I get frustrated with genius annotations, especially re: Vampire Weekend's discography. While I was reading through some of the lyrics last night, it struck me how surface level many of the associations are on the lyric page for "Ice Cream Piano," which is a shame for such a thematically rich song.
That said, I decided to take a stab at dissecting the song as a whole, while tying some of the more abstract lines towards themes in the larger project.

Verse 1

"Fuck the world," /you/ said it quiet No one could hear you, no one but /me/ "Cynical, you can't deny it" 

Ezra seems to be describing a conversation between "himself" and "his partner" reacting to an unspecified issue. "She" reacted to something, and "he" criticizes that reaction. However, there is some ambiguity regarding who exactly is saying the last line; is it the singer himself, or is he quoting her as he did the opening line?
This ambiguity is a carried theme throughout the rest of the song, and as the lyrics continue, which side is throwing out accusations becomes less relevant. The implied goal of these first lines is to frame the rest of the song as an argument between two individuals, and to show the sneaky ways in which their conflicting viewpoints mirror each other.
I think it's important to mention here that, ahead of "Father of the Bride," Ezra spoke about wanting to move away from the more impressionistic style present in earlier Vampire Weekend records and experiment in writing lyrics where the general theme of the song can be understood in the first few lines. Furthermore, during the Zane Low release interview for "Only God Was Above Us," Ezra dove deep into the track listing process, stating he knew early on that "Ice Cream Piano" needed to be the opening track.
Knowing these two facts, these deceptively unassuming lines in fact carry a significant weight. Where the high-level reading describes a conflict between two individuals, the deeper understanding is that they each represent a conflicting philosophy or idea -- a conflict that will serve as the central thematic core for the album as a whole.

"You don't want to win this war 'cause you don't want the peace" "Armistice, /we/ never tried it *You're* the soldier, *I'm* police "Listen, baby, we can't deny it" You don't want to win this war 'cause you don't want the peace" 

As this section of the song is accompanied by a second vocal track, we can assume these lines as sung to each other, implying that their only point of agreement is the recognition of the other's uncompromising nature.
Armistice, simply stopping conflict, is so beyond an option because they're hypocrites -- criticizing the other based on one's subjective position. In her eyes, he's the soldier; in his, police. In this metaphor, one serves as the agitator and the other as defender.

Verse 2

The word was weaponized as soon as it had passed your lips 

The "word" here seems to be either war or peace. But with either it's a loaded offer because, as implied earlier, they're not engaging with the other's viewpoint in good faith and, as such, their criticisms are unfounded. His distaste towards cynicism and her more myopically aligned viewpoint sit diametrically opposed. Their definition of peace is incompatible. As the music builds, it seems to come in conflict with Ezra's vocals; he's nearly shouting as they climb and create a barrage of competing sounds.

I am a gentleman, I refuse to show my gentleness Fuck around and find out, the angry child recites this every day The universe will pry out, the truth which is you've got nothin' to say 

What's interesting about this verse is that, on first reading, the beginning of each statement seems to support the last -- as if said by the same person. However, on closer inspection it seems as though the following mocks the prior; "I am a gentleman, I refuse to show my gentleness" is clearly self contradictory -- as are the other two when read as single statements.
When split at their conflicting point as "I am a gentleman," and separately, "I refuse to show my gentleness," it continues to follow the theme set in Verse 1 of a conversation between two individuals. So, the verse can be read as:

I am a gentleman, I refuse to show my gentleness Fuck around and find out, the angry child recites this every day The universe will pry out, the truth which is you've got nothin' to say 

When one side says something, the other interrupts and mocks that statement. This pattern can be observed in the following two lines. However, by choosing to frame both the initial statement and its contradiction in the first person, Ezra is able to explore the narcissism present in the respective ideologies of the two individuals. They cannot see past their own egos to agree with the other, because the criticisms levied by one are exactly those which the other is accusing them of. As the verse continues, this rising tension and anger becomes more pointed and prevents either side from finishing a complete statement, the screams of one silence the other; and as they are both screaming, neither is saying anything of import.

Fuck around and find out, the angry child recites this every day 

Following this, the second line is a slightly more direct accusation, presumably in the third person.

The universe will pry out, the truth which is you've got nothin' to say 

The final line is a direct accusation, and the only of the three in second person.
It becomes clear here that Ezra seems to be less interested in the specific opposing ideas and more in the conflict between the two, and the dissonance between that conflict and each of the participant's apparent similarities. The words each one says are weaponized before they are even uttered, demolishing any chance for good faith discussion.

Chorus

In dreams, I scream piano, I softly reach the high note The world don't recognize a singer who won't sing 

There are a couple bits of wordplay happening here, outside of the dream imagery.
The first, and most obvious, is the phrasing of "Ice Cream Piano" in the title and "I Scream Piano" in the verse; pointing back to the song's overarching metaphor, "Ice Cream Piano" and "I Scream Piano" are simple homophones, which is to say they are two different ideas that are saying the same thing.
The second bit of wordplay is the actual usage of "I scream piano." Ezra is purposefully employing the Italian-rooted musical usage of "piano" which, when present in a composition, means to play that section quietly. The second half of the line turns yet another self-contradictory observation into a double-entendre; the "screaming" piano is softened by the instruction of "piano."
The first line of the chorus, when coupled with the second, paints a picture of someone who desperately wants to express their beliefs but, whether it be because the screams are quiet or because screams themselves are not songs, the "singer" and their "song" is rejected by the world at large.
Framing this whole verse as a dream connects these ideas to the larger themes of the song, as being unable to run or scream in a dream is a fairly common experience for people, it seems as though Ezra is using the chorus here to highlight the end of the second verse, "the truth which is you've got nothing to say."
Another equally valid analysis is to literalize the quiet screaming; the anger and animosity between the couple motivates them only to scream, and never to sing. Their unending fighting reduces any opportunity for growth through debate to rubble; at this point, they just don't fucking like each other.

