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My love (infatuation) and daydreams are about Mike Hammer(Stacy Keach). And those dreams are making me really fall madly in love with him each time more and more. I'm starting to miss him when I stop daydreaming to do what things I gotta do around the house. I hold on to the daydreams with Mike Hammer because it keeps me in the highs. It gives me a purpose to live. It gives me this feeling of being SO loved and SO in love. SO protected, and SO needed by someone. In my daydreams, Mike is madly romantic and so madly in love with me, even jealous of me in fears of ever losing me. I so love him so much. I've even made videos of him; photos and of the theme intro of his show. OMG 😍😍🥰🥰He's got this swag in him😍😍He's all I can think of day and night.
I suffer from major depression and profound loneliness, and a hunger for love! One night, I accidently dreamed about Mike Hammer, and now I can't stop daydreaming about him. I'm even in love with him in real life and tell myself that he's at work and it's why he isn't home now. At first, it was okay, I understood. But now I'm always missing him cos he's never here. (Obviously).
I'm 53 and have 6 kids (for real). They are all grown. Three moved out of the house years ago. The other three live with me. I'm literally 24/7 in my bedroom. Long story on that. I only come out to cook, shower, do things around the house, etc, and go to church. Long story short, the only love I feel is in my daydreams with Mike Hammer. There in my dreams with him is where I feel safe, wanted, and cared about. The only time I'm ever happy. As I already mentioned, he really does love me, he takes care of me, he is madly romantic, very passionate and hot in bed, and loves everything about me. He's tough and has a special kind of swag, and I love it all!
I wish I could find true love in real life. I ain't getting any younger, I'm actually going on 54 in August. And I'm so tired of feeling lonely, empty, and without love in my life. I have so much love I want to give and no man to give it to. It seems love is sooo far away from finding me. Where is he? I'm longing for him.
In the meantime, I escape my true and sad reality through my daydreams. There, at least, Mike Hammer is waiting for me. There all I feel is mad love ❤️

TLDR: Im scared to make the jump of ending things. I love him but I don’t think I’m in love with him anymore. Im scared it’s the wrong decision. Im scared to start over. Im worried financially. Im worried about our pets.
If you can do math I’m sure you can see that my boyfriend and I started dating pretty young, if anything I’d say he is my first love. I thought he was my true love. Backstory: We moved in together after about 7mo of dating (with roommates) then a few months later just the two of us. Things were great, we were working on our careers and got two dogs. It felt like we had a little family and happy life. Fast forward three years: we go on a trip with his family. His dad flips his shit on us about finances in an airport but is primarily yelling at me because my partner was being submissive and not questioning or trying to discuss this with his dad. His dad also brought our relationship into his yelling, saying things like I don’t make my BF happy, he doesn’t support our relationship. It was really shocking and “random” for me to see this display. It honestly sent me into a depression to be broken down like that publicly, with no warning, by my boyfriend’s dad and him not even sticking up for me or our relationship. My bf telling me the entire trip home and at home that that’s how his dad is, that he’s sorry, and he doesn’t know why his dad said those things. That he’s happy with me. Three months later I catch him texting other girls talking about meeting up. I already had a girls trip planned coming up and told him I needed time to sort through all of this given that I feel like I was dealt blow after blow. I came back from the trip and we talked about it more, I asked numerous times if there’s something I’m not doing right or if I do truly make him unhappy. He denies, says that he doesn’t know why he reached out to other women and that it was a stupid mistake that will never happen again. Of course for awhile I was on edge and wary but I loved him and wanted to make this work. A few more months later I was trying to find a tattoo artist he follows and showed me on instagram. But instead I found him following a lot of explicit female pages. I told him that this made me uncomfortable especially given our recent issues and set a boundary to not continue following/looking at these women. For the past year I feel as though things have been good and my trust is back for him. Here’s the but: 1) I don’t feel like I enjoy his conversation anymore or it’s gotten less. I feel like I have to initiate every conversation, find things to talk about. 2) I feel like I almost have to mom him or be his parent. Having to help him file his taxes, figure out his car insurance, his doctors appointments, cleaning etc. 3) He’s not romantic. We’ve had numerous conversations about how I want to surprise occasionally, I want him to do something romantic for me. I’ve quite literally almost begged him to. He always says he’ll try harder and he’s sorry. I know everyone has different love languages giving and receiving but I feel as though we’ve both communicated ours and it’s feeling one sided. Some anniversaries or valentines we took it easy and just did a cute dinner together. Some I planned trips for us. One year I did a surprise beach trip. For our 5yr anniversary I did a spa resort since neither of us had gone and well it’s our big 5 year anniversary! I don’t want to degrade him and say he’s never done anything for me but I just don’t feel like we’re on the same level. We just got back from a week long trip to the PNW we’ve been wanting to do for years. He didn’t put any effort into planning so I made the entire itinerary including finding where to eat at during the trip. I feel like this trip really snapped for me. Our 6yr anniversary is next month and I almost want to just not bother and see what he does, if anything. I know I shouldn’t expect things but I thought he was going to propose during our 5yr anniversary because he occasionally would ask what kind of wedding rings I liked. When he didn’t, I thought maybe he was waiting for a romantic trip like the PNW since we always talk about where we would and wouldn’t want to be proposed at. He didn’t. I know it sound silly to expect a ring when I’m sitting here questioning staying with him. Because I’m usually a logically person and clearly a planner and mentally made a pros and cons list.. and the reasons I kept coming back to for not leaving him is 1) we have long history together 2) I love him and I don’t want to hurt him 3) the stress of having to decide moving out and furniture 4) we have two dogs together 5) financially 6) I’m scared to start over.

Hello everyone. I’m very nervous posting this but I really need some advice. I have no one in my life I can talk to about this issue. Also, I’m extremely new to LGBT, please forgive me if I worded anything poorly. (Apologies for long post)
I (22F) recently had an oh crap moment at college in relation to my sexuality. For some background, I’m a practicing Catholic who is in a committed relationship with another Catholic (24M). As you can imagine I always thought I was straight but whenever I close my eyes I can’t really see myself married with a large family and um… well… let’s just say I only get “excited” about same sex relations… like I want to try it…? For the longest time, I thought I wasn’t attracted to anyone, but then I met my boyfriend so I concluded I was overthinking it. If I’m being 100% honest, part of the reason I decided to look specifically for a conservative leaning Catholic man is because I wouldn’t have to worry about sex before marriage… I’m really confused right now because this “excitement” seemingly came out of nowhere. I’m experiencing things I’ve never felt before. I don’t know what is happening to me and I’m really scared.
Honestly my whole life I’ve been struggling to reconcile these desires with my personal religious beliefs. I understand religion is not important to some people but my relationship with God means everything to me. I don’t know about other Christian denominations, but the Catholic Church teaches same sex attraction in itself is not sinful but acting upon it is. Additionally, we believe ALL sex outside of marriage (including self pleasuring) is sinful. On a theological level, I feel extremely conflicted on where I stand on same sex attraction. I never questioned the Catholic Church like this before. Also, I’ve been researching about LGBT from both secular and religious sources. I’m really trying hard to understand LGBT people and issues better. I want to be better educated about LGBT because I really don’t know much. No one talks about sexuality (straight or otherwise) in my community. It’s been challenging for me but I’m someone who enjoys learning about new things. (I’d appreciate any book recommendations in the comments)
Lately I’ve been feeling super alone and like I belong nowhere. I’m confused as to why this is happening to me. I don’t know what to do to resolve my confusion. I don’t want to abandon my principles but at the same time I feel like I’m going insane? Am I a lesbian or overthinking everything…? What do you think I should do to resolve this matter? Am I a bad person for feeling this way? Any advice is welcomed, please be respectful in the comments. Thank you for reading.

