Using out of date sudafed

Anime huh

2015.05.12 00:45 thatsupervillain Anime huh

Relatable screenshots from anime and manga. Post who you are behind the keyboard. All posts must be titled anime_irl.
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2011.01.04 16:29 xurvis CPAP Users

A place where CPAP users can discuss issues and share their stories.
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2010.02.19 22:22 Failcake Steam deals: newest deals on Steam

Not all of us have access to Steam every day, so it's nice to have the sales posted to Reddit. Hooray for cheap stuff!
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2024.06.09 23:12 DistributionOk5166 She told me she would break up with me if her friends told her to…

When I (21M) got into a relationship with my partner (20F), it was awesome. Then she involved her friends in the relationship. She came off as very codependent (“I’m very attached”) to her friends, even saying her friends (20F) are never wrong (you’re gonna see some red flags here that I was stupid to ignore). Met one of her friends - wonderful guy not a bad bone in his body, hope all of them could be Ike that. She expressed (I don’t even know jokingly) that her girl friends were jealous that she got a boyfriend - yet she wanted us to be friends.
I have never met such hypocritical people in my life on first meet. They would neg me constantly. My career (I earn decent money in school), my race (they’re the same race as me), the fact I didn’t drink underage, they would question my validity as a partner in earshot much to my partner’s silence. They would criticize my colloquialism after poking fun at me- I would say “shut the fuck up” when a funny story came up while laughing. They would tell my partner (not me) that they didn’t like it (happy to not say it if it makes them feel uncomfortable) but then they proceeded to tell me to shut the fuck up with impunity. The double standards sucked. The dishing out but not being able to take it sucked. I was always made to be the villain. When I brought these up to my partner - “Oh you feel that way because they have siblings, and you’re an only child”. They showed up to my apartment unannounced when I was on a date with my partner (I live on the 3rd story). After the date was over, they would make plans to go out and say “This is a friends only thing”.
I held my tongue for a lot of disrespect. The people were openly known in their friend group to be third wheels in the relationship. They used to call me a b-word and a groomer (because I had friends who were 2 years younger than me). I used to call the main instigator a horseface after she made fun of my forehead and looks. But then it was too far. They could say whatever to me but the moment I come back I’m in the wrong.
They would openly ask my partner “Did he even get girls before you” to which my partner felt she had to defend her “choice” in me. My partner had told me that we won’t talk about our sex life. I was like yeah ofc. Her friends then started to tease me with info from our sex life - and they didn’t hear it from me. I confronted her on this and she was like “Oh it was a wine night and we started talking”. It was all ok until she started downplaying my skills. Then when her friends made fun of me with this info - I would then make fun of myself and then they would go to her saying that THEY were feeling uncomfortable about ME making fun of MYSELF.
They would cause fights to the point where I’m crying and hoping I’m no more. I would dream they would make fun of me so much - I would get up and walk out (I actually did this once but chalked it up to having to take a phone call).
They would compare me to their brothers and fathers. Token me for my race but then ask me to set them up with someone from my race. They would make fun of my career, yet ask me to get them a job. I tried to play nice with these people. On my own birthday, one of these girls was stressing out over organizing a career fair, I walked 40 minutes to help her out. These people would cause fights between us and I would apologize to them about stuff they do to me all the time saying “I just want to be accepted by the group”.
Worst part came when her friends pulled switchblades out on a moving bus as a joke and were brandishing it. I was the only voice of reason telling these people to stop, protecting my partner, motioning others to sit down and telling them that the group can get in so much trouble because of their idiotic behavior. Yet all her friends laughed at the fact I was getting serious. One of her friends had come up to me afterwards and showed me her palm, laughing. It was blood- she had cut her hands on the blades trying to play with the knives. Laughing.
Whether it was them blacking out drunk, headbutting each other, and touching each other inappropriately- I need to make sure no one falls behind or gets in trouble. Her friends would smack me for sitting on their bed by accident just to charge my phone near the wall. Everyone would laugh.
Her friends dressed up during Halloween as red flags (can’t make this up) and they kept making racial remarks to my friend. “Dance white boy”, “bathroom’s over there white boy”, etc. He took it as a joke the first few times but then started to feel uncomfortable. He told me wayyyy too late that this is what he experienced.
One day, I had fallen through my chair and winced in pain to which they laughed. I had enough of their immaturity, their laughter at my pain, their double standards, and their unresolved hatred. I thought since these people frequently call me out for every small thing (albeit behind my back), I can confront them directly and fairly (never confronted them on their behavior before). I asked them to treat me with some respect and just apologize. My partner stood silent as they continue to make insulting and demeaning faces at me and avoid the issue. I had a freeze response. I could not get any more words out of my mouth. Then my hypervigilance took a toll on me 30 seconds later in the form of an extreme panic attack (first one ever) where I cried and clutched my chest on a train. They stared indifferently. I sat crying with the doctor hugging me, while they called an Uber to go to a bar. They called the paramedics- they were heroes. I had enough, went up and yelled some disgusting things at the main instigator, who was making disgusting invalidating faces at me while I was approaching her for accountability. Called her a horsefaced. Told her “Why should I die on the train? You go kill yourself!”
My partner threatened to break up with me if her friends had told her to and told me I wasn’t fit to meet her dad. The next day, her friends guilt tripped her “You made a choice to go home with him instead of come with us to the bar”. They talked about how it was “bizarre” why I was so kind to the doctors and the paramedics yet yelled at them.
Partner said “Oh they have panic attacks all the time”. “It must have been caused by something else”. “They make those faces even when their relative died”. “There was a girl who doesn’t like her because she didn’t apologize to her properly”. “She thinks you’re attacking her face - just like her dad and uncles”.
What do I do…
submitted by DistributionOk5166 to dating_advice [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:11 littleborb Good god, I want a relationship

Or at least, I love the idea of one.
I'm 30yo and have never had a long term relationship. I never really cared until more recently, when I've been getting flooded with romantic fantasies (and yes, some sexual ones; sex tends to not be too high on my priority list and basically always comes bundled with romance for me anyway).
Like, I want to cuddle up to someone after a long day. I want to have a best friend to face life with. I want to trust someone enough to be unapologetically genuine and for him to do the same. I want to have cute couple moments, and for us to proudly gush about each other to people. I want to surprise him with things that make him happy. More and more, maybe because it's an age thing, I've been imagining what it would feel like for someone to refer to me as his wife.
YES I REALIZE NONE OF THIS IS REALISTIC. I'm ugly, fat, and old. Even if I fix the first 2 I can't do anything about the latter, so the likelihood of being picked over say, a sexy hardbody 23yo, is low. Not to mention that realistically, I'll be scraping for leftovers at my age - bitter divorcees and dysfunctional incels, the kind of men who will just assume I'm some used-up slut looking for a meal ticket and/or expect me to be a submissive tradwife who will be his perpetual cheerleader but never want that returned. Which I could do, I guess. I'm not sure I'd like it, and my executive-dysfunctional ass is terribly at household stuff, but I'm getting better, just for myself. But I think I could do that for someone I really liked.
I'd also need to, y'know, put myself out there. I fucked up making a Bumble account so now I'm waiting for that to get fixed haha. I've flaked on multiple speed-dating events because I was too tired from work. Of course I'm lonely when the notion of dating feels like a chore or something I should do to "get it over with". Attraction is hard.
submitted by littleborb to Vent [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:09 Saiya691 How to write a based off real life romance book?

I just broke up with the best boyfriend I'd ever basically had. He was very kind, independent, family oriented, and so far out of everyone I have ever dated matched me in sexual kink as well as respected me. We had one big problem communication. I couldn't communicate with him as well as I wanted to due to being hurt too much as well as him thinking the way I communicated indicated I wanted 24/7 attention. I wanted to write a book where the main character like myself had a very bad past I'd use my life of being raped several times and beaten when I got married at 21 and learning from it all. Id then leave it on a cliff hanger and eventually make book 2 into the ex getting back with that character since they took a break like I'm doing with my ex right now and it's been months. I just don't know exactly how to go about it, any suggestions? This is my first ever based off true events book. I am not trying to make it venting in anyway so I'm looking at this as a bystander and trying to cut minor things out of the book and only go for major events that happened to me.
submitted by Saiya691 to howtowrite [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:06 ThrowRA_Cup_299 I (27M) gave my ex (22M) an ultimatum and I regret it. Is there any hope for us, or do I need a reality check?

My ex (22F) and I (22M) broke up about a month ago. At the time of the breakup, we had a dumb argument about cleaning the room or heating up food. The reason why this was the last argument was because she wasn't willing to validate my feelings, being hung up on who was right and who was wrong and I finally caved. I gave her the ultimatum that if she couldn't be here for us in the relationship, and let me feel heard, then I couldn't stay any longer. She said no, and I left after packing up my things.
For context, when we began the relationship I was awful at regulating my emotions, while she had a lot of knowledge of healthy relationship communication skills and techniques. At some point I encouraged her to feel her feelings more, as I felt repressed by the equations and scripted lines used in some communication techniques. Soon, I realized how wrong and stupid that was. For the rest of the relationship (just over 6 months) I did all that I could to right my wrongs, and do my best for her. Honestly, I would say that I am a much better person in this regard than I was before, and its due to the fact that she pointed me in the right direction.
However, as time went on I could feel that she was pulling away. I found myself carrying a lot of the weight in the relationship. I planned dates, when we would meet up, initiating intimacy, and finding ways for us to get closer. Whenever we would have arguments, she would be quick to say "If we're arguing should we even be together" and I was always the one who pushed that we could work it out, and found resources to navigate our problems. We've had talks about this, and she admitted that she was feeling less attracted to me because of some things that were happening in my life, and how as a result I was less motivated in general. I felt slighted by this, because all of the things she was critical of me for, she had similarities that I never faulted her for.
After the breakup, she apologized for the way she treated me in the relationship. She admitted that it wasn't fair to be so critical of me, and she felt that it was because she was actually critical of herself and projecting it onto me. She didn't want to get back together though. I don't think we broke because we stopped loving each other, but probably because we weren't in a position to allow each other to grow and the time of lives we were in. We were/are both unstable, and I feel like she needed someone who was more stable so she can grow and learn more about herself. While I am in a very stressful time of my life (doctoral program), I also believe that the promise of a stable life afterwards is almost guaranteed.
My question is, is there a real chance here for us to reconcile? We are supposed to meet up soon to exchange the remainder of our belongings. I don't know if there's a possibility of a conversation here, but if there was should I even try? I want to respect the way I felt throughout the relationship, but at the same time I really believe she's an amazing person that I would be lucky to have in my life. My hesitation is that I've always felt that she is very guarded due to trauma from her past relationships. There were even times where I felt like she treated me like her previous partners treated her. While our relationship had flaws, it definitely was full of love and was the deepest connection I've ever had with someone. A part of me feels like she's ready to leave because of the commitment that was coming with the connection we had. At one point I called her to apologize for missing our first meet-up time, and she started tearing up from just hearing my voice. To me, that sounds like she still has feelings for me.
So Reddit, am I delusional for hanging on? I've been through break-ups before but none have been this hard to let go of. I genuinely feel like this is a case of right person, wrong time, and I have hope that with some time we could find each other again and do it right, but I also know that is a very dangerous mindset to have. I hate hearing from friends and family that I can find someone else. I know that in the scope of things it's probably true, but I want it be her. Do I need a reality check?
submitted by ThrowRA_Cup_299 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:05 Lawschoolhope11 Construction Defects After Moving In - 2 Years Later (Within Warranty)

Hi Everyone - I bought a new construction townhome two years ago and before the 1 year warranty mark, I sent a long list of everything that needs to be fixed. Since I sent written proof before the 1 year warranty date, the builders are obligated to fix everything on that list.
Eventually they fixed a lot on the list; however, there is one big issue that they haven't fixed and refuse to find a professional to fix it (using a fix all contractor right now). My first floor had several bubbles (wood flexing up and down when stepped on) and the concrete below it was not leveled. This is engineered hard wood and they are designed to be installed as floating floors due to the concrete.
Context (will keep dates as years but I am within the warranty):
Mid 2022: Bought home
Early 2023: Reported that the 1st floor is uneven
Early 2024: One year later, removed the floor and found that the concrete was not even (this is when I started not having any flooring in my first floor, just concrete)
It has been 104+ days since they started this whole floor removal/installation and I have had not been able to use my first floor and garage ever since (garage is full of flooring material). Leadership refuses to acknowledge my concerns, worry, and inconveniences (personal, work) that this has caused and will continue to cause. I am just wondering if there are any legal actions that I can pursue?
Ultimately, this has caused a lot of inconveniences for my family and the fact that I can't even use 1/3 of the house that I have purchased 2 years ago is crazy to me.
I have submitted BBB complaints and State AG complaints and nothing has made the builders move faster.
Looking for any advice. Thank you!
submitted by Lawschoolhope11 to RealEstate [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:04 kmrniqbl UPSTOX - Do not Invest, Worst Customer Support.

Context - This post is an update to my previous post in this sub - Upstox ruined my ELSS Investments
22***\**nd* March,2024 - I receive an email updating that my bank modification request has been done successfully, after which I made an investment on Upstox worth 1.3 Lakhs under ELSS Scheme for 5 mutual funds. My friend did the same but on Groww.
The next 3 days are Holidays - 23rd, 24th, 25th of March (Holi)
26***\**th* March,2024 - Receive an update from UPSTOX for only one mutual fund AMC(Quant) and no updates for the rest. I contacted Upstox regarding an update over their given customer support number - but nobody picked up for the first 2 times. Finally, I get connected with their agent after 15 minutes of teleprompts.
Their agent gave me the standard reply - to wait T-2 days. I asked for an email confirmation of this conversation which they didn't provide. I opened a ticket with them regardless.
For the next 2 days, I emailed and tried to connect with them several time regarding an update. The app showed no updates on the order status, it was stuck on processing.
28***\**th* March,2024 - The last day of the financial year to make an investment. I received an update from AMC (Quant) that units have been credited. No updates from UPSTOX or AMCs for the other 4 orders. After trying to connect with them over the phone, I wrote my final email.
I knew my investment was not placed. Internally, I make an investment in another MF for 1,000 rupees well before 2pm (UPSTOX's cutoff time to allot me the NAV date of 28thMarch). I wanted to test something which later I'll mention here.
I make this Reddit post and forget about it after multiple interactions with community. Learned a lot about investment and mistakes in general.
On the same day, u/UpstoxSupport comments on my post and I receive a call on the same day.
The Call with Agent 1 - They inquire about my issue and directly gives a reference to my reddit post. I was surprised on how they were able connect with me using my Reddit post on which they replied it was done internally. After a long conversation, they admitted it was an issue from their side which was the Bank Update was not done timely from the BSE side, hence the orders got failed. According to them, BSE gave them an update the bank was successfully updated to my Demat Account. Accordingly, they sent out a confirmation email.
I complained about their poor customer support, no updates and replies to emails. Also pointed out how their infrastructure could make such blunder.
After some more conversation, they themselves proposed to "make things right" by offering me compensation for me loses only and only if, I delete my reddit post.
Hearing this I was infuriated. They wanted to save their image instead of actually addressing the issue. All the support was only because of Reddit post. I give it to the agent. After apologising, they promise to reach out to me again. I even asked them for an email confirmation of this conversation, which they didn't provide me.
After 2 days, I received another call after I wrote to them again.
The Call with Agent 2 - They again inquire about the same issue. The agent tried to give me reasons and excuses on how the orders got failed. They again brought up the compensation for the loss and wanted to discuss the specifics internally over the call. After brief discussion, they promised to reach out again. This time they did sent out an email regarding the call upon asking.
Few days had passed by, I was contacted by multiple people including their compliance head or someone. They called me at an interval of 2-3 days, and very laidback attitude now. Here are some collective points discussed which tells the whole story -
I've stopped receiving communication from them over the email or calls. The last communication I got was 2 months back, now I only get automated emails.
After talking to several agents, I'm tired of chasing after them. I've suffered huge losses because of them.
  1. Their customer support has openly lied to me about how NAV date works, providing misinformation to me. Upon correcting them, they apologise.
  2. They sent a confirmation email that my bank details were updated when it was not. According to them, BSE sent them the false confirmation. (Time to include BSE into this as well).
  3. The MF order I placed on 28th of 1000 INR got allotted the NAV date of 1st April and not 28th March. The reason? My bank details were not updated after they themselves admitted it takes maximum of 48 hours to get updated, which is only 26th March. Also, if my bank details weren't updated, how did this order get a placed for the next business day, and not the other orders. This order should have failed as well along with others They couldn't provide an answer for the same.
  4. They have stopped replying to me email. No support from them whatsoever, even on their X (Twitter) support team for almost 2 months now.
I refrained myself from taking any actions as they were already communicating. Now I plan on taking this further. I've already talked to my lawyer friend for better guidance. I see several routes I can take to hold them responsible...consumer court, SEBI, BSE, etc. Seeing my original post, I was reached out by a Youtuber, to share my story which I refrained from doing so, now I think people should talk about this. This is how UPSTOX is as a platform. Is there something else I can do to hold them liable and talk? I need suggestions and unfiltered advices.
submitted by kmrniqbl to IndianStockMarket [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:03 ShortGirlinVegas Am I frustrated with being a transwoman, or is it time to make a change?

