Letter on how to tell someone your my best friend

I’m 24M and my GF or I guess now ex is also 24F. I’ve been dating this girl for about 5 months. It was simply amazing. Everything was perfect. The dates.. the meet ups.. the connection was perfect. We started off slow by just texting for a month until we finally hung out and started actually dating. We started a relationship and we were both very happy. She wanted to make me her future husband already. She was very into the idea of being with me forever. I started complaining about a couple things 5 months in because I had grown to love her more and my behaviour changed a bit. I accept that I was being a little demanding at times by asking to hang out more because of her busy schedule. I understand this kind of pushed her away a bit until I snapped on text one day.
She told me she had gone through an abortion in her past relationship of 6 years. I didn’t handle the news very well because of my own immaturity that day. I should’ve reacted a little better. I don’t judge her at all but I just had a bad reaction. She said it was a very abusive relationship. She also mentioned she was going to take time before getting into another relationship but she met me and fell in love. I apologized for my actions and she told me she just wanted time to fix herself for me. She said she has to close this chapter in order to start a new book with me. She also mentioned that she does want me and she wants me for life. She mentioned she doesn’t want to put my life on pause but she said she prays I don’t find someone else because she knows it’ll be just me and her one day. She also mentioned she’s not trying to pursue anyone else either and how it’s not the end to this. She said she wants to fix herself for me and us and be able to give me her “100% all”. I complained about some of her efforts and she agreed as well. I just want her as her 100% self.
I’m giving her all the time and space she needs. I sent 2 voice notes and a couple messages letting her know I’m still here and explained my actions. It’s been 3 weeks since our last meet up and she stopped texting me 1 week ago. I know the love she has for me, she’s just a very sensitive person who’s gone through a bad past. I made her feel safe but then I overreacted about some sensitive news she shared with me. We never fought before this. It was our first fight. I am confused on what to do. I’m hoping no contact would help in this situation. I’m holding onto her words in the back of my head but I’m choosing to just go no contact and focus on myself in the meantime. Im not pursuing anyone else because I have faith in our future since our only fight ever was on text and it just ended from there. I’m the one who truly messed it up and she was already all mine. I’m hoping time away from each other would help us maybe rekindle our relationship. She did tell me she wants me for life but at the time same time, time changes a lot of feelings. I trust her words because our connection is strong just like she said in her last message. I’m trying no contact as of yesterday to focus on me and also to give her time and space as well after this fight.
TL:DR Had my first argument with my GF and she asked for time and space to fix herself for me. She said she wants to be with me for life but decided to just walk away and she stopped responding to me. She said it’s not the end and how she just wants to fix things about herself in order to give me her 100%. Hoping no contact would be the best option right now to help rekindle things.

When I was preparing to take this course I wish I had a detailed review like this, so hope this helps...
General thoughts: I would be lying if I said this class is "easy." It's definitely not a class you can not study for at all and get perfect scores in. You need to put in the work. But it's not impossible, and definitely not as horrible as some people make it out to be.
Part 1 (Professor Ahmet Yildiz):
I went into the first section of the course thinking I'd need to memorize a bunch of amino acids, pKa's, etc.. There was not a lot of that. Yildiz is a professor who prefers application/conceptual understanding over brute force memorization. Take this with a grain of salt because the fall/other professors may have a different approach to the first section of 102. There is still quite a bit of info you need to memorize, but not to the extent people make it out to be.
His lectures are fairly dry. He did not know how to keep track of time/pace himself very well so he would often go thru only half a slide deck and need to pick back up during the next lecture. Thankfully he stuck to his word and did not expect us to learn info he didn't get to. Important to note that he has a fairly thick accent and talks quite fast so it can be difficult to catch every word he is saying at times. Nonetheless, his slides were pretty clear.
Exam was difficult but honestly not as bad as Ochem exams were for me. There's a mix of mcq, true/false, short answer, calculations, etc... The calculation questions were the hardest imo. Keep in mind he's a biophysicist so you'll see some of his physics background show up in the lectures & the way he frames his calculation-based questions. Regardless, the practice exam he gave from last year was definitely reflective of his exam.
He was the only professor to hold in-person office hours (helpful) and did stop for questions during lecture. Unfortunate part was that very little practice questions written by him were provided besides the practice exam.
Part 2 (Professor Evan Miller):
This section was quite content heavy, but was honestly my favorite section of the course. I attribute that to Miller's teaching. Miller is just amazing at what he does. He's super clear, succinct, articulate, knowledgable, and easy to follow along. His lectures pack in quite a lot of info but it never felt like that because he would annotate on his iPad alongside us as he taught. He always finished his lectures on time and was never in a rush. It's pretty obvious he has been doing this for a long time. He incorporated a lot of learning strategies in his section (active discussion/share-outs during lecture, pre/post surveys to assess student understanding, activities during discussion section, etc...).
Miller provided plenty of practice questions that were reflective/helpful for the exam. We received numerous problem sets, 2 practice exams, and practice questions built into the lecture. His exam was really long but because there was so many potential points - each question was not worth a whole lot (more room for mistakes). He was very upfront with his expectations and very helpful in office hours (held via Zoom).
Miller's section did incorporate some Ochem mechanisms but there were only 2-3 mechanisms on the exam. His section requires a combination of pattern recognition, memorization, and application. Very little to no math. After doing a bunch of practice questions you really get a feel for the type of questions he likes to ask.
Part 3 (Professor Ross Wilson):
People told me this section would be the easiest of the course. Not necessarily the case.
Professor Wilson is an extremely kind and easy-to-talk to/down-to-earth guy. He was always smiling, laughing, and making it easy to approach him. Nonetheless, his section's structure was not very helpful. Lectures were pre-recorded videos from 2020 that we were expected to watch on our own time. During the scheduled lecture time, Wilson would occasionally (on select days) show up to the lecture hall and do a Q&A / mini-review of the most recent lecture videos. Keep in mind these pre-recorded lectures were often an hour or longer. Wilson also stuttered/mumbled a lot. He would say something and then start questioning what he himself said or take something back. Or he would post a "correction" to something he said in the lecture videos. When people would ask questions during his in-person sessions, he would often get thrown off or not have a clear answer. I'm sure he's a smart guy but not necessarily the best teacher.
Wilson would provide really short assignments to complete (1-2 questions) but would then tell us that these questions were very hypothetical, not the best questions, too challenging, etc... Wilson constantly said he would not write such tricky questions on exams, but this wasn't necessarily the case. He was also constantly making comments about how he could have worded certain things better.
He was nice enough to provide ALL exams he's given while he's taught this course. He told us the most recent practice exam (2023) was going to be the most reflective, which was not 100% true because that exam was much much easier than ours and had questions straight up copy/pasted from previous years. Our exam was much harder than I expected it to be because the fill in the blank questions/MCQ's were each worth a lot of points. Getting one word or question wrong was quite costly. It was sometimes unclear what Wilson was asking for, or two answer choices seemed correct for the MCQ. It was kinda shocking because Wilson made it seem like his exam was going to be the easiest/ most straightforward when in reality it was quite challenging.
Content-wise, Wilson packed a LOT into his lectures. It was hard to sense what was essential info and what was more supplemental/examples. The way he structured his lectures often felt out of order. The man did provide an "elements to know" list with essential terms/concepts however, which did help.
I would argue part 3 was the hardest section of the course because of the structure/teaching style though Wilson is a hella chill guy.
Overall thoughts:
This course definitely takes foundational concepts from Bio 1A and builds on it (with some added Ochem ideas/principles and a bit of math).If you liked Bio 1A you will probably enjoy the course content. The professors were pretty decent but had 3 different teaching styles/course formats so I could see people getting lost with expectations/deadlines/assignments if they didn't attend class in-person. It would have been nice if things were consistent across the three sections.
One issue I had with the course was the lack of transparency regarding course grading. It took many weeks for the first exam to be graded and then the regrade process was a little chaotic. The professors never brought up grade bins during class nor was there anything about grades in the syllabus. I never knew how I was doing or what grade I might get in the class. People kept telling me that to get an A you had to do approx 1.5 stdv above average, which definitely caused some anxiety.
If you have to take this class I'd recommend it in the spring. For the spring semester, you get a 4x6 cheatsheet notecard for every exam (not always useful but still better than nothing). Lecture recordings are always provided (which I heard isn't the case for all 3 sections in the fall). The professors ended up being very generous with the final grade bins for the course. We weren't provided with final cutoffs, but the head GSI suggested that approx 60 percent of the class got some form of A's or B's.
I was fortunate enough to do well in the course, so here is my advice for future students... 1) Don't skip lecture/ always attend in-person! I never missed a single one so keeping up with the material was not an issue. It's super easy to get behind in this class yet significantly difficult to get back on track once you slip up 2) Attend professor OH: I did this off and on but when I did go they were helpful. 3) Go to all review sessions - I attended GSI review sessions, professor review sessions, and the SLC ones - you have nothing to lose by going (more exposure to material the better). 4) Grind out ALL the practice exams/problems provided. They are 100% the best way to prepare for exams. 5) Take good notes and actually review them frequently. 6) Make Quizlet or Anki your best friend: I used flashcards to prep for every section and studied them on the daily. 7) Ask questions on ED or during discussion section: GSI's are very kind & willing to help.
I used the textbook a little bit for part 1 (was somewhat helpful) and did not for parts 2 & 3. You don't need it, nor would I recommend going searching for Youtube videos. Lecture has everything you need. Oh, and there's no cumulative final! Midterm 3 (section 3 exam) happens during the allotted final exam time. Workload for the class is on the lighter side - just some problem sets that are graded on completion.
All in all, I actually enjoyed the course to some extent. It was definitely a rollercoaster of emotions / a challenging journey, but I think if you put in a lot of work/effort and remain positive - an A is not out of reach. This is not a Bio 1A/1B or Chem 1A where you can simply study the night before and still do amazing (all 3 exams had averages between 55 and 60 percent btw). But it's not at all the horrible class people scare you into thinking - it's likely easier than the physics series here and some upper div MCB courses. I wish people didn't make this class seem like it's straight out of a horror movie, but at the same time hearing people's experiences definitely pushed me to work harder.

Hi, this might be a bit long and a bit messy, I'm not in the best mindspace right now and I'm very disoriented. For starters, I'm 14f and my mom is turning 40 this year. In my country, all 14 year olds must take an exam for finishing middle school and all the materials for maths and native language for the past 4 years are going to be on it so yea, I'm a month away from that exam.
My mom has been battling cancer since August 2022. She has liposarcoma, which for those who don't know is a rare type of cancer that forms up in the fat in your body. At first, it started out as a 30 cm tumour in her abdomen, which doctors in my home country passed it off as body fat. Only when she went to a doctor in a different country did she find out it was in fact cancer. The doctors quickly told her to get surgery, which she did a week later. She recovered after a month and we all thought that was that. Except it wasn't. Apparently, the surgeon who did the surgery had missed a small part of the tumor hidden behind the stomach, so the cancer came back. She started treatment in December that same year and was frequently going in and out of the hospital. She first was a patient for an experimental treatment, which had a 50% success rate. Unfortunately, for her it didn't work. Once the doctors saw that, they started chemotherapy. She would do chemo for two weeks, come back home for another two and then go back. This cycle continued until June 2023 when she did a brief pause as she didn't have enough white cells to continue the treatment. In September 2023, she started treatment again and she got better and better. It was like having my mom back. In early December 2023, she was cancer free. The tumor had disappeared and there were no signs of any others. Except the cancer came back only two months later, this time more aggressive. In February 2024, my mom had fainted from a severe headache. Once in the emergency room, it was discovered she had 5 new tumors. One in the abdomen, a small one near her heart and 3 near her brain. She had fainted due to a huge one near her brain that was applying pressure on it. Once again, she had surgery. This time they only removed the tumour that was applying the most pressure, as removing all of them would be quite risky. She did a few rounds of radiotherapy to ease the pain and make the tumours smaller, which did help as the tumour near her heart disappeared, but the ones near her brain only got bigger. She started doing chemo in late March/early April and she has been in the hospital since. They only did one week of chemo and then she was barely conscious for a week. Afterwards, she was getting better and steadier, she even started walking again on her own. Yet at the beginning of this week, it got worse again. Apparently, there's 6 tumours near her brain now and chemo wasn't doing much to help. She's going to start chemo next week again, but the doctor told us not to get our hopes up as the situation is very severe and haven't been a lot of cases like these. They've done everything they can, tried experimental treatments and more. The doctors said she would be lucky to even see me start the next school year. I don't know how to process all this. I always knew there was a possibility she wouldn't get better, but I never thought it would actually happen. I'm close to my mom and we used to have mother-daughter days before all this went down. I can't imagine losing her and I don't know what to do with all these emotions. I'm scared, I don't want to lose my mom, she's been there for everything and she's my best friend.
Any advice on how to act next would be greatly appreciated, thank you for reading this.

