Idk who at riot has a hatred for jett and fun agents but why have the reduced her to a 30 second champ. What I mean by this is… She has 2 smokes, that is fine but for their duration it is just about okay. I don’t think that needs to be changed. She only has one updraft?! Excuse me but how are you supposed to be creative and change your level with her ult with one updraft? Usually it would be that you use one to get into a cool spot to hold, and another to get into mid air, yet now you have to hold onto it until the perfect moment which is basically never because one updraft is predictable, two isn’t. Lastly I don’t not agree with the fact you have to press e before being able to dash again. It’s ridiculous, people shouldn’t complain about a champ just being able to dodge something because THATS THE POINT OF THE ABILITY AND CHAMP. If champs can take health and dodge bullets completely just for a kill and instantly, jett should be able to dash instantly. All I see now is jett players wasting their dash most rounds and basically just being a player with a gun, no abilities to make a difference compared to other duellists. It doesn’t help as well the delay on the e, I’ve tested it myself and it takes at least a second after activation to be able to play e again, just pointless. It’s a shame because I used to love jett but they’ve just made it so the abilities she has are done and used by 30 seconds in; in most cases. Lastly her ult is the least 100% accurate thing I’ve ever seen, I’ve seen so many slow mo videos of the knives missing with the crosshair perfectly on the head.

Welcome back to a little more MARRIED Mary Mania before I wrap things up with The Abridged Goblinization. I decided that this bit deserved its own chapter. Some of you seem to be entertained by Mary (or at least entertained by your own loathing of her), so I hope this will prove amusing. In my life, I've encountered an inordinate number of low-key lolcows (probably because I was far too patient and far too passive for far too long), so I might as well throw just enough distortion on the page to protect the good guys and the genuinely reformed beards. But I'm also gonna shine a bright, unflattering spotlight on the lolcows, creeps, weirdos, pervs, and BEARDS, both neck and leg.
And I'll very, very cautiously tiptoe over the bit where I do a bunch of mental gymnastics, squint my eyes, tilt my head, and convince myself that dating Whisky might be a welcome change of pace. I have no delusions when I look back on it. This was a dumb move in retrospect, but all the mental gymnastics in the world can't bring me to a reasonable scenario where I was psychic and thus able to predict what he'd become once he stopped pretending to be a gentleman. Nor can the most elite, Olympic-level mental gymnastics execute a double salto layout with a half-twist perfectly enough to force me to concede the "logical point" that I should have spotted warning signs that I'd never freakin' seen before. Okay, that's enough saltiness for today. Don't worry. This chapter mostly focuses on Mary's mania. Whisky's just kind of... there.
So there I was... dating a guy who called when he said he would, remained constant in his affections, never asked for weird stuff in the sack (in fact, we weren't even intimate at that point), and claimed to be a secular humanist who practiced elements of Hinduism (as opposed to conveniently becoming born-again whenever it suited his needs to wallow in shame). And we seemed to have similar enough tastes in media, which made for pleasant movie nights and enjoyable conversations about nerdy stuff. It felt like a step up. It felt safe. At that point in time, I was content.
But here's a shameful admission for ya. My original intention was to make Whisky the "for now guy." I knew I could do better. I was formally educated, I was in shape, I was normatively attractive, and I tended to be successful in both my theatrical and academic endeavors. Plus, I was super friendly and good with people. Whisky was kind of a bump on a log. Sure, he seemed nice. He was sometimes able to make interesting conversation. To quote his favorite catch phrase, "Meh."
I knew he was mooching off his mysterious "big bro," and he wasn't doing this with the intention of saving up and eventually becoming self-sufficient. He just kicked up a fuss whenever he wanted something, and... it usually appeared. I still thought he was physically unattractive, too. I hate nasty-ass beards, I have a strong preference for shorter guys (they don't need to be as short as Dennis, but I don't exactly love being towered over), and Whisky had whatever the dude version of resting bitch face is. I admonished myself for being shallow and decided to soldier on. Date after date. And I did kind of get used to all the shallow things I objected to.
But, really... Dating Whisky at all was a dick move on my part. Then again, how many Nice Guy (TM)s want girls to do exactly what I did? Not attracted? Think he's kind of a bum? Find him a bit boring? Just give him a chance!!! Go on a crap-ton of dates with him until you like the familiarity enough to settle for him. That's the key to a healthy relationship!!! It never works. You could flip this around and apply it to Nice Girls who want pity dates, too.
Anyway. Lucy knew I was dating Whisky, and she thought it was great. She was honestly just happy to see that I was no longer pining over Dennis and that Whisky was no longer getting relentlessly stalked by Mary. Speaking of Mary... She'd had an imaginary dramatic breakup with Scumbanger not long after she crashed Lucy's brunch. Murky aside... The following summer, I'd do another show with the pervy pest and I'd find out that Mary had given the former Rum Tum Tugger a tug in the parking lot of The Imp and had let him motorboat her. When dozens of lewd messaged filled his inbox the following day, the most indiscriminate playboy I'd ever met in my freakin' life blocked that clingy legbeard's number and never had any further contact with her. But seeing as neither of them are especially reliable sources, my best guess is that the truth is somewhere in between.
After the dramatic "breakup" with Scumbanger, Mary immediately became obsessed with the new tech guy (and his wife). They allegedly had something of a throuple situation going on, but no one ever witnessed any hard evidence of this. And then Mary and Tech Guy's wife allegedly had a catfight in the middle of the fancy restaurant where the three spent their date nights. Mary did have a shiner and a scraped knee for a few weeks, and she intimated to me that Chuckie was actually the one responsible for her looking a little rough...
I believed her because there was something very different about her demeanor when she told me this. When she was in larger groups, she just screeched about how she thought the catfight was foreplay until Tech Guy ghosted her. Yet again, we'll never know the truth. But I err on the side of belief when someone tells me that DV is going on in their home, even if I generally regard that person as a delusional pathological liar. Plus, Mary had never badmouthed Chuckie before and she never made excuses for her philandering. She just felt entitled to any ding-dong she desired. Bottom line, I think there was an unfortunate incident, and I urged her to report it. She didn't; but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
And, yes. I think we're allowed to show compassion for Mary if Chuckie did indeed do what she was accusing him of. She absolutely deserved to get dumped in a spectacular fashion. No one deserves violence, though. But I think we're also allowed to laugh at Mary when she's acting like a crank-crazed maniac.
Moving on to lighter topics! Mary claimed to be having a hot, steamy affair with the artistic director of The Imp. At first, this seemed outlandish. But he had been the one to hire her. And he repeatedly refused to replace her when she consistently failed to learned her lines, ran around naked, and contributed little more than muckbangs to the comedy (again, I personally found it funny when she did that, but I was in the minority).
Some skullduggery was definitely afoot. Was it "sexy time," as Mary enthusiastically claimed? Who knows. Chuckie might have been paying the dude to give Mary a hobby. But not long after Mary started boasting about boning the artistic director, he suddenly began calling her out on her unprofessional behavior. They "broke up," but Mary managed to avoid getting kicked out of the improv troupe, bragging that she could sue the director for sexual harassment if he fired her.
And then... there was the pièce de résistance of Mary's misadventures in mating. She met a biker dude at Filthy McNasty's. This guys was disgusting. Most of her previous dudes had been questionable, weird, or possibly imaginary. But we all saw this one. He was as fat as a Hutt, he smelled like a grease trap, motor oil, B.O., and a very specific type of cheese... The few teeth that he had were black and green, his fingernails were yellowed and a few of them oozed pus. Finally, the volume and crackly, bubbly properties of his frequent farts indicated to George Gay that he, "definitely had a virgin booty." Mary's lard-ass loverboy called himself "Hogg," which was probably a reference to the two-wheeled vehicle that he was very obviously too large to actually ride. Or it might have just been an obvious nickname for a filthy fat fuck.
But Hogg, like Tech Guy a few loverboys ago, had a wife. And she made frequent appearances at Filthy's as well. Hogg's wife was shockingly... kind of pretty. A little rough around the edges. Didn't smell the greatest. But she stood in stark contrast to her repugnant hubby, even with her fried hair, her sloppily inked tats, and her imprecisely applied eye makeup. Her teeth were free of obvious rot. She had a beautiful figure. And she had a carefree attitude that was probably attractive to a number of people. She'd fart right along with Hogg, she didn't shave her legs, and the profane compound nouns she came up with always cracked me up (lard-tard, smegma-booger, felch-belcher).
And Mary was once again claiming to be in a throuple with The Hoggs. But this time, there was hard evidence. They'd get busy in some corner of the establishment, and even got booted from the dive bar a few times for lewd behavior, offensive odors, and illegal drug use. On one particular night, Mrs. Hogg lit one of her hubby's gargantuan ass-rippers while Mary was doing her thing, completely shrouded by his big belly. The blue flame ignited some spilt booze on the dingy floor, and a small fire erupted. The staff were able to stomp it out, but the nasty throuple was unceremoniously banished.
Alas, management allowed Mary to re-enter the bar because she apparently had some sort of sway with one of the bartenders. Instead of meeting her...uh... "partners" for some more boom-boom, Mary decided to come back inside and gush about Hogg's majestic rooster to all of us. She smelled like D cheese, ammonia, and burnt farts as she plopped down at our table, already screeching about how much bigger her "new boo" was, compared to that vile turd of an artistic director.
George Gay: Fuck me, Mary!!! You reek. Go wash the uncircumcised methhead off your hands and then you can sit with us.
Mary started to protest. Lucy cut her off. "Your whole body is probably a veritable Petri dish from fooling around with those nasty-ass people." She handed Mary some Purell. "Was the junkie junk off, keep the bottle, and don't you fucking touch me when you come back!"
Mary's bottom lip began to quiver and she looked pleadingly at me. "Just wash up," I told her. "You're too pretty to go around smelling like that.”
Off she went to the dingy bathroom. Maybe I wasn't harsh enough, but flattery got results in this instance. And when she returned, she had managed to dilute the stench enough so that we could stand to sit at the same table with her.
Mary took a deep breath in preparation to gush about something that would have undoubtedly been disgusting, but George cut her off this time. "Mare. How do you even BANG someone with a belly like that?"
Mary (speaking a bit more quickly than usual): Oh, it just takes some creative positioning. We get him to lie down. If Mrs. Hogg is taking in the rod, I hold his bowl of jelly up with both arms and stick my cooter in his face. He eats it like his mommy made it! And when it's my turn to get blasted, the missus uses a bunch of yoga straps to hold it up. I have to take it from behind because my own little tiny bit of va-jiggle-jaggle bumps up against his bowl of jelly if why try to smash like vanilla people. It's so much fun, though!!! And then he props his bowl of jelly up on the coffee table and plays with himself while he watches his honey strap on a dil...
George: I so regret asking.
Mary: They're sooo fun to fool around with! I think they might be my forever partners! (Her hands were too shaky to slide down her body in unbridled ecstasy, so she clasped them together and hid them underneath her itty bitty little gunt.)
Lucy: So when are you gonna dump Chuck?
Mary: Well... Hogg and the missus don't have much scratch. And what they do have, they spend on smokeables. When I meet a real sugar daddy, I'll get rid of Chuckle. He pretended to be a baller before we got married. But he's just middle management and he's content to stay there. Pffffftt. No ambition.
Mary launched into another long, unnecessarily graphic gushing about her garbage partners and their nasty-ass boom-boom. So I decided this would be a good time to clear my conscience about dating Whisky. Mary hadn't so much as mentioned him in months. She was inexplicably smitten with The Hoggs. And her ultimate dream man was obviously some filthy rich dude (perhaps a literally filthy dude who was also rich), which took Whisky out of the running. I still think it would have been amusing if Mary had tried to date Mori...
I waited for her adult film star gasp to wind down before I finally interjected, "Wow. Sounds like you've got a fantastic sex life right now!"
Mary: I do! You need to get over that born-again weirdo and find a real man so that you and I can have good girl talk!
Me: Well... I'm not banging anybody, but I am dating somebody. Sort of. It's not really that big of a deal. I'm not even sure that I'm completely into him. But he's been super sweet to me...
Lucy put her arm around me, almost as if she knew I was about to need protection.
Mary: TELL ME!
I hesitated. "Well... It's Whiskers."
In an instant, George jumped up and grabbed Mary by the shoulders, lest she lunge at me.
But Mary got very quiet. Silent tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She gasped and buried her face in her hands, now emitting one seemingly endless, impossibly high-pitched whine.
George loosened his grip and began to pat her on the back. Lucy's grip tightened on me and she whispered, "Here we go. Overreaction sequence has commenced."
Mary lifted her red, tear-stained face and glared at me. "HOW COULD YOU???"
Me: Mary, I swear. I thought you hated his guts. I haven't heard you talk about him in ages. When he asked, I thought it would be good for me to give him a chance since he's always been really sweet to me.
Mary: But what about the way he treated ME??? He was such an asshole!
Lucy: Was he? Mary, you stalked the guy. If he was rude, it was only because you weren't taking NO for an answer.
Mary: He never told me he wanted to end things. He just kept ghosting me. But whenever I showed up at his house and jumped on him, we always wound up smashing. Eventually.
I didn't have the gumption at that point in my life to suggest to Mary that it's wrong on every imaginable level to coerce someone into intimate activity, regardless of gender. And even knowing what Whiskers would eventually become, he didn't deserve THAT. I should have called her out. Instead I tried to steer the conversation back to her current bedroom bliss and try to get her to resume thinking the disgusting thoughts that delighted her so much.
Me: Who cares what he's doing now?! Aren't you insanely happy with your fun new lovers???
Mary: NO! THEY STINK! HE'S FAT. I want my sexy Whisky-Boo Whiskers back!!! Give him back, Valley! Puh-leeee-eeee-eeeee-eeeease.
Me: I don't "have" him. I'm just seeing him. If he hurt you this much, why don't you try to sit down and have a real conversation with him? It might be good for both of you to clear the air.
Mary: He blocked me on everythi-iiiiiii-iiiii-iiiiiing. Waaaaaaaaaah!
Me: Well, I guess that's your answer. You probably overwhelmed him. He seems like a bit of a softy. Personally, I need a softy right now. But I think you need a manly man.
Mary rose. She gave me an icy stare. And then she cooed in an unnervingly sweet tone. "I love you, Valley-Boo. I know you didn't mean to break my heart."
Me: Thank you, Mary. Really, I wouldn't have even considered his initial invitation if you hadn't been calling him "Satan," and telling us all that you hated him, and dating all these new guys. I didn't do it to spite you, I swear. It just happened.
Mary (still creepily, icily sweet): Yes. We're so alike, you and I. It's perfectly understandable that the same guy would go for both of us. But you owe me. You owe me big.
Me: I'm gonna disagree with that. If you think I slighted you, just tell me to fuck off. If you really do understand that these things happen, then you'll accept that there was no malice on anyone's part.
Mary: Mmmm-hmmmm. We'll see about that.
She jiggled her Jupiters, tossed her hair, and stalked out of the dive bar...