I have two reddit accounts, so if these stories are familiar, that's why. Someone commented that one of these sounds like abuse from my Christian parent to me. So I've compiled all most of them here. (Most of them are to do with Christianity, the hypocrisy of Christianity, or the consequences of my choice to leave it.) Please be honest but also recognize that this isn't all the times sometimes these are amazing people and I love these people but for my sake I need to know if it's really that bad.
"I'm rather young. My mom (42F) and my dad (41M) both grew up in the church. My grandfather is the pastor of his own church and my mother was raised by her grandmother who played piano in the church. Growing up I'd say I was the perfect little Christian girl. I liked praying and went to church, I wanted to help the world, and I wanted to be baptized before I even started kindergarten. I remember that vividly. I was sitting in the kitchen in one of our folding chairs because we couldn't afford real ones and I was begging my mom to let me get baptized.
My family and I are African American. The church I went to when I was little was a black church. My mother was the praise dance choreographer so of course I did praise dancing. I'd go to Sunday school, I wore the big puffy dresses, and I knew all the songs. Of course I had the common experience of being assaulted in a sexual manor by someone I went to church with. But we were both the same age and I just knew I was uncomfortable and she just knew that's how people bigger than us touched each other. All that came of me telling my mom and me not having to go to her house anymore. I was always told that I was intelligent and I believed everything I was told without question. Then my sister was born and we moved. At first everything stayed the same. We ended up having to switch churches as the previous one was an hour away from our new home. We found a new church. A church were you can wear your hoodie and jeans like it's a Tuesday. I made friends and played sports and nothing really changed until I was eight. When I was eight there was a girl on my softball team I'll call E. E is Jewish and at the time I thought everyone was Christian. As in Christianity was the default and only option. But my friend E's church wasn't called a church but a synagogue, and she couldn't eat specific foods together. E also talked about BaBat Mitzvah's. When I brought that up to my mom she said my friend was Jewish and that being Jewish is like being Christian but they read from the old testament exclusively but they don't believe in Jesus.
Which a while later caused me to spend all night crying because I put the two and two together of: Believing in resurrection Sunday and that Jesus was gods son is what got us into heaven and I cried worrying one of my closest, sweetest friend and her nice family would go to hell. Then school, which had always been easy, became hard. Which made me feel dumb. Especially since my self worth was put into how smart I was and I wouldn't dare get below an A or high B because I was scared I'd get punished. Like the time I slammed my fingers a metal door on accident and spent the next fifteen minutes in tears and my mom told me if I kept crying she'd take me to the hospital to have them cut off my fingers. Because of moments like that disappointing my parent or having to big of an emotional reaction was not okay and it made me scared and uncomfortable. They knew I was struggling, they were the ones who stayed up till four something in the morning with me trying to explain the concept. But with every minor and major struggle I felt like my worth was slipping away. But the better I did in school the more my outstanding grades became the expectation which resulted in acknowledgement for my academic achievements disappearing. I felt like I was falling apart so I'd spend hours pray and begging god for help. To take the feeling of being worthless away. I developed an eating disorder sometime before ten. Specifically binge eating. My parents would find the trash, not understand that it was more than just "the sin of gluttony" and yell which made me feel threatened and eat more food.
And then I'd pray on my knees on the hard wood outside my room door with nails and splinters in it and hurt myself because not only was I a dumb glutton but I also apparently wasn't good enough for god to save or help. It made me think if he wants a relationship with me so bad why does he ignore me? I'd hold a knife to my wrist when I'd wash dishes to see if I felt him then. I questions if I'd even go to heaven. For all my problems the answer was to pray but the problem was I'm doing that but my prayers aren't being answered. I was having thought of death no twelve year old should have. On my birthday I was like a puppet simply going through the motions. Then I started questioning my sexuality. Not to mention, I'm now cut off from the world because this is all during covid, on the bright side they gave me my door back. Now I'm older and I have questions like. How was Adam able to name all the animals and understand god not wanting him to eat from the tree and their need to stay in the garden, but not comprehend his nakedness? How was Eve able to be tempted and not understand her nakedness? Why did they and apparently god think being naked was wrong? How are we not all messed up from tons of inbreeding and how do animals still exist after the inbreeding the would've occurred after Noah's ark if he only saved one male and female of each species? Why did god want to flood the Earth and purge it of it's evil humans if he was the one who decided free will would be a good idea? Since he is perfect and all knowing their shouldn't have been a moment of let me make something I'll destroy, wait nvm. My parents have changed a lot since I was little and have let me go to therapy. Of course I have a Christian therapist. Which I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for the fact that every time I bring up trauma that's linked to religion or need advice in terms of how to change a bad behavior or over come anxiety the advice is to pray. And at times I feel like I'm in a moment of doubt she feel she should try and pull me back in. But they also said I have to volunteer in the childern ministry at church.
I used to work with children ages three to five. Now I'm in one to three. And it feels like I'm spreading propaganda. They tell me what to say and what the goal is for the kids to believe by the end of the month. After I can't help but feel dirty. I'm at the point in my journey were I don't believe. But I have to keep working in the childern ministry, I have to go to church every Sunday, my parents are both devotional authors with published books. I'm the only one in my family who doesn't believe both extended and intermediate. I just wanna know I'm not crazy. I feel like I'm being brainwashed or something. Like drink the blood and eat the body of Jesus!? It's all too much. And now that my parents know they're trying to make me go back to believing. And I listen to them talk and it's like I can't have a conversations with you. You put your faith above all else. You believe whole heartedly, my point of view is automatically wrong to you because faith trumps logic so why would I share it with you? But at the same time it's majority of the music they play, it's all their advice, I go every Sunday, my classmates and friends are majority Christian and yet I even though I see the flaws and hypocrisy, I still can't help but wonder, am I the crazy one?"
"My grandma would grab me and call me "big booty Judy." And my butt was grabbed, spanked, and frequently talked about. Sometimes she'd just sit there tapping it while she talked. It started when I was around three or four and just continued. Though now I'm in my teens and rarely see her. But my breast were also a topic for a while. Comments like "where'd you get those from?", "she's bigger than you.", and "her sisters the tall one but she's the curvy one." They felt icky but I didn't dwell on them. But she's also an alcoholic along with many other things. She dated my mom's friends when she was in college, gets shit faced in at events like birthdays and funerals. Shakes her ass on family members and frequently offered us alcohol. But I always took pride in being her favorite grandchild. Which she constantly reminded me I was. She also has a serious spending problem. But the funny thing is. She goes to a church church. She's in the choir and used frequently as a look example. She hosts church events and potlucks. She even remarried in the church. Never mind the things I just said that'd be considered sins. She's the perfect Christian woman."
"How do you cope with the level of disrespect? I'm not eighteen yet, but I'm still able to be disrespected. My main problem is the disrespect from my parents. My parents who wish to be respected in their beliefs and don't want their minds to change. But at the same time, my dad has sent my scriptures and stuff for the past couple of months since it came out. I don't believe in God or Jesus. They force me to serve and volunteer at church and attend every Sunday. They paired me with a not so ethical Christian therapist. Then both gang up on me about it and take my silence as defeat when I'm just respecting their beliefs. I'm literally the only non Christian in my family. I also have mental problems from staying with them and just in general, but they won't test me because I don't behave in such a stereotypical manner. I want to say they love me, but does someone who blatantly disrespects you love you? I'm having a hard time with seeing if I should do something as drastic as no contact after I reach a certain age.
But at the same time their those awful parents who don't just blatantly suck but also have messed me up quite a bit, resulting in me not feeling like I have a right to be upset. I've told them about how Christianity mixed with their parenting drove me to suicidal thoughts, almost going through with it, and an eating disorder I'm still battling. I also can't just leave and close the door behind me. I'm the oldest, and their are two more kids just like me, and if I turned my back on them, I'd never forgive myself. They're my siblings, but they're also what stopped me from going through with the bad thoughts I was having. They need someone who will be honest, say the weird things, and answer the ignored questions. So, how can I deal with the blatant disrespect so that I'm around for them? What skill for stress management can I use? How do I block out the constant religious gaslighting that happens in church? Because I have over two more years of this."
"My dad said if people don't wanna have a baby, they shouldn't have sex even if they're married. But sir, you had three babies while financially unstable because you couldn't keep your damn hands off my mom. You were planning me, but your job fell through, and when my mom went to get back on birth control, it was too late, so I'll give you a pass with me. But my siblings were both surprises. So, quit judging and practice what you preach. But that's not what pissed me off the most. He said women will put all their time into work and not their husbands, and that's why some men cheat, but the way he said it, it was like he was justifying it. But my dad, he'd go to hooters alone, and when I needed tights, he got them from a woman their and it made me think what if. And I know it's stupid, but that what if. It is so loud.
And it's not even the first time he's said something along the lines of justifying it and almost blaming the woman who gets cheated on. But then he likes to be all up in arms about how his friend married a woman who cheated on him multiple times. My dad's like, I wanna pour into my kids but then makes no effort, and when we spent time with him, we had to initiate it. He doesn't do the hey you wanna . . . stuff. But he has his own company, and they can't get any work right now, so he spends most of his time at home. And then says I'm just to tired to spend time with ya'll.
My mom was sick to the point of being half passed out in a drive-thru after taking my brother to karate and having to pick up dinner. I would've offered to drive him if I could. I'm still leaning, and I'm bad at staying in one lane. But my dad was really busy on his PS5 with his made-up football team. So busy he couldn't take my brother to karate nor could he pause his game to get dinner. I'm kinda starting to hate him. He's also done a couple of other things, but that's what recently has made me mad. But I don't feel like I have a right to be mad because he's here and a lot of my friends dad aren't, and he's not physically abusive like my best friends dad is. I just don't know how I should feel. Is everyone's dad like this?
Edit: It's mothers day and he couldn't be bothered to get the food, pick up the groceries, nothing. #1Dad guys."

So is it truly a horrible go no contact at eighteen situation, a be watchful situation, or is it fine? I know some of this stuff is a lot but some of it was also in a moment of extreme emotion. Remember like I said in the beginning they're not always like this.

Hello. My name is Bungling-Worm. You may remember me from my highly condemned submissions such as "Socialists-The Moralist Busybodies Preventing You From Beating YOUR Cheating C\nt of a Wife and Annoying Children", "Profit or: Humanity's Raisin Deter (sic).", "Who Really 'Needs' Clean Air and Water Anyway?", "Hayek Was Right! - How Fascism Saved Western Civilization™ From the Bolshevik Menace" and "SWEATSHOPS!-The Greatest Gift to Third-World Youths Since the Polio Vaccine.*"
Today I'd like to address my fellow capitalists. It's no secret that, much like the U.S. military in Iraq circa 2003-2011, we're losing the battle for the hearts and minds of our intended slav..subje...vict...vassa...thral...our fellow men™. For this reason my employer, Generic Right-Wing Think Tank Inc., in partnership with our good friends in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the U.K. Special Intelligence Service (formerly U.K. Military Intelligence, Section 6), have contacted the eminent ~~propagandist~~ conservative philosopher picnic-boy and gained his gracious permission to make an official Part 2 to his highly acclaimed How to argue in favor of capitalism and against socialism, a helpful guide the table of contents of which is freely available (for a limited time only) here: https://www.reddit.com/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/1cqvdsv/comment/l3wuegi/
Without picnic-boy's pioneering achievements in sophistry this work would not be possible. Now, without further add-do (sic) I give you a sneak peak into the table of contents of How to argue in favor of capitalism and against socialism, a helpful guide: Part 2.

State, often and always without evidence (because none exists), that socialists control all mainstream news media, organized religion (especially the Catholic Church, the Jesuit Order, the Hasidic College and every sect of Islam), Western academia, K-12 public education, the entire U.S. civil service (from the municipal all the way up to the federal), the FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department, the Democratic Party, the Fraternal Order of Freemasons, Hollywood, all police unions, the entire federal judiciary, all the major drug cartels and organized crime syndicates, the Federal Reserve System and the governments of literally every single third and second world country, especially the far-right and non-white majority ones. At the exact same time, and this is really important so pay close attention, accuse socialists of being unpopular teenage losers living in their parents' basement who're too lazy to get a job.
When socialists remark upon how similar the claims in point 1 are to contemporary Neo-Nazi conspiracy theories and start to question how you feel about Jewish people turn around and accuse them of being "the real anti-semites" for "wanting to take all the Jews' money away ". In no way is this conflation of all Jews with rich capitalists a form of economic antisemitism. If someone points out that it is simply cherry pick quotes from Marx's "On the Jewish Question" out of context so that none of the parts where Marx makes it clear he is only critiquing Judaism as a religion while at the same time advocating for the political emancipation of Jews as people are clear to the reader. After that go on to talk about how much you support Israel and how much happier you think diaspora Jews would be if they permanently immigrated there. Also and for no particular reason talk about the "failure" of the Kibbutzim apropos of nothing and don't elaborate on anything.
Always portray struggles of democratic socialists within ML states/the Eastern Bloc as struggles for capitalism. Yes, it is true the people who organized the East German Uprising of 1953, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the Prague Spring of 1968, and the Polish Solidarity Movement of the 1980's (before the Vatican and CIA hijacked it) all demanded democratic socialism, yes they all said that, but what they "really wanted" was capitalism and don't you let any so-called "historian" tell you otherwise.
Pretend that socialists invented the very concept of the state and thus that all state rulers from the Roman Emperors, Egyptian Pharaohs, Greek Archons, etc. to modern Kings, Kaisers, Tsars and Presidents were/are "socialists".
Don't forget to liberally pepper your psychotic rants with plenty of freudian slips and accusations in a mirror. For example, make the claim that socialists want to destroy the family so that they can isolate, abuse and indoctrinate women and children while at the same time assert that wives and children are nothing more than an extension of "the individual" who need to be shielded by this individual from an unrealistically hostile and confusing world (literally everything and everyone outside the home).
Assert that socialists invented taxation and ignore that the first taxes in recorded history took the form of land-rents set by the first governments (which were councils of militaristic landlords).
Defend rent-seeking and landlordism so long as it's done by private individuals. Remember rent-seeking is only bad when the government does it because they spend that money on social parasites and welfare leeches, unlike landlords who spend it on their second families in the next state over.
Claim fascism is a form of socialism but also defend the legacies of lesser known fascist regimes, military dictatorships and other totalitarian right-wing governments whose symbols and mottos the people in your country haven't developed a learned fear response to yet the way they have the Swastika and the Fasces.
When leftists point out that the main victims of things like the Great Purge and the Chinese Cultural Revolution were socialists,communists, anarchists and other left-wing intellectuals who opposed Stalin and Mao's cults of personality either ignore them and maintain that the "real victims" were the tiny minority of "innocent" religious extremists, ultranationalists (who were "definitely not" fascist collaborators or spies), and resource hoarders who were killed or do a complete one hundred and eighty degree pivot and actually defend the Great Purge and Cultural Revolution because "The more left someone is, the more violent/dictatorial they are, therefore anyone to the left of Stalin and Mao would have been more violent than them and it's a good thing they were killed."
If you think any of these points are self-contradicting just remember that doublethink is merely a tool and "communists" (Stalinists) shouldn't be the only ones allowed to make use of it.
Ignore the mountains of evidence that an anti-Stalinist left exists. Portray these leftists as right-wingers and edit their most famous works to leave out the many mentions of their own support for socialism.
Remind your interlocutor(s) that socialism is gay and cringe.
Remember that reading is gay but total illiteracy is still kinda cringe (unfortunately). Therefore read as little as humanly possible without going full illiterate. Our recommendation is to only read blurbs from ancap websites, your favorite right-wing conspiracy theorists' social media threads and your fellow "capitalists' " reddit posts and nothing else.
In keeping with point 13 let the only things you "know" or "learn" about socialism be things you absorbed through osmosis and half remember from your high school history textbooks assuming you even read them at all. Never look at primary sources, never listen to people trying to explain things to you in detail, always complain that quotes provided to you are "blocks of text" or "unoriginal".
Remember that conformism, unquestioning obedience to authority, an unflinching belief in the correctness of the current socioeconomic status quo and conventional wisdom, and a general Panglossian worldview with a huge heaping of moral nihilism (which is definitely a real philosophical school of thought and not just a rationalization of one's own sociopathic tendencies) are actually somehow radical and that "conservatism is the new punk rock" of the 21st century.