TL;DR: I transitioned MTF 7 years ago. My experience has been mostly positive, but recent events have led me to become exhausted by the daily fight to feel accepted and normal. I'm starting to hate my feminine body simply for the hurdles it forces me through, such as wearing bras, doing my hair and makeup every day, and tucking. I'm starting to have feelings about being a guy again in the same way I had feelings about becoming a woman. I don't feel comfortable in my skin anymore, constantly critical of myself and feeling vulnerable. I'm confused because I don't have any trans friends to see if we all feel this way - Or if in fact it may be time to seriously consider detransitioning. Does this sound like how we feel when we transition? Am I experiencing dysmorphia for the first time in 7 years? Any advice or feedback welcome!
Full post:
I'm a 36 MTF who transitioned 7 years ago. Over these last 7 years my experience has been mostly positive. My family and friends fully supportive. Doctor and therapist on board quickly. I went from being a bodybuilder guy and transformed into a pretty girl. I grew real natural C-cup breasts, and long pretty hair. I have worked multiple jobs without an issue, but also started a business about 4 years ago which is now my primary income. Romantically, I started dating a guy a few months into my transition and we dated for 2 years; we broke up but remained friends, and he is now my best friend and business partner.
On paper, my life as a trans woman is good. But in reality, it's been extremely isolating and difficult for me, and I am tired of feeling like an outsider.
In business I've done well, but my clients are all men who respect my male business partner more. I've learned to live with a bit of sexism in order for us to succeed. (Yes I've stood up for myself where appropriate, but we live in Las Vegas where men really run the city and I feel fortunate to work with these high powered clients). In romance, I am extremely popular on dating apps - as a sex object. No one ever asks me out on real dates, and those who do are extremely old or creepy. While I put clearly in my profile that I'm trans, not all guys read that stuff and inevitably after a long conversation with a super hot guy It damages my self esteem when I mention being trans and he's shocked and appalled. Another one bites the dust.
Friends wise hasn't been better. After I moved here I was thrust into the community after being hired at the trans gentlemen's club in town. The patrons were very nice, my trans coworkers were all 10 years my senior and had been there for 20 years - So I was ostracized and the source of mean gossip. After that bar closed, I met another group of trans women - The leader of the pack wanted to sleep with me, and after I kindly said I am only into men she kicked me out of the group completely. I've also tried to make friendships with at least 5 other women here, and each friendship went sour over random oddball drama.
My face is pretty as long as I take the 10-15 mins to throw on some lashes and a bit makeup (I do this every single day before I leave the house). But bodywise since turning 36 I've started to fill out in places a girl doesn't really want to fill out. Compiled with gaining some weight. I've noticed I'm looking quite built and broad again. I've been clocked 2 times in the last 6 months, which hasn't happened (that I'm aware of) at all in the last 7 years. I did go to my doctor who said my levels are fine. But I don't feel comfortable in my skin anymore, constantly critical of myself and feeling vulnerable.
Basically I've noticed that I used to be a vibrant, funny person with a ton of friends - And now I'm afraid to go out and get clocked, afraid to get the stares that I look weird, afraid of being "caught". It makes me feel crazy because my transition really hasn't been bad at all - But I feel like I carry this "secret" with me and every day I make several motions to make sure no one finds out. The motions are getting exhausting. I am tired of being an outsider. Ending it isn't an option, would never do that but I do feel a bit trapped. Transitioning again back to a guy would be tough, but not impossible. And my bestie/biz partner is already aware and fully supportive of any decision I make. I just don't know what to do.
submitted by ShortGirlinVegas to asktransgender [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:03 RedFoxRunner The girl I was seeing started acting crazy and it scared me. I blocked her on everything

I've been watching some youtube videos about BPD and I am pretty sure this girl I had been dating had it.
We had been dating on and off for about a year and a half. When I first met her she said that she was separated and going through a divorce. She would call everyone around her a narcist - her family, her ex husband, her friends.
I planned on going on a weeklong beach trip with her last August. 3 days before she cancels on me and says we aren't in the same place emotionally. (First discard). I end up having to go on the trip alone and lose a bunch of money on it.
3 weeks later she starts talking to me again. We talk here and there and start hanging out again.
Second discard came around Halloween. We had plans to do pumpkin painting and to go to a Halloween bar crawl. She asked to come over the night before, that she was feeling down. I said I have to hit the gym but you can stop by at 10 or later. She gets mad and says nevermind, I will find another way to care for myself and flakes on the Halloween stuff. We don't talk for a while.
She starts talking to me on NYE. We hang out here and there between then and now with her leaving one more time in February.
After knowing her for a year she tells me she has two kids. She also says her divorce isn't finalized yet, that she trying to figure out where to move to because there are too many bad memories in this city. That she is taking her time to make sure it is the right thing and she doesn't want to make that decision while she is trying to heal emotionally. I find out she is still living with her "ex" husband. She says she is just doing that until she figures out where to move, that she doesn't want to stay here so she isn't going to get a place here. She pushed for us to be bf/gf, I tell her her divorce needs to be finalized and she needs to get her own place before we get anywhere close to that.
She kept saying she wants to move to a city 4 hours away and she may go down there and not come back. I ask why would she move away and leave her kids with her husband if he is a narcissist and mentally abusive. She says they are boys and need a man to raise them properly, that a woman can't raise boys on her own. And that he is a low key narcist and her boys are strong willed so they will be fine.
I plan on taking a week long road trip to the beach, the same place she flaked on me last year. I tell her I am going on a road trip with my buddy. I don't tell her that he may not join me til later in the trip because he may have his kids. The same weekend I leave she had said she may go to the other city and not come back.
It turns out her did have has kids that weekend so he told me he would meet me later in the trip.
I go on my trip. 2 days in I start getting really rude texts from her. Calling me names, that I am a narcist, I used her, I'm an asshole, I just need to go suck my moms tits. That if I was a real man I would have taken her on a relaxing trip to let her unwind and start the long process of healing. I'm like WTF, I didn't do anything to you.
She says how my friend is a family law lawyer and I just watched her flail around. That I should have stepped in and stopped her when she was acting crazy and I'm not a real man. She then asks if my friends kids are with me. I say no, he has a custody issue to deal with with his kids and he is going to fly out and meet me later in the week. She starts accusing me of taking another girl on this trip and that she has "receipts".
This keeps going on and I have to block her for a day because it is stressing me out and ruining my trip. The next morning she shows up uninvited to my apartment and sits outside my door and looks at the camera for a minute and leaves.
I unblock her later that night and say she is being rude and that I did nothing wrong. She sends me a screenshot of my friends profile. The day after I left for my trip he posted a photo of his kids. She said that proves I lied to her. I told her I didn't lie to her and that the plans changed, that he had a custody issue with his kids but he is still joining me later in the week on the trip. She won't listen and is convinced I am sleeping around, took a girl on this trip and lied to her. Keep in mind she has never met my friend before and is not friends with him on social media so she went way out of her way to creep on him and jump to conclusions.
She called me a couple times from a private number and leaves me odd messages. You can tell she is very emotionally disregulated. Saying she doesn't want to see me again but we need to talk. That we weren't honest with each other, that she is going to make me heal one way or another. It will help her heal and I don't get to tell her how she heals.
I call her a couple hours later and she doesn't answer.
I get another call or two from a private number over the next couple days with no voicemail.
She gave me a painting she made a few months ago. She texts me and says I either need to pay her $50 for the painting she gifted me or her ex-husband will come and get it. Says things like he doesn't know where you live but I'm sure he can find out.
I say I like your painting but I will give it back if you insist. What address would you like it sent to? I also didn't do anything to you and this is a misunderstanding. The plans on my trip simply changed and I didn't go with anyone else. I'm willing to talk to her if she stops calling me names.
She says she has "receipts" and she knows what is going on. She never wants to see or talk to me again. That its fine, her ex husband will come get the paintings, that she doesn't have an address. I say I'm not meeting him, why don't you just give me an address to send it to. Your ex husbands, a friends, somewhere you are staying and stop making this difficult and I will mail it to you.
3 days and nothing. 3 days later she texts me and says pay me or my ex husband will come get the painting today.
I block her on everything.
I hung the painting outside my front door so if she does stop by she can just take it and not talk to me.
It has been 2 days now and the painting is still there and no one has stopped by my place. I installed another camera outside of my door. The way she was acting in the end was scaring me. It is obvious she didn't really want the painting back as she wouldn't give me an address to send it to, she just was playing some kind of games.
submitted by RedFoxRunner to BPDlovedones [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:02 midland-monkey Replacing Dell T20 home server

Some background, I bought a Dell T20 back in 2016 with a great cash back offer on it. I’ve put in there 4 SATA disks, 2 running in RAID 1 for all our family photos (we use DSLR’s), which we may or may not edit/view locally and then they backup to cloud for DR, the disks are fairly small but are running raid pass through to the OS on a VM. Then there’s an SSD running the 4 server OS virtual disks and finally a large chunky disk for movies, TV shows etc for Plex. I’m running VMWare 5.5 if I recall which is EOL, and one of the VMs runs Sophos firewall and I have an extra network card for the WAN connectivity in place of a router. Have a seperate VM for Plex and another VM for downloads etc (3 or 4 in total) all running 2012. All in all, I’ve max’d out the storage everywhere and the windows OS’s are EOL running server 2012 home edition and the underlying VMware is well out of date.. Im basically at the point now where I’m extremely nervous doing anything to it of any magnitude incase I take down our home internet for home working, or screw up Plex which the family use so I’m leaning towards a new server to migrate over to, building in what little free time I’ve got.
Any suggestions on a flexible system to replace the above? Ideally would love to keep the photos locally but may not need to RAID them given they backup to cloud nowadays anyway. Could keep Sophos on the current one for the time being but ideally would like to port over..
submitted by midland-monkey to HomeServer [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:00 Many_Scratch2588 Craving men’s attention?

20F, I have never been in a relationship with anyone, I’m as single as they come. Tbh I never cared about men or their attention growing up and I always found it weird when girls wear revealing clothes and act pick me to appeal to the male gaze etc.. I always had a really good relationship with my dad so I never cared about boys.
Now when I was 17yo, I fell in love with a girl, it was a very shocking experience since I had never felt that way towards a girl but it was real, I love her with all my heart. The thing is that this girl had just been out of a 3years relationship, her high school sweetheart left her when we got to college. So she was very intense and intimate with me, giving me mixed signals, acting horny in front of me, manipulating me etc.. All this behavior made me crave her and I fell in love.. when I faced her she decided to block me and my family ( we were extremely close/ anxious attachment) and said that she got rejected like a piece of shit by her ex and doesn’t want another person doing that for her. It hurt me a lot, I grieved for over a year, she hurt me so much I would wake up crying and sleep crying. That’s how bad it was because it was the first time I had ever felt romantic and sexual feelings towards anyone. I have healed but she has caused some serious psychological damage to me.
Now that I look back, she used me as a “ Patch up” relationship, she loved all the attention and gifts I brought her on a daily basis, I gave her princess treatment, wrote love letters to her etc.. but she had no intention of ever being with me! She just used all my energy and leads me on so she would built her self-worth again after being rejected then she did the same thing to me. Time goes by and I’m still hurt, she triggered something in me, feeling very unwanted by everyone, having unsuccessful dating experience, I got the worse experience of unrequited love and rejection as my first ever love experience as well as a homosexual experience that is very much frowned upon in my society.
Now I’m an attractive, smart and funny woman. I know lots of people would like to date me but I don’t get approached much ( I seem intimidating). A part from the fact that I would also wish for myself to be in a serious relationship and eventually get married and start a relationship and the idea occupying a big part of my thinking nowadays. What I truly wish for is to be craved and desired by many men. I want to be chased, to be given gifts, I want guys to be down bad for me ( She hurt me so bad that the idea of me giving energy to people just seems wrong in my brain because all the energy I used on her she used it to heal and left me empty) I need someone to love me, to desire every inch of my body, to crave me like a dog craves meat. This would heal me enough. I’m not sure if this is a right approach to the matter but I am really hurt and I had an academic fallback because of how much she hurt me, I struggle with concentrating and I spend my time distracting myself to Dopamine to not face these feelings of inadequacy, feeling ugly, unwanted and unlovable.
submitted by Many_Scratch2588 to dating [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 23:00 the_blob_amorphous I've cried almost every night for a month because of loneliness, this is new for me, and I don't know how to stop it

not sure what subreddit to go to for a problem like this, sorry! this might not even be related to my depression and attachment issues, but I'm assuming it is. sorry if it's the wrong flair, too.
I'm a college student who lived on campus. two months ago, I entered my first relationship. I know there's bound to be more "obsession" and passion and longing in the beginning than, say, six months from now if we're still together. but I love them a lot. I have severe anxiety (bordering on paranoia at times), depression, really awful self-esteem, and I'm trying to get tested for autism. they've accepted me despite all of this.
we spent most nights together for the past semester, and most days as well. we'd be together for hours and hours just chilling. we're also both touchy af lol, so we'd cuddle a lot and sometimes fall asleep together.
but the semester ended last month, we're all on summer break now. I'm used to spending every day and night alone in my room at home (bad k-12 experience) but something feels very different this time. every night, when I get into bed and prepare to sleep... I cry. I have no control over it, it's like clockwork. lasts for 5-20 minutes. I can't identify why this is happening, aside from missing my new college friends and my partner most of all. (side note, I'm worried it's unhealthy to be this attached to someone after only knowing them for six months and dating for two! but I also doubt my judgment since I have trust issues)
last night, I called my partner, and everything was fine until we had to hang up and they told me good night. then I immediately began to cry, no buildup or warning. loneliness has never bothered me this much, idk if it's because I shut it out until now? but it hurts, it hurts so much, and break doesn't end until late August. it's been even worse for the past week because they're on vacation in another continent, but that logically makes no difference since we live 1-2 hours away from each other anyway!
why am I so emotional over this separation? what can I do to care about it less? this isn't severely impacting my daily function, but I feel so stupid.
submitted by the_blob_amorphous to mentalhealth [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:59 KoolLusey 22F Feeling Neglected by 24M Boyfriend in Long-Distance Relationship

Hey everyone,
I’m struggling with some issues in my long-distance relationship and could really use some advice or insight. My boyfriend and I have been together for a 8 months now, and we try to see each other at least once every two months. We’re constantly on call with each other, so I know he isn’t cheating. However, things have changed a lot since we first got together, and I’m feeling really neglected and unsure of what to do.
When we first started dating, he was incredibly loving and attentive. It was his idea to celebrate our month anniversaries with bouquets of flowers, long paragraphs expressing his love, and showering me with snacks and gifts. I would send him gifts too. But as time went on, these gestures dwindled. Our last month anniversary, I didn’t receive any gifts or a paragraph. He had promised to buy me food, but I ended up buying it myself after feeling light-headed from hunger and repeatedly telling him I was starving. He later claimed I turned down his offer to buy food, which I never did, and then said he was going to pay for the food I had already bought. I turned him down because I was already upset.
He hasn’t given me flowers in over five months, and the last time he did, it was a fake flower he gave me after realizing I had bought him a gift for our anniversary and he hadn’t gotten me anything. I haven’t received a compliment from him in ages, whereas I get more compliments from random people at work. We haven’t been intimate in two months, which used to be a daily thing, because he says it’s something that gets in his way and he deals with the health side of it on his own time.
I’ve noticed that after each of our visits, he becomes more distant and less romantic and sexual with me. I’ve confronted him about this and asked if he’s still attracted to me, and he insists that he loves me and is insanely attracted to me. We usually play games together, which is how we met, but recently, I’ve had to ask him if he wants to play, and he prefers watching shows instead. When we do play games, he often watches shows or listens to music to distract himself. We used to just sit and chat or hang out, but now he can’t even do that without starting a show.
What really stung was when I was at work and saw him playing games with his friends on Xbox. He had his fun, silly personality back and was actually engaging with them without a show on in the background. He recently told me that I come second to his job at the moment. It’s starting to feel like I’m more of a friend who’s always available rather than a partner.
The last time I tried to communicate with him about this he said I need to start making myself happy, and that he can't keep trying to make me happy. I’ve started trying to live for myself more. I’ve lost 20 pounds, and I’m spending more time outside, with my family, and playing with my dog. He has constantly stated communication is key in a relationship, but I’ve stopped talking about being upset with him due to the lack of changes, and he seems to be in better moods now, but nothing has changed for me.
I’m at a loss for what to do. Has anyone else experienced something similar? How did you handle it? Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
submitted by KoolLusey to LongDistance [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:59 msnyc20 Ex "popped in".

