So prior to DJS, I had the MSE in. It got taken out about a month before my surgery. I’m a few days shy of 6 weeks post-op and I’ve been noticing the gap between my front teeth coming and going. It’s currently the biggest it’s been though over the past few days which isn’t saying much because the gap is minuscule
Part of it might be that I’ve also got space on either side of my front teeth (I will likely be getting veneers for my lateral incisors because I guess they’re smaller than most people’s). The spaces allow my canines to be where they’re supposed to be.
This is something that I occasionally experienced when the MSE was in as well after they closed the gap.
I’m just curious if others who had MSE prior to surgery experienced this post-op at all?
[Also, the general tooth feeling is bizarre because I think most (definitely not all though) of my teeth were numb and their feeling is coming back I guess. It just feels like a lot of pressure and throbbing though and throws me off; not painful, but just…there]

Intro

It’s not much of a stretch to say that violence is the primary form of interaction in video games. With a handful of exceptions, most video games involve guys whacking other guys, with varying degrees of brutality. Even chill games fall into this - Stardew Valley has sections with combat in them! Considering the pervasiveness of violence in video games, there has been a ton of amateur and academic commentary on the topic. However, while this is a well-established school of thought, I haven’t seen people try to apply this to Fire Emblem specifically.
So, let’s do that now! In this post, I’ll be exploring how violence in Fire Emblem is implemented - what limitations are placed on violence, how it warps wider game and narrative design, and what it implicitly says and does not say. I hope this post doesn’t come off as too early-2010s “makes you think”-y, but I do think there are multiple interesting things worth talking about here!
Despite the length of this post, "a brief discussion" is an appropriate title, as we won't be able to go into depth on everything. After all, video games are holistic works, so the attitude towards violence is relevant to every aspect of their design. However, I have managed to wrangle some of these threads into the following structure: first a discussion on the fundamental mode of interaction in Fire Emblem, then how stories are constructed with regards to violence, and ending with the aesthetics of violence and how they relate to characters. Also, as FE is a huge series, be aware that I am gonna be making some broad statements which may not apply to each individual plot point of every game. I actually planned to write 3 case studies around Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses (which have the most interesting attitudes to violence in the series IMO) which point out these deviations, but this post is way too long and full of tangents already. If people are interested, I’ll make a followup to this post which goes into them in more detail. Also also, because of the nature of this post, I’ll actually give a useful TL;DR for once:
TL;DR: Nintendo games must be fun mechanically, and they can’t be too uncomfortable narratively. If you try to provide a counterpoint by saying “oh this Kirby final boss is super dark it eats 100 morbillion galaxies”, you do not deserve rights. IntSys has to keep to this as a 2nd party publisher, but they also have to deal with the fact that their games are at least nominally about ‘war’ (or at least they put their toes into that particular thematic pool). This conflict between making a fun video game for children/teens and the wider framing of the narrative leads to interesting narrative and aesthetic tensions. also fun is cringe, misery is based

“Do you like hurting other people?” (or The Fundamental Mode of Interaction)

OK LISTEN I KNOW I LITERALLY JUST SAID THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO COME ACROSS AS A EARLY 2010s “VIOLENCE IN VIDYA BAD :O????” PERSON BUT I SWEAR I’M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS
The best place to start when talking about violence in video games is to think about the primary form of interaction in said game. In the case of Fire Emblem, this is in the in-chapter gameplay. Sure, in objective terms the player moves arbitrary objects across a 2D grid which perform subtraction on arbitrary objects controlled by the computer, but this is always framed as controlling a squad of soldiers to engage in (typically lethal) combat with enemies (who are normally also soldiers). When you’re not doing this in-chapter gameplay, you are preparing for the next chapter of combat. This involves surveying the area of combat, preparing weapon loadouts, etc, however more recent entries also include light life-sim-esque elements. To summarize, Fire Emblem’s interactivity involves ordering violence as well as the preparations to order said violence.
For players, this strategic thinking is extremely fun and is the primary draw of the series! You have all these tier lists of who’s better at killing, discussion of the maps where you do the killing, complaints about the length of gameplay sections where you don’t do killing, etc. This is by design, as while I don’t know the core brand tenets of Nintendo, I imagine the Reggie quote “If it isn’t fun, why bother?” is carved into a solid gold statue of Mario in the office lobby. This then is enforced on all associated studios, including IntSys and so Fire Emblem. While I would disagree with that Reggie quote (especially the bit where he says “If it’s not a battle, where’s the fun?” which is a wild statement to make about an entire medium), this approach to making games is ultimately fine, and so IntSys tailored the strategic gameplay to be satisfying to your dopamine receptors. You could analyse what the normalisation of violence even in ‘just for fun’ games says about wider gaming culture, but I won’t get into that here. In any case, let’s dig into a few specifics of FE’s interactivity.
One thing that’s interesting with regard to strategy games is the detached perspective of the player. You order units and observe the resulting violence, but it’s not tactile, you don’t directly swing the sword or shoot the bow or cast the spell like with action games. This adds a layer of separation between the player and what fundamentally happens, at least within the framing that the game provides. It’s not like Call of Duty, where your relationship to the violence is very visceral, where you view everything down the barrel of a gun. OK, I probably shouldn’t use a series that I have very little personal experience with (I only listen to the supplementary lore material, so let’s talk about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While you’re not directly in the driver’s seat, John Sekiro reacts to your every input with extreme responsiveness, so overcoming the game’s challenges i.e. stabbing people is incredibly visceral and satisfying. While this violence is fantastical in nature, there is sufficient blood and explicit sword-action to clearly say “oh yeah you are violently killing all of those bozos with a katana”. Coming back to FE, not only are you far more detached from the violence, it is presented in an extremely cartoony manner… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, we’ll get to the aesthetics later. Point is, Fire Emblem gives the viewpoint of a stoic commander, who Does What Needs To Be Done™, and not the viewpoint of an actual soldier who has to do the actual killing.
Now let’s view the player’s perspective on violence from a different angle. Fire Emblem intends for its combat to be relatively relaxed on the player side of things - the turn-based nature allows the player to calmly think through all of their moves, and you typically have perfect information on the enemies. The only exceptions to this are Fog of WaSame Turn Reinforcements, which are rare and typically unpopular amongst the fanbase. This leans into ‘combat as sport’, where (going back to the Reggie quote) you have a fun time picking apart a puzzle with the tools you have, and we all collectively enjoy this! This is a valid way of designing strategy games, and I like what IntSys has done. However, it’s not the only way of making these games - for example, in Total War you have to juggle all your battalions in real time whilst the enemy is bearing down on you, and the XCOM games always have Fog of War and limited information on the enemies, with you never knowing what kind of awful new monster is going to suddenly charge at you. Don’t get me wrong, neither of these follow ‘combat as war’, the principle that violence should properly mimic the stress, tension and unfairness of actual conflict. Hell, neither of them are particularly mature either - Total War is the strategy game equivalent of smashing action figures together, and XCOM emulates a pulp sci-fi alien invasion story. However, the additional pressures these games have make them hew slightly closer to actual conflict, putting you more in that mindset in a way that the clean fun Fire Emblem doesn’t really do. Again, I want to say FE’s approach to violence in in-map gameplay is fine, but when all three of these franchises have an explicit narrative framing of ‘warfare’, it does make Fire Emblem’s narrative a little more… stretched.
Finally, I want to briefly mention the maps. To steal from a brilliant Jacob Geller video, these are Worlds Designed For Violence. At least outside of the Kaga games, the maps you fight on are primarily designed around how the player interacts with them, i.e. fights on them. While I imagine the narrative designers and artists at IntSys are involved throughout the map design process, the gameplay flow probably takes precedence most of the time. Maps are not designed to resemble realistic places that you have to fight through, they are instead designed primarily to provide fun gameplay experiences before being dressed up by the artists to look realistic/fit the specific story beat. This is a more consistently entertaining approach to map design - heaven knows we have a lot of Kaga castle assault maps which are as fun as actually assaulting an entrenched position IRL - but this lack of friction could potentially take the bite out of the intended vibe, neuter any commentary on violence throughout the story.
You may have noticed that we’ve only talked about the “in-map” gameplay for now, when there’s an entire second half of these games, i.e. all the gameplay between the maps. Don’t worry, we’ll get to all of that, but this may fit better in:

Something something “ludonarrative” something something (or Narrative Implications)

(To clarify, here I’m going to talk about the wider plots and narrative structure as opposed to characterisation, as that fits more into the aesthetics of the series)
It’s not bold to say that the narratives of games have to warp around the core gameplay structure. Especially in AAA video game production, the narrative designers usually have to take a back seat to the systems and level designers, at least outside of the initial rough outline they provide in the original game pitch. In this case, the job of the writer is to form vaguely coherent connective tissue between individual levels, setpieces and expensive pre-rendered cutscenes. This must be a very difficult job, and is probably the reason why most video game stories are the way they are. I am not privy to IntSys internal meetings, but I imagine they abide by this paradigm, trying to give a reason for why you fight 20 battles which roughly align with plot beats that were decided years ago.
Put another way, the writers of Fire Emblem must contrive a reason why the characters fight a vast number of violent battles in a strategic manner. This has a pretty easy solution - war! We have found something it’s good for, as whenever the gameplay designers decide that an extra map is required, the writers can just insert “oh no there’s a blockade of enemy soldiers in the way, guess you gotta kill them all”. This is the case for almost all the games and is a fair enough narrative choice, as it’s frankly one of the few scenarios where you could reasonably contrive so many battles, but it’s worth examining this in a bit more detail.
Even in the framing of warfare, there are still a lot of skirmishes, which sometimes the narrative or tone fails to support - or at least, their presence means that violence isn’t taken that seriously. Let’s take an example from early in Awakening: Emmeryn sends the Shepherds to negotiate an alliance with Regna Ferox. On the way, they are ambushed by Risen on the Northroad (1), have to fight the border guards who think Chrom is a bandit I think??? (2), and then after arriving they need to take part in Regna Ferox’s ritual combat to secure their alliance (3). These beats aren’t necessarily bad, and I actually think Awakening uses these opportunities quite well: the Risen are established as a constant threat to the world (except not really in the main story but that’s a whole other thing), “Marth'' gets more development, we set up Regna Ferox as fighty people who like to fight, and while the middle encounter is very tenuous it does set up a funny joke in Cynthia’s paralogue. However, I want to communicate that if the map/encounter designers need X maps between plot points A and B - in this case, needing low-stakes trials in the tutorial period - then there’s gonna be a fair bit of narrative filler. That is to say, there must be multiple combat encounters that kinda just happen, which makes violence a lot more casual in the narrative. See also the myriad examples of “oh shit random bandits attack!”, used to have a lower stakes map, with bandits appearing and vanishing as needed. This works fine enough in the context of ‘combat as sport’, allowing your favourite scrunglo to build up a triple-digit body count, but this casual attitude circumvents potentially interesting ideas with regards violence. Taking the example further, banditry and its causes are never seriously explored, as bandits are just treated as a filler enemy (except in Based As Hell Thracia 776).
Another narrative consequence of needing so many fights is that… you need to fight. That is to say, any anti-war sentiment or appeal to diplomacy in the series is fundamentally undercut by a) strategic combat being a core appeal of the series and b) narrative beats needing to be structured around fighting enemies. It’s a struggle to have moments of diplomacy and reconciliation when you had a fight within 3 minutes of said moment, lest some people start screaming that things are getting boring. This also makes any appeals to pacifism kinda moot. Xander’s quote about “war bad” in Conquest is utter bullshit, as a huge part of the marketing around that route focuses on the coolness of the tactical combat and its challenge. Eirika and Ephraim can never be equal, because Ephraim’s “fighting is fucken awesome” is encouraged by the gameplay, and Eirika can NEVER save 11037 because we need a final boss and no-one else fits the bill.
Speaking of, in video games it’s best practice to have a big bad guy you fight at the end of the story, the toughest mechanical challenge coinciding with the narrative climax. In Fire Emblem, you have one grand final battle which decides the fate of the war and/or world, before cutting to a brief wrap-up and then credits. This is an attempt to make these games satisfying, which is fine, but this is at odds with an anti-war message (which FE often gestures towards) - that is, actual wars tend to be deeply unsatisfying in a narrative sense! Oftentimes, after a decisive battle, things just kinda keep going for a little while afterwards with casualties continuing to pile up until peace terms are agreed. In the few cases where there is a final battle, it’s more of a formality as the decisive moment occurred months ago. See World War 1 and… World War 2 for examples of each, not to mention a whole host of war-related books and films. The problem with doing this in a video game is that it would require having multiple one-sided fights past the most climatic fight, which would be unfun, and we return to that fucking Reggie quote again. While video games can effectively explore this anti-war narrative space - This War of Mine is a fantastic example - it just doesn’t gel with the fun games that IntSys wants to make. I bring this up in the context of FE because Fire Emblem has such an aesthetic focus on warfare compared to other video games, so it sticks out even further. Even in FE6/FE9 where the war is effectively over in the final few maps, the enemies still remain extremely challenging, because if they didn’t things would be boring.
A few minor things that didn’t fit in above before we wrap up this section. First of all, in making an action packed story, Fire Emblem neglects an important aspect of army life in warfare - the “hurrying up and waiting”. In the majority of cases, the breaks between fights is under 10 minutes, it’s just glossed over. Fire Emblem Three Houses is the exception to this, but there it’s more framed as school life. Some people may say “what’s the point in having large amounts of timewasting where nothing happens in my game about war” and to that I would say fuck you, I want to play Jarhead Emblem. Next, Fire Emblem involves fighting people AND monsters, but these targets are typically given equal narrative weight, outside of maybe a funny line of dialogue about someone being afraid of monsters. In 99% of cases, enemy soldiers you fight have no more humanity than literal monsters. The death of any of your beloved soldiers is a tragedy with big sad death quotes, the death of those poor fuckers is quite literally a statistic which is proudly used to rank how well your guys have done at the end of the game. Finally, the limited scope of the violence the series can show limits the potential impact of scenes. In some cases, this is good as the implication is enough, e.g. the ‘Monica’ scene in Sacred Stones is wonderfully grim and would be weakened by anything explicit. However, a number of other scenes are neutered by the limitations on violence. This fundamentally relates to the aesthetics of the series:

insert prozd tweet/skit here (or Aesthetics, Tone, and Characters)

