I‘ve always been a huge fan of HTTYD. It all started with the first Movie in 2010, it really felt special to me as a kid. Watched it twice in the cinema with my parents and it used to be my favourite Movie until Dragons 2 came out in 2014. I basically grew up with HTTYD, I watched every Movie, every series except for T9R and every special. I had, and still have merch. Toothless always was and probably always will be one of my favourite characters ever if not my favourite character ever. The way Hiccup and Toothless‘ bond is depicted in the Movies just always felt special to me. The way Toothless and Hiccup develop this almost symbiotic relationship is unique in any way. HTTYD is THE ONLY franchise of animated films I still like to watch as of now. Growing up to this amazing franchise with HTTYD 1/2, RTTE, ROB and DOB and GOTNF really defined my childhood so I still am very emotional and nostalgic about the whole franchise. I grew up, moved out of my parents house and studied, but I didn‘t forget about HTTYD. I took all of my merchandising and collectibles with me into my apartment and waited for HTTYD 3 to release. I have to admit, I didn’t really inform myself about Dean DeBlois interviews concerning the future of HTTYD in about 2014, since I‘m not a native English speaker and the interview didn’t really circulate through German movie news and I was simply too young to really get into Movie news and especially on English platforms and such stuff as of 2014, so I totally missed that. So I really didn’t know what to expect from THW. I simply waited for it to release. Originally it was scheduled for 2016 and then delayed to 2017 if i remember correctly, so basically it would’ve come out in my teenage years. Then it was delayed to 2019 and well, as soon as it got into the cinemas here in Germany I simply felt like I had to go and watch it. I reserved me some tickets for the movie for the launch day and just went. Again, I really didn't know that THW was always planned as the end for this amazing series of Movies. My expectations were high. As soon as the movie started and I got into the Storyline I felt involved into plot and the events of the Movie. I felt nostalgia and excitement at the same time while watching the movie. I was really having a great time, not expecting what was to come. Then right about when the Light Fury saved Toothless and the music started to get sadder I thought there was something off. And well, there was. Hiccup and all the other Berkians saying farewell to their beloved dragons. To be totally honest I didn't really care for any dragon except for Toothless at the time being and I probably still don‘t really care for any other dragon. I started to really get emotional, not really questioning the whole Event just feeling parted between anger because of the way this movie was ending and sadness because Toothless basically was gone forever. I left the cinema before the part with the reunion of Hiccup and Toothless ten years after the main plot simply because I was so annoyed. I really felt down for the next couple of days, really thinking about the ending non stop, but I still saw no sense in doing it like it was done. I tried to ignore the fact the ending seemed so definitive and is planned as a way to really conclude the movie series, still hoping for more to come. I didn't watch the Movie for four years straight, completely ignoring it, only watching HTTYD 1/2, the variety of series and the special GOTNF. I rediscovered the movie in summer 2023. I saw the 4K version on sale at Amazon and thought: „Why not give it another shot?“, I ordered it as the Steelbook version to add it too my collection and was hyped for the delivery. I rewatched HTTYD 1 and 2 and at the weekend it finally was time to give THW another chance. Once again, I enjoyed the movie, had a great time, but I couldn’t stop noticing the way the whole movie seems to want to introduce the viewer to a Hiccup without Toothless. I really started getting upset, every single event seemed to be an introduction to the grand finale, especially when Astrid talks to Valka about the way Hiccup needs to learn he’s the same great Person and leader without Toothless. I started crying and sobbing a bit about halfway through the film, knowing what was going to happen. I still tried enjoying the movie. But then again, this really emotionally distressing scene. I really cried my eyes out. But then I noticed the movie wasn’t over yet. I felt the same emotions that I had the first time I watched THW after Toothless left, not really caring for Hiccup‘s and Astrid‘s wedding. Well, then Hiccup came, now with his mighty beard and all grown up, looking into the distance and telling a tale of how dragons used to live in their world. The camera focuses on a nearby isle, covered in fog and… I didn’t really trust my eyes at first… Toothless! I felt euphoric, really happy that I discovered this scene. But it was bittersweet, knowing this still probably is the ending to the Trilogy. Anyways… what am I trying to say? I am trying to say that I hate the way this movie and so the Trilogy ends. I not only hate it because I‘m a fan or because I‘ll miss Toothless. No it just didn‘t really make sense to me. It didn‘t felt like it was supposed to already be the end of this Movie series. I started looking up if there were more movies planned and only now discovered those interviews I mentioned earlier, where Dean DeBlois states that THW is going to be THE END. I learnt to somewhat live with the ending. I just watched the movie again a few days ago… mistake…mistake…mistake! I always feel down after watching it, no matter how often I watch it. But now I really started thinking about the ending and why it didn‘t seem like the right way to end this great critically acclaimed Movie series. Reading some old German and English reviews and YouTube video of people reacting to the movie. It seemed like almost anyone was kind of okay with the ending, not noticing how it pretty much had so many flaws in it, at least thats what I think, that I really started thinking: „Are you the only one who hates this ending? Are you stupid? Didn't you get it? Come on, this can‘t be true.“
So I decided to ask you, fellow Redditors here on httyd about your opinion: Did you feel like ending was rushed? If so, feel free to comment what bothered you most and what you would've preferred the Movie/the movie series to go on or end. If you don't feel like that and actually enjoy the ending, also feel free to comment why you liked this ending or why you felt like it was necessary. Disclaimer, please don‘t talk about the way a possible continuation of the movies could've felt like a cash grab or that DeBlois wanted the movies to end like the book, I already know those two arguments, get creative, guys!
View Poll

So I was talking to this very nice guy and he scheduled a date. We'd pick me up at home and we'd go to a bar I recommended. But while we were talking, I mentioned I went through a recent break up and that I used to live with the guy.
This random dude asked if I'd manage going to our date, cause the last time he dated a woman that went tru a recent break up she cried with him.
So out of nowhere he blocks me, it says his user is deleted. I feel sort of confused and disappointed. Why people would do it?

So ayun, I met this guy in an online dating app 🐝 I was F 26yrs old then and NBSB. Di ako mahilig makipag chat. Tamad ako makipag chat talaga kaya di rin siguro nagkakajowa kahit tambay ng dating app way way before. Then pandemic happened. Nagka time ako makipag chat. Swipe dito swipe doon.. fastforward may nagmessage sakin sa viber ko. Ayun pala dun siya(m 28) nagmessage sakin from the dating app.
Fastforwad nagmeet kami and tuloy tuloy ang chat. From the start alam ko naman wala siyan work and undergrad siya. Grab driver din previous work niya. Okay lang naman sakin kasi working naman ako. And I really dont mind before.
Fastforward ulit, 3yrs na kami till now wala pa din siya work. Well nagkawork naman siya sa family niya ng mahigit 1 yr dun sa business nila.
Kapagod din pala.. halos lahat ng date namin ako may sagot.. tho minsan siya naman pagnagkaka pera siya from his pa upahan. Pero parang ilang months lang yun.. kasi now tinutulungan niya family niya sa gastusin.
Sorry magulo ako magkwento. April 2023 nag propose siya sakin. Kaming dalawa lang nakakaalam. Umabot na end of 2023 wala pa din kami plano hahaha. Wala naman kasi akong nakikitang ipon niya for our future. Usapan magiipon kami monthly para kahit simple lang muna. Maghuhulog naman ako dapat monthly kaso di naman siya nakakapaghulog puro sa next month nalang. Tiwala lang daw.. naku para 3yrs nako nagtitiwala ah. Hahah
In short broke guy talaga siya. Literal. Pero pwede naman siyang di maging broke e. May paupahan naman siya. Freeloader pa naman siya sa Fam niya so sana makakaipon siya hehe.
Madalas din kami nagaaway kasi basta ang slow niya. Direct ko na sinasabi sakanya di pa din niya magets ganun ba.
Neto lang din, feb2024, kinausap ko siya magpropose sana siya ulit. Yung magpapaalam na siya sa parents ko. Nag oo siya. Usapan namin sakanya engagement ring sakin na wedding ring. Basta magpaalam na siya dapat sa parents ko tapos request ko sa concert ni “”. G na g naman siya kasi may 2mos mahigit pa siya para mag prepare. Pero dumating ang concert day sabi niya sakin on our way wag na muna daw ako magexpect ng proposal wala siyang nahandang singsing.
Hmmmm.. may future pa ba ako sakanya? Hindi na kami nagkaka align ng tingin. Hindi niya tinitignan o pinaghahandaan ang future. Puro siya okay naman ngayon aayos din in the future.. tiwala lang daw.. eh kaso wala naman siya ginagawa..
Anong gagawin ko? 30years old nako.
Sorry ulit paki intindi nalang kwento ko.. ang gulo kasi..

My wife and I have dated 2 years, married 3 months. For about half of that we were long distance/international. She lived in Ecuador, I met her on a trip there, and continued to go back every few months to see and take trips with her. Eventually I had her meet my family, she moved in with me in NYC for some time, and I proposed.
We were very in love. While the proposal and eventual wedding was relatively quick due to practical and immigration reasons, I still felt good about it and felt she was my person.
Now the rough parts, she has debilitating anxiety (from living in a dangerous city her whole life and a rape 12 years ago) and is anti-vax/pro sketchy naturopath medicine. I had seen her have an episode here and there but they were infrequent. Starting literally 3 days before the wedding the panic attacks got more severe and more frequent. She was hospitalized just days before the wedding with no clear trigger or solution. She had another one because of a dog we were sitting acting a little nuts and seemed like every week there would be some episode of lower severity compared to the one before the wedding. I was supportive of her through this. Not as much as her parents (who really baby her a lot). Stayed with her in ER, made her soups and teas, walked with her. Made sure she figured out insurance, got her a therapist and primary care doctor. I wasn’t the perfect husband, eventually grew tired/irritable of sleepless nights consoling her and was more distant, not sexually interested but sincerely I was trying. We became more distant after the wedding not closer. Though to be clear I never considered or committed any infidelities and would never. About the naturopath part, she knew how I felt about it. I told her as long as she would never withhold needed medicine in favor unproven natural solutions from our hypothetical child (which would be a dealbreaker and I told her this) I wouldn’t make an issue with how she chose to treat herself. She agreed and understood.
All this came to a head when we were filing for immigration paperwork for her marriage based green card. USCIS requires her have a COVID vaccine and while I knew she wouldn’t like this, I never predicted a meltdown. She had several panic attacks, went to dozens on doctors seeking one that would write her a waiver, and considered hiring a vaccine lawyer to get her a religious exemption. When it seemed none of these avenues were working, she told me would be leaving the US and likely me because she refuses to get this vaccine. That she wouldn’t get it under any circumstances. We had already finished all the paperwork, got all the letters of recommendation, and were so close.
I tried so hard to convince of the safety of the shot, showing her study after study, the relative worse dangers of COVID. In addition, the city where she’s from and would likely move back to where she is too scared to walk at night would surely trigger her anxiety way more than having to recover from the vaccine for a couple days. Once she started telling me she was considering leaving I just felt so numb. Like Jesus this is my life. Her mother and these sketchy doctors she talks to from back home convince her this vaccine will mess her up and she trusts them more than me
We’ve only been married 3 months. I spent about $15K on the wedding in NYC in January with all family and friends and now this is what it’s come to… I’m not super worried about the financial consequences of divorces at this point but damn. This woman has been my life for two years. I feel embarrassed, helpless, like an idiot to be honest. Why I didn’t see this sooner. I know this is a lot. Does this seem at all salvageable to any of you? I feel if we can just sort out her anxiety and get her this shot we’ll be off to the races but things are seeming pretty bleak

I (31m) am getting married in a few months and I'm frustrated with my sister (27f) because when I announced my engagement she enthusiastically volunteered to organize and throw a Jack & Jill party (a sort of fundraiser to help the couple pay for the wedding).
I never really wanted one of these parties because asking other people for money for my wedding feels weird and we don't really need the financial help but my fiance told me that it's socially acceptable and will be fun. So we agreed to let my sister organise and do this for us. Again, this was at the time of our engagement announcement.
Fast-forward to present day and we are only a few months from the wedding and only 6 weeks from the date we settled on for this Jack & Jill party and ABSOLUTELY nothing has been planned. We don't have activities, a liquor licence, we don't have games or prizes, we don't have a guest list, there's no tickets for sale yet. I've been hounding my sister trying to prompt her to start planning or do anything at all for it really and she keeps blowing me off and not seeming interested at all.
My fiance and I are considering just cancelling the party because we don't have the time to take on this task unaided. When I told my sister this she became angry at me and said she "would get to it".
I acknowledge that this is for my wedding and not my sister so when I ask her to start planning it's probably annoying to her but she VOLUNTEERED UNPROMPTED for this. It's not something I originally even wanted from her and now somehow I'm the bad guy. It's all just frustrating.