Interestingly I was just in the middle of a 'should I reach out' post since it is feeling like I should/time is right.
Abbreviated story is 18 month relationship which was at its height, giddy happy both of us (and of course like anyone had issues), a month away from birthday I was being asked to by her basically get her an engagement ring. Whirlwind of events around the city, strangers commenting on our connection, one guy tapped us in the shoulder at a bar and said "I've been watching you two, your connection is amazing, you can feel your happiness all the way across the bar, you two look like you've loved one another since you were little children". Which was in fact exactly what it felt like. She made sure I didn't miss the significance "see babe. EVERYONE knows we belong together".
There is a significant age difference which was neither impediment or impetus. We just ... connected. The only times it was brought up was 1) after I met her mom she told me she told her mother the only thing that worried her was the age difference her mom said with the kind of love you found it won't matter and 2) once when we were laying in bed just laughing and vibing she started sobbing uncontrollably "I just realized you are going to die before me and I will miss you sooo much!" (meaning in 30-40 years of being with me).
She was torn between wanting a future with me and being terrified of commitment. She has reached early/mid 30s w/o having more than 8 mos relationship, most shorter. This from a tall pretty very social girl that lived alone for almsot two decades in 4 continents i.e no lack of opportunities. At 8 most told me I was the longest relationship officialy and first man she ever wanted to build a future with., She introduced me to each of her 3 besties whom she said she'd never introduced anyone to in the 5 years she lived her. Met each individually each turned to her independently and said the same 4 words while with us "You are so lucky". Told me one of them waited for the door to close after i walked them home to whirl around and say 'that is the nicest man I ever met and your connection with him is unbelievable'.
At around year mark she started texting me 'Babe do you stlll like me?" and I'd reply "Still? I like you more every moment I spend with you" and she'd break my heart replying "Reeealllllyyy???? 😍😍😍" as in not just happy but SHOCKED I still did.
Pushing for living together, pushing for what amounted to an engatement rind very hard for upcoming birthday after the final 3 months of our 18 mos relationship, 3 magical magical months where I was not only happy for the first time in years but happier than I'd ever imagined. Her as well. She'd text me at 3am about mising me, telling me how comfortable I made her, heck she'd fall asleep in my arms in 30 seconds, she'd facetime me so she could hear my voice while she fell asleep and know i was watching over her. Even up to the last hour I knew her she was pushing for her birthday 'ring'.
Broke up with me via text 2 days later, wanted 'distance' said 'do you think we'll stay in contact'. This girl I was joined to the hip with, 100,00 texts in 18 months, couldn't sleep wo my voice. The more I think about it the more I think SHE was convinced I did not love her and would not get her the ring since she'd repeat it over and over what she wanted.
In any event gave her the space BUT not NC style; texted every couple weeks, knew she was a mess, so just did a hey hope all if going well. After 3 MONTHS of this she broke and started texting me again like she used to; facetimes from bed in PJs, every day everything she did, subways when going to see friends, pics of her food, etc. She was very happy with changed I made. BUT was somehow terrrified to see me even though she'd reach out clearly wanting to then find some reason to back out.
Finally after 3 months of this and close to 3 THOUSAND textss from her and dozens of midnight facetimes she chased me down to my local coffee shop, fisr time I'd seen her in months. She want AWOL the next day basically. When I texted two weeks later she sent me a' sorry been busy at work plus started seeing someone and work is busy'. Last time we spoke. I didn't really buy the 'seeing somoene' since didnt gibe with gathering the courage to see me in person for first time in 6 months right then. Also I'd posted on FB something she could have easily misconstrued as very romantic first date which was not a date at all and might have been bushwacked after finaly gathering courage to see me.
So this brings us to this weekend, exactly 4mos No Contact, two people that shared 100k texts and woman who would hardly keep herself from texting me even after we parted company after 18 hours together. I was thinking of her all day yesterday, posted on FB a day trip I took.
I saw her this am on 'my' avenue where she has not shown her face for 10 mos. Ostensbily lost in texting and didnt see me though I'm sure she had to know. I went back to same cafe later on KNOWING she'd show up. And.. .voila. She did. Sat down, super affectionate funny vibe we always had.
Not sure of next move. Let her reach out. A huge component of our relationship was her always being sure she liked me more, I didn't want to be with her, I wasn't gooing to get her 'ring', she missed me more etc.
Not sure what i want except her back in my life, we made each other quite happy. I could text or wait for her. Sorta sure she showed up to see if I still had feelings or at least didn't hate her. Funny thing is turned out she had read my FB post from yesterday, she inadverntently made a comment making it clear not only she had but had knowledge of my other posts too.
submitted by msnyc20 to ExNoContact [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:56 net_x_ I have a platonic crush and I have to talk about it.

(Currently learning English, please don´t mind the mistakes)
Over the last yeas I have been kind of adopted into a new friendgroup. Everybody there is so so amazing and I love them all so much.
That being said, I there are some people I´ve spend more time with and some I haven´t yet. One of them is this one guy...a few weeks some of us went on a camping trip on which me and him shared a tent and ever since I have been kind of crushing on him. But yk I´m on both the acespec and the arospec so it´s not a crush-crush. For the lack of a better word I will call it a platonic crush because I want to spend time with him and him to like me and talk to him and cuddle him but if he asked me on a date (not gonna happen but I did think about it for three hours the other day) I would go and see if maybe some romantic attraction could happen.
Otherwise I think this is pretty similar to a crush and personally I hate it. It is so annoying I am constantly thinking about him and I can´t go three sentences without mentioning him and I have the crush-feeling inside me and it I feel it, constantly. The worst thing though, is that I can´t really talk to anyone about it. (Ecxept one friend, I had a two hour crisis call bout this with them)
Whenever I had a male friend people always shipped us. Whenever I expressed someone was cool or pretty or I liked them it was always like "Oh-oh, whats this? You LIKE them? Soooo like...romantically?" and then they just don´t take you seriously when you tell them it´s not like that. If I told them I had a platonic crush, they would never get over it and I feel like nobody would belive the "platonic" part about it. For me, having that assumption made about me makes me deeply uncomfortable and also brings me back to a place of questioning and invalidating my own feelings and thoughts.
My new friend group would prbly understand but like that is how I know the dude and most of them know him better than me and like it would just be awkward plus I don´t want this to get to him somehow.
But he is just so cool like it´s unreal. He has really pretty fluffy hair and a helix piercing and he has one of those jackets with patches from different rock and metal bands. He also used to play in a band wich is so cool. He is generally really good with music to the point where he picked up a melody I was humming to myself at the other side of our little camp. Also he is just such a sweet sweet person. He left me a note on my pillow bc he went up to the tent earlier than I did just in case he was already asleep and he just did not switch off the light even if I went to bed like an hour later than him (I told him like three million times it was totally fine, I did not necessarily need it)
His laugh, his happiness is infectious and so so lovely to watch. He is so seemingly effortlessly funny. Also he has a pet snake wich makes him EVEN cooler because snakes are just the coolest animals.
And now here I am with this thing happening and like we haven´t even talked that much together like what is this. But everytime we do and everytime we have a little moment together it makes me so happy and I am just overall giddy and happy and this feeling in me is bubbly and warm and kind of fun. (Sometimes, sometimes it makes me feel inferior and stupid and bad but thats more of a me thing I think)
Anyway, it´s nice to talk about it...I hope I will have the chance to hang out with him some more before I leave for my year abroad (this is such bad timing for a crush I tell you what) and maybe establish that we text a lot. I´m a bit of an introvet, though, so any ideas on how to smoothly start texting sb often or get to hang out is greatly appreachiated.
submitted by net_x_ to aromanticasexual [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:56 Sweet-Count2557 Best Italian Restaurants in San Luis Obispo Ca