I’ve been talking a lot about ‘the violence committed’, and this might have seemed a bit weird to you. It’s a true statement, but because the violence is mostly cartoony and abstracted - bad guys disappear into nothingness, there’s no blood, etc - it’s hard to think of it in that way. It’s basically impossible to place Fire Emblem in the same artistic sphere as, say, All Quiet on the Western Front. This aesthetic sense was partially tech-limited in the early NES and SNES games, which was grandfathered into the more graphically complex titles, but it’s also related to how the aesthetics unavoidably warp the tone of the work. IntSys needs their games to be relatively lighthearted and unconcerned with the consequences of its violence, as one of the core appeals of these games is the charming cast of characters. As you would expect, it would be a lot harder to appreciate your goofy blorbos and their lighthearted chats about nothing if you could see the brutal consequences of their triple digit body counts. If violence was more realistic, there would be a lot less “ooh I like training and/or this one hyperspecific food” or “I like peace, but I guess violence may be possibly needed sometimes” and there would have to be a lot more trauma and dourness. There are also age rating concerns, as you can’t exactly sell Come And See Emblem to pre-teens. And once more, to clarify: Fire Emblem as it exists now is fine! I like the lighthearted tone of this series, and I like the characters that reside within it. However, a few problems do arise from IntSys’s approach to violence, as occasionally they brush up against darker ideas but (due to similar reasons to the above) they can never commit to them, which neuters their potential impact. This is especially troublesome with regards to characterisation, as the little dudes are a core appeal, so if something is off that could cause problems. In a sense, at points we have severe aesthetic tension.
A fairly useful case study to see how this affects characterisation is with Mozu in Fire Emblem Fates. Mozu is a charming character, a genial country bumpkin with a bit of an edge at times, who has fond memories of her hometown. This lines up with the lighthearted tone of her recruitment paralogue, where (checks notes) her entire village gets massacred by inhuman monsters, with her mother literally being murdered right in front of her, and she joins up with Corrin’s party because there is literally nothing left of her old life. I understand that people who experience extreme trauma do still manage to live meaningful lives, and that IntSys wouldn’t want to have a character who is a barely functional traumatised mess for 90% of the campaign. However, this doesn’t explain the sheer dissonance between the relatively normal and well-adjusted Mozu who quietly remembers her lost loved ones, and the fact that her village got My Lai’d a handful of weeks ago in the game’s timeline. IMO this would work a lot better if there were a few survivors (instead of literally everyone else dying), with Mozu actively choosing to leave her old life to help others instead of being forced to leave by circumstance. This reduction in scope would mitigate the dissonance between the character and what actually happens to her. This is by far the most extreme example in the series, however I’m sure you can think of others. My issue here is not with having ‘normal’ characters, or with them suffering tragedies, my issue is the dissonance between the two when viewing the scope of said tragedies. This is just one way the series wants to get into darker territory, then swiftly backing off instead of delving into the consequences.
This aesthetic restriction also affects the potential impact of dramatic scenes in the main story, limiting what the focus of these scenes can actually be. This little bit will involve heavy spoilers for Genealogy of the Holy War and Spec Ops: The Line (I KNOW THESE GAMES ARE VERY DIFFERENT WITH VERY DIFFERENT INTENDED DEMOGRAPHICS IN VERY DIFFERENT CULTURAL CONTEXTS, SHUT UP). Both have a very important narrative moment around their midpoints, involving fire magic/white phosphorus respectively. In each game, the deaths that occur are utterly horrific when you think about them. In FE4 the focus is on the drama of the plot twist and effects on the characters, with the actual effects of the violence being left to implication. We don’t know if this was the original intent of Kaga and the team, or if this was enforced by various tech- and publisher-related restrictions, but in either case we do not see anything explicit. In any case, in Spec Ops: The Line, the horror and graphic nature of the violence is completely inescapable, and therefore forms the core of the turning point of the story. The specifics of the violence itself are crucial - the game does not work if you don’t see the consequences of the white phosphorus - and it leads beautifully to the complete descent of its endgame. You may be saying “of course you couldn’t show that violence in FE, it’s a kids game” which is true, and in any case the scene in Genealogy is very good, even without showing the violence. I imagine if we get a remake in the year 202X we wouldn’t see anything explicit anyway, partially due to the publisher but also because the scene doesn’t necessarily need it. The point I am trying to make is that the aesthetics form a limitation on what Fire Emblem can explore, narrative space that the series fundamentally cannot reach.