Verse 3

You talk of Serbians, whisper Kosovar Albanians The boy's Romanian, third generation Transylvanian I see the vampires walkin', don't be gripped by fear, you aren't next We're all the sons and daughters of vampires who drained the old world's necks 

Russian iconography is further mentioned throughout "Only God Was Above Us," and serves as one of the more important throughlines of the album -- connecting Ezra's familial history in Eastern Europe and Russia with modern issues. This, as the first reference in the album to Russia at large, works as a bit of place setting.
Here, the specific namedrops highlight the same conflict described earlier in the song; the Serbians and Kosovo were once a united country as Yugoslavia, but were split by civil war as a result of fundamental ideological differences at the end of the last millennium. Moreover, the usage of "talk" versus "whisper" implies open discussion about the first (Serbia) and the need to sweep the more complicated history of the second (The Kosovar Albanians, the Kosovo War) under the rug.
The conflict between Romania, Kosovo, and Serbia is a deeply complicated and delicate situation that spans generations of ideological and political conflict. The mention of the Romanian's history surrounded by the context of Serbia and Kosovo, and the subsequent criticism of that observation, again highlights the nature of the conflict between the two individuals in the song: where one recognizes the material legacy of these terrible "vampires," the other points out that the new generation is not the old, and are not necessarily beholden to their crimes or traditions.

Chorus 2

In dreams, I scream piano, I softly reach the high note The world don't recognize a singer who won't sing 

Outro / Chorus 3

In dreams, I scream piano, I softly reach the high note The world don't recognize a singer who won't sing 

The repetition of the choruses at the end of the song, combined with the strong call-and-response of the instrumentation between and after the chorus and outro sections, points towards an unending conflict. By the end of the song's narrative, neither side has arrived at a compromise. In reference to the album, "Ice Cream Piano" serves as a massive "YOU ARE HERE" marker on a larger map of western and American political culture. There's a pretty clear line to draw from the struggle between the two characters described in this song and the ouroboric nature of modern-day political discourse, as we witness two parties cannibalize each other in an attempt to garner support from a majority of peoples.