AND THEN SHE BANGED DENNIS.

I have a small pleco about 1 1/2 inches, and I am planning to move him to a much bigger tank by the end of this year (200g), once my family’s restaurant reopens and their tanks are ready. I was one of those idiots who bought a common pleco for my 40 gallon, because they were always my favorite fish as a kid. Will he be okay for the next few months? Is my best bet just to return him? He’s small now, but I know they get big fast. I would like to keep him, but if he will not do good in there I will return him. I apologize for being one of those people who didn’t do enough research at the start, but I have done a lot of learning since then and I’m just hoping to give him a good life.

Hi,
I am currently creating a material, that includes multiple effects, which can be activated and deactivated using a Static Switch node. Each of these effects use one or two unique textures, which are theoretically also deactivated through the switch and unused, when the specific effects are off.
Now, I was wondering about the performance impact these textures would still have when unused. I currently have 10 texture samples in my material, all of which can theoretically be deactivated. So let's say only one of the switches is set to "true" and therefore only 1 of the 10 textures goes through: will the other 9 still be loaded and will the overall performance impact actually be lower than if all 10 would be activated?

In the whirlwind of parenting, one of the biggest decisions revolves around childcare. From nannies to daycare centers, each option presents its own set of advantages and challenges. Let's dive into the world of childcare options, dissecting the pros and cons of each:

Daycare Center

What is it? ~Daycare centers~, also known as nursery schools or childcare centers, are usually in commercial buildings and have several classrooms for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. They're most often operated by private companies, churches, community centers, and schools.
Pros:

• Affordable: Often more budget-friendly compared to private nanny care.
• Reliable: Operated by a staff of teachers, ensuring regular hours.
• Supervised Environment: Adheres to state-regulated teacher-to-student ratios.
• Socialization: Enables interaction with peers, fostering social skills.
• Trained Staff: Employees typically have qualifications in early childhood education.
• Licensed and Regulated: Provides peace of mind regarding safety and quality standards.

Cons:

• Higher Child-to-Caregiver Ratio: Each caregiver may oversee multiple children.
• Limited Availability: Centers catering to infants may have lengthy waiting lists.
• Increased Illness Risk: Group settings can lead to more frequent sickness.
• Holiday Closures: Typically closed during major holidays.
• Rigid Schedule: Pickup and drop-off times may lack flexibility.

Home Daycare Center

What is it? In a home daycare center, a childcare provider (or providers) watches over a small group of children in their own home, condo, or apartment. Some states require home daycare centers to be licensed, while others don't.
Pros:

• Homelike Atmosphere: Offers a nurturing environment akin to home.
• Smaller Groups: Often entails fewer children than larger daycare centers.
• Cost-Effective: Generally more affordable than other childcare options.
• Flexibility: May have more lenient pickup and drop-off times.
• Socialization Opportunities: Facilitates interaction with peers.