Hello All, I posted on here about a month ago about my struggle of figuring out my relationship with my husband who is also questioning his sexuality. You can read it here. Appreciated all the kindness received.
Anyway the more I explore this and accept the truth of who I am. The more I realize that #1 you have to talk about it. Whether that’s in therapy, to your friends or to the strangers on the internet. Even all of the above like I’ve been doing. Every time you share, that weight you’ve been carrying lightens a little. #2. The topic of this post and why I’m expanding on my story instead of half sharing the truth. If I can help someone not go through the trouble I have then my internet sharing is worth it.
Going through this journey it’s been really helpful to me to think about my past, present and the most difficult how I see my future.
I’ll start with my past, both behaviors and stuff that made me want to hide those behaviors. Also trigger warning abuse and SA present, but truth helps.
My parents were teen parents and divorced by the time I was 2. I was in custody of my mom who was very unstable. One day she would be amazing and we would read books all day and normal fun mom stuff. Some days she wouldn’t leave bed. Other days she’d have so much uncontrollable anger she’d break everything in our house. It was a dice roll everyday of my childhood on if she was gonna be dead, nice or a raging bitch.
When I was 5 years old, I was obsessed with the Spice Girls. Particularly Sporty Spice. I wanted to be just like her. My mom told me “why can’t you be into any of the other ones that aren’t lesbians” Funny because to my knowledge Mel C is not gay and just prefers to wear athletic clothing. Still not off to a good start.
Pretty much exclusively only played with boys because I could not understand how to relate to girls. Anytime I played pretend or Barbies with girls, I wanted to be Ken or the dad or whatever. That definitely weirded some friends out. So I mainly had friends that were boys that I could play sports with. My mom would always make comments about how hanging out with boys was “unladylike”.
My dad got remarried and my step-mom was not having my little tomboy self. She made my mom look like a saint. Literally forced me to wear makeup and clothes I did not want to wear, by any means necessary. I was smacked by a variety of objects. Told me I would not be allowed to see my dad if I continued to want to “act like a boy” said I was a bad influence on my step - sister. I was literally just existing as I always had with my more stable parent. Unfortunately my dad loves this woman and followed along. It is what it is. Naturally even though I love my half brother and step-sister. I stopped visiting except at extended family holidays.
Through out my childhood my mom would have “boyfriends”. In a sense they were but really these men were people my mom was using for a house or drugs or whatever she thought she was into at the time. So my role model for relationships was sleeping with men will get you where you want to go. Some were very nice, some were extremely not.
Enter my half sisters dad/ my step dad. My mom married him around the time I was going through puberty. He was noticing that I exclusively hung around boys and assumed I was interested. Took it upon himself that he should teach about sex. He started with making me watch porn with him and then would start to suggest I practice stuff with him where it was safe. I was 11. I had learned from dealing with my mom that voicing my feelings just lead to blow ups. So I went a long with it even though I was uncomfortable. Luckily they divorced when I was 13.
So a trauma response when you can’t fight or flee is to disassociate. You just go off in make believe land until the danger passes. My make believe land was always my pretend relationships with girls I had crushes on. Anytime throughout childhood that’s where my mind went when I was stressed.
By the time I got to high school I had started having trouble making friends. I couldn’t hang out with guys anymore because they naturally wanted hook up with me. I couldn’t hang out with girls because I couldn’t separate attraction and jealousy from friendship. No home life. This ended up with me attempting suicide my sophomore year.
Luckily I survived. I stay kinda quiet but I’m able to find an outlet in sports and I am so thankful for that. Once I found out sports scholarships were a thing, and could help me escape my home I was all in.I also at this time began the same pattern as my mom. I was dating a boy who was two years older than me and living on his own. I lived with him and put up with intimacy because I was out of my house. He dumped me when he found out I was going out of state for college. He was also always very jealous I was excelling at my sport and getting offers.
College I joined a sorority and started hooking up with lots of guys. In my head it wasn’t that I wasn’t attracted to men. It was that I was afraid of sex due to my childhood and I could exposure therapy myself into liking it. As you can guess that doesn’t work. I stopped because it was not helping my emotional well being whatsoever. I told myself the next guy I hook up with is going to be someone I “love”.
I met my now husband 2 years after graduating college. He was perfect. He was not actively trying to get me to have sex with him ever. We had similar experiences of not being able to connect with others in school. We truly enjoy each other’s company. We can’t figure out sex though. I thought it was just an aversion because of my traumatic childhood. Not being attracted to him never crossed my mind.
So now the present. You can only repress yourself so long. On paper my life looks incredible. Stable job, husband is enjoyable to be around, upper middle class shit. Literally the life I longed for as a child. But I feel empty, trapped, stuck. I’m still disassociating with fake women relationships all the time. Thoughts I assumed would just go away when I got married, they don’t.
I think the best thing that’s helped me lately navigating this is asking myself “am I doing this because I want to or because I think someone else wants me to”. Is it because I’m scared of reaction or because I want this. I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that if I’m worried about my husband’s feelings at the expense of my own, I’m never going to have fulfillment or feel like I’m living life.
I still have a lot to unpack and deal with because I still am afraid of homosexuality due to the literal beating of it out of me. What I can tell you is at least accepting I’m attracted to women has given me a confidence I have never felt in my life. I look forward to finding out more of who I am, when I’m not avoiding others reactions. I am so grateful I stumbled on this community. I encourage everyone to keep sharing. You never know who you may be helping.

I will summarize the story the best I can cuz telling stories isn’t my strength.
Three weeks ago a friend of my roommate stayed over in our apartment while my roommate was on a trip, this guy came to celebrate the holidays in the country we live and my roommate said he could stay for the weekend in his room. (for context; this is a normal arrangement that we have where our friends often will stay over with us instead of paying for a hotel)
So I (24 F) was hosting this guy, let's call him Broccoli (30 M), whom my roommate told him to don’t talk to me or bother me because I was very reserved lol, but from the very beginning when he texted about his landing I was replying with silly jokes so he wouldn’t feel awkward being in a stranger house, I did not had much info about him or did he about me. First night here we had a conversation about life, career, and other personal stuff, by the second night we barely talked or saw each other because during the day he was celebrating the holidays and I was working, three Doritos later, or aka third night, we already had a first date with dinner, coffee, arcade, cocktails and kinda end up having sex, kinda because he made me and himself so physically exhausted with all that crazy adventure around the city, from the moment we had coffee I tried to take us home but he wanted to make a big impression I guess, which I find cute.
Since then he has gone back to the country where he lives and works (Idk if it is relevant to the story, but in case is confusing to someone, none of the people mentioned in this story including myself, are originally from the countries where we currently live, European union stuff I guess) and currently, we are E-Dating and I do want to know where this goes since we did a nice match and he shows how interest he is in me, he told me he wants me to come to visit him in the end of the summer and even said he will pay for the tickets after I told him I don’t think I have money for that since I already have few trips scheduled, like for example I will be going to US to visit my family in July so I will be gone from Europe 4 weeks and with a heavy time difference which means we will barely even speak in that period, so he already bought tickets to visit me before I leave for US so we can spend time together, which is crazy because I even said that we will not have any sex because my roommate will be home, I will have my period and I am just too uncomfortable/in pain for that, that I will not have days off because I am just coming from a vacation so we only will have by time before or after work and he still did not hesitate to buy them.
So here comes the issue, I don’t know how to bring up this aspect of my life to him, I want to be honest with him and usually goes more smoothly because I get to meet the person for a few months before bringing it up, but since he is doing a lot of money investment in me so the ideal will be from the moment he comes to ask what are his expectations from me, from us, like I can have a monogamous relationship, I did in the past, but we probably will be E-dating for a while before anything, so I don’t know till what point I can compromise or settle without feeling that I am hiding something from him of who I am as a person. Originally during the dates Broccoli is coming, I was going to have a different friend over to have sex because my roommate was going to be on holidays, and I cancelled to prioritize Broccoli but also before meeting Broccoli in a few weeks, I already have a weekend trip scheduled to the mediterranean which he knows of because I said I was visiting friends, what he doesn’t know is those friends are a guy I used to date and his new partner that they invite me to celebrate with them that they got a new apartment, a threesome basically, which I already planned and paid for the tickets before even knowing Broccoli existed, and is kinda weird because I don’t want and I will not cancel this arrangement because tickets are bought and Broccoli is not even my boyfriend, which means I don’t feel the need to give explicit details about me going on a weekend trip to another country to have a threesome, but I do feel the need of being honest about my sexually active life. And also I am of course assuming Broccoli is monogamous, and this is because when we had sex that night he did not want to use a condom because he wasn’t able to feel anything he said, which I told him I am not doing raw sex and his answer then was “that’s not an issue if we are exclusive” YIKES like this is his red flag so far, my last thought in that moment was STI, I was concern about pregnancy because the only thing stopping me from it are condoms, and I am not looking forward to hormone myself with pills since my body is fine, and even though I am sexually active I never had to drink a day after pill and have never done a pregnancy test in my life because It was never a need, I did not want to start now because of this guy that I just met, I still want to give him a chance, assuming we can figure something out with the condoms, but is like oh my god you don’t want to use condoms you don’t even know what I have we just meet each other (I don’t have anything and I did not say that out loud either but those are my current thoughts when reflecting about he not being worry enough about condoms, was of course also a weird moment to bring up like well you are not my first roommate’s friend that I sleep with)
In conclusion, how should I approach him when he comes, to talk about what are his relationship expectations with me since we live in different countries for now and how to bring up that my past and present active life have being very much like this story.