Xuefeng First of all, we have to admit that the Bible is the accomplishment of the Ephraim which loyally records the Jewish history, explains the relationship between the God, Devil and human beings to the furthest degree, and gives the direction the human beings should take. The Bible, the Koran, the Buddhist Scripture and the Tao Te Ching are the eternal and effective treasures and collections of human wisdom, teaching us how to behave and develop into the higher level of life space. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. The first sentence in the Bible did tell the truth. But the things covered by the cossack may not be the holly things. And the people wearing the sacred cassock may not be the abbot. The problem with the Bible is that the God it introduces is not the genuine Greatest Creator. We have known that the Greatest Creator has the 8 features. The Greatest Creator is unique and exclusive, amorphous, neutral, mysterious, impartial, merciful, supremely powerful and intelligent. The wisdom of the Greatest Creator is revealed through its creation of universe order, designing of LIFE program and knowing of the past and the future. Then, does the God in the Bible have the above-mentioned 8 features? Let’s explain this with examples. The Betrayal of Adam and Eve According to the Genesis, Adam and Eve were instigated to eat the fruit on the Wisdom Tree forbidden by the God in the Bible. Because they have violated the order of the God (in the Bible), they were repelled out of the Eden. It indicates that the God in the Bible is a. incompetent; b. improvident; and c. unjust. He is incompetent because he was a loser at the beginning. The first couple of human he created betrayed him. So can we still say it is supremely powerful? Can we still believe in a “person” who often loses? The Great Flood had killed most of the human beings. What happened to them afterwards? They still wouldn’t listen to his words. The Moses Ten Commandments are actually the directives of the God in the Bible. Can you tell me how many of them are obeyed by the human being? Actually not even one. The God in the Bible seemed to know nothing about how to control the human beings. The only measure it takes is to voice warnings and threats against the human beings. Thousands of years has passed, the human beings remain the same. Is there no means to control the human beings? Or is there some other force constraining this Almighty God? If this is the case, is this God not sole or exclusive? For thousands of years, the human beings have been violating hisorder. What is he waiting for? The God in the Bible is improvident because he didn’t know that Adam and Eve were going to betray him or the development trend of what he had created. Is this God, who is not able to predict the future or the past, still reliable? If the Earth is going to get out of the Solar System and this God knows nothing about it, how can he save the human beings? How can this GOD administer the deities, Buddha, celestial beings and Devils when he found it difficult to control the human beings? How can he manage the spacious Universe? The God in the Bible is unjust because it cannot tell wrong from the right and because it is unreasonable. Why would Adam and Eve betray the God in the Bible? There are three major reasons. First, the genetic structure of Adam and Eve had faults, or was imperfect. The life created by this God was now its own constraint. This angered the God very much. It is just like the house built by an architect who put every efforts was fallen and hit his own feet. Is the house or the architect that should be blamed? The second reason they betrayed is that they were instigated and seduced by the snake. Adam and Eve are humans while behind the snake was the Devil Satan. The energy and wisdom of human beings can’t match those of the Devil. This God didn’t punish the Devil Satan. Instead, it imposed inflictions on Adam and Eve and drove them out of Eden. Is it fair? If a rapist raped an 8-year-old girl, would it be fair to blame the girl for her sexual organ and weakness instead of bringing justice to the rapist? The third reason of betrayal, which is also the most important one, is the damned Wisdom Tree that can tell the good and evil. Who has planted it in the Eden and why? It’s just like putting a poisonous sweet on the dinner table for the kids. Or it’s like playing the porn video for the young girls while teaching them to retain their innocence. Would a moral person do such a thing? Isn’t this “person” who planted the Wisdom Tree in the Eden has caused the betrayal of Adam and Eve? Besides, does this God, who had created Adam and Eve, has other measures to take rather than driving Adam and Eve out of the Eden? Is it fair not to give them a second chance simply because they have made only one mistake? Does one mistake justify their life-long sins? Jesus came to the Mortal World to atone for the human beings’ sins. According to the Bible, all the people have their “original sin”. Where does the “original sin” come from? Actually, they are inherited from Adam and Eve, the ancestors of human beings, whose sins were formed because they had eaten the fruit on the damned Wisdom Tree. When we are born, we have the “original sin” inherited from Adam and Eve. The “cross” on our back was much too heavy. According to this logic, “the son of a thief is always a thief”, “the son of a criminal is always a criminal”, and “the son of an emperor is always an emperor”. That’s why in ancient China, in the feudal period in particular, “If a man committed crime, all his family members would be sentenced to death”, or “If a man attained the Tao, even his pets ascended to Heaven”. This also explains why the thrones can only be passed on to the next generations of royal families. This is because it complies with the logic in the Bible. If somebody has sins, the God in the Bible and the Satan sined first. Is it humanitarian to inflict on billions of humans throughout the history simply because of the wrongdoings of Adam and Eve? Why not executing Adam and Eve and creating a new pair of humans at the time? Is creating a new couple so difficult for the God in the Bible? All the people are born with sins. This is why each of us comes to the Mortal World to endure the sufferings. But the sins are not inherited from our ancestors. They are made by oursleves in the previous cycle of life. If we don’t have sins, we would all have become Buddha or celestial beings. Ten Plagues of Egypt According to the Exodus, when Moses and Aaron, in the capacity of the GOD in the Bible, asked the Egyptian Pharaoh to let the Israelis leave Egypt, they were refused. Consequently, the GOD in the Bible imposed 10 plagues on Egypt. 1. Plague of Blood The water of the Nile will be changed into blood. The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water. 2. Plague of Frogs. The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. The frogs will go up on you and your people and all your officials. 3. Plague of Lice.The dust of the ground became lice, lice came upon men and animals. All the dust throughout the land of Egypt became lice. 4. Plague of Flies The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies, and even the ground where they are. 5. Plague of Livestock Death The fifth plague of Egypt was an epidemic disease which exterminated the Egyptian livestock; that is, horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, sheep and goats; 6. Plague of Boils The sixth plague of Egypt was Shkhin. The Shkhin was a kind of skin disease, usually translated as "boils".; 7. Plague of Hail The seventh plague of Egypt was a destructive storm; 8. Plague of Locusts Locusts will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields.; 9. Plague of Darkness Total darkness covered all Egypt for three days 10. Death of the Firstborn The tenth and final plague of Egypt was the death of all first born in Egypt — no one escaped, from the lowest servant to Pharaoh's own first-born son, including first-born of livestock. It is understandable that the God punished Egypt because Egyptian Pharaoh wouldn’t obey his order. However, it was unreasonable and went too far to kill the first-born of all humans and animals in Egypt. You can punish the Egyptian Pharaoh for his disobedience. Why inflicting on the common people? Even worse, the God would kill the kids of the girl slaves working as donkeys in the lowest rank. Can we still say the God behaving like this merciful? It was behaving without humanitarianism just like a Devil. Even more abominable, the Pharaoh of Egypt wouldn’t let the Israelis leave mainly because the God had hardened the Pharaoh’s heart. Before the Ten Plagues came, the God in the Bible had done something. According to 7:3 in the Exodus, Jehovah told Moses, “And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.” It means the God in the Bible had prepared a trap for the Egyptians, trying to find an excuse for the following plagues. In Exodus 8:19, “Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God." But Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had said.”. In Exodus 9:35, “And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, neither would he let the children of Israel go; as the LORD had spoken by Moses.” In Exodus 10:20, “But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go.” In Exodus 10:27, “But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go.” In Exodus 11:10, “And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.” It was the God in the Bible who let the Israelis leave Egypt. But it was the same God who had hardened the Pharaoh’s heart and sparked the conflicts so that the Israelis couldn’t leave Egypt easily. So what the God in the Bible was doing? It was encouraging the people to revolt while telling the authorities about the revolt and encouraging the government to oppress them mercilessly. Isn’t such a person a schemer and two-faced? So is this the image of the Greatest Creator? The Israelis Are the People of the Covenant The Bible has the Old Testament and the New Testament. The part telling what happened before Jesus was born was called the Old Testament and the part telling things after Jesus was born was the New Testament. The Testament actually means agreement, covenant, and contract. The whole Bible is the agreement, covenant and contract between the Israelis and the Greatest Creator. So here is a paradox. There are over 3,000 nations in the world and why the God has established the Testament with the Israelis? Does this mean the other nations are not the subjects of the God? If they are, why has the God only established the Testament with the Israelis while neglecting all the other nations? If they are not, what’s the origin of all the other nations? Are Adam and Eve only the ancestors of Israelis and not the other nations? The Israelis are created by the God. Does it mean the other nations are created by the Devil? There are 1,656 years between the Genesis and the Great Flood. There are 857 years between the Great Flood and the Exodus. There are 396 years between the Exodus and the founding of the Israeli State. There are 510 years between the founding of the Israeli State and their captive to Babylon. There are 152 years between their imprisonment in Babylon and the reestablishment of Jerusalem. There are 450 years between the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the birth of Jesus. There are 2003 years between the birth of Jesus and today. So according to the Bible, the history of human beings is about 6,376 years. According to the Bible, there were only 8 people survived the Great Flood on the Earth. They were the couple of Noah, their three sons and their wives. It means that 4,700 years ago, there was no one else living on the Earth except for the Noah family. But this has brought some other questions. First, where do the American Indians come from? According to the theory of Continental Drift, America drifted away from the other continents. But it couldn’t happen within 4,700 years of time. Then how the Noah family reached America from the Middle East? After the Great Flood, there were only 8 members in Noah family. It was impossible for them to get dispersed. Noah couldn’t let one of his sons and his wife to cross the freezing Siberia and the Bering Strait to get to America. Second, where did the African blacks come from? From the perspective of genetics, the blacks, yellows and whites have their separate ancestors. A couple of pure whites couldn’t generate the blacks and yellows. Even the evolvement couldn’t produce the blacks and yellows in 3,700 years of time. Besides, according to Darwin’s evolutionary theory, the survival of the fittest, could the Israelis able to write the Bible evolve into the African blacks? The blacks are not the matches of Israelis in the intelligence no matter how we exaggerate their abilities. Now let’s come to the Chinese nation. The first Chinese King was born about 4,600 years ago. The story of Dayu‘s Flood Control happened about 4,200 years ago. It was impossible for the future generations of Noah to come to mainland China 100 years after the Great Flood. Even if they did it, how could they produce so many people who followed Dayu to control the flood? Where does the Chinese nation come from? Are the Flood Control by Dayu were just the Great Flood? From the perspective of the Bible, the biological evolutionary theory could never be accepted. But once we accepted the theory, it would deny the theory that the God created the human beings. But if we denied the evolutionary theory, there was no way to explain the origin of the blacks and yellows and we can’t say Adam and Eve are the common ancestors of all human beings. The Story of Cain The first child of Adam and Eve, after they were driven out of the Eden, was Cain, followed by Abel. “And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.” Out of jealousy, Cain killed his brother Abel. We want to ask the God in the Bible some questions, “Why do you favor the offerings of Abel instead of those of Cain? Is Cain killing his brother Abel not your fault? If you had never favored one of them, how could it arouse the jealousy of Cain? Why the people created by you had so many troubles? Adam and Eve wouldn’t follow your orders and their kids killed each other. As the God, you don’t have the ability to solve these problems? Or is it what you have designed? Cain was a murderer and deserved the punishment. But you told Cain, “Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” So what kind of the justice standard is it? It is hardly understandable not to levy the punishment on the criminal. But it is even more understandable to have revenge of sevenfold on those who would punish the criminal. Is it protecting the criminal? That’s why the few thousand years of human history were full of blood, violence and crime. The God in the Bible has been protecting the criminals. “Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” Because Cain is a criminal, we can fully understand it as ““Therefore whosoever slayeth the criminal, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.”” We can conclude we had better become criminals because the criminals are protected and the good men are not. The good men have the risk of being revenged sevenfold. The Prophet and the Dream In the Bible, there are a large number of prophets and dreams. The prophets are the representatives of the God in the Mortal World. They have unimaginable wisdom and power, which sink the average people with average wisdom into the mist. If someone says, “I am a prophet”, should we believe him or not. If we don’t, we are standing against the God. If we do, how can we know the prophet is a fake or not? Now let’s talk about the dreams. There are many dreams and dream analysis in the Bible, in particular in the Revelation. Of course, those who can analyze the dreams are all prophets. But they have also brought a lot of puzzles. First, has the prophet had the dream at all? No one could see his dream and he could well compose some dreams and cheat us. If he really had the dream, was his analysis correct, or was he analyzing the dream on the reverse aspect? I want to ask the God in the Bible, in the Old Testament, you used to talk directly with the human beings. Then why you stopped doing so later? Are the Adam and Eve on other planets also disobeying your orders? Why would you warn the human beings in the form of dreams? Why not tell us the truth directly? Don’t you have the ability to do so? Don’t you have time? Don you have some secret sorrow? I can give many other examples to state that the God in the Bible does not have the features of being unique and exclusive, amorphous, neutral, mysterious, impartial, supremely powerful, merciful and wise as genuine Greatest Creator has. So we can affirm that “the God in the Bible is not the genuine Greatest Creator”.