Cons:

• Limited Backup: Lack of substitute caregivers if the provider falls ill.
• Illness Concerns: Similar to daycare centers, sickness can spread easily.
• Varied Qualifications: Some providers lack formal early childhood education.
• Less Stringent Regulations: May have fewer licensing requirements.
• Holiday Closures: Often closed for holidays and vacations.

Nanny

What is it? A nanny is a private childcare provider or caretaker that you hire to provide one-on-one care and supervision for your child, usually in your own home.
Pros:

• Personalized Attention: Provides one-on-one care tailored to your child's needs.
• Convenience: Care takes place in the familiar setting of your home.
• Flexibility: Offers more adaptable hours compared to daycare centers.
• Continuity of Care: Child remains in a consistent environment, even when sick.
• Potential Cost Sharing: Allows for nanny sharing arrangements to reduce expenses.

Cons:

• High Cost: Typically the most expensive childcare option.
• Lack of Oversight: Limited supervision in the home environment.
• Socialization Arrangements: Responsibility falls on parents or nanny to organize playdates.
• Administrative Burden: Involves paperwork, taxes, and legal obligations.
• Dependency: Relies on the availability and reliability of the nanny.

Au Pair

What is it? An au pair is a young person from another country who works with a United States-based agency to come to the U.S. and provide childcare for a limited period of time, usually a year. The au pair lives with their host family and is meant to have a cultural and educational experience in addition to providing up to 45 hours of childcare per week.
Pros:

• Personalized Care: Offers individualized attention within the home setting.
• Flexibility: Provides adaptable hours, similar to nanny care.
• Cultural Exchange: Introduces cultural diversity and language immersion.
• Consistent Care: Child remains in a familiar environment, even during illness.
• Cost Efficiency: Expenses remain consistent regardless of the number of children.

Cons:

• Limited Duration: Au pairs typically stay for one to two years, requiring regular replacements.
• Lack of Oversight: Similar to nanny care, supervision is minimal within the home.
• Socialization Arrangements: Responsibility falls on parents or the au pair to facilitate interactions.
• Housing and Living Expenses: Host families must provide accommodation and living stipends.
• Dependency: Relies on the availability and commitment of the au pair.

Relative Care

What is it? Some families have the option to ask a relative to provide childcare for their baby; most often it's a grandparent who lives in the same town or offers to relocate and move in with you.
Pros:

• Personal Connection: Offers familial care with shared values and interests.
• Affordability: Often the most cost-effective option, if not free.
• Convenience: Accessibility and familiarity with the caregiver.
• Cultural Continuity: Promotes family traditions and values.

Cons:

• Communication Challenges: Potential conflicts in childcare philosophies.
• Limited Socialization: Requires deliberate efforts to arrange interactions with peers.
• Lack of Regulation: Minimal oversight and formal qualifications.
• Capability Concerns: Older relatives may struggle with the demands of childcare.

Stay-at-Home Parent

What is it? Stay-at-home parents take extended or permanent time away from the workforce to care for their child(ren). Some parents may find this the most financially plausible option for their childcare situation, while for others, especially single parents, it's not possible.
Pros:

• Parental Presence: Allows for direct involvement in a child's development.
• Quality Control: Ensures adherence to personal childcare philosophies.
• Work-Life Balance: Eliminates the stress of juggling work and childcare.
• Flexibility: Offers freedom in scheduling and activities.

Cons:

• Isolation: Potential loneliness or lack of adult interaction.
• Physical and Emotional Toll: Can be physically and emotionally demanding.
• Limited Socialization: Requires deliberate efforts to facilitate peer interactions.
• Financial Implications: It may impact future career prospects and income.

As you navigate the maze of childcare options, weigh the pros and cons against your family's unique needs and circumstances. Whether opting for the structured environment of a daycare center or the personalized care of a nanny, prioritize what aligns best with your child's well-being and your family's dynamics.

Enroll Now at Nowtech Academy:

Ready to provide your child with a nurturing and enriching childcare experience? Enroll now at ~Nowtech Academy daycare center~ and give your child the gift of quality early education. ~Contact us today~ to ~schedule a tour~ and learn more about our programs and enrollment process.

Conclusion

daycare centers in Pembroke Pines offer numerous benefits for families seeking quality childcare, including structured learning environments, socialization opportunities, and trained staff. While there are challenges such as cost and illness concerns, the ~right daycare center~ can provide invaluable support for both children and parents. Consider Nowtech Academy daycare center for a comprehensive and innovative approach to early childhood education.

This requires quite a bit of context so apologies for the long post. I (24/F) have known my 'boyfriend' (27/M) for around 4 years now, and this current 'relationship' has been going for just under a year. The reason why I put 'relationship' and 'boyfriend' in quotation marks, is that he has never actually officially put a label on it, but he definitely doesn't consider it to be a situationship.
We have previously dated twice before and broken up twice, the first occasion he broke up with me, and the second time I broke up with him. The second break-up went really badly. He has struggles with drinking, using drugs and gambling, and also is a very poor communicator, and I broke up with him because I wasn't able to deal with the way he was taking it out on me. After the breakup, he went down a bad spiral and was really not doing well, and at the time I felt really responsible and guilty, I still do. When we first got back together, he often would make "jokes" about how I broke his heart and wrecked his life and how everyone around him hated me for that.
When we got back together, I was hoping he had changed and worked on things, as he did seem apologetic. However, over this year I have often felt like it was a mistake and I am firmly of the view that he is just not someone I want to have a future with. However, I have been finding it really hard to actually break it off. I am really worried about how he will receive the breakup, and I am scared of him reacting like last time. In the last breakup, it felt like he didn't really hear the reasons (which I thought were valid reasons to breakup), or at least he disagreed.
There are quite a few reasons why I know we won't work, and I'm trying to think of a way to say it that is honest but that hopefully doesn't send him spiralling or turn me into some kind of villain in his eyes again.
The reasons are: (1) I am a very motivated person, and despite my own struggles with my mental health - I have a successful career. He is quite the opposite and hates his job and has no direction in his life. He has been talking for years about finding a new job but has not taken one step to do so. I feel that this is on it's own an unfair reason to break up with him as it is not really his fault that he doesn't like working. In other areas of his life, he is also quite unmotivated - he doesn't have any hobbies, doesn't exercise, doesn't cook and is constantly ordering takeaway and doesn't plan holidays - he talks a lot about starting/doing that but doesn't take action and that really bothers me. I feel like his lack of motivation almost rubs off on me, when we are together, I see a really lazy side of myself that just lies around all day - when I'm not like that when I'm alone. I love to travel and plan holidays and I also could not see myself travelling with him.
(2) All of my friends and family strongly dislike him. My mom is putting a lot of pressure on me to break up with him, and my dad has said he has lost respect for me for continuing to date him. This has meant I can't bring him around any of my friends and family and it is really getting to me, I feel like he is totally isolated from the rest of my life and I cannot maintain a relationship that has to be totally separate from the rest of my personal life. In the past, he did not make an effort with my friends and family at all, which is why they dislike him - however, I haven't given him a chance this time around as they just refuse to be in his company. Again, I feel like this is a horrible thing to say to him.
(3) In the last four months, I lost a close relative and a pet, both took quite a toll on me personally. On both occasions, I reached out to him for support and he was totally absent and said he was too busy at work and having his own struggles. At the time, I felt bad for him and didn't want to burden him, but looking back I feel like I really want a partner who is there for the good and the bad and is able to support me. However, I feel like if I wanted to cite this as a reason to break up with him, I should have done it at the time, and now too much time has passed for me to bring it up as the reason. This specifically is a concern, because last time I broke up with him, I mentioned one event where he had bothered me (that had occurred two months before we broke up), and he said that if that was the reason for the break up (it wasn't, it was just a factor), then I should have done it at the time and not waited so long.
I am someone that is strongly of the view you should be honest in a breakup, because there is no point in lying but I also don't think it is necessary to be cruel or mean. At the end of the day, whilst I do not love him romantically at all anymore, I do really care about him.
tl;dr i want to break up with my bf because he is lazy and unmotivated, my family and friends hate him, and he failed to support me when I needed it but I'm worried about how he'll react.

I find costs in this game make no sense and I think they should be deeply revisited.
Fixed building cost, I get it, standard for any strategy game, but why do they stay the same while other things increase?
Example tier 1 buildings cost 100/150, milk tooth you "buy" for 5 and destroy for 40, making it probably the best possible early game investment.
One tooth or two basically pay an early game funeral, 4 a blacksmith
Late game you "buy" the same tooth for I don't know 75 and probably more
Godzilla cat after being exposed to gamma rays destroys entire cities judging by the damages asked
University building 1000 fixed. Going to the university in my wider game 4500 each child, wtf?
Who cares, I was earning 1000+ a month
Activities vary wildly, so much that I often find myself in a constant state of war early game because I basically cannot pay for anything else, then later I mainly do activities as war is trivial
Aside from dumb AI, broken MAA even if not upgraded, or other issues which need fixing, better scaling and being able to do activities in a steadier way would balance a little the ratio between them and wars, diluting a little the conquests, maybe
One of my biggest issue is how easy it is to start as nobody and reach emperorship within a lifetime, which is fine but should require focused effort and planning, not being the consequence of not being able to afford feasts or hunts
And if the issue is that you would gain too much prestige or legitimacy or piety doing too many events, as now there are options to increase costs to gain more, adding more intermediate steps in the slider could still allow to do them without ruining the other resources gain, maintaining the final level as a crazy cost
Thanks for reading

Hello everyone. I had a question about Medi-Cal. I did not meet the income requirement to keep my silver 94 PPO Blueshield. I recently got Medi-Cal Anthem.
I have an endocrinologist I have been seeing for about 10 years. I see him two times a year and pay out of pocket for the visit. He does not take any insurance. He is not part of any networks.

