, and his eyes had this aloof look to them. “Where’s Nantli?” I said, looking around the room. He mumbled something, but I couldn’t hear it. I sensed that he obviously wasn’t okay, so i scooched beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “It's okay, just try not to think too much about it. I know how you feel, the gods will help us out.” I said softly. He shrugged my hand off his shoulder, and moved away from me. He was looking hard at the ground and whispered, “How can you be so sure?”
“Huh?”
“I said,” He looked at me square in the eye. “How can you be so sure? That’s what everybody’s been saying, but I'm getting tired of it. Face it, Amoxtli. The gods have done nothing for us. They’re just a bunch of stupid stories to scare us. My calpolli would still be here, alive and well. Those monsters wouldn’t have come here. The gods aren’t real.”
I sat there, stunned. What was he saying? He must be mad, because this isn’t the Acalan I know. The Acalan I know was so devout, more than I was. Maybe the grief got him bad. “And no, you don't know how I feel. You will never know how I feel. You ever think about jabbing a spear into your chest? You ever thought about jumping off the mountains, and drowning yourself underwater? You ever think of that? Huh?” Acalan continued. And before I knew it, he was sobbing. Acalan, the soon-to-be soldier who had never shed a tear, the boy whose heart was made out of stone, was crying. He was saying something in between sobs, but I couldn’t understand it. His face was buried in his hands. The truth is, no, I have never thought about any of those things. I didn’t know that Acalan was this affected by it. Maybe I’m the foolish one.
A few hours later, I told Nantli about what Acalan had been saying, except the blasphemous things. That brought out a side of her that i never knew she had. Her face softened, and she nodded with understanding. She comforted Acalan, giving him words of reassurance. Nantli sent me out to get water, since Chimalli wasn’t here to do it anymore. Every passing day I miss him more and more. As i walked through the village, I heard loud, bone-rattling screams. The monsters were pushing and shoving their way into the houses, and coming out with valuables. I stood there, frozen in place watching it all happen. A tall monster stood in front of me, and all I could do was stand there, looking stupid as we both stared at each other. He scowled and grabbed my bucket, throwing it on the floor. “Hey…!” I said quietly. He kicked my bucket and continued walking.
tbc

Hi, My name is Haze and I'm from Sri Lanka. I'm currently an introverted high school student studying Maths, Chemistry and Physics. I like listening to music, watching movies and TV series, hanging out, studying and many more in my free time.
My interests include nature, horror and the paranormal, history, K-pop, spirituality (Law of Attraction, meditation, manifestation, astrology), chocolate, cats, and aesthetics.
I'm going through a pretty tough time with my friendships and it feels so lonely, empty and suffocating sometimes, so I decided to join here and try it. I'm looking for long-term friendships with people around my age (16-23) where we can talk about our daily lives, have deep meaningful conversations, and support each other during their good and bad times. It's like I'm looking for a new best friend for my life.
I consider myself an open-minded person so, I don't care about your gender, origins, religion, sexuality etc.
I'm sorry I know this is boring so, Thank you for reading till the end and if you're called to I hope you leave me a msg or comment here, so we can get back to each other and form a special bond

I've had a decently long life with fun traumatic experiences sprinkled in through out, but it's not something I can talk about, as in, nobody wants to hear it, nobody cares. Why should they?
My voice just feels very drowned out in the millions. I spent so much time listening, realizing I'd never get a turn. My voice will never be heard, and I will never be genuinely noticed. Because I don't stand out, I don't spark anyone's interest, nobody wants to get to know me as eagerly as I do them.
I know, this post is just whining. Guess I felt like getting that off my chest, that loneliness. I went to sleep after considering suicide. Thought that the desire would lessen, but honestly, I woke up the same. Like it's the only option left, because I'm tired.
There's only so much I can do on my own, and I was bound to tire on my own. Because that's how I'm supposed to do this now? Only I can take care of myself, and sure I was proud of my efforts before, how much self love and self care I put into myself, but they feel meaningless now. No one ever says what to do when you can't keep it up, just that you can rely on others for support, but also don't you dare!
So, am I worth knowing? Do you actually genuinely care about a dirty swan? Neither of us do. A waste of space or thought.
The idea of a funeral sounds horrible, people forced to come because they were technically related to me, all pretending to care now (not then), reciting incorrect things they didn't know about me, because they never bothered to ask or learn. I can already picture my mom's confusion when she gets told, "She didn't like the color pink, or flowers" as she tries to tell others that I loved pink and with a handful of flowers in hand for me. Ha, shame.
Add: 30+, I normally write more carefully and relatable in public, but who cares if I write in my head voice now?