I found a 4 leaf clover last Sunday. Everyone believes it is cursed and want me to get rid of it. I am not sure if it's actually cursed though, or if it actually gives goodluck. The reason Everyone thinks it's cursed is because I found it last Sunday, and the next day (monday) is when the tragedies started. Most of the tragedies have a goodluck, badluck to them. Neutralized luck is what I call it. Neutralized luck is where a bad thing happens to you, but you got lucky it wasn't worse. You can clearly see how it would be worse, but Goodluck stopped it. Most but not all of the tragedies are like this. The first tragedy is my house caught on fire last Monday. The breakerbox exploded and shot out flames. We ended up and having to stay in hotels this last week. The Goodluck is the door to the breaker box flash welded to the gas pipe. Got lucky Everyone isn't dead. Got lucky only the breaker box was damaged. Insurance is probably covering it. From there things just kept happening. My brother in law had heart problems and was in the ER for 3 days. He got lucky to not have a heart attack. Just irregular beat for those days. Next my mom and I worked is worked at the same place. She ended up and getting fired on friday. I'm exhausted because we worked the night shift and they wanted me to work despite the fire because everything's closed during my hours anyway. We will have to see how my work relations go after that. Next my roommates girlfriend might have a tumor in her uterus. His mom has a lump on her breast. And his dad is on his death bed. We will call him roommate number 1. Roommate number 2 his childhood dog died on thursday. We have two dogs and my friend was watching one for us and we had the other. We would let the dog into the backyard of the house during the day. I left her there and went to church. Someone broke into the garage and house and left the doors open. They stole a gun from the house and either took the dog, or she ran away. We don't know. My friend that is watching our other dog just called me crying. The other dog broke his outside leash and ran into the highway and got hit by a car. He was dead immediately.
The bad things keep piling up. But there are good events to counteract some of the bad. Not all have solved yet. The dogs are a hard one. The gun worries me that it will be used in a crime and I will get blamed. I did report it to the police. Everyone believes that the 4 leaf clover is cursed because that's when this started. It's from a type of clover that does not grow 4 leaves. The normal 4 leaf clover from Ireland is a different type. So this one is a mutation. I look at it as rarer and luckier because of the mutation. I look at it like I found a shiny Pokémon. Everyone else says it's bad because it's mutated and the bad genetics create bad luck. I am torn because I don't want to just get rid of it. As a kid I spent hours looking for 4 leaf clovers before I was told these ones won't grow them. So it was a childhood disappointment fulfilled.
So what I was thinking of doing. Is maybe I will post it on ebay as the cursed 4 leaf clover. I will include this story printed out. I will gather as much proof of the tragedies as I can. I know my house was in the paper. Maybe I will get a clipping of it. I have it taped in a vinyl tape but I also took a picture of it when I first picked it. It got scrunched in the tape alittle. But I will add the fresh picked picture. Then I will post it for $500 starting. It would be that big of a number for a cupple reasons. First, is that I don't want to give it up. (Childhood disappointment fulfilled) and if it's actually giving goodluck to counter the bad. second, would be to protect the curious but poor people. Someone who could shell out $500 for a clover is probably rich enough to afford some tragedies. And third, it would help allot in this hard time.
I will post it under the conditions that this post, or other reposts of this story I do, blow up or go viral. If this is viral then it might be worth it because people would be interested in the clover. Could actually sell. Then I know it's worth putting everything together. If this happens, I will leave an update on here with the link to the posting and where to find it.
What do you guys think? Do you think it's cursed? Or do you think it's actually lucky and helped in the bad times?
UPDATE: Two more bad lucks happened today. 5-14-24 Well actually one of the bad lucks happened a few months ago but it completed today. So a few months ago I started having these dreams about these spirits coming in and taking one my pet rabbits. I had these dreams every day for a week. The spirits had already picked a bunny they were taking. After that week, when I came home. All of the rabbit cages were thrown around, and the rabbits were out everywhere. The bunny was not missing. I fixed the cages and put everything back together. The next day I came home to the same thing. Rabbit cages everywhere. But all of the rabbits were accounted for even the one that was chosen. This would happen every day for a week straight. And I did everything I could to prevent the cages from being thrown around. I reinforced them, and made for sure that they weren't falling. But every day I had come home to find them trashed. But was able to get all the bunnies back in the cages. The very last day none of the cages were trashed. Everything was still in its place. Except for the cage of the bunny that was chosen, the door was opened and the bunny was gone. I tore the house apart for 4 days straight, looking for that bunny, but there was no sign. A few months have went by since then. And I've never had a problem with the cages since. I imagined the Bunny running around in the fae lands or something. But I always wonder if I would just randomly find him dead on a day that the bad luck wanted to make me suffer. I found him today. There was a tank of water in my basement, that catches the sewer water that overflows into the basement. It's hard to reach and usually behind the washer but since we have the electrician fixing the breaker box that exploded I took that tank outside and dumped it out. The Bunny came out. Is it almost looked still alive. Just wet. I picked him up and he fell apart. All that was left was hair and bones. This bad luck was one that happend before the clover. But I was right on him appearing at a bad time. A half an hour later, one of my bunnies randomly laid down and died. So I feel like the bad luck took 2 bunnies today. Even though one was actually mouths ago. With both bunnies form both times going at the same time. That tells me all of this was planned. It's been planning all of this for awhile.

14-minute read.

average monthly nominal salaries and YoY change in Q1 2024

Yerevan +8% to ֏324K/$836
Syunik +7% to ֏295K/$760
Shirak +7% to ֏142K/$366
Yerevan had the highest wages. Syunik had the highest wages among provinces, while Shirak had the lowest.
REPORT: While the average nominal monthly salary does not always show the level of economic prosperity in a region, its rise has made a tangible difference in Syunik.
SUREN PARSYAN (economist): Syunik has higher wages and strong employment. It is the most prosperous province with the lowest unemployment rate in Armenia: 24% in Armenia, 15% in Yerevan, and 2% in Syunik.
REPORT: Over the last 5 years, the average monthly nominal salaries have risen by 40% while the inflation was 21%.
source,

Armenian army launches command staff exercises

They will exercise the practical implementation of deployment and combat plans, evaluate the commanders' skills, improve the synchronized work between various groups, develop the officers' moral characteristics and practical skills during preparation and combat operations, etc.
They will use automated control systems and modern technologies during the exercises.
source,

Armenia and India will form a new working group for defense cooperation

Defense ministries of AM and IN held a meeting on Tuesday. They discussed the 2024-2025 cooperation plan and the creation of a new working group to coordinate the cooperation.
source,

from PM Pashinyan's speech at Copenhagen Democracy Summit:

PASHINYAN: Democracy has indeed become a reality in Armenia. Before the 2018 Velvet Revolution, massive electoral frauds were the usual companion of elections in Armenia. There was no trust among the citizens that there was a real chance for them to elect the government.
Now the situation is totally different; citizens know that they are powerful enough to decide. The two general elections that were held in Armenia after the Velvet Revolution have been acknowledged as democratic, free, and competitive both by the Armenian society and the international community.
Armenia made huge progress in strengthening the democratic institutions, an achievement reflected in reputable democracy indexes:
(a) Now we are the 43rd in the Reporters Without Borders’ Freedom of Speech index, compared to 79th place in 2017.
(b) Categorized as having partially free internet in 2017 by Freedom House, now we enjoy the status of a country with free internet.
(c) In Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Armenia is now 62nd instead of 107th in 2017.
(d) In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index we are 84th compared to 111th in 2017.
In order to assess this progress, it's essential to note that alongside democratic reforms, Armenia has been contending with external security challenges: the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan's invasion of Armenia in 2021 and 2022 and the occupation of over 200 km² amid inaction by [Russia's] CSTO, the forced displacement of over 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, have cast doubts among Armenian citizens weather democracy is the right choice. So, democracy needs to prove its efficiency while dealing with security, economic and humanitarian challenges.
We are pleased with the deployment of EU monitoring mission alongside the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, and we welcome EU’s decision to expand its capacity. On the other hand, we hope for the inclusion of Armenia into the European Peace Facility and in this regard, we rely on the support of all EU member states [Hungary].
A new set of commitments aimed at strengthening Armenia’s economic resilience, state institutions, and addressing the humanitarian needs of refugees has been taken on by the European Union and United States during the high-level meeting on April 5 in Brussels. The rapid and effective implementation of those commitments is of utmost importance.
Despite all the challenges, we believe that the real and most aspiring companion for democracy is lasting and sustainable peace. My government took the share of its responsibility for this. Recently we reached an agreement with Azerbaijan to launch the delimitation of our interstate borders on the basis of the Almaty Declaration of 1991. That means that during the delimitation we should simply reproduce the Soviet-era administrative borders. This is the implementation of the agreement reached in Prague in 2022. Now it is time to incorporate and reflect those agreements in the peace treaty and have it signed.
Another key point for our regional stability is the «Crossroads of Peace», project, initiated by my government. This project implies that Armenia and Azerbaijan restore and open transport and other communications in accordance with the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the countries through which they pass, and comply with the principles of equality and reciprocity. These elements of the concept were agreed upon during the July 2023 meeting with Ilham Aliyev and Charles Michel. //

... Politico reporter's Q&A with Pashinyan

REPORTER: [Ex-NATO leader] Anders Fogh Rasmussen called your neighbor an autocracy. You are in a very difficult geopolitical and geographical position. How do you solve the security problem in that environment?
PASHINYAN: I would not like to comment on the internal situation of our neighboring countries. Democracy fully corresponds to the mentality of our people. It is a strategy for our government, it is our political belief, it is also our political identity. The members of our political team have spent most of their lives fighting for democracy, the rule of law, and freedom of speech. Now we have the opportunity to realize all these values in our country.
The security situation was complicated because of the regional and global situation; the world order is collapsing at the moment. My assessment is, and I have had occasion to say this publicly, that the 2020 war was a prelude to further developments. And now the main issue is security.
What is our strategic point of view, how are we going to guarantee the security of our country? Recently, I gave a speech in our parliament, where I said that the most important tool for ensuring security is a foreign policy based on legitimacy. This is the reason why we so often speak about the 1991 Almaty Declaration.
It is very important that during the 2022 Prague meeting, two very important agreements were reached. Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty on the basis of the Almaty Declaration and will use it as the basis for the border demarcation. This is the reason why I said that we are not drawing a new border, we just need to reproduce the existing one on the ground. This process is happening right now, and I hope that we will continue it steadfastly.
REPORTER: The border conflict that has occurred in recent years has had a negative impact on relations with Russia and Russia's role for Armenia. What would you say about this?
PASHINYAN: Armenia is a member of CSTO. We are officially a CSTO member, but I have announced that we have frozen our participation.
REPORTER: So are you still a member or...?
PASHINYAN: It is a matter for further discussion, but it is very important to record the current situation. A crisis arose in our relations after Azerbaijani troops invaded Armenia, and according to CSTO procedures, the Organization and its member states had to support Armenia in this situation. But even after the formal application, the CSTO refused to take any concrete steps, and in fact, that is the main reason for freezing our participation in the CSTO at all levels.
REPORTER: Do you expect the West to occupy the current vacuum and ensure your security?
PASHINYAN: We are diversifying our foreign relations in all spheres. Now we are developing defense cooperation with India, France, and other countries. We have a certain cooperation with the European Union because as I mentioned, we are happy about the deployment of the EU Civilian Observation Mission on the border. It is a civilian mission but in a way, it is a new factor for the security of our region. This is the first time that the European Union participates in the security agenda of Armenia.
REPORTER: Would you like to become an EU member?
PASHINYAN: We are waiting for the EU's decision to include Armenia in the European Peace Facility. We also hope to start visa liberalization negotiations, and last year I announced in the European Parliament that Armenia is ready to be as close to the European Union as the European Union deems it possible. This is our position.
REPORTER: Can you elaborate on what initiatives Armenia is taking in the fight against corruption?
PASHINYAN: We have made huge progress but have not eradicated corruption from Armenia. We must continue to be persistent in the agenda of democratic reforms. This is the reason why cooperation with the European Union is of utmost importance for us because today the European Union is our main partner in the implementation of our democratic reform agenda. We hope that the European Union, as well as the USA, will increase their support to Armenia in the implementation of democratic reforms, because, as I said, democracy is a strategy for us.
By the way, in 2019 we started a Strategic Dialogue with the USA, and today we see the strengthening of our cooperation with the European Union. We recently had a tripartite meeting with the participation of the USA, EU, and Armenia. It was an unprecedented format, where we adopted a huge agenda of institutional and economic reforms. It is also very important that we receive more tangible support from the EU and the US to address the humanitarian needs of the Nagorno Karabakh refugees because it is a very sensitive and emotional issue for us.
REPORTER: In which year would you like Armenia to become a member of the EU?
PASHINYAN: This year [as soon as possible]. //
Pashinyan met Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The latter emphasized the importance of the “Crossroads of Peace” project in the context of unblocking the regional infrastructure.
Pashinyan discussed various topics with the PM of Denmark. The latter accepted his invitation to visit Armenia.
full video, source, video, other, other, source, video,

former regime continues to hold protests and briefly shut down roads in Yerevan with demands for PM Pashinyan's resignation