1. My medications from my out of network endocrinologist... When he sends medications to the pharmacy they are fully covered by Medi-Cal Anthem. This is such a big help to me It's life-changing.

Q: I was wondering why are the meds being covered since I have an HMO and he's not in network? (I'm not complaining, just curious).

1. On my medical card is a number I can call to locate labs to draw blood.

Q: Since the insurance is covering my meds from him, will they also cover bloodwork too? Can I go to one of these labs and hand them a lab slip for my endocrinologist and draw blood?
This has been stressing me out a lot. With my last insurance Blue shield PPO I could go straight to the lab and hand them the lab order and they would draw it. Or I could go to my primary care and she would punch in the labs from my endocrinologist and run the labs for me.
Q: How can I get lab work done in my case? I'm still looking for a primary care doctor. Will my primary care Dr be able to do this for me? I only need it done once a year...maximum 2 times a year.
Thank you for your help. Please let me know if I need to clarify anything or provide more information.

This happened when me and my friends were about 15 but i have told this to a lot of people so i remember it pretty well
So, me and my buddy decided to go fishing down by the river one day. We found a nice spot on a retaining wall and set up a fire to cook the fish we were catching.
We fished for a few hours and laughed and joked we had got ahold of a few beers not even enough to get a buzz .
it was just to make it more fun we had cooked some hotdogs before while we fished he had afew fish in a bucket
Everything was going great until out of nowhere, this guy in a dress shirt and pants comes and sits down at our fire.
He starts staring at my friend and says, "Do you know what a soul screaming sounds like?" We were both freaked out by his sudden appearance and creepy question. Then, he reaches into our bucket, grabs a fish, takes a bite out of it, throws it back in the river, and runs off into the woods.
As soon as he disappeared, we heard this blood-curdling scream that sent shivers down our spines. We packed up our stuff and got out of there as fast as we could.
I've never been back to that spot since. It was a truly bizarre and terrifying experience that we still can't explain.
im not sure if that guy was a ghost or just someone haveing a really bad day

Hello reddit.
It's been 4 days since I finished Chap14. Took me roughly 80 hours, in the span of exactly 3 weeks. I was fortunate enough to find some free time to really immerse myself into Rebirth for the full 3 weeks.
But now it's been 4 days, I can't go back to 'normal'. Still crying on a regular basis, unable to move on.
It comes from two things:
One, I do believe that in my 20+ years of gaming, FF7 Rebirth is the best single player game I've ever played, from top to bottom. Combat is excellent, music it out of this world, I loved all the side activities, the charm shining through every moment, the locations and how polished everything was. Playing other games since then feels wrong. I came back to Destiny and Diablo, and these two games feel boring af. I feel anxious that this game destroyed gaming (at least a little bit) for me, because nothing comes close to this level of quality.
Second: I got really attached to the characters, especially Aerith. Don't get me wrong, I am in my thirties, I completely understand that it's a fictional character, but seeing the romance between Aerith and Cloud hit me harder than it has any reason to be. She's literally perfect, the way she is written, the way she looks and behaves, the way she's acted and animated. The Chap12 Gold Saucer date is when I started to feel unwell. I haven't played the OG, but i was fully aware what her fate was, which made this sorta like a sequel to Arrival, one of my favourite movies.
But then, the ending, confused as it was (along with the ending of chap13) really brought it home. I can't believe being more emotional over any piece of art like this. The 'last date' in Sector 5 was definitely the highlight.
It's been difficult to look for help or comfort from my friends or family - I'm the only gamer here, so I don't want to be vulnerable around them - the worst thing they can do is say "it's just a video game". So that's why I came here.
I don't want this thread to become another ending theory discussions hub (there are plenty of those already), but obviously I'm the "Aerith is alive, Cloud did create a new timeline" camp, but at this point I'm not sure if I truly believe in that, or it's just me coping (like Cloud is, based on the other theories). The genius of Square is that, at least for me, they managed to have cake and eat it too - they didn't fully commit to killing Aerith, yet they managed the ending to feel impactful and emotional, as if they did commit.
So, there I am, unable to move on. Still thinking about this almost constantly, crying sporadically, feeling this overwhelming loss, as if I actually knew her. I guess I'm a sucker for Japanese tragic romance stories - and this is what Rebirth essentially is for me.
I'm aware that time heals wounds and all that, but waiting 3-4 years to see the conclusion of this story is going to be devastating.

The article is intended primarily for Game Masters who play games in systems inspired by Lovecraft’s works, such as Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. However, I hope that other fans of cosmic horror will also find something for themselves here. The interesting facts presented here may also be interesting for people who do not know the work of The Loner of Providence, but some of the references may be unclear to them. The article contains several anecdotes – either from real history or from beliefs that exist in the real world, and suggestions on how they can be related to the Cthulhu mythology. So read about:

• Sea Peoples, bane of ancient civilizations,
• a forgotten Eldritch abomination from Greek mythology,
• Jan Twardowski, the first man on the Moon,
• mathematicians and physicists who wanted to know the structure of reality and lost their minds,
• one of the most mysterious characters from the Bible and a dark, occult ritual that underlies monotheism.