Hey everyone, It has been an amazing last 1 month of entering a proper home theater system after graduating from vizio 5.1 system. I am currently at 5.1 and now wanting more lol. I am thinking of adding atmos and was hoping to get some suggestions regarding them and discuss my particular situation regarding subwoofer.
My current setup: 1. KEF R600C center

1. KEF Q350 LR
   
2. LEF Q150 Surrounds
   
3. KEF Kube 12b
   
4. Onkyo NR7100
   

I want to put some speakers up top for atmos. I currently live in a rental apartment with 9ft high ceilings, and wondering if atmos makes sense for me? I am a bit apprehensive of drilling holes on the ceiling being a rental and popcorn ceiling. Also, My couch is 12ft away from the screen is set up against the wall. I have been looking into a table to put behind it so i can convince my wife but thats something for later i guess.
Q1> Would it be ok to put the speaker on the front wall? I mean will it be better than 5.1 and how bad would it be as compared to the speakers on the ceiling? I have read a lot on it and have always received both types of info.
Q2> Can i even do a 5.x.4 setup with couch against the wall or if i can do it if i am able to push the couch 1ft ahead? I can put a speaker directly above my head pointing down.
Finally, for speakers, I am thinking of Polk OWM3, but i am also seeing a 5 speaker set of KEF Eggs E-305 for 300$, which i think might work well for atmos. There is also a 6 KEF Eggs for similar price but the seller is not responding. Would the kef eggs be a good speaker for atmos? I was thinking if i am only able to do 5.1.2, then i will use the rest in my bedroom lol.
Now, about subwoofers,
I got a open box KEF Kube 12 for 500$. It is still within the return period. I enjoy the sub since sound fills the room more than without the sub. But since i live in an apartment, i keep the volume at 20-30% mostly.
I know sub and apartment is frowned upon here but I guess i am a bit lucky that i live on a corner unit and I have turned the sub on and listened from outside my apartment, and at one of the neighbours to make sure bass is not disturbing. Making sure i dont disturb anyone.
Coming back to sub, should i keep the KEF Kube 12 or should i move to a ported sub. I use my HT mostly for movies. I initially went with a sealed sub hoping it would disturb others less but now i am thinking whats the best way out. I will probably end up moving to a SFH in 2ish years so i was thinking if i should spend a bit more and maybe get a big SUB(RP1400W maybe?) what do you guys recommend for sub for my situation?

Hello everyone! I just started with body weight training, until now I've been more of a weights guy, I never really focused on flexibility. I've made the move to body weight training because I don't have a great array of tools at hand atm and I want to stay fit.
I watched a couple vids and slapped together a basic routine for chest day, 3 sets of 15 reps, I aim to get more than 5 reps in but fail before hitting 15, I heard this was a good goal. As for my workouts I have generic pushups, which I tend to fail in near the end, last set or so. Then pike pushups. I am also working on my scapular movements in a plank position. I also am working on getting good with dips, haven't made much progress. What I am realizing is I am unable to even make it to the dips or pike pushups. My Triceps give out before I can really get to the good stuff.
Would you guys reccomend keeping at it till I build up the Triceps strength to make it to the other workouts or should I change stuff up? I am also actively working towards losing weight as things happened and I put on more weight than I wanted. So I usually follow up my pushups by zone 2 cardio for an hour or two. I would appreciate any help. Thank you! I am a complete newbie to bodyweight training but it seems really fun!
I've only been working on calisthenics for about a week or two, I am in it for the long haul I don't expect to be able to everything right off the bat, or even for a couple months. I was just wondering if I could get any beginner tips thank you!