TLDR; secretly bought an engagement ring a year ago because my girlfriend wanted it, now she wants something else
My girlfriend has been very wishy washy about proposals/engagements. She is always asking "when are we going to get married" "I cannot wait until I am your wife!" "When is the proposal" Etc, but every time I try and sit down to talk with her about her actual marriage goals and expectations, or what she wants out of an engagement she freezes up and either goes on about something that does not really matter for right now, or has no opinion at all. I have asked her time and time again about just simple things like her gold colour preference or if she wants a diamond just so I can vaguely get an idea of what I need to look for, only to get no straight answer.
Well, she finally settled on an idea and told me about it and showed me some photos. I talked to her at length about what drew her to that style, why she preferred it, what were hard yesses and nos, and if it truly felt right. She seemed very excited by it all and so I quietly got to work behind the scenes and not long after bought the actual ring from the inspo pics.
It was a true vintage secondhand ring from a seller on etsy. I had to take it to a local jewler to get sized. I bought the ring in December '23 and had it resized this January and it has been sitting in my closet since. I wanted to propose in April but we had some life stuff going on so I waited. I have been planning to propose at the end of next month as we are taking a vacation to a spot that is special to her. I have been keeping this ring a secret for 6 months now!
And today she mentioned how she is "not so sold on that ring style I mentioned before". Oh. My. God. The panic that ran through me during our conversation. I hoped I did not let it show but I have been internally freaking out all day. She says she is not so sure if it feels right to her anymore and that she might want something more classic (it was a coloured ring so ""untraditional""). But she "still needs to think about it". I suggested we go to a jeweler and let her try on all kinds of different rings in person so she can gauge her style in reality, not just pictures. She had been asking about that style for about 7-10 months before I felt like it was a solid enough idea of hers to feel comfortable purchasing.
But Y'ALL?!?!?! Whaaaaaat am I supposed to do with the other ring I bought??? I logged into etsy today to see if I could contact the seller and ask about returning it even though I had it sized and their store is no longer active. I know I could take it to a local jewler and sell it for scrap but I would hate to do that especially since I would be losing so much. I was thinking about saving it and giving it to her as a future birthday or christmas gift. But now I do not know what to do!! I spent my whole budget on it! Now I have to either find a way to sell it asap or find a way to explain why I suddenly need to save for her (new 😫) ring when it was not an issue before. I am also scared that I am going to get a new ring just for her to change her mind again. Why does this have to feel so impossible 😭
(And for those of you that will suggest putting her in charge- we have discussed this. I have always said that she can design the ring and we will have it made under her instruction. But she wants it to be a complete surprise so I am not left with a lot of wiggle room lol)