I’ll try to keep this short but there is a lot of nuance. In the past 1-2 years I have recently reconnected with some friends from my younger days (high school into young adult hood). We will call them Aaron (27 M) and Ashley (28->29 F) and I am 28 F. I previously stopped talking to both of them because of unfulfilled promises. Back in 2018, Aaron’s fiancé had moved to another country with his son and my boyfriend of 1 year plus had left to attend a family wedding and would be gone for close to a month.
Aaron and I in our mutual distress wanted to figure out a solution to our problems. Aaron was unable to fly due to not having papers as was worried his fiancé was lonely and I wanted to be with my partners family. Aaron had promised he would have paid for me to go on my trip before everyone left so my boyfriend’s dad did not count me in the budget for the tickets. With his fiancé leaving it then became I would go be part of the wedding then go stay with his fiancé for a bit. Aaron eventually ended up trying to proposition me for sec in exchange for the spend and that did not rub me right. This eventually carried forward into other issues tied to his affections and expectations of me which resulted in us no longer being friends.
We reconnected in 2022 where he apologized and explained more why he did what he did. My boyfriend asked if I was sure I wanted to welcome him back into my life and that he would trust my judgement if I choose to, which I did. Ashley and I stopped being friends back in 2017 because we had planned a trip for us and our partners. She stated she would use her buddy passes since she was a flight attendant to make the ticket costs cheaper.
The week before the trip it becomes I cannot bring my boyfriend. I was very confused by this. Severely confused by this so I asked why she said she didn’t feel comfortable with it. So I said okay. Don’t use your passes. We will pay for our trip and we can stay with his family. She said she still wanted me to stay with her. So I said okay. We will come, he stays with his family and I stay with you. We can all hang out and grab lunch and stuff and him and I go on dates and such.
Then she explicitly states the trip will not happen if I take him with me. Then she tries to turn it into a trip with people we have not seen from high school to recreate a sleepover we had in the 8th grade that got ruined by our parents. (That’s another story. I will add here my mom does not like Ashley never has) in the end it was all just too much and I decided that I no longer wanted to be friends with her because what she was doing was messed up especially so close to the trip. This on top of all the on and off issues I had with her through the duration of high school just didn’t seem worth it to take into adulthood.
Now 2023 Ashley reached out and apologizes. I was very torn up about the decision but after speaking with my therapist and weighing the risks decided it couldn’t hurt to try again. Both my gf and my bf were opposed to the decision but at the end of the day the choice was mine and I chose forgiveness.
Fall of 2023 my gf and I were planning a Christmas trip and Ashley said she didn’t get to see me while she was I my country because of the traumas she was dealing with with her mom so she would like to see me now. I told her I was going to fly out to spend the holiday with my gf so I didn’t think it would be possible. She stated she would see me in the time before I went to see my GF. I told her because of the trip I couldn’t afford it. She said that’s fine.
She would pay for the ticket for me to see her and I worked out an arrangement with my girlfriend where we would split the fair for the flights between all three locations and said her to do what happened the last time and I said yeah I can trust her. It doesn’t happen and that will be that. Lo and behold it does not happen because Ashley says to me two weeks before oh I overdid my shopping on Black Friday so I can’t buy your plane ticket. Ofc this makes me gf big mad and she says see I told you so. She was also confused why I was not upset. I explained that it wasn’t that I was not upset simply that it doesn’t really change much. I just won’t ask her for anything again. Which I haven’t and won’t.
Fast forward to spring 2024. The group is back together, we’re having weekly calls and our group chat chatting and having a blast. We decide we haven’t spent time as a group since 2017 so we should go see Aaron where he lives. I state very openly that I won’t be able to afford this trip. (Both Aaron and Ashley make a minimum of twice my income). Aaron says that’s fine I’ve got you covered. I question it and explain my hesitances because of both past situations. He said that’s fine don’t worry. I said okay. Let’s do this. The trip is slated for now (may 2024) and encompassed Ashley’s birthday.
A lot of things start happening in Aaron’s life and the ticket purchase gets repeatedly pushed off. This starts to make Ashley antsy so she buys her ticket hoping it pushes Aaron’s to buy my ticket. It does not. In moment of anxiety Ashley starts booking airbnbs for her self and asking how much I trust Aaron to follow through. I assure her that I do trust him follow through which I did. Because outside of the one trip he hasn’t not come through when I needed him too. I also stated at worst I end up buying my own ticket but I need to see what my expenses will look like in the end.
We are down to the wire my ticket is not bought so I start adjusting my bills. In the end I am not able to afford the ticket because even after short paying my bills I was left with roughly $120 which isn’t enough to book a flight or an airbnb for a week.
I told Ashley I would still try to figure it out and reached out to Aaron once more. He said yeah he has the money now but it doesn’t feel like a good time. The energy is off and he wouldn’t want me to come and something bad happens. I agree because what else would I do? It’s not my money nor does he actually owe me anything.
Ashley reaches out because I forgot to get back to her. To confirm The plan and I explain that I won’t be able to come because I really can’t afford it and it doesn’t make sense for me to put myself in a situation to be in a strange country with no emergency funds.
Ashley decides my friendship with her will fully change and she won’t take my word for anything again because I didn’t come to avoid having a bad trip not taking her feelings into consideration.
In the midst of this I start feeling anger towards both of them because Aaron didn’t come through as promised and Ashley has written me off over choosing responsibilities. My boyfriend said to speak to both of them and express what I am feeling to see what happens. I was able to resolve things with Aaron and come to a mutual understanding. However when I reached out to Ashley, she said she is on a high and doesn’t want to deal with this right now. She is making new friends and would like to clarify that I am no longer her best friend. She will listen to me when I talk but that’s about it. In my eyes that is a therapist not a friend and I already pay someone for that.
Am I wrong if I decide I don’t want to fix things with Ashley? Is she right for deciding I am not worthy of actual friendship?

This is for a steampunk-inspired fantasy world where people can manipulate a magical metal called quicksteel at will.
Introduction
While “No Man’s Land” is considered a desert frontier by most, it has been the home of a native population for centuries: The neksut nomads. The neksut travel from oasis to oasis, riding horses and herding sheep and other animals. Though some Neksut have fearsome reputations as warriors, the neksut way of life is under threat from foreign settlers, most of whom see the as unsophisticated.
Recreation
Though outsiders will confidently claim the neksut have no arts to speak of (or even no culture at all), in truth the desert riders have rich musical and storytelling traditions. The neksut are great lovers of song, specializing in throaty chants. Singing is often heard while the tribe is on horseback or around the camp at night, and is typically collaborative, with a lead singer being echoed by several others. The most famous songs are epic historical and mythical tales, such as The Stone Men, Ballad of the Besieger, and Death of Pulcros. Musical instruments include string and woodwind devices, carved from wood and richly decorated.
However perhaps the greatest neksut art is quicksmithing itself. Manipulating quicksteel is vital to the nomads’ way of life, allowing them to effortlessly convert carts into temporary dwellings and back again. But with excess metal, neksut quicksmiths (called shapers in their language) often create temporary sculptures that will be deconstructed when the tribe moves on. Such sculptures are very abstract, often embodying the mood or state of the tribe at the time of construction. To the neksut, the impermanence of this art represents the transient nature of their way of life and of life itself.
Food
The neksut diet is heavily dictated by their nomadic lifestyle, and is fittingly dominated by the products of domesticated animals, principally horses and sheep. Milk is the most important element, and is drank as well as made into cheese, yogurt, or a dry powder. These dairy products are paired with meat from either domestic sheep or from hunted jackalopes or roastritches. Contrary to popular belief, the neksut do not eat their horses, save in rare cases when an animal dies or is too old to keep up with the tribe. Such animals are far too valuable as mounts and sources of milk to be consumed, and in fact an idiom meaning “eating one’s horse” is a neksut expression for one who has not thought things through.
Vegetables and spices (save for salt) are relatively scarce in much of the central desert and thus are scarce in the neksut diet as well. However the nomads make great use of what ingredients they have in a wide variety of dairy and meat meals. Seasoned jackalope jerky with cheese, shredded mutton over yogurt, and roastritch stew are typical. These meals are supplemented with redleaf, roastritch eggs, and whatever foreign ingredients can be traded for. While their cuisine is typically somewhat plain on account of their transient nature, the neksut can put on impressive feasts for special occasions, such as weddings or celebrations. In these cases the traditional meal is the so-called “yogurt table,” in which each participant is given a bowl of yogurt to pair with dozens of small dishes which are passed amongst the tribe.
Gender and Marriage
The neksut are relatively egalitarian in terms of gender. Two reasons for this may be due to their heavy reliance on horses and quicksmithing for their way of life; Mares are actually far superior mounts to stallions (due to their smaller size and milk), and the necessity for quicksmithing to set up camps and carts means that female quicksmiths cannot be disregarded, as all hands are needed. Thus neksut women can be warriors, chieftains, and shamans, with Salaris the Sandstorm and Mist-Eyes being prominent examples. However outside of these important roles, their still is a gendered division of labor in most tribes. Neksut often marry outside the tribe, with young men and women being sent to other tribes as dictated by shamans.
Government
Neksut governance is divided between chieftains and shamans. Chieftains lead tribes from one oasis to another, ultimately ending their journey at a religious site. Shamans oversee religious sites and help select the next route taken by the passing tribes, coordinating movements between different tribes so that resources are given time to replenish. The balance of power between these two roles has varied over time, though currently shamans seemingly hold the dominant role. Shamans serve an important logistical purpose in organizing the travels of tribes and arranging marriages, but they also act as culture repositories, with the shared language, history, and customs of the neksut likely owing to the shamans’ influence. Thus the Neksut are considered one culture and not a dozen.
Religion
Though their mythology purports to explain the origins of humanity, the first mentions of the neksut in the historical record dates to the aftermath of the Great Dying. Some scholars have suggested that the neksut might share common ancestry with some of the people of Tolmika, noting common elements between neksut religion and the Faith of the Heeders.
Neksut religion is centered around the earth and the sky. According to their mythology, the desert was originally a paradise that was the birthplace of the first humans, the Stone Men, who were the children of the earth and the sky. These children crafted a vast civilization from the abundant resources, living like gods for centuries. But over time they forgot their place, abusing the land and ignoring the sky. Eventually, the parents punished their offspring; The earth sent forth earthquakes and eruptions, while the sky whipped up duststorms and withheld the rain. The paradise transformed into the great desert, and most of the children died or fled, leaving their civilization to crumble. But one child, “Neksut”, remained and resolved to repent by living off the land even in these harsh conditions, slaying his fellow stone men. The neksut trace their origins to this figure. They see their own lifestyle as a continuation of that repentance, and view other civilizations as a recreation of their ancestor’s mistakes.