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[currently on episode 8]
My two cents on events and the people -
— Courtney & Aiden I liked how Aiden treated Lebo a lot. Courtney was just a mystery. I feel like these two didn't get a lot of screen time but it could also be because there was no/little drama. Didn't get good vibes from Courtney after they moved back. The "dude" thing was very off putting. Aiden seems like a nice guy, but he's indecisive and unemployed. Why does Courtney want to marry him if she's looking for stability? They don't even look like they're crazy in love or something.
— Khanya A lot to say about her. This is a long one. She was abusive in many ways. However, (unpopular opinion coming), I don't think that the points that she was making were unreasonable. It was her way of doing it.
Example 1, when she met Isaac's friends and they started asking her about why Isaac hasn't been eating well when there's a woman in the house. I would not entertain that sexist BS either. That was out of line. This made Isaac get on her nerves about dishes. Yes, I personally like things clean BUT we're all different people. In an ideal scenario, yes the dishes would be done when you're living with someone BUT these people are all strangers and I wouldn't be doing my chores on someone else's time especially if they're being an ass to me. The whole "what do you bring to the table" thing was also crazy for me for because 1. It's not a job interview and 2. They barely knew each other. He could've asked her anything like "what are some aspects you're trying to work on? Or what do you think works in your relationships?" Anything. Endless possibilities. And he chose the stupidest question.
Example 2, the siza, nkateko, and her scene. Uhfff. There was too much rage in that scene and it was hard to watch. I'm sure everyone understands how badly khanya behaved there but I'll play the devil's advocate for a second. Siza, while seems like a really nice person, has some issues to deal with with her laughing situation, because when you laugh in front of (or worse, AT) an angry person, it tends to agitate them further. Because it's not funny. Be an adult for a second and recognise that this is a serious situation. I understand that laughing is a coping mechanism for some people but it's not always perceived well. Two, Khanya was in fact right for establishing boundaries. Like hello, you showed up unannounced in someone else's house. Nkateko did the same thing. Just barged in like he owned th house with no regard to the othe person living in the house. Where are your manners? Idk if this is a cultural thing because everyone kept going to everyone's house without notice, just randomly showing up. I don't get it.
Lastly, I understand that a lot of people might not agree with me here but I'm trying to understand why Khanya behaved that way. She is a strong woman who's not afraid to speak her mind and society doesn't always take that well. Clearly, Isaac's mom hated her and I see that their culture treats men and woman differently. This is not to take away from the fact that she was abusive and escalated situations that could've been handled better.
— Ruth, Isaac, Nolla, Lebo Lebo's a gem and I hope she blocked Nolla from her life. Period. Nolla, doesn't deserve any attention. Ruth, love that she's unapologetic about her actions. She knows what she wants and she's not afraid to ask for it. Deserves muchhhhhh better than Isaac and def Nolla. Isaac, man, get off your high horse. There's some deeply ingrained gender superiority in that man. I have a bad feeling about him.
— Sizakele & Lindile This couple is a question mark for me. Like why come to a show like this when you've only been together for 6 months? Also, the whole gift thing, Siza again just randomly showed up at someone's house and ruined their evening. Like stop going to other people's houses. It's not wrong to speak your mind, but there is a time and place for it, ideally arranged in advance, agreed by both parties.
— Thabi, Genesis, Lindile Genesis looked a bit hurt but I liked how he was dealing with things. Showed maturity. Thabi and Lindile really got along well I think. The Love triangles are messy, def not as bad as the other couples tho. At least they're keeping it civil. I feel like these 3 people at least seem aware that they are on television while the others seem to have forgotten this liittle detail.
In conclusion - I didn't understand why they were trying to replace their partners permanently. The idea is to work on your issues and go back to your OG partner. While there's always room for feelings to develop, it's like no one really spoke about their old partners with the idea of working on their relationships with them. I think they completely missed the point of the show here, but in the drama department, the season was on point!! It was a bit too intense honestly. Could've held back a lil and I never thought I'd say that for the ultimatum/lib producers lol.

Ever since I was younger i've felt like I was left out and didn't have many friends. I moved across the UK when I was 5 and even at that young age it didn't help that I was moving schools. In year nine (age 13/14) I made my first actual group of friends; but even then I was never anyone's number one friend. I wasn't invited over as much as anyone else, secrets were kept from me, things would go on that I didn't know about and overall I was second best at most. I was friends with them until year eleven (age 15/16) and when we moved across to sixth form I gained a different group of friends.
I never had any problems with bullying in school and it's safe to say I was a generally likeable person, but moving into sixth form initially without anyfriends was very difficult. About 2 months in I did gain my new group of friends, but the same thing happened again - I wasn't anyone's number one best friend. I know this probably doesn't sound that hard but knowing you were always second best has had a lasting affect on me. Knowing I was almost disposable in a way I guess? I know my friends liked me, but I wasn't really that important. After finishing sixth form at age 18 and moving onto university, I chose not to live at Uni and travel everyday because the accommodation just didn't work out.
I ended up going to uni with one of my good friends from school. We weren't in the same friendship group before and never saw each other outside of school but we always got on well and we have the same sense of humour. We both commute every day for Uni and she has become my best friend in the whole world.
She is sweet, funny, kind, generous, incredibly smart and so many other things and I know I am her number one best friend aswell. Us both not living at uni has definitely altered how we have made friends as neither of us really have any close friends at uni. We both talk to people and get along with them, but us both commuting together has helped us become great friends. I am finally someones number one best friend and it's everything I ever imagined to be honest, I'm so grateful to have her, but I struggle a lot with jealousy.
She has an amazing boyfriend who I also love and get on well with. They go together like two peas in a pod and I know one day they're gonna get married. I have my own wonderful boyfriend who I love so much and I'm in no way jealous of her relationship, I don't think either of our relationships is better than the other. But why do I still feel jealous?
I'm so happy she has this great guy that takes her out and treats her how she's meant to be treated, but I almost feel like I'm being left out again. I feel second best all over again when I see them together and I feel awful about it. She isn't leaving me out in any way either, I probably see her the same amount and we also do fun things together - for example we recently did a murder mystery night away for my birthday - but how can I stop feeling like this?
I know this stems from me always feeling second best, and feeling afraid that I am again, but I don't want to feel that way. I know she loves us both, so why do I compare myself? And before anyone suggests it, no I'm not in love with her. Does anyone have any advice? I could really use it.

Hi there,
I recently picked up this old ooznest ox for free, it supposedly works but needs some work to get back up and running. The physical machine seems mostly ok but the wiring will need to be all redone. If this was a 3d printer I could have this all done no problem lol, but I have never owned or messed around with a cnc before so I only know very basically where to start.
It is running an arduino shield on it and I have all the steppers wired up correctly and all the end stops connected to the board properly (it was after I took the picture). What is really stumping me is the control of the spindle. I can’t figure out how it is supposed to be connected up, and I want to make sure I have it right as I don’t want to ruin anything.
I have pictures of all the electronics which I will include but the basics are:
-24v PSU which has a buck converter coming off of it, I think this is meant to connect to the shield but if someone could verify that would be great 👍
-There is another power supply lookin device which I feel like is probably responsible for the spindle, I am just not sure how it is meant to be connected.
-Then of course there is the shield itself.
Thank you so much for your help in advance. I have been looking around online and I might not be using the correct keywords but I am having issues finding what I need. If any further information is needed please let me know and I will do my best to help get it for you!

Hello, I (22m) went to an initial therapy session 2 weeks ago. I went because I wanted help with being comfortable around people. I don't have any friends, and haven't had any since middle school. I only show my true personality to my two sisters and parents. With other people my personality retreats into a shell. I am very quiet, my mind often blank in conversation not knowing what to say. With my family I don't have to think of what to say or do, I just am. I see others interact with each other so easily just being themselves with each other the way I can be myself with my family. Seeing them interact so easily made me feel a bit envious. I wished I could just be comfortable around people like they are, and not be so tense and uncomfortable when socializing. I hate that I probably make people uncomfortable when socializing because of how awkward and socially inept I am. In my work I've noticed the ones with the best social skills get special treatment and get promoted to better positions. This is what brought me to my first therapy session. I felt something is wrong with me because of how much I stand out from my peers.
But after reflecting a little the last two weeks. I don't know if I really care about being closer with people or connecting with them. I don't have a desire for friends. I haven't had them for a long time and never felt lonely from it. The few times people have tried to be my friend, I disliked engaging in conversation, texting, hanging out, etc. I have almost never felt a desire to initiate conversation with people, the few times I did it was so people wouldn't think I am so weird for never talking. A part of me does desire a girlfriend, but I think I just like the idealized fantasy, I know the real thing would be just as exhausting as other relationships.
My therapist said we'll work on helping me be more comfortable around people. I think I am well socialized enough to do my job and do everyday things out in the world. It was just making genuine connections/friends that I struggled with. But I don't know if I care to make genuine connections/friends. I don't think I do. So this is making me wonder if I should even continue going to therapy. But perhaps I do want to have friends/relationships and I am just coping telling myself I don't need or want them. I don't feel this is the case but it could be. I feel content now, but will I still feel content in a decade? Two decades? Eventually my siblings will leave to make their own families, and my parents wont be there forever. I would be truly alone then. If I did have a problem it would be easier to solve now than solving it way later in life. These are the concerns I have. Is it best I stay in therapy even though I feel mostly content right now?
As a side note I also really struggle with coming up with things to say in therapy (people in general) so I feel it would make therapy a lot harder. My mind blanked so much on the last session.