Invasion of the Sea Peoples
Ancient, super-advanced, fallen civilizations are one of the favorite motifs of fantasy. And truth be told, something similar happened in real history. Of course, in reality, the fallen civilizations did not have sci-fi supertechnology at their disposal, but their collapse still led to great destabilization. We are talking about the invasion of the so-called Sea Peoples, which took place at the turn of the 13th and 12th centuries BC. The Sea Peoples are mobile and warlike groups of people of unknown origin. They caused the collapse of several advanced cultures, including: Mycenaean and Hittite. Only the Egyptians managed to defeat them in a great battle. Well, the material for Lovecraftian inspiration is obvious. A mysterious army, coming out of nowhere, called the „Sea Peoples”, leading to the fall of the most powerful human civilizations at that time? Let us add that, according to some historians, the descendants of the Sea Peoples destroyed by the Egyptians were the Philistines. Yes, the same Philistines, one of whose main deities was the well-known Dagon to Lovecraftomaniacs… Deep Ones say hello. Let us also add that, according to Egyptian records, the tribes of the Sea Peoples had names such as Ekvesh, Teresh, Lucki, Sherden, Shekelesh, Tekel and Peleset. Sounds suitably dark, blasphemous and filthy? If we want to dig deeper, one of the pharaohs who ruled Egypt was Akhenaten – yes, that heretic who tried to replace the worship of traditional Egyptian gods with the religion of the Aten and who is very much liked by conspiracy theorists. Let’s add to the mix that Middle Eastern cultures had quite a negative attitude towards the sea as such. Babylonian Marduk had to defeat the giant monsters of Chaos – Apsu and Tiamat, personifications of fresh and salt waters, respectively. The Bible also contains traces of the myth about the fight between Yahweh and Leviathan, and the Book of Revelation, describing the new, ideal world, emphasizes that „I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” Let’s assume that the players are researchers of an antiquity – historians, archaeologists, etc. They conduct research on the Sea Peoples. Of course, as common sense dictates, they assume that these were human warriors. However, as time goes on, more and more evidence appears that they were not completely human again, and the evidence of their monstrosity becomes increasingly difficult to put down to the demonization that Egyptian chroniclers used against their enemies… It becomes clear that an onslaught of inhuman and semi-human monsters came from the sea. , trying to conquer the world of that time. Moreover, after their defeat at the hands of the Egyptians, this species did not become extinct, but instead of open conquest it switched to cautious infiltration. Perhaps the Deep Ones have spies in academia who are tasked with eliminating historians who find the trail of truth…
Oh, one more interesting fact connecting the history of the Sea Peoples with Lovecraft. Well, as we know, HPL liked to use the term „Cyclopean” for huge, monumental buildings. At least he didn’t come up with it himself. Well, when the later (and at first more primitive) inhabitants, the Dorians, saw the ruins of destroyed castles left by the Mycenaean culture, they came to the conclusion that such huge buildings could not have been built by human hands, so they were probably the work of mythical giants – cyclopes.
Typhon – a classic but forgotten abomination
Modern works drawing on Greek mythology usually make Hades (completely senseless) or Kronos (a little more) the Big Bad, but they forget about Zeus’s greatest enemy – Typhon. After defeating the titans and then the gigants, the Olympian gods had to face the main boss on the way to dominating the world – Typhon. Here is an example of its description: It was larger than the largest mountains, its head touched the stars. When he stretched out his hands, one reached the eastern ends of the world and the other reached the western ends. Instead of fingers, he had a hundred dragon heads. From the waist down he had a tangle of vipers (yay, tentacles!) and wings at his shoulders. His eyes were shooting out flames. In other versions of the myth, Typhon was a flying, hundred-headed dragon. In any case – appearance and stature worthy of the Great Old One. Typhon attacked Olympus, and all the gods except Zeus fled in panic. The supreme god took up the fight… and lost it. Only in the second duel did he manage to defeat Typhon, but not kill him – he only imprisoned him, hitting him with Etna. In the sense of a mountain. A volcano – and volcanic activity is the result of Typhon’s anger, trying to break free. Typhon equaled the lord of heaven not only in strength, but in fertility. His wife was Echidna, about whom Hesiod wrote: „She also gave birth to another creature, invincible, huge, unlike neither men nor immortal gods, in a hollow cave – the divine violent Echidna, half a sharp-eyed young girl, with beautiful cheeks, half a huge snake, a great and powerful, spotted, cruel – in the depths of the holy land. This pair spawned many, if not most, of the monsters found in Greek mythology. Their offspring were very diverse and strange, as befits the spawn of enemies of the divine order, including: – Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon who never slept and guarded the apples that gave immortality, – Cerberus – we all know the dog guarding the gates of hell… but not all of us know that, according to some accounts, it had not three heads, but as many as 50, it was also covered with scales, and it had a snake by its tail… so what does this have to do with a dog? – Scylla – this lady inherited the most from the human, beautiful part of Echidna… at least initially, but eventually, as a result of various perturbations, she turned from a beautiful nymph to her siblings, becoming a six-headed sea beast, so hideous, according to Homer, that even the gods could not stand sight of her – she dwelt in a cave, from where she opened her mouth to devour the crews of ships, – Gorgons – I mean, those ladies with snake hair, not monstrous bulls. Medusa was one of them – the story that Athena turned her priestess into a monster as punishment for being raped by Poseidon is an invention of later poets, – Lernaean Hydra – a multi-headed monster with many reptilian or human heads. In place of each severed head, two others grew, and in addition, the main head was completely immortal – therefore, after chopping off the mortal heads, Heracles had to burn the stumps and bury the immortal, still hissing head underground. Hydra’s breath was poisonous. – various other creatures, such as the Sphinx, the dog Ortus, the Nemean Lion or the Chimera. Each of these descendants has the potential to be portrayed as an Eldritch abomination in its own right. To be precise – according to some accounts, the father of these creatures (and Echidna herself) was Typhon, but a monstrous, ancient (older than Poseidon) sea god, Phorcys. How to use Typhon? Well, Typhon clearly has the potential to be a Great Old One, imprisoned by… Nodens? Some other Elder God? Weak gods of humanity? Maybe his cult is trying to free him from Etna? What if he succeeds? What might distinguish Typhon from many other Great Old Ones? I would recommend focusing on his monster progenitor aspect – if he manages to reunite with Echidna, they will immediately start spawning various blasphemous beasts in series.
Jan Twardowski – the first man on the Moon
Jan (John) Twardowski, the hero of the legend, a Polish nobleman who allegedly sold his soul to the devil and became a sorcerer. Probably a historical figure, according to legend he lived in the 16th century and became famous for summoning the spirit of the deceased queen for King Sigismund Augustus. The ghost allegedly appeared in the mirror. This mirror is still kept in the church in Węgrów. According to legend, when the terms of the pact were fulfilled, devils came to kidnap Twardowski to hell. Interestingly, instead of taking the sorcerer’s soul after death, the most material demons appeared and grabbed Twardowski in order to kidnap him bodily, alive… and instead of heading towards the underground, which in legends is considered the traditional place of residence of demons and damned souls, they began to carry away up with him. At some point, Twardowski started singing religious songs, which caused the demons to escape, leaving him on the Moon, where he is said to have stayed ever since. Could the “demons” actually be extraterrestrials? Maybe mi-go? Maybe Twardowski was their agent and obtained secret knowledge and technology from them that gave him the fame of a sorcerer? As part of his studies, did he acquire knowledge of a system of sounds („religious songs”) that was able to drive away his masters when they decided that his usefulness on Earth had ended and it was time to transport him to a space base where he would be transformed into a brain in jar? Or was transportation to the Moon part of the deal from the beginning? Oh, one more interesting fact – according to legends, Twardowski used to use a rooster as a horse, which he enlarged with his magic. It’s easy to imagine an abomination that, in the eyes of laymen, might have resembled a large rooster… Examples of scenario hooks: – Twardowski’s secret mirror is still in the church in Węgrów. The local priest thinks it is just other „pagan” superstitions, but in fact it is a tool enabling contact with cosmic beings and higher realities. It may prove useful to players if they convince the priest to give it back or simply steal it. – Players are looking for Twardowski’s notes to gain knowledge about the „song” thanks to which he drove away mi-go (or other creatures that became the prototype of the „devils” from the legend). The so-called Twardowski’s „School” or „Cathedral” was located in a quarry near Kraków. In fact, at the end of the 19th century, during the construction of the church of St. Józef, a cave showing traces of alchemical experiments was discovered… And it was destroyed. But perhaps there is a second, secret laboratory under the cave that escaped destruction? And there lie Twardowski’s secrets… And again, potential obstacles may be placed by the local parish priest. But not only him. Maybe Twardowski’s legendary „rooster” lies dormant in the laboratory and was left by the sorcerer as a guard? – players are astronauts on the Moon. However, it turns out that someone lives here, someone who was not detected by previous expeditions and probes. Will Twardowski prove to be an ally in the fight against cosmic horrors? Or maybe their agent, or an independent villain? If he survived this long on the Moon thanks to blasphemous secrets, it’s possible that he had little humanity left…
The rest of the text is avalaible (of course, for free) here: https://adeptusrpg.wordpress.com/2024/05/13/some-lovecraftian-inspiration-form-real-life-and-beliefs/

several months ago, I had a mass extinction level event in my 10 gal blackwater tank, for some reason which I never figured out the PH went down from a stable 6.5 to a PH of 4 almost over night, and it seemed like nothing was spared. My school of neon tetras, 2 otos, about 20 blue neo shrimp, 4 kuhlis 2 mystery snails and a bunch of bladder snails and Planaria as well as 3 baby electric blue crayfish that I had just gotten 2 weeks prior and even the majority of live plants all gone!!
I was soo upset I decided to just completely give up on that tank and left it as is (filter and heater still running) albeit without bothering to take parameter readings for about a month until I started noticing copepods, some bladder snail babies and tiny Planaria returning to the the tank. not sure how they survive the acid apocalypse!
fast forward 2 more months to the present, and about 2 weeks ago , I was walking past the tank and I notice the water was super crystal clear and pristine, the bladder snails were thriving the Planaria were also doing well (not that I want them to) and the 2 amazon swords I had in there had gone from having sickly translucent leaves to vibrant green opaque leaves and the bigger of the two was even sending a shoot up to the surface to flower....at this point I decided to take some parameter measurements and everything check out okay....perfect parameters and it it seemed like the tank had restarted the cycle and was now ready for fish, although the PH was slightly high (for that tank) at around 7.8 PH but nothing to worry about.....I thought about restarting the hobby but my financials atm did not agree....so I continued to ignore the tank and havnt touched it since...…..
As of last Friday I noticed the tank had started to become hazy, and getting more and more opaque by the day......it is currently sooo opaque whitish yellow I cannot see the other side.....This morning i took measurements of the parameters and they are as follows:
TDS: 457 PPM
PH: 7.6........................................... Ammonia: .25 ppm
GH: 4 dH ........................................Nitrites: 0 ppm
KH: 5 dH .........................................Nitrates: 10 ppm
If im not mistaken that looks like a cycled tank to me. what is happening to my tank?? why is it so cloudy?? is this the fog of rebirth??? are my fish going to miraculously reappear in the tank after the fog clears, lol jk......but honestly im just soo confused.....
p.s. i did a 50% water change and the haziness disipated for a few hours but is now almost back to what it was before the change.....

Hey! One of my favorutie fish just died overnight and I tested the water this morning and have a nitrite spike! I did a 50% water change yesterday and I think that may have caused it, is it safe to do another 25% water change?