On Feb. 9, 2022, I officially became "Homeless" on state record and applied for rent and housing assistance in Knoxville through KCDC/Section 8.
Per today's date:
Zeitraum = 825 days aka 27.123 months. This is exactly the length of time I've been surviving homeless.
It wasn't until THIS YEAR that my name "officially" has gone from being on their "PRE-waiting list": aka the long-ass waiting list you're on BEFORE graduating to the "OFFICIAL" waiting list.
*Btw, no one informed me of this being their process. I waited for many hopeful months while living out of my car, waiting to be called that I contacted them to get the news of only being on the PRE-waiting list- List. Good shit...
So, I decided to visit KCDC in-person last week to speak to them about my still pending status and ask if there were any actions I could take to help my chances of having a place to call home...
FYI: The Broadway location is ONLY for applying to any of their listed complexes. Unfortunately, ALL their waiting lists are also completely full.
*The Harriet Tubman location is for applying or relating to receiving vouchers for financial rental assistance.
FYI: you can ONLY APPLY for a voucher between their generous hours of 8AM-3PM only on the 2nd WED of each month, just fyi for any new applicants.
All I was told at each location was to "continue waiting" and that I would one day be contacted whenever my name came up.
The housing costs in Knoxville, especially have risen quickly dramatically even since when I very first began applying and they'll continue this trend.
**BTW, they're SHUTTING DOWN our Homeless Shelter on Broadway due to a LACK OF FUNDING (good timing), so yet another option we can all cross off our lists of any places to lie our heads down at night.
Pretty ironic that TN is the FREAKING VOLUNTEER STATE, considering... "GO VOLS", am I right??
See news link here: https://www.wate.com/news/knox-county-news/the-foyer-a-low-barrier-knoxville-homeless-shelter-set-to-close-as-officials-seek-new-operato
Oh yeah, HOMELESSNESS IN TN is also now a CLASS E FELONY!
*You are automatically disqualified from receiving public assistance such as Section 8 and SNAP benefits unless you've fully paid off ALL FEES (up to $3,000 for being homeless) and have fully completed your probation period! *KEEPING THINGS REALLY CLASSY, TN! 😜 (Also, you can't sleep in your vehicle at any rest stops, either. Also illegal. You can sit there in your car for only 3hrs max.)
"In Tennessee, felonies are classified from A to E, with Class A being the most serious and Class E being the least severe. A Class E felony in Tennessee is the lowest level of felony. It includes offenses such as theft of property valued at $1,000 to $2,500, certain driving offenses like third or subsequent DUI offenses, stalking, and forgery. The typical punishments for Class E felonies in Tennessee include: 1. One to six years of imprisonment (PRISON TIME, not jail), and/or 2. Fines up to $3,000. (Also, just pointing out that with any Class E felonies, being the "least" serious felony, if any fines for the offense are deemed as "unspecified" in their books, they then have the capability to charge an offender up to $50,000.)
However, these punishments can vary based on a variety of factors such as the exact nature of the crime, whether or not the defendant has a prior criminal record, and other relevant factors considered by the court." See specifics here: https://codes.findlaw.com/tn/title-40-criminal-procedure/tn-code-sect-40-35-111/
Covertly, they've named this abomination as the:
"Equal Access to Public Property Act of 2012.” Makes it sound so helpful and positive for us, doesn't it? Thanks, guys! LOL!
See below what all is covered, including: **If they happen to search and find any of your stored belongings (likely being at times literally their entire life's possessions, including if they find you've stored your food somewhere) the police will immediately confiscate it, and then you will have a total of 90 days to go to them and claim all your belongings or else they'll consider it as "abandoned property". You must detail exactly where on the property that they found your items, so that they then will slap you with a Class E Felony, charge you a "holding fee" for whatever amount of time they "stored" it for you, also stating that "the court shall include an order of restitution for any property damage or loss incurred as a result" of you or your belongings being present on the state property. But hey, at least you get your items back!
https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/2021/title-39/chapter-14/part-4/section-39-14-414/#:~:text=It%20is%20an%20offense%20for,agency%20responsible%20for%20the%20land.
My Story: (if you've made it this far and give any shits about hearing it for the sake of context.)
Around 1 year-deep into the COVID-19 pandemic, I had been living in an expensive house centered in the North Knox Historic District, working FT at a job I'd spent the past few yrs diligently climbing their ladder, and splitting the house payment with my then, Fiancee of 5 1/2 yrs. He began dating a different girl, had moved her into our house, while stating that "If I didn't stop being depressed, he was going to kick me out". Unfortunately, the house had been put solely in his name when bought. You see, my grandmother had just passed from COVID-19, my childhood best friend had just passed away, and I had been informed suddenly that my 84yrs-old dementia-ridden Father was getting worse and also nearing his last days. Not long after, my older sister contacted me acting upset, stating that he now needed to be on continual watch for FT care, so I packed my things, left my fiancee and my then home and moved in to care for my late father. Eventually, I had to leave my job to fulfill my caretaking duties but I don't regret being there for my father but it grew to be very difficult times, as it was for many those yrs. Dad passed away Jan. 31, 2022. My mother immediately inherited the house at his death, per their messy divorce agreement many yrs before. She so graciously left no time after me literally watching him take his very last breath in the bedroom down the hall from my own for her to serve me immediate eviction papers, now forcing me to leave the home that I grew up with my father in, while being raised. This house, I had only 1 year previous, agreed to my mother and sister when they had requested this of me, quit my long-term, FT job, losing all my sources of income in order to live with and solitary care for my father. (Everyone else- meaning my mother and 3 sisters -were all "too busy" to help me out or give even short breaks. I'm informing you of this, so that anyone that ever says to themselves, "why don't they just go live with family", can comprehend how that's not an actual option for everyone, so when the systems are failing, ppl aren't always on the streets or living out of their cars bc of drug problems or laziness or whatever other common misconceptions I've heard from ppl that are limited in grasping these situations for others. That last month that he was still alive, they all "forbade" me from leaving the house at all nor having any visitors "for his health", despite my deep despair from watching his health ferociously decline, resulting in my very rapidly declining mental health and massive weight-loss and over-exhaustion. Upon receiving my eviction notice, I then immediately began applying for Section 8 assistance. I had no one left and nowhere to go. It's like this for a lot of people. Don't assume ppl always have any other options available, is my point of giving so much backstory. Not exactly trying to "victimize" myself here for pity. I'm strong, I've got this. Just trying to get some points across for when you judge another's situation that you don't know.
Ok, here's the last I'll say about all this. Just humor me and try to consider what I'm pointing out here.
Every single one of us local TN natives have seen through the years how various homeless individuals will bravely step into some of our favorite local diners, gas stations, retail stores, etc. Them, asking employees permissions for maybe utilizing a restroom, some cold water or a drink, often after them walking around most the day (shelter kicks everyone out once it's morning), often after being in our unforgiving weather or high temps. Sometimes, they're asking even for a small bite to eat or leftovers from the kitchen. SO MANY times throughout the years, we've all been standing by, as we witness some enraged employee or the manager angrily decline, followed with often loud threats of calling the cops on them, etc in an attempt to motivate them to not come back asking later, as now they see how many of their annoyed paying customers are actively shaking their heads and shaming their whole interaction with rotten looks of disgust.
I mean after all, our businesses ABSOLUTELY can't be taking any risks of "losing their dedicated customers, just BC some "lazy bums" keep showing up, "always asking for free handouts" and "scaring away our business".
Really, it's best to just not give them anything in the 1st place cus ya know, just like strays, they'll "just keep showing back up"...
Right?
Excluding sometimes a random kind individual's exception, for the most part this mindset I'm highlighting here has most often worked as an sorta unspoken "Golden Rule" when we're relating to how we'll decidedly "handle" our large and growing homeless population.
Now that our housing prices have fully skyrocketed, with increases markedly on the rise almost immediately after the COVID-19 Pandemic that left so many of us without income that was supporting our access to necessities. Many, many "middle-class" individuals who were previously working averaging their 5 days/week (ty past labor strikes enforcing our allowance of 2 days off) and living comfortably on their 40hrs/week paychecks are currently struggling to find availability and also afford even a 1br ran-down apartment in our "lower-class" neighborhoods. Most are now working multiple jobs trying to keep up, and childcare isn't offered for free, so it keeps everyone from having opportunities to not only spend time raising their children vs random strangers who are also overworked, but how can you save money when you're losing part of what you earn, just to be able to go to work and not be fully abandoning your children to fend for themselves if left home alone?
Often, homeless ppl can be seen all throughout our city, and guaranteed to be growing in mass numbers when inching closer toward that underpass leading up to the Historic Gay St./Downtown/UT campus/Cumberland Strip. *It's really fairly ironic I've thought, how so much of our income has always been made/spent here, however we're required each time, to first drive through the huge crowd of terribly unfortunate ppl left standing without their bare necessities, often left to sleep outside the packed shelter when it hits capacity, which is always a guarantee. They're not left outside strictly bc they're "on drugs", like a lot have been led to believe.
Lastly, but oh of such an amazing relevance-
**Here's some realism surrounding our cultures' universally pre-conceived (disconnected/egotistical and mis-informed), accepted stigma that states the following phrase:
"These ppl just won't get a job bc they're SO LAZY and just want to live off all us hard-working American's tax dollars...blah blah blah.." Employers won't hire if you don't have an address and the shelters fail to deliver anyone's incoming mail, nor do businesses want to hire a homeless person showing up without proper hygiene or attire or any kind of criminal record. Also, transportation is a bitch. KAT bus costs money, and is very limited on its area services. By walking such lengthy distances, not only can your safety be at risk (especially for Females or any shifts beginning or letting out after dark) but you're gonna be super sweaty and gross by the time you actually arrive to then work a full shift, if you can even somehow make it on time every day by walking for hours before and then after every single shift that you show for.
This isn't any kinda "new" issue for the poor, btw. Don't be such heartless fools, making someone else's situation about "you".
Life's realities can forcibly humble an individual, catching us off-guard for what we'll often end up facing. Always count your blessings and never assume you know anything about anyone else's struggles or how they got there. We're all just trying to survive in this place.
Thanks for reading and hopefully this info helps bring insight to whomever reads this. Good luck out there, I mean it. We got this. ❤️

