Please be 21+.
I’m a very open person who used to be shy & reserved. I got to a point many years ago where I just stopped caring. Stopped caring what people thought & felt about my decisions & how I lived my life. I basically do not have a filter & I rarely shy away from speaking what comes to mind,even if it’s brutally honest. I don’t like to offend people but if someone asks my genuine opinion then they need to be able to handle what I have to say.
I generally only talk to open minded people who don’t judge. I’ve moved beyond trying to convince close minded people to get where I’m coming from. I don’t need to explain myself or feel ashamed of who I am,so I don’t anymore.
While I am an open book,I am also a private person until I feel like it’s worth my time & effort to give details about my life. I live a particular lifestyle & I’ve been in it for a long time.
I have become almost obsessed with working out. There was a time in my life where I lost the motivation but I have regained that & I’m getting back into the kind of shape I was in most of my life.
I openly admit that I am a selfish person. I think of others but at the end of the day I’m going to get mine. I’ve been successful because of this approach to life.
I work out,play basketball,video games from time to time,I like horror movies.
At 41 I feel like I’m entering my prime & I don’t waste my time with things that I don’t find valuable.
If you’re up to talking hit me up. I won’t respond to comments so just DM.

About a year ago, when I was 17, I did something to my erect penis, squeezing it a lot. My erection stopped, and it started to feel less hard and thick. I didn’t give it much importance at first, thinking it would cure itself. However, the next time I tried to do something sexual, it felt numb and was still less hard and thick. I kept thinking it might be anxiety or a one-time thing, so I didn’t give it much importance and stopped sexual activity for a while, hoping it would recover. After some time, the situation remained the same or worsened. I started to feel very bad, so I went to a urologist. They conducted blood and hormone tests, which came back fine, and they told me it had to be something psychological. I waited for the real andrologist, who was on leave after having a child, to perform an ultrasound. They gave me a long wait time, so I decided to search for another specialist. I finally got the ultrasound, and after they pricked me, I didn’t get hard at all. The ultrasound lasted only about 20 minutes. They told me everything was fine, but I wasn’t. Obviously, anxiety does not help, but even when I don’t think about it and give it time, it remains numb. It’s like having a stuffy nose and remembering how you breathed when it was clear. I remember how it was before the accident—much more rigid. The reasons I believe it’s not psychological are many: there was a physical cause, it has been a long time, I have tried everything, I have also lost sensitivity, and if I do get an erection, it is lost quickly without stimulation. In a flaccid state, it’s different from how it was; it feels strange and bothers me when I sleep on my stomach, which didn’t happen before. I don’t have morning erections at all, and it changes shape a lot in a flaccid state. When I tell these things to the specialists, they laugh at me. This situation is really stressing me out. I never had suicidal thoughts before, but now they are starting to come because I am afraid no woman will want me with this problem. Please provide me with some help, or tips if you can. "TL;DR:" To resume i fucked up squeezing my penis and i lost my hardness, now i am feeling depressed.

You can see some of my earlier posts with my gallbladderless journey, but I wanted to give an update since so many who improve move on from these threads and leave these forums with a skewed view of recovery. It took me a good 6 months to start improving. I continued losing weight after surgery and the nausea prompted an MRCP to see if there were any lingering issues. I kept being told everything looked perfect and to give it time. I had a lot of anxiety and panic around food and getting sick. I’m still Covid conscious so I don’t do public outings often, but the one time I tried to eat out early into recovery I cried and had to go home. The mental impact of having a persistent or chronic illness was probably harder than the illness itself, but I forced myself into a routine. The only constants I had were my planned meals and my daily walks, both of which were life saving. I’ve eaten the same breakfast since early in recovery, Kodiak protein waffles and sliced apples. Lunch is usually whatever my 5 year old consumes; peanut butter sandwich or dino nuggets, white cheddar popcorn or baked lays. Snack used to be exclusively an apple cinnamon rice cake with dark chocolate hummus and cut up strawberries, but in the last 2 months or so I eat a Chobani flip (Boston cream is the best one, don’t fight me on this). Dinner 80% of the time is baked chicken breast, a vegetable (usually baby carrots), and, my lord and savior, Costco rice made in my zojirushi rice maker. This was an investment after my sibling made me rice in theirs days after surgery. I didn’t even think I liked rice for 3 decades until I had well prepared rice. I love it so much now sometimes I’ll eat it as a snack or my whole meal. After dinner I have walked every evening since surgery to aid digestion. It really brings the burps and toots out. A month or 2 after surgery my once a day poo turned into diarrhea so I started one heaping teaspoonful of sugar free psyllium husk after breakfast to firm up my poo (the timing is better for bile dumping symptoms for people without gallbladders). I believe this consistency is what helped me improve after my body stopped being in survival mode. I lost 40 pounds in just a few months before and immediately following surgery so it’s clear I needed time to adjust. I let go of the expectation of when I was supposed to feel better and trusted my body. Once a day walks turned into twice a day when I had the energy. My stamina is nowhere close to being at baseline as I’ve lost a lot of muscle tone, but I’m slowly working up to exercising more (walking IS exercise contrary to what some of these gym bros claim). I eat smaller, more frequent meals as opposed to heavy, dense ones. I experience low heart rate and low blood pressure episodes when I am stressed, eat too much sugar, or sometimes it’s random, so I watch my sugar intake (NEVER on an empty stomach), salt load when symptoms come on, and lay down if I can until it improves. I have struggled a lot with freezing at night, but that’s improved in the last month, probably because I’ve managed to gain a few pounds. I’m more liberal with my diet now, but I did so slowly and I don’t push myself. I still get anxiety about ordering out because I have a severe fear of throwing up from eating food prepared by somebody else + the risk of norovirus. I’ve recently been able to tolerate small amounts of heavier dairy like alfredo and ice cream. I eat a couple bites of red meat when served, but it’s infrequent (twice since surgery). Despite what I’m still dealing with I’m very glad I had surgery. I know I would’ve died if something didn’t change. Plus, my lab work is the best it’s been in my adult life. My triglycerides alone dropped by 55% in a year from eating clean. So if you’re reading this wondering if you’ve made a mistake, give it time. Advocate for yourself, but also give your body time to adjust. Some people take years to improve and I think my timeline will be about that to confidently say I’m completely better. Good luck to everyone!

Earlier this year we lost my brother suddenly to a seizure. He lived next door to my mom, and for the past 20 years has been looking out for her. She (77) had a major heart attack in ‘99 where it went into v-fib, and her coworker saved her life with CPR. The amount of time it took to resuscitate her left her brain without oxygen, and she has had memory issues since. She’s not the same person that raised me. She lived in a single-wide that was rough, and despite the work that we’ve been doing on it, she couldn’t stay there. She also has some hoarding tendencies. I bought my house a few years ago with a guest room and bathroom on the main floor so that eventually she could move in with us, but was not planning on that until necessary. Well, now it’s necessary. It’s hard. It is a pretty big change to the way our household runs. My wife and I both work full time, and have kids in high school. She LOVES to watch TV, and swears she’s happy just doing that, but I know she needs activity out of the house. We have neighbors her age that want to connect with her, but she has no desire. I’m getting internal and external (her siblings) pressure to get her into card games and senior activities, and I’ve scheduled times to go to events in the community, but she bails day-of. She wants to go to the store all the time, but lacks some motor skills and walks so slow that everything is such a frustrating experience. (Last night at Walgreens, she dropped a 2-liter of Diet Coke and it shot up to the ceiling and across the store like a high school science project, spraying it literally all over the store. ALL. OVER. THE. STORE.) I’m struggling. I lost my dad, brother, and my dog in the last 9 months. I don’t have the patience or energy to deal with this. My wife is struggling too, but she’s silent about this situation. We’re stuck. We feel stuck, and I know that this is the best it’s going to be as she continues to (slowly) go downhill. Her mom and grandmother both died of dementia in a home, and I’m pretty sure that’s the way it’s going to go with her. The signs are all over. I’m still trying to get the land and house out of her name, so that when the time comes for memory care Medicare will foot the bill. From what I’ve read ( I know - a lawyer is the next step) we have to wait 5 years after we get the land out of her name. Wife and I are solid, but just so tired from daily life. It just doesn’t stop. Not really looking for advice, just needed to put this out there. I’ve been a pretty stoic person all my life and don’t complain. Never had to grieve anything really in 44 years, so this past year has been a kick in the balls. I was smoking pot heavily, but quit that this week to help my mental state - so far it hasn’t helped.