I never considered myself to be smart, but I never thought I was stupid. As Artemis and I left Athena's oasis, I couldn't help but ponder the enormity of what had just happened. My mind was beginning to clear up and reflection set in as I followed Artemis through solid objects, down rabbit holes, through fire, sleet, and bodies of water.
The fire didn't burn me.
The cold didn't freeze me.
The water didn't drown me.
To think that my stupid human brain caused me to err in judgement to such a degree that I would step into the domain of godhood where I didn't belong... all because I was horny. I cringed the thought away. Yes, it was the hottest thing that had ever happened to me, but the way Athena looked at me; it sent chills down my spine. There would surely be consequences for this, but Artemis had clammed up completely, and wasn't answering my questions.
"Artemis?" I whined. "Hey... I'm sorry. I didn't know this would happen."
She stopped in the middle of the woods. We stood surrounded by a captive audience of oak trees; it was eerily silent. She turned and cast me a long look before walking into one of the larger oaks. I sighed and followed her through it. On the other side, we were back in Thyra under a familiar violet menagerie of stars and planets. She had stopped, finally, sitting down and leaning back.
I stepped in front of her. "Artemis? What, umm... Whatcha doing?"
"Waiting," she said plainly.
I looked around at the desolate canyon.
"... Waiting for what?"
"Judgement," she sighed. "This will be the first place Father will look for me when he hears the news."
"Father?"
"You may know him as Zeus."
A little bit of sweat gathered around my temples. He was the main guy. Like the biggest name in Greek myth. Everyone knows Zeus. But judgement... what was about to happen?
"I thought we were going to go hunt some beast in the Underworld or something." I looked down at my rifle and ran my hand along the length of the barrel. "I was scared at first, but now I want to see what a weapon kissed by Hephaestus can do."
I scoffed. I didn't know where that kind of verbiage came from. Kissed by Hepheastus? What was I, a poet all of the sudden? When I looked up, she looked sick. Her face was sagging and her eyes were lifeless. She leaned back and laid flat on the ground, her arms and legs outstretched as though she were dead.
"I too was eager to hunt," she said in a forlorn tone. "But that was before, in my miserable judgement, I welcomed you into divinity."
That was the first time she'd confirmed it with her own lips and it struck me for the first time that this was truly happening. The weight of it fell on my shoulders and did my level best to suppress it down. I didn't want to think about the implications just yet.
"I thought it was just a blessing," I said, sitting down next to her. "I didn't know there was a limit..."
"Athena tried to pry you from my breast, but you were stuck to it like a stubborn babe. You refused to listen."
"I didn't even realize it!" I defended myself. "Why couldn't you have just blessed me in a different way? Why did it have to be so weird?"
"Each god and goddess may bestow blessings, but for each it is different, and tied to their domain," she answered. "I am the goddess of the hunt, but also of nature, childcare, and birth. My blessing is bestowed as such that reflects my divine purpose." She cast me an annoyed glance, "You are the one who has decided it is weird."
I set the rifle down in front of me and leaned forward, thinking carefully. I didn't want to dig my hole any deeper with Artemis. I didn't need her mad at me too. "I'm sorry," I said finally. "But on earth it's kind of a sexual thing."
"Your species is perverse," she said, closing her eyes. "Am I to blame for that too?"
"No!" I said quickly. "I'm not blaming you for a damn thing, but-"
"The blame lies with me entirely," she cut me off. "I brought you here. I took you to Athena's Oasis. I fed you the milk of the gods with my own breast. Who else is to blame but me? My father will certainly say as much when he finds us."
I swallowed. I didn't know what to do. I was in over my head; way out of my depth to such a degree that I wondered if maybe it was just a good idea to keep quiet and sit still. But I had one question that was burning behind my eyes.
"What's going to happen to you?" I asked.
She opened her eyes and stared at the sky as she contemplated. "... I suppose I'll be reduced to my base components and be remade a more capable daughter. They call it rebirthing."
"Artemis," I said softly. "That sounds like dying."
"There is no death," she refuted. "Only rebirth. I will be remade."
"Yeah, it still sounds like death to me," I pressed.
"It's the closest thing to death that goddess can experience," came a familiar voice from behind me. I turned to see Apollo walking slowly toward us. "Sister, sister," he chanted. "What have you done this time?"
I wasn't overwhelmed by his beauty this time, but I still felt my chest tighten. It was the same feeling as seeing an ex from a long time ago in a public space like the mall or the grocery store. A flutter of something that once was there, but nothing substantial.
"Word will spread," Artemis said, her voice cracking. "And when Father has discovered what I have done, he will do what is right, I am certain of it."
"Will he?" Apollo asked. "Because Father has never been one to overreact, yes?" His tone carried the faintest hint of sarcasm.
Artemis didn't respond.
"I can't help but feel responsible for all of this," I said, getting to my feet. "I'll accept full responsibility."
"That will not be up to you," Artemis said, sitting up and hugging her knees.
"You may assume all the responsibility you like," said Apollo, turning to face me. "But there is not a single god or goddess on Mount Olympus that will accept that. You were a simple-minded human when you erred. It is what your kind does. Would you curse an acorn for falling from a tree?"
"I get it, I get it," I rolled my eyes. "But it's not fair. Artemis didn't know I would fuck up the way I did. She doesn't deserve to die!"
"Make no mistake," Apollo said sternly. "It will not just be her, but Athena and Hephaestus for participating in this little charade." He turned his eyes toward the cracked canyon floor and sighed. "... And of course, I as well."
"No!" Artemis was on her feet.
"I will be punished for failing to alert Father to your wily machinations," he looked up at her. "I turned a blind eye. And I did it while Brian was still a human."
Artemis held his gaze for a second before turning and looking at me. "... The Fates," she whispered.
"The Fates?" I looked between the two of them. "What's going on?"
"Father will speak with the Fates," Artemis said as though in a panic, returning her attention to her brother. "They know all that is and all that will be."
"For humans," Apollo clarified, turning to me. "The Fates have no knowledge concerning the gods and goddesses. But everything that transpired around you while you were human will be a part of their knowledge."
"So Zeus will talk to them..." I began to put it together. "And you'll have no plausible deniability. They'll have seen you interacting with me here."
"Hephaestus and Athena as well," Apollo nodded. "None of us can deny what we've done here." He looked at his sister and scowled. "Because we trusted in her to know what she was doing."
This was a mess. A complete disaster of my own making. I was such an idiot. I should have known better than to trespass against the gods. For had I known that Artemis would pay such a price, I would have never chased such an audacious undertaking. I held one hand to my head and felt that same nausea that had overtaken me back at the oasis. My inner dialogue was changing. I was thinking in a voice that wasn't really my own. I could feel myself slowly changing somehow.
"Forgive me," Artemis said to her brother.
"He may," came another voice to her left. In the blink of an eye, a newcomer had manifested. "But I will not. I trusted you to know better, Artemis."
After only a moment, I recognized him. It was Hephaestus, but human-sized and not all glowy and scary. He also bore a nasty scar across the right side of his face. I hadn't noticed it in the shadowy forge, but it was distracting. He stared daggers at Artemis, his strong arms folded across his chest.
Artemis buried her face in her hands. "I did not mean to risk you all alongside me," she sobbed. "I am so ashamed."
"As well you should be," Apollo spoke furiously. "Father already detests Hephaestus. He will be rebirthed as well."
"He detests me," Hepheastus, turned to Apollo, "Because I dared to suggest he was wrong about something. Though, if you ask me, the old man has hated me from the moment he laid eyes on me."
"Stop, stop, stop," I lifted my hands. "Just... let's just think about this for a second. Why do we have to wait around for Zeus to find out?" I asked. "We could just, y'know, get out of here. Nobody has to be killed over this, we can just leave, can't we? He doesn't know anything yet!"
"You imbecile," Apollo seethed, putting his face inches from mine. "You know nothing about anything. Keep your moronic human notions to yourself for so long as they persist within you."
That broke my heart. I wrestled with the emotions that roiled within me. I took a step back and inhaled, holding the tears back. I wasn't going to cry. I was a grown-ass man. So why did I feel like a toddler in time-out?
"Actually," came a new voice from behind Artemis. We turned to see Athena caressing her chin thoughtfully. "While his primal human instincts compell him to flee... in this case, it might not be the worst idea."
"You've hit your head, yes?" Apollo asked. "You would take a human's side? So much for a goddess of wisdom. Take your council elswehere."
"Mind your manners, Brother," Artemis spoke up. "That is Athena you are addressing. You will hear her speak."
We all stood in a moment of tense silence. Athena began to pace around the gathered gods, patiently choosing her words before she spoke them.
"Father has had a hot temper as of the last few hundred years," she began. "Don't act like you all haven't been weary of him; that you haven't shared whispers of concern with your siblings."
Everyone turned their eyes away from her, as though unwilling to accept it. But I could tell from the expressions on their faces that she was telling the truth. Something was going on with Zeus, it seemed, but what? Why were his kids so afraid of him?
"He has been rebirthing gods and goddesses for small offenses as of late," Athena went on. "I, for one, have been living in fear of his ire for some time now. He is not the same as he once was."
"Do not speak ill of Father," Artemis came to Zeus's defense. "He is facing difficulties!"
"That is..." Apollo trailed off. "A hefty accusation," he said finally, staring the goddess down.
Athena stared back with equal ferocity. "Then why, Apollo, did you keep your sister's little venture to yourself?"
He remained quiet. I didn't know the gods bickered like this. I always assumed they were some big happy family just living in paradise, but it seemed like there was at least some degree of treachery afoot.
Afoot?
I winced.
"Your silence says it all," Athena smirked before turning serious. "What little empathy Father once possessed is gone. We can all wait around to be rebirthed to Father's liking," she passed her eyes over us. "Or we can flee. The worst thing that can happen to us is rebirth either way."
"I have yearned to leave his gaze for eons now," said Hephaestus. "I will join in an escape effort."
"There would be little effort required," Apollo announced. "There has never been an attempt to leave the pantheon. It would likely be as simple as walking through an open doorway. But this discussion is traitorous; blasphemers, each and every one of you."
"I will run with Athena," Artemis announced.
"Sister!" Apollo scolded.
"Athena is more than my sister, she is my best friend," Artemis balled her fists. "If it were anyone else who suggested it, I may not have listened. But Athena's wise words have guided me through great trials."
"I am with them," Hephaestus said to Apollo. "You can stay here with the accident," he eyed me angrily.
Artemis looked as though she wanted to come to my defense, but ultimately said nothing.
Another arrow through my heart.
"Hephaestus," I began my sentence without anywhere for it to go. "I... I might not be..." I flailed. Suddenly, I had a question. "Wait," I pointed at him. "Why can I understand you now?"
"Because, dear Brian," Athena answered for him, walking up to me and placing a hand against my forehead. "You are a god now. It doesn't matter whether Hephaestus likes it or not, you are divinity born of mankind."
"Well," I glanced around without moving my head. "What am I the god of?"
"She is checking," Apollo said. "Be quiet while she divinates your domains."
I felt a tingling sensation around my forehead. It tickled, and I couldn't help but giggle a little. It made Artemis smile and my heart soared.
"You are..." Athena spoke, closing her eyes, her concentration tightening. "The god of indulgence and isolation," she announced, opening her eyes and smiling at me. She removed her hand and stepped back, leaving me in a stunned silence.
"Did you just call me fat and lonely?" I blurted out.
Athena lifted her hand to her mouth and dimples manifested on her cheeks. Artemis did the same, but couldn't stifle her laughter. Apollo snickered and turned his head. I stood there with my mouth wide open as Hephaestus began to chuckle to himself. But he didn't look happy about it. He would smile and laugh before scowling it away, and then start laughing again as though he were being tickled while in a terrible mood. The others adopted an expression not dissimilar to mine and stared at the god of the forge.
"I can't stop," Hephaestus managed between breathy laughter.
"By the stars," Athena murmured. "I don't believe I've ever seen Hephaestus laugh."
"Nobody has," Apollo said in equal wonderment.
"That is your sense of humor?" Artemis asked, aghast. "It is so... childish! So unexpected!"
"I have no sense of humor!" Hephaestus barked, finally getting his laughter under control. "He did something to me!"
"I didn't do anything!" I threw my arms up.
"Perhaps," Athena smiled at me. "He also holds the domain of humor. I didn't search for it."
"Great," I said angrily. "I'm 'Hilarious', the fat and ugly Greek god of comedy, I love it."
Hephaestus exploded in a renewed fit of laughter, once more prompting the others to laugh again. I stood there in the center of it and frowned.
"Can we get out of here now?" I shouted.
They laughed harder.
This sucked.
Writing Prompt Submitted by u/blablador-2001

We've always had ups and downs. Its always been chalked up to her not having met my parents and feeling secure in the relationship, or something like that. Well, she met my parents. I met hers. Things are only worse now. It seems like she's constantly nitpicking.
We go to a restaurant for her friends bday. Everyone's ordering their own food on their phones. There is no server. She orders hers on her phone. I order mine. We pay our own tabs. We fight on the ride home about why I didn't put everything on one tab. I'm irritated but make a joke about how I'm strong and independent. She keeps pressing. I retort by saying she didn't say anything at the restaurant, so she's equally to blame. She keeps pressing. I tell her I don't want to talk about this anymore because clearly she's not understanding what I'm saying and I don't wanna ruin the rest of the night with this fight.
Maybe a few days later.. her sister stays the night on a random weekday. We have dinner. Around 8, her sister goes to bed. We all say good night. GF and I stay up watching a show. Her sister comes back out around 9:30, gets some water, says good night again and leaves. I was engrossed in the show and didn't pay attention to her. She asks why I was being disrespectful to her sister (by not saying good night the second time). I didn't realize she was serious (considering I just said good night an hour ago) and make a joke about how I don't wanna hear a peep from someone I say good night to until the sun is up. Not the best time to joke I guess.
Only two examples here, but imagine something like this happening 3-5x a week for the past two months. It always happens after 7pm. Happens whether we are together in person or if she's at home. But she will find something to text me to complain about. Its always something I did or didn't do. Lowest common denominator - me. Each of these incidents seems to turn into a "serious" conversation.
I used to be super lazy and unproductive. Now I'm a high performer in a technical job. I'm a bit anal about my routine, and I feel my routine slipping away when conflict happens around bedtime, which is stressful. If my routine slips, I risk losing everything I've worked hard to build. We had one such "serious" conversation a few days ago and I had a bit of an overreaction (I told her I'm done.. bottomed out.. losing my mind... can't deal with it any more.. etc etc). It seems like she finally understood the gravity of the situation and now we're not communicating. Something about how she didn't "realize" I was feeling this bad about the relationship.
I've asked that we only discuss these things in person and limit it to once a week, preferably on a weekend. I've stressed that we will have to break up if these incidents keep happening regularly during the work week after 7pm.
Not sure what I can do to fix this.
TL;DR - She's nitpicking something 3-5x a week now despite having progressed in the relationship. Feel my routine and productivity slipping away because it always happens after 7pm and ready to break up over this.

Excuse the weird title, it's a bit too complicated for a concise title.
Anyway, my gf has a best friend. We have always gotten along well enough, me and her have some things in common but we only hang out in group settings. There was something odd about her since I've met her though.
She always had boy trouble, which my gf and I offered advice for. I always thought she's messing around with guys instead of focusing on herself and getting her life where she wants it to be. Recently, my gf and I were talking and it turns out that she cheated on pretty much every guy she's been with.
Fast forward to right now. We are on a group trip, me, my gf and her best friend. The boyfriend is not around. We have never met him on account that we have been living abroad for almost two years, but she told us a lot of good things about him and he seems like a great guy. We already made a bunch of plans for the things we want to do.
Here's the thing. We have been roadtripping for over a month. Spending prolonged time with her showed me just how selfish she really is, but I am not going to get into the details because it doesn't matter. What does matter, however, is that on this road trip is also a friend of my girlfriend, a guy which best friend hooked up with. She ghosted him afterwards (a very common practice for her, and she even ghosted us when she was supposed to come live at us abroad. But we forgave her because getting new friends is a bitch).
Anyway, we have been drinking occasionally and she has been very touchy with this guy, even though he was really uncomfortable with her doing this. My gf had to send them to bed because she was worried her bf might do something stupid. All while this was going on, she is talking to her bf and a bunch of guys from this country, that she met while they were in our country.
While I didn't believe she would just willy nilly cheat on him, especially how "in love" she is with him, and everytime she cheated in the past she would rationalise it very well, she confided in me one night that she was drunk. Why I don't know, because we have been arguing a lot and honestly I hated her fucking guts. But after she confided in me I just think she's pathetic and I don't want to associate myself anymore with her.
Basically, what she said was that she needs a guy, that if I would help her hookup with the other guy that is on this roadtrip with us (the one she ghosted) and that it doesn't count because her boyfriend isn't here. There was more, but that's the gist of it. Her tone was just so vile, that I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My girlfriend almost doesn't believe me, because it "doesn't sound like her." And I agree. But I think she has now shown her true colours.
I've been struggling with what to do in this situation. I really want to tell the boyfriend, because he seems like an awesome dude and he deserves better, particularly because he has big trauma from being cheated on before. His marriage was destroyed when his best friend and his wife started playing hide the sausage behind his back.
I don't intend on spending any time with her ever again. She is still my GFs best friend and so I will be complicating my own relationship, but I am sure she will want to stay with me. She doesn't know what to do and so has left the decision to me.
So reddit, what do I do? On the one hand, she hasn't done anything yet, but with her history and inclinations, I am leaning towards telling him what she said and a bit about her history.