Hi Reddit,
I'm in need of some advice regarding my current marital situation and the potential sale of our home. To give you the full picture, I'll start from the beginning. Apologies for the length, but I feel all the details are necessary to understand the context.
I (29F) met my husband (40M) on Tinder four years ago. We dated for about eight months when my family had an opportunity to purchase a property. My then-boyfriend was also looking to be involved in a business deal of that sort, and he was interested in having his name on the property as well. My father supported this, seeing as how my boyfriend was a physician with a good income, and saw this as a way to bring him closer to our family. The opportunity came quickly, and we all signed the contract to purchase the house.
Trouble began shortly after this. My boyfriend requested that only he and I be on the title of the house, removing the rest of my family, as he saw a future with us and envisioned it as our potential family home. My father was very pleased to hear this and supported it, so we obliged. During this time, the property had increased in value, and I requested the other family members be paid off so we could buy out their shares. My boyfriend declined, feeling it was unfair.
To skim over some details, here are the highlights of the construction: My boyfriend paid more for the down payment than we initially realized would be required. Because of this, he paid no further construction costs. The construction proceeded with debt from my family until the construction loans came through. My family paid for the construction, and my father built the house for us without charging for his management services. My father was displeased with my boyfriend’s behavior and required him to pay more money for the construction due to inflation and the COVID shutdown. My boyfriend declined, and my mother and I secretly took out a line of credit to front the construction costs to my father, pretending it was from my boyfriend. Eventually, as we got the construction loans on a rolling basis after meeting construction milestones, my mother’s line of credit was paid off.
During this time, my family and I wondered why my boyfriend had not proposed. I decided that if he hadn't proposed by a certain time, I would leave him. Fortunately, he did propose on Valentine’s Day 2022. By spring of 2022, construction was coming to an end, and it was time for us to settle into the house. My fiancé felt uncomfortable with how much money he had put into the house and was worried I could leave him and make a profit. I promised him I wouldn’t leave him, but it wasn’t enough. He said he would believe me if I had a child with him, otherwise women would leave men if there were no ties. I told him I would have a child with him right when we got married. He suggested I come off birth control, as it takes months for a woman’s cycle to normalize after being on birth control for many years. I promised him I would come off birth control.
Coming off birth control was more stressful than I realized. I was very hormonal, breaking out, and felt unlike myself. This contributed to my fiancé and I fighting more than usual. In one particularly heated fight, I told him I would go back on birth control and even purchased the pills, but he told me he would break up with me if I did because he wanted to get to know the real me. I conceded, and then something switched in me and I became excited at the possibility of having a baby. I started tracking my cycle and figuring out my ovulation days. I shared this with my fiancé, and on one of those days, we got pregnant. I didn’t find out until the end of summer 2022. When I did find out, I told my fiancé and suggested we should probably get married.
My fiancé's first response was that we should wait to see if the baby sticks, and if it does, then we can plan a marriage but he wanted to wait until February 2023. I was very disappointed and angry and yelled at him. I felt alone and overwhelmed by the thought of having an illegitimate child. After discussing potentially getting an abortion, potentially breaking up, and potentially selling the house, I talked my fiancé into keeping the baby and getting married. He also wanted to keep the baby but was afraid of our situation. After many fights about when to have the wedding, we finally decided on December 2022. At that point, I was four months pregnant. During this time, my fiancé and I had major arguments that therapy couldn’t even remedy. We would yell at each other, slam doors, I would cry, and he would hold himself up in a room for hours. We had nice moments too, but they were heavily clouded over by the bad.
Finally, we got married, and things were good for a while. But then we faced some marital problems. My husband kept separate accounts and managed the finances himself. We had a joint credit card where I could pay for expenses without being questioned. He made all of the major investment decisions and major purchases. If I tried to disagree or speak up, he would get upset because this was not the submissive wife I had promised him I would be. I made significantly less money than him but lived a good lifestyle, buying almost anything I wanted within reason. Coming from a traditional family, I was upset that finances were kept separate. And so it continued that my husband would invest tens of thousands of dollars into our house so that his family from out of town would visit. We live in Vancouver, Canada, but his family is from Ottawa. In hopes of luring his youngest sister (of four) to Vancouver, my husband would make any modification to the house that his youngest sister showed the slightest interest in. This included a hot tub on the rooftop, a media system in the basement, a movie projector, and much more. After said sister got married, she made it clear that she would not move to Vancouver. Then a switch happened in my husband, and he suddenly wanted to sell the house.
Meanwhile, during all this time, I had my baby, and my husband and I were still fighting more than ever. I felt no support from him, and he felt drained by his work, our fights, and being away from his family. Recently, for the past three months, he has been consistently pushing for the sale of our house. This is where my dilemma lies. I am afraid to sell this house because my husband has kept finances separate, and the mortgage on this house has been serving as a way for me to feel secure. My husband contributes a monthly amount on a regular basis. He could have forced a sale in the past but didn’t, instead paying into the monthly mortgage on top of other bills. Now, he is considering forcing the sale of our house, but I am upset that he is citing financing as the issue when I have been begging him to save money instead of spending (his response is that $200,000 does not affect a $2M mortgage, and that he now feels burnt out and wants to retire sooner and live passively). If I agree to sell, I feel unstable about moving from our home given that my husband and I fight so frequently, and I am left alone to take care of the child. It is also worth noting that my parents live right across the street and come over frequently to help with the child, or I would go over to seek their help. My husband says that he feels abandoned and uncomfortable frequently because of our proximity to my parents, but I am because there have been times when I felt truly alone, and my parents were my only solace and support. My husband would ignore me for days, especially when I was postpartum and vulnerable. My parents now see my husband as someone who doesn’t put his wife and child first. My husband says that the massive mortgage we have is too stressful for him, and he can’t take that burden. I am sad that my husband will not consider keeping this house for another three years so that I can get comfortable with the idea of selling the house and that potentially I and my family can all move to Ottawa so that we can allow my husband to be closer to his family.
I don’t know what to do at this point, Reddit. I’m currently on extended maternity leave, but it ends in six months. My husband and I will have to come to an agreement about the house, otherwise, it is likely that he will force the sale of the house even if I’m not ready to move. I’ve consistently felt rushed and overlooked in this relationship. I am tired of being the small voice that does not impact decision-making. My husband is now being nice to me and trying to show me a good time, but I see it as him turning on his charming mode so that I can say yes to the sale of this house. I’m not sure what to do. Our fights and disagreements are so bad and the marriage feels like doom sometimes (never any physical violence). I sometimes questions even staying with him, but I worry for my daughter. He is a good father to her, when he is present and off his phone.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
TL;DR:
I need advice. I met my husband four years ago, and we bought a house together with my family's help. Financial disputes caused issues. Despite getting married and having a baby, we fight often. My husband handles our finances separately, spent a lot on the house, but now wants to sell it. I feel insecure about selling because the mortgage is like an investment to me, and also I rely on my parents, who live nearby, for help with our child. My husband feels stressed by the mortgage and feels homesick for his family 3000km away. I feel overlooked in decision-making and am unsure whether to agree to the sale, or to stand my ground and not sell. Sometimes I question staying in the marriage for my daughter’s sake, or if I should give up on this unhappy marriage.

Hope i can post this here. just got banned from bipolar for this ugh
original post: https://www.reddit.com/bipolacomments/1bw5qeb/i_got_myself_a_bipolar_girl_and_shes_everything/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
so last last tuesday (30th april, 19 days after we got married on the 11th), she divorced/dumped me. i am distraught. i have never been so depressed, i wish someone told me that it would end terribly, and that i should take it slow because i would have listened to them if ANYONE just ANYBODY told me i was manic/delusional/moving too fast, but NOBODY told me to do any of that and i went in with the fuck it we ball and came out with nothing D:

/s

i am the happiest i have ever been
this was my first proper relationship. here are some stats:

• met on 19th March,
  
• first date was tue 9th april after a 1.5 day talking phase
  
• second date 2 days later where i decided to move in with her
  
• we told each other we love each other as soon as we could - we had a discord call the night before and we both fell in love w each other and i was the one to say it first and she ofc said it right back, and was gonna wait till we got inside then she was gonna say it anyway but i couldn't wait to say it :DDDD
  
• moved in properly over the next few days, our second date was straight up living with each other
  
• third date was a wedding.
  
• shotgun wedding because i was going overseas on a family trip that was planned months ago
  
• she encouraged me to go on the trip even though i continually said i wanna stay and spend more time w her, and i love her so much for that.
  
• 2 weeks spent away, daily vid calls
  
  • came back on the night of the 25th april and she was so excited to see me and we hugged and the kiss was amazing and then we hung out for an hr then she pillioned me back home :::))))
• spent the next few days together, sex was had heheheheh
  
• she brought up the divorce on the 30th april and it took me 2 days to accept
  
• she literally said "i think we'd be better off as friends" over text at some point lmaoaooaoo
  

My thoughts:
I'm happier than ever. I got to experience so, so, so much in that relationship and i'm so so so much more glad that it happened than i am sad that it's over.
every day i realise more and more that we're better off as friends and if we went slow and weren't both manic, we would've just stayed friends and not be lovers, but we took it fast, speedran the relationship, and i got to smash lets fkn goooooooo
she gave me so much and i'm so glad i didnt listen to the people warning me because i really enjoyed believing that i finally found the one after having given up 1.5y ago, and having no doubts, and now no regrets. that was the best relationship, and i'll forever be glad it happened.
thank fuck we didn't get legally married lmao
thank you for being part of this episode :)