One more thing, and this isn’t really about the games themselves but the impressions leading into them, and how the aesthetics can affect that. Do you guys remember when the intro cutscene of Three Houses was released a few weeks before release? I do, and I also remember the collective shock of the community when seeing the early previews. It was so drastically different to everything that had come before, and consequently was really intriguing - you can see a lot of speculation in the above comments. To clarify, I don’t want to pretend that 3H is some kind of super mature ultra gritty war story, or that blood = good game, but that beginning cutscene gave one hell of a first impression. Even though the game isn’t that much darker than any other FE game, the sheer unexpectedness put people off-kilter in a kinda awesome way. Does the game actually deliver? YMMV, but I think this (and some of the later cutscenes, such as the mid-game Dimitri one) work quite well. Sometimes, a little injection of harsher violence can go a long way.

Conclusion

Frankly I don’t really have a conclusion, sorry. As you can see, there are so many disparate strands, I can’t possibly make one grand thesis statement. Maybe the inherent contradictions of having warfare in a family friendly video game weakens the potential end result? I guess, but I don’t want to imply that what we have now is bad, as it is pretty good tbh. So, uhh…
…
OK, if I had to say something, it’s more about the process of making this. Having to try and think about how violence intersects with a video game you like takes you in a number of different directions. Ultimately, this process was really fulfilling for me, and I would recommend that you do the same (for FE or anything else)! Trying to analyse something you enjoy from a perspective not usually applied is pretty neat. If you guys have any thoughts (on the points above or your own), I’d be very interested to hear them!
Also, if people are interested, I’ll try to make a few case studies. I would focus on Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses, as (when thinking on this topic) I found that these games were consistently the most intriguing, with the most interesting relationships to violence. This would probably take a while though, as I am gonna be very busy in June, and I probably won’t have time this month either.

Jokes aside, this is how 1 month ago my ex left me for my childhood friend, and i want to talk about it to see your opinions guys.
(This is more of a venting post)
So, i was having a really bad period already, my parents recently divorced and i wasn't already in a mentally good situation.
And after 3 months of relationship, i moticed how my at the time gf was a bit colder than usual, we would hang out rarely and would spend all her time with her "bff"...
Then she broke up with me. Now, im not the guy to get mad cuz "someone lost feelings", she had told me that and, even if i was heartbroken, i accepted t wnd we had talked about it, i wanted to be the best bf ever.
Then, not evem 2 weeks later, she was going around all alone with her bff (she did it probably even 1 week after we broke up), and then even less than 1 month aftwr our break up, i saw her kissing my childhood friend (her bff) in the dark.
I honestly suspect this had been going on for longer, when we were together she used to spend a lot of timw with him, way more than me, and she would say he was her bff.
I remember one day she had spent a whole day with him and afterwards had said she felt like a whore. I had some bad ideas then but i wanted to be positive.
Now i understand everything, and it hurts, i feel replaceable and my mental health and sh are getting worse.
I already tried suicide but im too much of a coward, plus my bff and family would be sad...so i can't do it...
So my omly option is to keep going, but now i don't want to hang out with my group of friends since my ex and her new toy are gonna hang out everyday too.
So i was thinking of maybe just leaving the group for a new one, but how can i? I can't just materialize in a group, i don't have much interests as for now and i don't want to end up in a group of hooligans.
Im good at making superficial friends but i honestly suck at getring close to ppl (the omly person i trust irl is my bff).
What should i do?
(Also i wanted to add, since i don't know this subreddit much, i won't tolerate any incel behavior, sinxe this kind of posts is "content" for them)
And lastly, sorry for the bad english, it's very late at night for me and im not a native speaker.
Thanks for everything you migt write guys! <3

At the age of 13y.o. once I got the visit of a class mate. Was the time where our tits were growing up. She told me, that she got from her mom, her first bra. I asked her to show me it, she undressed her blouse and showed me it. She asked me to show her my tits, they were a little bit smaller than her ones. She came to me and touched it and I touched her tits. Then we showed each other our gowing pussy hair and touched each other our pussies. An I liked it. That was just a single experience. At the end of my sixteens I had a boy friend and ater a time I loosed with him my virginity and I liked it also. At 22 I met many times in a pub, close to my place an elder woman (about 40+). we talk a lot together and once she asked me if I have had sex with an other woman, I said not really and she recommended me to try it and if I like it I continue doing it. if I don't like it, I left it but I would know how it is. Summarizing, I went after the pub to her, I overnight with her and had my firts lesbian experience. Was great, I got many orgasms that night. So I decided to do both,sex with men and sex with other women and I do that until today.