Link to the original post https://www.reddit.com/AITAH/s/jbfxzF7bwm
First I want to thank everyone who replied to my post with constructive opinion or even criticism. I did my best to read as much replies as possible to only realize that I wasn’t looking for a judgement as much as I was looking for advice.
I want to correct some wrong assumptions and clear some facts as I wasn’t able to do this in my previous post it was too long already. Personally I don’t believe there are bad guys in my story and this is to correct some of the wrong assumptions about my husband and my older brother. My husband never was a person that care for any materialistic possessions and he has a moral compass that still impresses me after all of these years together. I truly believe that his stance on the situation that we are going through comes only from his deep concern for our family .
Now if I want to explain my brother’s , it is because he got the most backlash with a lot of wrong interpretations to his character. I will not talk about how he always been a very loving and protective brother growing up to both my middle brother and me but I will talk about the six years that I have lived in his house under his care when my first husband died where I spent one year bed bound and almost two years in a wheelchair. My brother took care of me and my daughter in every way possible. I realize that he usually comes across as a rigid person but for people who really know him they know how big his heart is . He truly is the keeper for our traditions, he likes to constantly remind us all with how things always been done but he has never been cruel or controlling . We listen to him out of respect and not fear.
For the important part that I think most commentators were confused about is how our finances are handled. When I mentioned my personal accounts I was referring to funds that were my inheritance from my late husband plus my inheritance from my father that wasn’t in form of shares and properties. When my father inheritance was divided all assets were divided equally in form of shares to a holding company that is responsible for managing all investments. My middle brother and myself were never interested in getting involved we both know that our older brother thinks taking care of everyone is his personal responsibility and also we have never felt like he acts controlling with how we handle our expenses. The properties that he already gifted my nephews and nieces and plan on gifting my daughter are actually properties gifted from his own funds that has nothing to do with any shared accounts.
My brother stance towards my sponsorship of my stepchildren can appear as controlling but understanding cultural background might change how one feels about it .
Still I have read all your opinions and suggestions and regardless of whether I’m considered right or wrong , I still want to keep a relationship with my stepchildren even though I know that they have already decided to move away and settle in their home country . I have talked to my middle brother about the situation and although he agrees with my older brother that a line should be drawn between caring for them while they are living with us and inheritance, he still thinks there is no need to create such a hard time for everyone over two properties and he promised to have a talk with my older brother where he would tell him that he wants to gift my stepchildren a farewell gift when they decide to go back and settle in their home country . I feel so much better now for involving my middle brother maybe this whole situation can be resolved with everyone’s feelings unhurt

Me M26 and my now ex F32 have been together and living together for over a year. I know that doesn't sound like a long time but we've been pretty good friends for 8 years before that. I have met my person, I never once questioned that the relationship we had would end. She was the love of my life and I so wanted her to be the mother of my children and be with me for life. I had even started planning the proposal. We had so many plans and both expressed a ton of interest in spending our lives together.
We were planning on buying a house together, Buying a golf cart to ride around our neighborhood to visit all the friends that we made together. We had a family vacation planned in June that we had already paid for. Hell we even almost had a child once and were both so fucking excited. Fast forward to last week. Out of the blue she came to me and said she thinks we need a break... This hit me hard, I was listening to the love of my life tell me that she doesn't know what she wants anymore and that almost killed me.
I told her I just wanted her to be happy and I gave her the space she needed. This lasted 2 days, she texted me while I was at work and said that she missed me and we were going to be ok. She was going to figure it out (Heart emojis and all) I was so happy. My mood was at an all time high since the woman I loved still loved me, or so I thought.
Well on Monday I came home to find her sitting outside. I was happy to see her but I could tell she was not feeling the same. She just came out and said it, She was done... This killed me, I was blindsided and didn't know what to think. She said a lot of things that hurt including the fact that she never loved me from day one (This is either a lie or she faked it super well). I packed a few things and left with some friends as she told me If I stayed it would make things worse. I haven't been home in over a week. I feel like my life is crashing down, the woman I loved told me she didn't love me and to make things worse she thinks I'm going to retaliate. I am not allowed in our home without her present and found out that she changed the locks to the house the day after I left, reminder that we have been friends for 8 years prior to this. She has zero trust in me and I have never given her the slightest reason for her not to trust me. I found out that when I go to get my stuff on Sunday that she is going to have her Dad and Brother there and It just hurts so bad... I thought I loved this woman but in the past couple days she has changed for the worse.
She's treating me like I'm a bad guy and she knows I would've risked my life for her if given the chance. I still lover her and I think I always will but she has played so many games with my emotions I don't know If I could ever trust anyone like that again. I don't know how Sunday is gonna go down and that terrifies me. I feel at this point there is no way I can even continue a friendship with her and she keeps telling me that she doesn't want to lose me as a best friend.
I am lost.
I have to restart my life, a life that I had planned with her and I don't know how I'm going to do that.

Explorers of Sky is a solid candidate for my favourite video game of all time, but it definitely isn’t without a few small blemishes and things that annoy me. I thought it could be fun to discuss some of the small bugbears that we have with the story, gameplay, and so forth in this otherwise excellent game. Not things which fundamentally destroy the gameplay experience for you, but things that manage to irritate you on each playthrough. The main ones which come to mind for me:

• Partner AI: This is probably the most blatant problem, and the one which I hear about the most. Allies in this game are aggressively stupid for no reason, and plenty of things which should be the absolute bare minimum are locked behind IQ skills. Not stepping on visible traps should be the default, as should knowing not to use status moves when the target already has the bloody status condition. And why, for the love of all that is holy, is Weak-Type Picker not something that EVERY Pokémon gets?? Why is my Lv.60 partner with near-max IQ still spamming Thunderbolt on a Ground type? Let alone grasping concepts like not using Hypnosis on an Insomnia ‘mon. It’s frustrating, because it isn’t like giving allies better AI was beyond the technology of the time or something- it was a conscious dev decision to make allies stupid. Resultantly, you have to waste so much time micromanaging your teammates so they don’t get themselves killed that having a large team feels like a liability.
  
• Renaming Allies: Very minor gripe here, but it really irritates me on every playthrough that there is no way to rename teammates besides evolving them. It always makes me feel put on the spot in dungeons, because either you come up with a clever nickname right that second, or your ‘mon is just going to be nameless forever. Alternatively, if you give a ‘mon you want to hold onto a stupid nickname, or misclick while naming, you’re done for. This is a feature that has been in the main series literally since Red and Green, and it would have been so easy to add a button that does this to the Assembly menu in Sky.
  
• Egg/Tutor Moves: It’s a crying shame that there is zero way for Pokémon to acquire Egg moves, or even Tutor moves, beyond hatching from an egg with one. The Chansey daycare system isn’t a remotely engaging means of acquiring unique moves, because unlike in the main series you have virtually no autonomy over what ‘mons you’ll get, and what egg move they’ll have. You either get lucky and hatch a Chimchar with Thunderpunch, or you (more likely) don’t. Egg moves may as well not exist for how relevant they are to the average playthrough. Certain ‘mons are absolutely crippled by not having meaningful access to their best moves; Phanpy would be a really fun choice of starter if it could learn Earth Power and Ice Shard. Instead, it’s absolute dogwater with no usable STAB. Later games handle this far better, allowing the player to just pay a fee to learn these moves, and it honestly makes me glum how movepools are so comparatively limited in Sky.
  
• Temporary Allies: Slight retread of my earlier point, but the temporary allies you get saddled with throughout the story are also pointlessly restricted. Why can’t I alter their tactics? I much prefer Go After Foes to Let’s Go Together, which just makes Grovyle and others much too passive to be useful. Plus, why can’t I toggle their moves? A very small issue I know, but it ultimately culminates in a significant problem when you’re tasked with keeping these burdens alive- Cresselia probably wouldn’t be half as infamous as she is if you could just tell her what to do instead of just watching as she gets herself killed.
  
• Accuracy Nonsense: Why do moves randomly miss so often in this game? The main series is pretty good about setting most moves at 90%+ accuracy, and usually outright 100% for your standard options like Flamethrower. It removes a lot of pointless RNG from standard play, while allowing players to choose riskier, more rewarding options like Fire Blast if they so choose. Meanwhile in this game, basically nothing is completely safe. You can and will lose eminently winnable encounters because Bite decided it wanted to miss three times in a row. Oh, and if you got hit by Sand Attack once, or God forbid your opponent has Sand Veil/Snow Cloak up? Prepare for this bullshit. I’ve racked my brain trying to think of a gameplay justification for this change, and I just can’t. It just seems to be there for extra RNG.
  
• Conflicting Abilities: I recently did a playthrough with Riolu, and noticed that it has both Steadfast AND Inner Focus. One boosts Speed upon being flinched (also when you’re cross-eyed, but how often does that happen?), and the other prevents flinching. Lucario, then, effectively has no ability. As funny as this is, it obviously shouldn’t be allowed to happen, especially on a super popular choice of starter Pokémon. I understand that the devs aimed to adapt the abilities and learnsets of the main series faithfully, but at a certain point you have to sacrifice fidelity for gameplay. They should have altered the abilities of ‘mons that got saddled with dud combos.
  
• Perish Song: Perish Song exists. That is all.
  

Of course, there’s a lot of other random jank you can discuss with Sky’s battle system, like how options that are relatively unexceptional in the main series (eg. Mirror Move, Smokescreen) are godlike here for no reason. Not to mention the fuckery that is the Speed system, or Silver Wind/Ominous Wind having the potential to raise stats on EVERY HIT. But I honestly don’t mind these elements; I’m used to them at this point, and breaking the game wide open with Cyndaquil or Torchic is really fun. The tradeoff is that sometimes you’ll get unavoidably wiped by Porygon-Z hitting Agility two times in a row and then pressing the funny Discharge button, but that’s just Mystery Dungeon.

Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
Deep in the groaning halls of sinew and bone he awaited his audience with the god. At a wave of his hand the ribs which held up the ceiling contracted, tendons shifting within the pink walls of the chamber as the jagged, calcareous spurs that composed the doorway sank back into the spongy masses of tissue, revealing a passage curving down and out of sight.
Menash stood before the yawning portal and considered eternity. This was no an idle thought: here in the Dawning Chamber, the concept was very real. His father, Yulan, had stood in this exact spot times beyond count. When he was struck down in his prime by the Night Weaver and her Leaper offspring, torn limb from limb as he fought to defend Chthonis from a raiding party, Menash’s uncle, Aqavarr, had carried his broken remains over that grinning threshold to join the hosts of the dead, never to return.
A hot and heavy exhalation rattled up out of the depths, wafting in the acrid scent of the bonding pools and the wet slithering sound of the rebirthing canals. Menash felt a crackle of static in the corners of his mind before the signal sharpened and he heard It whisper distinctly:
“Enter…”
The familiar dread crept its way up the small of his back, and he gave a little shiver. No matter how many times he had communed with the Vitalus, he’d never been able to shake the feeling of his utter insignificance. But he persevered, walking bravely down the slurping passage, past the rows of broad antechambers lining either side of the hallway. Each one held a slumbering shape immersed in a cryogenic bath, towering hulks of muscle encased in ribbed and riveted plates of chitin. No two were alike in size or physiology, but all seemed to emanate the same primeval aura of dread that tickled Menash’s fight-or-flight-instinct, skewing it very much towards the latter response. These were the Hollowores, soulless avatars of the Vitalus, each one a tool capable of eradicating an entire species. As Menash approached, one of the living weapons stirred to life. A pronged, anvil-shaped head emerged from the bath, umbilical feeder tubes detaching from its armored flanks as the rest of its bulk followed, its mauve exoskeleton as sleek and shiny as amethyst. The Hollowore extended legs as thick as grown pine trees and lifted itself above him, its pairs of crushing pincers dripping amniotic fluids as it herded him towards the central room.
Bundles of white gossamer filaments spread all across the floor, encircling steaming pools of pus and acid. He saw arms and legs, sensory organs and entire exoskeletons being knitted before his very eyes, the amino acid chains being stitched on a layer at a time, the weeping pus evidence of microphages fighting off possible infections as the Vitalus did Its work.
These were the next generation of exomorphs, yet to be assigned to their hosts. It was here that Vitalus constantly improved the only thing that could ensure the continued survival of Menash’s subspecies. Exomorphs were bonded to Gallivants at birth, the organisms supplying their hosts with the means to breathe an atmosphere they was never meant to endure, and the strength to fight in a world that was red in tooth and claw. They were as swift as the summer wind and could multiply their host’s muscular power by up to twelve times their natural output.
But for all their God-given might, Gallivants were still mortal. They could and often did perish in the endless struggle for existence that the Vitalus called the Great Game. But even in death they could still commit their essence to posterity, passing down their defining traits through the malleable genetic code of the gilt helix. It was the Vitalus’ greatest boon; through the gilt helix a single individual could become a progenitor of an entire generation, becoming at one stroke the father of whole nations and peoples.
One day he too would prove worthy of the honor that Yulan had earned with his life. But he was not alone in that ambition. Menash was annoyed to find the crimson-clad Vezda and the cowardly Racek waiting for him inside, standing next to a large ball of filaments that hung from a tonsil-like growth hanging from the walls.
This node pulsed, emitting a small storm of bioelectric activity, networks of fungi conveying commands in the form of oscillating voltages to their communities of symbiotic bacteria, the latter containing greigite mineral crystals aligned in the shape of electromagnetic coils. Other networks hidden in the walls modulated and amplified the signals, and the three Gallivants steeled themselves for the onrushing flood of information as the Vitalus tapped into their minds.
He was a candle before the raging heart of the thunderstorm. For an instant Menash touched a fraction of Its intelligence, the divisions of time and space rolling back as they joined the ocean of shared consciousness, becoming one with the living systems of Arachnea. From the tiniest aeroplankton floating above the waves of the golden coastlines, to the herds of ultrapods munching their way through swathes of trees in the savannahs. Menash felt himself pushing up out of the soil, longing and lusting and reaching for the sunlight with a trillion green fingers uncurling, alive with the furious movement of life.
But what was that flicker of orange to the east? That searing heat, that prickling pain spreading like a cancer down his side?
The Vitalus scooped them up and hurled them headlong into hell itself. A roaring wildfire was sweeping into the heart of the eastern rainforests. Menash tasted ash and ruin, felt pieces of himself wither and burn, his branches tongues of fire, wood cracking from the intense blaze, sap boiling instantaneously upon contact and rupturing, splitting him right down the grain. He fled in terror, running, slithering, digging, swimming, flying away in crazed panic from the walls of red death closing in on him. As his skin flaked off in clumps of charcoal he looked back and saw it towering over the treetops, the epicenter of this howling vortex of destruction: the grey behemoth. Its burnished metal hide gleamed like copper, reflecting the fury of the conflagration burning well into the night.
Menash pulled his mind away before it was lost forever in the storm of electric potentials. He saw Racek and Vezda swaying on their feet, breathing hard and fast.
“Heart of the World,” he managed to gasp, “What is your bidding?”
The Hollowore maneuvered itself until it was facing him directly. Tiny beady eyes fixed him in their blank gaze. The node emitted a blue pulse and the creature shuddered as it received the signal. It opened a maw powerful enough to chew boulders into gravel and rumbled:
“This one is the alpha which survived first contact with anomalous variable. It will tell Us what occurred, and from whence this threat emerged.”
“It came from the karst mountain range, where the yellowjacket Amit live,” Menash replied, “It was destroying the largest mound in that area, massacring its inhabitants. It brought the mountain down on them—we’ve never seen anything like it. Zildiz was the first on the scene. She warned us not to approach, and that it was dangerous, but some of us,” here he cast an angry look at Vezda, “Some of us went ahead and tried to scavenge from the bodies of the dying. Then the behemoth ignited the air and burned scores of us to cinders.”
“Irrational. Why did you do this?”
“W-we thought that you had spawned the grey behemoth,” Menash stammered, embarrassed to say the least, “That it was the newest addition to the Great Game, another species of ultrafauna that would help perfect Arachnea.”
“Not so. It was made by an evil far older than the All-In-One,” replied the Vitalus, “It is called a Divine Engine. In cycles past, this evil sought to undo this world and all that inhabit it. In that, it almost succeeded.”
Menash felt his blood run cold at those words.
“Is it the only one of its kind?” Racek piped up. Menash and Vezda both bristled at his interruption; subordinates were only supposed to speak when spoken to.
“There were several deployed here in Our infancy. We had thought them all destroyed in the War of Creation.”
“Your Munificence,” Racek went on, heedless of the venomous looks he was getting from the other two, “Most of us survived because Zildiz persuaded us to dive into the river. She saved all our lives! But as I washed up on the riverbank, I saw the behemoth casting a seedpod into the skies. I did not see where it landed, but it was travelling in a high arc due east. Is this the behemoth’s method of reproducing? If so, then how many offspring can it generate from this one seed?”
The Vitalus met his questions with a minute of silence. Menash had never known It to take so long to respond to a query, and felt another stab of unease in his gut. Unless he was imagining things, the Vitalus seemed genuinely disturbed by the scenario that Racek has raised, enough to convince Menash that the danger was far from hypothetical.
“That is a distant possibility,” It said somewhat cryptically, “Regardless, We cannot allow the Engine’s continued existence.”
“Then it must be destroyed,” Vezda said, her barbed tail eagerly perking up.
“We are not certain that it can be,” the Vitalus said, and Menash heard Racek audibly gulp at the admission.
“But Your Omniscience, you alone are the arbiter of growth and decay,” Vezda said in disbelief, “Surely you can unmake this monster as well?”
“Perhaps. The Divine Engines were built to withstand the extremes of temperature, gravity, atmospheric pressure, acidity and irradiation found on semi-inhabitable exoplanets. Worlds of bareness and desolation, glassed by thermonuclear bombardment or infested with alien microorganisms. In the wars of Our youth, the Betrayers used tungsten-alloy warheads fired from space platforms to crack their bulkheads. Not even Our vessels, the Hollowores, could damage them in any significant way. We will need time to gather the raw materials and fabricate the weapons needed to end this threat.”
“What must we do?” Menash asked.
“If this variable is not dealt with, it could upset the delicate balance We have sacrificed so much to achieve. Already the wildfire it has caused will release close to 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroy 2.3 million acres of forest before Our countermeasures can stop it. Time is our limiting factor. If the Engine cannot be destroyed now, it must be restrained.”
“It hasn’t moved an inch since we last saw it,” Vezda said brightly, “Maybe it has already died?”
“Yes, and maybe your mother was a horka toad,” Racek said snidely. Vezda scowled and took a step towards him, then stopped as she remembered that she trod on hallowed ground.
“Not so. It has merely gone dormant. Having expended its fuel, it is now running on the bare minimum of its reserves. My children, you must ensure that it does not wake again. Establish a quarantine zone around the Engine and let none approach, on pain of death. The Leaper kindreds will secure the ground while the Gallivants patrol the skies.”
Vezda and Menash exchanged troubled looks. Nobody wanted Leapers establishing a foothold in what was essentially a buffer zone between their subspecies. Once allowed to settle in a habitat, it would not take long for them to adapt and become masters of their new territory. Ousting them would become a battle of attrition, and given the lower birthrates of Gallivants, it was not one they could long afford.
“Respectfully, we do not require assistance from our brother kindred,” Menash ventured, “We are more than capable of safeguarding the area ourselves.”
The node throbbed again, the bioelectric flashes taking on an angry purple hue. With a sound like the grinding of a millstone the Hollowore clashed its claws together impatiently. All three of the mortals took a hasty step back.
“The alpha will obey, or another will be found that can,” the Vitalus growled at them, “All subspecies will observe a general truce during this period. This is a temporary addition to the Great Game. Those that serve Us well shall be rewarded. We shall also enlist the aid of your terrestrial cousins, as well as the Cataphract clans to replenish the soil, and lone Saints who shall rove beyond the quarantine zone.”
Menash’s unease deepened. The Vitalus was bringing together four different kindreds, some of which killed each other on sight, in a move that reeked of desperation. The kindreds had worked together before, of course, on complex projects such as altering rainfall patterns and husbanding struggling species, but never so many at once. This was bound to end in bloodshed.
“Those that break the truce shall be chemically neutered, and their gilt helix purged from the existing gene pool,” the Vitalus continued, “You will maintain this quarantine until We have dealt with the Engine.”
“It is understood!” Menash and Vezda said at once.
“But what about Zildiz?” Racek blurted out, again risking his entire lineage by speaking out of turn, “She might still be alive out there!”
“He’s right,” Menash found himself agreeing despite his dislike for Racek, “She’s our alpha, after all. It would be a shame to lose her helix. Do we have your leave to send out a party to recover her?”
The Vitalus pondered the request for a moment, then crushed his hopes when it said:
“Regrettable, the loss of the female. Valuable stock for the breeding program. But it has not responded to Our signals—it is unlikely to have survived. The female Vezda shall take up its duties as alpha.”
“But Your Benevolence—” both men cried out in unison.
“It is decided. She has risked the Great Game, and must abide by its outcome. To speak more on this would risk Our displeasure,” the god warned.
“We can’t spare the manpower anyway,” Vezda pointed out, trying not to look too pleased at Its decision. She darted a quick look at Menash, long enough for him to see the selfish desire festering in her heart. He turned away from her in disgust, baring his blades by the slightest of margins to let her know what he thought of her, then asked the Vitalus:
“But what of the Engine’s seedpod? Should we search for it?”
“Negative!” the Vitalus boomed, its node reinforcing the word with a spike of activity that sent needles of pain spearing into their heads, “We shall complete this task. It is dangerous and can be entrusted to no other.”
The Hollowore angled its massive head towards the cavernous ceiling, armored flaps on its back sliding aside as it unfurled sets of rigid sixty-meter wings. A wide sphincter on the roof gaped open and Menash saw the evening sky awash with the stars in their milky multitudes. The Hollowore took a deep breath through the spiracles lining its thorax and abdomen, pumping air through a pair of hollow tube-like protuberances under either of its wings. Menash and the others quickly scampered to a safe distance. Seconds later there was a scream of chemical combustion and the Hollowore rose into the evening skies, leaving behind a long trail of superheated gases, the backwash almost knocking Menash off his feet. They watched as the Hollowore gained altitude, making straight for the columns of billowing smoke on the horizon, a sweeping shadow blotting out the light of the heavens.
The Vitalus’ mental presence receded with it. When it did not return, they took it to mean that they were dismissed and likewise took flight and headed for Chthonis. They were hardly out of the Dawning Chamber when Vezda seized the scrawny Racek by his wings and anchored her feet right up against his back.
“Funny little man, are you? Crack jokes at my expense again, and I’ll see to it that you’ll never fly again!” she snarled, yanking hard. Racek yelled as his wings threatened to pop out of their sockets.
“Stop!” Menash said, ramming his shoulder into her and knocking the smaller male out of her grip. Vezda rounded on him, blades out and her tail aquiver with rage.
“As for you! No one should speak to the Vitalus like that!” she shrieked, “Much less gainsay It! Are you trying to get us all killed? It is the source and continuance of life itself—”
“But the Vitalus doesn’t always consider the individual scale of things,” Menash reasoned, controlling his rising anger as he tried to defuse the situation, “Its scope of thought is beyond ours. Therefore it is up to us to look after each other. None of us can win the Great Game alone. We need people like Zildiz for the species to prosper.”
“Your logic is flawed,” Vezda spat, “Empathy is a sham devised by the selfish action of the gene, which seeks only to preserve itself. At least I am honest enough to look after my own interests. Your obsession with that whore is misplaced. Heed my words, Menash. What happened today marks a change in the Great Game. Only the ruthless will reap the rewards of this era. Think on that, and act accordingly.”
The female darted off in another direction, leaving the two behind.
“Thanks,” Racek said, rubbing at his sore shoulders, “My, my. She’s really taking her promotion very seriously, isn’t she?”
“This doesn’t make us friends,” Menash said shortly, “We share a common interest, that’s all.”
The two flew together in silence for a time, the dark canopy unrolling below their feet. Racek had always been a bitter rival for Zildiz’s affections. In the mating seasons he and Menash had flown the damsel-dance against each other countless times, racing and dogfighting at top speed through the dense bamboo thickets in an effort to impress her.
But each time she had always chosen Menash. Naturally. He was the stronger, the braver, the son of the Scourge who had slain hundreds on his lightning raids into Leaper territory. Their pairings had been brief and passionate, yet she had always laughed at the end and gone on her merry way, a rose petal borne on a scented breeze, the dalliance as meaningless to her as other concerns like eating or breathing.
But not to him. Right now, all that mattered was her. And Racek was the only one in the whole wide world who knew exactly how he felt. Did that mean he could be trusted? Menash considered the enormity of what he was about to do, and wavered. Then he saw her face in the darkness of his home, the face she wore when they were all alone together, and he took a deep breath before breaking the silence, saying:
“I’ll be in charge of the quarantine. I can arrange for you to disappear for a few days. I can have one of the younglings mimic your magnetosynaptic signal, make it seem like you’re with the rest of us.”
“You’d do that? For me?” Racek said in astonishment.
“Hah. Not for you,” Menash laughed softly. He looked Racek straight in the eyes and continued: “What’ll it be, then?”
If he so much as hesitates, I’ll have to kill him here and now, Menash told himself.
“Why, yes. Yes, of course!” the little brown male said vigorously.
“Good,” Menash sighed with relief, “She’ll be very grateful to whoever brings her home. I’d do it myself, but as an alpha I can’t risk being seen as disobedient.”
“Then why give me this chance? After all that’s passed between us?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” Menash replied. Racek digested that for a bit, then out of nowhere said:
“If I find her—when I find her—I’ll tell her exactly who it was that sent me.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Bah! Just so we’re even, that’s all,” Racek grinned, his mouthparts slanting askew.
“Thanks, I guess. I’d…I’d appreciate that. You do understand what we’re risking here, right?”
“Sure. We’ll be total genetic write-offs if we’re caught. But it’s not like I wanted to see tiny ugly Raceks running around the house anyway. What about you, though? Why are you putting your neck on the chopping block?”
“You know why,” Menash said quietly, his thoughts still lingering on her face.
“Yes,” Racek agreed with a wistful air, “Yes, I suppose I do.”
And the pair spoke no more until they reached Chthonis.
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