ԳԼՈՒԽ 1
Dozens of participants were detained and released the same day for blocking roads. The detentions decreased from 170 on Monday to ~63 on Tuesday. They want Pashinyan to resign or to be impeached. The protest organizers visited universities to gather student supporters, some of whom joined them with a dance. The organizers also stopped by at a bakery where they were given free food.
A felony investigation was launched after a police vehicle, "with the sirens on", struck a reporter on the street. In another instance, an investigation was launched against a protester who brought a long sword. One other case was launched over alleged threats made on Facebook by a Galstanyan fan who wants scores of people to be beaten in dalans and exiled from Armenia, "մենակ էտ դեպքում էս սրբազան հողը կմաքրվի էս տեսակ շան ծնունդներից, ուրիշ ձև չկա!!!!"
ԳԼՈՒԽ 2
A ruling faction member of Yerevan City Council complained about "harassment" by opposition figures who are attempting to convince ruling party members to join the protests and the impeachment.
RULING MEMBER: That is not how it works. No one will join you with that conduct. People will join if they see you have a legitimate agenda with trustworthy leaders. Instead, you are "ethnically cleansing" the citizens of Armenia [referring to one opposition speaker telling non-Armenians to leave] և հեռու չէ են օրը երբ դուք գուցե ասեք որ հայ լինելու համար պետք է Հայկ նահապետից տեղեկանք բերել: //
ԳԼՈՒԽ 3
Yesterday the protest co-organizer Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan said he received a report suggesting that the Deputy Rector of Yerevan State University supposedly urged deans and others to retaliate against students who joined the protests. Galstanyan said he was unsure whether the report was true, but decided to read it out loud anyway. On Tuesday he rallied his supporters to the backyard of the University where he demanded to speak with the Deputy Rector for clarification.
The Deputy Rector went downstairs and greeted Galstanyan, who shook her hand but wouldn't let it go for an uncomfortably long period, prompting her to ask him to let go of her hand. The Deputy Rector declared that whatever Galstanyan read about her was a defamatory lie.
GALSTANYAN: I never believed it myself.
DEPUTY RECTOR: Then you should not have said out loud something you did not believe.
GALSTANYAN: Listen, there is a recorded fact...
DEPUTY RECTOR: Where is that "recorded fact"?
GALSTANYAN: It was on the media. As I said yesterday, I had no verification that it was true, which is why we came here to clarify it. If it's false, then I apologize.
DEPUTY RECTOR: Thank you. //
The Deputy Rector urged the protest organizers not to enter the building or disrupt the classes, and that "anyone who wants to follow you can follow you, anyone who wants to stay in classrooms should stay in classrooms".
The angry Deputy Rector left. Another university official criticized Galstanyan for not checking the information before reading it to his followers. Galstanyan said he stands behind his words, and that he was "just reading what was on the media", but reiterated that he had no intention to insult the Deputy Rector.
ԳԼՈՒԽ 4
Galstanyan and his supporters visited the monument dedicated to Operation Nemesis. He praised the figures behind Nemesis for "assuming personal responsibility". In front of the crowd, Galstanyan introduced Hambig Sassounian who recently joined his movement. He pointed to the Nemesis monument and said Sassounian is "one of the successors, one of the brightest people." In related news, on Sunday a ruling faction MP complained about receiving death threats with reference to Operation Nemesis.
ԳԼՈՒԽ 5
DANIEL IOANNESIAN (NGO chief): When this protest dies down, we need to discuss the following: (1) The transparency of political and media funding. There are some regulations in place, but they are incomplete and easily bypassed. For example, I'd like to know who paid for Archbishop Galstanyan's giant stage in Republic Square. In 2018 Pashinyan organized a fundraising for it and disclosed a detailed report. (2) Should the media organizations that do not respect the rules of financial transparency enjoy all the mechanisms for the protection of journalists? (3) Are the customs authorities confident that the church is not facilitating the business activities of certain figures disguised as donations? (4) Is it fair for the church and clergy members not to pay taxes? Should they be able to have a Bently and LX570 without paying taxes? [The "Bentley" is based on a true story.]
ԳԼՈՒԽ 6
Archbishop's fans spotted Miss Armenia 2003 and a H1 host Lusine Tovmasyan drinking a coffee at a Yerevan café and approached her.
PROTESTER: (unintelligable)
LUSINE: I was here drinking coffee yesterday, and a year before that.
PROTESTER: Why have you not joined the holy struggle?
LUSINE: Լավ եկեք թարգեք, շատ զզվելի ա, էնքան զզվելի ա․ //
ԳԼՈՒԽ 7
Pro-Kremlin propagandist Alexander Dugin praised the pro-Russian forces' protests in Armenia and criticized the pro-EU protests in Georgia.
Pro-Kremlin Russian politician Semyon Baghdasarov praised Archbishop Bagrat and the ongoing "uprising" in Armenia against the "traitor" [Nikol] who "rigged" the elections with the help of "Turkey, UK, and US". Nikol is a Turkish MI6 agent. video,
ԳԼՈՒԽ 8
Video of a protest recorded from above: video
source, video, video, video, video, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, video,

Armenian government has upgraded other diplomatic channels to reduce reliance on ARF's diaspora structures in the US, says pro-West NGO chief

KHURSHUDYAN: The status of the Armenian Ambassador to the U.S. [Lilith Makunts] has been significantly upgraded. I won't go into specifics because it's tied to our neighbors, but she plays an interesting role there. We have great conditions for the U.S. Congress to pressure Azerbaijan. This is outside of ARF's lobbyist groups in the U.S.
REPORTER: ARF Hay Dat's recent conduct has been shameful.
KHURSHUDYAN: And its influence on the Lemkin Institute was obvious. //
Yesterday Kurshudyan accused the Lemkin Institute of caving to ARF's pressure and meddling into Armenia's internal affairs to assist the protests by the pro-Russian former regime.
KHURSHUDYAN: Lemkin Institute accused Pashinyan's April 24 genocide remembrance day statement of containing "victim blaming". Lemkin did not comment on Pashinyan's statement for several weeks, waited 15 days, and as soon as these pro-Russian protests began in Armenia, they gave them a պաս:
source,

Armenia's four most prominent pro-West opposition parties announce the formation of a unified platform

Republic Party, led by ex-PM Aram Sargsyan.
Hanun Republic Party, led by Arman Babajanyan.
European Party of Armenia, led by Tigran Khzmalyan.
Christian-Democratic Party, led by Levon Shirinyan.
Have the following agenda...
(1) Promotion of Western values in Armenia and Armenia's membership in EU and NATO.
(2) United front against threats and risks of destabilization coming from Russia.
(3) Vetting judges to clean up the courts, and resolution of issues left unaddressed by the Pashinyan administration.
(4) Continuation of border demarcation based on 1991 Almaty.
(5) The use of international law to achieve a fair resolution for Nagorno-Karabakh residents.
The platform is open for like-minded forces to join.
source,

Armenian army chief denies being a Russian citizen

A statement released by the defense ministry denies media reports that CoGS LtGen Edward Asryan is a dual citizen of Russia. His wife is an ethnic Russian with Armenian citizenship and his kids are dual citizens, but Asryan only has citizenship in Armenia. The whole family has resided in Armenia since 2006, said the statement.
source,

Georgia passes controversial ‘foreign agents’ bill despite widespread opposition

The law will require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence” or face crippling fines.
The bill will be sent to the President who is expected to veto it, but her veto is expected to be overruled by the parliamentary majority later.
Georgian PM Kobakhidze had an "honest conversation" with U.S. deputy foreign minister James O'Brien, telling him that the Georgian government is interested in deepening the partnership with the U.S., "which requires mutual efforts and relations based on fairness."
James O'Brien demanded to speak with the manager - Bidza Ivanishvili. The latter refused to meet O'Brien, saying he won't hold any meetings under "blackmail".
The White House said the U.S. will review its relations with Georgia if the bill becomes law.
source, source, source,

how many of the 101,000 Nagorno-Karabakh refugees have left Armenia and haven't returned yet?

As of...
Dec: 6.6K
Jan: 6.9K
Mar: 8.0K
Apr: 9.1K
May: 9.9K
The former Ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh said many of them have family members and friends in Russia who invite them to move.
source,

temperatures are rising rapidly in Armenia

REPORTER: The rainy May is not going to be enough to alleviate the negative consequences of the rapidly rising temperatures in Armenia. With a ~3 Celsius anomaly, Armenia had the second-highest increase in temperature over the last 6 months among a group of monitored countries.
WEATHER CENTER: High temperatures increase the evaporation of water and reduce the amount of snow in the winter. In December and January, we recorded rain instead of snow in certain mountainous regions, which is bad for water resources.
REPORTER: A conference was recently held in Yerevan within the framework of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
UN official: Around 40% of global soils are degraded. Millions of people will be forced to migrate from their communities by 2050 as a result of climate problems. Emergency action is needed to reduce the rate of rising temperatures. //
Armenia joined the Convention three decades ago and has assumed the responsibility to restore degraded soil by 2030. The government is promoting drip irrigation systems for farming and wants to plant more trees.
video,

is the decline of Lake Sevan levels finally slowing down?

see the YoY chart

Yerevan Municipality to receive a €25 million loan from European Investment Bank to raise energy efficiency

It's part of the implementation of Eastern Partnership programs. The Armenian government and the EU are co-financing it.
The goal is to raise energy efficiency and carry out seismic retrofitting in 6 medical clinics and 32 kindergartens run by the municipality. The length of the program is 4 years.
video, video,

Gagik Tsarukyan is inside you

there is a bit of Tsarukyan inside all of you
see it to believe it

Gagik Tsarukyan says the new Jesus statue is ready and will be installed by the end of 2025

It will be a tourist attraction site. There will be a ropeway. Also, Tsarukyan needs you to know that he is a man of God and an avid believer.
video,

Armenia and Slovakia discussed AM-EU visa liberalization

source,

Lithuania will help retrain Armenian law enforcement agents to combat cybercrime, analyze crimes, etc.

source,

Armenia's Economy Minister Papoyan met the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt

In a Washington meeting participated by the Armenian Ministry delegation and Armenia's Ambassador, they spoke about the Crossroads of Peace logistics project proposed by Armenia, several topics relating to Armenia's energy and economic security, and the Armenian government's ongoing efforts to classify Armenia as a "market economy".
source,

Armenia and Iran discussed the construction of a second bridge over the River Araks

The first bridge began operating in 1996. It came to replace the floating bridges on the river.
Iran says the AM-IR traffic through the Meghri checkpoint significantly increased last year. Coupled with the fact that Armenia is building a modern North-South highway, they believe it's necessary to have a second AM-IR bridge to handle the rising traffic.
The parties are currently discussing the formation of a working group consisting of experts to discuss the topic.
source,

a new study on mice indicates that more exercise might be better than more sleep for clearing brain of toxins