Hey everyone. First time poster, long time lurker. I’ve been having a hard time finding a SB for a SR. I’ve yet to have my first M&G yet. Every time I get something set up with a POT they bail/ghost last minute. For context I’m 24m(I know my age may be part of the problem) and I live in central Wisconsin. I don’t come from money, but I’ve done well for myself at a young age. Seeking just isn’t working out for me. I don’t know why. I’m very upfront with what I’m looking for and know what I want. I crave an emotional connection with someone. I’ve tried escorts before and that’s when I realized I wasn’t satisfied from sexual encounters alone. I need something more. I have also tried casual dating but just couldn’t find a match. That’s why I turned my eyes to sugar dating. Truth be told. I’m lonely. I have 2 friends I text with on a regular basis but don’t see them often. I’m looking for someone to play house with really knowing that it’s paid for but could turn into something more some day. Does anyone know of different sites other than seeking?

WARNING: MAHABA

 Well I (F18) have this bf (M18) na super mabait, super spoiled ako sa kanya. We're going out on dates, he's giving me gifts ( gift-giving love language nya) but he's not a good communicator. Kaklase ko sya last year pero ngayon magkaiba na kami ng section but magkatabi lang room namin. Badminton athlete sya. Last year, may laro sila non congressional (umabot sya ng regional), hindi pa sya nakakaalis sa bayan namin, hindi na kami nag usap bcoz nakipag break sya tapos after three days may inistory na syang girl. Like super flex na flex na never nya sakin nagawa tapos ako to cope up with the pain lagi akong gumagala (kain sa labas, stroll w/ friends, outing ganon. Tapos then nagkagusto sakin friend nya na kasama kong lumabas labas and I kind of entertained him for my ego i think(we go out in group on guys dw) E tapos yun natapos na laro nya kasi di naman sya nanalo sa regional tapos nawala na sila ni girl tapos nag start na ulit sya magparamdam sakin at binalikan ko sya😭. OO. I KNOW. Pero kasi mahal ko e. Tapos nanligaw sya for 4 months again tapos we're 9 months in a relationship na. Then last Thursday, he was vv cold sa chats tapos ayaw nyang makipagkita which is very unusual of him kasi every time na may free time sya takbo sya agad sakin. Pero I let him be kasi inisip ko baka busy lang then it went on and on. E di kinabahan ako kasi may Pahiyas Tourna sya last Sat and Sun, so ako si duda na naman kasi ginawa na nya one time (athlete si ate girl but no hate for her she's so pretty). Tapos umabot sa ako na lang ang nag uupdate sa mga whereabouts ko, mga ginagawa ko, super tinatry ko talaga na pag usapan namin kung ano bang meron, anong problema ganyan. But WALANG NANGYAYARI. He kept on shutting me off. Yung chats nya hinihintay ko ate 12-16 hours ang interval ng replies huhu. Tapos ang mga reply nya lang ay "okay" "ingat po" "yeeees". As in di na kagaya nung dati na "hon dito ako sa ____ kasama ko sina _____, kain lang kami iloveyouuu ganon. Kung hindi ko pa iaask sa mom nya na kung nasan sya, di ko pa malalaman:( Binigyan ko na sya ng mahabang time to fix whatever this is pero walang nangyayari huhu. Im getting tired na pero I love him still. Tanga lang ano 

Sa tingin nyo what am I supposed to do? Am i wrong for feeling this way? And anong pwede kong gawin para maging okay kami?
ps. kilala ako ng angkan nya, naisip ko na rin na pumunta sa kanila pero nakakahiya naman kasi iyakin ako alangan naman dun pa ako magngalngal diba
pss. Di ko na alam gagawin.

Hello!! I'm Amélie, but you can call me Amy or Am!! I'm 13 years old and I'm from The Netherlands! I'm looking for a penpal around my age to exchange creative letters and cards with, full of stickers, drawings, kawaii stuff, poems, .... I speak Dutch, English and a lil bit of French, I'm trying to learn French more, German, Chinese, Polish and Arabic! My hobbies are spool knitting, gaming, watching TV, writing, singing, building LEGO sets, drawing, colouring mandala's, learning new languages, and readinggg!! I aswell like to get to know new people, and I like kawaii / Y2K / aesthetic stuff!!!
that's a bit about me, I really hope I find a penpal!!!!