Heyo! I'm really looking for some new friends to talk to or play games with. My name is yoni and I'm 23 to start it off. I currently live alone in a studio so I kinda get lonely alot. I have a friend group but with everyone working it's kinda hard to play other then a couple nights a week. I just want someone I can spend a lot of time talking to and getting to know. I have no problem doing audio or video calls once we start talking! I also have a discord sever where I talk to anyone new people or who wanna join our friend group if your interested. (Yes I keep yapping I'm sorry). Also just an fwi I reply super fast I don't mean to I just always have a YouTube video playing on my phone so I tend to hear when I get a notification. I also reallyyyy love watching or going to the movies I go every single Saturday the past 5 months. Just one thing is that I prefer talking to females because although most of my friends group is mixed I just don't relate to a personal level with guys as a do with girls who will talk to me about random shit for hours. Ok now that I'm done yapping lmk if you wanna be friends or game together or both when you DM me !
Just if you didn't read all that I'm not as comfortable with guys older then 25-26 and I get along super well with females as I'm really able to open myself up.

So my players are higher level and have been traveling all over the Sword Coast and when they got to Goldenfields I ran it more or less as it was in the book, but Strog Thunderblade is a problem. His incompetence got a lot of soldiers killed, and my table is entirely made of combat arms soldiers, mostly who worked in dismounted recon, so they really look at him as a real piece of shit getting all those dudes killed on guard by not listening to the recon element. He also got crops trampled and animals killed which makes the druid pretty mad.
Anyway, they get the 6 sidequests from the 6 NPCs and the first one they do is escorting the Zhent rogue, Shalvus Martholio, to Wormford. They have already killed the Wormford bat and have bad blood with the Zhents so I thought they may kill Shalvus so I tried to make it a bit of a moral dilemma. They find out he is a Zhent and decide to manipulate him pretending they are tight with Zhents to get him talking. He reveals 'Yea I am spying on Goldenfields for the network but in my report I am going to explain that the Emerald Enclave and Goldenfields are great to the Realm, they feed everyone and steward the land and animals wonderfully. My only issue is their pesky alliance with the Lord's Alliance. They feed Waterdeep, who then feel a "duty" to provide aid, like that piece of shit Thunderblade, whose incompetence nearly lost loads of food, and got a bunch of people and animals killed. I am too low rank to have taken him out on my own accord, but I plan to recommend we do take a hit on him.'
Surprisingly, my players all agreed with him. They heard his Zhent sales pitch which was basically "The Lord's alliance are all a result of nepotism, the harpers are naeive and insufferable, but the zhents can actually control crime by turning it into a regulated guild rather than pretending you can stamp it out, we would be better defenders of Goldenfields and alley to them than the Lords' Alliance'
So now how do we make Strom Thunderblade an interesting element narratively? I have one of two ideas.
The first one is he is in fact an incompetent officer from the Lord's Alliance, he is there from nepotism, he is up his own ass, his station as a military officer was bought not earned, but because of his powerful connections harm cannot be allowed to come to him. Though people in Waterdeep were tired of how useless he was and shipped him off to Goldenfields for a 1 year "broadening assignment," working as a watch commander on a section of the wall and that turned out giving him just enough power to get good men killed. The Emerald Enclave are furious with him but can't do much due to politics, the Lords' Alliance know he is an ass, but his family is too valuable to him and will predict he now has a target on his back and send some muscle out to protect him, and to advise him as they actually do have experience leading at least small units.
The second option is he is not incompetent, but a saboteure. He works for a nefarious organization such as the Kraken Society, or the Iron Throne, or both, and they use his noble status to get him in places to overhear important meetings mostly, but this time they asked him to fuck up the defences of Goldenfields to destabilize the region and shift the balance of power to make the crops in Yartar more valuable, as they have vested interests there, and believe they can control that market much safer than Goldenfields who has super fortified walls, emerald enclave everywhere, and an established relationship with the Lords' Alliance of Waterdeep.
Any thoughts on what I should do? Has anyone else punched this part of the story up?

I need a few ssds for various builds I'm working on in the next few months. I'll take up to 20 drives. Looking to hopefully get a bunch off 1 or 2 people if I can. I need both sata and nvme drives.
Anywhere from 256gb-2tb
I'd also be open to any hard drives 2tb-18tb if you have them. Not a priority for me but i'd be interested.