Best Italian Restaurants in San Luis Obispo Ca
Best Italian Restaurants in San Luis Obispo Ca Are you ready to embark on a culinary journey to Italy without leaving San Luis Obispo, CA?Well, buckle up and join us as we uncover the best Italian restaurants in town!From authentic pasta dishes to mouthwatering pizzas, these hidden gems will satisfy your cravings and transport you to the heart of Italy.So, whether you're a local seeking a new favorite spot or a visitor longing for a taste of Italy, let us guide you to the most delectable Italian dining experiences in San Luis Obispo.Get ready to indulge and buon appetito!Key TakeawaysSan Luis Obispo has a variety of Italian restaurants known for their delicious pasta and pizza, with homemade pasta and sauce for great taste.Buona Tavola is a casual yet elegant Italian restaurant since 1992, offering well-prepared and authentic dishes in a romantic atmosphere with charming indoor and outdoor dining options.Mamas Meatball is a laid-back restaurant serving authentic Italian fare, with a delicious selection of pasta, pizzas, salads, and soups, and a homey vibe with added music.Flour House is a cozy restaurant owned by a husband and wife, known for their impressive Neapolitan-style pizzas and fun dining experience with great pizzas, cocktails, and vibe.Buona Tavola - Italian Restaurant in San Luis ObispoWe highly recommend trying the Agnolotti di Scampi allo Zafferano at Buona Tavola - it's a must-try dish!Buona Tavola is an Italian restaurant located in San Luis Obispo, known for its authentic and well-prepared Italian dishes. The restaurant has been serving customers since 1992 and offers a casual yet elegant dining experience.When it comes to Italian food in San Luis Obispo, Buona Tavola stands out with its flavorful and delicious dishes. The Agnolotti di Scampi allo Zafferano is a standout dish that features tender shrimp and prosciutto, all wrapped in a saffron sauce. The combination of flavors is truly delightful and will leave you wanting more.Not only is the food at Buona Tavola exceptional, but the atmosphere is also charming and romantic. The restaurant offers indoor and outdoor dining options, with an ambient patio that provides a more enjoyable experience. Whether you're celebrating a special occasion or simply want to enjoy a delicious Italian meal, Buona Tavola is a great choice.Mamas Meatball - Traditional Italian Fare in San Luis ObispoMamas Meatball is a hidden gem in San Luis Obispo. It offers a traditional Italian dining experience with homemade dishes and a laid-back, homey ambiance. The restaurant serves a delicious selection of pasta, pizzas, salads, and soups. All of these dishes are made with love and authentic Italian flavors. From their Baked Penne to their mouthwatering tiramisu, Mamas Meatball is a must-visit for any Italian food lover in the area.Homemade Italian DishesAlthough Mamas Meatball is known for its laid-back atmosphere, their homemade Italian dishes, such as their Baked Penne, never fail to satisfy our cravings. When it comes to Italian restaurants in SLO, Mamas Meatball stands out for their authentic and flavorful dishes.Their Baked Penne is a must-try, with its perfectly cooked pasta, rich marinara sauce, and gooey melted mozzarella cheese. Each bite is a burst of comforting flavors that transport us straight to Italy. The attention to detail and use of fresh ingredients make their dishes truly exceptional.Mamas Meatball provides a safe and enjoyable dining experience, where you can savor delicious Italian fare in a laid-back and homey ambiance.Laid-Back and Homey AmbianceThe laid-back and homey ambiance at Mamas Meatball creates a cozy and welcoming atmosphere for enjoying their traditional Italian fare. Here's why you'll feel safe and satisfied dining at Mamas Meatball:Comforting Surroundings: The warm and inviting decor, complete with rustic furnishings and soft lighting, sets the stage for a relaxed dining experience. You'll feel right at home as soon as you walk through the door.Friendly Staff: The attentive and friendly staff at Mamas Meatball go above and beyond to ensure your comfort and safety. They're knowledgeable about the menu and always ready to offer recommendations or accommodate any dietary restrictions.High-Quality Ingredients: Mamas Meatball takes pride in using only the freshest and finest ingredients in their dishes. From their homemade pasta to their flavorful sauces, you can trust that every bite will be delicious and safe to eat.Clean and Sanitary Environment: Mamas Meatball maintains a high standard of cleanliness and hygiene. You can dine with peace of mind knowing that they adhere to strict sanitation protocols to ensure your safety.Come to Mamas Meatball and experience the inviting ambiance while indulging in their mouthwatering Italian cuisine.Flour House - Southern Italian Restaurant in San Luis ObispoFlour House is a cozy Southern Italian restaurant in San Luis Obispo that specializes in authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas. The restaurant, owned by a husband and wife, offers a fun dining experience with great pizzas, cocktails, and vibe.With its fresh and perfectly cooked pizzas, Flour House provides a delightful dining atmosphere that's sure to satisfy any pizza lover.Authentic Neapolitan-Style PizzasWe frequently enjoy indulging in the authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas at Flour House, a cozy restaurant in San Luis Obispo. These pizzas are truly a culinary delight, and here's why:The crust is thin and perfectly cooked, with just the right amount of char. It's light and airy, yet still has a satisfying chewiness that pairs perfectly with the toppings.The sauce is made from San Marzano tomatoes, known for their rich and sweet flavor. It's the perfect balance of tangy and savory, providing a delicious base for the toppings.Speaking of toppings, Flour House offers a wide variety of fresh and high-quality ingredients. From traditional Margherita to unique combinations like prosciutto and fig, there's something for everyone.The pizzas are cooked in a wood-fired oven, which gives them a distinct smoky flavor that can't be replicated. It adds an extra layer of depth to each bite.With such incredible pizzas, it's no wonder Flour House has become a favorite among locals and visitors alike.Now, let's dive into the cozy dining atmosphere that enhances the overall experience.Cozy Dining AtmosphereSitting by the warm fireplace, enjoying our mouthwatering pizzas at Flour House, we feel enveloped in the cozy dining atmosphere that makes every bite even more delightful.The dim lighting, rustic decor, and friendly staff create a sense of comfort and relaxation. The restaurant's attention to detail is evident in the carefully curated playlist, which adds to the ambiance without overpowering conversation.Soft background music and the crackling of the fire provide a soothing backdrop for a safe and enjoyable dining experience. As we savor the flavors of the Neapolitan-style pizzas, we appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into creating this inviting atmosphere.It's no wonder why Flour House is known for its impressive pizza selection.Impressive Pizza SelectionWith over ten mouthwatering pizza options to choose from, we're amazed by the impressive pizza selection at Flour House. The variety and quality of their pizzas make it a must-visit for pizza enthusiasts.Here are four reasons why their pizza selection stands out:Fresh and Authentic Ingredients: Flour House uses only the freshest and highest quality ingredients, ensuring that each bite is bursting with flavor and authenticity.Perfectly Cooked Crust: The Neapolitan-style crust at Flour House is thin, crispy, and cooked to perfection. It provides the ideal base for their delicious toppings.Creative Combinations: From classic Margherita to unique combinations like the Fig and Prosciutto pizza, Flour House offers a range of creative and mouthwatering pizza options that will satisfy any craving.Attention to Safety: Flour House prioritizes the safety and well-being of their customers. They follow strict hygiene protocols and ensure that their food is prepared in a clean and safe environment.Whether you're a traditionalist or an adventurous eater, Flour House has a pizza that will leave you craving for more.La Locanda - Cozy White-Tablecloth Italian RestaurantLa Locanda is renowned for its exquisite white-tablecloth dining experience, where guests can savor the distinct and flavorsome Italian fare. The restaurant offers a cozy and intimate atmosphere, perfect for a romantic evening or special occasion. With its focus on fine dining, La Locanda provides an upscale experience that ensures the utmost safety and comfort for its patrons.Here is a table showcasing some of the standout dishes at La Locanda:DishDescriptionLossobuco Con Risotto alla MilaneseBraised veal shank served with saffron-infused risotto, rich and savory flavorsInvoltini de MelanzaneRolled eggplant dish filled with a delectable mixture of cheese and herbsLa Locanda takes great pride in its culinary offerings, ensuring that each dish is prepared with the finest ingredients and attention to detail. The Lossobuco Con Risotto alla Milanese is a must-try, with tender and flavorful braised veal shank complemented by the creamy and aromatic saffron-infused risotto. The Involtini de Melanzane, with its delicate and harmonious flavors, is a delightful vegetarian option that showcases the restaurant's commitment to creating a diverse and satisfying menu.At La Locanda, safety is of utmost importance. The restaurant follows strict hygiene protocols and maintains a clean and sanitized environment. The staff is trained to prioritize the well-being of guests, ensuring a worry-free dining experience. Whether you're looking for an elegant date night or a memorable celebration, La Locanda promises to deliver an exceptional dining experience with its distinctive Italian cuisine.Cafe Roma - Casual Italian Eatery in San Luis ObispoWhen we visit Cafe Roma, we always enjoy the welcoming feel and good food, making it an ideal place to celebrate special occasions or have a happy hour with friends. Here's why we love Cafe Roma:Warm and Inviting Atmosphere: As soon as we walk through the doors of Cafe Roma, we're greeted with a cozy and inviting ambiance. The dim lighting, rustic decor, and friendly staff create a comfortable and relaxed setting that makes us feel right at home.Delicious and Authentic Italian Cuisine: The menu at Cafe Roma is filled with a wide variety of mouthwatering Italian dishes. From classic pasta dishes like Spaghetti Carbonara to flavorful pizzas topped with fresh ingredients, every bite is a burst of deliciousness. The chefs use only the finest ingredients and traditional cooking techniques to ensure an authentic dining experience.Excellent Service: The staff at Cafe Roma goes above and beyond to provide exceptional service. They're attentive, knowledgeable, and always ready to accommodate any special requests or dietary restrictions. Whether we need recommendations or have specific preferences, they're happy to assist us.Clean and Safe Environment: Safety is a top priority at Cafe Roma. The restaurant maintains a clean and sanitized environment, following all health and safety guidelines. From regularly sanitizing tables and high-touch surfaces to ensuring proper distancing between tables, they take every precaution to ensure a safe dining experience for their guests.Overall, Cafe Roma is a place where we can enjoy delicious food, great service, and a safe environment. It's the perfect spot to create lasting memories with loved ones or unwind with friends after a long day.Olive Garden Italian Restaurant - Family-Friendly Pizza ChainThe Olive Garden Italian Restaurant is serving up excellent food and creating a family-friendly atmosphere at their San Luis Obispo location. With its focus on safety, this restaurant offers a comfortable and inviting environment for families to enjoy a delicious Italian meal.The menu at Olive Garden features a variety of dishes that cater to different tastes and preferences. From their freshly made Fettuccine Alfredo to the Tour of Italy platter, which includes chicken parmigiana, lasagna, and fettuccine Alfredo, there's something for everyone. The restaurant takes pride in using fresh ingredients and making their sauces from scratch every morning, ensuring the highest quality and flavor in their dishes.In addition to their main course offerings, Olive Garden also offers a selection of soups and desserts that are sure to satisfy any sweet tooth. The staff at Olive Garden is friendly and attentive, creating a welcoming and safe environment for families to dine in.Whether you're looking for a casual meal or a special occasion celebration, Olive Garden in San Luis Obispo is the perfect destination for delicious Italian cuisine in a family-friendly setting.Piadina Italian RestaurantWe should definitely check out Piadina Italian Restaurant for dinner tonight and try their recommended dish, the Buttermilk Fried Chicken Club with tangy ranch and garlicky aioli. The restaurant offers a casual yet sophisticated ambiance, with an elegant and contemporary dining area. The portions are decent, visually pleasing, and delicious.Here are four reasons why you should consider dining at Piadina Italian Restaurant:Safety: Piadina Italian Restaurant prioritizes the safety of its guests. They follow strict hygiene protocols, ensuring a clean and sanitized environment for diners.Quality: The Buttermilk Fried Chicken Club is a standout dish, showcasing the restaurant's commitment to quality ingredients and excellent flavors. The chicken is perfectly fried, with a crispy exterior and tender, juicy meat. The tangy ranch and garlicky aioli add a delightful burst of flavor to each bite.Ambiance: Piadina Italian Restaurant offers a comfortable and inviting atmosphere. The live acoustic music and comfortable patio heaters contribute to a pleasant dining experience.Variety: Piadina Italian Restaurant offers a diverse menu, catering to various dietary preferences. Whether you're a meat lover, vegetarian, or have specific dietary restrictions, you'll find something delicious to enjoy.Overall, dining at Piadina Italian Restaurant promises a memorable experience with delicious food, a cozy ambiance, and an emphasis on safety.Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat Are the Opening Hours of Buona Tavola - Italian Restaurant in San Luis Obispo?The opening hours of Buona Tavola, an Italian restaurant in San Luis Obispo, aren't provided in the given context. However, Buona Tavola is a casual yet elegant Italian restaurant that has been serving well-prepared and authentic dishes since 1992.It offers a romantic atmosphere with charming indoor and outdoor dining options. To enhance your experience, we recommend trying their ambient patio.For specific opening hours, we suggest contacting Buona Tavola directly.Does Mamas Meatball - Traditional Italian Fare in San Luis Obispo Offer Gluten-Free Options?Yes, Mamas Meatball - Traditional Italian Fare in San Luis Obispo does offer gluten-free options. They understand the importance of catering to dietary restrictions and have a delicious selection of gluten-free dishes.From their homemade pasta to their flavorful pizzas, you can enjoy a satisfying and safe meal.Their laid-back atmosphere and added music create a welcoming experience for everyone.Don't forget to try their Baked Penne and end your meal with their delicious tiramisu.What Is the Signature Dish at Flour House - Southern Italian Restaurant in San Luis Obispo?At Flour House, the signature dish is the Burrata Antipasto. This cozy restaurant, owned by a husband and wife, offers impressive Neapolitan-style pizzas. The pizzas are fresh, perfectly cooked, and authentically Italian.With a fun dining experience and great cocktails, Flour House is a must-visit in San Luis Obispo. For a more enjoyable atmosphere, I recommend dining on their back patio.You won't be disappointed with the flavors and quality of the Burrata Antipasto at Flour House.Can La Locanda - Cozy White-Tablecloth Italian Restaurant Accommodate Large Groups for Special Occasions?Yes, La Locanda - cozy white-tablecloth Italian restaurant can accommodate large groups for special occasions.With its modest and small setting, it offers an upscale dining experience in San Luis Obispo.The restaurant serves distinct and flavorsome Italian fare, including dishes like Lossobuco Con Risotto alla Milanese with braised veal shank and involtini de melanzane (rolled eggplant dish) with savory and rich flavors.It's the perfect place to gather with family and friends for a memorable celebration.Does Cafe Roma - Casual Italian Eatery in San Luis Obispo Have a Full Bar With a Wide Selection of Cocktails?Yes, Cafe Roma does have a full bar with a wide selection of cocktails.The restaurant offers a welcoming feel and is an ideal place to celebrate special occasions or have a happy hour with friends.Established in 1980, Cafe Roma is a long-standing trattoria that serves carefully-prepared and tasty Italian fare.With its good food, welcoming vibe, and extensive drink menu, Cafe Roma is a great choice for those looking for a casual Italian eatery in San Luis Obispo.ConclusionIn conclusion, the Italian restaurants in San Luis Obispo offer a delightful culinary experience that will transport you straight to the heart of Italy.From Buona Tavola's saffron-infused Agnolotti di Scampi to Mama's Meatball's cheesy Baked Penne, these eateries serve up authentic and mouthwatering dishes that will leave your taste buds wanting more.Whether you're a local or a visitor, these restaurants provide a true taste of Italy in the beautiful city of San Luis Obispo.So come and indulge in the flavors of Italy, and let your taste buds dance like a symphony of flavors.
submitted by Sweet-Count2557 to worldkidstravel [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:56 HardcoreHenryLofT [5e][Online][English][AST][Homebrew] No Small Quest for the Big of Heart! Low/Dark Fantasy, mix of lighthearted roleplay and fantastic horror!

Expeditions North: No Small Quest
Hook: It has been 122 years since the Sixth Collapse covered the North in dangerous magical energies. The surviving population has finally stabilized into the still-habitable lands of the South, founding a handful of states along the coast and among the islands. The North has recently become survivable, at least in the short term, and the major players are all seeking their share. Remnants of once world-spanning empires looking to reclaim lost glory, upstart new kingdoms seeking power and legitimacy, opportunistic and wealthy merchant guilds seeking new venues for profit. Everyone who can afford to is funding enormous hundred-man strong exploration parties known as Expeditions North. The pay is astounding, the dangers doubly so, and the chance of returning unscarred are nearly zero, but the skilled and the desperate enlist all the same.
You don't work for those guys.
You are a newly hired adventurer of No Small Quest, the smallest and strangest Expedition that sends not 100-man endeavors, but instead 5-10 man parties into the North. Run by a mysterious person known only as the Old Woman, your organization takes requests to explore the North from those who can ill afford such an expensive service. The altruistic nature of No Small Quest and the low pay make it a hard sell for anyone but the kind of heart, or the shrewd of mind, for there is another unique feature of No Small Quest: unlike in a larger Expedition, you get to keep what you find.
Intended Vibes: The campaign will be a mix of light-hearted low fantasy hijinks, and tense dark fantasy exploration. Imagine if the protagonists of a slice-of-life story frequently dipped in and out of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Desired Party Size: 4-6 Players.
How We Play: Roll20, using Discord for voice chat. All character sheets and rolling is done on Roll20, while notes and documents can be handled using either application.
When We Play: I do shift work, and thus do not have a single reliable day/time to play. Close to the end of the month I will post my available days on a google doc, and the party will mark which days they are free and could play. Any days with at least four free players will be considered a valid session, aiming for two a month.
Setting Features
Expectations from Players
Expectations for Players
Restrictions
Application
Fill out the following application if you are interested, with the intent of starting in July. If I like your application I will email you with a Discord invitation. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing you at the table!
[Apply Here]
submitted by HardcoreHenryLofT to lfg [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:51 FloppyBisque We have built up an incredible defense (DRS) and the best offense is a good defense. But why not add more to our arsenal? I’m going to learn about options and teach as I go. Read along if you’re interested.

What’s up everyone. I was watching Richard Newton’s video the other day and he happened to mention that the best way to learn is to teach.
I happen to think he’s correct.
After watching DFV turn $53k into a potential trillion dollar payout, I decided that I need to learn to wield this insane power.
I’ve seen similar sentiment on here, so I decided that I should start learning and simultaneously teach what I learn so I can best understand it.
So, if you want to follow along, I’ll be making it a series and I’m going to try to be as consistent as possible. Perhaps once per week.
I know we don’t like options here, historically, but I think we’ve mastered Buy, Hold, DRS, Shop, and I think that we’ve built and incredible wall of defense.
But now, I personally want to start going on offense. It’s not just because DFV. That Ken Griffin video today fired me up and I went straight to reading. So, feel free to dive in with me if you’d like. I’ll probably keep doing it even if no one reads or if I get downvoted to hell.
Hopefully I’m not banned (mods 🙏).
Aight let’s do it.

Lesson One

Introduction to Options

Imagine you’re planning a trip to Grapevine to the future annual GME shareholders meeting and you’re unsure if the price of airline tickets will go up or down. Wouldn't it be great if you could pay a small fee to lock in a ticket price now, but decide later if you actually want to buy it? (Side note: In the current market for GME, due to extremely elevated implied volatility (IV), it's actually a pretty big fee. It doesn’t sound like the right time to buy but smarter apes can tell us if we are wrong!)
That’s essentially what an option is in the stock market—a way to manage your investment risks and opportunities without making a full commitment upfront. Also, a way to buy 100 tickets at that price, just in case you want to invite your local apes along.

Types of Options: Calls and Puts

  1. Call Options:
    • Purpose: A call option gives you the right to buy a stock at a specific price, known as the strike price, before the option expires. Think of it as a reservation to buy a stock at a locked-in price.
    • Example: Let’s say you buy a call option for GME with a strike price of $50. If the stock’s market price rises to $70, you can still buy it at $50.
Around here, we like to mention that exercise this option is usually more beneficial than selling the option because it lands you 100 new shares to add to your stick pile and puts pressure on short sellers, as Thomas Petterffy from IBKR highlighted after the January 2021 GME sneeze. Watch his explanation here.
  1. Put Options:
    • Purpose: A put option gives you the right to sell a stock at a specific price before the option expires. This is like having an insurance policy for your stock.
    • Example: If you own GME and it’s currently worth $50, you might buy a put option with a strike price of $50. If the stock’s price drops to $30, you can still sell it at $50. It’s like having the option to sell your house at its current market value even if the market crashes and house prices fall.
Typically this is a bearish bet. Probably won’t be used much around here, but I could see a scenario where you could time the OPEX tailwinds we’ve been seeing and pick up some extra cash for the next set of shares you’d like to buy. Yeah, I know that sounds kind of shitty, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that helped super charge RK’s gains the last 3 years. I’m pretty certain it’s what hedgies are doing to profit from the cycles.

Key Terms

How Options Work

  1. Buying Options:
    • Action: You pay a premium to get the right to buy (call) or sell (put) the stock.
    • Outcome: If the stock moves in your favor, you exercise the option; if not, you let it expire and lose only the premium paid.
  2. Selling (Writing) Options:
    • Action: You receive a premium but take on the obligation to fulfill the option if the buyer decides to exercise.
    • Outcome: If the stock moves against you, the potential losses can be substantial. Imagine you sold an insurance policy and the event happens—you have to cover the claim. So if GME runs higher than your strike price, you need to provide those shares (you lose 100 shares from your brokerage).

Why Use Options?

  1. Leverage: Options allow you to control a larger amount of stock with a smaller investment. It’s like putting a small deposit down on a house and gaining from its full market value increase. We also heard from Kenny G that they are required to hit the list exchange unlike the sale of shares.
  2. Hedging: Options can protect your investments from adverse price movements, just like insurance protects your car from damage.
  3. Income Generation: Writing options can generate additional income through premiums. However, this is akin to collecting insurance premiums—potentially lucrative but risky if claims arise.

Risks and Rewards

Pricing Factors

  1. Intrinsic Value: The difference between the stock’s current price and the strike price.
  2. Time Value: The portion of the premium that reflects the time remaining until expiration. The longer the time, the higher the potential for profitable price movements.
  3. Volatility: Higher volatility means higher premiums, as the stock is expected to swing more in price. Again, the GME IV sounds like it’s incredibly high at the moment.
  4. Interest Rates and Dividends: These also play a role in option pricing, though typically to a lesser extent.

Conclusion

I believe this lays out the fundamental principles of options. I am interested in learning more about these because they can be powerful tools for leveraging positions, hedging risks, and generating income, but they come with significant risks. I don’t think anyone should go YOLO after reading this. This is just the start of my learning and maybe yours as well.
First understanding the basics of how options work, the terminology, and the strategic uses seems essential to me for any investor looking to incorporate options into their portfolio.
Important Note: As I mentioned earlier, if you’re ever considering selling an option, remember that exercising could be far better for securing your profits and putting pressure on short sellers, as Thomas Petterffy from IBKR explained in his video after the January 2021 GME sneeze. Watch his explanation here if you didn’t earlier. Shares are forever, options expire. MOASS could be tomorrow or it could be tomorrow’s tomorrow.