I sometimes reminisce about this vivid dream I had as a child of 3 or younger. It is very peculiar. In this dream, I was an adult woman. I couldn't see my own face, but I had red hair. It started out with me opening the door to a house and stepping out into the driveway. It was a 2 or 3 storied bungalow type house. There was a blue car (maybe from the 80's or 70's? Definitely not modern) parked. A man (maybe in his 30's, blond) sat in the driver's seat waiting. There were two kids playing on a swing tied in a tree. The dream would then cut to us driving near some ind of fence while a some song played on the radio. We would park by a short metallic gate which would swing open with a nice loud creek. I grabbed the kids (two boys) from the backseat and we would all walk to a gravestone and the man would lay down some flowers at its foot. He would them step back and put his arm around me and kiss me and the dream would end.
Now here's the weird thing about this dream. I grew up in India and had no idea about graveyards and other western things at that time. I couldn't have heard of it from anywhere because, we never watched english movies or shows or anything. I didn't even have youtube then. I didn't even know people could have skin that white or that they could have red/ blond hair. The whole dream was from the actual perspective of an adult woman who was definitely taller than I am even now. I didn't know english at that point, but all the conversations in the dream were in english, and only later in life when having that dream became a regular thing did I start to understand what was going on. Another thing that was quite bewildering was that the whole scenery seemed pretty typical to some country like the US. I have always lived in a flat, and the house in the dream was a bungalow, which I think are somewhat common in the west. The man in the dream who I am assuming was my husband was very affectionate with me. My parents had an arranged marriage, they were never affectionate with each other. I didn't know people who were married loved each other and expressed it physically at that point.
I had this dream very often as a child (almost every day at some point). I am 17 now and still have this dream sometimes. Sometimes I see it in 3rd person. It has been bugging me for a while now, but I can never seem to catch a glimpse of my own face in the dream. Now that I know somethings about the world, I am starting to recognize more and more weird things such as the midwestern accent. It was there when I had the dream for the first time and every other time, but I have only recently recognized. A friend of mine thinks its some kind of past life memory but honestly I don't believe this. Can anyone try and make sense of it?

So for a bit of back story, i’ve found it on his phone once before and I was told he’d downloaded it in work with mates as a joke - that took a lot of getting over but a few days ago I found that he had the app installed again, I obviously asked to look on the app to see if he was up to anything but there was nothing logged in, when I confronted him about it at first he told me that someone had been black-mailing him with his own nude pictures which I was skeptical of but he’s my boyfriend, I thought no-one would lie about anything like that so I told him i’d support him. For context, my boyfriend does have a habit of randomly lying. The next day we have a blow up, he admits he’s been lying to me about both big and menial things, he’s very apologetic and even breaking down about it, so I ask him to honestly tell me every lie and what the truth of it is, well the truth about the Grindr is that apparently he was just ‘curious about their world’ (referring to gay men) and that he only downloaded it to look. I’m a pansexual woman, I’ve expressed to him that if he’s questioning any part of his sexuality then i’d be there, I’d never judge him for anything to do with him figuring something out about himself, but the he’s adamant that he is straight and it was curiosity. The whole time we’ve been together we’ve had several talks about LGBTQ+ topics and he’s always supportive to an extent but has always said he’s a straight man and there’s nothing about his behaviour that’s ever really made me question otherwise apart from the glaringly obvious male hook-up app.
The second part that makes it difficult is that recently he’s come to me and admitted post-discussion that he thinks he may be a compulsive liar - but when given the ultimatum he’s agreed to go to therapy and let me go to make sure he attends.
I’m at a loss, I love him very much and I want to believe him on this but he was told the first time I found it that I didn’t want to again, I could deal with it being a fuck around with friends but now i’m sick with worry that he’s secretly gay, bi and is cheating. Do straight men really get curious about that stuff? Is any of this even true?

Hi , I sent a couple of pictures I shouldnt have sent . I am being blackmailed , getting spammed , sent me my ig friends with the treath to send it in chat group. I sent them money in panic … I need help Also I got approached by a redditor he sent me some email , that they help with this … some support or what , and now they are asking me to Pay for their service , what should i do ?

How to tell if a guy is serious for you? Like I’ve heard my friends saying that if a guy wants to marry you or date you for a long term thing they’ll act in a certain way. How to tell the difference? How come the approach is different and in what ways?

So I have an office friend and we keep on lightly flirting but none ever makes any move. We formed a very close friendship though. I really can't gauge how interested they are, I assume we're both scared.
Yesterday I made a comment (inside joke that's hard to explain without giving too much details) thay we don't really have any cute managers. To which he replied "what about X?". I was surprised by this because I genuinely don't remember saying that, maybe I did. My point is - he remembered, out of all things I say every day he remembered that I called other dude cute maybe 2 years ago.
I am fairly sure we're crushing hard on each other. There are other small things, like he has sent me once a song with this text for example ( I asked for relaxing mueic reccomndation and he send one song!!)
Smell of you baby, my senses, My senses be praised Smell of you baby, my senses, My senses be praised Kissing and running, Kissing and running away Kissing and running, Kissing and running away Senses be praised Senses be praised
Or he commented about "wireless kiss" that I have send on couple of occasions to my other colleague. I shouldn't have but it's my warm and welcoming personality.
I really like him but I don't know what to do. I can legit flirt with everyone but him.
Can you people help me please?

Me (let's say A) and my ex (let's call her M) broke up in August 2023 on neutral terms and tried to stay friends. But she became physically close to another guy while still wanting me emotionally. This completely shattered me, and she didn't care. Last December, we decided to go on a one-month mutual no-talking phase. After this month, I moved on completely and started dating someone more special. To ensure my current partner didn't feel insecure, I gave M an ultimatum that I wanted to cut off contact for a certain time. But now that her physical partner is not supporting her emotionally and she's in the worst possible mental state, with no one to talk to, she's trying her best for us to be normal friends. However, she keeps bringing up the past and says I've changed, wanting to explain how. I've been firm with her, saying, "M, for mine and my partner's mental peace, I don't want to continue our friendship for some time." She doesn't seem to understand this.