Throwaway account for anonymity, although this story is pretty popular among my group. I wrote this directly to Charlotte, so I hope you like it!
I wanted to tell the story of my marriage to my now wife and how vastly different our mothers have taken the whole thing. I’m sharing because I find the whole thing absolutely wacky, so sit back and enjoy!
I (34m) and my now wife (30f) have been together for 5 years, and we got engaged back in 2022. We made elaborate wedding plans because I’m very outgoing and extroverted, and she went along with everything because she loves me. We both knew neither of our families would not be involved. While her mother (55f) absolutely hates me because of my skin color, my mother (72f) suffered from Alzheimer’s and dementia. We knew she could never fly in for our wedding, as she could barely leave the house, let alone the state, and my father (77m), as much as he loves me, refused to leave her side for longer than an hour.
Her mother refused to ever meet me and would insult me whenever she possibly could. I really didn’t want her to attend the wedding, so I wasn’t too pleased when my wife wanted her to walk her down the aisle instead of her father (58m), who had a long history of being incredibly flaky for important events. When we created the bridal party, my side had only friends since I’m an only child and she had her brother (26m) as a bridesman. However, he didn’t like wearing suits so he dropped out of the wedding, citing that he MIGHT have work the day of the wedding, which was 6 months away. Her mother called the next day and dropped out, leading to a lot of crying, an argument and a lot of talks to get through the heartache. Her father actually stepped up and asked to walk her down the aisle, and was practically in tears apologizing for not being there for her. My wife agreed and hugged her father so tightly. I was worried but I had to give the man credit...he was trying.
Our priorities changed when I heard that my mother was quickly slipping away, so my wife had the idea of having a private ceremony just for her and my father so she could see me get married. We flew down, and discovered that the cat peed on her only white dress, and my father forgot which day we were getting married. Luckily…thanks to a lot of bleach and phone calls, we were able to get married in front of her, and she had a very good day. She remembered me the whole time, and she absolutely loved my wife. It was probably the most perfect day of my life: I got to solve problems, have my mother remember me and marry my best friend…albeit illegally technically since we didn’t have a marriage license. To this day, we called it our “marriage before God.” My mother passed away 3 weeks after that ceremony. It was pretty devastating.
By the way…we still had our “lavish” wedding to hold, which was still a month away. Her mother and brother wanted NOTHING to do with the wedding, and I was perfectly happy, but I knew she wasn’t. We had a lot of talks leading up to it, and I made sure she always had support, whether it was from me, her bridesmaids, and all of our friends coming together to let her know how much she means to us. Her father was on time and in a suit, so that was already a victory. I later heard that he told her how proud he was of her and how lovely she looked, something he rarely said when she was growing up. He really stepped up to the plate. Our wedding day had just as many calamities as the marriage before God, which includes a very late Bridesmaid, a very cold and windy outdoor ceremony and a very hot and sweaty reception. Oh, and my wife’s mother texting her on the wedding day how disrespectful she and her friends are, and how she’s “guilty” for not being a “good enough daughter.” This really pissed my wife off, and it led to her FINALLY going NC with her. But that text came well after our wedding ended, and it was the most perfect day we’ve ever had. I love my wife so much and what she did for my mother and I will make me do anything to make her happy for the rest of our lives.
Just goes to show not to let negative people ruin your life…even if they gave birth to you.

Hello! I'll start talking about myself, then about my boyfriend, then how our relationship went down and how we got back together. Sorry for my English in advance.
So. I'm Brazilian and a 20 year-old Law student. I'm very empathetic, and I came from a family with many challenges - financial and emotional. My parents marriage isn't the best, and I grew up in a pretty hostile environment (in the sense that my parents were very strict about grades, and my father is very aggressive in general). However, they did the best they could with what they had. Last year, I came to live in another state, 7 hours away from home by car, because I got into one of the best colleges in the country (currently second best at Law) and couldn't miss the opportunity. I've been learning how to be an adult more and more day by day. I've got a nice internship and work another job aside from that.
When I thought I was finally free from my mother's controlling behavior, I decided it was finally a good time to date someone. And so I began talking to this boy (at the time, a 22 year old) through the internet. He seemed wonderful. Spent three years in Romania to study (even tho he didn't get to graduate) and then came back to Brazil to pursue his true passion, International Relations. We hit it off pretty quickly and started officially dating after a month.
At that time, even thought he had dated multiple girls in the past, I was his first serious relationship. Even today, he says I'm the only girl he ever felt (and still feels) love for. I got to know later on that he had Bipolarity, depression and Borderline Personality Syndrome - all of those conditions that weren't being treated or medicated for months.
He had problems with money, problems with dates, problems with compromises, problems with his grades, problems with his addictions (cigarettes). He didn't know exactly how to make a girlfriend feel safe, he would often not include me in his routine, sometimes he wasn't careful with his wording... and many other things. Every time I talked about our problems, he would only say "sorry" "I can't guarantee I'll actually change" "maybe I'm not the one you're looking for". He followed a LOT of girls, and always told me "I don't check out Instagram anyways so it's nothing".
Then, after 7 months in the relationship, I went over to my mother's house for Christmas and New year. He also went to his dad's house at that time. We cried a lot when we had to part, because we did absolutely everything together.
Well. Once he got into his dad's house, he began to be more distant (if we chatted for 10 minutes a day, that was rare) and I was exhausted. I just wanted a conversation of some minutes, and I understand he wanted to be with his family, but a nice call at the end of the day or just a few texts wouldn't keep him from them. I talked about that with him and I ended up being the one apologizing for not being understanding.
Phew...
Then, after two weeks of vacation, it happened. A girl going to my DMs and exposing an intimate conversation she and my boyfriend had just a few minutes ago. I exploded. She was Spanish. She wasn't even Brazilian. She was an online friend. He sent messages talking about how he wanted to kiss her on her bed, about how he was horny, asking her for a fit check, and sending pictures of his underwear.
She checked his Instagram later just to find out my name in his bio. So she went over and sent me everything. Every screenshot.
I was betrayed. I never thought he would ever do this to me.
I talked to him. He said he was sorry, that he loved me, that he didn't get why he'd done that, that he was stressed, that he would never do it again, that I was wonderful, that I didn't do anything wrong and he didn't want to lose me...
I'll be honest, at that time, I didn't want to break up. But I HAD to.
So I broke up with him, but told him we could try again if he made an effort, and we should also talk in person about everything. Told him he should seek therapy and a psychiatrist. My condition was that he would tell me if he got together or flirted with another woman until I got back from vacations so we could have that talk.
It didn't take long for him to start telling me he was feeling numb. That he didn't think it was a good idea to get back together. However, he would send me good morning and good night texts every single day, and sometimes he would text me that he loved me. Weeks later, when he stopped texting as much, I found out he was flirting with other girls. So I cut off contact, and told him that I couldn't believe he didn't keep what he promised me (telling me if he flirted with someone else). He hid it from me, and I didn't even understand why.
Days later, I found out he slept with a prostitute, and even told his friends to gang b*ng her. My heart completely stopped. I was heartbroken.
My own depression came out of hiding. So I contacted a therapist, and tried to appreciate the other things in life other than him.
Later on, I came to know he was also working on himself, getting medicated and all.
2 months later, I come back to the state I studied in, where he already was. I come in peace, relaxed, and happy to be in another place full of opportunities. But my heart still weighed.
Then I went to have that talk to him. He apologized for everything. We had a long, long talk about things, and I felt a lot better. But then he started getting physical; hugging me for hours, caressing me, kissing my cheek, kissing my forehead, putting his hand on my thigh...
Before anything could get any more serious, I went back home alone.
Then, another day, he came to get gifts I had gotten for his family (it was his stepmom's birthday, whom I cherished, and on vacations it was his little brother's birthday). I wanted to go to the pharmacy after that, and he asked to accompany me. I accepted, as it was late and I didn't want to go alone.
After sometime, he started talking about how he missed me. How he missed my jokes, my humour, my personality, my presence in his life. He hugged me. I told him it was a bit late for that. That I had given him the chance to have me back, and he didn't appreciate it.
Then we went to talk in a park. We sat together, and he started to tell me even more things. That he would see my clothes and other things in his room and cry, wondering why he'd cheated on me, telling himself he was stupid for letting me go and disrespecting me. He would often miss his way from home and go to my place by mistake. That he'd never stopped loving me, and that he was just running away from conflict l.
Well. I couldn't help it. I missed him like hell and he told me everything I wanted to hear. I ended up kissing him.
We then got back together oficially after three months of going out and sorting things out. He's been wonderful, everything I asked for and more.
But it still hurts, as you might think.
Most of the times I feel insecure he comes running over to my place to make sure I'm not breaking up with him again.
He knows I know about the prostitute, btw.
I just don't get it. He says he regrets it, that he regretted before and after. Well, if he regretted before, he could have just not done it. I didn't get anything... I still couldn't accept why he'd done everything. I felt ugly, I felt like I was not enough...
Then he told me about his past with childhood trauma, which explained a lot to me in my head. I cried when he told me his story, and apologized for what they've done to him, because the person who did bad things to him him was his family and never apologized. He'd never told this story to anyone.
That alone explained a lot of things in my head. His hypersexuality, his tendency to deal with things alone, etc. But the prostitute thing still gets to me.
I keep wondering what she'd looked like. How was it. If he liked it. Why he'd done it.
He says he did it because he just wanted to forget everything, but it just didn't work. That he's here for me now, that he'll never do such thing again, that he'll be good to me from now on...
Idk what to do. I want to stop thinking about her, but idk how.