Coming Up Next

In the next lesson, I think I’ll probably jump into the specifics of pricing options and the factors that affect an option’s value. That’ll mean discussing the Greeks—Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega, and Rho.
Anyone with more wrinkles, I welcome your critiques and help!
Premarket opens in 12 hours. Get some rest as it’s gonna be a wild week.
And in the meantime, if you want to mess around with pricing ahead of time, this tool is great for that. https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/
submitted by FloppyBisque to Superstonk [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:50 TitanAura The Struggles of Adapting Peak Fiction Under Strict Production Constraints

The Struggles of Adapting Peak Fiction Under Strict Production Constraints
\"But why not do both?\"
This is a follow-up to my last post defending the anime's decision to cut content for the sake of pacing but let me give you the TL;DR so you don't feel the need to have read that one before this as this post covers the same bases (and then some): The anime is first-and foremost the story of Rudeus Greyrat and must therefore prioritize his perspective, even at the cost of other characters' moments, regardless of how beloved those individual scenes are to fans of the Light Novels (myself included).
So let me start by addressing the strongest counter argument made in response to that post: "But the first season, and even Cour 1 of season 2 was able to maintain excellent pacing while having relatively few cuts! Why does the pacing in cour 2 still *FEEL* so rushed in comparison despite cutting so much?" That is an astute observation! And, quite frankly, you are asking the right questions. And for anyone planning to skip straight to the end of this admittedly \daunting* essay, here's a TL;DR for you: Episodes 19 & 20's reduced quality and heightened pace were done deliberately to provide the last 4 episodes of the season the space they need to breathe.* Continue reading if you want to find out how and why this had to be done.
It would be a fool's errand to argue that Cour 2 is NOT cutting less content than prior cours (because it absolutely is, and by quite a lot too), nor will I be arguing that the cour does NOT suffer some level of pacing issues because it absolutely is (see first post), rather I will be arguing in defense of the purpose of limiting the scope of what gets adapted, and why such decisions are necessary in the first place. However, before I delve any further into the specifics of Cour 2's production struggles, first I should elaborate how its production schedule differs from S1.

PART 1: Production Scheduling (aka setting the pace)

In case you were unaware, Season 1 was originally slated to be released in 2020 but was delayed to January of 2021 so it could actually receive all of the extra care and polish it truly deserved. For S2, Studio Bind's production staff, by contrast, had to make due with the time they were initially given. More time (and consequently more budget) usually fixes most production issues, but very few (extraordinarily rare) series ever receive that benefit and doing so twice was likely never even considered a possibility.
Sadly we are not in the alternate timeline where S2 benefitted from the same advantages that gave us gorgeous custom world-building OPs for every episode that freed up even more additional screen time for dialogue and character development (in some cases literally depicting entire chapters such as Paul's POV being shown during Ep 17's STUNNINGLY well executed OP montage). Thanks in part to that decision, S1 had significantly more wiggle room to work with, especially pertaining to the secondary cast, allowing it to more evenly adapt the world building, character development, and main narrative plotline of Mushoku Tensei as a whole utilizing that extra runtime (90 seconds per episode adds up to a LOT over the course of an entire season, plus the 5 EDs, that were integrated as needed on a per-episode basis, for an additional 7 1/2 minutes which adds up to a WHOPPING 43 1/2 MINUTES over the course of that 24 episode run and I should point out that S2 Cour 1 ALSO benefitted from this for the first 5 episodes including the OVA, giving that cour an added 9 minutes to utilize with Cour 2 receiving a paltry 3 minutes as only the 1st episode integrates the OP/ED runtime).
It's simply the reality that polish and quality was prioritized for S1 while scheduling and budget were prioritized for S2. If you want to be especially harsh, one could say S1 was treated as art, while S2 was treated as a commercial product, which is why I've set my expectations accordingly and hope this post helps others do the same. This becomes more apparent when you take into consideration that Studio Bind were also working on Onimai at the same time as S2 given their air dates were only 6 months apart. So not only was S2 not being given the same scheduling priority, it was COMPETING for resources. Given the BD sales numbers for every project they've released, at a minimum we can be assured that Studio Bind has been financially successful at least but the double edged nature of that success also means that certain priorities may have shifted away from MT and towards the new cash-cow. There's a reason I phrased my previous post so specifically: These episodes are a fine adaptation of Rudy's story.... and not much else because it simply doesn't have the screen time or resources to focus on anything besides Rudy's share of the narrative and character development.
Which ties directly into the second reason as to why cour 2 FEELS so rushed, even in comparison to cour 1. The contents of Volumes 10, 11, and 12 are significantly more *LINEAR\* with more individual events being depicted compared to Volumes 1-9. This translates to more content vying for screen time. But how much content are we talking about here? Well, I don't want to go too deeply into raw numbers as that's not really the point but let's set a baseline with some quick-n-dirty math to illustrate:
S1c1 covers 1326 pg / 3 = 442 pg/vol (11 episodes) = 40.2 pg / ep S1c2 covers 1280 pg / 3 = 427 pg/vol (12 episodes + OVA) = 32.8 pg / ep S2c1 covers 1268 pg / 3 = 423 pg/vol (12 episodes + OVA) = 32.5 pg / ep S2c2 covers 1381 pg / 3 = 460 pg/vol (12 episodes) = 38.3 pg / ep
Obviously these are EXTREMELY rough numbers that don't take into account any of the cut content, non-chapter related pages, nor the difference in available runtime afforded to S1 that I previously mentioned, but just by raw page count, that's technically LESS content than what the first 11 episodes of Season 1 had to adapt! Surely they could just tweak a few things to make everything fit! Unfortunately, it's not that simple. You see, there's a distinct lack of a certain type of content that made the lives of the production staff significantly easier by providing plenty of opportunities to pick and choose what made it into the final cut of an episode's runtime to keep the mainline story of Rudeus chugging along at the leisurely clip we're accustomed to.

PART 2: Narrative Fluff (aka work smarter, not longer)

Spoiler: It's the sheer density of secondary character POVs. The very ones we often grieved being cut as the episodes were coming out during S1. They add depth and complexity to the characters (and are, imho, singularly the most *profoundly insightful* pieces of writing Rifujin-sensei has ever produced) but 90% of the time are simply repeating the same events from a new perspective. HOWEVER, when adapted to an audio-visual medium, you can SHOW both perspectives simultaneously and let the audience infer what's going on in a secondary character's mind through the use of voice acting, animation, staging, lighting, OST, and sound design thereby allowing the anime-only audience to receive 90% of the same information that was conveyed during those same events in the novels.
The "missing" Eris POV is the primary example of this disconnect between how little LN readers think Anime-onlys are inferring and how much is being successfully communicated to them even if they themselves can't properly articulate what it was they took away from any particular scene. I highly recommend paying close attention to Eris' face in the 3 following episodes after the events of Turning Point 2 RATHER THAN READING THE SUBTITLES (dub watchers have an advantage here but BOTH performances do an incredible job) and you'll see (and hear) what I'm talking about. Sure we don't get every beat of her thought process spelled out for us in quite the same level of detail as in her POV chapter, but you can sense her inner conflict while watching Rudeus practice Disturb Magic as they ride into the outskirts of Fittoa and her heartache at seeing him standing forlornly in the ruins of his destroyed childhood home. The idea that she doesn't feel "worthy" of him is already being communicated by her facial expressions and her body language. Her letter stating how they aren't "well-balanced" in combination with that visual information is already providing context clues to the viewer as to what's going on in her head. In her final scene you can hear the sheer depth of her love give way to a deeply instilled sense of self-loathing, just by the tone of her voice, as she hoists Rudeus up onto that pedestal. Yet as she nears the end of her melancholic monologue more of that brash, passionate nature of hers seeps back into her delivery as pours her heart out.
To quote Harry Plinkett: "It's so subtle, you might not have even noticed... but your brain did."
The only emotion you could argue was nerfed by the adaptation is the depths of her self-loathing for having "taken advantage of him" after their night together but they still get a line in about their age and size difference, which when heard in her self-flagellating tone describing how "awful" she's been to him, you can easily make that inference. But you might also say "AHA even in those 3 episodes they left out how devastated she was when Rudy beat her using the demon eye after she finally gained some confidence in her strength" to which I say: Watch Ep 13: Missed Connections and, again, pay attention to Eris. Every part off the Buffalo was used.
They also never deliberately spell out her ardent belief that Rudeus is so strong and smart and amazing and brave and perfect that regardless of whatever she wrote as she struggled to find the words to leave in her letter, he would just clairvoyantly understand her intentions.... but you don't really NEED that spelled out for you when her final appearance is her shouting to the high heavens about how in love she is directly juxtaposed with Rudeus reverting to his former self-image shut away in his bedroom after very specifically misunderstanding the meaning of her words and actions! "I LOVE THIS MAN she screams as the man she loves thinks to himself "I can't believe she doesn't love me anymore." Seeing that, anyone could conclude "Were you expecting him to just KNOW what you meant??" Yes. Yes she was.
The Eris' POV wasn't "skipped content"... it was integrated. It's broken up and repurposed in bits and pieces over the course of 4, count 'em, FOUR separate episodes but 99% of it is there if you know what to look for (which for anime onlys is considered rewatch value).
By going through this in such agonizing detail I hope I'm properly communicating one of the greatest hang ups LN readers seem to have (or adaptational purists in general) relative to their expectations: You are putting entirely too much value into dialogue, monologue, and the text of a script relative to every other element the medium has to offer. The absence of TEXT does not diminish the SUBTEXT. An individual viewer might not know WHY they believe a character motivation exists as it does, but by and large most will pick up on those details whether it be deliberate (in the case of a certain psychologist youtuber who keeps nailing plot predictions over and over BECAUSE ALL OF THE INFORMATION YOU NEED IS RIGHT, THE F**K, THERE) or subconsciously (in the case of most passive audience members).

PART 1 (COUR 2): THE RESCHEDULENING (aka MATH)

Now, having detailed how a POV chapter can actually be efficiently absorbed into the runtime of the show without disrupting or sidetracking the main narrative, let's re-examine the topic of how (as well as why) this affects the production schedule. As I previously stated, overall Volume 1-9 have quite a number of POV chapters to work around as buffers to the rest of the content. Don't believe me? Let me break it down a bit more then:
Vol 1 contains ~ 2 1/2 POV chapters out of 10 = 25% Vol 2 contains ~ 2 3/4 POV chapters out of 11 = 25% Vol 3 contains ~ 1 POV chapters out of 15 = 6.5% (one of the longer action heavy volumes, yet only 3 eps) On average ~19% of content is POV. Vol 4 contains ~ 2 1/4 POV chapters out of 12 = 19% Vol 5 contains ~ 4 POV chapters out of 11 = 36% Vol 6 contains ~ 2 1/4 POV chapters out of 15 = 15% On average ~23% of content is POV. Vol 7 contains ~ 1 1/4 POV chapters out of 8 (technically 9, short prologue + epilogue combined) = 15.5% Vol 8 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 12 = 17% Vol 9 contains ~ 3.75 POV chapters out of 12.5 (several very short POVs, adjusted for fairness) = 30% On average ~21% of content is POV. Vol 10 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 14 = 14% Vol 11 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 16 = 12.5% Vol 12 contains ~ 1 1/2 POV chapters out of 16 = 9% On average ~12% of content is POV. \Note* Several chapters are not purely dedicated to secondary character POVs but rather "cut aways" between Rudy's own perspective and are occasionally EXTREMELY short (I assigned 1/4 amounts for especially short POVs to give them weight, but to prevent over-representing them). Additionally while chapters vary in length they generally represent individual events which I feel is a more apt form of measurement to relate to the anime adaptation in place of page counts (you're not gonna find the table of contents, copyrights, or the author's afterward being adapted after all). These are VERY rough estimations and should not be taken as "objective" measurements.)
Look at that proportional difference for Volume 10-12 relative to the other cours. While production had the advantage of consistently folding a little more than 1/5 of the content into the current runtime the current cour has almost 10% more content competing for the same amount of screen time as the cour before it. In fact, it's significantly LESS screen time as only the 1st episode bypassed the OP/ED compared to Cour 1's 4 episodes (and if you include the OVA, cour 1 already had a 24 minute head start in addition to the extra 3 per ep for a whopping total of 36 extra minutes of runtime over cour 2), Even if we're exceedingly generous and assume the next 4 episodes skip the OP/ED each, that would still leave it at a 24 minute disadvantage just in comparison to cour 1, not to mention the additional screen time afforded to S1 as I've already covered.

Part 3: Screen Time as a Resource (aka Content / Time = Stress)

In a novel characters can engage in chapter length diatribes or strategic planning in their own heads, engage in "talking is a free action" whilst in a fight to the death, and all sorts of ridiculous temporal bending contrivances that simply do not translate to the screen where time is the single most precious commodity (unless you're a shonen protagonist charging up your kamehameha). So let's view this from the scriptwriters' perspective to understand why they are forced to make some very difficult choices. As you are starting work on your assigned episode(s), the show's production committee makes the call that while previously you were afforded as much as ~300 minutes (5 hours) to convey ~1K pages of material, this time you only get ~255 minutes (4 1/4 hours) to convey ~1200 pages of the same density of material. Much more information to convey in much less time and you only JUST BARELY scrapped by to include as much as you could the last 3 times. That's means that at a MINIMUM, 200 of those pages are destined for the cutting room floor.
Though speaking of shounen protagonists, action set pieces are extraordinarily useful for either expanding OR condensing a scene's runtime by exactly as much as you need to fit within an episode's runtime. Need to add time? Go balls-to-the-wall, high-octane, budget-melting sakuga insanity that outshines even the source material (Turning Point 2/Eris vs Assassins) or you can condense high page counts into surprisingly short runtimes while still conveying the impact and information stored in those several pages worth of text. High impact, malleable screen time, same information conveyed. More time to dedicate to world building and secondary character development. As such, S1 (cour 2 especially) had a TREMENDOUS amount of leeway in how much they wished to expand OR condense action scenes at their discretion compared to the (comparatively) action-lite S2 (for Cour 1 at least).
So then you might ask with Cour 2 revving up the action again, why is it instead CUTTING tons of those action scenes rather than merely truncating them to make space for dialogue scenes like the prior cours? The short answer is there's already no time to spare. The longer, more complex answer is action scenes can't exist in a vacuum. In the same way you have to accelerate and decelerate in your car evenly to get from point A to point B safely, you can't simply hit 0-60 mph in under 2 seconds and you certainly can't go from 60 to 0 in a fraction of a second unless you want an episodes' pacing to liquify like your internal organs. Before, during, and sometimes after a fight scene is initiated, several questions need to be answered for the audience like "Who/what is fighting?" "Where are they positioned?" "What is the level of threat?" "What are the stakes?" "What are the win conditions?" with greater or fewer questions depending on the complexity of the scene or it's meaning to the character(s). Failing to provide the audience adequate answers to these questions can easily result in a nonsensical farce.... unless that's literally your intention. Thankfully, the requirement for winding down action is much simpler. After a beat of heightened tension, your protagonist simply lowers their guard/weapon and the message communicated to the audience is "the threat is over" and within seconds you can move to the next scene.
Most major encounters follow this rhythm throughout the series, with individual chapters dedicated solely to these fights, spanning page counts that are generally (but not always) on the higher end. In general, there are only 1-2 major battles per volume. Vol 11 and 12, by contrast, have several chapters that contain a half dozen individual skirmishes apiece that make adapting the material a total NIGHTMARE to pick and choose what makes the cut. So as an example, a weirdly high amount of time is seemingly spent establishing the succubus encounter in ep 19. Why you may ask? So they could ride those same rules of engagement straight into the following montage to inform the audience "these fights possess the same rules of engagement we just established" without having to spend the additional time winding up each one individually (another, more humorous example, is Ruijerd "dueling" the 3 North God students in a row). The montage also pulls double duty by conveying both the passage of time and distance. You'd think truncating roughly 1/5 of the entire volume into a scant 60 seconds would give them plenty of extra time to work with, but sadly, the ability to condense content is still only enough to break even with the established pace.
Another major element that placed Season 2 at a massive disadvantage is that Season 2 had to use it's precious 25th episode OVA to *catch up* on content that was deferred from Season 1 as Sylphy's POV chapters starting all the way back in Vol 4 did not make the cut. So rather than getting a jump start, the OVA was actually just catching up on deferred content that could not be included DESPITE all of the tremendous advantages I've previously discussed. And even then, it still needed to skip all but a few scant details from the intervening chapters that bridge the gap between Sylphy becoming Silent Fitz and Ariel's entire entourage fleeing to Ranoa's University of Magic resulting in all but 5 of them being slaughtered by assassins in hideously gruesome fashion. In a nutshell, Season 2 actually only has 24 episodes to dedicate to itself, and most of the benefits of scheduling seems to have heavily favored Cour 1 over Cour 2.
At this point, assuming like everyone else who joined up with Studio Bind, you are yourself a massive fan of the series and absolutely love these novels, you are effectively being asked to CHOOSE your favorite children chapters to sacrifice in the name of ending the season at a satisfying arc conclusion. Sure you could just adapt at the same rate of chapters-to-screen time as before and conclude the final 12th episode with THAT THING THAT HAPPENS but somehow I feel like doing so would result in death threats being strapped to a brick and hurled through your office windows. You've certainly maintained the integrity of the show's original pacing, but telling fans to sit tight until the next production cycle is ready in another 2-3 years feels like a recipe for disaster.
And frankly, Vol 12 has some INTENSELY heavy dialogue/monologue scenes filing out the back half of the volume that are going to need significantly more screen time to convey the necessary information relative to the first half as it is ENTIRELY Rudy-centric. So the only way to get there with enough time to allow the season to reach a natural and satisfying conclusion and still hit all of the vitally necessary plot threads is to put those proverbial chapter babies containing some of your favorite character interactions and world building on the alter as a ritual sacrifice for more time on the clock. And what did those sacrifices get you? 5 episodes. A range of 105-117 minutes (depending on OP/ED usage) of screen time to cover the single densest volume since vol 3 (see above). Barely one episode ahead of pace (but in terms of available screen time still barely ahead) of prior cours. And if you think it's unfortunate that ACTION was being cut, oh lordy I have some *bad news for you.\*