Hi all
My (18-NB) partner (18-NB) have been together for a year and a half. We lost our virginity to each other so each of us are all we have ever known sexually. I have always felt like we get along incredibly well- we agree on most everything and share similar values, and we both want similar things out of life. They have an awesome family and my folks love her, and we’ve got lots planned this year in terms of holidays. And, when we both go to college in the fall, we have deliberately chosen to go in a part of the country where it’ll be easy to see each other.
However, I feel like I have little to no attraction to them physically. It wasn’t always like this and earlier on in the relationship our sex was driven by the thrill of losing our virginities and discovering what it was like to be with someone physically. However, this is no longer the case. I’ve been able to kind of get into it if I really try, but sex feels more like chore. When I see them in the evenings we get to a point where I can tell they want it, and I have to force myself to put on an act just to get through it. I feel I’m at a stage now where having to pretend to them that I’m really into them physically is negatively impacting my mental health, not to mention the fact that I feel horrible about it and like I’m doing badly by them.
I’ve had these thoughts for a while but I feel conflicted about them. I wonder if perhaps nerves have scared me off from sex and put me in a position where I always dread it out of fear that I won’t perform. I’ll often think that it’s just a stage, and the problem is just that I need to try harder to be turned on by it. Ive also thought before that I’m maybe just getting a bit claustrophobic and need some space- but even when we’ve been apart for a few weeks the spark isn’t there upon returning. I’ve also sometimes become confused about my sexuality, and wondered whether I’m not actually into them anatomically (however, I’ve never been attracted to the opposing anatomy- always theirs).
I really really love them. We’ve helped each other through so much emotionally and we get along so well. I hate the thought of breaking up with them. I used to look forward to seeing them so much but I have begun to dread it because I just want to hangout and I know I’ll end it off by being ashamed of my inability to truly be passionate in bed.
Is there any solution for this, and has anyone ever been in a similar situation and been able to save it? I’m really at a loss here and would appreciate any advice and/or anecdotes that relate to my situation.
Thanks so much

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5tgIXfvd7F/?igsh=ZTgyajk0dDlvbTV6
Can anyone of us help that poor family? May be . Will this make a change? May be.
Should we be aware? 100% yes. No matter from which state, city or constitucy we are in, if we stay silent after watching an injustice we are doing more injustice. Girls safety is a major concern but what's more concerning is people with authority manipulating Information as per their way clearly says fuck you middle class. A family lost their everything with no mistake of their and the one who was in charge of justice is fueling the injustice.
Share so what media could not do we should. You have no idea but just by making an injustice reach more people you become a better civilian than media and that Delhi Police officer.
Show what an Odia subreddit can do.
P.s- mu gote normal Odia pila jahara kichi political motive nahi ya pachare na ki kichi agenda. Upvote bhi Kariba darkar nahi but try sharing it with as much subreddit you can. Try atleast.

i emailed this to agencies that deal with hunting and wildlife problems
pasts@varam.gov.lv
info@wildlifesos.org
reportmisconduct@undp.org
there is no obvious place to report this and expect a serious hearing from someone fluent in English and scientifically minded
the following is what I wrote a month ago after the event
i can't judge after hand how much danger i was in but i would treat it seriously
luckily has not happened again in this country for a month. hopefully never happens again. although the next time i will have the benefit of having experienced it already
when police arrived i demanded prison for the dog owner in clearest possible way i could. after my speach was done they did not ask me a single word. they could tell i was furious of fear. and better to talk another time. i am so drained from global security work that i can't follow up on this but this should be available for anyone to read that might experience it themselves or take upon their self to wander around this globe as i do
i will probably feel guilty if the owner lose his dogs or hunting permit or reputation in his community. i am not going to judge anyone extremely harshly
if they ask me to fill out a criminal report according to some kind of format standards i am not going to do it myself an experienced prosecutor that has done it before is free to report this or pass it along. just not going to fill in report fields in some kind of form. you do it for me if you want to. i am not doing it. should be enough information to find
http://geohash.org/u6p4gj36
is the exact location and anyone can guess where the dogs came from probably the nearest mansion two thousand metres away to the east across p111 near upsede. upsede mansion. good luck asking them about it they don't speak a word of English here development is seventy years behind the west

preface

this is so incredulous that it could be picked up by news
still in shock six hours later at dawn
just the title should give you the general idea
i have never heard of such outrageous neglect in dog keeping in my life
the dogs escape unnoticed at night and hunt without human supervision and presumably return in the morning without anyone doing anything about it
this dog owner would make the top ten list anywhere in history
the dogs occasional howl brought up pictures of wolf movies the grey with that guy from Schindler's list the guy that played Oscar Schindler fighting with wolves with broken glass and a big knife to his death but i can safely discard all theories besides a runaway hunting dog militia on four legs in a large pack sounded like at least ten animals
in that immense fear of a completely unfamiliar situation in a life of hiking around the globe thoughts whirled around all possible night mares before i realised it is obviously hunting dogs all else is pure fantasy wolves are absolutely ruled out
they did not retreat when they sensed my presence but stayed in full alarm perhaps as when they encounter prey on a supervised hunt to alert the humans. even though they knew they were alone and no one to alert, they knew i was probably not prey, did not know enough to EVER be alone unsupervised anywhere but home preferably inside, but did NOT know or predict the length of the prison sentence they just brought on their owner by this nightly escapade. whoops
the locals will predictably put the lid on but the power of the internet is a wonderful thing
i can not imagine any circumstance that would make this less than prison anywhere in the union or West europe. now this is the old east. no one understands English etc. one escaped dog barking in the forest. fine. slap on the wrist. possibly losing care of the animal...ten rabid hunting dogs in full alarm scaring the life out of a hiker resting at night. shake those bars for three months. watch that prison television. and there won't be any Marlborough or beers in prison

the entire report

the exact location is near the highest hunting tower on the old railway trail passing by upsede north east of liepaja that is used for hunting commonly judging by all the towers lining the road there
This began around Four hours after dark on the early night of Sunday 28 April 2024 or exactly 1:00 o'clock
I will first describe exactly what happened and after that separately my interpretation in hindsight when recalling these events three hours later when I can calm down
This is a rather long story so I will get to my point right here before the story
What can I do if I encounter a dog pack like this again except tell at them and calmly leave. What if they hunt me or behave like they are guarding a territory. However remotely that might seems. There is a reason this is a serious crime. Too much uncertainty
Can you confirm that this kind of incessant barking is absolutely impossible in any other animal
In no circumstance whatsoever would any wolf pack or any deer flock behave like this even if I stood right on their den with ten kids inside
The occasional howling is something that dogs still retain from their wolf origin not long ago
It is not unlikely that a pack of hunting dogs alone would howl occasionally
Despite yelling at them several times there was no yell back from a human. Very likely the dogs escape at night without anyone caring about it extremely dangerous and frightening to a hiker that need. Rest at night not the fright of a life time
I could not imagine that in a relatively rich country anyone ever would drive their dogs for a night hunt. Would be absolute insanity. Neglect and alcoholism depression (försupen dumhet Swedish) I can easily imagine. Not outright insanity. Even if night hunting permits are sometimes issued in Germany for "animal control" "population control" of wild pigs. This is a completely separate topic that I will not say more about than that I am working on these issues on and off. My view as a progressive world ambassador could not be further from the idea of shooting at anything anywhere for any reason. Except tranquilizer darts for humane population control of CAPTURED animals not hunted. Captured. It is clear in Sweden that shooting anything anywhere with fire arms does not belong in the future society. Now this is all I will say about this. We are working on this as fast as is possible. The education effort still left on this planet is still enormous and daunting
Regarding dog behaviour in detail I know very little despite inspecting a manuscript by the foremost scientist on the subject that work in Budapest that is most famous for working on the Philippine paradise fish ten years ago before they changed to dogs and removed their aquarium
Dogs in particular have very little room in the professional literature since most pros are not anthropo centric. All mammals share common traits like an early recognition of friend and foe. Dogs in particular has almost never been studied at least not dogs for guarding or hunting. There might be one single work perhaps by one single biologist or behaviour ist ethology biology for shepherds dogs that life with grazing livestock
All books cover territory selection and protection and pack hunting or other flock behaviour. But almost nothing has apparently been possible or interesting to anyone to publish as a professional seeking a career in science in ethology animal behaviour or population biology. so i am not the only one drawing a blank when trying to explain the behaviour with any satisfaction more than anecdotal that is hard to call science

what I experienced

A sudden bark that I expect to be a roe deer that bark and run away. happens all the time
Although the bark was not quite right. more like a dog which I have never encountered at night
Suddenly a roaring festival of barking and occasional howling
The distance is extremely uncertain but perhaps five hundred meters
The direction was towards road p111 to the east toeards Upsede. i am by the big tower. There is one house near the road that the dogs could belong to if they crossed p111
Now my primal instinct set in and I envision a pack, a large pack, of wolves near their den the core of their territory. Frothing over my intrusion and ready to approach in full alarm
In hindsight this is just the occasional howling that caused this and everything about this speaks against wolves
IF wolves can behave like this or has been observed or heard doing this in ANY circumstance whatsoever I absolutely need to hear about it because it would bear on my future expeditions
If there is this single wolf dog hybrid pack maybe only one in Europe that I happened to encounter I absolutely need more information. feral dogs that would possibly go unnoticed in Belarus has crossed over to Latvia?
I have never heard of anything like that
All wolf incidents as rare as they are in Poland or anywhere have been with lone wolves that are sick or hungry and have lost their feir of humans
I have never heard of an aggressive wolf pack in Europe or anywhere on the planet
I have seen wolf droppings so many times and spent so much time day and night in wolf territory that I would never expect them to be so aggressive about human scent or sound like that
I have certainly had wolves near me many times but never heard a peep. In Sweden and Norway on long expeditions all summer and even winter and on and off for years from Spain to France Belgium Germany Poland and now here in the Baltics for one month so far direction Finland
The pack was in full alarm with barking and an occasional howl that dogs will still use. But much less than wolves. Wolves never bark together like this in any circumstance I have ever heard it seen if
It is with near certainty the pack of dogs that have hunted there before that happens to live on the farm on the opposite side of the road and escaped west around thousand metres into the forest.
Perhaps they do this regularly but no one cares
And now I happened to be there
Hiking and trekking and wild camping is MUCH more common in Sweden and Norway than anywhere in the world even Finland that is a close second. It is the Scandinavian spirit. As has recently been proven paleo lithic pre farming humans breed into the farming population only in Scandinavian nowhere else in Europe. I am personally absolutely at peace in nature and hate combustion engines that bother few others
Without getting off track completely I am continuing my expedition around Europe and almost all ground breaking record breaking endeavour of exploration has come from Scandinavia specifically. First settlement of the new world five hundred years before another European country etc etc etc first man on the south pole endless list of did what no one else could ot would. I am not placing my breed on a pedestal just explaining that if anyone would encounter something like this most likely it would be a Swede and the locals are most likely entirely puzzled why I am not living my life in doors at home or in a comfortable guest house
But this is beside the point just a side track to explain my presence in this rare encounter