abandon, ability, able, about, above, absence, absolute, absolutely, abstract, abundance, academy, accent, accept, access, accident, accompany, accomplish, according, account, accurate, achieve, achievement, acid, acknowledge, acquire, across, action, active, activity, actor, actual, actually, adapt, addition, additional, address, adequate, adjust, administration, admire, admission, admit, adolescent, adopt, adult, advance, advantage, adventure, advertise, advice, advise, adviser, advocate, affair, affect, afford, afraid, after, afternoon, again, against, age, agency, agenda, agent, aggressive, ago, agree, agreement, agriculture, ahead, aid, aim, air, aircraft, airline, airport, alarm, album, alcohol, alive, all, alliance, allow, ally, almost, alone, along, already, also, alter, alternative, although, always, amateur, amazing, ambition, ambulance, among, amount, analysis, analyst, analyze, ancient, and, anger, angle, angry, animal, anniversary, announce, annual, another, answer, anticipate, anxiety, any, anybody, anymore, anyone, anything, anyway, anywhere, apart, apartment, apologize, apparent, apparently, appeal, appear, appearance, apple, application, apply, appoint, appointment, appreciate, approach, appropriate, approval, approve, approximately, architect, area, argue, argument, arise, arm, armed, army, around, arrange, arrangement, arrest, arrival, arrive, art, article, artist, artistic, as, ashamed, aside, ask, asleep, aspect, assault, assert, assess, assessment, asset, assign, assignment, assist, assistance, assistant, associate, association, assume, assumption, assure, at, athlete, athletic, atmosphere, attach, attack, attempt, attend, attention, attitude, attorney, attract, attraction, attractive, attribute, audience, author, authority, auto, available, average, avoid, award, aware, awareness, away, awful, baby, back, background, bad, badly, bag, balance, ball, ban, band, bank, bar, barely, barrel, barrier, base, baseball, basic, basically, basis, basket, basketball, bath, bathroom, battery, battle, be, beach, bear, beat, beautiful, beauty, because, become, bed, bedroom, bee, beef, beer, before, begin, beginning, behavior, behind, being, belief, believe, bell, belong, below, belt, bench, bend, beneath, benefit, beside, besides, best, bet, better, between, beyond, bicycle, big, bike, bill, billion, bind, biological, bird, birth, birthday, bit, bite, black, blade, blame, blanket, blind, block, blood, blow, blue, board, boat, body, bomb, bombing, bond, bone, book, boom, boot, border, boring, born, borrow, boss, both, bother, bottle, bottom, boundary, bowl, box, boy, boyfriend, brain, branch, brand, brave, bread, break, breakfast, breast, breath, breathe, brick, bridge, brief, briefly, bright, brilliant, bring, broad, broken, brother, brown, brush, buck, budget, build, building, bullet, bunch, burden, burn, bury, bus, business, busy, but, butter, button, buy, buyer, by, cabin, cabinet, cable, cake, calculate, call, camera, camp, campaign, campus, can, Canadian, cancer, candidate, cap, capability, capable, capacity, capital, captain, capture, car, carbon, card, care, career, careful, carefully, carrier, carry, case, cash, cast, cat, catch, category, Catholic, cause, ceiling, celebrate, celebration, celebrity, cell, center, central, century, CEO, ceremony, certain, certainly, chain, chair, chairman, challenge, chamber, champion, championship, chance, change, changing, channel, chapter, character, characteristic, characterize, charge, charity, chart, chase, cheap, check, cheek, cheese, chef, chemical, chest, chicken, chief, child, childhood, Chinese, chip, chocolate, choice, cholesterol, choose, Christian, Christmas, church, cigarette, circle, circumstance, cite, citizen, city, civil, civilian, claim, class, classic, classroom, clean, clear, clearly, client, climate, climb, clinic, clinical, clock, close, closely, closer, clothes, clothing, cloud, club, clue, cluster, coach, coal, coalition, coast, coat, code, coffee, cognitive, cold, collapse, colleague, collect, collection, collective, college, colonial, color, column, combination, combine, come, comedy, comfort, comfortable, command, commander, comment, commercial, commission, commit, commitment, committee, common, communicate, communication, community, company, compare, comparison, compete, competition, competitive, competitor, complain, complaint, complete, completely, complex, complexity, compliance, complicate, complicated, component, compose, composition, comprehensive, computer, concentrate, concentration, concept, concern, concerned, concert, conclude, conclusion, concrete, condition, conduct, conference, confidence, confident, confirm, conflict, confront, confusion, Congress, congressional, connect, connection, consciousness, consensus, consequence, conservative, consider, considerable, consideration, consist, consistent, constant, constantly, constitute, constitutional, construct, construction, consultant, consume, consumer, consumption, contact, contain, container, contemporary, content, contest, context, continue, continued, contract, contrast, contribute, contribution, control, controversial, controversy, convention, conventional, conversation, convert, conviction, convince, cook, cookie, cooking, cool, cooperation, cop, cope, copy, core, corn, corner, corporate, corporation, correct, correspondent, cost, cotton, couch, could, council, count, counter, country, county, couple, courage, course, court, cousin, cover, coverage, cow, crack, craft, crash, crazy, cream, create, creation, creative, creature, credit, crew, crime, criminal, crisis, criteria, critic, critical, criticism, criticize, crop, cross, crowd, crucial, cry, cultural, culture, cup, curious, current, currently, curriculum, custom, customer, cut, cycle, dad, daily, damage, dance, danger, dangerous, dare, dark, darkness, data, database, date, daughter, day, dead, deal, dealer, dear, death, debate, debt, decade, decide, decision, deck, declare, decline, decrease, deep, deeply, deer, defeat, defend, defendant, defense, defensive, deficit, define, definitely, definition, degree, delay, deliver, delivery, demand, democracy, Democratic, Democrat, demonstrate, demonstration, deny, department, depend, dependent, depending, depict, depression, depth, deputy, derive, describe, description, desert, deserve, design, designer, desire, desk, desperate, despite, destroy, destruction, detail, detailed, detect, detection, detective, determine, develop, developing, development, device, devil, dialogue, diet, differ, difference, different, differently, difficult, difficulty, dig, digital, dimension, dining, dinner, direct, direction, directly, director, dirt, disability, disagree, disappear, disaster, discipline, disclose, discover, discovery, discrimination, discuss, discussion, disease, dish, dismiss, disorder, display, dispute, distance, distinct, distinction, distinguish, distribute, distribution, district, diverse, diversity, divide, division, divorce, DNA, do, doctor, document, dog, domestic, dominant, dominate, door, double, doubt, down, downtown, dozen, draft, drag, drama, dramatic, dramatically, draw, drawer, drawing, dream, dress, drink, drive, driver, drop, drug, dry, due, during, dust, duty, dwell, dying, dynamic, each, eager, ear, earlier, early, earn, earnings, earth, earthquake, ease, easily, east, eastern, easy, eat, economic, economy, edge, edit, edition, editor, educate, education, educational, educator, effect, effective, effectively, efficiency, efficient, effort, egg, eight, either, elderly, elect, election, electric, electrical, electricity, electronic, element, elementary, eliminate, elite, else, elsewhere, e-mail, embrace, emerge, emergency, emission, emotion, emotional, emphasis, emphasize, employ, employee, employer, employment, empty, enable, encounter, encourage, end, enemy, energy, enforcement, engage, engine, engineer, engineering, English, enhance, enjoy, enormous, enough, ensure, enter, enterprise, entertain, entertainment, entire, entirely, entrance, entry, environment, environmental, episode, equal, equally, equipment, equivalent, era, error, escape, especially, essay, essential, essentially, establish, establishment, estate, estimate, etc, ethics, ethnic, European, evaluate, evaluation, evening, event, eventually, ever, every, everybody, everyday, everyone, everything, everywhere, evidence, evolution, evolve, exact, exactly, exam, examination, examine, example, exceed, excellent, except, exception, exchange, exciting, executive, exercise, exhibit, exhibition, exist, existence, existing, expand, expansion, expect, expectation, expense, expensive, experience, experiment, expert, explain, explanation, explode, explore, explosion, expose, exposure, express, expression, extend, extension, extensive, extent, external, extra, extraordinary, extreme, extremely, eye, fabric, face, facility, fact, factor, factory, faculty, fade, fail, failure, fair, fairly, faith, fall, false, familiar, family, famous, fan, fantasy, far, farm, farmer, fashion, fast, fat, fate, father, fault, favor, favorite, fear, feature, federal, fee, feed, feel, feeling, fellow, female, fence, festival, few, fewer, fiber, fiction, field, fifteen, fifth, fifty, fight, fighter, fighting, figure, file, fill, film, final, finally, finance, financial, find, finding, fine, finger, finish, fire, firm, first, fish, fishing, fit, fitness, five, fix, flag, flame, flat, flavor, flee, flesh, flight, float, floor, flow, flower, fly, focus, folk, follow, following, food, foot, football, for, force, foreign, forest, forever, forget, form, formal, formation, former, formula, forth, fortune, forward, found, foundation, founder, four, fourth, frame, framework, free, freedom, freeze, French, frequency, frequent, frequently, fresh, friend, friendly, friendship, from, front, fruit, frustration, fuel, fulfill, full, fully, fun, function, fund, fundamental, funding, funeral, funny, furniture, furthermore, future, gain, galaxy, gallery, game, gang, gap, garage, garden, garlic, gas, gate, gather, gay, gaze, gear, gender, gene, general, generally, generate, generation, genetic, gentleman, gently, German, gesture, get, ghost, giant, gift, gifted, girl, girlfriend, give, given, glad, glance, glass, global, glove, go, goal, God, gold, golden, golf, good, govern, government, governor, grab, grace, grade, gradually, graduate, grain, grand, grandmother, grant, grass, grave, gray, great, green, grocery, ground, group, grow, growing, growth, guarantee, guard, guess, guest, guide, guideline, guilty, gun, guy, habit, habitat, hair, half, hall, hand, handful, handle, hang, happen, happy, harbor, hard, hardly, hat, hate, have, he, head, headline, headquarters, health, healthy, hear, hearing, heart, heat, heaven, heavily, heavy, heel, height, helicopter, hell, hello, help, helpful, hence, her, herb, here, heritage, hero, herself, hey, hi, hide, high, highlight, highly, highway, hill, him, himself, hip, hire, his, historic, historical, history, hit, hold, hole, holiday, holy, home, homeless, honest, honey, honor, hope, horizon, horror, horse, hospital, host, hot, hotel, hour, house, household, housing, how, however, huge, human, humor, hundred, hungry, hunter, hunting, hurt, husband, hypothesis, ice, idea, ideal, identification, identify, identity, ignore, ill, illegal, illness, illustrate, image, imagination, imagine, immediate, immediately, immigrant, immigration, impact, implement, implication, imply, importance, important, impose, impossible, impress, impression, impressive, improve, improvement, incentive, incident, include, including, income, incorporate, increase, increased, increasingly, incredible, indeed, independence, independent, index, indicate, indication, individual, industrial, industry, infant, infection, inflation, influence, inform, information, ingredient, initial, initially, initiative, injury, inner, innocent, inquiry, inside, insight, insist, inspire, install, instance, instead, institute, institution, institutional, instruction, instructor, instrument, insurance, intellectual, intelligence, intend, intense, intensity, intention, interaction, interest, interested, interesting, internal, international, Internet, interpret, interpretation, intervention, interview, introduce, introduction, invasion, invest, investigation, investigator, investment, investor, invite, involve, involved, involvement, Iraqi, Irish, iron, Islamic, island, Israeli, issue, it, Italian, item, its, itself, jacket, jail, Japanese, jet, Jew, Jewish, job, join, joint, joke, journal, journalist, journey, joy, judge, judgment, juice, jump, junior, jury, just, justice, justify, keep, key, kick, kid, kill, killer, killing, kind, king, kiss, kitchen, knee, knife, knock, know, knowledge, lab, label, labor, laboratory, lack, lady, lake, land, landscape, language, lap, large, largely, last, late, later, Latin, latter, laugh, launch, law, lawsuit, lawyer, lay, layer, lead, leader, leadership, leading, leaf, league, lean, learn, learning, least, leather, leave, left, leg, legacy, legal, legend, legislation, legislative, legislator, legitimate, lemon, length, less, lesson, let, letter, level, liberal, library, license, lie, life, lifestyle, lifetime, lift, light, like, likely, limit, limitation, limited, line, link, lip, list, listen, literary, literature, little, live, living, load, loan, local, locate, location, lock, long, long-term, look, loose, lose, loss, lost, lot, lots, loud, love, lovely, lover, low, lower, luck, lucky, lunch, luxury, machine, mad, magazine, mail, main, mainly, maintain, maintenance, major, majority, make, maker, makeup, male, mall, man, manage, management, manager, manner, manufacturer, manufacturing, many, map, margin, mark, market, marketing, marriage, married, marry, mask, mass, massive, master, match, material, math, matter, may, maybe, mayor, me, meal, mean, meaning, meanwhile, measure, measurement, meat, mechanism, media, medical, medication, medicine, medium, meet, meeting, member, membership, memory, mental, mention, menu, mere, merely, mess, message, metal, meter, method, Mexican, middle, might, military, milk, million, mind, mine, minister, minor, minority, minute, miracle, mirror, miss, missile, mission, mistake, mix, mixture, mm-hmm, mode, model, moderate, modern, modest, mom, moment, money, monitor, month, mood, moon, moral, more, moreover, morning, mortgage, most, mostly, mother, motion, motivation, motor, mountain, mouse, mouth, move, movement, movie, Mr, Mrs, Ms, much, multiple, murder, muscle, museum, music, musical, musician, Muslim, must, mutual, my, myself, mystery, myth, naked, name, narrative, narrow, nation, national, native, natural, naturally, nature, near, nearby, nearly, necessarily, necessary, neck, need, negative, negotiate, negotiation, neighbor, neighborhood, neither, nerve, nervous, net, network, never, nevertheless, new, newly, news, newspaper, next, nice, night, nine, no, nobody, nod, noise, nomination, nominee, none, nonetheless, nor, normal, normally, north, northern, nose, not, note, nothing, notice, notion, novel, now, nowhere, nuclear, number, numerous, nurse, nut, object, objective, obligation, observation, observe, observer, obtain, obvious, obviously, occasion, occasionally, occupation, occupy, occur, ocean, odd, odds, of, off, offense, offensive, offer, office, officer, official, often, oh, oil, okay, old, Olympic, on, once, one, ongoing, onion, online, only, onto, open, opening, operate, operating, operation, operator, opinion, opponent, opportunity, oppose, opposed, opposite, opposition, option, or, orange, order, ordinary, organic, organization, organize, orientation, origin, original, originally, other, others, otherwise, ought, our, ours, ourselves, out, outcome, outside, oven, over, overall, overcome, overlook, owe, own, owner, pace, pack, package, page, pain, painful, paint, painter, painting, pair, pale, Palestinian, palm, pan, panel, panic, pant, paper, paragraph, parent, park, parking, part, participant, participate, participation, particle, particular, particularly, partly, partner, partnership, party, pass, passage, passenger, passion, past, patch, path, patient, pattern, pause, pay, payment, PC, peace, peak, peer, pen, penalty, people, pepper, per, perceive, percentage, perception, perfect, perfectly, perform, performance, perhaps, period, permanent, permission, permit, person, personal, personality, personally, personnel, perspective, persuade, pet, phase, phenomenon, philosophy, phone, photo, photographer, phrase, physical, physically, physician, piano, pick, picture, pie, piece, pile, pilot, pine, pink, pipe, pitch, place, plan, plane, planet, planning, plant, plastic, plate, platform, play, player, please, pleasure, plenty, plot, plus, PM, pocket, poem, poet, poetry, point, police, policy, political, politically, politician, politics, poll, pollution, pool, poor, pop, popular, population, porch, port, portion, portrait, portray, pose, position, positive, possess, possession, possibility, possible, possibly, post, pot, potato, potential, potentially, pound, pour, poverty, powder, power, powerful, practical, practice, prayer, preach, precisely, predict, prediction, prefer, preference, pregnancy, pregnant, preparation, prepare, prescription, presence, present, presentation, preserve, president, presidential, press, pressure, pretend, pretty, prevent, previous, previously, price, pride, priest, primarily, primary, prime, principal, principle, print, prior, priority, prison, prisoner, privacy, private, probably, problem, procedure, proceed, process, processing, processor, proclaim, produce, producer, product, production, profession, professional, professor, profile, profit, program, progress, progressive, project, prominent, promise, promote, prompt, proof, proper, properly, property, proportion, proposal, propose, prosecutor, prospect, protect, protection, protein, protest, proud, prove, provide, provider, province, provision, psychological, psychology, public, publication, publicity, publish, publisher, pull, punishment, purchase, pure, purpose, pursue, push, put, qualify, quality, quarter, quarterback, quarterly, queen, quest, question, quick, quickly, quiet, quietly, quit, quite, quote, race, racial, radiation, radical, radio, rail, rain, raise, range, rank, rapid, rapidly, rare, rarely, rate, rather, rating, ratio, raw, reach, react, reaction, reader, reading, ready, real, reality, realize, really, reason, reasonable, recall, receive, recent, recently, reception, recipe, recipient, recognition, recognize, recommend, recommendation, record, recording, recover, recovery, recruit, red, reduce, reduction, refer, reference, reflect, reflection, reform, refugee, refuse, regard, regarding, regardless, regime, region, regional, register, regular, regularly, regulate, regulation, regulator, reinforce, reject, relate, relation, relationship, relative, relatively, relax, release, relevant, relief, religion, religious, rely, remain, remaining, remarkable, remember, remind, remote, remove, repeat, repeatedly, replace, replacement, reply, report, reporter, represent, representation, representative, Republican, reputation, request, require, requirement, research, researcher, resemble, reservation, resident, residential, resign, resist, resistance, resolution, resolve, resort, resource, respect, respond, response, responsibility, responsible, rest, restaurant, restore, restriction, result, retain, retire, retirement, return, reveal, revenue, review, revolution, rhythm, rice, rich, rid, ride, rifle, right, ring, rise, risk, river, road, rock, role, roll, romantic, roof, room, root, rope, rose, rough, roughly, round, route, routine, row, rub, rubber, rude, ruin, rule, run, running, rural, rush, Russian, sacred, sad, safe, safety, sake, salad, salary, sale, sales, salt, same, sample, sanction, sand, satellite, satisfaction, satisfied, satisfy, sauce, save, saving, say, scale, scandal, scare, scatter, scenario, scene, schedule, scheme, scholar, scholarship, school, science, scientific, scientist, scope, score, scream, screen, script, sea, search, season, seat, second, secondary, secret, secretary, section, sector, secure, security, see, seed, seek, seem, segment, seize, select, selection, self, sell, Senate, senator, send, senior, sense, sensitive, sentence, separate, sequence, series, serious, seriously, servant, serve, service, session, set, setting, settle, settlement, seven, several, severe, sex, sexual, shade, shadow, shake, shall, shallow, shape, share, sharp, she, sheet, shelf, shell, shelter, shift, shine, ship, shirt, shock, shoe, shoot, shooting, shop, shopping, short, shortly, shot, should, shoulder, shout, show, shower, shrug, shut, shy, sibling, sick, side, sigh, sight, sign, signal, significant, significantly, silence, silent, silver, similar, similarly, simple, simply, sin, since, sing, singer, single, sink, sir, sister, sit, site, situation, six, size, ski, skill, skin, skirt, sky, slave, sleep, slice, slide, slight, slightly, slip, slow, slowly, small, smart, smell, smile, smoke, smooth, snap, snow, so, so-called, soccer, social, society, soft, software, soil, solar, soldier, sole, solid, solution, solve, some, somebody, somehow, someone, something, sometimes, somewhat, somewhere, son, song, soon, sophisticated, sorry, sort, soul, sound, soup, source, south, southern, Soviet, space, Spanish, speak, speaker, special, specialist, species, specific, specifically, specify, speech, speed, spend, spending, spin, spirit, spiritual, split, spoil, sponsor, sport, spot, spray, spread, spring, square, squeeze, stability, stable, staff, stage, stain, stair, stake, stand, standard, standing, star, stare, start, state, statement, station, statistical, status, stay, steady, steal, steel, steep, stem, step, stick, still, stimulate, stimulus, stir, stock, stomach, stone, stop, storage, store, storm, story, straight, strange, stranger, strategic, strategy, stream, street, strength, strengthen, stress, stretch, strike, string, strip, stroke, strong, strongly, structural, structure, struggle, student, studio, study, stuff, stupid, style, subject, submit, subsequent, substance, substantial, substitute, succeed, success, successful, successfully, such, sudden, suddenly, sue, suffer, sufficient, sugar, suggest, suggestion, suicide, suit, summer, summit, sun, super, supply, support, supporter, suppose, supposed, Supreme, sure, surely, surface, surgery, surprise, surprised, surprising, surprisingly, surround, survey, survival, survive, survivor, suspect, sustain, swear, sweep, sweet, swim, swing, switch, symbol, symptom, system, table, tactic, tail, take, tale, talent, talk, tall, tank, tap, tape, target, task, taste, tax, taxi, tea, teach, teacher, teaching, team, tear, technical, technique, technology, teen, teenager, telephone, telescope, television, tell, temperature, temporary, ten, tend, tendency, tennis, tension, tent, term, terms, terrible, territory, terror, terrorist, test, testimony, testing, text, than, thank, thanks, that, the, theater, their, them, theme, themselves, then, theory, therapy, there, therefore, these, they, thick, thin, thing, think, thinking, third, thirty, this, those, though, thought, thousand, threat, threaten, three, throat, through, throughout, throw, thus, ticket, tie, tight, time, tiny, tip, tire, tissue, title, to, tobacco, today, toe, together, toilet, token, tolerate, tomato, tomorrow, tone, tongue, tonight, too, tool, tooth, top, topic, toss, total, totally, touch, tough, tour, tourist, tournament, toward, towards, tower, town, toy, trace, track, trade, tradition, traditional, traffic, tragedy, trail, train, training, transfer, transform, transformation, transition, translate, translation, transmission, transmit, transport, transportation, travel, treat, treatment, treaty, tree, tremendous, trend, trial, tribe, trick, trip, troop, trouble, truck, true, truly, trust, truth, try, tube, tunnel, turn, TV, twelve, twenty, twice, twin, two, type, typical, typically, ugly, ultimate, ultimately, unable, uncle, undergo, understand, understanding, unfortunately, uniform, union, unique, unit, United, universal, universe, university, unknown, unless, unlike, until, unusual, up, upon, upper, urban, urge, us, use, used, useful, user, usual, usually, utility, utilize, vacation, valley, valuable, value, variable, variation, variety, various, vary, vast, vegetable, vehicle, venture, version, versus, very, vessel, veteran, via, victim, victory, video, view, viewer, village, violate, violation, violence, violent, virtually, virtue, virus, visibility, visible, vision, visit, visitor, visual, vital, voice, volume, voluntary, volunteer, vote, voter, voting, wage, wait, wake, walk, wall, wander, want, war, warm, warn, warning, wash, waste, watch, water, wave, way, we, weak, weakness, wealth, wealthy, weapon, wear, weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.