Part 4: Screenwriting as an Artform (aka how write story gud)

"But why are they STILL so stretched for time if they have access to and are utilizing all of these time-saving techniques?" Well I'm hoping the previous 3 parts of this gargantuan multi-tiered super essay have helped establish the constraints Studio Bind are working under compared to the prior cours. Cour 2 is working with significantly LESS screen time, with MORE events to manage and they're already so stretched for time that even multi-chapter spanning story events like the Merchant caravan are being cut entirely, rather than merely abridged, to make up that difference.
The requirement for "essential viewing" grows ever higher as mundane scenes like coming in and out of the teleporter still HAVE to be given priority over fan-beloved moments of character development because as uninteresting as those kinds of expository, utilitarian scenes are, they serve a far more vital purpose in a screenplay for communicating to the audience the "BUT, THEREFORE, BECAUSE" flow of script writing (watch the video it's extremely short and a great explainer, but essentially "But = Complication", "Therefore = Next logical action", "Because = Character motivation for performing said action"). You literally cannot skip these unremarkable, bog standard scenes because doing so would commit one of the deadliest sins of storytelling that I was alluding to when discussing how to establish action scenes: The Discontinuity of the dreaded "AND THEN" statement. If you're watching a movie and it's a series of "and then this happened and then that happened and then this person showed up" it ceases to be less a story so much as watching someone's attention span annihilating slideshow of vacation photographs.
As an example, scenes like the ones that establish how, where, and why Rudy and Elinalise use the teleporter to get from Ranoa to Begaritt are slow, mundane, and heavily time consuming and yet are so absolutely necessary as a scriptwriter to take the time to make sure the audience can follow along the logical thru-line for how these scenes connect to one another. If you skip such seemingly trifling, yet necessary information, the audience is not going to react by saying "oh THAT SCENE I LOVE is coming up" but rather "wait, why are we in a desert?"
As an example I'll use the last 2 episodes to demonstrate. The logical flow of episode 19 into 20 proceeds as follows (some parts are truncated for *relative* brevity):
"Rudy needs to leave for Rapan. THEREFORE he tells everyone goodbye, BUT Nanahoshi knows how to teleport there. THEREFORE he changes his route with Elinalise. THEREFORE they get prepared BECAUSE they want to save Zenith, BUT Cliff proposes to Elinalise BECAUSE he feels his lack of commitment was making her nervous. THEREFORE Elinalise is caught off guard BECAUSE she originally intended to leave without telling him to break off their relationship. THEREFORE she accepts his proposal. THEREFORE they travel to the teleporter, BUT teleporters are considered a source of danger to adventurers. THEREFORE they study it first as a safety precaution. THEREFORE they verify it's safe operation and use it. THEREFORE they arrive in Begaritt, BUT they are attacked by a Succubus. THEREFORE Rudy needs to detox himself BECAUSE they want to keep their promise to Cliff and Sylphy. THEREFORE they continue their sexless journey, BUT they are attacked several more times. THEREFORE they kill the monsters and proceed with caution. THEREFORE they arrive in Rapan in ~6 weeks. THEREFORE Geese is surprised to see them when they arrive, BECAUSE he only sent the letter so recently. THEREFORE he takes them to see Paul. THEREFORE they reunite with Paul, BUT Paul has fallen back into depression BECAUSE they lost Roxy while failing to find Zenith. THEREFORE Rudy tells Paul about his marriage and pregnancy with Sylphy. THEREFORE Paul recovers BECAUSE of the joy and pride he feels for his son BUT still feels worthless BECAUSE of his failures. THEREFORE Paul finally notices Elinalise. THEREFORE he apologizes BECAUSE ....uh y'know that thing that happened. THEREFORE Paul and Elinalise reconcile BUT Paul is confused that she didn't sleep with Rudy BECAUSE of her curse. THEREFORE she explains her husband Cliff's magic tool BUT Paul can't believe she has a husband. THEREFORE they get into another spat BUT the rest of the party returns during their argument THEREFORE Rudy learns that Roxy is lost in the labyrinth. THEREFORE Rudy starts to panic as the party begins to squabble. THEREFORE Elinalise takes Rudy's shoulder to draw his attention BECAUSE she realized he was panicking. THEREFORE Rudy asks to be caught up on the situation. THEREFORE Paul describes the difficulty of the Teleportation Labyrinth. THEREFORE Rudy gives Geese the book detailing it's depths which he borrowed BECAUSE he would be using a teleporter to get to Begaritt, BUT it will take Geese time to read it. THEREFORE Paul calls the meeting to a close to allow Geese to adjust their strategy using the book. THEREFORE Rudy, Paul, and Lilia start talking, BUT Paul is still a crude dude. THEREFORE the topic turns to sex BUT Lilia is in denial about being a total sex freak. THEREFORE Paul teases her BECAUSE he knowns how much she likes it rough. THEREFORE they retire for the night after some locker room talk. THEREFORE they depart for the labyrinth the following day. THEREFORE they reach the labyrinth and begin their descent, BUT Paul is breaking formation to show off in front of Rudeus. THEREFORE Elinalise scolds him, BECAUSE she wants to keep her family safe. THEREFORE Paul flippantly dismisses her claims of thinking of him like a son, BUT he is unaware of their connection through Sylphy. THEREFORE they continue further into the Labyrinth maintaining their formation, BUT they encounter new monsters. THEREFORE Rudy starts to cast a spell, BUT Talhand advises him not to use fire BECAUSE it fills a room with poison BECAUSE the concept of carbon monoxide poisoning exists but isn't fully understood in this universe BUT he also advices not attacking the ceiling BECAUSE it could cause a cave-in. THEREFORE Rudy uses ice magic to kill the remaining monsters. THEREFORE they advance to the second stratum in proper formation. THEREFORE they breeze through the second formation and take a break before entering the third. THEREFORE Geese uses the opportunity to inform Rudy that the next section is where Roxy went missing and may still be near that area BECAUSE teleporter traps only warp victims within the same stratum. THEREFORE as they approach where they lost Roxy, Geese asks Rudy where he'd look for Roxy based on his intuition. AND THEN Using his intuition, Rudy notices condensation on a wall and uses his Roxy Odor Snoof Sense to detect Roxy's location through a damn wall despite being a contrivance BUT it's the same contrivance used in the source material THEREFORE shut up. THEREFORE we cut to Roxy BUT she's being surrounded by monsters. THEREFORE she casts numerous spells to hold them at bay, BUT she runs out of mana. THEREFORE she believes she's about to die BUT Rudy saves her just in the nick of time. THEREFORE Roxy is shaken to her core at the sight of the man who saved her despite not recognizing Rudy, BUT then her POV didn't play out the way it did in the novels THEREFORE LN purists got upset BECAUSE they assumed her POV had been cut BUT they forgot that Roxy's POV has always been shown tremendous favoritism by Studio Bind THEREFORE they jumped to conclusions unaware it would happen the following episode.

THEREFORE Calm down and let Studio Bind cook

Effectively the point I hope I have demonstrated is that there IS a logical and consistent thru-line from scene to scene to scene that an audience can follow (and if you want to improve as a screenwriter, this is a GREAT exercise to figure out what makes your favorite shows tick. It's basically the screenwriter's equivalent to tracing someone else' art as practice). Even these unfairly maligned episodes have a viewing experience that provides a consistent sense of pacing. But if you want to know WHAT precisely feels different about them? Well if I had chosen to break down episodes from any of the prior 3 cours (or the best episodes of this cour), you'd be seeing the word BECAUSE significantly more to fill out every action, reaction, and complication along the way. If "THEREFORE" and "BUT" are the easel and canvas, which are necessary to even begin the process of creating art, then "BECAUSE" is the screenwriter's paintbrush that allows them to breathe life and detail into the characters on screen. The prior 3 cours were awash with "BECAUSE" statements detailing why characters are behaving the way they are in every individual scene so if there's one crime that can legitimately be pinned against several episodes in the latest cour, it's "JUST 'CUZ."

PART FINAL: The TL;DR (aka the... tl;dr)

So having laid all this out in such verbose, granular detail, what exactly does all of this mean?
To put it bluntly, Season 1 being such a near-perfect masterwork of adaptation spoiled the ever loving hell out of us. Having gorged ourselves on that expectation, we've ruined our appetites because now such perks are simply anticipated as standard with a vocal minority now irked by the use of a standard OP simply because it follows the conventions of the medium or (stay with me here) committing the sin of appealing to shonen fans. I know, truly a crime worthy of sudoku because of 14 seconds depicting one of the single most important events in the series. I truly don't understand (seriously, explain it to me please).
The current cour is merely receiving the same treatment most adaptations are given while still outperforming its peers if weekly rankings are anything to go by. Episodes range from pretty good to excellent (Norn and Nanahoshi's spotlight eps being the highlights thus far despite some grumbling) with even the extremely barebones Ep 19 squeezing in what sparse worldbuilding nuggets it can despite the plot literally necessitating that Rudy book it from one side of the planet to the other within a 21 minute period (a production level pacing decision you are still free to criticize). As I said earlier (but it bears repeating) these episodes are a good adaptation of Rudy's story rather than the whole that makes up MT because it simply doesn't have the screen time to focus on anything that falls outside the scope of his perspective given the sheer breadth of competing narrative essential content. As a show, these episodes are still delivering a cohesive and engaging thru-line by being glued to Rudy's perspective. So as long as Rudy remains interesting to watch the audience will be more than satisfied.
Expecting the same anomalous level of dedication AND leniency from the production committee to happen for every season was unfortunately nothing but a pipe dream. Cour 2 is now being forced to make due with what it has and while they are doing a commendable job given the heavy restrictions, it is completely unreasonable to expect them to fit so much into such tight confines. It is the adaptation equivalent of being asked to fit everything into one grocery bag, but not wanting the bag to be heavy.
Could this cour have been scheduled better? Absolutely. Was it possible certain changes to the script or episode direction could have provided more opportunities to explore the cut content? Of course. Is it still a total bummer that the realities of production that have compromised the artistic integrity of our beloved peak fiction? Without a doubt.
We are simply going to have to get used to the fact that S1 may never be topped with our only hope being the return of the waifu-wars for S3 rekindles the beefs between animators vying for shot assignments (which may hopefully still be in the cards god willing).
Of course, I'm not a future seer, so maybe, just maybe, Studio Bind bursts into flames and all of the footage is lost resulting in the quality of the last 3 episodes to be the worst drop off of a television show since the final season of Game of Thrones. If that is the case then I'll be eating more crow than I ever have in my life. But if Studio Bind sticks the landing and delivers on the emotional climax to one of the most beloved arcs among the fanbase that we've anticipated for years, then please calm it down with these exaggerated "cutting content is ruining the show" claims.
Thank you from coming to my Ted Talk and enjoy the rest of the season everyone.
submitted by TitanAura to mushokutensei [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:48 DMeville Software to convert continuous recording clips on SD card to timelapse?

Have continuous recording on a bunch of cameras, and want to pull the cards out and make some timelapses on them. Video clips are saved in 1 minute intervals, in a new folder every hour, and every day.
Has anyone ever made as script that runs on windows that can just ffmepg through these files and arrange them into a timelapse? Allowing you to set the date range, and frame interval easily?
Only found this: https://github.com/rizz2pro/wyze_timelapse/blob/main/wyze_timelapse.sh and may try converting it to windows or just spinning up a linux vm to run it, but a little app with gui would be cool. Figured others could use it to, so something of the like must already exist? Anyone know? :)
submitted by DMeville to wyzecam [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:46 TitanAura The Struggles of Adapting Peak Fiction Under Strict Production Constraints

The Struggles of Adapting Peak Fiction Under Strict Production Constraints
\"But why not do both?\"
This is a follow-up to my last post defending the anime's decision to cut content for the sake of pacing but let me give you the TL;DR so you don't feel the need to have read that one before this as this post covers the same bases (and then some): The anime is first-and foremost the story of Rudeus Greyrat and must therefore prioritize his perspective, even at the cost of other characters' moments, regardless of how beloved those individual scenes are to fans of the Light Novels (myself included).
So let me start by addressing the strongest counter argument made in response to that post: "But the first season, and even Cour 1 of season 2 was able to maintain excellent pacing while having relatively few cuts! Why does the pacing in cour 2 still *FEEL* so rushed in comparison despite cutting so much?" That is an astute observation! And, quite frankly, you are asking the right questions. And for anyone planning to skip straight to the end of this admittedly \daunting* essay, here's a TL;DR for you: Episodes 19 & 20's reduced quality and heightened pace were done deliberately to provide the last 4 episodes of the season the space they need to breathe.* Continue reading if you want to find out how and why this had to be done.
It would be a fool's errand to argue that Cour 2 is NOT cutting less content than prior cours (because it absolutely is, and by quite a lot too), nor will I be arguing that the cour does NOT suffer some level of pacing issues because it absolutely is (see first post), rather I will be arguing in defense of the purpose of limiting the scope of what gets adapted, and why such decisions are necessary in the first place. However, before I delve any further into the specifics of Cour 2's production struggles, first I should elaborate how its production schedule differs from S1.