This is from the perspective of a non adhd partner dating someone with adhd. She's very lovely, kind, but this whole bottomless energy is intense.
We are out for 3 days straight, partner is off their meds, and after hiking and walking eating very little food we are sitting down to dinner and my partner is going a million miles a minute, I'm exhausted. I'm beginning to feel annoyed and a bit socially conscious because my partner is dancing in their seat.
I am aware of their condition, and sympathetic to their issues... but damn, am I tired and annoyed as hell thinking to myself " damn can't you just chill for literally one minute? "
It's obvious I'm annoyed, and I have the awarness that I am annoyed and trying not to be.. and being mindful. She can tell I'm off and trying to be the most strategic in me expressing myself. How do you say "I really need you to calm down and just chill for a moment" when these individuals are particularly disadvantaged in that respect?
I tried to explain like my energy levels are dropping, we've been going from place to place since 8am in the morning, it's 9pm at night. You're going into peak hyperactive mode and I'm crashing. I'm trying to not feel like I'm attacking her but ofcourse she gets very defensive which creates alot of tension.
I have no doubt this is a trigger for them, and people with adhd get so much negative feedback. I feel bad giving her negative feedback. It's so rough!!!
Anyone have any thoughts on this, or navigated these situations? My partner has had very poor success romantically and in friendships and I feel extremely guilty that I'm feeling annoyed despite my metawarness and trying to compassionate.

I’m terrified. On thanksgiving he got diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at the age of 27 with innumerable liver metastasis. He was hospitalized for 11 days, it was the worst 11 days of our lives. The initial oncologists didn’t give much in the way of hope, but he quickly responded wonderfully to chemo.
I got him a consult with one of the best, if not the best, liver cancer surgeons in the world. He said this can still be cured, it just depends on how aggressive we want to be.
He’s been off chemo for three and a half weeks and the whole thing is just terrifying. I’ve personally have had over 10 surgeries for my own medical problems and I’ve never felt like this. I truly love my husband more than myself or anyone in this world. I would do anything for him, I wish I could take this all from him. He doesn’t deserve any of this, no one ever does.
He just had his MRI today and lab works. Hoping that the liver grew from the portal vein embolization they did and that there’s no new cancer. I’m a wreck. I’ve been hopeful as surgery is the most curative measure, but I haven’t been thinking about it. But now that we’re down at the hospital and starting to prep I’m beginning to feel all the emotions I’ve pushed down. It’s just so much.
This is my nightmare. I watched my uncle die from pancreatic cancer in 2013. My second mom (mom’s best friend and also my best friend’s mom) also lost her 16 year battle against a rare and aggressive thyroid cancer in 2021 - she outlived her cancer 3 times, thank god for clinical trials. And my sister also battled chondrosarcoma over 10 years ago, she’s been in remission. I can’t wrap my head around the statistics of my partner also getting cancer, I thought we’d be free of it after the long suffering of those close to me. What were the odds, at such a young age and barely two years into our relationship.
When I met my husband, I had this feeling something was off with his health, but he had zero obvious symptoms. He’d been sick well before I met him but we just had no idea. A couple of months into our relationship I had this awful nightmare that he got diagnosed with stage IV cancer, we got married, and he passed. I woke up sobbing but grateful it was only a nightmare. I hate that this has become our lives but I’m so grateful everyday that I have him. I can’t do any of this without him. I can’t.
I hate cancer, I hate what it does to people. How soul crushing it can be. He’s a fighter, but they all were. We’re very optimistic about this treatment, I’m positive, but that doesn’t mean I’m not scared of the unknown.
My husband saved my life. He came at a time when I was struggling to find myself again. My second mom had just passed, I bought my house, and got out of an unhappy relationship with my cheating, useless ex. I met him and suddenly everything made sense. It just feels like we’re living some sick cruel joke.
I just love him so much, I want him to be okay. I needed to get this all out.
Also a couple of things, 1) I will not be answering anything about his symptoms or colon cancer symptoms - if you have symptoms of a change in your bowel habits go to your doctor and push for a colonoscopy, colon cancer does not discriminate by age today. 2) I am in counseling and on a leave of absence from work for my own mental health, I’m trying to do things for me.