I walk the same way everyday and have become familiar with a woman who sits outside our local supermarket. She’s never been anything other than really lovely, and I’ll often give her cigarettes or when I can get her something from the shop.
Today when I walked past I wasn’t really in the mood to chat, so I gave her a friendly “morning!” and carried on walking, but she called on me asking if she could talk to me. The poor lass was crying, shaking and seemed genuinely terrified.
Turns out her partner has been subjecting her to domestic violence and last night she took quite a bad beating. She said she was scared of being too vocal due to the locality of her partner, and asked if I knew anywhere she would be able to get help. I’ve told her I’ll see what I can do, and I have made a few calls, but I doubt how much I’ll actually be able to help.
Anyway yeah, the point of this post was to ask if there is any services someone could point me in the direction of? I’ve been in touch with streetworks, and I’m going to phone woman’s aid when they open at 10am. Bethany Christ Trust and Salvation Army both pointed me back to Streetworks. Streetworks, however, have a requirement for access to housing benefit etc and I’m not sure what her situation is.
Any advice appreciated! Thank you!

I’ve got a close friend who I’ve known for years. We both struggle from mental health issues but she struggles with addiction issues and other stuff. For the past month she’s called me up everyday to talk for over 4 hrs about the same “script” of her ex boyfriend who left her and how amazing he is and how horrible he is and I get about 5 mins of talk time. At first I felt bad for her because everyone cut her out of their lives but most recently I actually see why. Our last convo left me frustrated. I tried to talk to her about my frustrations of how our mutual friend has been upsetting me. I figured since she has also has had issues with this friend we could talk about that and share and vent on that topic. We were talking about the past and I relayed to her some tough criticism of how that friend doesn’t really want to get involved in listening to the boyfriend drama and all of a sudden she snapped and told me I was triggering her and she didn’t need to hear about it blah blah blah and back onto her talking about herself. I started crying because I just felt so unappreciated and realized she just wants to talk about her crap and seems to be using me to some degree. I recently am looking for a therapist now because she’s stressed and drained me and she’s in therapy yet still calls me up to ramble on. I don’t want to cut her out of my life but also can’t take this on anymore. As soon as I set my boundaries she almost reverses back on me that she’s setting the boundaries with what I say! I’m not sure if she’s got some sort of personality disorder but I’m dealing with my own stuff. Any advice would help. I feel lost and alone in this.

I started my first campaign last night in 30 years. It's an old school adventure so I limited the players to choosing old school races and classes. There are 7 players all at 3rd level, including 3 fighters, Wizard/fighter, Wizard, cleric and rogue. The module, which is a 5e conversion of and old adventure suggests between 6 and 10 players as it's old school deadly!
I started with a goblin ambush to get things off with a bang and then the party found themselves in a mysterious castle from which they have to escape. Things started well, they met the first NPC who challenged one of them to a boxing match with his 'boxer', a magical boxing construct which is very difficult to beat. The challenge was that the NPC, who is a 12th Lvl fighter, will answer a question about the castle for each round of boxing the character can survive without being knocked out.
The encounter is designed as a lore drop to provide clues on how they need to escape the castle. One of the fighters was being badly pummelled in the first round of boxing so the Halfling rogue slipped under the ring and tried to stab up to injure the Boxer. This failed (I made the DC very high) and was obviously noticed by the NPC. When he complained about the cheating another character, a Dwarven Fighter decided to wack him with the flat of her axe.
At this point we rolled initiative and I called a close on the session as it was getting late.
The problem I have is that this guy was nice to the party, he welcomed them, flirted a bit and offered them a friendly match which had a good prize in gold if they won as well as answering their questions. He is a 12th level fighter with 90 hp and 3 attacks per round. He has his Boxer who still has 3/4 of his hit points and 2 guards in plate armour and wielding halberds. All have some serious hit points compared to the party. I think they are going to massacre my party of 3rd levellers on the second session of the campaign.
I don't plan on holding back on the fighting because the NPC is not stupid but I need some advice on how to avoid killing them all.

I’ve been with my husband for 10 years, married for 5. I’m (30F) and he is (41M). We have two children together. I’m filing for divorce tomorrow morning and my dad thinks I should also get a restraining order. I think that could be a little aggressive but I also don’t want to endanger my kids in any way. He has always been a good dad even though he has not been a good husband. The first years of our relationship, we were both deep into drinking and partying together. We got into trouble and our dating relationship was incredibly volatile and up and down. Then we got pregnant and I got sober and we got married and had our baby. We still fought and dealt with a lot of toxicity with each other the first couple of years. I relapsed into drinking again for about 6 months and 3 years ago, I finally got sober for real and got into AA. (Just celebrated my 3rd bday on the 10th, woo!) I went deep into step work, therapy, and working on myself. I’ve grown tremendously. So the last 3 years have been so much better between us. It actually felt like it might work. But my husband has not done any work. He’s in the same place, same job, drinking every night. Im not here to defend the reasons I’ve come to divorce. This has been the hardest decision of my life and I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t know it was right. Our children deserve a better example in marriage and partnership. As of now, I’ve been very vocal about keeping custody and parenting 50/50 because like I said, he’s a good dad and I’ll never weaponize the kids. Our children are handling this really really really well and I’ve been able to make this a positive experience so far, all things considered. I have the support of my family, staying back at home again now while I rebuild. All in all, my life is moving forward. But….my husband, while normally a happy drunk, not mean - is an extremely depressed person. I’ve tried every way you can imagine to encourage him to seek help, get into therapy, address his childhood trauma, heal. To no avail. I was ready to share custody with him when my dad said wait. He isn’t mentally well and my husband has a LOT of guns in the house. 12-15k worth of guns and ammunition. My dad wants me to keep the kids for now until we’re going through court which I’ve agreed to - he can FaceTime and call as much as he wants right now but me leaving the house with the kids just happened last Wednesday so it’s fresh enough I wanted to give him some time to let the dust settle. But my dad is saying I should go further with a restraining order. The final fight that brought me to this point, involved him breaking into a locked room where I was sleeping with our children while he was drunk and screaming at me. He did not physically hurt any of us but when he left the room I mistakenly made the choice to comment how he was giving “little dick energy” and he flew into a really scary vindictive rage. Again, nothing physical. But he was encouraging me to kill myself, that he and the kids would be better off without me, told me to get the gun out of the safe . Etc. He has never been abusive to our children but he has always been emotionally and verbally abusive to me. Again, I have my reasons for leaving. That’s not why I’m here. So because of his abusive patterns toward me, his history with being unhinged emotionally, his untreated alcoholism and having lots of guns in the house - my dad thinks to keep the girls safe and to have more power in the divorce, I should get a RO against him, citing my fear for mine and our children’s safety.
But I’m not actually afraid of him? I really don’t think he would hurt our children. Yet I am not naive enough to think this doesn’t happen - I read the news. I know my dad does have a point - but I’m also not trying to be aggressive. I told my husband we could be a team and do this nicely. I wouldn’t start a war unless he made the first aggressive move. I wasn’t even going to hire a lawyer because I know my husband can’t but my dad is getting one. I don’t want my husband to think I am coming after him or trying to hurt him further. I genuinely love this man and I am praying for his recovery. I’m not leaving because I hate him. I see the broken man child he is and the potential he has to be and I pray through this he will grow and change for the sake of his children. I just have to move on with my life. But is my dad right? Should I go for an RO against this man?
TLDR: getting a divorce. Ex husband is an alcoholic with untreated mental health issues. Emotionally and mentally abusive to me but not our children. Good dad bad husband type. Has a lot of guns in the house. Very depressed and unhinged right now. Last fight included him bursting into a room where I was with our children sleeping, in a drunken rage. Encourages me to commit self harm. Should I file RO in order to protect them even though he has never given me reason to think he would hurt them?