Debit/Credit Cards Accepted No Closing Costs Cash Price: $1,175 Finance with $200 Down and 12 Payments of $105 Per Month No Credit Check, No Income Documentation, No Prepayment Penalty 

Year 14825 of the Andarian Unified Calender
Bolivan 5 - Central council HQ
“I know that most of you have a profound understanding of how our galactic community is connected and works. But for any new council members, I will quickly go over it all again.” High speaker Efrond spoke gently, their voice carried to every individual council member over the Central Computing Network. The CCN also translated his speech into whatever language, dialect or preferred medium of each individual. Song for one, gestures for another. All within the abilities of the CCN.
“Over 15000 years ago, the Andarians were the first species to leave their home planet and explore space. At a remarkable pace, they explored and colonized their home system. The Andarians are highly intelligent, industrious and iron - willed. One of the reasons that we still use their unified calendar, after their demise.” Efrond spoke with admiration. All species admired the Andarians, and it had been a great loss when their entire species fell to sickness.
“Not long after that, they longed for more, and so they sent out ships to their neighbour stars. This made the Andarians the first species to learn about the most sinister force of nature that any has ever encountered. They called it the wasting sickness, we now call it star fever. They, like many of us, lost hundreds of thousands to it. If not more. Before their interstellar dream was finally crushed. With an increased focus on their system, they recognized the Stepping Stone in their system for what it truly was. They spent several decades repairing it, theirs was a heavily damaged one, and that set them off on their true interstellar journey.”
Efrond paused, most council members here would know their own species history very well. And it would have been a similar tale to that of the Andarians.
“They were the first to find Bolivan 5, and when they found other species, they founded the Central council here as well. They were a paragon of peace and virtue, and we still owe them a great debt to this day. Sadly, neither them nor any of us have ever been able to find a cure for star fever. But with the mapped out lanes of the Stepping Stones that we have today, we can hardly say that we are missing out. We have safe travel between the stars, always protected by a mother's skirt, wherever we go.”
Efrond knew that the idea of a mother's skirt existed in all species and that CCN would translate it accordingly. A star protected its contents. By design or not, it was what allowed life to exist in the first place. Else, the star fever would strike on planets just as well as in deep space.
“Enough with the history lesson, Efrond. Why are we here!” Demanded a council member. Efrond recognized them as Abasaval. Their species was one of the more hot headed. Always quick to be angered.
“Aye, on an emergency no less!' Another quipped. “I hate using the Stones in such quick succession. And using the Central Rosetta makes me sick to the core every time as well.”
Another common occurrence. Travel by Stepping Stones was rough on one's senses. The central Rosetta was a special variant, able to connect to any stone, anywhere, while traditionally stones connected in a one-to-one fashion. It was even rougher on the senses, though.
“Calm yourselves,” Efrond spoke again. “We just received a communication from the souther rim of our known space. The message is about two months old. It starts with a routine mission to analyse a passing interstellar object.”
“Don't tell me we are here for an asteroid!” Abasaval quipped. Efrond ignored him and continued.
“But as the object passed through the system, which is a dead-end lane, they saw the object make minute adjustments to its trajectory, using the star itself for doing so and then left in another direction. It was noted to not travel at the speed of light, but very close to it. It showed clear signs of intelligent life.”
The council was suddenly abuzz with sound. A cacophony, loud and chaotic.
“Impossible!”
“Life that can survive the star fever?”
“Perhaps the vessel was automated and nothing more than a travelling coffin!”
Efrond calmed the council again. “While the passing was very short-lived, the analysts were able to get some scans from the object, there is evidence of possible life forms inside of it. But it left too soon to confirm it. In any case, this is enough evidence for an emergency meeting. I have made a proposal to set up a task force. To try to intercept with this object, we know what system it will have to pass by next after all, and we do have a lane to it. And to find out more about them. If there is a species out there with a cure to the star sickness, we need to get in touch with them. Our entire community is based on the premise of how we navigate the stars. Introducing a player who does not have to abide by those rules… I do not have to spell it out for you. This could have disastrous outcomes.”
The council dismissed soon after, the proposal unanimously approved. Although Efrond saw different reactions to the news. Some were hopeful, not all species had gained good territory and the lanes were limiting to them. Some were angered or worried, as they gained a lot from the current system. Abasaval seemed to have been eager, probably thinking about war. Their species lived for combat and their culture revolved around it. There would be a lot of work ahead of Efrond.
2600 AD
Earth - Terran central Atlatl command
“We have a message from Spear 5, sir” The comms officer spoke up suddenly, surprising Kurt.
“Let's hear it then.” Kurt said, looking up from his screen, filled with anything but work.
As an Atlatl commanding officer, his station was not a glorious one. One of the three captains that rotated in manning the comms station. Waiting for messages send back from any of the Spears. If they did get a message, it was usually to notify the successful deployment of a Deep Comms Sat. The DCS was meant to become a vast network, capable of sending messages from star to star, which would allow humanity to effectually communicate at incredible speeds, across the vastness of space. But step one was deploying them as the Spears explored nearby systems. After that, they all had to spend several years passing around information that would allow them to configure themselves into the formation, and then it would be functional. The estimated time of completion for a fully working DCS web was several decades. But each DCS chain that one of the Spears left behind worked, albeit in a less efficient way than once the whole system would be functional.
“Yes, Spear 5 seems to have encountered an anomaly in the Albert system. They were travelling at full speed as they are on their way back to get a DCS resupply. They think they might have come across intelligent life. There were some activity spikes that seemed like something was trying to either contact them or scan them. They are now in deep space, so their next reply will take a while.”
“Tell them to send over their reports, over DCS web. Meanwhile, send a copy of their data over to the other departments and have our analysts go over it as well.” Kurt stood up now, this was potentially big. Maybe big enough to get him out of his current post. But only if this was actual alien life. Better to play by the book until there was certainty.
“Send a copy to my terminal as well, I will be going over it personally too. Plan a meeting with the other two captains. I need to brief them on this and make sure we are ready.”
“Aye. Ready for what, sir?” The comms officered looked worried.
“Anything.”
Nobody is allowed to use this, or any of my other stories, for narrations. Nobody is allowed to monetize them in any way or form. Nobody is allowed to pretend my work is their own.

Hello, I’m carrying over this post from the travel sub as I was advised to do so with edits to fit the relationships sub’s requirements.
I want to hear people’s thoughts after explaining my situation and experiences as a way of seeking advice. I’ll list things in a random order.
The first time I traveled across the pond was to Europe, specifically to London, Amsterdam, and Kraków. I practically worshipped Europe at the time and thought of it as a wonderland. I don’t want to say specifically, but I experienced romance for the first time since high school. However, things didn't go too well in the end when we messaged each other after parting ways. When I finished my trip, I yearned to come back and stay longer than a week. This was two years ago.
Last year, I visited my ex-girlfriend (24F, 6 months) from Poland for a month and I had the best time of my life. It was really nice spending time with someone the whole time while abroad, seeing her for the first time during our long-distance relationship. However, things changed, and it feels like I don’t have that similar, personal obligation to travel anymore. She was my first girlfriend. I don’t know if I’ve spoiled myself by always wanting to be with someone to travel and stay with, especially someone who I know and love.
I do have aunts and uncles who live in England and the Netherlands, and I’ve visited before and had a good time when I was with them, but I don’t know if I’ll be a nuisance and bother them.
Last autumn, I was in the Netherlands, and I got a really cute Indo-Dutch waitress’s number at a restaurant (I’m not sure about her age, met once). I remember my aunt telling me how much she looked at me during our conversation with her. I wanted to see her again, but I was only there for a week and she said she was too busy with university and work. I’ve thought about her ever since.
From last December to mid-January, I was at the Philippines seeing family for the first time with my mom and had a good experience celebrating New Years there. I met a Russian girl at Boracay (18F, saw each other for week), and I thought she was the one, but she led me on and was interested in her ex from Moscow.
I always prefer traveling to Europe, but I know that Europe is becoming increasingly more right-winged with immigration. I’m not sure if I’ll feel welcomed anymore if I visit, even when I try my best to respect the culture of every country I visit. I get anxious when people stare at me as a foreigner and somebody who looks different than the average European. In comparison, being in the Philippines felt safe since I was with people who were also Filipino, especially since I was born and raised in the US.
I’ll admit, I’m a hopeless romantic and simple-minded, and I don’t know if I travel for the right reasons. I don’t often experience romance in the States, and it either feels emptying, lonely, or indifferent at times. Girls always say they’re too busy with their schedules, but when I travel, most girls abroad are willing to spend time with me. I prefer traveling to see someone, but I don’t know if have that anymore.
Sorry for sounding so negative and lost. I’m not having the happiest time in my life, given my health condition — chronic fatigue, loss of coordination, muscle weakness, but slowly recovering — and quitting university. I’m not sure what to travel for anymore. I have connections that I can meet and spend time with in Europe, but I feel anchored to stay home in California for some reason. I think it’s fear of going, having heartbreak again, experiencing bad anxiety, or just doing something plain stupid. I don’t have anybody in my life that feels close. I’m 23, and at the same time, I don’t know whether to sit on my ass and act grateful now or still do things that make me feel young again in my 20s.
Now, I have been watching Jacob Koopman’s busking videos of him singing romantic songs in the streets of Dublin, and I’m having THAT feeling again — Europe and love.
I’m hesitant to plan and buy plane tickets for this summer.
TL;DR: I feel like traveling fulfills me with romance and love, especially after meeting more willing girls abroad and having a non-existent dating life in the US.
Here are my questions:
Should I visit a girl who I met briefly during one of my travels?
What should I do if I really think having love and a relationship leads to happiness?
Should I continue to do the things that evidently benefit me outside my home country?

how do i stop the little bitch fish from stealing my fucken bait before the big boys get to it ? One tug and my bait falls off it’s getting annoying

First time reader of Wolfe and I'm having an amazing time working my way through shadow and claw. I had to read this chapter a couple times to try and grasp it; it's extremely dense. I'm still finishing Claw of the Concilliator so my thoughts may change. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
The Tale of the Student and His Son Analysis
“Once, upon the margin of the unpastured sea, there stood a city of pale towers.”