They injected a dye into a brain and tracked the speed of its movement during sleep and exercise.
The findings show that the clearance of the dye was reduced by 30% in sleeping mice compared with mice that were kept awake. This has not been confirmed on humans yet.
Previous research has suggested that sleep is important for preventing dementia as it is during this time that toxic proteins are cleared from the brain.
source, source,

Lately i started to think more about where i stand in life and where i am headed. While thinking about it a sense of depression, emptyness and sometimes a bit of anxiety comes up.
First of all i struggle religiously. I pray 5 times a day but somehow i manage to autopilot it and my mind always thinks about other stuff. My concentration is 0 and i feel no fulfillment. Apart from the bare minimum i cant manage to do more. If i try in some way i get stopped. Be it because while acquiring knowledge there is stuff i cant understand or starting to do more islamic stuff just to be burdened with worldy stuff.
In worldy matters i didnt accomplish anything. I had a bit of a rough time in school so i started university late. In my friendscircle people are getting degrees or finishing their apprenticeship and start working while i sot here barely managing to get my bachelors. While some of us even get married i am not even in a state where i can safely start to look for a potential spouse.
If someome would asked me to show them what i have accomplished in life i have literally nothing to show. In 'depressed' times i make dua and try to make myself clear that there are people who have it worse than me and that i should be grateful for my current situation. One of the root causes is ofc my lazyness which i try to fight as good as possible but my current situation also stresses me mentally.
I am also seemingly not able to find fulfilment in something or look into the future with hope. When i think of the future it seems like the only things that are certain are hardships like finding a job, working for 40 years till retirement, if i get married and get to habe children take care of them and go through the hardship of raising them (i know what my parents had to deal with by me). I really dont have much to look forward to in life. Even though i also have good things to list life is just an eternal struggle. (To clearify i am also not that much down that i am suicidal or anything.)
I make dua to Allah to guide me but i also hope that i may gez some advice here.

Is it a mortal sin? I read somewhere you only need to go once on Easter as a bare minimum to remain Catholic.
Technically I can go to confession before Mass every Sunday and take communion, but if you are starting to fundamentally doubt aspects of the church making you think you’re not really in communion, should you?
On a personal level, I don’t know what to say anymore. After a lot of suffering over the last few months (some of which is associated with the church) I feel I am drifting away from it instead of embracing suffering to grow in faith. I feel some of the answers from Catholicism aren’t working out for me. Honestly, I never thought I’d come to this but it’s now making me want to try Protestant churches in hopes of finding a better community. I know it’s hard and Jesus said to carry your cross but does it really have to be this bad? I see so many Americans going to their local non-Catholic church on Sunday and leading normal lives. This is a stark contrast to me a couple years ago where I was so zealous about the faith and studying everything about it.
Is my soul in danger for all this? Or will God understand
(I’m not advocating leaving the church, I’m just being honest about my current thoughts. This is something that has been eating me up inside for a while. I'm looking for support or advice)

Over on the cryonet emailing list on groups io, Lou gerstner published a post that I think is very important for cryo in general and I'm going to repost some of it here along with my responses to his post (Lou contacted several funeral homes and talk to them about whether they could ship his body to cry on The Institute after his death, and his post is the results of his research) : My response : Well thank you very much for posting this, for doing this research, Lou . By doing this you're doing something that I have never seen done before, although I have not read all of the cryonics publications since 1970, I have probably read more than half of all Cryonics Publications since 1970.. I haven't read anywhere near all of the cryonics Institute Publications, but I have read all the alcor Publications and all of the old cryonet messages..
And no one has ever done what you just did here. So this is something of import, something significant. However I've been getting up my will for trying to get ready to do this funeral home research myself, even though I already have a contract with alcor, and I don't need it, but I want to provide the information for other people should they decide to go to Oregon brain preservation.
but I do have some questions for you: Lou wrote : "First only ask costs for full body donation costs,don’t get into who or why yet."
Lou, Can you please explain more about what you meant here.? Thank you..
Also Lou wrote: "Be aware if the operator is strong Christian they probably wouldn’t give a price as I was turned down by about half."
This is a very good point, Lou . And something that is incredibly important if we need to if we want to establish cryo as a mainstream movement. Because we can't go mainstream unless we can get the price down to around the same cost as a funeral for the entry level option, which is going to be Oregon brain preservation plus a funeral home.. and this is exactly what I suspected: that there would be spiritual / religious / philosophical objections to cryonics from funeral homes, and that they would be very strong objections..
but this is why I have been doing Bible research that will justify the practice of cryonics Through the Bible
I think and I hope, Lou, that you will recognize that if you had been able to justify cryo using Bible verses, then maybe you could have overcome some of the funeral home objections to cryo and maybe you could even get someone to do your Funeral Home work for you a bit easier .
Over the years, I have put all these Bible justifications out in various videos and many posts throughout the years, but of course Matthew 10:8 is the best one.. where Jesus simply tells his followers to raise the Dead.
You can just tell the funeral home people "this is my religious belief and I base it on the Bible verse of Matthew 10:8, where Jesus tells us to raise the dead.. and I'm trying to raise myself from the dead just like Jesus wants us to do."
As an atheist You may find it silly, but then again we're talking about religion and spirituality which operates almost totally beyond the realm of logic and rationality..
Now here's the most important part in your post that you left out: How much is it going to cost for someone living in the eastern half of America, which is where most Americans live, to have the funeral home get the body and ship it to Oregon cryo/brain preservation foundation ? Or more importantly, how much would it cost for the funeral home to take out the brain, put it in a box of dry ice and ship it to Oregon brain preservation and then donate the body to science?

Hey ladies! I’m here hoping to find and build a short or long-term connection. I want to make you smile so much your cheeks hurt, send and receive those sweet and flirty goodnight and good morning texts, and the phone calls we wish didn’t have to end. I am open to a long-distance situation as long as we can meet up sooner than later, and our schedules line up for ease of communication. I’m not looking to rush into anything, but I am after something exclusive that we can build and grow together. I do not have, nor want, children of my own and I am not religious.
I value the simple (and nerdy!) things in life, and would rather find my person to spend my life with rather than living a life of comfort and privilege. My dream is to open an animal sanctuary or hobby farm that could double as a human therapy center. I am looking for a long-term, monogamous relationship with a woman within a few years of my age and within a few time zones of EST. Curly hair, freckles or dimples get you to the front of the line! So does a sass and wit. Or cat pictures. Or cookies. I’m easy to please, honestly.
For work right now I’m in a volunteer position at a local food bank where I socialize with seniors and the food-insecure and basically serve as a ‘Johnny on the spot’ helping with odd jobs, tech support, stuff like that. I also help with a cat rescue organization where I have fostered cats and do some admin work. I do freelance editing on the side, and would love to have some of my own work published in the future!