Having a conversation with something,
And one thing is crazy people who are New to being rich, New money, cant handle it or know what to do yet, just love spending money and showing of too much, or just have more money than brains,
And some things I have come over that those people might throw some money on to get.
And that is a bottle of champagne, where the bottle has 3000 diamonds set in gold prongs all over the bottle,
a gold lable with the letters in the name that has a dot over it, has a swarovski crystal applied by hand,
how the hell did they get the small delicate prongs, and the diamonds on then? Is there a machine that can do that?
And why is he bosting and making so much hubbubb like 2-4 small manmade glass "crystals", almost more than the diamonds that there are like 3000 of and not labgrown?
The people who has tasted the champagne inside,
which the maker was talking up as one of the best ever, like he had filled the bottle with some vintage, extra good year, of some Dom or something,
the people tastings's verdict of "the best champagne ever " , didn't taste the greatest,
is that Nice wineexpert talk for: shittiest champagne I ever tasted? 🤣
And what kind of cash you would have to own this bottle?
Just the small sum of 2,75 millon USD.
Then the guy has a vodka in the same line,
With the same 3000 diamonds set in gold prongs, gold lable with swarovski, and fancy kork as the champagne.
But since the dude making this is russian, making some good russian vodka,
he had to get a little oligark walking outside as it's 20 degrees celsius or more, and gave it a little furcoat with a hood,
foefur by all means, the maker is also a member of PETA..
he says he has made the best russian vodka with all the best ingredients, like crystal clear springwater,
and what gives the little extra, making it the very best russian vodka EVER,
is that , in one of the steps of his top secret filtration system, the vodka runs over even more diamonds!
Normal people from russia, who knows vodka,
and not being pretensious or trying to seem like they have refined, expensive tastes,
and trying to impess other rich people in the room,
just saying it like it is, saying what they realy feel.
Said it was ok, drinkable ,
tiered the same as the cheepest, worst, russian vodka I have ever had,
and what I could afford of vodka when I was young and started Drinking for real, was 0,5 liter bottle of Kalinka,
bottom tier stuff,
but it got me unconsious every time, so it did what it was supposed to I guess,
why I would ever start my drinking with Downing half a liter vodka, with less and less OJ for every drink as a mixer, I willi never know,
these days the hardest liqour i touch is some rum when I want some strawberry daquirys, guess I learned my lesson,
But the vodka they compared this "best vodka in the world, filtered through real diamonds " to was even worse than the kalinka,
but that is my personal opinion,
the vodka they compared to, was Jeltsin, dont know if anyone here has tried that one..
And the price of this wonder of the world, it's even worse than the champagne, because it's 3,75 million USD!
And if you have some spare change after dropping a cool 6,5 mill on a bottom tier champagne, and a bottom tier vodka in some iced out bottles,
Feel like you smell a little musty from the pre gaming, and want to smell like a rich duche when hitting the club?
Don't worry, for in the same line as the bad rich duche alcohol you dropper more money on than some make an entire lifetime,
There is also a perfume in the same obnoctious iced out bottle,
with a little foefur coat on,
and it comes in a wooden boxs with Black castiron hinges,
smells like au de rich duche,
and could be yours, having you smelling duchy in no time ,
the very attractive and sexy, but very golddigging,
women with botox and fillers and other plastic in all the right places,
5kg makeup, but very nicely done,
half her head is fake hair, the color isn't hers,
but with all the fake, she does fake the way that looks real , and hot,
looking like a perfect trophy girlfriend, could turn perfect trophy wife, or a Nice younger, hotter, trophy second wife,
if you wear our perfume, they can smell you from a mile away, and come running,
not to make the first move, but standing in some seductive, flirty pose, hot girls can do,
girls like me didn't even get invited to watch the video on how to do it, it was on the invite only, hot girls exclusive youtube Chanel 😪😅
And to make this happen, what you need to do is easy, just drop another 2,25 millon USD, and it's yours.
And the next thing that's coming in the line?
Coffee!!
There was no info yet , so I dont know how they are going to ice out the tin,
but do you agree with my guess,
that it's either the real deal of that Coffee that is the most rare and expensive in the world,
Kopi Luvak or something.
that is made by the civet, that I thought was in the feline family,
but it's actually a carnivorous mammal,
so our cat looking very very very distant cousin,
but by marriage,
so just a stepcousin,but still in the family 😅
And the civet eats the fruit the Coffee beans are inside?
Just the pods with beans?
Don't know,
But some, a little disgusting people, goes around picking through every civet poop they can find,
pick out the partialy digested beans that didn't turn to poop,
hopefully washes them very well,
roast them,
and boom worlds most expensive Coffee,
which is just poop Coffee!
Or did he just pick up some typicly russian Coffee at the supermarked,
Made a fancy iced out tin to put it in,
and if we look at the price of the other things,
Is going to slap a price like between 1,25 and 2 millon USD on it? 🤣
The reason for this very long post, it does have a point and it has to do with wine , you have now heard this insane things about champagne, vodka, perfume and Coffee.
But I tried using the Google machine myself, but the Google machine is a lot of the time not my friend, and I didn't find an answer..
Are there, or has there been anything like that with wine , red or white, rose or sparkling, any wine?
That the wine is ok or so , not the best, but has an insane bottle and other packaging if there are any, and has an insane price?
Doesn't have to like the BS i found, that the price is in the millions,
but something crazy only rich people could or would drop on a bottle of wine,
not from a top winyard,
from a good or better year,
a rare bottle of one of the best ever vintages of that wine,
or something else spectacular,
so if an event big enough to open such a special bottle doesn't happen,
it's gone up in value if you sell it years later,
or could make a valuble and Nice piece to make a family heirloom,
especialy if you have a kid or grandkid that turns out to just a big a winenut as you..
just a big ass amount of money,
on a meh bottle of wine,
for the cool, or bling bottle?
Anyone know of?
If you know stuff about the same, around other types of alcohol, like tequila, cognac, or anything, i would love to hear them all.
Sorry for the very long post,
and Sorry if I made grammatical mistakes in anyway in the text,
english isn't my first language,
and I have insomnia,
and im well into my third 24 hour a day awake,
so I passed 50 hours a while ago,
so not on my A game, for sure.
And the reason for the text being 549 miles long?
I'm sorry, but you had the misfortune of stumbling on to, and becoming a victim to one of my adhd hangup posts,
They tend to become way to long, i haven't learned any ways to stop myself yet , new to the whole diagnose thing,
I have been struggling with it since like the end of kindergarten ,beginning of school, without knowing what it was.
And when I was to old for non stop hyper all waking second of the day,
I was so scared of being weird and fit in even less than I did, and scared to do something at home, so they would start thinking i was weird and not like me either..
So I hid it as best i could, i took everything that came with that and pushed it as far down and hid it as i just could managed , had some small outlets when I was alone at home, and the times i cracked at home, it was either against my Brothers, and because of lack of selfregulation, it was either exploding with anger, crying hystericly, screaming as loud and as long my lungs and voice would let me from irritation or frustration, or having the same extremes with positive feelings, they most likely thought i was a normal part bipolar, part psychopath, part spoilt rotten daddys little Princess who gets everything she wants, never gets in trouble, and can get us in trouble with just one cry or one word, and part sweet, happy , Nice littlesister, you know the kind of babysister every big Brother, most of the time, have? And it's normal for a kid to be a hyper sometimes, but I had a childhood being scared to be me, tummyaches all the time for the stress and work, physical and mental symptoms getting slowly worse with time, and buhu, i had it so bad, millon kids had it a millon times worse, but it still wasn't plesant and 10/10 would not recomend! It's been about 20 years since I had the lightbulb moment what might be going on with me, had no idea how to move forward, thought it cost a lot of money to get it checked out, didn't have any money, now, at the end of my 30's i get it, so not learned how to stopp the long rants, but it get here some day, maybe when I get on the medication, start testing soon, which I look very much forward too. The moment i went from wondering if I had it, to knowing without knowing, if you get it, was one night after way to much alcohol, and a supersurge in inpulsivity, have it all the time, but it usually just make me online shop to much or buy something unhealty stuff to eat , and waaay to much of it, I want chips, candy, chocolate, some cookies or baked goods, and some full fat soda, and eat everything today? Sure go ahead, no worries,
But that night i did that one illegal thing, that if someone with adhd do it, their reaction to it is almost polar oposite of normal people?
It was the best few hours of my life, I hade peace and quiet , and a lot of the unvolentairy movements took a little break for the first time that I could remember,
It was the best thing I ever did, and that scared the shit out of me, and I kept away after,
that peace and quiet could had me addicted if I got to have it one to many times,
could most done a few times before stopping, but it was better to be safe than sorry,
and I have not felt peace since, that is what 18 years ago,
so even if I know the medication wont be the same, anything resembling something less than now will be 1 millon times better..
So now dont just a 500 mile long post, but a bonus 450 mile long explenation about the 500 mile post, so if you actually took the time to read it all:
Congratulation on getting to the very end of the 950 mile long post, i hope it wasn't all the worst time Reading, but I give many thanks for the time and effort you took , and I bid you a good day ❤️
(And if I just spent over 2 hours writing this, and run into the same as i did last time, and cant get it to post ,
i will be very angry, maybe even make an angry sound out loud.
Well, here we go, cross my fingers, cross my heart, and hope for the best, hopefully i will see you on the other side,
and I need a very long youtube short break, that is what I use to be stimulated non stop, but they are short and switch all the time,
so I don't have to keep my fokus , attention and keep track of everything and remembering things like with movies and shows,
and they don't make me overstimulated,
the sound keeps my volume att 11 kaos more easy to handle,
once every leapyear i even get so into things on the shorts,
i ignore my kaos a little, just some minutes like around 5 or so at the most, but its Nice,
that is where I'm headed, and I'm not coming out for hours.
Have a Nice day my friend,
peace, love, knowledge, understanding, friendship,
and everything else positive that your heart might be longing for in the evil times, and violent world we are living at the moment,
for you and all your loved ones❤️
Remember that even if evil screams the loudest, takes more room, is more in your face, visible and easy to notice.
Good is wispering it's warm, calm, and comforting message of everything good, from the shadow of evil,
But even from the shadow, the warm, loving , and welcoming little light from the good will always be shining in the darkness under evil, guiding you, showing you the way home,
And you can always find it if you look for it ❤️