PART 1: Production Scheduling (aka setting the pace)

In case you were unaware, Season 1 was originally slated to be released in 2020 but was delayed to January of 2021 so it could actually receive all of the extra care and polish it truly deserved. For S2, Studio Bind's production staff, by contrast, had to make due with the time they were initially given. More time (and consequently more budget) usually fixes most production issues, but very few (extraordinarily rare) series ever receive that benefit and doing so twice was likely never even considered a possibility.
Sadly we are not in the alternate timeline where S2 benefitted from the same advantages that gave us gorgeous custom world-building OPs for every episode that freed up even more additional screen time for dialogue and character development (in some cases literally depicting entire chapters such as Paul's POV being shown during Ep 17's STUNNINGLY well executed OP montage). Thanks in part to that decision, S1 had significantly more wiggle room to work with, especially pertaining to the secondary cast, allowing it to more evenly adapt the world building, character development, and main narrative plotline of Mushoku Tensei as a whole utilizing that extra runtime (90 seconds per episode adds up to a LOT over the course of an entire season, plus the 5 EDs, that were integrated as needed on a per-episode basis, for an additional 7 1/2 minutes which adds up to a WHOPPING 43 1/2 MINUTES over the course of that 24 episode run and I should point out that S2 Cour 1 ALSO benefitted from this for the first 5 episodes including the OVA, giving that cour an added 9 minutes to utilize with Cour 2 receiving a paltry 3 minutes as only the 1st episode integrates the OP/ED runtime).
It's simply the reality that polish and quality was prioritized for S1 while scheduling and budget were prioritized for S2. If you want to be especially harsh, one could say S1 was treated as art, while S2 was treated as a commercial product, which is why I've set my expectations accordingly and hope this post helps others do the same. This becomes more apparent when you take into consideration that Studio Bind were also working on Onimai at the same time as S2 given their air dates were only 6 months apart. So not only was S2 not being given the same scheduling priority, it was COMPETING for resources. Given the BD sales numbers for every project they've released, at a minimum we can be assured that Studio Bind has been financially successful at least but the double edged nature of that success also means that certain priorities may have shifted away from MT and towards the new cash-cow. There's a reason I phrased my previous post so specifically: These episodes are a fine adaptation of Rudy's story.... and not much else because it simply doesn't have the screen time or resources to focus on anything besides Rudy's share of the narrative and character development.
Which ties directly into the second reason as to why cour 2 FEELS so rushed, even in comparison to cour 1. The contents of Volumes 10, 11, and 12 are significantly more *LINEAR\* with more individual events being depicted compared to Volumes 1-9. This translates to more content vying for screen time. But how much content are we talking about here? Well, I don't want to go too deeply into raw numbers as that's not really the point but let's set a baseline with some quick-n-dirty math to illustrate:
S1c1 covers 1326 pg / 3 = 442 pg/vol (11 episodes) = 40.2 pg / ep S1c2 covers 1280 pg / 3 = 427 pg/vol (12 episodes + OVA) = 32.8 pg / ep S2c1 covers 1268 pg / 3 = 423 pg/vol (12 episodes + OVA) = 32.5 pg / ep S2c2 covers 1381 pg / 3 = 460 pg/vol (12 episodes) = 38.3 pg / ep
Obviously these are EXTREMELY rough numbers that don't take into account any of the cut content, non-chapter related pages, nor the difference in available runtime afforded to S1 that I previously mentioned, but just by raw page count, that's technically LESS content than what the first 11 episodes of Season 1 had to adapt! Surely they could just tweak a few things to make everything fit! Unfortunately, it's not that simple. You see, there's a distinct lack of a certain type of content that made the lives of the production staff significantly easier by providing plenty of opportunities to pick and choose what made it into the final cut of an episode's runtime to keep the mainline story of Rudeus chugging along at the leisurely clip we're accustomed to.

PART 2: Narrative Fluff (aka work smarter, not longer)

Spoiler: It's the sheer density of secondary character POVs. The very ones we often grieved being cut as the episodes were coming out during S1. They add depth and complexity to the characters (and are, imho, singularly the most *profoundly insightful* pieces of writing Rifujin-sensei has ever produced) but 90% of the time are simply repeating the same events from a new perspective. HOWEVER, when adapted to an audio-visual medium, you can SHOW both perspectives simultaneously and let the audience infer what's going on in a secondary character's mind through the use of voice acting, animation, staging, lighting, OST, and sound design thereby allowing the anime-only audience to receive 90% of the same information that was conveyed during those same events in the novels.
The "missing" Eris POV is the primary example of this disconnect between how little LN readers think Anime-onlys are inferring and how much is being successfully communicated to them even if they themselves can't properly articulate what it was they took away from any particular scene. I highly recommend paying close attention to Eris' face in the 3 following episodes after the events of Turning Point 2 RATHER THAN READING THE SUBTITLES (dub watchers have an advantage here but BOTH performances do an incredible job) and you'll see (and hear) what I'm talking about. Sure we don't get every beat of her thought process spelled out for us in quite the same level of detail as in her POV chapter, but you can sense her inner conflict while watching Rudeus practice Disturb Magic as they ride into the outskirts of Fittoa and her heartache at seeing him standing forlornly in the ruins of his destroyed childhood home. The idea that she doesn't feel "worthy" of him is already being communicated by her facial expressions and her body language. Her letter stating how they aren't "well-balanced" in combination with that visual information is already providing context clues to the viewer as to what's going on in her head. In her final scene you can hear the sheer depth of her love give way to a deeply instilled sense of self-loathing, just by the tone of her voice, as she hoists Rudeus up onto that pedestal. Yet as she nears the end of her melancholic monologue more of that brash, passionate nature of hers seeps back into her delivery as pours her heart out.
To quote Harry Plinkett: "It's so subtle, you might not have even noticed... but your brain did."
The only emotion you could argue was nerfed by the adaptation is the depths of her self-loathing for having "taken advantage of him" after their night together but they still get a line in about their age and size difference, which when heard in her self-flagellating tone describing how "awful" she's been to him, you can easily make that inference. But you might also say "AHA even in those 3 episodes they left out how devastated she was when Rudy beat her using the demon eye after she finally gained some confidence in her strength" to which I say: Watch Ep 13: Missed Connections and, again, pay attention to Eris. Every part off the Buffalo was used.
They also never deliberately spell out her ardent belief that Rudeus is so strong and smart and amazing and brave and perfect that regardless of whatever she wrote as she struggled to find the words to leave in her letter, he would just clairvoyantly understand her intentions.... but you don't really NEED that spelled out for you when her final appearance is her shouting to the high heavens about how in love she is directly juxtaposed with Rudeus reverting to his former self-image shut away in his bedroom after very specifically misunderstanding the meaning of her words and actions! "I LOVE THIS MAN she screams as the man she loves thinks to himself "I can't believe she doesn't love me anymore." Seeing that, anyone could conclude "Were you expecting him to just KNOW what you meant??" Yes. Yes she was.
The Eris' POV wasn't "skipped content"... it was integrated. It's broken up and repurposed in bits and pieces over the course of 4, count 'em, FOUR separate episodes but 99% of it is there if you know what to look for (which for anime onlys is considered rewatch value).
By going through this in such agonizing detail I hope I'm properly communicating one of the greatest hang ups LN readers seem to have (or adaptational purists in general) relative to their expectations: You are putting entirely too much value into dialogue, monologue, and the text of a script relative to every other element the medium has to offer. The absence of TEXT does not diminish the SUBTEXT. An individual viewer might not know WHY they believe a character motivation exists as it does, but by and large most will pick up on those details whether it be deliberate (in the case of a certain psychologist youtuber who keeps nailing plot predictions over and over BECAUSE ALL OF THE INFORMATION YOU NEED IS RIGHT, THE F**K, THERE) or subconsciously (in the case of most passive audience members).

PART 1 (COUR 2): THE RESCHEDULENING (aka MATH)

Now, having detailed how a POV chapter can actually be efficiently absorbed into the runtime of the show without disrupting or sidetracking the main narrative, let's re-examine the topic of how (as well as why) this affects the production schedule. As I previously stated, overall Volume 1-9 have quite a number of POV chapters to work around as buffers to the rest of the content. Don't believe me? Let me break it down a bit more then:
Vol 1 contains ~ 2 1/2 POV chapters out of 10 = 25% Vol 2 contains ~ 2 3/4 POV chapters out of 11 = 25% Vol 3 contains ~ 1 POV chapters out of 15 = 6.5% (one of the longer action heavy volumes, yet only 3 eps) On average ~19% of content is POV. Vol 4 contains ~ 2 1/4 POV chapters out of 12 = 19% Vol 5 contains ~ 4 POV chapters out of 11 = 36% Vol 6 contains ~ 2 1/4 POV chapters out of 15 = 15% On average ~23% of content is POV. Vol 7 contains ~ 1 1/4 POV chapters out of 8 (technically 9, short prologue + epilogue combined) = 15.5% Vol 8 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 12 = 17% Vol 9 contains ~ 3.75 POV chapters out of 12.5 (several very short POVs, adjusted for fairness) = 30% On average ~21% of content is POV. Vol 10 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 14 = 14% Vol 11 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 16 = 12.5% Vol 12 contains ~ 1 1/2 POV chapters out of 16 = 9% On average ~12% of content is POV. \Note* Several chapters are not purely dedicated to secondary character POVs but rather "cut aways" between Rudy's own perspective and are occasionally EXTREMELY short (I assigned 1/4 amounts for especially short POVs to give them weight, but to prevent over-representing them). Additionally while chapters vary in length they generally represent individual events which I feel is a more apt form of measurement to relate to the anime adaptation in place of page counts (you're not gonna find the table of contents, copyrights, or the author's afterward being adapted after all). These are VERY rough estimations and should not be taken as "objective" measurements.)
Look at that proportional difference for Volume 10-12 relative to the other cours. While production had the advantage of consistently folding a little more than 1/5 of the content into the current runtime the current cour has almost 10% more content competing for the same amount of screen time as the cour before it. In fact, it's significantly LESS screen time as only the 1st episode bypassed the OP/ED compared to Cour 1's 4 episodes (and if you include the OVA, cour 1 already had a 24 minute head start in addition to the extra 3 per ep for a whopping total of 36 extra minutes of runtime over cour 2), Even if we're exceedingly generous and assume the next 4 episodes skip the OP/ED each, that would still leave it at a 24 minute disadvantage just in comparison to cour 1, not to mention the additional screen time afforded to S1 as I've already covered.

Part 3: Screen Time as a Resource (aka Content / Time = Stress)

In a novel characters can engage in chapter length diatribes or strategic planning in their own heads, engage in "talking is a free action" whilst in a fight to the death, and all sorts of ridiculous temporal bending contrivances that simply do not translate to the screen where time is the single most precious commodity (unless you're a shonen protagonist charging up your kamehameha). So let's view this from the scriptwriters' perspective to understand why they are forced to make some very difficult choices. As you are starting work on your assigned episode(s), the show's production committee makes the call that while previously you were afforded as much as ~300 minutes (5 hours) to convey ~1K pages of material, this time you only get ~255 minutes (4 1/4 hours) to convey ~1200 pages of the same density of material. Much more information to convey in much less time and you only JUST BARELY scrapped by to include as much as you could the last 3 times. That's means that at a MINIMUM, 200 of those pages are destined for the cutting room floor.
Though speaking of shounen protagonists, action set pieces are extraordinarily useful for either expanding OR condensing a scene's runtime by exactly as much as you need to fit within an episode's runtime. Need to add time? Go balls-to-the-wall, high-octane, budget-melting sakuga insanity that outshines even the source material (Turning Point 2/Eris vs Assassins) or you can condense high page counts into surprisingly short runtimes while still conveying the impact and information stored in those several pages worth of text. High impact, malleable screen time, same information conveyed. More time to dedicate to world building and secondary character development. As such, S1 (cour 2 especially) had a TREMENDOUS amount of leeway in how much they wished to expand OR condense action scenes at their discretion compared to the (comparatively) action-lite S2 (for Cour 1 at least).
So then you might ask with Cour 2 revving up the action again, why is it instead CUTTING tons of those action scenes rather than merely truncating them to make space for dialogue scenes like the prior cours? The short answer is there's already no time to spare. The longer, more complex answer is action scenes can't exist in a vacuum. In the same way you have to accelerate and decelerate in your car evenly to get from point A to point B safely, you can't simply hit 0-60 mph in under 2 seconds and you certainly can't go from 60 to 0 in a fraction of a second unless you want an episodes' pacing to liquify like your internal organs. Before, during, and sometimes after a fight scene is initiated, several questions need to be answered for the audience like "Who/what is fighting?" "Where are they positioned?" "What is the level of threat?" "What are the stakes?" "What are the win conditions?" with greater or fewer questions depending on the complexity of the scene or it's meaning to the character(s). Failing to provide the audience adequate answers to these questions can easily result in a nonsensical farce.... unless that's literally your intention. Thankfully, the requirement for winding down action is much simpler. After a beat of heightened tension, your protagonist simply lowers their guard/weapon and the message communicated to the audience is "the threat is over" and within seconds you can move to the next scene.
Most major encounters follow this rhythm throughout the series, with individual chapters dedicated solely to these fights, spanning page counts that are generally (but not always) on the higher end. In general, there are only 1-2 major battles per volume. Vol 11 and 12, by contrast, have several chapters that contain a half dozen individual skirmishes apiece that make adapting the material a total NIGHTMARE to pick and choose what makes the cut. So as an example, a weirdly high amount of time is seemingly spent establishing the succubus encounter in ep 19. Why you may ask? So they could ride those same rules of engagement straight into the following montage to inform the audience "these fights possess the same rules of engagement we just established" without having to spend the additional time winding up each one individually (another, more humorous example, is Ruijerd "dueling" the 3 North God students in a row). The montage also pulls double duty by conveying both the passage of time and distance. You'd think truncating roughly 1/5 of the entire volume into a scant 60 seconds would give them plenty of extra time to work with, but sadly, the ability to condense content is still only enough to break even with the established pace.
Another major element that placed Season 2 at a massive disadvantage is that Season 2 had to use it's precious 25th episode OVA to *catch up* on content that was deferred from Season 1 as Sylphy's POV chapters starting all the way back in Vol 4 did not make the cut. So rather than getting a jump start, the OVA was actually just catching up on deferred content that could not be included DESPITE all of the tremendous advantages I've previously discussed. And even then, it still needed to skip all but a few scant details from the intervening chapters that bridge the gap between Sylphy becoming Silent Fitz and Ariel's entire entourage fleeing to Ranoa's University of Magic resulting in all but 5 of them being slaughtered by assassins in hideously gruesome fashion. In a nutshell, Season 2 actually only has 24 episodes to dedicate to itself, and most of the benefits of scheduling seems to have heavily favored Cour 1 over Cour 2.
At this point, assuming like everyone else who joined up with Studio Bind, you are yourself a massive fan of the series and absolutely love these novels, you are effectively being asked to CHOOSE your favorite children chapters to sacrifice in the name of ending the season at a satisfying arc conclusion. Sure you could just adapt at the same rate of chapters-to-screen time as before and conclude the final 12th episode with THAT THING THAT HAPPENS but somehow I feel like doing so would result in death threats being strapped to a brick and hurled through your office windows. You've certainly maintained the integrity of the show's original pacing, but telling fans to sit tight until the next production cycle is ready in another 2-3 years feels like a recipe for disaster.
And frankly, Vol 12 has some INTENSELY heavy dialogue/monologue scenes filing out the back half of the volume that are going to need significantly more screen time to convey the necessary information relative to the first half as it is ENTIRELY Rudy-centric. So the only way to get there with enough time to allow the season to reach a natural and satisfying conclusion and still hit all of the vitally necessary plot threads is to put those proverbial chapter babies containing some of your favorite character interactions and world building on the alter as a ritual sacrifice for more time on the clock. And what did those sacrifices get you? 5 episodes. A range of 105-117 minutes (depending on OP/ED usage) of screen time to cover the single densest volume since vol 3 (see above). Barely one episode ahead of pace (but in terms of available screen time still barely ahead) of prior cours. And if you think it's unfortunate that ACTION was being cut, oh lordy I have some *bad news for you.\*

Part 4: Screenwriting as an Artform (aka how write story gud)