• The unpastured sea evokes Hamlet “the undiscovered country” death and the unconscious. Pale refers obviously to a light color but also feebleness. However, a tower symbolizes wisdom and stability and the balance of forces (light and dark, fire and water, order and chaos). Wolfe is already painting this city in contradiction.

“In it dwelt the wise. Now that city had both law and curse.”

• Another symbol of duality: loss and gain. The wise give the law but simultaneously curse the city.

“The law was this: That for all who dwelt there, life held but two paths: they might rise among the wise and walk clad with hoods of myriad colors, or they must leave the city and go into the friendless world.”

• Here’s another contradiction: the wise wear myriad colors symbolizing their acceptance of all, but their law is built on exclusion, a brotherhood without.

“Now one there was who had studied long all the magic known in the city, which was most of the magic known in the world”

• The magicians study pan (all). They are comparative mythologists, occultists, Jungians, etc. (This, ironically, is Wolfe). Pan in Greek mythology is a cloven foot and horned god that plays the “pan flute”, and is associated with nature and sex. He is often accompanied by nymphs.

“And he grew near the time at which he must choose a path. In high summer, when flowers with yellow and careless heads thrust even from the dark walls overlooking the sea.”

• High summer is a reference to the “dog days” of summer. In ancient Greece, this was the hottest and most uncomfortable part of summer. It’s called the “dog days” because it coincides with the heliacal rising of Sirius in the constellation Canis Major. Furthermore, the Greeks believed the luminous Sirius (from seiros: scorching) caused the extra hot days. I mention this because it relates to the alzabo which in the Lexicon Urthus is from the archaic Arabic “al-dhi’b” which refers to a wolf, a jackal, or a star in Canis Major.

“How may I - even I who know nothing - have a place among the wise of the city? For I wish to study spells that are not sacred all my days, and not go into the friendless world to dig and carry for bread”

• Another paradoxical and ironic statement: he’s been studying all his life, but knows nothing. A Socratic kind of wisdom but also represents spiraling madness. Critically, he wants to study non-sacred spells; he turns away from the divine.

“ Do you recall how, when you were hardly more than a boy, I taught you the art by which we flesh sons from dream stuff? How skillful you were in these days, surpassing all the others! Go now, and flesh such a son, and I will show it to the hooded ones, and you will be as we.”

• Groomer! And if Wolfe is trying to evoke ancient Greece with this story, it’s well-founded that older Athenian men would often indulge their passion for youth. This would explain the use of the carnal word “flesh” to describe the creative process. Sex magic is a common occult practice and is certainly non-sacred. The passing of seasons represents the cyclical nature of trauma and abuse.
• Wolfe uses very unsettling language: “And the old man who had taught him thought of the beauty of the trees that had for so many years delighted his eyes like the white limbs of women.”

“Winter came stalking into the land from his frozen capital, where the sun rolls along the edge of the world like a trumpery gilded ball and the fires that flow between the stars and Urth kindle the sky. His touch turned the waves to steel, and the city of the magicians welcomed him, hanging banners of ice from its balconies and heaping its roofs with glaces of snow.”

• Perhaps a reference to Saturnalia but does not follow the ancient Greece theme. Saturnalia occurred near the winter solstice because the sun enters Capricorn, the astrological house of Saturn, at that time. Capricorn fits in with the Pan imagery as it too is a goat-like being.
• Saturn represents the cyclical course of time and season (Greek equivalent Chronos). Saturn would regularly devour his own children; this fits into the aforementioned cycle of trauma.
• Saturn is often represented with a sickle: a symbol of mankind’s partial control over the natural world.

“In spring, the most beautiful maidens of the city, the daughters of the magicians, were clothed in green; and while the soft winds of spring teased their golden hair, they walked unshod through the portal of the city, and down the narrow path that led to the quay, and boarded the black-sailed ship that waited them. And because of their golden hair, and their gowns of green faille, and because it seemed to the magicians that they were reaped like grain, they were called Corn Maidens.”

• Here the sickle imagery is introduced directly. The Corn Maidens are human sacrifices, but are compared to grain and corn; sent into the “unpastured sea.”

“Looking from his window saw the maidens filing by, he set aside all his books and began to draw such figures as no man had ever seen, and to write in many languages, as his master had taught him aforetime.”

• Is this not what Wolfe does in his writing? He constantly appropriates ancient words from forgotten languages to do his “magic.”

“ At first it seemed to him that all the skill his master had taught him of old had deserted him, for from the first light to the moonlight he was alone in his chambers save for the moth that fluttered sometimes to show the insignia of Death at his undaunted candle flame.

• More meta stuff: writer's block
• A moth showing the insignia of death is an interesting comparison. This moth could be interpreted as the final stage of metamorphosis before death. It could also refer to the Bombyx Mori, the silk moth. Mori in this sense means mulberry, but mori can also mean death (as in memento mori). The silkworm has a similar symbology to the scythe in that it represents man’s control of nature. This is the domesticated version of the silkworm that relies completely on humans for its survival and is genetically modified to promote silk production. This reflects the city’s practice of human farming and sacrifice.

“Then there crept into his dreams another; and he, knowing who that other was, welcomed him, though the dreams were fleeting and soon forgotten.”

• The Irony here is that although he works tirelessly practicing his magic, he only summons the being when he is not working, asleep and unconscious. He welcomes this being into his mind. “He heard the step, always in another room” He’s unable to pinpoint this being’s being; he can only pinpoint its secondary effects. As he continues his magic, the aftereffects become increasingly pronounced until finally the illusory becomes real. Milton describes hell as “darkness visible.” I think Wolfe is going for a similar effect here.

“Then the student dared turn himself where he sat, and he saw standing before him a youth haughty of port, wide of shoulder, and mighty of thew. Command was in his firm mouth, knowing wit in his bright eyes, and courage in all his face. Upon his brow sat that crown that is invisible to every eye, but can be seen even by the blind; the crown beyond price that draws brave men to a paladin, and makes weak men brave.

• The student’s creation terrifies him, but he doesn’t want to show his fear.
• “Haughty of port” meaning prideful with an air of superiority. Going back to Milton: “round he (Satan) throws his baleful eyes, that witnessed huge affliction and dismay, mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.” Classic Luciferian pride.
• Contrary to popular depictions of Satan, he is one of God’s highest creations: “Whoever he is, the “Devil” is among the very first and best creatures of God. He is, so to speak, perfect enough, wise enough, powerful enough, one can almost say divine enough, to know God and not to surrender to him - to know him and yet opt against him, to desire freedom from him. But since this freedom is impossible in the love and light which always lead to God and to a free surrender to him, it must of necessity be fulfilled in negation, hatred, and rebellion.” (Alexander Schmemann). Satan is God’s highest creation but he is the most base, he is wise yet chooses irrationality, in Wolfe’s description he wears the invisible crown that all see. Satan is an ironic, paradoxical, and tragic figure.
• Milton also describes Satan as a commander

“Often I have seen, like a green serpent called by the notes of a pipe, a column of green slip down the cliff below our city to the quay.”

• Again Wolfe uses Miltonian imagery: “Thus they Breathing united force with fixed thought moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed Their painful steps O’er the burnt soil.” Both descriptions suggest a snake charmer playing his pipes.
• This connects Satan and Pan: pan pipes as well as ostensible concern for his nymphs

“At this the young man’s eye flashed, and he demanded: ‘Who is this ogre, and what form has he, and where does he dwell?’”

• The ogre is the beast and the minotaur that lives in the west. The West is another symbol of death and the unconscious.

“His name no man knows, for no man can approach near enough…His harbor is an isle to the west, where a channel with many a twist and bend, dividing and redividing, reaches far inland. It is on the isle, so my lore teaches me, that the Corn Maidens are made to dwell; and there he rides at anchor in the midst of them, turning his eye ever to left and right to watch them in their despair.”

• Does no man know its name because no one has discovered it or because it doesn’t exist? Or are both the same?
• Eye of Sauron reference. Masonic all-seeing eye which masons say represents the omnipresence and omniscience of God, but, in reality, represents an all-powerful control system that constrains mankind. When Severian first goes against his guild he says of his fellow torturers: “ I saw them as powerful, the active principle of an inimical and nearly perfect machine.” Severian first realizes that Nessus is a vast control mechanism; the torturers are a gear in the infernal machine.
  