in hindsight what happened

It is clear to me now that a pack of large hunting dogs. Not the small loud ones. Tax in Swedish. I have never owned a dog or hunted. I am a scientist. So I don't know much of anything about dog breeds. But presumably Large dogs that can hunt and kill on their own that have been trained to not kill the prey but only stalk it or drive it and make a loud alarm to draw the apes (not condescending just scientific classification of my species)
This is all speculation I just can't imagine what I heard to be a pack of tax (Swedish) small rabbit hunting dogs. These were large animals certainly with courage to act alone without humans
But I don't know anything about common hunting dogs in this region or anywhere so I can't suggest what breed it could have been that could behave this way
When I yelled at them they silenced for a moment then the roar continued
They had no intention to move back. I called for a police to meet me on road p111 and moved. I could hear the dogs for one thousand metres which gave me the impression that they moved after me at a safe distance perhaps curious about what I was
Again. If wolves can ever in any circumstance behave with this curiosity or aggressive confidence on human scent AND loud roaring. I yelled at them as a three hundred kilos silver back gorilla would try to show how big and powerful he was. No wolves ever no matter how big their biggest packs are in Europe would do anything but withdraw. These animals stayed at a distance and gave me the impression that they followed me on the road even. But not close
Distance is extremely uncertain but my best guess would be five hundred meters
This location has been used before for hunting and these dogs have been released during supervised legal (presumably) hunting in this exact location
They have smelled or sensed a wild animal and followed it into the forest where they have hunted before

will anyone stop this. how common is this

The police said they would call the nearest farms and ask about their dogs and the hunters that set up the hunting towers there in that old railway road where the dogs live that they bring to hunt there
But unfortunately I don't expect them to do anything when the response is "I know nothing". This is obviously a massive incident since I told them I am a scientist that will likely enquire with other scientist and if they cover this up it will explode big time. this is not s minor incident
Jägarna is a popular Swedish movie about the sad reality of this kind of stuff. anything related to mis management with hunting or dogs is so deeply rooted in human behaviour since the stone age that the local police do anything they can to forget about it. "Probably just a barking deer" or "wolves are common in the forest" and might bark despite my sincere explanation that this is hunting dogs not wolves and carries a prison sentence if heard in front of a magistrate
if you imagine "i like logic circuit design" the absolute opposite is "i like dogs and hunting". it's as different as a von Neumann machine is from sticks and stones in technological achievement. and a massive education effort is still needed for that population should they not cause a complete collapse of civilization like 1930s Germany. you might like NATURE you certainly don't like fire arms or dogs. has nothing to do with investigating nature. it is not conscious behaviour. but only photographers and hunters visit nature? you are obviously not a scientist ("what is this?" looking at bowling ball in small Lebowskis bath room. "you are obviously not a golfer")
I don't expect them to even ask anyone and just hope I forgot about it or they never have any other hikers near that spot at night
The "police report" that I received when they returned from the spot I told them to investigate was exactly that "it was probably just a deer and now I will go home and sleep". that only told ne that the pack had moved or did not respond to a car or they went to the wrong place or most likely could not be less motivated to find them
I gave the female officer that spoke English a stern explanation what would happen in Sweden. Prison. Absolutely nothing else than prison. Grave negligence in dog oversight. No hunting license and no dogs for the rest of his life
This is extremely serious that this is seen as a minor mistake that hunting dogs are stalking wild animals alone at night. Only in Sweden do we understand clearly that HUMANS are in the forest at night sometimes. We have palaeolithic blood lines and the world's foremost paleo biologist among other things. I am a renowned explorer. My father and uncle is one of the world's foremost wildlife photographer for WWF NG etc. Wild life is strictly monitored and controlled and this kind of neglect is absolutely treated with utmost sincerity
Our society is not in a state of civil war. Escaped hunting dogs hunting alone at night. Prison. Period. And the local police that tries to suppress it or treat it with a yawn will be investigated by internal affairs and released from service and prohibited from similar work with a responsibility to investigate seriously
We in sweden have the most aggressive policy in the world to combat this suppression of neglect related to hunting from the local community or any kind of coverup attempt or failure to investigate serious neglect, crime or not, we are not "paragraph riders" (paragraf ryttare) we investigate serious problems. anyone can understand how serious this is before digging after paragraphs

more about dog behaviour in general that might be relevant

Regarding dogs that hunt alone. I will not name any names but I have met a couple that lived in a remote valley in Portugal where their two large extremely aggressive dogs (even after ten minutes they were extremely uncomfortable with my presence and would not listen to their owner's calm regarding my encounter near their caravan on Canary islands) hunt together and bring home food. Literally drag it home to the family. Needless to say they have no kids and I will not say more about it more than the point that large dogs can easily on their own learn to hunt wild game. Possibly several breeds. They are still all close relatives of animals that do exactly that to survive. Guard territory identify intruder stalk and hunt prey is their basic behaviour anything else would result from actively counter acting instinctive behaviour that has become common to convert security staff patrol units and killers to social support animals because morons absolutely need to own a dog
Recall that in less developed countries like Chile dogs bark all night EVERYWHERE and run free in the day
I was in Chile for six months and never encountered dogs at night but had to suffer through the incessant noise if "guarding" at night. EVERYONE has night guard dogs. it is completely incomprehensible if you ever passed first grade with honours that they blindly follow a relict tradition for no other reason. Those dogs are GUARD dogs that have no experience of hunting ever. And when they encounter a human in the forest during their daily adventure they are never aggressive that far away from home
In western Europe outside Spain almost never dogs that bark all night. Same in Latvia. Two weeks in Lithuania don't think I ever heard a dog at night. A welcome serenity from Chile that I just arrived from after completing my record breaking expedition there

My mom (70F) has been suffering from dementia for several years and is in denial. She desperately wants to be a hot twenty-something again and hates the idea she’s aging. She battles the appearance of being old with Botox and surgeries (facelifts, tummy tuck, breast lifts, mommy makeovers).
While she initially was pretty well-off from the wealth she inherited from her parents, she has spent a lot of money fighting nature. She has also spent some pretty substantial sums being romance scammed. We have confronted her as we have become aware of the scams but it has only made her more secretive about how she spends her money. My 4 siblings and I currently have no real insight into her finances.
In the past year, she almost burned her house down by putting a pot holder in the oven. She is a hoarder (pets and things) and her house is a hazard. She also almost burned one of my homes down by leaving a pot holder on a hot stove. She has gotten lost driving, frequently forgets who we are, constantly forgets to take her medicine (or takes it twice) and has run her car into random things.
Calls to her doctor have been basically useless. He did a mini-cog and said that while it evidences she has some memory loss, he was hesitant to start her on meds because she said that she agrees she has memory loss, but it comes from “not talking enough because no one coming to visit her.” My siblings are on the brink of reporting him because his apathetic “medical care” is only bolstering her belief that she’s fine.
To put it lightly, my mother was cruel, abusive, and neglectful to my siblings and I growing up. I was beaten every day of my childhood with a horse crop and put into unsafe situations via her neglect until I ran away from home at 16. While dementia has made her a much kinder person overall, my siblings and I cannot forget our childhoods and cannot allow her to live with us.
While we have all tried confronting her with the evidence of her increasing dementia over the last few years, she has been deeply in denial. Things came to a crescendo this past weekend when my siblings and I went back to gather in our hometown for a sibling’s birthday/Mother’s Day and she wandered off by herself and got lost, lost her phone, and forgot who some of us were. She is still in denial there’s a problem.
Regardless, a situation has come up where a house up the street from mine has come up for sale. My siblings and I have decided that my mother should buy it to be closer to family. I would never allow her to live with me, but I think I could stomach my family and I checking in on her if she lived up the street. This will give her a chance to have a little bit of independence. Unlike her, I live in a walkable city with a multitude of resources for the elderly.
However, she is already bucking a bit because she doesn’t want to leave the town where her boyfriend lives. This man barely gives her the time of day. He flatly refused to live with her (he’s also a hoarder) when she was buying her current house just two years ago. We tried to convince her to move closer when she was in the market for that house but she insisted on moving to his town to be near him. I’m not sure why because he rarely comes to visit. He has also been dismissive of her memory problems and told her that everything she is experiencing is part of normal aging (if you can’t tell, I don’t trust this man and neither do my siblings).
My siblings say if she does not accept the plan and buy the house in my neighborhood, she must go to a nursing home. Overall, her dementia has become a time bomb. We are all sure that the “big event” that will force our hand on action will be here before the end of the year. Yesterday she seemed cool with moving here but today I am pretty sure that the boyfriend is going to become an excuse again (anyone who has dealt with family dementia probably understands the agree/disagree cycle).
I don’t know if I’m looking for advice, support, or I’m just venting on this situation but I would appreciate guidance from anyone who has been in something similar. Sending hugs to anyone else going through this, it fucking sucks.