Hey there,
I really liked the idea of a more conserved library. So I created one via Dungeon Draft with levels in mind.
As I'm quite new this whole map creator stuff I'd really appreciate your feedback!
On the google drive you'll find the pictures (webp), dungeondraft file (dungeondraft_map) and for those of you who use foundry a .json file with lighting and walls. For the scene you'll also want the levels mod by theripper93 and the associated mods (libwrapper and Wall Hight). The level hights are:
ground floor0ft - 20ft stairs20ft - 30ft 1st floor30ft - 60ft
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ArvNOGxuRHvIsJY09AgBeSlhUbj2m85P?usp=drive_link
As for the scene context:
My party found the high librarian in the Caves of Hunger who is a Mummy Lord in our game.
The four towers of the library house great abjuration magic / runes / contraptions, which conserved most of the library's insides and whoever was there at the time of the crash. Over the time the saved wizards became either nothics, mummy librarians or on the even more unlucky side crawling claws with the task to transcribe all damaged books (damaged by the fall or the passing of time).
The role of the nothics in Ythrin is already made clear in the campaign book. They roam the city to either be the eye(s) of Iriolarthas or just be insane little creatures.
The mummys were intermediary librarians who took care of the library while the high librarian was imprisioned in the cave of hunger to be save from crazed wizards and other underdark creatures who entered the city compounds. The reason being, that his heart is the source of the abjuration magic which guards the library as well as the wall of force around the central spire. You can find the heart in the rune circle in the middle of the library's ground floor, although the only clue is a small thrumming red light.
On the ground floor your party can also find two study spaces for wizards which are an the left side occupied by transcribing crawling claws and on the right side by a mummy, sweeping the floor. Behind the counter also are more rooms. One map room, filled with quite outdated but still interesting maps of Toril and maybe other planes of existence. Another room for transcribing and maintaining books. And a laboratory to test and create spells and potions.
If you go upstairs you'll find the first floor as some sort of gallery. In the center are tables and stools for studying wizards and on the north wall are reading nooks. Here I put Scrivenscry and Kingsport, accompanied by a crawling claw, serving as a reading light.
Your context may vary and of course you can change up things to your liking :)
If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or a dm. Hope you can enjoy it and have fun!