• The beast lies in the labyrinth. The twisting and bending channels describe a labyrinthine structure without directly calling it a labyrinth. When Domnina first observes Father Inire’s mirrors: “She ran to the curtains hoping to find another door behind them, but as soon as she pulled one aside, one of the eight walls painted with labyrinths opened and Father Inire stepped out. Behind him she saw what she called a bottomless hole filled with light.” Wolfe is trying to show that the beast, the control mechanism, is tied to these mirrors.
  
• The young man fleshed from dreams relates to the fish fleshed from reflected light in Father Inire’s mirrors. They are both paradoxical creations; how can one create reality from the virtual (dream stuff and mere reflections)? The fish is clearly a reference to Christ and the ichthys; Domnina even references Pascha. But this Christ is a virtual Christ, an antichrist. In Revelation, the Antichrist is depicted as the ape of Christ, but ultimately the Antichrist is a mere illusionist: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (Thessalonians 2:11).
  

“For I am Noctua, the daughter of Night, and the daughter too of him whom you have come to slay…For though he did not know why, being of the stuff of dreams he was drawn to her; and she, who eyes held starlight, to him…At this the princess took pity on him, for all who have the stuff of dreams about them seem fair in some degree at least to the daughters of the night, and he fairest of all.

• Noctua means owl from Latin nox meaning night (and she is quite literally from her mother Nox). Nox is an important aspect of Thelema or the occult practices of Aleister Crowley. Nox is the formula of the night of pan, the “crossing of the abyss” and the union with “our lady of abominations” Babalon (from Revelations the whore of Babylon). In Nox, the adept experiences unification with the All through ecstatic destruction of the ego-self, dissolving duality into one or, in other words, nonsense. Ego death is a core element of mind control (MK Ultra and Project Monarch** remember the silkworm symbol).
• It’s clear from this passage and later passages that many others have been sent on this mission in the past. However, Noctua feels a particular affection for this commander.

“At length Night came, and they saw her striding from islet to islet with her bats about her shoulders and her dire wolves dogging her steps. No more than an easy carronade shot from their anchorage she seemed, yet they all observed that she passed not before Hesperus or even Sirius; but they before her. For a moment only she turned her face toward them, and none could be certain what her look conveyed. But all of them wondered if indeed the ogre had taken her without her will as her daughter had said; and if so, if she had not lost the resentment she might be imagined to have felt.”

• Hesperus represents Venus the morning star in Latin Lucifer or light bringer. As Russell puts it, the evening star is the morning star; it represents the drama of a hero striving for the highest seat of heaven but being cast out of heaven (matches the movement of Venus in the sky). Another connection to Sirius.
• Another suggestion that perhaps this quest is not as it seems.

“In ancient times, so it is said, a tattered child, the daughter of a fisherman, found on the sand a stoppered flask, and by breaking the seal and drawing forth the cork became queen from ice to ice. Just so it seemed, an elemental being, strong with the strength of the forging of creation, debouched from the tall smokestacks of their ship, tumbling over himself in dark joy and growing with a rush, as the wind comes.”

• This could be a Pandora’s box reference, critically Pandora. Another dualistic notion, that what saves the day also causes doom. Or perhaps Odysseus’ bag of winds; the aid turns into the curse. Fits into the overall narrative of the story that Severian is both a torturer and a hero. He is “severed” and “severs” into two. Dorcas: “All of you are torturers, one way or another.”

“Then he strode to the rail and looked down; but with such an expression that no one, not even the most brave, dared to look at him. When he lifted his eyes at last, his face was set and grim and with no word to any man he took himself to his cabin and barred the door.”

• Obviously despondent. Either about the evil he released into the world or that his great battle was with a phantasm or that the whole quest was a lie.

“But on the morning of the third day, the young man fleshed from dreams came out of his cabin and began to walk up and down the deck as he was wont to do”

• Allusion to the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. His cabin serves as his “tomb.”

“At this he looked up into the very vault of the firmament. And some thought he prayed, and some that he sought to restrain the anger he felt against them, and some only that he hoped to gain inspiration there. But so long did he stare that they waxed afraid, even as they had when he had peered into the water, and one or two began to creep away. Then he said to them: “Behold! Do you not see the sea birds? From every corner of the sky they stream. Follow them.”

• He’s come back from the dead but is filled with anger.

“None of them ever forgot that night”

• Nothing like an orgy after a long day of work.

“Certain of the Corn Maidens wed those princes who, having spent years so long enchanted that they are loath to leave that life (and have in that time learned much of gramary), build palaces on lily pads and are seldom seen by men.”

• They go out to become demonic forces in the world. Lily pads are a call back to Chapter 2 of shadow: “When I think of my own death, or of the death of someone who has been kind to me, or even of the death of the sun, the image that comes to my mind is that of the nenuphar, with its glossy, pale leaves and azure flower.” The nenuphar exists above and below the water; they exist in two worlds just as their journey took them from the east to the west.

“And when he beheld their dark sails, smutted by the burning tar that had blinded their enemy, he believed them blackened in mourning for the young man, and he threw himself down, and so perished. For no man lives long when his dreams are dead.”

• Absurd ending to the story. You can't help but laugh at the ending. Jonas even suggests that the end of the story has been edited.
• IMO, he kills himself because the “hero’s” journey was never meant to be a success. The hooded ones need the ogre to have the utopia.

I'm an international student in the U.S. and my mom came all the way from my country to visit me for my graduation (I'm from a small city and graduating from an Ivy League school so it's a big deal there and I really wanted her to see me graduate) and to help with me as I move to my new apartment. The economic situation in my country isn't good at all and she didn't have the funds to travel (she has a private practice and is also a university professor. The private practice doesn't provide any substantial income and she is in a lot of debt covering the rent for that office.) I'm on full financial aid and my college helped pay for her flight. She brought a lot of food items to help me here and since she could not afford to stay in an airbnb, she asked to stay in my dorm room (which is spacious.)
One day after her arrival, she gets sick (she has sinusitis) and I just found out she didn't buy travel insurance for herself before her trip (she said she thought there would be no point in buying it.) I've been taking care of her but the situation is tough. She doesn't like the US food so doesn't eat much and I order food from restaurants which she also doesn't like, wants specific things she uses back home when she's sick that's not available in the U.S. over the counter, etc. I bought her meds from CVS, fruits, soup, etc but she is still sick. Meanwhile, I'm moving out soon and she wants to stay with me at my new place for two weeks (which I'm totally fine with but I'm not sure how easy that would be given her condition.)
I'm now feeling guilty for not being able to afford taking her to the doctor or for not being able to book an airbnb for her. Also, initially she intended to stay with me for 3 months but I was honest with her and said this might not be the best situation for both of us. Am I bad daughter to her? Am I being frugal? How can I best help her? I also feel bad for myself because I have no time to spend my last weeks with my friends who are all moving away after graduation and am overall really stressed.
If anyone has any advice I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much
TL;DR: mom got sick while visiting me for my graduation and doesn't have health insurance. I'm also a student with limited funding available and don't know what to do.

Hello! I’m 17 and I’m just starting to enter the world of childcare via camp counselling and teaching gymnastics, and physical boundaries are a bit murky for me with clingy kids. I’m autistic so boundaries are already a wee bit difficult but it’s also an adjustment being on the other side of the power dynamic.
Since I started working with kids at 15 I’ve always had a few cling on kids, aged 4-9, and I never know when to say no when they hug me. It doesn’t help that I’m a very tactile person as well as a bit of a people pleaser that just wants to give the kids what they want.
I guess my concern is for when I give kids hello and goodbye hugs, and when i lift them up in a variety of ways for fun and to spin them around. Also sometimes they jump up and i settle them on my hip, even the older ones if i can. Should I be setting more boundaries? Is it important to show them what a safe adult looks like? Am i a safe adult if i don’t give them hugs when they need one?
Either way, I definitely need to work on giving the clingy ones independence from me I think, because as much as I love all of them it can’t be good to sit outside of the activity just to hang out with me? Right?
And that brings up another concern for me. What do i say when kids tell me they love me? I always say something along the lines of “i love being around you/having you in my class” etc etc.
I don’t know, I just know I want to work with kids for the rest of my life and these worries have been building up a while, and I’d love to know thoughts from other professionals and parents!!!
Tl;dr: kids cling to me socially and physically and I’m worried it’s not very healthy and wonder what parents and ece’s think i should do in terms of boundaries. Specifically to do with hugs and when they tell me they love me.

Hello!
I’m heading to Charleston in about three weeks for a vacation and I was wondering if anybody had any shop recommendations for flash tattoos, or for a small custom piece? There’s a good chance I’ll be getting proposed to on this trip so I’d love to get a small something that’s beach related - maybe a shell or a sharks tooth or a little fish. No bigger than around an inch, nothing super detailed or super pricey. (I’ve got a bigger tattoo appointment after vacation lol)
I did find one that does flash and walk ins on Saturdays, but the problem is we will be arriving Saturday and I don’t want a new tattoo keeping me from enjoying the beach. We leave on a Tuesday, which is when I’d prefer to get it done.
Thank you in advance!