Ruby groaned as the alarm went off signaling that one of her charges had arrived back from their mission. While troublesome in its own right, what really got under her skin was that she only had one charge at the moment, and that edge lord piece of shit wasn’t supposed to complete his task for AT LEAST another 4 deca-cycles according to the prediction algorithm. Grumbling to herself, she rolled out of bed and poured herself a glass of water to offset the hangover she was trying to recover from.

A few moments later she was gliding down the hall to the meeting room. She knew Jason was going to pitch a fit that she had left him waiting, the self-entitled brat always did think the world revolved around him; but perhaps he should have thought about that before freaking dying so early. If he wanted her to be there to meet him upon death, he could at least have the decency to not die the morning after one of her binges.

Other staff members gave her a wide berth, even if it was a hollow title, she was still technically far above basically anyone else in the pecking order, at least those who had a physical presence within the Agency. She knew they all mocked her behind her back, even divine beings were sadly prone towards gossip. She put the anger at her subordinates/coworkers out of her mind for now; even if she didn’t particularly LIKE Jason, he still didn’t deserve her coming in with baggage.

Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed that she’d arrived in front of the conference room door. She had been mulling over her thoughts, just staring into nothingness, for several minutes before she finally snapped back to the present. With a soft rap on the door, she opened it and floated inside. Jason was lounging, sprawled out on the regally padded chair throne he so fancied.

They exchanged pleasantries before she sat down to go over the mission summary. Upon seeing the cause of death, she had regrettably lost her composure and started to laugh uncontrollably. Her mighty subordinate had been felled by a goblin?! The mighty Jason Alexander Coyle, “mercenary extraordinaire”, had gotten his shit kicked in by a lowly goblin using what looked like a shiny butter knife. Oh, it was just too rich to not laugh at the absurdity.

It took her much longer than she would like to admit, to stop laughing. Jason of course wore a sour look through the entire endeavor. She shrugged it off, she had little doubt that if the same thing had happened to someone else, he would have been right beside her doubled over in laughter. Hell, once he was in a less pissy mood, she might even be able to get him to laugh about it later.

As luck would have it, it appeared that Jason’s actions had been enough to alter the tides of the war. The kingdom, and its divinity, would still lose many to the battles ahead, but Jason had done enough that the Agency could still bill the client for services rendered. As she spoke, she could see the disdain the man had for her, he always complained that she was drunk and reeked of liquor. Sure, that was often true, but he didn’t need to be such a stick in the mud about it all.

She went ahead and authorized the transfer of credits to Jason’s account. As soon as she did so, he opened up the store page and tuned her out. She watched him open up the back-channel site and purchase something, a small part of her wondered who was going to get roasted over the coals this time for allowing their admin privileges to be hacked. She toyed with the idea of bringing up his illegal actions, but truth be told she didn’t really give a shit. The other divinities were far too lax with their security, it had been child's play for one of her previous wards to hack into the Agency’s system and build the black site.

She’d ask him once about the whole thing, didn’t really grasp as much as she would have liked, but basically it functioned by spoofing a handler's credentials. This allowed the user to gain access to encrypted parts of the network, specifically access to certain privileged services that handlers enjoyed and most importantly, access to the mission assignment database. Users could buy and sell restricted or banned goods, and a part of the profits would be siphoned off to her ward’s personal account.

With Jason’s attention otherwise occupied, Ruby went ahead and reviewed the logs for his previous mission. Something about it was nagging at her. She couldn’t put it into words; however, the whole series of events just didn’t feel like ‘bad luck’. Using her divine authority, she rewound events, watching Jason’s lungs unfill with blood and refill with air.

The goblin skulked back to its den of corpses, resheathing the dagger at its hips, and reburied itself underneath the bodies. She let it rewind another few moments before stopping the feed and letting it run at normal time. She watched the goblin, slowly shifting the bodies out of the way, making sure they made no noise when it moved them. Slowly, carefully, it began to creep towards Jason’s exposed back. It drew the blade, again slowly and quietly. It closed the distance making sure to never let Jason see it or to give him any reason to think someone was behind him. Then in a flash of movement it leapt, burying the dagger right into a joint in Jason’s armor. The placement was perfect, no resistance, so the blade sank to the hilt. Allowing it to puncture Jason’s right lung.

Ruby rewound the log once more. This was wrong, very wrong. The goblin was way too good to just be some random grunt. Its movements were too smooth, its aim too precise. No, she was sure of it now, this was not a normal goblin. She focused her attention on the thing, aiming to scan the goblin for abnormalities, the dust covering it offering a surprising level of resistance to her scan. Not enough to stop her from doing what she wanted, but more resistance than she felt was reasonable for the anti-magic powder.

When she finally gained access to the monster’s stat block, her suspicions were proven correct. That was no normal goblin, that was a Redcap, a Redcap assassin no less. What in the dozen hells was a Redcap assassin doing in the middle of a freaking battlefield?! Such a valuable unit wouldn’t be used on the front lines, their skill set was terribly suited for the chaos that was an active battle. No, something was very wrong here and Ruby was going to figure out what.

As her mind raced trying to puzzle out what the actual fuck was going on, something else about the goblin flagged in her mind. It had come out of the corpse pile with the dagger already in its possession. She highlighted the various bodies that had made up the goblin's hidey hole, and then rewound the scene back. Every time one of the highlighted bodies met their fate, she froze the moment and pulled the scene into a separate window. It took a few minutes, but she eventually had all of the corpses frozen in the heartbeat before their deaths. She went through and scanned every single individual. Not a single one had been equipped with a magic disruptor blade. “So, where the fuck did the Redcap get a kingdom issued disruptor?”

Looking up, she saw that Jason was still fiddling with whatever it was that he bought. She tried to make idle conversation with the man, but he had gone full auto pilot, giving curt one-to-two word answers when asked a question or having to respond to a comment. She rolled her eyes, as much as she and him butted heads, she did have to admit that she did kind of like the guy. He had been going a little too hard into the whole dark and brooding edge lord thing recently, but that was hardly his fault. The human soul was ill suited to withstand the trauma of death, much less multiple deaths. The Agency usually did a memory scrub every couple missions, to prevent that kind of issue, but Jason had been dodging the screenings. For a moment she considered just letting sleeping dogs lie. Jason was dead and the mission was over regardless of what she might find, but the whole thing just rubbed her the wrong way.

Taking a little nip from her pocket flask, she once more focuses her attention on the Redcap. After scrubbing through the last several months of the creature’s life, she finally finds what she was looking for. The blade had come from one of Jason’s personal guards.

Ruby did a deep dive on the guard, and what came back made her blood run cold. The man had recently lost his lover. Jason had ordered a company to mop up a fleeing enemy force, before it could regroup and cause more issues. The entire thing had been a ruse and the company had been slaughtered to the last. The guard's lover had been part of that company. The loss had hit the man hard, driving him to the only rock left in his life. His deep belief in the kingdom’s divinity.

And wouldn’t you know it, apparently the kingdom’s divinity had some issues with Jason that it couldn’t be bothered to address through the proper channels. So instead of letting Ruby handle the trainwreck that was Jason’s social skills, this little scum lord of a God, had taken upon themself to deal with the issue. Several months of holy visions were enough to convince the grieving widow to betray everyone and everything he had ever known.

Once the guard had been properly brainwashed into turning his coat, it had been a simple matter to worm his way on to all of Jason’s post-fight surveys of the battlefield. The magic scanners that were exclusive to Jason’s retinue, had allowed him to see that Jason’s inhuman ability to avoid taking damage was really just a creative use of high-level magic. High-level magic that could have easily been used to save many of the kingdom’s soldiers. But of course, Jason believed himself too good to give the common man a means to protect themselves and those they loved. All this knowledge was of course worthless to the guard, he was nowhere near skilled enough to actually challenge Jason. But wouldn’t you know it, the divinity had thought of that too.

The podunk worm had brokered a secret deal with the enemy he’d contracted the Agency to deal with. In exchange for getting rid of a thorn in the God’s side, it would use its powers to scale back the war. Instead of facing a war of eradication, the enemy would be allowed to keep some of the land it had conquered.

At the urging of his God, the guard held a series of clandestine meetings with the Redcap. Imparting all the information he had learned in the months of shadowing Jason. He also gave the beast two gifts, the first was a Disruptor blade the guard had swiped from a fellow honor guard; when Jason’s corpse was found the blade would be traced back to the unfortunate guard instead of the traitor. The second was a satchel of Grarothian powder that had been blessed by the divinity, to ensure that Jason wouldn’t see the attack coming. It had worked of course; Jason hadn’t even known he was in danger till the blade was already buried in his lung. Oh, she was going to have the wannabe God’s head on a pike after this.