Throwaway because my partner follows my other account. tLDR at the bottom of the post. I do not give permission or consent for this post to be read, processed, or disseminated through any programs for the purpose of reproduction or content production.
Let it live and die here, please.
TWs: Suicidal Ideation and Active Planning
Easy Background Information I am a 24 y/o guy who has struggled with mental health my entire life. I've experienced passive suicidal ideation (SI) since I was 8 years old. My fiancée is a 25 year old woman who has also struggled with mental health most of her life due to an early trauma at the age of 3. She manages her schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with medication, but she is not currently in therapy.
The two of us are on waiting lists for sliding scale options in our area (US) and I am currently unemployed. I'll call my fiancée Eleanor (fake name) for the purposes of this post and will not be sharing detailed information about our history of trauma aside from giving the basic idea around those traumas when relevant to ensure anonymity.
The Complex Stuff - I edited this down... Four years ago I was kicked out of my mother's house during a depressive episode because I was not looking for work. During this time, I couch surfed between friends who had the space to house me for a few days at a time. One of those people was my boyfriend (Zack, 24) at the time, he had a girlfriend he wanted to introduce me to and I was interested in meeting Eleanor at the time, so I agreed. He set up the meeting and made sure that the two of us had one anothers Snapchats.
We began messaging every day and quickly became emotionally involved. As Zack, Eleanor, and myself are all polyamorous, we spoke about boundaries that everyone wanted to set and we were off to the races. Out first meeting was life changing for me. I had just been informed that my mother had let my 3 pets starve (they had all the supplies they needed for multiple months) and she had sent me a text on the day of our meeting to tell me they had died.
Needless to say that I was not doing well that day, but the meeting went fantastic. Our conversations flowed as well in person as they had over Snapchat and I know that I have a tendency to fall fast, so I tend to wait to reveal the intensity of my feelings of at all. After just a few weeks, it was early 2020 and lockdown began.
Eleanor was living in a college dorm at the time and offered her extra space to me. This extra space was a place in her bed and permission to share her private one bedroom dorm. I was adamant that it was a bad idea but the alternative was that I sleep in my car and not see her because she is immunocompromised and she said would have had to distance herself from me for safety. This decision was complicated by the fact that we were already in love with one another by this point, but we hadn't said it.
She insisted that it was the best option because she is considered a ward of the state and they couldn't kick her out of her dorm the way they were doing to everyone else. Her trauma at age 3 resulted in some odd privileges while in college and that was one of them. So, while many people were scrambling to find a place to go when the school told everyone they had to leave, Eleanor was cool, calm, and collected.
I moved in and she and I have been together since. I've even proposed. Now, here's the rub.
During this early stage in our relationship, I was homeless, severely mentally ill (unmedicated without therapy), and I was grieving both my pets and my relationship with my parents. I was experiencing SI every day without fail and I was confiding in Eleanor at her request. Our conversations got heavy and I expressed thoughts and feelings I hadn't shared with anyone else and she did the same. It was the start of a trauma bond.
The conversation that this whole situation pivots on is that Eleanor was asking about what it would take for us to become official. I told her that I didn't think it'd be a good idea since I would have to find somewhere to go once the school year ended and she would go to her dad's house in a different state. She said that she'd ask her dad if I could come with her and if he said no, she'd stay with me.
At 20, I thought this was insane (I still do.) but incredibly romantic and when her dad said no, she stayed with me. She was then (rightfully) devastated when I said that we couldn't officially date and asked me why. This conversation happened in the early morning and I should have slept instead of running my stupid fucking mouth.
I told her that I have desired to take my own life since I was 12, that I believe that that is how my life will end and I don't want to add another person that will be affected when it happens. I told her that my best friend took his own life when I was 16 and while I experienced the devastation first hand and watched our shared friends and his family grieve, I don't want to live until I naturally pass.
I told her that I think she's fantastic and she had lost her sister to a heroine overdose less than 8 months before this conversation, so I didn't want what I know I'm going to do, to be a part of her future history of trauma. She listened intently, leaning forward the whole time, I remember the image because it felt like she should've run away and her closeness was so comforting.
I didn't say it to simply hurt her, we had just told each other so many harsh truths that we hadn't shared with others that I trusted her with this deeply fucked up truth of mine. She said that was okay and that she understood while crying and kissed me. I knew the whole thing was bad when it happened, but with 4 years under our belt and a ring on her finger, I'm seeing the effects.
I'm currently suicidal and have been actively planning for nearly a year, I hid it for 9 months and finally told her about 3 months ago. She was devastated, but not for the reasons I thought. Today we had a longer conversation and she said that she wanted to fix it (which I expected) and then she said that she wished I hadn't hid it for so long. She said that she knows that I'll take my life at some point but she doesn't want to be surprised by it.
She revealed to me that she doesn't regret my telling her that I will take my own life someday, because it let her know that she needs to cherish every moment with me because she may not have a long time with me. I asked if she thought 4 years was a long time. She said yes, but that it also "feels like I met you yesterday." She broke down crying and said that thinking about losing me breaks her heart.
She said she doesn't think about that conversation every day or even very often, but she expressed feeling that when I take my life that no one will love her. That she'll never move on or "get over me". That she didn't feel cared for before me. That she feels like I'm the only person who knows her.
I realize now that she was already in love with me during that fateful conversation 4 years ago, we were both 20 and mentally ill. I feel I have inflicted a deep trauma on her and will in the future as well. I feel that becoming her first real love (her words) has forever tainted how she will experience and see love. I feel that I've ruined her ability to be happy when I'm gone.
She disabled and I'm her caregiver and medical advocate during appointments. I realize now that I took on all of these roles and she didn't learn how to fill them herself and while she says that her "life was going nowhere fast" and she "didn't know how to be happy, I think those are the thoughts of someone experiencing cognitive dissonance and my role in her life likely has done more damage than I ever realized before today.
Is there any way to undo the damage I've done and keep our future marriage intact? I'm currently seeking help for my SI and mental health issues to properly heal and hopefully manage the SI and mood swings I've been experiencing that have made things harder recently.
We plan to go to marriage counseling, focusing on the Gottman method and do not have a date set for our wedding because of my admission of suicidal ideation. I don't feel at all comfortable vowing to love them forever, feeling so confident in this belief that I will take my own life someday.
TLDR; I told my partner 4 years ago that I plan to take my own life someday and that I would not date her unless she understood and accepted that. I think it was traumatic, deeply messed up, and unintentionally coercive since she already had feelings for me during the conversation.
I want to undo the damage to their possible image of relationships, trust in themselves, and have active steps to move forward and support them as a healthy partner instead of perpetuating any of the beliefs that they have about themselves or their possible future aftewithout me. Whether that future is triggered by my death or the natural end of our relationship.

Note I'm not a developer, just transcribing the patch notes here for visibility and discussion.

Hello Commanders! Tomorrow, May 16th, at 12:00 UTC, we'll release the 0.8.1 update, focusing on the new 4-Player Brawl game mode, but also introducing a number of balance changes and improvements. Let's dive into some details!

4-Player Brawl

4-Player Brawl offers a new way to play, that stands as a compliment to already established Mechabellum meta. The mode is a combination of a Free For All battle with PvE elements. You'll face off against three other players, while also contending with an NPC faction located in the middle of the map. The players' objective is to accumulate points for eliminating your opponents, while also destroying Supply Ships in the middle of the map to afford more units and upgrades in each round. The player that gets the specified amount of points first, wins the whole match.
But be careful! Being in the lead all the time isn't always beneficial. The neutral AI will pay extra attention to the best performing player each round and will set up its defenses specifically to counter their army.
The 4-Player Brawl isn't as hardcore or demanding on micromanagement as the 1v1 or 2v2 modes, and requires a different type of strategy than the usual Mechabellum match. Think in more macro terms, know when to give ground and surrender your lead, and set yourself up for the final victory!

A few words about ongoing performance improvements

The 4 Player Brawl is demanding on player hardware, due to a much larger number of units compared to classic game modes. Currently, the performance in this iteration of the mode isn't where we want it to be by the time of the full release. Players playing on high-end hardware should already have a satisfactory experience, but we want to be upfront here and it's likely that those of you playing on more mid- or low-range PCs will experience a varying degree of lag, especially in the later rounds of the 4 Player Brawl.
Improving the performance will be one of our priorities for the coming updates, so expect your performance and experience to only improve going forward. In the meantime, we want to thank you for your patience!