Hi friends! Sometimes we can't go wrong with the classics and today we're doing a Jump Doc Analysis of Burkess's Concept Understand Education Wonder jump! As usual have a secondary link to my past discussion posts.

General Thoughts

I've noticed I always have a lot of fun with Burkess's odder jumps. One of my favorites of theirs is Generic Totally Not Mind Control, which is a hilariously powerful jump depending on the setting you're planning to go to, and this one is also shockingly powerful (there's a perk to become a concept, a perk to bring inanimate objects to life, and an item which can absorb all of the knowledge someone has! It's wild).
This jump is the ultimate one-stop-shop for teachers & educators, which is a VERY good skill for jumpers to master. Jumpers, particularly early jumpers, would be wise to figure out how to do teaching stuff and do it well, as being a teacher is a good profession for a jumper and also mastering teaching is a pretty powerful way to subtly or not so subtly guide, shape, and improve settings. Becoming a skilled teacher is a powerful key to figuring out how to alter the course of jumps without having big flashy powers, and being a skilled teacher is a heck of a way to craft better, or worse, ends for the places you visit.
I'm a member of a setting known as the Shiftverse, which is VAGUELY like a fusion of jumpchains and more generic isekai stuff and in it two skills are top of the line in almost any situation: farming/survival & teaching. Teaching is a critical way to become indispensable to a community or group of people that is in a moderately stable condition, while farming/survival is more critical for communities in dire conditions, but of the two skills teaching is usually the skill that produces the most change over the long-term. Teaching is a vastly underrated skill set for any sort of multiversal wanderer, and in this jump we start to see some of the real power of a teacher come to the fore. So let's dive in!

Items

There's only nine items in this jump, Jumper Academy, The Living Orphanage, Treats & Games, Teaching Materials, Experimental Lab, Book Of Concepts, Media Library, Your TV Show, & Hungry Knowledge.
Two of these items are books, Book of Concepts (the obligatory "You can spread abilities like the ones here throughout the setting) & Hungry Knowledge (which can grant magical knowledge to peeps!). Three of the items are places: Jumper Academy (Generic School item), Living Orphanage (an orphanage which naturally attracts little orphan peeps from throughout a setting), & Experimental Lab (self-cleaning, auto-adjusting laboratory for all of your experiments). Three items are collections of items; Treats & Games (fun prizes and rewards for your students), Teaching Materials (a collection of supplies for teaching stuff), and Media Library (a collection of copies of all of the media you've consumed and will consume in the future). The last item is Your TV Show which is a program you are the lead actor in which will naturally be geared around education in some capacity, AND a network which you control and can create more shows for.
I like these items, they're all pretty solid encapsulations of various scenarios related to learning and different contexts in which learning can occur. Honestly there's just a lot of fun to be had with these items, and a range of different jumpers would be able to benefit from looking over some of what this jump has to display in terms of items. Funnily enough there's no teaching certificate item here, which is a bit disappointing. Though if someone wants that, it's the free item for teachers over in my High School Musical jump which could be a very fun jump to use this as a supplement with.

Perks

There are many pages of perks, as is invariably the case in a jump like this. I have a few standout favorites and I want to talk about them for a beat.
Innovation is an immersive power-modifier that allows you to take all of your powers and figure out ways to creatively use them which grants you new abilities thematically tied to your powers. They Ask Questions & Always Employed are thematically relevant employment perks that guarantee that you'll find that people like and respect you more, and are more willing to ask you to help them learn new stuff. Retrocognition is a fun perk that lets you learn the pasts of places you visit and objects you touch. Some perks like A Customized Approach, Potential Unlock, and What's Your Motivation are perfect for tutors working with singular students or small groups and allow you to figure out how to create the best, most fulfilling stuff you can imagine to work with them and teach them.
Some of the perks here are direct superpowers like Know What I Know which is a telepathy granter, and Uplift Them and Creating Life which is a sentience granter and a life-creator (for inanimate objects) respectively. These perks are interesting, and all grant new contexts for you to mess about with your abilities and CREATE students for you to teach as well as figures you can learn from.
The perks here are a healthy mix of giving you new ways to get people excited about learning, allowing you to learn stuff from people (or even ghosts!), and ways to figure out how to best teach someone something. A lot of this stuff is really good for tutors specifically, as opposed to more modern teachers and lecturers, but make no mistake there's plenty of ways to leverage the stuff here to be handy among larger numbers of people.
The perks this jump offers are worth exploring yourself, but if you've ever thought about having a jumper who either uses a job as a teacher as a cover, or just IS a teacher who likes to explore and learn stuff this jump has a lot of fun stuff for you to snatch up. I think there's just a lot of different, interesting ideas this jump allows you to explore and gives you a set of skills and abilities that will be useful in virtually any context sans something truly extreme like you being in a jump where you are either alone or almost completely alone, or where you are well and truly surrounded by hostiles and you've just got to endure whatever bullshit the jump is throwing at you (and this jump has stuff for that too! Seriously, this is a very intriguing jump).