It pained her to admit it, but Jason deserved the final say in how this was all going to go down. She attempted to grab his attention, but the man was lost in his own little world. She tried waving her hands, ignored. She tried snapping her fingers in his ears, ignored. She even went so far as to beat her wings, blasting his face with the wind force of just under a category 1 hurricane; again ignored. Her rage was starting to reach fever pitch. So, she defaulted to the most tried and true method of stress reduction she had in her arsenal. She decided the only way for herself and Jason, once he knew the truth, to calm down would be to relax with a drink of the finest Earth treats.

With a heavy heart she opened up her most beloved extra planer storage space. This place was used for the only two things Ruby really cared about anymore. It was where she kept her most prized and coveted liquor, and where she kept the last few mementos, she possessed of her fallen wards. Her eyes scanned the room, she needed to pick the right apology gift. As she carefully made her way towards the back, she saw it. Tucked in about two thirds of the way to the back wall, stood a single hogshead of ancient scotch whiskey. The second to last gift she had received from one of her dearest friends, all those years ago.

Yes, this was the correct one. She felt it deep within her chest, a proper atonement requires a proper level of sacrifice. With a heavy heart she lifted the barrel over her head and began to stride out of the extra dimensional space. As she neared the opening, the soft clink of something falling and a flash of gold caught her eye. Sitting on a tiny end table was a small pouch of coins, one of which had somehow gotten loose and tumbled face up onto the polished table face.

For a moment she hesitated, she knew exactly what those coins were; and knew how much trouble she would get into if upper management found out she had them. That said, she also knew a sign when she saw one. The artifacts that she held within this place were the last remnants of those she had failed most of all. She pondered the meaning behind the fact that two of her previous charges seemed to have taken a shine to Jason, offering up to him their most precious of gifts. With a heavy heart and a plea to those long lost, she grabbed the coin before closing the pocket dimension.

With a loud *CLUNK* She set the hogshead down. Apparently, the sound of the barrel had finally made enough noise to draw Jason’s attention away from his screen. From a much smaller storage pocket she produced two crystal glasses. Pouring a hefty serving into each glass, she set one down in front of herself and the other in front of Jason. Locking eyes with the man, she said a single word.

“Drink”

The man twisted his face up in disgust at the sight of the liquor.

“Thanks, but no thanks, I’m not inclined to degr...”

“I said, DRINK!” Ruby growl bellows, casting the Command spell on the last word. Jason, despite his best efforts to ignore the compulsion, is forced to do as he is told, and takes a hearty swig of his hundred-year-old Scotch. With a smile on her lips, Ruby takes the opportunity to sip the illustrious gift. The hours melt away as they both sip and savor the deep complex flavors of this legendary brew.

As the drink flows her recollection of events becomes just a tad bit hazy. She can’t really remember how long it takes, but she does eventually come clean about the reason for this impromptu bout of drinking. It comes as little shock that Jason is... less than pleased to learn about the events that led to his death. He downs the rest of his drink in a single gulp, a waste of grand booze in Ruby’s opinion, and demands she fill his next one to the brim. For the first time in FAR too long, Ruby gets to see the Jason she had known all those years ago was still in there.

As the festivities carried on, she would occasionally catch him fiddling with the token he had bought. Curiosity finally getting the better of her, she decided to ask him about it, deciding to NOT mention that she knew it was illicitly purchased. He was cagey about it at first, but eventually loosened up and told her the truth.

He had grown bored with the usual missions that he had been assigned. He was sick of always having to play support, always cleaning up someone else’s messes, always laying the groundwork for someone else’s story. So, he had decided to cash in his points, and finally make use of the vacation time he had accrued. He had picked out what looked to be a pretty basic Isekai mission. Ruby suggested not mentioning his luck to anyone else, even she was aware how rare and coveted those missions were.

As the night wound to a close, they said their goodbyes. Before taking her leave, Ruby remembered the other present she had for Jason. A sharp whistle was the only warning she gave him before flicking the coin at his head. Even drunk, the man’s senses were still a thing to marvel at as he caught it in midair .

“The fuck is this?”

“Think of it as a gift.” She snorts.

“Oh, how generous of you. A whole gold coin, whatever will I spend it on.” Jason responds as he jangles the large coin pouch at his hip.

“Oh, fuck off. I’ll take it back if you’re going to be a brat about it.”

Jason drops the coin into his wallet and shakes it again for good measure. “Oops, too late now. Guess you’ll just have to let me keep it.” He gives her a smug grin.

She scoffed before turning around and making for the door. She could hear him activate the token as she closed the door behind her. As she wandered down the hallways back to her room, she pondered the events of the day. The rogue client would need to be dealt with, but she still wasn’t sure if burying him in legal paperwork for the next millennia or two, or just giving him a good old fashion human curb stomping, was the better punishment for his actions.

The choices bounced around in her head till she finally reached her residence. Having made no real progress in deciding her actions, she elected to just table the decision till she woke up next. The God was small time, so it wasn’t like it was going anywhere.

She took her time getting ready to sleep. Being a divine being herself, she didn’t actually NEED to sleep, but she did so enjoy the human customs surrounding the whole process. She took a long hot bath to unwind, before summoning a pair of adorable pajamas. Her body clean, and her mind at peace she laid down in her oversized excessively fluffy bed.

She had barely closed her eyes and began to drift off to blissful sleep, before she was awoken once again by the sound of her alarm going off.

“You have got to be shitting me. HOW?!?!”

Yesterday I lost it at my 3yo daughter. She’s been sick the poor thing. I’m also getting sick and am also pregnant. Running low on sleep, not taking my ADHD meds due to pregnancy (a personal choice) and feel out of whack with everything. Yesterday my daughter refused to take her medicine. It is a nightmare getting her to take it. I was home alone with her. I tried everything with her and then long story short, I ended up having a meltdown in front of her. I ended up spraying the medicine all over us in a fit of rage and started pretty much scream/crying like a nutcase. “Just take the bloody medicine! Just take the bloody medicine!” I looked crazy. I WAS crazy. This is maybe the second major meltdown I’ve had in front of her. She started crying too and saying “I’m sorry mama, I’m so sorry mama”. I instantly held her and repeated i’m sorry over and over again, mummy shouldn’t have yelled, I’m so sorry etc.
I spoke to her a few times trying to explain to her that mummy was so upset that she burst and she was tired and it wasn’t right. I spoiled her rotten the rest of the day. I feel so so so guilty about it. Every time I remember it I cry. Today I read her a book about anger and said sorry to her again. She said mummy went crazy yesterday! And I felt terrible but I just hugged her and said sorry again. I should probably not bring it up again, I know. I want her to forget about it. I just want her to love me. I love her so much, i don’t want to fuck her up.
I have a lot of trauma from childhood with the way I was raised and am trying to break the cycle but it’s so fucking hard. I’ve been to a number of psychologists and nothings really ever helped. I just sometimes have meltdowns. I’m too scared to take my ADHD meds while pregnant. I know a lot of people do, I just don’t want to. I know they’ll help me but I’m scared it’ll affect the baby and my psychiatrist recommended I don’t. Idk. I feel like a failure of a mum. This baby is killing me and I’m exhausted all the time. I feel so guilty.

Just got dumped by the guy I really wanted to settle down with a few days ago. We were always talking about getting a house together, and having children. He would laugh at me because the names I thought of for our future child sounded too exotic.
I really loved him and I think he loved me too. He would do things for me if I couldn’t sometimes, pick me up from my campus at school, and bring me home every time we went out, no matter how tired he was.
But… with good comes bad. When he got angry, he would be someone else. I wouldn’t even recognise him. He would get angry and shout at me, scream at me, and call me all sorts of unpleasant things
We often fought because I didn’t like how he handled these emotions. For context, he is a troubled man. He has family issues and baggage from the previous relationships he was in. So I understand if he feels the need to want to know where I am or check my phone.
But… a while ago, he had broken up with me- multiple times. Each time he broke up with me guys would come my way and start to want to hang out with me. I accepted the invite for a few. When we came back, he asked if I had gone out with any guys and I said yes.
He went beserk. Really just balls to the walls. He started to get controlling. He restricted my career, took control of my social media, and took control of my whole life. He became really unstable and cheated on me too, saying that he’s just serving me back what I served him.
But he broke up with me before I even went out with these people. Is that cheating? Even more recently, fights have been escalating. He went missing for a while and came back saying he had Korean Barbecue with a girl, who then he allowed to give him a blowjob.
He would always also ask for money, even though he earned more than me. He also would always ask me to apologise in ridiculous ways, and talked about how bad of a person I was all the time, that I was a whore for going out with other guys when HE broke up with me.
Because of how much this is to handle emotionally, I stopped feeling as much for him and lost a lot of attraction for him. I still love him, this I know, but it’s harder to love him to the extent I loved him at before because of this. If we reconcile, is this fixable?

Hi everybody,
Long-time lurker here. I'm currently 20 years old, and would like some insight into my portfolio and next steps from here.
I want to follow the Boglehead three-fund principle, although honestly, without the bond portion. I feel I'm too young to need this reduced risk (especially considering I have an emergency cash fund anyway).
My ROTH IRA is maxed out for this year: 80% FSKAX and 20% FTIHX.

• Will I be able to move these to a non-Fidelity account without having to liquidate/sell all my positions? (Not that I'll need to, I'd just like to have the option of doing so in case!)
• Do you recommend any other funds for serving the purposes each one fills?
  • Like another total market fund? Or should I ditch FSKAX and invest in FXAIX to just track the S&P 500 instead?
• Any other insights into these positions is super helpful...as of right now, I simply lump sum into the account on the first day of the year and buy the entirety of my position as I've seen evidence that lump-sum investing will typically yield better long-term returns than DCAing. Please lmk if this is not the optimal strategy!