A lot of resentment has started to come out from me recently, resulting in angry outbursts from me to him. This man: - never apologises on his own accord for anything no matter how big or small. If I ask him to he says sorry in the most bored tone and does not mean it. - yesterday I was at the office, he fed the dog once with a small amount of kibble, no water and no walks or interaction. When I asked him doesn’t he feel guilt, he said ‘a little bit’. My dog was starving and bored when I got home - he never pays for food shops. I do all the food shops and have to constantly remind him to pay me for them. If I forgot for a few weeks/months he NEVER offers. - when I got made redundant I couldn’t find work for 4 months. He offered no money or help with money, whereas my friends in this position didn’t have to pay for anything whilst they were redundant (they bfs covered it all) - I made a stupid pact that he should propose when we are a good healthy weight. Well that hasn’t happened but we’ve been together for 10 years, I’ve only been overweight for the past 2, why didn’t he propose in the 8 years before that? Yet he wants me to get a house with him?? (We both are on a mortgage) - he severely lacks emotion, like the above guilt but also rarely compliments me or boosts my confidence. I asked him what he likes about me the other day and he said he doesn’t know he can’t answer under pressure. Then I told him why don’t you write it down instead. He said I’m loving, caring and passionate. The most generic stuff, absolutely nothing about me personally or my personality or anything else. - everytime I want to talk about problems in our relationship he always says he doesn’t know what to say. I told him you can literally find relationship advice anywhere but he does no research or no thinking to solve problems. He’s perpetually the victim. - he is a weed addict and has been for over 10 years. I’ve begged him to stop, he insists he doesn’t have an issue but can’t go without for more than a couple days. I became depressed about 4 years ago and have my own addiction problem with alcohol now ( I wonder why) - I’ve been bullied by people right in front of him, he has never stood up for me. Infact he says I’m overreacting and usually takes the other persons side. Or just gives me a blank face
I know this post is extremely ranty and angry but I’m just bubbling over. It’s like living with an emotionless, lack of empathy robot who only ever wants to have fun and never deal with anything serious or negative. I feel insane, and he sure thinks I am after my outbursts

In a few weeks I’m going from Chester to Liverpool Lime Street, ideally on the Merseyrail service. Usually when I get the train I use trainline to get the tickets, but lately I’ve read some stuff on here that isn’t favourable to them.
So where should I get the tickets? I’ve had a look on the Merseyrail app but I can’t see an option to put open return. Am I just being blind?
My very blurred understanding of why Trainline should be avoided is that there’s a booking fee and your contact is with them and not the TOC (potentially causing problems if your train is cancelled). If that’s true, surely booking through Merseyrail is the best way? Or does it not matter?
Side note: I’m organising a trip with a load of friends who aren’t that knowledgeable about trains. As such I’d ideally want to tell them to go to the Merseyrail app, or Trainline or Trainpal or something, as opposed to having to explain why they should download the LNER app or something.

My friend's PC shutdown during gaming. Ever since he hasn't been able to boot it back up. He didn't get a blue screen or any error code, screens just went black, fans stopped spinning and pc just shut down. When he tries to boot it up, his fans spin, but the rgb doesn't work anymore. The rgb on his AIO also doesn't work anymore. The rgb on his GPU still works, though. He unplugged al external cables (PSU, DP, USB) but to no avail. We already tried booting up while alternating ram sticks, but didn't help. Weird thing is, when he tries to boot it up, his keyboard lights up, but his mouse doesn't. We already tried switching different usb ports, but it's only the keyboard that lights up. Neither of his screens get any signal.
To me seems like a motherboard or cpu problem? Anyone ever encoutered something similar? Any ideas of how we can troubleshoot this? I'm going over tomorrow to try and troubleshoot.
Specs: Ryzen 5 7600x RTX 4070 750W PSU

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So now with Power up closing down I need to know of places in the the city that do Giant cocktail Jug/jars for when I go out.
Power up sharing cocktails would always get me to the point I wanted to be at for reasonable price but now they're not their I'm feeling lost Plus they absolutely were the best tasting cocktails