I have spent all day running all over god's green earth trying to get anything done for my OCONUS PCS and every single step of the way Im running into roadblocks or just silly/ stupid hangups.
Squadron doesn't have enough computers so I wait for one. 2/3rds of the printers are broken/dont have ink, the one working printer doesn't have paper, nobody knows where the paper can be found. The attachments from flank speed refuses to download. After a chain of about 6 emails over the span of 6 days the on base Passport office decided its now time to inform me that they only take appointments before noon and they are fully booked for the next 3 months. When I go to the office in person and ask about other office locations they give me a phone number. That phone number puts me on hold for 20 minutes then they hang up immediately after answering. You call back and after another 20 minutes they tell you to contact the nearest Passport office. I tell them that they referred me to you. So they eventually give me 3 phone numbers. 2 of the 3 are to offices that have nothing to do with passports and the 3rd is disconnected. So I try Google, I find a bunch of .gov websites with phone numbers. Probably called 7 at this point and not a single one was correct or connected. You give up on passports and decide to turn in your medical packet for the OSS. They then inform you that a dentist needs to sign the dental portion, having a rando in dental is not sufficient. So I go back to dental and they tell me that the dentist needs to see me again before it can be signed even though its already signed by someone else, and they saw me less than 3 months ago. oh and they lost my dental records. Of course they have 0 availability between now and when I checkout. So i go to medical to see if I can get a waiver. They don't know but as they were looking they found out that I need another vaccine and that Ive been expired since January. My last physical was in February but whatever, so i drive to the clinic to get that done but the civilian that works the desk cant be found. He is eventually found but its after 1300 so ill have to come back another day. Admin might be able to help, I meet with them, they tell me that I need to contact the on base hotel that is nearest my training location to get a CNA. I call the only hotel on base, they are privately owned, cant give a CNA. I tell admin, they are at a loss, no idea how to proceed. Maybe ill check in with my liaison officer near the training location. Her office phone rings indefinitely, her cell number rings once then goes to voicemail. She still hasn't replied to my email either. Admin also said that I need to secure my own rental car via SATO. On hold again for course, they eventually answer and tell me that my admin hasn't created a reservation for the trip yet so she is not able to reserve my rental car. I return my wife's call; she tell me that the location we are going to requires my dog to be neutered. The vet on base cant neuter dogs so she spent all day trying to find a vet that can in time for our PCS. She found one, and its going to cost $1,200; probably about $2,000 after all the prelim app[ointments and such.
The issues im running into for my housing at the next location are genuinely unbelievable. I would share them as well but im pretty confident that everyone would think im lying. This is all just PCS related, I could write even more about my time working with other branches and doing other missions. Sometimes I feel like im living an episode of Seinfeld or something....
I could keep going but wont. In all honesty im proud of what I do and truly believe the US Navy is probably the most important military force in the world.... But boy is it hard sometimes. lol. The longer im in, the more I understand where the retention problem comes from. Was it always like this?

I've come to a dark, and difficult realization this last week, and ever since I've been really tired and operating on autopilot. I don't feel safe talking to anyone I know about this, so I'm coming to you, internet strangers. Every second of downtime that I get, I go back to this thought, and it's weighing on me.
But first, some back story. This is going to seem totally unrelated, but just take the ride with me real quick.
Although in many ways I lived a privileged life growing up, my parents and younger brother were all emotionally, verbally, financially, and often times physically abusive. There were times when I feared for my life. But perhaps the worst of it was that they were careful. They carefully built a reputation for me--clumsy, strong-willed, dishonest. It was a reputation that I internalized and grew to think was true, up until I had my daughter. Now, she's nearly three, and I am finally breaking my family's hold on me. Permanently.
Like most abuse victims, I tried to leave them several times. It was my baby's father who taught me how to leave for good, and who taught me the importance of severing ties permanently. When I first left him, I needed financial support from my parents, and was grateful to have it. I know so many victims don't have that and can't get out because of it. And, while they were the lesser of two evils, they've proved in the last few years over and over that they are still, in fact, an evil. And one I need out of my life. My dad got me a job when I was well enough to work again after I left, but it only gave him more access to me. And I let him. I'm a grown adult woman. At any moment I could have had the courage and the strength to just walk away. No amount of perceived financial security (because relying on them is not financial security) is worth what I've gone through emotionally on behalf of him and this 'job'. But now, after years of moving over and over again and not feeling safe or secure, my daughter and I have housing that I won't have to worry about losing for the foreseeable future.
I have provided for her a roof over her head, but more than that, a place to grow in and call her own. A place where she can put posters on her wall and have a playground in the back yard and raise a puppy. It's beautiful, and it means that I know that I can now pursue a career that better aligns with the schedule, work-life balance, and emotional fulfillment that she and I need to better our lives. In other words, I've put in my two weeks' at that job so that I can find something more sustainable and sever my ties with my family closer to for-good.
I think that this is why I've had this sudden realization about my daughter's dad. It has been an incredibly emotional time. The universe seems to be throwing tests at me left and right, as if to say, are you sure? Will you really go through with it this time?
And I will. I have faith in myself as a mother more so than I have ever had faith in myself as a person. I know what my daughter needs me to do, so I'll do it. I know where I want to be so that she can grow and thrive, so I will go there.
But it has reminded me of the person I was, who did not know this, and who did not feel so sure.
When I first met my ex, he said and did all of the right things. I was a newly appointed executive in a male-dominated industry, and I was young and single in a conservative area where any indication that I was not wearing a chastity belt read as an invitation to pursue to every man I worked with or around. I was fresh out of another abusive relationship, still repeating the cycle my family had taught me, and was vulnerable.
And he played the part of my savior very well. We were together two years, and I supported him through COVID and losing his high-paying engineer job only to one day, suddenly, discover that virtually everything about him was a lie. Not only was he cheating on me--heavily, while I was at work and he was pretending to freelance, with several women including some I thought were my friends--but he had no college degree, much less a master's degree in engineering, and he had never had the job he allegedly lost. He was a con-artist with two children by two different women, a separate fiancee he'd been with since high school and kept trying to bring into our lives, and so much more. He was using his older, disabled brother's ssn at the job I had gotten him to avoid paying child support. He had even lied about how his parents died.
I'm not even sure I knew his legal name.
To be clear, I found out about the cheating first. That was it. The rest of it, I'm sure I had vague suspicions of. But I had trusted him. If something was off, then he probably had a sound explanation and it wasn't my business. I was young and stupid, and he was still acting perfectly normal.
I broke up with him, then, just to find out a month later that despite using birth control and condoms religiously, and despite having more than one prognosis that I would never conceive let alone carry a child, I was pregnant. At the time, I was no contact with my entire family and had been further isolated from my friends by my then-boyfriend. Plus, the company I worked for was showing signs of selling--my job was by no means secure, and especially not so because they had a history of firing pregnant women in my position exactly two months after their return from maternity leave.
The point was, I was desperate, and I was scared, and I didn't know that the father of my child was a monster, so I tried to make it work, thinking that my daughter, surely, needed a father figure. And for his part, he seemed remorseful. He promised to go to counseling and agreed to certain conditions and, again, said all of the right things.
And then he started drinking. And screaming. And demanding. And...threatening, and then doing.
But at that point, I was alone. I was halfway through a complicated pregnancy that made me incredibly ill with small town doctors who were gaslighting me and not helping me, the writing was on the wall at work and I was enduring slander and drama there, and I had no one and nowhere else to turn. So I pushed through. I tried to leave him when I was about 22 weeks along. I enlisted the help of my friend, who supported me, and I thought I was home free.
But that night was one of the most horrific nights of my life. The only person I've been able to tell about it was my lawyer, a year later, when I went in to make sure my daughter was protected. By the way, he's not in either of our lives at all and will never be. I have and will continue to do everything in my power to keep him away from us. Not that he could find us if he tried.
Things only got worse after that night. and at some point. I told a trusted friend and my mom (breaking no contact) that I intended to leave. Safely, and in time. I started freelancing again and looking for other jobs, and I played house the best I could to keep myself and baby safe. I ended up being ordered to go on bed rest two weeks early, And then I gave birth, and my daughter and I both almost died.
It was horrific, and traumatic, and sent me into a terrible spiral. It was all I could do to care for my daughter. But it became very quickly apparent that I was running out of time to get her out. And this is where the realization comes in.
His alcoholism and verbal and emotional abuse were increasing in frequency and intensity. He was also growing more violent--even if he was just punching holes in doors. But he was also...weird with our daughter. I did everything I could not to have to leave him alone with her, and she was only left with him twice.
Once, for an hour, because I had to go into work and handle something in the middle of the day. He left my 1mo infant daughter lying, asleep, on her belly, on a very high bed with loose blankets and pillows, alone in our apartment while he moved something from one apartment to another. I have no idea for how long.
I tried to breastfeed, at first, and there were issues with that so she was waking up often and hard to put back to sleep. We later found out she wasn't getting enough milk because of a tongue tie and started supplementing with formula at two weeks. I have heavy suspicions that I was also underproducing because of stress and emotional duress. One night, he was frustrated because even though I was sleeping in the living room and taking care of the baby while he slept in the bed, he couldn't sleep, and blamed me for being an incompetent mother. He took her from me, and put her to sleep with him in bed. I knew he was drunk. I went in to check on her--I was anxious, I had done tons of research on safe sleep. He saw me, screamed at me, and then blamed me for waking her up.
Later, he would try to put rice cereal in her bottle and make those "knockout bottles" that are incredibly dangerous when I wasn't looking. There were a number of weird incidents like this which he chalked up to being older than me, and being the way he'd raised his other two babies. And back then I really thought it was just all apart of the abuse--targeted at me.
We got out when she was five months old and today she's a sweet, happy, healthy kid.
But, and honestly maybe this should have occurred to me before, I can not shake the heaviness of the conclusion that remembering all of these incidents has brought me to; he wanted her to die. I mean, I guess in a roundabout way he expressed this. He started berating me for not getting an abortion almost immediately after I passed the legal time to get one done where I'm from (they're completely illegal now but were not at the time). I'm not anti-abortion, by any means, but it felt like it came out of nowhere. He also refused to have any part in naming her or preparing for her arrival--even in raising her. I always thought that these were just manipulation tactics. That he was just saying malicious things to get under my skin.
Now that I'm writing this, I also remember one of the last texts he sent to me over a year ago, alleging that he had shot and killed someone before. It wasn't an active threat to me. It was just part of a psychosis spiral where he was trying to explain that we could live safely with him in his new apartment even though it wasn't in a safe area or something, and so I really just discarded it. I didn't see him anymore. He didn't know where we lived. He was only allowed to contact me still because I was building a case against him. It didn't seem like it mattered.
Now? Today? I think that if I hadn't left with her when I did, we might both be dead already. More than that, I think that if I had not had her and I had ended up back with him--or back in another abusive relationship with anyone else--that I would certainly be dead. I might have been the one to physically take us both and leave, but she saved me first.
So that's it. That's what I've been struggling with. And I haven't really fully processed what that means for me, yet, except that I've made another appointment with my lawyer to take additional safety measures for my daughter. But emotionally? I'm not sure. I'll have to sit with this, and I just needed to say it somewhere. If you read all of this, thank you.
tldr; i left my ex when my daughter by him was 5 months old, and now she's nearly 3 years old and we are no contact with him, but i've recently been hit with memories of actions he took when she was an infant that lead me to believe he may have been subconsciously or even actively trying to take her life

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