I also have an emergency fund (in an HYSA) that covers more than six months of expenses. I'd like to park the rest of my money in a taxable brokerage account (also with Fidelity).
I'm honestly pretty lost here. Right now, I believe I will opt for buying FSKAX and FTIHX (again, lol) and leaving it to grow for a long period, but I just wanted to confirm that this is the most tax-efficient fund to choose. If anyone has any advice or guidance on how to understand the tax efficiency of one fund versus another, I'd also really appreciate such resources (I'm trying and struggling to grasp the concept myself; I feel like I just wrapped my head around an optimal IRA strategy).
Thanks everybody, I appreciate your help in advance! P.S. I'll be back relatively soon; I just received a letter from my summer internship company about the 401K and match they're giving me for the summer, and it seems that's a whole other beast. Cheers!

Pitch
Recruiting 4 Sorcerers (Magic not from entity or study) Only;

• Willing to deeply homebrew characters
• Three sessions -> Campaign for good fit
• Su@12p-4p EST

Thou were not born of thy own choosing
Whence you grieve, cry, or laugh
Tis as if you bring tragedy, rain or sunlight
Unexplained happenings follow you
And if anyone knows what you really are
They will kill you ..
Hide yourself, and silence your heart
Hunters seek those like you for in this world
.. You are monsters
Our story begins with the plights of your characters and how they were able to overcome them .. Or how they were succumbed to
You discover the nature of your afflictions .. And now you must survive
The world hunts sorcerers like dogs hunt confused and lost birds
But if a lost bird lives long enough to be found. It may spread it's wings and fly
Good luck
Introduction
Hello, my name is Inkh-Su (인수). I have been roleplaying since 2009 and started playing D&D 2018. I am hoping that you will be interested in my homebrew world of Myhrr. It is a work of consistent passion. I have passed 50 pages of content and have handcrafted over 30 explorable cities, tile-by-tile.
Myhrr is a living world developed by the DM, and a story lead by the players.
I prefer players who want to emotionally invest in NPCs, their party members, and their own characters. My aim is to naturally draw characters together into an interweaving story of relationships, action, and heroism.
My five main inspirations are The Books of Magic, Berserk, Merlin, Odin Sphere & The Last Unicorn.
I adhere to rules that maximize your exploration and sense of curiosity. I don't try to predict players, I just adapt to their actions. I study player strengths & weaknesses to spotlight them and write a balanced story. Depending on backstory, I grant geographical, social, and historical information.
Much of the world is a medieval, war-torn, feudalist place that has just found a respite from war. Power wavers with uncertainty, under the constant threat that war will return. Nobles attempt to secure peace alongside bloodstained battlegrounds. Royalty seizes power by sword, flame, accusation and subterfuge.
Whilst the faith in currency is unshaken, Trade is unstable. Promises are rare. The hunt of witches, warlocks, wizards and druids is ceaseless in a war against the unholy forces of magic and devilry.
Myhrr is plagued with economic inequality and xenophobia. Whilst half-orcs, tieflings, and goblins are capable of citizenship they are treated as second class citizens. Faced with the constant truths of their loathsome origins, demonic history, and biological differences they find little respite among other races.
Where half/elves are constantly bombarded with opportunity, these marginalized races find none.
Dungeons in the world are difficult to find. One requires research of the hundreds of books in the world, or a quick tongue and a fast blade, to take such information. Yet there are riches, power, and secrets hidden away behind the abominations of the deep and the traps that lay within. Those who seek answers in the hidden places of the world are at true risk of death or worse.
Think fast or die, traps don't wait and neither do monsters.
The core of every event lies a mystery. A quandary of history, social intrigue and chasing after evidence. Ancient secrets, political dealings, and criminal ones. The world's history is extensive but only a player who wishes to know the lore of the world will discover it.
One of the things I'm proud of in my game are its people. I've been roleplaying for over a decade and believe that every NPC will have more depth than any player will care about. Ingrained into the world and its culture; they have fears, desires and interact with an intelligence befitting of their environment.
Magic comes with a constant emotional and social contract. Only four classes are considered magical. Sorcerer, Druid, Warlock, and Wizard. All other classes use non-magical flavored versions of their spells. Each class uses magic uniquely, yet none of it is as reliable as sword or bow. Magic, no matter it's origin, has a will of its own.
Most cultures believe sorcery, druidry, and wizardry to be witchcraft.
Sorcerers do not have control over their innate power without having control over their own hearts. Druids must build a true relationship with nature and balance. Warlocks are required to debate and negotiate with cruel devils. Wizards are mysterious and grow in power as they follow a path of wonder.
The world has several holidays and I'd love to watch your character celebrate too.
Finally, the game is played with a flowing system of time. Time moves regardless of what your character is or isn't doing. Players who act quickly, describe their actions, act their dialogue and invest their hearts will quickly find themselves escaping the arm of mere RAW rules and mechanics.
I am rewarded by players who will sit after a game and theorize about NPCs, History and Intentions and have plans on how they want to act on the world. Reactive players are alright, but players who develop a judgment and work to act on that judgment are rewarded.
I am also rewarded by characters who act on and with emotionality to NPCs and with each other. My favorite moments are listening to the building moment of character clashes and support when they make discoveries that reveal pieces of themselves and each other.
World:

• Five Deities are confirmed fact
• One gold crown can buy a farm
• Literacy is rare and valuable
• Magic is feared, for it is fearful
• Xenophobia is alive and strong
• Guilty until proven popular is justice
• Evil is real, Orcs, Warlocks and Devils are Evil
• Printing Press is not yet invented

Game:

• Low Fantasy, a medieval setting with few magical elements
• Start Lv1
• LGBTQQIP2SAA friendly
• Session 0 required
• 4hr minimum sessions
• Available Races: Human, Elf, Half-Elf, Dwarf, Half-Dwarf, Dragonborn, Half-Orc, Halfling, Tiefling, Kenku, Goblin, Leonin, Minotaur
• Available Classes: Sorcerer
• VTT: Web-based
• Required: Chrome/Firefox + Discord + DNDBeyond + Microphone + Headphones
• Schedule: Su@12p-4p EST
• Game Start: As players are ready
• DM calls DCs && Open rolls

Table Culture:

• Roleplay & immersion heavy
• Mature, supportive & collaborative play is required to join

If you're interested:
Send me a chat with

• Age / Pronouns / Timezone
• A general character personality & motivation pitch
• An activity your character would initiate with a party
• In your opinion, what makes a good/bad playeDM
• What is your opinion of Magic in a setting where it’s demonized ?
• What does Magic mean to you ?
• Describe when you’ve connected with another party member
• Describe an example of environmental creative problem solving
• Does your character create ? If so, how are they creative ?
• What emotional state does your character often find themselves ?
• Discord handle

Looking forward to hearing from you : ]

Hey guys,
So this is my first post because I’ve typed some up before, but managed to delete it.
Long story short.
I was with my ex partner for 3 years and I couldn’t cope with the abuse. I left him, he turned up at my house and sexual abuse occurred. Sexual abuse went on the whole 3 years and I’m traumatised from the relationship.
I chose to keep the baby, however I’m living in deep regret. I don’t have any real family to help, no friends, and I don’t know what to do anymore.
I wake up every day, every day! And I cry. Because I shouldn’t have kept him, I should have got an abortion and be done with it.
If I’d had known I’d have lost my life, my looks, my money, my personality, my soul.. for a child I never really wanted.. I’d have just gotten rid. I kept him because I wanted to let him live. However I can’t go back now and I feel there’s no way out.
I’m not the best at typing how I feel properly, so it’s abit hard to get what I feel across.
I just want to mention, I’m the full time cater and I have 0 days off. No time to rest, no time to re charge.
Totally burnout and depressed!!! Please any advice will help!

Hi, I have a problem where my various game launchers (Ubisoft connect, Epic games and steam) will not start. They worked perfectly fine up to yesterday (I played with friends literally yesterday night). They do the "Looking for updates" thing and then just say that the connection Is lost. My internet works perfectly fine and my roomate's steam and Ubisoft connect work perfectly. I just did a speed test and we have a 194 Mbit/s download speed and a 282 Mbit/s upload speed (I found that weird because I'm used to upload speed being quite a bit lower but I'm far from knowledgable in this so I don't know maybe it's not weird). I was looking for the answer and a reddit post popped up but my PC will not load reddit, while every other site I try has no problem. Virtuale Tabletops, YouTube, Netflix and similar sites all work. I already tried closing the launchers from the task manager and I already tried restarting my PC and my modem. They are also already checked to work with Windows Defender and Windows firewall. I don't know what else to do.