Conclusion & Parting Thoughts

This is a very intriguing mundane/cosmic citizen jump. I think it's funny that Burkess found some straight up superpowers related to teaching and learning and I appreciate that a jump as minor as this has some real powers in it. I also like that this jump just revolves around an essential skill, and takes that skill to some pretty intense heights without doing the traditional stuff like allowing you to teach someone your superpowers. It's cool to see such creative thoughts put into a jump and made into a fun playground for jumpers to mess around in.

Hi all! This will be a very long post, but I hope it will be an invaluable resource in parrot care for anyone who is either considering getting a bird or has one already. I am NOT an expert and all provided information I have cited below for your viewing leisure; these are simply tips and educational content I've amassed over months of dedicated research and cobbled together in one convenient package. I will continue to update or make amends to this post as necessary and encourage insights from others so we can all do the very best for our feathered companions as possible.
(I should mention that there will always be exceptions to some of the broad generalizations elucidated here: for example, you might have a cuddly IRN despite the species' known aversiveness to touch).
With that being said, let's start by dismantling some very prevalent myths about parrot husbandry.
Myth #1: Placing your bird on your shoulder or the top of its cage will cause your parrot to think of itself as the "alpha" of the flock and thus, will encourage aggressive or dominant behavior towards the subservient human(s).
The reality is that parrots don't operate within a hierarchal system. Any observation of a "pecking order" among flock members is more than likely individual personality differences clashing or resource-guarding behavior.
Myth #2: All parrots need 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep in total darkness.
This is the myth I see peddled everywhere, and while there are some species less likely to be affected by these nocturnal habits, it can be detrimental to the welfare of others: a study showed that sleeping for more than 8 hours in 24 hours increased the likelihood that African Greys would feather pluck. Keep in mind that artificially decreasing daylight time by increasing the number of hours a parrot sleeps to ward off hormones won’t always work — in old-world parrots (cockatoos, greys) SHORTER daylight corresponds more with the breeding cycle and hormone triggers. The crux of the argument against this widely circulated fallacy is that, at best, parrots don't need 12 hours of sleep in complete darkness and at worst, it posits a significant risk factor for FDB (feather-damaging behavior). Yes, there is a 12/12 day-night cycle in the tropics, but that does not mean that parrots sleep for 12 hours straight and certainly not in what we presume must be deathly still darkness, for the wilderness is neither pitch-black nor soundless at night. Crucial to proper parrot psychosocial functioning is the ability to ROOST before sleeping; this is when birds start to settle down, hang out with and preen one another, an activity which confers numerous benefits to their overall health such as… I want to take a slight detour to discuss the popularity of "sleeper cages" and how replicating parrot breeding conditions in this manner (the only time a wild bird is isolated in darkness is when caring for its young in a nesting hollow) can promote a litany of unwanted hormonal behaviors. Not all birds will be affected by this of course, but it's something to be aware of. Your best bulwark against avoiding problem behaviors associated with avian sleep hygiene is to set up a stand in your bedroom or wherever you sleep and have your bird go to sleep at the same time you do. I understand that this arrangement isn’t feasible for everyone, so do what works best for you and your bird!
Myth #3: Cockatoos are unique among parrots for their “cuddliness.”
This statement is only partially true and for all the wrong reasons. In the wild, cockatoos take UP TO A YEAR OR LONGER to wean. Cockatoo parents are highly involved in the rearing of their offspring, providing feedings and physical comfort even after the young has fledged. Contrast this with the Amazon parrot's relatively neglectful parenting practices, and you'll see why many neotropical parrot species adapt better to captivity than their old-world brethren. Many new-world species can afford to encourage early independence in their young given the (relative) abundance of resources in the regions from which they originate compared to the arid, often harsh geographical range of some of the old-world parrot species like cockatoos. It stands to reason, intuitively, that it would be evolutionarily advantageous for young to enlist the support of their parents for longer to help them navigate their environment's unique challenges. Most breeders won't keep the babies for up to a year to ensure they are appropriately ABUNDANCE-WEANED and ready for their new homes. Consequently, most, if not all, captive-bred cockatoos end up neurotic and demanding due to being deprived of adequate physical and emotional nurturance in the formative period of their development. The psychologically stunted bird’s hunger for nurturance is then reinforced, often by well-intentioned caretakers, through petting and affection which further conditions the cockatoo's excessive reliance on us to meet his or her emotional needs. Though the damage has sadly been done by this point, the best we can do is incentivize parallel and independent play/foraging to create as well-adjusted a bird as we can given the limited resources at our disposal. This is why it is important to be judicious when selecting a breeder, but ideally, adopt cockatoos from your local sanctuaries.
I'm sure most of us know to avoid stroking anywhere but your bird's head to avoid sexually frustrating them, but the truth is that PROXIMITY alone is sufficient to establish a pair bond. In the wild, only mates spend much of their time near one another while maintaining a large personal space bubble with all other members of the flock (conures, a naturally "cuddly" species, are the exception to these observations). It's best to limit close contact and use the "capture" training method to reward desirable, autonomous behavior — more on that later.
Myth #4: Biting is par for the course of bird ownership.
While it is true that as a bird owner you will, if you haven't already, get bitten at least once, if not occasionally, to suggest sustaining bites with any regularity is normal takes away the onus of responsibility we have towards evaluating our contribution to receiving that bite — at least for people new to parrot keeping. Birds in the wild rarely bite, and frequent biting indicates the bird's body language cues have been ignored or overlooked. Once that first real bite happens, it increases the likelihood of biting as that bird's preferred means of communication for all foreseeable interactions. Of course, we all have days where we're not tuned in to our birds' emotional states, and that’s okay, but outside of certain factors (i.e. rescue or adopted parrots with a history of abuse, neglect, improper weaning, or insecurity due to clipped wings) biting should not be a major issue — even during the hormonal season. A survey (referenced below) had roughly half of the participants report no observable differences in behavior (aside from attempts to mate and associated acts) from their birds during their respective species’ breeding season. The surge of hormones merely AMPLIFIES existing problems the bird is having that either go undetected or happen sparingly enough outside of the breeding period.