My fiancé (m27) and I (F25) got engaged in October of last year. Our wedding is August of this year. We have always planned on having a small wedding as we are paying for everything ourselves. We also want our wedding to be child free so everyone can relax for the day and because we have a lot of cousins and friends with kids so inviting everyone would increase the head count significantly.
We discussed who we wanted to marry us pretty early into planning and decided it would be nice if my aunt/godmother (f42) would do it, because she made me her maid of honor when I was younger because I was there with her and helped her through her through her cancer treatment. She was ecstatic when we asked her and said yes.
For context, I was very close with my aunt and grandparents on this side of the family growing up. We have drifted apart in recent years since me and my fiancé began dating and I moved out of my parents house at 18 with him. They wrote me letters openly expressing that they were unsupportive off my relationship when I moved out and stated that they “didn’t raise me to be like this” (they didn’t raise me) but we have moved past it in the past few years and started seeing them a bit more (usually once a year at Christmas.)
Anyways, after I sent the save the dates, ( my aunts was addressed to just her and my uncle and not their children since it is a child free event) my aunt texted me asking if her kids were invited. I responded “No, unfortunately, our wedding is going to be child free. I’m sorry!”
Immediately I got a call from my grandmother asking “why I’m doing this to our family.” I tell her our wedding is child free, my intention isn’t to hurt or target anyone. Basically tells me I need to stop being selfish and they won’t be able to come to my wedding because they won’t be able to find childcare. I told her I really hope they’ll be able to find childcare in the next 10 months because I would love for them to be there.
After I got off the phone with her, I texted my aunt apologizing for hurting her or the kids, explaining again that there are going to be no children at the event, and it had nothing to do with them in particular. I didn’t hear back.
I followed up with her 2 more times asking if she still was going to come to the wedding and marry us and I never heard back. I followed up a month later to let her know that because I never heard from her I found someone else to marry us. She called me a few hours later, but I wasn’t able to answer the phone. I sent a text saying we can talk on Saturday. I forgot to call her and she never reached out to me. We have not spoke at all since then.
I sent out my wedding invitations this week and my aunt RSVPed and declined their invitation. She also texted my mom and told her she isn’t coming to my wedding shower. I think it’s totally reasonable to have a child free wedding and to be selfish with who we invite. But maybe I’m missing something? Am I in the wrong for this?

I (30M) let my wife(28F) of 2yrs go today. We had a church wedding in Dec 2021, we had dated since October 2018. As the church boy I was, we waited till marriage. However, after trying to have sex on the first night she said it was too painful for her and she couldn't do it. We have tried ever since, but simply it's been impossible for the past two years. All the while I've been graceful enough and waited for the whole while.
On her side, she really didn't look motivated, it's always been my initiative ro have sex. Overall, she's a very good human being, like in every aspect, except the sex. However, I was literally getting into depression and I just decided I had to let her go for my own sanity.
I am just so hurt she wouldn't mature enough to get over the small pain. People have sex every day, why is she so immature to bare some small pain for a short while and save the marriage? Now my house already feels so lonely, but at the back of my mind, I feel this was the best decision for me to make and save myself.
Forgive my poor English, I am experiencing every negative feeling right now.

Some background: we do not live in the USA, so there are different traditions and customs at play here. Basically, my brother and his now fiance had been dating long distance for a couple of years, with multiple phone and video calls throughout the day every single day. And I know this, because he lives with me (mooching roommate).
There have been a few concerns I had about their relationship, the incessant phone calls being one of them (she has a tendency to call every 20 - 60 minutes), even while both of them are at work and I always had the impression that she was keeping "tabs" on him, as I'd often happen to be in the room when he'd receive a call and every conversation would essentially start with her asking where he was, what he was doing and who he was with - despite again, having asked him those same questions the last time she called (potentially all of 20 to 60 minutes ago).
She and her family also hail from a part of the country that is considered dangerous for foreigners, which is relevant as my brother and I are of mixed heritage and look foreign and some of her relatives have been openly hostile and/or disapproving of their relationship.
Also, my brother almost never refers to her by her name and I had no idea what it was until she actually came to visit us earlier this year. He almost always refers to her as his "girlfriend" and as of the engagement his "fiance". I also found it weird that he never thought to introduce her to me or to our mother prior to the visit. Given he decided to marry her, he could have easily set up a video call for us to have a chat long distance to get to know her a little bit. As it stands, we know almost nothing about her other than what we have observed or my brother has told us (and what we have unintentionally eavesdropped as she speaks very loudly on the phone).
Neither her nor our family is particularly well off, which leads to the next issue.
My brother proposed using a family ring - this was not out of tradition, but because he couldn't afford to buy an engagement ring and lacks both the patience and willpower to save/budget his expenses.
During the proposal they sat down to discuss some important details, mainly 1) the fact that neither of them have a lot of money 2) their respective families live in completely different parts of the country.
My brother tried to compromise by suggesting a location that was more of less "in the middle" of our country so that neither of our families would have to travel ridiculously far. She shot this down rather insistently, that it had to under no circumstances take place in or around her home town - meaning none of my brother's family would be able to attend his big day as it would essentially become a destination wedding none of us would be able to afford.
He gave in to her demand, but was able to get her to reluctantly agree to at least opt for a small intimate ceremony of no more than 20 people in order to keep costs down so they could put more savings towards buying a house.
Fast forward to months later and she's become increasingly pushy/demanding. While my brother isn't a prize by any means, she has started demanding huge quantities of money from him completely out of the blue for non-vital/non-emergency reasons (such as an alleged distant relative of hers refusing to get a job and her insisting on financing their lazy lifestyle).
She has also decided to break her agreement about the small ceremony and she now wants a big lavish wedding with a guest list of at least 100 of her family and friends only. Not a single friend or family member from my brother's side. Given the location, catering...etc. that she wants on top of that, the cost of the wedding is going to balloon to at least 9000 USD, which might not seem like much, but is a crazy amount in the local currency here. And she is demanding that my brother pay 70% of it, if not all of it.
When he shot this down, arguing that he doesn't earn nearly enough to have that kind of money saved up for when she wants the wedding (she refuses to let him be involved in any of the planning) and that that wasn't what they'd agreed on, she threw a tantrum and snapped that they might as well not get married at all and just go back to being boyfriend and girlfriend, but it feels like a tactic to force him into giving in to her demands yet again.
Apparently, this is normal behavior for her. She does not like to compromise and pretty much always must have things her way and her way only.
My mother and I really have our doubts about whether my brother should still push through with the wedding. My instinct is to have him ask for the ring back as we have concerns that if they do marry she will force him to settle down in her part of the country and isolate him from his family and friends, where who knows what might happen to him. That being said, I'm not always the best at reading these types of situations, are my instincts right and are there several red flags that speak against this wedding/marriage from happening or have I misread the whole thing?