Hey guys! I know this is a topic that’s commonly talked about but I wanted to share my experience. For context, I grew up chubbier and lost my weight at 14 through diet changes before starting birth control, I went from 200 to about 135 at the end of it. From 14-15 I was on combined bc pills (since May 2019) and I didn’t notice anything major beyond weight maintenance and bigger boobs despite being skinnier. Then, I stopped the pills (March 2020) because my boyfriend broke up with me at 15 hahaha. So about a year I was on the pill for. Anyway, a few months went by before I got in another relationship so I didn’t take anything. I gained weight, felt puffy, etc. but nothing too too bad and my clothes still fit. Once I got in a relationship in October 2020, I decided to try the Kyleena IUD, because I liked the idea of not needing to take pills. I was on it for 3 and a half years and stopped it this January 2024. When on both kinds of birth control I never exceeded 145 pounds. And even when I gained weight after initially stopping the pills, I didn’t exceed 160. When I got on the IUD i regulated once again and lost weight. Lowest I was on kyleena was 126 but I have a theory it’s because weed was anti inflammatory for me because I used for two years on IUD before quitting. I’ll admit, I do eat junk but nothing could’ve prepared me for the weight gain since January 2024. I’ve gained almost 50 pounds. No major changes to diet. I even go to the gym now and eat high protein and have definitely maintained a caloric deficit. My boobs are purple and I have stretch marks everywhere. I know it’s silly but I can’t even look at myself let alone prepare for summer clothes this year. I don’t want to go back on birth control but there’s no sign of this changing. I know it’s been 4 months but it just seems like everything is plummeting. I take thyroid and cycle supplements, and prenatals solely because they contain more of what you need than regular ones. Does anyone have this iud experience? My doctor thinks my panels will come back normal. I want to try to balance my hormones naturally but idk.

In this edition of “Odd Titanica”, we are going to dive into the sleazy, opportunistic world of show business. A world that comedian Fred Allen said of, “you can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly, and still have room for three caraway seeds and a producer’s heart”. Hyperbolic? Let’s take a look at Hollywood’s response to the Titanic disaster to see that there really is no business like show business.
Dorothy Gibson and the lost, first, film are well worn trivia by now. The traumatized actress rushed into production, her inability to process her trauma causing her mental breakdown, collapse, and retirement from acting immediately after the film was finished - it’s a perfect story to demonstrate the callousness of the film industry. But there is more to the story, and digging deeper shows us that “Saved” may have been the least sleazy project undertaken by the studios.
Dorothy’s account of the sinking and the suffering she endured filming “Saved from the Titanic” are predominantly found in two sources - The New York Dramatic Mirror and Moving Picture World. These were trade magazines, published weekly, and consisting solely of material related to the stage and screen business. These would be announcements of upcoming features, casting news, celebrity gossip, technical news - anything the movie star to the man sweeping the floor at the cinema needed to know. And they included ads … lots and lots of ads.
Immediately realizing that Titanic was not only a horrible tragedy but an incredible business opportunity, Moving Picture World got to work. As people stormed White Star Line offices, and raided newspaper carts for any drop of news regarding the sinking, Moving Picture World provided the latest in Titanic news; or perhaps we should say “Titanic” news.
The headlines of the April 27th issue may have screamed TITANIC, but as the public grabbed their copy and hurriedly flipped through the pages, they found that what they were actually given was ads. Those eye grabbing headlines were followed by much smaller print-
TITANIC EFFORTS... are being exerted by Champion to put before the exhibitors that will make them regular Champ Patrons! Get the following latest [releases] and you’ll be convinced!.
UNSINKABLE … is the reputation of Rep productions, but these two releases will sink into the minds of everyone who sees them and will remain there as worthy object lessons.
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN …suggested by the poem of Elizabeth Barret Browning in 2 reels this Tuesday!
THE GREATEST MOTION PICTURE OF NATIONAL INTEREST - THE SINKING OF…. the big battleship. Remember the Maine!
THE DEATH SHIP...a sensational two reel drama of the sea containing one of the most thrilling dynamite explosions imaginable!
For all the slimy marketing tricks, flipping through the pages still has plenty of legitimate ads for real Titanic newsreels, movies, and a specific type of presentation known a Myriorama involving painting, music, and recitation. But, show business would strike again - the ads were legitimate, but what they were advertising was not. History has sort of forgotten the huge demand for Titanic media in the wake of the sinking, something that didn’t really exist. When cinema owners would order these “only surviving genuine negatives of the disaster” complete with lobby display package, they instead received-

our astonishment to find the Lusitania and Olympic, and one or two scratch films of ancient days posing as pictures of Titanic.

But they didn’t stop. Animated Weekly advertised that they were “the first to reach the wreck… chartered a tug from Cape Breton and rushed to the scene while the survivors were still in the water”. Cinemas began to promote footage of the sinking. Audiences wrote their disgust to Moving Picture World-

These representations are to the point of criminality … Take, for instance, the picture showing the Titanic with about a sixth of her forward length stuck into the iceberg. Everybody knows the collision did not occur in that manner!

They pointed to the following ad as an example - FIRST PICTURES OF THE TITANIC OCEAN DISASTER. The cinema owners responded by noting that they had misread, crammed in tiny letters were the words “sunk in” so that ad actually read FIRST PICTURES OF THE TITANIC sunk in OCEAN DISASTER. It was the customer's fault, they said, to be stupid enough to think anyone could have actually filmed the sinking.
Once this ruse was discovered, the studios shifted gears. The next step was to advertise film along with presentations by “A Lecturer who was on board”. When the audience realized the lecturer was not on Titanic and demanded a refund - the response from the managers was

Those signs didn’t say he was a survivor.

… and any attempt to charge him with the crime of fraud was absurd because, in his own words-

Of course I didn’t give him his money back. The sign didn’t misrepresent anything. West was on the Titanic, the sign didn’t say when he was.

…which was true. The lecturer, Eugene West, had visited Titanic while she was under construction at Belfast.
As for the movies themselves?

We said we had pictures. If people were foolish enough to think we meant moving pictures, that was their fault.

This particular cheated audience member was told if he wanted his money back, to go on the street and sing for it. Whether it was this, or something else, eventually the public snapped and began hauling out cinema managers and beating them in the streets. By May, the mayors of Boston and Memphis had banned the showing of any Titanic pictures - moving or still- within the city.
But, where was Dorothy in all this? Tucked in the very back of the magazine, after another newsreel ad,, we get to the celebrity sighting and gossip section. Ed Lux of the Rex Film Exchange was in town, Dan Markowitz of Fox Pictures was as well, Arthur Schmidt of the Victor Film Company was seen having a lovely spa at a Turkish Bath, Sam Gobel of the St Louis Motion Picture Company has been walking up and down 42nd street, we don’t know if Southern film maker Henry Wasserman is still here but he might be, Dorothy Gibson survived the sinking of the Titanic, and the Director of Selig Pictures took some actresses to Santa Catalina for a swim and a photoshoot and they had a great time.
By the following edition, on May 2nd, Moving Picture World was also able to provide its readers with the first stills from “Saved from the Titanic” and a feature on Dorothy. Along with this, tucked in the editorials, the magazine finally published a piece of truthful news about the Titanic disaster-

Senator William Alden Smith … declined to grant permission to have the cinematopgraph make a record of the sessions of the committee. “The sessions” he is quoted as saying…”are solemn affairs and must not be hippodromed or commercialized”. He is, however, falling into a serious error in judgement-

…they sniffed.

As a matter of right, the camera man ought to have been permitted. The day of the enfranchisement of the motion picture will surely come .. which will give equal rights to the cinematographer and the newspaper man.

Then, among the illegal false advertising and reports of public brawls at the cinema, they ended with-

The lesson of the Titanic disaster and all its incidents can be made far more impressive by pictures that move than by mere words in cold letters.

Hi, so recently I got a position as a frontend dev at a startup with 1 week of probation. I was initially weirded out by the time frame though, as I have only heard of about probation periods of 3-6 months.
So, after completing the probation period that started last week and should have been upto this sunday, where I worked on both the weekends (it would have been my 1st job, except internships & me being a little scared to loose an opportunity in this market). Today I lost access to the work email and git repository. The founder, with whom I was talking to everyday started ghosting me. I received the termination email at the work email whose access I had already lost LMAO, citing low performance. I don't even fully understood what the company actually did. They never briefed me. I asked time and time again. When I was working, the code was in a very bad state, and coming from a fresher you can guess the horrible site I saw. I tried to improve it the best I could while working on tickets the best I could.
I feel really lost right now and disappointed about this situation as a whole. I don't know how to face my parents now... I feel like I would move on from this incident really quickly. And I know what to do, DSA, study, projects, apply, prep interviews. But I have lost confidence that I would be able to work anymore. Just wanted someone to hear me. That's all.
P.S.: I'll share my predicament with family tonight. How FUN!!
TLDR: Title + feeling lost + wish me luck for the future