"But why are they STILL so stretched for time if they have access to and are utilizing all of these time-saving techniques?" Well I'm hoping the previous 3 parts of this gargantuan multi-tiered super essay have helped establish the constraints Studio Bind are working under compared to the prior cours. Cour 2 is working with significantly LESS screen time, with MORE events to manage and they're already so stretched for time that even multi-chapter spanning story events like the Merchant caravan are being cut entirely, rather than merely abridged, to make up that difference.
The requirement for "essential viewing" grows ever higher as mundane scenes like coming in and out of the teleporter still HAVE to be given priority over fan-beloved moments of character development because as uninteresting as those kinds of expository, utilitarian scenes are, they serve a far more vital purpose in a screenplay for communicating to the audience the "BUT, THEREFORE, BECAUSE" flow of script writing (watch the video it's extremely short and a great explainer, but essentially "But = Complication", "Therefore = Next logical action", "Because = Character motivation for performing said action"). You literally cannot skip these unremarkable, bog standard scenes because doing so would commit one of the deadliest sins of storytelling that I was alluding to when discussing how to establish action scenes: The Discontinuity of the dreaded "AND THEN" statement. If you're watching a movie and it's a series of "and then this happened and then that happened and then this person showed up" it ceases to be less a story so much as watching someone's attention span annihilating slideshow of vacation photographs.
As an example, scenes like the ones that establish how, where, and why Rudy and Elinalise use the teleporter to get from Ranoa to Begaritt are slow, mundane, and heavily time consuming and yet are so absolutely necessary as a scriptwriter to take the time to make sure the audience can follow along the logical thru-line for how these scenes connect to one another. If you skip such seemingly trifling, yet necessary information, the audience is not going to react by saying "oh THAT SCENE I LOVE is coming up" but rather "wait, why are we in a desert?"
As an example I'll use the last 2 episodes to demonstrate. The logical flow of episode 19 into 20 proceeds as follows (some parts are truncated for *relative* brevity):
"Rudy needs to leave for Rapan. THEREFORE he tells everyone goodbye, BUT Nanahoshi knows how to teleport there. THEREFORE he changes his route with Elinalise. THEREFORE they get prepared BECAUSE they want to save Zenith, BUT Cliff proposes to Elinalise BECAUSE he feels his lack of commitment was making her nervous. THEREFORE Elinalise is caught off guard BECAUSE she originally intended to leave without telling him to break off their relationship. THEREFORE she accepts his proposal. THEREFORE they travel to the teleporter, BUT teleporters are considered a source of danger to adventurers. THEREFORE they study it first as a safety precaution. THEREFORE they verify it's safe operation and use it. THEREFORE they arrive in Begaritt, BUT they are attacked by a Succubus. THEREFORE Rudy needs to detox himself BECAUSE they want to keep their promise to Cliff and Sylphy. THEREFORE they continue their sexless journey, BUT they are attacked several more times. THEREFORE they kill the monsters and proceed with caution. THEREFORE they arrive in Rapan in ~6 weeks. THEREFORE Geese is surprised to see them when they arrive, BECAUSE he only sent the letter so recently. THEREFORE he takes them to see Paul. THEREFORE they reunite with Paul, BUT Paul has fallen back into depression BECAUSE they lost Roxy while failing to find Zenith. THEREFORE Rudy tells Paul about his marriage and pregnancy with Sylphy. THEREFORE Paul recovers BECAUSE of the joy and pride he feels for his son BUT still feels worthless BECAUSE of his failures. THEREFORE Paul finally notices Elinalise. THEREFORE he apologizes BECAUSE ....uh y'know that thing that happened. THEREFORE Paul and Elinalise reconcile BUT Paul is confused that she didn't sleep with Rudy BECAUSE of her curse. THEREFORE she explains her husband Cliff's magic tool BUT Paul can't believe she has a husband. THEREFORE they get into another spat BUT the rest of the party returns during their argument THEREFORE Rudy learns that Roxy is lost in the labyrinth. THEREFORE Rudy starts to panic as the party begins to squabble. THEREFORE Elinalise takes Rudy's shoulder to draw his attention BECAUSE she realized he was panicking. THEREFORE Rudy asks to be caught up on the situation. THEREFORE Paul describes the difficulty of the Teleportation Labyrinth. THEREFORE Rudy gives Geese the book detailing it's depths which he borrowed BECAUSE he would be using a teleporter to get to Begaritt, BUT it will take Geese time to read it. THEREFORE Paul calls the meeting to a close to allow Geese to adjust their strategy using the book. THEREFORE Rudy, Paul, and Lilia start talking, BUT Paul is still a crude dude. THEREFORE the topic turns to sex BUT Lilia is in denial about being a total sex freak. THEREFORE Paul teases her BECAUSE he knowns how much she likes it rough. THEREFORE they retire for the night after some locker room talk. THEREFORE they depart for the labyrinth the following day. THEREFORE they reach the labyrinth and begin their descent, BUT Paul is breaking formation to show off in front of Rudeus. THEREFORE Elinalise scolds him, BECAUSE she wants to keep her family safe. THEREFORE Paul flippantly dismisses her claims of thinking of him like a son, BUT he is unaware of their connection through Sylphy. THEREFORE they continue further into the Labyrinth maintaining their formation, BUT they encounter new monsters. THEREFORE Rudy starts to cast a spell, BUT Talhand advises him not to use fire BECAUSE it fills a room with poison BECAUSE the concept of carbon monoxide poisoning exists but isn't fully understood in this universe BUT he also advices not attacking the ceiling BECAUSE it could cause a cave-in. THEREFORE Rudy uses ice magic to kill the remaining monsters. THEREFORE they advance to the second stratum in proper formation. THEREFORE they breeze through the second formation and take a break before entering the third. THEREFORE Geese uses the opportunity to inform Rudy that the next section is where Roxy went missing and may still be near that area BECAUSE teleporter traps only warp victims within the same stratum. THEREFORE as they approach where they lost Roxy, Geese asks Rudy where he'd look for Roxy based on his intuition. AND THEN Using his intuition, Rudy notices condensation on a wall and uses his Roxy Odor Snoof Sense to detect Roxy's location through a damn wall despite being a contrivance BUT it's the same contrivance used in the source material THEREFORE shut up. THEREFORE we cut to Roxy BUT she's being surrounded by monsters. THEREFORE she casts numerous spells to hold them at bay, BUT she runs out of mana. THEREFORE she believes she's about to die BUT Rudy saves her just in the nick of time. THEREFORE Roxy is shaken to her core at the sight of the man who saved her despite not recognizing Rudy, BUT then her POV didn't play out the way it did in the novels THEREFORE LN purists got upset BECAUSE they assumed her POV had been cut BUT they forgot that Roxy's POV has always been shown tremendous favoritism by Studio Bind THEREFORE they jumped to conclusions unaware it would happen the following episode.

THEREFORE Calm down and let Studio Bind cook

Effectively the point I hope I have demonstrated is that there IS a logical and consistent thru-line from scene to scene to scene that an audience can follow (and if you want to improve as a screenwriter, this is a GREAT exercise to figure out what makes your favorite shows tick. It's basically the screenwriter's equivalent to tracing someone else' art as practice). Even these unfairly maligned episodes have a viewing experience that provides a consistent sense of pacing. But if you want to know WHAT precisely feels different about them? Well if I had chosen to break down episodes from any of the prior 3 cours (or the best episodes of this cour), you'd be seeing the word BECAUSE significantly more to fill out every action, reaction, and complication along the way. If "THEREFORE" and "BUT" are the easel and canvas, which are necessary to even begin the process of creating art, then "BECAUSE" is the screenwriter's paintbrush that allows them to breathe life and detail into the characters on screen. The prior 3 cours were awash with "BECAUSE" statements detailing why characters are behaving the way they are in every individual scene so if there's one crime that can legitimately be pinned against several episodes in the latest cour, it's "JUST 'CUZ."

PART FINAL: The TL;DR (aka the... tl;dr)

So having laid all this out in such verbose, granular detail, what exactly does all of this mean?
To put it bluntly, Season 1 being such a near-perfect masterwork of adaptation spoiled the ever loving hell out of us. Having gorged ourselves on that expectation, we've ruined our appetites because now such perks are simply anticipated as standard with a vocal minority now irked by the use of a standard OP simply because it follows the conventions of the medium or (stay with me here) committing the sin of appealing to shonen fans. I know, truly a crime worthy of sudoku because of 14 seconds depicting one of the single most important events in the series. I truly don't understand (seriously, explain it to me please).
The current cour is merely receiving the same treatment most adaptations are given while still outperforming its peers if weekly rankings are anything to go by. Episodes range from pretty good to excellent (Norn and Nanahoshi's spotlight eps being the highlights thus far despite some grumbling) with even the extremely barebones Ep 19 squeezing in what sparse worldbuilding nuggets it can despite the plot literally necessitating that Rudy book it from one side of the planet to the other within a 21 minute period (a production level pacing decision you are still free to criticize). As I said earlier (but it bears repeating) these episodes are a good adaptation of Rudy's story rather than the whole that makes up MT because it simply doesn't have the screen time to focus on anything that falls outside the scope of his perspective given the sheer breadth of competing narrative essential content. As a show, these episodes are still delivering a cohesive and engaging thru-line by being glued to Rudy's perspective. So as long as Rudy remains interesting to watch the audience will be more than satisfied.
Expecting the same anomalous level of dedication AND leniency from the production committee to happen for every season was unfortunately nothing but a pipe dream. Cour 2 is now being forced to make due with what it has and while they are doing a commendable job given the heavy restrictions, it is completely unreasonable to expect them to fit so much into such tight confines. It is the adaptation equivalent of being asked to fit everything into one grocery bag, but not wanting the bag to be heavy.
Could this cour have been scheduled better? Absolutely. Was it possible certain changes to the script or episode direction could have provided more opportunities to explore the cut content? Of course. Is it still a total bummer that the realities of production that have compromised the artistic integrity of our beloved peak fiction? Without a doubt.
We are simply going to have to get used to the fact that S1 may never be topped with our only hope being the return of the waifu-wars for S3 rekindles the beefs between animators vying for shot assignments (which may hopefully still be in the cards god willing).
Of course, I'm not a future seer, so maybe, just maybe, Studio Bind bursts into flames and all of the footage is lost resulting in the quality of the last 3 episodes to be the worst drop off of a television show since the final season of Game of Thrones. If that is the case then I'll be eating more crow than I ever have in my life. But if Studio Bind sticks the landing and delivers on the emotional climax to one of the most beloved arcs among the fanbase that we've anticipated for years, then please calm it down with these exaggerated "cutting content is ruining the show" claims.
Thank you from coming to my Ted Talk and enjoy the rest of the season everyone.
submitted by TitanAura to sixfacedworld [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:46 Acceptable-Web9034 She[24F] broke up with me[26M] then slept with me for the first time?

Ill preface this by saying we both come from a culture/religion where we date for marriage, so on date number 1 we are already talking about how many kids, wedding stuff and etc.
We have been talking for a little over 3 months now, I live in Florida and she lives in Michigan. I mostly work remote so I will spend a few days every other week at her place. I had a trip planned overseas with my family for a wedding so I was out of the country for about 2 weeks, right before going on this trip I spent the week with her and we both had one of the best times of our lives exploring a 400 mile radius of Michigan.
I got back into the country on Wednesday and her Birthday was on Saturday so I decided that why not just spend the rest of the week in Michigan since I promised to be there for her birthday (My parents live about 2 hours from her in Michigan). When I told her I was in town, but she said she would be working on her birthday and that I should just go back to Florida. I was pretty suspicious about this since I had just returned from the other side of the world and also the fact she didn't seem excited about the presents I mentioned getting her.
I convinced her to let me come the morning before her birthday, so I show up and she was extremely excited to see me. Since she said I wouldn't be able to stay for her birthday we opened the gifts the day before and one thing lead to another and we're making out on her bed. Now I'm the one that has to slow things down when we are getting affectionate because we both believe in abstinence but this time I couldn't really do much since she literally put my dick inside of her and at that point I couldn't stop myself so we fucked...
A couple hours later we're driving to grab some Plan B (I pulled out, just don't trust it) and her phone is connected to carplay and I see a text from someone, she admits it's some guy she met at her job. She claims to have never been on a date with him and only started texting him since I left because she thought I would cheat on her while I was out of the country. For some reason maybe off of my own personal security I tell her to talk to whoever she wants so that way she doesn't second guess marrying me. We get to the house and she's all over me, as soon as I'm about to cum I feel she's clamping onto me so I literally had to use 10 years off MMA experience to throw her off. We go and get some more plan B since I'm pretty sure I did ejaculate a little inside her. I spend the night in her bed with her and after a long conversation she basically says we're moving too fast into the marriage process which I agree to take it slow, but she still wants to explore different options. We fuck again, and then I leave.
By the way, I am her second body, and her first was her ex husband. I am beyond confused. I asked for an explanation, and she says I am perfect, but she just wants to be sure she's making the right decision but she doesn't want me to wait around either. She is still calling and texting me and claims I'm fun to talk to, I don't understand shit. I am not ugly either, according to her I am the most attractive man she's met in a long time.
submitted by Acceptable-Web9034 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 22:44 OddAbbreviations5749 "40-Foot Lemon: The Complete Story of U2's POP & PopMart" Reactions Thread

I just finished this book, written by Geoff Harkness, in a day. Highly recommended.
Wow. I came away with both more respect and also more disappointment with the band in retrospect of this period. A few things stood out to me:
  1. The band, in particular Bono, had a very broad idea they wanted to capture musically—a mix of sounds from 94/95 Britpop and electronica—but never had any defined song ideas until after they recorded them first. It was on this album that they developed their current bad habit of not having any solid vision of songs pre-studio. They ran through song styles like going through Photoshop filters, and then tried to Frankenstein a finished song into existence cobbled together with the best bits from different takes and different styles.
  2. Larry's decision to wait until after September 95 to have his back surgery seems to have caused a lot of resentment, the after effects which we still see today. Larry's delay until after they had already regrouped at their planned date to start work reminds me of when in 2002 Shaq waited to have surgery on his toe until training camp started instead of during the offseason. A lot of people think that's why the Lakers didn't win a 4th in a row that year, since it meant they started the season 0-8. It is never confirmed, but I think the rest of the band had a timeline in mind and resented the 6 month delay Larry's surgery and physical therapy would have created. So that's why they went ahead and started writing and recording without him.
  3. Larry's way of showing his extreme displeasure of them starting without him was to insist when he returned that songs that had already been recorded without him would need to have the loops replaced with—if not his live drumming—samples of his live drumming.
  4. Because the band couldn't provide a consistent musical vision for them (or even finished songs), the creative team that put together the PopMart show relied on a lot of crowd-pleasing old songs. To his credit, Bono originally didn't want to have "Pride" and "ISHFWILF" in the show (I felt validated learning this, as I always felt those 2 songs stuck out like a sore thumb in the set). They only agreed to "I Will Follow" because they hadn't played it much in many years, while they insisted that "Bad" stay retired due to its omnipresence on every U2 tour since 1984.
They might have been close to finishing the album with a light-hearted mood when they went to Miami, but Bill Graham's sudden death while they were there killed the whole vibe of the album. I think that given Bill's relatively young age (he was only 10 yrs older than the band), and the fact that he was the guy who had kickstarted their young adult lives, put Bono in a somber, mid-life crisis/elegiac mood that he didn't shake until after the album was finished.
I think the reason why the band was convinced for so long that the Pop album was failure was that they played so many poorly attended shows where the only times the crowd reacted well were when they trotted out the old sing-alongs. I think Larry sandbagged a lot of it. I also think Bono's vague creative process at the time was fueled by a lot of herb. This is just my opinion, but the description of him during the making of the album (where marijuana use was documented by Spin magazine) sounds like classic pothead indecisiveness. Think Jim Breuer in Half Baked making a grocery store list, and that sounds like Bono during the Pop era. Smoking spliffs with Howie B would also explain why his voice really went bad (spliff = tobacco + weed).
Overall, they tried to make an album about the summer of 1995 London, and took too damn long to deliver it. I think audiences would have gone for it more if the album came out in 1996 instead. And U2 needs to learn to commit to the bit. Inviting hundreds of media to K-Mart, but not even taking 5 min to think about why in case one of them asks, will go down as one of their creatively laziest moments.
PS: I thought it was apropos that Francis Ford Coppola was at the PopMart premiere. The making of the album and tour launch reminded me a lot of the making of Apocalypse Now, where FFC ran into a similarly chaotic production that started without a finished script and 2 key cast members physically impaired (Martin Sheen had a heart attack mid-shoot, and Brando showed up a fat f).
submitted by OddAbbreviations5749 to U2Band [link] [comments]


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