I (30M) had been in a relationship with my girlfriend (28F) for about 3 years. We were happy, or so I thought. We'd have our ups and downs, but nothing too serious. That was until I started working with this new coworker, Sarah (29F).
Sarah was beautiful, smart, and funny. She was also new to the company, so I was tasked with showing her around and training her on our projects. At first, it was just professional, but as we started working together more, we started bonding over shared interests and sense of humor.
Before I knew it, we were having lunch together almost every day, and I found myself looking forward to seeing her more and more. I tried to brush it off as just a harmless friendship, but deep down, I knew I was developing feelings for her. The problem is, my girlfriend found out about our lunches and got extremely upset. She accused me of cheating on her and said that she couldn't compete with Sarah's "perfect" looks and personality.
I'm like, "Whoa, slow down. This is just a friendship!" But she wouldn't listen. She started to distance herself from me, and eventually, we broke up. The weird thing is, Sarah and I never actually crossed any boundaries. We never even kissed or held hands. We just... hung out. But I guess that's all that mattered to my girlfriend. Fast forward a few months: Sarah and I are still close friends, but now we're also casually dating. My girlfriend has moved on to someone else, but I'm still trying to process what happened.
Am I the asshole for cheating on my girlfriend?

I’ve been playing guitar since I was in middle school, but I didn’t exactly come from money, so for the longest time, I had to take what I could get. A lot of hand me down guitars from wherever I could find them kinda thing.
After college, I treated myself to the black Epiphone hollow body you see (still potentially my favorite), the black Ibanez acoustic, and the white squier tele.
But it had been…10 years since I’d been able to buy any new ones? I started dating my wife, engagement ring, big move, wedding, honeymoon, loss of job, two little kids, etc. My wife bought me the bass last year for a bday gift and the green Austin acoustic was a 25 dollar fix me up project from an antique place.
But we’re now finally stable as hell and this year I decided I was gonna treat myself. I sold the black Ibanez, green acoustic, and white Tele for the mint squire Strat (a bodystyle I haven’t played since my Jay Turser in middle school/high school), the cream Tele, and a new Alvarez acoustic with the small concert body I’d been wanting.
To say I am in love is an understatement. I got them all set up (something I’d never done) and HOLY shit, they play amazing.
Just thought I’d share my collection!

Hope everyone is enjoying the full release so far :) I'm racking up the hours.
However, I decided to romance Farrah and cannot get any Regenerator working for the life of me. They're positioned correctly with the green arrow approval placement on multiple stone and iron sources, some completely depleted, some still working, and all have fablings assigned but no bueno :( and I've just collected enough supplies for a wedding feast but I need to date first!
I've exited and entered the game a few times and restarted steam as well.
If anyone has any tips or wants to point out any glaring oversights I've probably perpetrated please help.
Thanks Highnesses!

I'm using a throwaway account as I don't really people currently in my life to know this.
I (30MtF) left my wife (27F, let's call her D) two years ago. The divorce was finalized about two months ago, and I wish I could go back.
I met D eight years ago, while I was homeless. She and her family helped me get a job and my first apartment, she always showed me an incredible amount of love and support, and she was absolutely wonderful in so many ways. But D was also an evangelical Christian and incredibly transphobic and homophobic. I found this out shortly after we met. At the time, I knew I was trans, bisexual, and I was a pagan. I probably should have walked away then.
Unfortunately, due to an incredible amount of trauma in my childhood and adolescence, I have a tendency to develop new versions of myself for those I'm around. The "me" that took over my life during this time decided "he" was a cisgender, bisexual man who refused to "act on" his "sinful" desires after becoming a Christian. Still, early on that "me" didn't have as strong of a hold.
Once, when we'd been dating for a few months, we were hanging out with a friend who showed us Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time. Neither of us really had any idea what it was about. We watched it, and we were both incredibly uncomfortable for entirely different reasons. She brought me to work (I worked overnights at this time) and then while I was at work we fought over text and nearly broke up because of this damn movie. I didn't like it because it seemed fairly transphobic to me, especially when Dr. Frank-N-Furter raped the guests. (I now recognize this movie has a big place in queer culture but I still can't help but see it as kind of offensive.) D thought it was disgusting that the movie even included a trans character.
Eventually the "me" that had formed to be who she wanted me to be took over full-time and committed to stay with her and fight the "urge to sin." We dated for a few years and then got married. And honestly, this feels like one of the best times in my life sometimes, even though I know I was miserable.
I've always looked fairly feminine, and had fairly long hair and a pretty alternative style that often included makeup. I'd get "mistaken" for a girl pretty frequently when we were out, which only increased when she got me a super cute coffin-shaped purse for an anniversary. She'd always get super upset and defensive on my behalf, which hurt but she couldn't know it.
Sometimes during our marriage, she was reading an article about some state or another not accepting the "trans panic defense" and started ranting about it. I knew what she was talking about but on the off chance I was wrong I asked her to elaborate. She said it was when a trans person comes into the bathroom or hits on you and you assault or kill them because you panic. I tried to calmly explain that I thought it was good that wasn't being accepted because you shouldn't be assaulting or killing people regardless of whether they're trans or not, and it sounded like just a way to hurt trans people and get away with it. She came up with this wild argument and I just let her "win" because I didn't want to lose her. But I never felt fully safe with her again.
She liked it when I wore makeup, and once her sister told me she liked how I was a "man who was secure in his femininity but didn't feel like I needed to be a woman." (This was literally a month before I left to transition.) D agreed with her sister.
Around four years ago made a new friend at work, a nonbinary person I'll call S, who invited me to play DnD with them and their husband (a trans man) when they quit that job. By the time we'd bee playing for about six months, being around other trans people had reawakened the other parts of me, the parts that were closer to who I really am. I re-realized I was trans through our time together, and they started encouraging me to leave her and be my authentic self.
I left D about four months before our five-year wedding anniversary. She had gone through my phone, found messages between me and S about plans for me leaving and my being trans, and confronted me while I was in the shower. I quickly finished my shower and got out, had a six hour long conversation with her about this and tried to get her to understand. Eventually she just said "But you're not a woman and you never will be!" Without a word, I gathered up some essentials and left for S's house. S and I went back to that house while she was at church on Sunday and grabbed everything I owned, and then went to her mom's house to do the same. D and her whole family were there so I was trying to avoid questions and begging and pleading and crying from not only D, but her mom, sister, and brother to stay and give this trans thing up. I told D that if she wanted me to stay, I'd be staying as her wife and she'd have to accept that. She couldn't. I left.
Over the next couple months we spent a lot of time talking. D was trying to convince me to come back, to fall in love with her again. But I hadn't stopped loving her, I'd just gotten sick of hating myself. I told her that. I told her I wanted nothing more than to come back, but I couldn't do it if it meant going back to wanting to die every time I saw myself in the mirror and hating her briefly every time she "corrected" someone on my gender. I told her if she wanted me back, she'd need to support me in my transition. She still couldn't do it.
The last straw was when Michael Knowles called for the eradication of "transgenderism" (trans people). With that and the hundreds of anti-trans bills being introduced, I was scared. I texted D for comfort and instead got into a whole big argument with her. She kept trying to say the anti-trans bills were a good thing, and when I brought up the Michael Knowles thing she said she'd watched that speech and agreed with him. She said eradicating "transgenderism" would be a good thing. I sent her back a long text about the definition of genocide and how you can't separate "transgenderism" from transgender people, and eradicating "transgenderism" would require eradicating transgender people. We never talked again except about our divorce.
The thing that gets me though is that she's always been very anti-racist and speaks out against prejudice of most other kinds. She just never got it through her head that the same reasons she felt so strongly about that are why she should accept LGBTQIA+ people.
Now, it's been about two years since I left her. I have been on hormones for over a year, and I've never been happier with myself. These two years have been absolute hell in other ways. I have no stability, I lost my job, I've lost friends and family and all kinds of other traumatizing events that would make this post a literal novel. I've been suicidal in the past over stuff a lot smaller than this, but now, in the face of almost overwhelming and crushing despair, I'm still nowhere near that point again. I love myself. I am, for the first time in my life, living for myself.
I now have three wonderful partners (polyamory, they are all fully aware and consent, one of them has four other partners of their own) who love and accept me for who I am, and I love them all so much.
And yet. Despite all of that. Despite the pain D caused me, I still love her. I think I always will. And lately, it seems like all I can think of is the good times. And there were so many good times... I wish I could go back. I want her to love me again. And if she texted me tonight and told me she accepted me, I don't know if I could stay away. And this love I still feel... It's the most painful thing of all.