In this edition of “Odd Titanica”, we are going to dive into the sleazy, opportunistic world of show business. A world that comedian Fred Allen said of, “you can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly, and still have room for three caraway seeds and a producer’s heart”. Hyperbolic? Let’s take a look at Hollywood’s response to the Titanic disaster to see that there really is no business like show business.
Dorothy Gibson and the lost, first, film are well worn trivia by now. The traumatized actress rushed into production, her inability to process her trauma causing her mental breakdown, collapse, and retirement from acting immediately after the film was finished - it’s a perfect story to demonstrate the callousness of the film industry. But there is more to the story, and digging deeper shows us that “Saved” may have been the least sleazy project undertaken by the studios.
Dorothy’s account of the sinking and the suffering she endured filming “Saved from the Titanic” are predominantly found in two sources - The New York Dramatic Mirror and Moving Picture World. These were trade magazines, published weekly, and consisting solely of material related to the stage and screen business. These would be announcements of upcoming features, casting news, celebrity gossip, technical news - anything the movie star to the man sweeping the floor at the cinema needed to know. And they included ads … lots and lots of ads.
Immediately realizing that Titanic was not only a horrible tragedy but an incredible business opportunity, Moving Picture World got to work. As people stormed White Star Line offices, and raided newspaper carts for any drop of news regarding the sinking, Moving Picture World provided the latest in Titanic news; or perhaps we should say “Titanic” news.
The headlines of the April 27th issue may have screamed TITANIC, but as the public grabbed their copy and hurriedly flipped through the pages, they found that what they were actually given was ads. Those eye grabbing headlines were followed by much smaller print-
TITANIC EFFORTS are being exerted by Champion to put before the exhibitors that will make them regular Champ Patrons! Get the following latest [releases] and you’ll be convinced!.
UNSINKABLE … is the reputation of Rep productions, but these two releases will sink into the minds of everyone who sees them and will remain there as worthy object lessons.
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN …suggested by the poem of Elizabeth Barret Browning in 2 reels this Tuesday!
** THE GREATEST MOTION PICTURE OF NATIONAL INTEREST - THE SINKING OF**…. the big battleship. Remember the Maine!
THE DEATH SHIP...a sensational two reel drama of the sea containing one of the most thrilling dynamite explosions imaginable!
For all the slimy marketing tricks, flipping through the pages still has plenty of legitimate ads for real Titanic newsreels, movies, and a specific type of presentation known a Myriorama involving painting, music, and recitation. But, show business would strike again - the ads were legitimate, but what they were advertising was not.
History has sort of forgotten the huge demand for Titanic media in the wake of the sinking, something that didn’t really exist. When cinema owners would order these “only surviving genuine negatives of the disaster” complete with lobby display package, they instead received-

our astonishment to find the Lusitania and Olympic, and one or two scratch films of ancient days posing as pictures of Titanic.

But they didn’t stop. Animated Weekly advertised that they were “the first to reach the wreck… chartered a tug from Cape Breton and rushed to the scene while the survivors were still in the water”. Cinemas began to promote footage of the sinking. Audiences wrote their disgust to Moving Picture World-

These representations are to the point of criminality … Take, for instance, the picture showing the Titanic with about a sixth of her forward length stuck into the iceberg. Everybody knows the collision did not occur in that manner!

They pointed to the following ad as an example - FIRST PICTURES OF THE TITANIC OCEAN DISASTER. The cinema owners responded by noting that they had misread, crammed in tiny letters were the words “sunk in” so that ad actually read FIRST PICTURES OF THE TITANIC sunk in OCEAN DISASTER. It was the customers fault, they said, to be stupid enough to think anyone could have actually filmed the sinking.
Once this ruse was discovered, the studios shifted gears. The next step was to advertise film along with presentations by “A Lecturer who was on board”. When the audience realized the lecturer was not on Titanic and demanded a refund - the response from the managers was

Those signs didn’t say he was a survivor.

… and any attempt to charge him with the crime of fraud was absurd because, in his own words-

Of course I didn’t give him his money back. The sign didn’t misrepresent anything. West was on the Titanic, the sign didn’t say when he was.

…which was true. The lecturer, Eugene West, had visited Titanic while she was under construction at Belfast.
As for the movies themselves?

We said we had pictures. If people were foolish enough to think we meant moving pictures, that was their fault.

This particular cheated audience member was told if he wanted his money back, to go on the street and sing for it. Whether it was this, or something else, eventually the public snapped and began hauling out cinema managers and beating them in the streets. By May, the mayors of Boston and Memphis had banned the showing of any Titanic pictures - moving or still- within the city.
But, where was Dorothy in all this? Tucked in the very back of the magazine, after another newsreel ad,, we get to the celebrity sighting and gossip section. Ed Lux of the Rex Film Exchange was in town, Dan Markowitz of Fox Pictures was as well, Arthur Schmidt of the Victor Film Company was seen having a lovely spa at a Turkish Bath, Sam Gobel of the St Louis Motion Picture Company has been walking up and down 42nd street, we don’t know if Southern film maker Henry Wasserman is still here but he might be, Dorothy Gibson survived the sinking of the Titanic, and the Director of Selig Pictures took some actresses to Santa Catalina for a swim and a photoshoot and they had a great time.
By the following edition, on May 2nd, Moving Picture World was also able to provide its readers with the first stills from “Saved from the Titanic” and a feature on Dorothy. Along with this, tucked in the editorials, the magazine finally published a piece of truthful news about the Titanic disaster-

Senator William Alden Smith … declined to grant permission to have the cinematopgraph make a record of the sessions of the committee. “The sessions” he is quoted as saying…”are solemn affairs and must not be hippodromed or commercialized”. He is, however, falling into a serious error in judgement-

…they sniffed.

As a matter of right, the camera man ought to have been permitted. The day of the enfranchisement of the motion picture will surely come .. which will give equal rights to the cinematographer and the newspaper man.

Then, among the illegal false advertising and reports of public brawls at the cinema, they ended with-

The lesson of the Titanic disaster and all its incidents can be made far more impressive by pictures that move than by mere words in cold letters.

TW: Previous Loss
To be fair I’ve had anxiety throughout this pregnancy. I’m a FTM and have had one miscarriage and one chemical pregnancy and am now 36w4d pregnant. I should be over the moon that we’ve come so far but I’m petrified and somehow every day I wake up more scared. I’m having nightmares that I lose her in childbirth and I wake up sobbing. I thought making it well past when we lost our first baby would make me feel more assured and it did for a while but now it’s getting so much worse right at the end. I don’t want to be like this but I don’t know how to make it through these last few weeks aside from white knuckling it. I over analyze things every second of the day. I’ll feel her moving just fine and then she’ll be sleeping 20 minutes later and I feel like I need to nudge her to wake her up to feel her move again. We finally unpacked the strollecar seat and set up the crib and that’s made me more nervous. Does anyone have any tips for dealing? I want to enjoy these last few weeks as much as I can but I’m finding it hard to be present and not consumed with worry.

I am not formally diagnosed (just “sub clinical” despite my levels actually being overt as of last Friday. My TSH was .180 and t4 was 2.3. T3 normal). I had surgery on Wednesday for something unrelated, I kind of forgot I even had thyroid issues until then. I’ve been brushed off every time I go in, they want to watch and wait. I never realized I even had symptoms until now, they didn’t tell me what to look for.
As of the past month I’ve felt hot (brushed it off as getting used to the summer heat) flushing face easily (chalked that up to teenage hormones) and I’ve had pretty bad heart palpitations since middle school (around the time I found out I was sub clinical hyper) which I was told was anxiety. I’m on verapamil for them now since they are severe. My hands shake like I’m on amphetamines or something and people actually notice it.
I had a cold and then right after had surgery last week. Since then I haven’t felt right. I’m shaky, no appetite, I’ve lost weight, hot all the time, and I can’t sleep. I average about 4-6 hours a night. My heart rate is sitting high (100-120).
I didn’t know my thyroid was high until last Friday when I went to the ER for passing out and heart palpitations and they tested me on a whim. I had runs of NSVT all day. It came back high. My palpitations didn’t happen in the hospital so they discharged me (inst that always how it’s is? Sigh…). They told me to follow-up with my endo but I have been discharged from them. My PCP checks my blood work every 6 months. They dismiss me despite the fact that I have antibodies (just barely below upper normal limits) and my TSH has never been normal. My t4 is sometimes abnormal but not always.
How can I deal with all these symptoms until I get someone to listen? They keep telling me a T4 of 2.2 is just my “normal” and the reference ranges aren’t really accurate anyways. I feel awful. Could surgery have caused this latest worsening? I haven’t ingested extra iodine or anything.

I’m having such a hard time today, your the only person I want to talk to, your my best friend. But what do you do if your best friend is the one causing your hurt and heart ach? What do you do if your starting to come to terms with the fact that your not enough or your not what’s best for him? What do you do if you want to badly to be the person he deserves? I want to be outgoing and adventurous, I want to be able to say yeah let’s book a trip and go hiking some random mountain exploring some small village let’s do it! But what do you do if he doesn’t even want to try? He doesn’t want to travel with you, he doesn’t want to give you a chance. He’s given up on you. He has more fun with random strangers than with you, the person who’s been there by his side for 6 years. What do you do if you’re the one causing the person you love the most pain? If your the reason for the stress lines on his face that never used to be there, the dead look in his eyes when he looks at you. How do you come back from that, can you come back from that? Does he even want to try? He wants “no pressure” but how do you go from planning your future to no longer sharing your love or talking about plans or doing things together besides work? How do you express your utmost desire to see him happy and just wish that your in that picture? How do you find the love that was once there when all he sees is work and pain and regret? What do you do if he never messages you anymore, doesn’t check in, ghosts you , says he’s busy enjoying himself but you know he responds to other people just not you. His “responsibility”. What do you do if all you want is to fight for you, to fight for those two kids that fell in love and were so happy, how do you get back to that point that was so long ago and get through all the burdens that have come to pass since. How do you get through resentment and get back to a place of love? How do you help someone find their love for you again? How did it get lost in the first place? How can you give up on something that is so important to you and made you so happy, loved, safe and inspired. How can you walk away on something that was once so good?