Before going into it, I want to mention how this post was inspired by three things. One was user u/HastyvonFuego2 and their post on going down the rabbit hole on the Kendrick sub last week. It was also inspired by Childish Gambino’s first album release in nearly 6 years where I have been sitting on this idea for a while but he inspired me to finally post this week like he did (never posted on Reddit at all before so be gentle if I am not doing it right)! I was also inspired by an interview Bino gave to GQ about breaking down his most iconic characters. In this interview he says how This is America started out as a Drake diss but then he realized the song was too hard for just Drake so he kept working on it. He also talks in this interview about how all culture is about compression. Which means that yes, This is America is about the gun violence and police issues in America, but compressed in this video is also more about where that culture comes from which he shows is from a small handful of rap moguls, namely Drake, Diddy and Jay-Z (bear with me on this long post, I think/hope it will be worth it). At the end I talk briefly about how Little Foot Big Foot might be in this same vein of cultural compression.
[Intro: Choir]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go away
The beginning of this song has no background music yet, which really gives it an ‘in the beginning’ feel. Then Gambino starts doing his dances with weird facial expressions. I will explain as we go through his video how those expressions and dance moves represent different famous rap moguls. One easy look to pick out right away is Jay-Z’s famous lip curl/growl look that Gambino gives with a head nod repeatedly. The colonial pants have been a hot topic, but since it’s only the pants that are colonial, Gambino is saying the bottom or basis for this violent culture in America is ultimately colonialism. The lyrics ‘Go Away’, are likely foreshadowing the rap moguls wanting other popular rap rivals to ‘go away’ or they will make them (aka murder them) for profit.
[Bridge: Childish Gambino & Young Thug]
We just wanna party
Party just for you
We just want the money
Money just for you (Yeah)
Usually you want money for yourself and to party for yourself, so this is a bit odd. But what Gambino is referring to is similar to these Diddy ‘freakoff parties’ we are hearing about where people who want to be famous are really partying for these rap moguls so they can get close to them. Where they suck up to them saying that they want to earn the mogul money from their songs.
I know you wanna party
Party just for free
Girl, you got me dancin' (Girl, you got me dancin')
Dance and shake the frame (Yeah)
Then this almost feels like the Diddy rebuttal where he’s like ya I know you want to party and you want to do it for free. Like Katt Williams says, “you gotta tell Diddy no”, it is never free to go to those parties. There are always consequences. When you are partying you are dancing, but shaking the frame could refer to how those boundaries/edges are being crossed, lines are blurred, etc.
Then in the video, the fellow who was playing the guitar gets shot and things turn dark from happy music. I believe that this guitar tune is meant to represent 2Pac and Nas’s song Thugz Mansion. It’s one of the original greats from ‘in the beginning’. Nas famously has always had major issues with Jay-Z too (More on why 2Pac and Nas later). It also represents how it was these moguls who murdered 2Pac like Jaguar Wright and Katt Williams keep saying. Where these murders only lead to more money and fame for the killers when the dead artists’ and their music are exploited more easily.
Also note that the gun gets taken away by a school kid after the shooting, more on this later as well.
[Verse 1: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Blocboy JB & 21 Savage]
This is America (Skrrt, skrrt, woo)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy)
Look how I'm livin' now
Police be trippin' now (Woo)
Yeah, this is America (Woo, ayy)
Guns in my area (Word, my area)
There is a song called Guns in My Area by Lil Weiner and Baby Chapox that paints a vivid picture of the everyday struggles and conflicts faced by those living in communities affected by gun violence. More compression of other songs and the American gun culture.
I got the strap (Ayy, ayy)
I gotta carry 'em
I am almost certain this line is referring to 2Pac’s song Changes. Throughout This is America, Gambino takes lines from Pac’s song: “They get jealous when they see you with your mobile phone” (referred to later in this a Celly, that’s tool) “That's the sound of my tool, you say it ain't cool, My mama didn't raise no fool”
“And as long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped, And I never get to lay back” It seems like Gambino broke up these lyrics and scattered them throughout his song. This plays into the theme that everyone is using 2Pac and enriching themselves off of his image and music. I show below how this particular section of the video represents Diddy meaning that Diddy himself is exploiting his music (and alleging that Diddy killed Pac?). We could see this exploitation play out at length with how much Diddy milked the death of Biggie like in Every Breath You Take.
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go into this (Ugh)
Yeah, yeah, this is guerilla (Woo)
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go get the bag
The song Gorilla War by $uicideboy$ and Ramirez talks about getting a bag repeatedly in the course. Also in Otis with Kanye and Jay-Z their lyrics talk about going gorilla (I talk about this song more further down), so it could be referring to this as well. It seems like Gambino is trying to pull out lyrics from all across the rap culture and embed them in his song to highlight the ‘cultural compression’.
Yeah, yeah, I'm so cold like, yeah (Yeah)
I'm so dope like, yeah (Woo)
We gon' blow like, yeah (Straight up, uh)
I think that all of the school kids in the video represent all of the rappers that are signed with these big labels. Which is interesting because they are the ones facilitating the guns for the moguls in the video. You can see that the mogul is really focused on the kids and gets agitated and directs them to follow him whenever they stray off a bit like they are his pupils, or like he owns them. Then all of a sudden the camera comes into a scene where you can see more kids shooting a rap video and all shooting money from a Supreme gun. The camera zooms out almost to show you that this is the mogul’s whole rap empire they are looking over, all of their kids in one place (this empire already includes some chaos in the background). It’s subtle but hilarious, Gambino puts fricken chickens on the ground where the kids are filming the rap video. He is directly calling all of these rappers complete chickens for playing up this lifestyle and being the cause of so much chaos rather than coming out and telling somebody what’s really going on. Trying to get their money over everything else.
[Refrain: Choir & Childish Gambino]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
You go tell somebody
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Get your— Black man)
This is where things start to get interesting. Gambino is literally saying, go tell somebody about this! We all know what’s happening, why don’t you go let people know how bad it is? But like Jaguar Wright said, who do you tell when these moguls have the cops and feds paid off? This video is literally Gambino putting it all out there in this extremely popular song for everyone to see but yet we still just see the dancing and the violent chaos of people and police in the streets and not the root cause that is hidden in plain sight.
The vast majority of those who reviewed this video until now think this scene represents the tragic church shooting in Charleston in 2015. I think it does, but we also have to look at this from an angle of compression.
The people in the choir are all of the people who are currently singing the rap mogul’s praises and who are focused on going and getting what’s owed to them, get their money (who are also profiting off of the dead fellows music since it goes back to the original tune). You can see that each choir member has a distinct look to them. Think about who you are hearing about now who is about to be implicated in these freak offs and evil deeds. Is that Will Smith in the back left corner!? The short bald fellow in the front left maybe Kevin Hart? Rick Ross or TD Jakes maybe the bigger guy towards the back right? When the camera zooms in on the choir right at first to show their faces, doesn’t the guy in the bottom middle look like an uncanny version of Jordan Peele? Or is that meant to be Cuba Gooding Jr? Then just like the guitar fellow at the beginning, bang. You may be singing Diddy’s praises now, but he will cut you down whenever he suddenly feels like it.
I think almost for sure this initial section of the music video is Gambino acting as Diddy, because right after he shoots the choir, he does the elbow pump/chicken dance. At 3:14 in Diddy’s video for P.E. 2000 he does the chicken dance (he is up first in the video and I think Gambino is trying to say here I first present to you the first public enemy of 3 in this song). That elbow dance signals that it was Diddy and this is the end of his section.
[Chorus: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Slim Jxmmi & Quavo]
This is America (Woo, ayy)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Woo, woo, don't catch you slippin' now)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy, woah)
Look what I'm whippin' now (Slime!)
There have been many accounts of celebrities being given fancy cars after suffering abuse at the hands of these moguls. So these lyrics are saying that you better not slip up and tell people what’s really going on. And if you don’t look at this sweet carecord deal/movie contract I am going to give you. Beiber told this story about Diddy wanting to give him a luxury car.
Now suddenly, the dance switches from the chicken dance to a sudden bicep flex to signal us that we have now moved on from Gambino representing Diddy to our next mogul.
[Verse 2: Childish Gambino, Quavo, Young Thug, 21 Savage & BlocBoy JB]
This next chunk of the video is all about Jay-Z. I think this is the case because he throws his arms up in a bicep flex just like Jay does in the Otis music video at 2:38. And it makes sense Gambino would pick a dance move from a video with a huge American flag in the background to fit the ‘This is America’ theme. Gambino is mocking him saying, who are you really, the pretty guy or this hard gangster like Gambino shows in his dancing. Also right before they pan to the kids on the balcony, Bino also does Jay-Z’s signature lip curl look a couple times so we know it’s him and to signal the end of his section.
Look how I'm geekin' out (Hey)
I'm so fitted (I'm so fitted, woo)
Jay-Z is famous for making the fitted Yankees cap famous, it’s his signature look. More signs this verse is about Jay.
I'm on Gucci (I'm on Gucci)
Jay-Z has been seen in full wallpaper Gucci sweat suits but could also be referring to Gucci Mane who he hung out with at Beyonce’s tour around the time this song was released.
I'm so pretty (Yeah, yeah, woo)
I'm gon' get it (Ayy, I'm gon' get it)
Watch me move (Blaow)
These lines are probably referring to Jay-Z having a hidden preference for men, especially with the way Gambino flicks his wrist in the video when he says I’m so pretty.
This a celly (Ha)
That's a tool (Yeah)
On my Kodak (Woo) Black
I think that “this a celly, that’s a tool” harkens back to 2Pac’s lyrics in Changes where he sings, “They get jealous when they see ya with your mobile phone” then shortly after that he sings about the sound of his tool, referring to shooting a gun. But Childish flips these lyrics on their head. He is saying that it’s really the phone that’s a tool to be using, not a gun. And pans up and shows (the school kids specifically) on the balcony filming everything going on below. He’s telling the kids/other rappers, use your phone as a tool, you can record these bad deeds when you get blackmailed into being at the freak off. That’s how you can kill them and their career, not with a gun. Go tell somebody! There is also the reference to Kodak which plays into the picture taking theme, but also because Kodak Black has been accused of assaulting a teenage girl in a hotel room. So we have a good idea of what Gambino suggests all the kids start filming and collecting evidence of.
Ooh, know that (Yeah, know that, hold on)
Get it (Woo, get it, get it)
Ooh, work it (21)
Now we are onto Drake’s part. In the video Gambino starts doing the BlocBoy JB dance called Shoot. Drake is known for doing these little viral dance moves like in Hotline Bling. But not only that, this dance is also used in the song that both BlocBoy JB and Drake collaborate on for their video Look Alive. It starts at 2:07 in the Look Alive video. So this is Drake’s dance to signal his part is now starting.
Note this is where the pale horse rides by also potentially saying that Drake is one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. Interestingly, Drake’s collab with BlocBoy JB was pretty much the apocalypse for BlocBoy’s career, who hasn’t had a hit since.
Hunnid bands, hunnid bands, hunnid bands (Hunnid bands)
Contraband, contraband, contraband (Contraband)
I got the plug in Oaxaca (Woah)
They gonna find you like "blocka" (Blaow)
Again, we know this is Drake’s section because his song 10 bands starts out by saying “10 bands, 50 bands, 100 bands” almost identical to Bino’s lyrics here. Also Blocka was famously used by Biggie in his song Gimme the Loot which could be referring to Biggie's demise like Pac’s and making money from his death. Everything in this industry originates from pushing drugs, which has been alleged through the trafficking that Diddy, Jay-Z and Drake do through their private jets likely connected to their bosses, the Clive Davises and Lucian Grainges of the world. This escalates rap beefs and the whole culture to the next level where murder is often a consequence for young rappers in their prime when international drug lord money is involved.
An interesting point is this is the only time where Childish was about to shoot someone in the video, but where he didn’t have a school kid either handing him the gun or taking it away carefully from him. (Maybe also a diss at Drake that even though he acts hard he doesn’t shoot, he gets his horseman of the apocalypse to do his dirty deeds for him instead perhaps?). This is the beginning of the end for the rap mogul as he no longer has his kids doing his bidding for him. A simple message to show how the violence can be stopped, that these shootings can end when the kids stop enabling them. So then as soon as he can’t react in that moment and shoot someone his anger is forced to chill out, as shown by smoking a J, and to go back to exploiting the dead man’s music instead. If you don’t put a gun in someone’s hand when they are heated, those feelings too shall pass - kinda feel.
[Refrain: Choir, Childish Gambino, & Young Thug]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
America, I just checked my following list, and
You mothafuckas owe me
Whose voice does that sound like!? It sounds a lot like Diddy to me, public enemy #1. This is basically saying that the moguls are the ones who we all owe it to for all of this glorified gun violence in America. That we owe them way more follows and likes for what a massive influence they have had on the violence and chaos we see in America today.
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
(1, 2, 3—get down)
In Moneybagg Yo’s song 1, 2, 3, he also has a line that says “1, 2, 3, let’s go!” in a similar vein.
But something interesting I came across was Nas’s song Get Down where they use a sample from James Brown's “The Boss” that sounds extremely similar to the way Gambino screams “Get Down!” Which would fit well if the guitar singer from the beginning is meant to be Nas and Pac doing Thugz Mansion.
Also make sure you check out Nas’s song Get Down so that you can hear how much Jay-Z outright copied this song for The Story of OJ. From the musical structure with the piano and interwoven samples right down to the theme reiterated by the sample at the end of Nas’s song: “If that’s how our people are gonna get down, how are we ever gonna get up?”
SZA
Finally to wrap up the video, I have been stumped for a long time as to why SZA is randomly at the end of this video sitting on one of the cars. But I think I finally know why and it reconfirms that this last scene is all about Drake. If you watch Drake’s music video for Worst Behavior (not very Canadian of him to spell behaviour that way I might add) you will see Drake rapping and dancing with a few cars surrounding him and one of those cars has other rappers making cameos in it. In Gambino’s video SZA represents that car with a famous cameo. I think this is further confirmed when the black edges of the video start closing inwards at the end of This is America, the exact same way that Worst Behavior ends. So why SZA as the cameo then? Cause it reminds people that Drake is a p*do.
This is from an article in the Rolling Stone: In 2020, Drake revealed publicly that he and SZA had dated over a decade ago, well before she was an established artist (her earliest music goes back to around 2012; her critical breakthrough, Ctrl, came in 2017). On 21 Savage’s “Mr. Right Now,” Drake rapped about a newer fling who was a fan of SZA’s: “Yeah, said she wanna fuck to some SZA, wait / ‘Cause I used to date SZA back in ’08 / If you cool with it, baby, she can still play.” A few days later, SZA responded, corroborating Drake’s claim with a slight correction: they dated in 2009, when both would have been over 18. Since SZA would not have turned 18 until late 2008, she wanted to set the record straight. “in this case a year of poetic rap license mattered 🥴lol I think he jus innocently rhymed 08 w wait [sic],” she tweeted. “I just didn’t want anybody thinking anything underage or creepy was happening . Completely innocent . Lifetimes ago . [sic]”
If you have to specifically say something isn’t creepy and distance yourself from it being lifetimes ago, it usually is creepy. Drake would’ve been 22 when she was 17. Metro Boomin also happens to be on the Mr. Right Now track. He is currently in trouble for resurfaced old tweets showing how Metro used to tweet disgusting things about what he wanted to do to underage girls. Interestingly, Metro Boomin is also now beefing with Drake.
Drake doing his dance on the car of the original musician’s music seems to be accusing Drake directly of stealing 2Pac’s music. Orlando Brown recently said the cryptic statement that “Drake is Pac” which likely means he stole 2Pac’s approach/style/audience after his death. Gambino did some good foreshadowing here too with the recent AI release Drake put out of 2Pac.
This dance scene also signals that the Drake section is now over.
[Outro: Young Thug]
You just a black man in this world
You just a barcode, ayy
You just a black man in this world
Drivin' expensive foreigns, ayy
You just a big dawg, yeah
I kenneled him in the backyard
No, probably ain't life to a dog
For a big dog
The outro lyrics speak to how these gatekeepers keep black men down and control them with things like being forced to wear a dress to become famous or to submit to homosexual/p*do acts.. In the video, as I mentioned above, the black edges close in on Drake’s dancing scene in This is America. But they don’t completely close and end things like they do in the Worst Behavior video. Instead, in Gambino’s video, the camera pans to show the mogul running for his life with Young Thug’s lyrics almost like a quiet echo in the background. He isn’t running from the cops though, he’s running from the kids and from the public. When I mentioned earlier that the kids not handing over the last gun before Drake’s scene signalled the beginning of the end for the moguls, this is that conclusion. Where it is showing that if all the kids come together to stop enabling and rather expose the moguls, people will be chasing these bastards down once we realize what has been going on behind the curtain. Then the song that Young Thug is singing can just be a quiet echo of the way things were in the past.
If you don’t think Gambino would be this deep and that I went too far down the rabbit hole, do a Google search on the calculations that he came up with for why he sings about loving until 3005 in his song. He seems to go real deep with his lyrics. So a big question this leaves us with is, what did Childish Gambino witness in the rap industry? His whole rap career plays out like he is trying to avoid industry norms.
Even in Sweatpants, he has lyrics like:
No hands like soccer teams and y'all fuck boys like Socrates
You niggas ain't coppin' these, niggas ain't lookin' like me (Nah)
Nah, I ain't checkin' I.D. (Nah), but I bounce 'em with no problem
Seems like he is trying to make it really clear across his catalogue of music that he isn’t a p*do but that other rappers are. Where he is saying that he doesn’t need to ID his potential partners because he can tell they are obviously too young and that’s not hard to do.
Tell 'em, Problem (Problem!)
I'm winnin', yeah, yeah, I'm winnin' (What?)...
Rich kid, asshole, paint me as a villain
So who was trying to paint him as a villain, Drake? And that’s why the diss was originally meant for him?
Don't be mad 'cause I'm doing me better than you doing you…
Better than you doing you
Fuck it, what you gon' do? (What?!)
He’s taunting the other rappers cause he knows they can’t say shit if they are creeps. He has the same sentiment in Bonfire “It’s a bonfire, turn the lights out, I’m burning everything you mother fuckers talk about.”
Childish Gambino has always refrained from talking about the meaning of This is America whenever he is asked, and I can only assume that all of this is why.
Little Foot Big Foot
Now with his new release, Little Foot Big Foot and applying cultural compression to it, it has me wondering if he is referring to Megan Thee Stallion and the Nicki beef? People like Nicki (calling Megan Big Foot) have been claiming for some time she wasn’t even shot in the foot by Tory Lanez. There were many people laughing and making fun of Megan over getting shot. Which could be an interesting story for Childish to tell to represent how crazy this violent culture has gotten that people just laugh and blame the victim now when you get shot. Also a good metaphor for things like ‘shooting yourself in the foot’ for not having a lawyer look over potentially predatory industry contracts like in the beginning of his video. That you want to get in the cool kids club so bad you overlook it. Not as sure on this one though since the song just came out and I have only heard it a few times.
One last thing that is really interesting, there have been tons of artists on podcasts like Shay Shay talking about the strings these ultra rich moguls can pull. Like buying awards or gatekeeping people from being in the industry at all. There was even a story, I think maybe it was Gene Deal who told it, that when Killer Mike won at the grammys that Jay-Z was so angry he made sure to mess up his night by getting him locked up as soon as he left the awards stage. These moguls are extremely powerful and have an incredible amount of sway in the world/industry. If you check out Gambino’s profile on Youtube, his old music videos keep getting taken down, like Bonfire for example is just gone. Fans have been having to upload the videos themselves. There is a reply to a comment, on one of the fan uploaded vids, from Gambino’s account himself when someone asks why the videos are being taken down. His account just replies “Noone knows why :(“ Seems a bit odd all things considered and like maybe he has been at the mercy of these gatekeepers for going against the system.
I am so curious to know what the rest of you think about all of this!