Me (23F) and my boyfriend (27M) have had quite the untraditional relationship from its very start and I think it's starting to show in the form of resentment.
I want to preface this by saying this is my first Reddit post so please bear with me and any mistakes I may make in creating this post.
Anyway, my boyfriend and I met a 2.5 years ago on a dating app in November of 2021 and had four wonderful months together before he landed his first job fresh out of college with no consideration as to how it would affect our relationship or how I would feel about it. Upon hire, this job told him he would be working 2 weeks on with 2 weeks off and so on. Ever since the start he was always gone for a minimum of a month at a time with not even a week off between hitches. This severely limited our time to grow together as a new couple. At first, I was okay with it, ever happy for him, but as time progressed I quickly became lonely. I expressed this to him for many months but he never had the courage to confront his boss about their original agreement and how it had never been upheld. I should also mention that this job required him to work 6pm-6am 7 days a week. I usually worked 6am- 2pm while going to school and even after I graduated college. That being said, we rarely ever got to talk while he was away because one of us would be sleeping while the other working.
He lived in a small house by himself at this time and had no roommates. I had my own apartment just a couple minutes down the road. Because of him being gone all the time, I offered to start checking up on the house during the summer (2022) while he was away to make sure it was being maintained and not broken into or anything. Me, being the person I am, couldn't help but see the grass overgrown, the house dirty, etc., and not do anything about it. So, as a loving girlfriend, I would do a great amount of work maintaining the house in his absence. I even went above and beyond one week and spent 10+ hours a day deep-cleaning the house from top to bottom as he and his roommates had left it quite filthy, if you can imagine with it being a boys' college house. (Yes, I know that sounds crazy but part of me was hoping one day I would live there and couldn't imagine doing so in the condition it was in.)
Fast forward to December of 2022, my boyfriend asked me to move in with him. He still had the same job which had put a huge strain on our relationship, but part of me hoped this would help put us back on track.
I moved in, of course, and things progressively got worse. I finally told him I couldn't stay with someone who was never even around to be with and he finally got a new job this last March (2024). This job was supposed to be remote with him going out in the field 5% of the time and always having weekends off. This was great until the job started running out of work for him. They started offering to send him away to other states like his old job did for work only this time he wouldn't tell me until a day or two in advance and I'm never sure when he'll be back. Going on these trips also aren't a requirement for him but rather ensure he gets a minimum of 40 hours a week.
Fast forward to now, over a year later, and I feel stuck. I have told him time and time again that I can't keep living in this house like a live-in maid. We split all the bills equally and yet he's the one always away only ever working while I'm working full-time, taking care of our 4 pets, maintaining the house (cleaning, yard maintenance, fixing all the broken things that come with an old house, making improvements, etc) and always having so much weight on my shoulders that prevent me from being able to ever sit down and relax or have time to myself.
To top things off, I recently lost my grandmother, my dad has been in and out of the hospital, and I got a new job that I have no experience for so it's ALL brand new to me and a lot to learn. Needless to say, my plate is always full while he just has to wake up, go to work, go to bed, repeat. And when he comes home he does next to nothing. I have to beg him to help me with things around the house or to fix things and even then it rarely ever happens.
Intimacy in our relationship is next to nonexistent, he forgot my birthday last year, never shows affection, or does small things for me like buy me flowers or things to show his love for me, etc. I feel like I'm dating a ghost that I no longer have any attraction towards and am even building resentment for.
So, in a long-winded way, what do I do? I need help or advice as to what I should do. I feel stuck but can't move out because it's too expensive and there are no places available to rent within my budget that allow pets. I thought about moving back home temporarily but I JUST started this new job a month ago. Part of me wants to make it work, but part of me doesn't and I am tired of wrestling with myself for the last year. So, I need your guys' thoughts on my situation.
Comment any questions and I will do my best to answer them. Thanks in advance :)