I am currently 6 weeks pregnant with my ex boyfriend of 2 1/2 years. We spent the last 2 years having sex almost everyday without contraceptives, as we were ready for any risks, we were not actively trying, but not actively preventing.
We decided to take a break due to arguments over the past month, and on our last day together, we had unprotective sex (we didn’t have sex for 3 weeks at that point). I took a test upon unusual symptoms and missed period, and discovered I am pregnant.
I informed him last week and I think he’s still in denial. He asked me to go for a scan to confirm so he can tell his parents and he has expressed that he doesn’t think it’s a good time for him, and I should get an abortion. He is not ready for fatherhood and doesn’t see that we can work things out in the future. I encouraged him to reconcile, not as a couple, but as civil adults to make communications easier in the following weeks or potentially years. He refused and told me I should talk to people for advice. I have spoke to my best friends and I don’t have a solution, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want my child to grow up without a father figure but I also don’t want to have this kind of father in its life. I only had one sex partner my whole life so there is no possibility that he is not the father. I’m personally also not ready to raise the child as a single mother without support. If this pregnancy happened few months back, I would not have the same doubts I currently have. I considered abortion after the conversation with him but I don’t want to end my own child’s life because of our unresolved issues. My family don’t live in the same country as me, so I will not have day-to-day help. My friends are supportive but I don’t think it’s realistic for me to raise the baby without a partner. I have all sorts of concerns and I am not in the right headspace at the moment to be thinking clearly.
For context - I (28F) moved in to live with my boyfriend (30M) after 2 years of dating, we barely had any disagreements throughout the first 2 years, we were both in love, and decided that we were ready for our next stages in life so we moved in together. We were certain that we were compatible despite our differences in interests - we are very different people in the best ways, and grew to love and learn of each other’s character. Our lives are very intertwined, and our respective friend groups are very involved in our lives. We had a healthy lifestyle and socially active ever since we got together.
Fast forward to 2 months ago, we were discussing wedding plans. We previously agreed that we would move in together > get engaged > married > have children. I expressed that I didn’t really want to move in together until I get a reassurance from him this is for lifetime, he told me not to worry because he already had plans to propose to me and it’s ok to move in first and then get married as we are living together. He suggested that we could plan the wedding first because weddings take at least a year ahead to plan, and the proposal will happen sometime later this year. Our first big argument came because of his unrealistic expectations and lack of logic and sense in event planning (he was never really a planner or an organized person, I do most of our travel logistics and household plannings).
Few weeks later I discovered that he was withholding his plans made with a colleague that I didn’t particularly liked, I felt strange that he had to hide this fact from me. I don’t believe that he was disloyal or anything but I didn’t understand why he lied. I exploded, demanded to check his phone, then I discovered more things he was hiding from me, including going on walks during lunch with the same female colleagues. I also discovered the group chat with his boys where they were making jokes about us getting married. I was livid and we argued over our definition of commitment, I questioned his maturity and his intentions to settle. He told me he was ready to settle with me, and suggested that we go pick out rings the next day.
The real issue came in when he called his parents to ask them for their blessing in our marriage. His parents disapproved, and called me materialistic, questioned my family, my social circle, my religion, my political views… etc. My boyfriend could’ve easily justified every one of the points they have made about me but I guess he was too in shock of their response to defend me. His parents never really agreed with our relationship to begin with, they never wanted him to date and thinks he should be focused on his career at this age rather than dating, despite this we spent every holidays and celebrations the last two years with his family and we thought they have grown to accept me as they had been very friendly with me, I guess it was all a facade. I was disappointed and lashed out at him. And somehow our previous issue with his ‘commitment’ was brushed under the rug.
He says he cannot propose to me when he doesn’t have his parents blessing. I gave him a deadline the next day to make a decision, if he cannot talk it out with his parents then I will have to let this end. He came back the next day, and told me his dad apologized and would like to reconcile with me. And he came back to tell me he was ready to settle.
The following weeks we continued to have smaller disagreements and I was still uncomfortable to face his parents, as he would return home a different person, and treats me worse every time after every time he had met up with his parents. Before all these issues, we had made plans to visit my grandparents and his extended family who were both living in the same country. On our way there, I expressed that I would want to remain with my grandparents and not join his family trip as I’m not ready to face his parents yet. He tried to persuade me to go and that his parents will apologize to me, but I was still very uncomfortable. I told him I’ll only go if he can give me reassurance and that I will only go on another family trip with him if he can give me the status as his fiancé before I can face them. He said if he were to propose to me now he cannot face his parents, and he told his parents he has plans to propose to me on this trip, but they insisted that they should reconcile with me before he can propose as I would potentially “steal their grandchildren away from them” in the future if we don’t make up. He told me he even brought the ring with him but he can’t do it. I walked away from him, I felt so betrayed and lost in a foreign country. I got very emotional and told him he made feel worthless and want to end my life. I was not in the right headspace after a whole month of torment and I didn’t have the energy to reason with him any longer. I gave in and proceeded with the rest of our trip.
The day before we went to meet his family, I told him I wanted to go somewhere else instead and I still wasn’t ready. When he was making changes to our tickets, I saw his sister’s message on his phone, saying that it’ll be better in the long run if he sort out the parents issue first and don’t propose to me yet. I snatched his phone and spoke with his sister. After I told her everything, she apologized and gave me the reassurance that their family will treat me with respect and will apologize to me the first thing they see me, and that they just want to reconcile before we move forward to the next stage in life. I felt it was reasonable and reassured after my conversation with her, so I decided to give it a go.
When we did finally meet up with his parents, they pretended as if nothing has happened. Few days later we finally had the ‘conversation’. His dad started off by saying he doesn’t think it’s appropriate for us to get married at the moment, and kept going on about their same points again, he said our relationship hasn’t been long enough for us to decide marriage at this stage. They claimed their comments weren’t a personal attack, they didn’t apologize and said that I was ‘thinking too much’ for this to be a personal attack because it was simply a generalization, then dismissed me for being upset for hearing from my bf because he wasn’t supposed to tell me, and proceeds to keep commenting about me and my friends and how they disagree with their celebrations of weddings.
I respectfully explained we are not having these discussions about marriage out of no where, we have been having discussions on marriage throughout our 2 years. In fact our plans to have children was the basis of our relationship and were his requirements, and we just want to move forward with the next part of our lives. His mom doesn’t think I need to think about having children at this moment and it’s not a good time for us to have children, because she had kids much later in life and apparently so is everyone else, and we shouldn’t be following my ‘timeline’ on when things should be happening. Apparently I should not have such control over the timing of giving birth ‘like a reproduction machine’, and it’s not right to have to set such timeline on how much time I need for recovery and time between having each children. She asks why do we feel the need and so early in life to get married now? And ditch your own families and start your own life.
His dad said I should not decide right now how many kids we need to have and it’s rather in gods hands to decide, and some people are not even be able to have more than 1 kid, I asked him why is this relevant in regards to our plans to have kids… so I have to listen to god now and have kids without planning? And then he started giving this bs about god and how we are not meant to plan ‘these things’ out in life so specifically. I asked him: What is wrong with being practical and setting realistic goals. He claimed he doesn’t think it’s wrong to have plans but we shouldn’t be so set and ‘controlling’ over our own lives. He has experience and we should listen to the grown ups with experience… I knew the conversation wasn’t going to get anywhere as soon as he brings religion into this.
My boyfriend just stood there in silence. After the conversation ended we both walked away from his parents, he apologized to me and told me he’s sorry for any of the things his parents have said to me and I didn’t deserve it. He says he won’t listen to his parents anymore, and he knows how to make this right, and he will propose once we return to my grandparent’s place. I didn’t challenge him anymore because I that was the reassurance I needed from him, and I was happy that he was finally able to see his parents for who they are.
The following days of the trip, his dad tried to isolate him from rest of the family to give him the same lecture. Every time he rejoins the group I can see from his expression that their conversation did not go well, I didn’t comment. On the day we returned to my grandparent’s home, he told me he can’t follow through with his promises. And his dad told him he shouldn’t feel guilty for making promises to me and be pressured into marriage. Somehow this convinced himself into thinking he’s not ready for marriage all along. I walked away from him and we spent 3 days apart before our flight to return home.
On our last day, we met up for closure, talked through what happened and we had sex. I told him I wasn’t ready to fly back home with him and I didn’t want to fall back into the vicious cycle of arguments, and that we should have some time to cool things down before we reconnect. We agreed to give each other some space and he wants to learn more about himself before he makes commitment to me as he doesn’t want to disappoint me again.
A week after he got back, he told me he wants to move out of our co-rented apartment, and he wants to break lease. I was a bit confused because I thought he wanted to work on himself, and him moving out essentially is an indication of a break up to me. He said if I don’t let him move out, I’m not giving him space to work on himself. I didn’t really have an option so I agreed. We didn’t talk afterwards.
3 weeks later, I missed my period, I took a test and was positive.

Throwaway account.
My wife (31F) and I (35M) have been married for 4 years now. We both are from South East Asia who went through an arranged marriage. We met online about 5 years ago. At the time, I lived in North America and she lived in her home country. We chatted on the phone and spent significant time on calls to get to know each other, I even flew down for a few days to meet her the same year. We took some time to know each other and decided to get married about 7 to 8 months after our introduction.
About 2 months before my marriage, my parents pressured (a whole lot of family drama) me into moving back to my home country. They wanted me to spend some time(about 5 months) with them after our marriage as I was away from them for 5 years or so. Though I hated this whole situation, I headed to their request (regretfully so) and moved back to my country. As a retaliation my then soon to be wife quit her job. To this day she refuses to accept that it was a retaliation, instead she claims it was too difficult for her to juggle between work and giving attention to marriage preparations, so she quit her Job.
I had never wanted to live in my home country, never felt I belonged there. When I decided to move back to my country, I had prepared myself well to not take any support from my parents. So, I had applied for another visa, had planned & paid for our honeymoon, saved enough to survive about a year in my home country without a job and had enough money to move back once my new visa gets approved.
Her quitting the job before our marriage was her decision, and I understand to certain aspect. At the time she lived in a different city than mine and after marriage she wanted to find work in the city that I would end up residing in. Also, we had plans to move to North America after our wedding anyways, so this made sense at the time. We had agreed to do our individual visa's coz I didn’t want her to move countries on a dependent visa, just so that she does not lose her career growth or leave North America if we ever split. We both were supposed to apply for the visa before our marriage date, I applied mine 4 months before our marriage. She was still figuring it out until our wedding date. I got my visa a couple of weeks after our wedding, but she was not able to secure her visa as she couldn't score enough in her English proficiency (not because she lacks the skill, English is her native tongue and has a good hold on the language). I tried to give her time, motivation and any kind of financial support that she needs to clear all visa requirements. But it was too late. Pandemic hit, borders were shut, so were government offices. I moved out of my country 7 months after our marriage amid a lot of pandemic restrictions. My wife promised she would continue to pursue applying for the visa while I leave the country and establish myself again.
1 year later, still no progress in her visa application, no change in employment status. She was living with her parents, and passed all her leisurely expenses to me coz I was "her husband". My family is not the best to work with, so my wife kept blaming that my parents stressed her enough to not pursue her carrier nor focus on the visa application. In the meanwhile, I was supporting my family financially(I owe them funding my college education) and my wife coz she couldn't find a job during the pandemic, while I was surviving my temporary low income job. Surviving with just bare minimum and sending home literally every surplus I earned by picking extra shifts. Fine. Pandemic restrictions started to ease further about 1.5 - 2 years after our marriage. By this time, I had a good job, was earning well enough. I flew back to my country to register our marriage and start her visa application as my dependent. She knew it would be a while before she gets her visa because of the back log and she agreed to look for work until we unite again in North America. She kept saying she is applying without any positive result. After a lot of argument, she confessed she wasn't looking for jobs with complete focus.
In the meantime I am going back to my country every year until her dependency visa was processed just so that she does not get depressed because of the long distance relationship.
Finally after a lot of effort, my wife finally got her visa approved, and I immediately booked her flight so that this long distance ordeal might end. She landed in my city a year ago. She had promised to start looking for job right after she landed, especially picking up temporary jobs until she gets something in her field of education. She has been jobless for more than 3 years by now. We were in our honeymoon phase for about 4 - 5 months after she had moved in with me. She got a job at a grocery store, which she worked briefly (~3 months), and would always complain about pains, how horrible the job is compared to her job back home, how beneath her standards were mopping the floors.
She wanted our first anniversary together to be an overseas trip, so I booked a trip for which she was supposed to pitch in half using her pay from the temporary job. She was asked to leave the job a month before the trip and I took care of the expense, this was unplanned for me, so had to move money around to make this happen.
She just completed 1 year of stay about a month ago. This milestone has taken a toll on me. We had a very bad argument, during which she confessed she knew she needed to bridge her overseas education courses with a fresh course in the new country. Which is about 6 months long and costs lesser than our anniversary trip. She didn't want to ask me money for her education, coz she felt I have spent enough money on her? What? It goes beyond me why a person would think a trip is more important than an education that would put her back in the job market.
She loves me a lot, she takes care of me, she is affectionate for which I am grateful for her. But I very much feel my future is not going to be wise to me if I continue to live with her. Post our argument which was a month ago, I had walked her through a few things to get some fee waiver and asked her to find a temporary job to fund this education. I don't see any improvements and I strongly suspect she has already missed deadlines to do this bridging course from reputed universities. I do not want to wait to get disappointed at her again. Am I an asshole to think she should have been financially independent by now? Am I an asshole for asking her to pitch in on our anniversary trip? Am I an asshole for thinking that I should end this marriage and cancel her dependency visa? I feel I will be better off alone.
TLDR: My wife quit her job just before our marriage and has not worked a stable job in the last 5 years of our marriage. We are now in a new country and it doesn't look like she will be able to get a job in the near future without a bridging course which she has missed her deadline to apply.