Hey ladies! I’m here hoping to find and build a short or long-term connection. I want to make you smile so much your cheeks hurt, send and receive those sweet and flirty goodnight and good morning texts, and the phone calls we wish didn’t have to end. I am open to a long-distance situation as long as we can meet up sooner than later, and our schedules line up for ease of communication. I’m not looking to rush into anything, but I am after something exclusive that we can build and grow together. I do not have, nor want, children of my own and I am not religious.
I value the simple (and nerdy!) things in life, and would rather find my person to spend my life with rather than living a life of comfort and privilege. My dream is to open an animal sanctuary or hobby farm that could double as a human therapy center. I am looking for a long-term, monogamous relationship with a woman within a few years of my age and within a few time zones of EST. Curly hair, freckles or dimples get you to the front of the line! So does a sass and wit. Or cat pictures. Or cookies. I’m easy to please, honestly.
For work right now I’m in a volunteer position at a local food bank where I socialize with seniors and the food-insecure and basically serve as a ‘Johnny on the spot’ helping with odd jobs, tech support, stuff like that. I also help with a cat rescue organization where I have fostered cats and do some admin work. I do freelance editing on the side, and would love to have some of my own work published in the future!

So, to preface this, my dad [47M] and I [20NB] have a TERRIBLE relationship. I am in a divorced family and this is one of those situations where both parents are the bad guy. I'll save what I did to my mom for another story, this is all about my dad.
When I was a kid, right after the divorce, I started visitation with my dad every other weekend and whenever I specifically requested to see him. My mom wanted to make sure I at least got some kind of paternal experience. I remember that, at first, it was fine and I'd go spend time with him and we'd play games or cook together. He was being truly a great father to me.
This all ended very abruptly when I didn't see him for three months with no warning. When I saw him again, he took me to an arcade and we won some tickets and got prizes. He began telling me he was in college and studying so he could get a real cool job. I was around 8 years old at this point and didn't understand fully what college was for, but I just nodded and smiled.
We are about to leave the arcade and he apologizes to me by saying, "I'm sorry I haven't seen you much. I'll try to see you more, but only if your mom will let me."
I didn't see him for another 3-ish months. This happened for 2 years straight and every time he would tell me that my mom wasn't letting him see me. This made me hate my mom growing up and started my feud with her that lasted well into my teenage years. I had always just assumed he was tell the truth because why would my dad lie to me?
Eventually we went back to the every other weekend schedule and whenever I wanted to take a walk to see him (he lived less than a mile away at this point). I, at one point, went on a walk to see him and a cop pulled over by me asking why a 10 year-old little girl was walking down a busy road by herself. I told him and he drove me to my dad.
My dad was furious and yelled at my mom, thinking I was being dropped off and not walking. He eventually let that go and I started staying at his house more often. That's when things started to shift in his personality.
I learned some interesting things while living with him! Let's make a list of these things:

My dad served 4 years in the U.S. Military as a First Private in the Army.
My dad has a multitude of mental issues like Bipolar 2 Schizoeffective and Autism, among other things.
My dad is medicated for all of his problems.
My dad never knew about me SA and r*** situation.
My dad is a devout and pious Christian with severe right-wingest ideals.

How many of these are true? Numbers 2 and 5 are true, the rest are absolute lies. Now, I don't care what your political or religious beliefs are, just don't shove them down my throat. Keep them to yourselves, please and thank you. Also, mental disorders are something people can have, and that's fine. Just make sure you're medicated (if you need to be) and make people aware of your stuff if you live with them.
The other things are things I found out weren't true via other people (or myself, in the case of my r***). Turns out, everyone in my family knows my dad is crazy and just rolls with it. I was advised, by my grandmother, to just say yes or okay and move on from whatever he says. So I did.
I spent 6 years of my life just pretending and acting like stuff was okay. I came out to him as non-binary and pan. His answer was to take me to therapy and insist I was being brainwashed by Antifa to believe that any of "that stuff" was real. I was banned from any form of lesbian activity while living with him.
At one point I had come home late from a friend's house (I was 18 and spending time with my friend for her birthday) and he got mad at me. I told him I had texted him to tell him that traffic was bad and I would be a bit late. He says I'm lying and refuses to look at his phone to check for a text.
He then says I am a c*nt and that I have 24 hours to leave and find somewhere else to live. I, according to a lawyer friend, don't have to listen to him as I am a tenant on the lease that pays the majority of rent and can request 30 days to leave from the housing authority as he does not own the home we live in. I decided to say whatever and just look for somewhere else instead.
I end up moving in with a random guy, getting pregnant with twins, moving in with my mom (who is being strangely nice and accommodating) cause the guy who got me pregnant is a drug addict and abuser, and then losing my kids to my mom in a custody battle over my financial stabily after they turn 5 months old and she kicks me out of her house to be homeless.
It's at this point in my life I am fed up with my family. I'm angry, sad, and confused. So, I decided to move out to California to live with a close friend (who became my partner for a bit and then told me they don't love me, so now I'm gonna move again). I called my grandmother to tell her the plan and she said I should tell my dad.
I don't know why I even entertained the thought, but I said sure and called him. The conversation started normally and everything was fine till I told him I was headed for California. He freaked out and said that I shouldn't cause people were getting robbed and stuff. I told him I wasn't going to a big city we're stuff like that was happening and that I would be in a small town in a neighborhood of retired older residents.
He starts bringing up old stories of how I used to lie about picking on my brothers and would sneak treats as a little kid, and brought up old stories about the things I'd do as a kid. Normal dumb kid stuff that kids to to test waters on what they can and can't do. He then got all sorts of egotistical and rude with me and said, "Well, don't come cryin' to me when everything goes downhill, little girl."
I snapped. It was at that moment that I lost my sh*t and just unloaded everything on him.
"Oh, really, Dad? Like you did when we couldn't pay rent and I was a teen prstitute for a year and a half cause you came crying to me with your problems? I don't have time for your BS and I really don't have time for any more of your lies. 4 months in the military, not 4 years. Never been medicated for your problems when you're supposed to be on high dosage lithium for your problems. When you said you never knew what happened to me at 13, you lied! It was your friends that did that sht! Or maybe we should talk about the gender identity crisis I went through because of you? I was confused for years because of that! You wanna talk about lies and deceit? Address your own."
It was at that moment that I heard a voice in the background say, "Seriously, Matt?"
My dad had his phone on speaker and was at work during a meeting with his coworkers and boss.
Haven't heard from him since he hung up that call. 🤣

Assalaamu alaikum. This requires rather a long backstory but I'll try to condense this as much as I can. I've been married to my husband for over 18 years and a few years into our marriage I found out that I can't have kids. I converted to Islam before I met him. My husband comes from a big family and we're both religious masha'Allah. When I found out that I couldn't have children, I encouraged him to marry again. It took a couple of years of me suggesting this before he agreed. I helped him find a second wife and they were married for almost 10 years before they eventually got divorced but they had 3 kids masha'Allah before their marriage broke up. They just were very incompatible for many reasons. She and I were fine with each other. I'd babysit their kids for weekends so they could go out of town and she could rest a bit from her motherly duties. We'd cook for each other, etc. However, I told my husband as soon as he married her that I was perfectly okay with the arrangement, provided neither she nor I would show physical affection (touching, calling him 'habibi, etc) in front of each other. I just didn't want to see this because he's my best friend and I know what I can and cannot take and I'm willing to give her the same consideration that I ask for.
After 7 years, he moved her overseas with the kids so they could grow up in his home country while I stayed in the West. He'd spend half the year with me and half with her. She agreed that the kids should be raised in his/her home country but when they divorced, she left the kids with him and he had no one to help raise them. I'm in the process of completing my masters degree but when she left, I came to his country to take care of them and have been doing so, living in the apartment she used to live in and my husband is with me and his children now. However, he wanted to get married again so that we could have a similar arrangement as before, with the new wife helping out with the children and making things easier on all of us.
I told him that I'd prefer to get a maid instead to help or hire a babysitter full time but he doesn't like non-mahram women in the house. I completely get that so I agreed with him marrying again. Masha'Allah, he found a wonderful women who was okay with the arrangement and they got engaged. She's been incredibly kind to me. However, it took them a couple of weeks to find an apartment for them to share before the walima so she'd come visit our apartment and spend time with us all (him, me, and the kids). One day I was in our bedroom, working on my school work and I went into the kitchen to get some coffee and found them embracing and making out.
I went back into our bedroom and was the most upset I've ever been before. I felt like they completely disrespected me by doing this where I live and could possibly see this. My husband came in and I told him what I saw and asked permission to leave the house and go to his sister, who lives close by. He agreed but followed me, apologizing profusely, saying that the wedding hadn't been announced and he could break it off with her if I wanted. I refused because I cannot break up her happiness. Maybe Allah would punish me for making someone miserable for my own benefit. He said that while he was so sorry that he hurt me, he did nothing haram because he still thinks of this as his ex's house and he and his new wife are technically married as the contract had been done. I said that while it might not be haram, it was so inconsiderate and with how much he and I love each other, I never thought he could do such a thing. Plus, he knew from his previous marriage that I never wanted to see such a thing in front of me.
Things went forward and I went to their wedding. She tried to include me, which was so nice of her but I still am very angry with both of them. Seeing these kinds of things was always my redline with my husband and he knew it but took the risk anyway, hoping I wouldn't see. I asked him how he could do this when I am raising his children from his ex wife and have always supported him. I know this makes him sound horrible, but he's really the best man masha'Allah. He prays all of his salah in the masjid, is a hafiz, and takes good care of all of us. We're best friends and he's supported me through 3 degrees and we've had a wonderful life together but now I'm being eaten up inside. I am trying to get over this and carry on with how things were but finding it so difficult. Am I being unreasonable? What can I do to move past this? I'm making dua' and dhikr but I'm having a hard time eating and sleeping. I'm tempted to ask for a divorce because I feel so betrayed but I feel ridiculous and his kids are just now starting to feel safe after their mom left. I'm so close to them that if I leave they will suffer and feel abandoned again and so will my husband. So, I have to choose to suffer myself and hope I get over it or make many other people suffer. Also, I love him more than anything in this world and he's a great man but he did something that hurt me a lot. Please offer me some advice or words of comfort. Jazak Allah. Sorry for how long this turned out to be. .