My situation: I’m at the tail end of the process of joining the army. I went to meps last month and need a scoliosis consultation (I know my curvature is going to be under 30 degrees). I need some other benign waivers as well. I had been stuck in the medical loop for almost a year now because Meps kept requesting more documents.
Recently, I got the idea to join the Marine Corps on the off chance that I will be accepted faster. Today I went to talk with a Marine recruiter who confirmed that he could probably get me in faster. I have been working with a remote recruiter for the army and while she’s great because she’s a family friend, I can’t help but think it might be easier and faster to process through the Marines.
The reason I think this is because the Recruiter mentioned that since he’s local to me it would be easier to communicate and he’s really prompt with communicating with higher-ups as well as Meps. Also, my current Recruiter hates recruiting and lately I get the feeling that I’m more of a burden to her than anything else and probably not high on her priority list just because my process has become more relaxed with the waiting times. (Still love her though!)
A sidenote is that I’m turning 29 on May 20 so I need to make my decision to switch from the Army to Marines within that time. That’s a few days. I’m kind of a mess, I know please don’t judge me lol. The marine recruiter told me that my age wouldn’t be a problem, so long as I make my decision before my birthday. From my understanding, if I join before I’m 29 then he can get a waiver to allow me to leave for Boot Camp at 29.
A little bit more about me is that I wanted to be a combat engineer for the army with airborne in my contract, but I’m willing to let go of airborne or even go to army after I serve in the Marines This is what I’m thinking for now I just want to hear everyone’s opinions. My my ASVAB score is a 55 with a GT score of 102. I’m a female by the way (don’t know if female marines/soldiers have a much different experience).
I also want to know how to bring it up to my current recruiter even though she’s really chill and hates recruiting and she’s also one of my dad’s best friends who lives in another state.
Thank you everyone for reading this and for offering me your perspective. Hopefully I don’t sound like too much of an idiot.