I Never posted so excuse any grammar or structure mistakes
My dad was an alcoholic, not a mean drunk but just couldn’t stop drinking, before I was born so my parents got divorced when I was three. He had visitation right but slow over the years he lost them because the drinking was taking a toll on his body and my mom didn’t want my siblings and I to see it, which I don’t blame her for that. He passed away from cirrhosis in 2015 when I was 14. I hadn’t talked to him in a couple years before his death, I didn’t hate him I actually admired him and the legendary life he lived, but he called me about six months before he died asking why I don’t call him. To be honest I don’t know why I never called him, maybe subconsciously I was pushing him out because I knew from an early age the alcohol was going to kill him so I was preparing myself, honestly don’t know. In that phone call I promised him I’d call him more, I never did call him. Six months later he’s dead and I failed him as a son. Everyday for the last 9 years I have felt like a genuine piece of shit and I’m just so damn disappointed with myself that I couldn’t keep my promise to him, I don’t even know if he loved me because I never called him back to find out. I haven’t been back to his gravestone since we buried him out of guilt. I’m not religious but I’ve often thought about ending it all for the hopes that there is an afterlife just so I can apologize to him, but I’ve been to much of a chicken to actually pull the trigger. It kills me everyday I wake up and think about what a failure I am as a human and a son. I’m sorry if this seems trivial or just a nonsense rant, I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want to speak about this with my family and therapists just piss me off, bad past experiences with them. I guess I’m asking if there’s a way to get past this or if I should continue to feel guilty as a punishment. I’m just lost and don’t know where to go anymore.
Again I’m sorry if this was confusing to read, I was never good at typing things out. Any advice weather it’s good, bad, or if you just want to make fun of me for being a little baby about all this I’ll listen to it all

This is me venting but am also curious to know what everyone's relationship is like with half-siblings. Here's my story. I'm sorry in advance for how long this is, along with the grammarun-ons. I'm trying to give the Reddit community as much context as I can dating as far back as my memory takes me.
I (F 28) have two younger biological sisters (identical twins, F 25). The three of us were born after my dad married my mom (arranged marriage) after he and his first wife got divorced.
I believe my dad's first marriage lasted about 10 years. They had two kids together (my half-siblings). My older brother and I have an 8-year age difference, and my older sister and I have a 10-year age difference. Growing up, they used to visit us a few times a year including summer break or alternating holidays. Sometimes they would visit during Thanksgiving, other times during Christmas.
We used to be pretty close (at least I thought), but the relationship has become increasingly strained through the years. I understand the fact that there are ALWAYS two sides to every story, but I believe that my dad was on the right side of things and the marriage ended because two people weren't compatible and got married too young. It's always unfortunate when there are kids involved, and I'm sure it was tough with my older siblings being impacted at a young age.
It started when our grandpa (my dad's dad) passed away in November 2015. My brother suddenly stopped talking to my dad/our family immediately for whatever reason. He was the only person that didn't come to my grandpa's funeral. I honestly think he was holding a grudge that he didn't find out immediately when my grandpa passed, but I can't be too sure. We've never addressed that directly.
Fast forward 8 months to July 2016, when my dad's side of the family had a reunion at a first cousin's wedding. The vibes from my brother were like nothing had happened, and then after the wedding weekend, he was back to being silent. When my grandma (dad's mom) passed away in June 2019 he didn't show up to the funeral then either. Granted I didn't, but not because I didn't want to. I was a poor grad student and couldn't afford an $800 ticket on short notice and didn't want to burden my parents to pay for me to fly back for a couple of days either on top of how busy they were with funeral arrangements.
My brother went about 5 years to not talk to my dad or any of us. Then, out of nowhere, he calls one day to announce that he's getting married. The wedding is set for October 2022. I think he was buttering up my dad and our family to come to the wedding, because he knew it would look bad if everyone asked where his dad was for his wedding, and it would reflect poorly on him. The communication in 2022 was pretty consistent leading up to the wedding, and my older siblings would call my dad almost every weekend knowing that they needed us to show up to the wedding.
My older sister (F 38) had a baby girl in July 2018. Our dad was thrilled, his oldest daughter made him a grandpa. But there is clear separation and favoritism there, as my niece only sees her mom's side of the family being in the same area in the DMV. For those who aren't familiar with DC/MD/VA, my older sister lives in Virginia, in Arlington, and her mom lives in Herndon. About a 30-minute drive from each other. My parents live across the country in Orange County, so visits are far and few in between for my dad and his grandchild. I live on the Maryland side, and the state line between Maryland and Virginia is roughly 30 min, depending on where you go and the time of day. Anyway, I don't even know if my niece knows that she has another grandpa, outside of what she knows about my sister's mom and stepdad, and my brother-in-law's parents, who split time between the US and Nepal. I feel so bad for my dad because that's his grandkid too and everyone deserves the joy of being involved in their grandkids lives. My dad has seen my niece several times but the relationship is pretty surface level. It's not her fault, she doesn't know him like she does my sister's mom and stepdad, plus it's a proximity thing living on opposite sides of the country. We have FaceTime for these reasons though.
My husband and I aren't ready to have kids yet, and we want them. We've only been married for almost 7 months so we're still trying to live life before we settle down. I hope nothing more than to be able to give my parents a grandkid one day because I want my dad and mom to experience what they missed from my older half-siblings isolating them from their kids. That is if I'm able to have kids, I know we can't control these things.
This brings me to my next point (if you're still reading this, I appreciate you). My husband and I got married in October 2023. Our parents on both sides did everything they could to give us the wedding of our dreams, and it was everything we imagined and hoped for, and I'm forever grateful for that. I know that my wedding hit my dad harder emotionally than the first two with my older siblings because he was not at all involved during theirs. That wasn't by choice, my older siblings' mom probably didn't want him to be involved. Divorced dynamics are so confusing. You're telling me you can't come together and be civilized for a day/weekend? After my wedding, a few months later, sometime in January or February 2024, my dad called me to talk about how my sister was upset after our wedding and she vented about a few things with him on the phone. He was relaying the message over.
For context, I uploaded our wedding pictures on Facebook, because I have so many family members overseas in Nepal who weren't able to attend the wedding, and it was honestly the most convenient way to showcase our pictures since people in Nepal are ridiculously active on Facebook. My sister has social media, my brother got rid of his TwitteFacebook/Instagram/everything many years ago. Our photographer took several thousand pictures throughout the wedding weekend events, and of course, there were moments captured of my older sister and her family, including my brother-in-law, and niece. I will admit out of spite since my sister never posts anything about me and my dad/family, I tagged but then later on deleted those pictures she was in. Why would I have pictures of her on my social media when she's never posted anything of us? She doesn't even like or comment on anything on my social media, and when you have siblings, this is not something you discuss, you just do it. Duh. Over the last few days, I unfollowed her and unfriended her on Facebook and Instagram. For me, it makes no sense to keep people on my newsfeed if I don't interact with them, and I have plenty of family members and friends that I already have a strongemore communicative relationship with.
If my sister was upset about this, why did she call my dad to vent about this months later instead of coming to me? My dad told me she complained that he didn't mention her or my older brother during his speech at our wedding. But am I wrong for thinking, why would he? It's a celebration for me and my husband. I thought that was very conceited and selfish. The day wasn't about her, and my dad's speech was so heartfelt that I cried. I believe she was offended she didn't get the same during hers. However, my sister and brother never asked our dad to give a toast at their weddings. Only their mom did, which is messed up in my opinion.
I understand divorce is messy and complicated, and people go through years of therapy to fix, or maybe even never fix issues completely. It's hard, and I'm just a product of his second marriage. But I've never understood the jealousy that seems to exist, specifically between my older sister and me.
I tried reaching out to both of them in a group iMessage, talking about how I am not happy with the way they're treating our dad. My brother has stopped calling my dad completely over the last few months since his son (my dad's second grandkid) was born a few months ago in February. My sister calls maybe once a month. I wanted to confront them about this ongoing behavior and ill will toward our family. They didn't even have the guts to respond to me, I suggested if they have time to FaceTime so we can have a real adult conversation about what is their issue. My parents are flying to DC this weekend and the original plan was to drive a few hours north so they could see my brother's baby. No communication with my brother whatsoever to coordinate. I feel devastatingly sad for my dad.
I'm not even going to get into their treatment of my mom. That's another long story, but basically, it's them not giving a hoot about her, even though she's the one who took care of them and stepped up when they visited growing up. As a stepmom, it's hard to deal with kids from a previous marriage. But she did it and she loves them, and they're nothing but passive-aggressive and mean to her. They never wish her happy birthday, happy Mother's Day, or my parents happy anniversary. It takes two seconds. For me, if you disrespect my parents, you're disrespecting me.
Since then, my sister has unfollowed and unfriended everyone on social media, including my dad, my younger sisters, and my husband. All because she couldn't handle that I did that to her. I'm just not for this nasty behavior, and I know we all need to unpack a lot in therapy (me and my older siblings specifically). Their behavior is cowardly, and I can't be the only one that thinks this, right? I don't know. It didn't have to be like this. I'm sure their mom has been telling them bad things about the marriage and my dad for years. I'm not saying he probably didn't make mistakes, but there are, once again, two sides to everyone's story. None of us kids have heard both sides directly from the source, and probably never will. It makes me sad, especially for my dad. I know life will go on. I tried to reach out, and if they don't want to talk about these issues like adults, then I have nothing else to say.

I often ponder what it means to grow up, Is it the moment you no longer see a child in the mirror's reflection? Or when your mother's eyes no longer hold that youthful affection? Perhaps it's when your father's arms can no longer lift you high up.
...
Yet, I sense it runs deeper than mere appearance, Perhaps it's when you awaken from a dream's trance, And find the excitement to share it with your mom has lost its dance. Yes, that's when adulthood begins its eerie interference.
...
Growing up isn't about ticking off years on a page, It's about preserving that inner spark, that youthful sage. In the eyes of elders, I see traces of childhood's play, In the minds of children, I see inklings of life's pathway.
...
So embrace your mother once more, share your dreams with pride, For being an adult is a choice, not just a stride. Childhood doesn't end at eighteen's gate, It wanes when dreams no longer eagerly await, To be whispered in your mother's attentive ear, Like secrets of youth, so precious and dear.
...
I've come to realize what it truly means to grow, It's not about aging, it's about holding onto the glow, Of youthful dreams and boundless imagination, That's where adulthood finds its true validation.
...
It's my first time writing a poem and English is not my first language so please provide me good feedback so I can improve 🙏🏻
First comment: https://www.reddit.com/OCPoetry/s/nLXaZynHLD Second comment: https://www.reddit.com/OCPoetry/s/LnitDPM12v