Balance Adjustments

Over the years of development we've had many questions regarding how we approach balancing units, production, and tech. From this update onward we'll try to address balance changes with additional notes on why a change was made in hopes to be more transparent with you all! Not every post or a hotfix we make might get that treatment, but we'll try to do this as frequently as our time allows.

Production Techs

Now all production Tech have a maximum production amount. Note: In the past, production Techs were too powerful in 2v2. This change has almost no impact on 1v1 battles, but it may limit the role of production Tech in 2v2 and our new 4-Player Brawl.

Vulcan

Splash range increased from 12 meters to 15 meters.
Note: After the Vulcan's unlocking cost increased from 100 to 200, the Vulcan's overall winning rate has been significantly lower than other units. This change aims to further enhance Vulcan's effectiveness against small and medium-sized units.

Melting Point

[Energy Absobtion] price decreased from 300 to 250.

Mustang

The ATK reduction value of [High Explosive Ammo] has been decreased from 40% to 30%, and the price has been increased from 150 to 200.

Steel Ball

[Energy Absobtion] price decreased from 300 to 200. Note: We hope that a cheaper [Energy Absorbtion] Tech can help Steel Ball fight against the buffed Vulcan.

Phoenix

[Quantum Reassembly] has been adjusted: the time required for reassemble is reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds, and the maximum number of reassemble is reduced from 2 to 1. The reassembled Phoenix is calculated as a quarter of the original score at the end of the round.
Note: In the past, [Quantum Reassembly] was weak in 1v1 and strong in 2v2. This change aims to balance the strength of [Quantum Reassembly] between different modes.

Scorpion

ATK increased from 9661 to 10047 (4% increase).
Range decreased from 110 to 100.
[Siege Mode] has been adjusted: In siege mode, the attack interval of the Scorpion is increased by an additional 1.5 seconds, and the ATK reduction value of the Scorpion is decreased from 40% to 35%.
Note: Although the win rate of the Scorpion is not high, the relatively long range and high health of the Scorpion have made it difficult for many players to find a suitable counter. Therefore, we decided to shorten the range of the Scorpion. We hope that this change will give more units the opportunity to fight against Scorpions more effectively.

Fire Badger

HP increased from 5703 to 5931 (4% increase).
ATK increased from 26 to 27 (4% increase).
Movement speed increased from 9m/s to 10m/s.

Sabertooth

ATK increased from 5455 to 6000 (10% increase).
Movement speed increased from 7m/s to 8m/s.

Typhoon

HP decreased from 10785 to 10030 (7% decrease)
The base HP of [Protective Barrier] has been decreased from 11000 to 10000.

Bugfixes

Fixed many UI related issues.
Fixed some English translation issues.

Wrapping up

One last thing we want to mention here is that there are no new units added with this update. As you all probably noticed in our new keyart, new units are on the way, and we plan to add some still in our Early Access program, a little bit later!
As always, thank you for supporting Mechabellum and helping us along in our Early Access journey! We hope you'll like the new 4 Player Brawl mode and will share your feedback with us!

I can only speak for England, personally.
There’s plenty of phrases that seem outdated now. My parents are cockneys, so I picked up a lot of rhyming slang growing up… that is definitely dying out 😅
But, simpler words have changed too - mainly nouns. For example: cinema (used to be the pictures), phone (used to be mobile phone). I’m sure there’s plenty more… but it makes you realise just how much has changed.

As the title says, I F(23), have a crush on my F(25) coworker and we both have happy relationships. (both of us are queer but 1 in a hetero). This isn’t going anywhere but I just really want to share with SOMEONE how I feel.
I’ve been working at this newer job for about a year now. My coworker Leti has been there for roughly 4 years. We work on the same floor but on different ends of the building. Our jobs are very similar and sometimes we have lunch together in a group with others but I don’t get to work with her directly. When I first arrived Leti was immediately open, warm, and welcoming. She has made an effort to make me feel included but it’s not just me, I have noticed she has amazing connections with everyone. She’s so funny and kind to all those around her. Everyone always has a smile when they are talking with her. Her smile is contagious and her energy radiates in the room.
I’ve found myself getting nervous around her and feeling like I stumble over my words a bit. I notice i’m making reasons to go talk to her and to be around her or share random work stuff. We will spend our breaks together every so often laughing and talking the whole time. Shes helped me adjust to my new job and gave me her number to text her if I needed. She’s reached out to start a small project with me where we meet weekly to work together. I feel like she always laughs at my jokes, compliments me, and is super supportive.
Recently Leti has asked me if I wanted to hangout outside of work and go get some drinks. I excitedly agreed and we are making a plan to hangout next week.
I think she is just really kind and friendly and simply wants to make a friend but I can’t help but get butterflies when I talk to her. She’s so beautiful and her energy is so bright, gentle, and grounding(she’s an earth sign).I feel so connected to her and drawn in by her personality. She is a one of a kind person. I don’t know how I am supposed to calmly hangout with her outside of work when I am crushing this hard.

I have DID. My partner and I both had very very traumatic childhoods. His almost seems worse than mine sometimes (I know, no trauma comparing) we’ve known eachother for 13 years, witnessed each other being abused, both of us have lived together and supported eachother through our trauma healing for the last 5-6 years. They have all the same behaviour I have, to the point where one of our parts said to us “if they don’t have DID, than we don’t.” Jokingly. They have the same type of expirences we have, but explain it away as something else, even when that explanation doesn’t make sense or add up. They’ve called themselves “we.” We treat them as if they have DID because if we don’t, we get into fights with him, unintentionally. I literally can’t treat him as a singlet because it doesn’t work for him. This is what led to us realizing he acts like someone with DID, before we thought that’s what was happening, we witnessed his changes in affect and behavior and his denial of things he’s said or done as possible gaslighting and one of our protectors almost forced us to break up with him over it. (That protector has since changed their mind and now trusts him—as he’s never once tried to hurt us) Since respecting all his different states as their own parts and refusing to question their contradictions and memory loss, since I’ve stopped treating him like a singlet and only expect from him what I’d expect of someone with DID—our relationship has become very harmonious and he’s seemed to open up and feel a lot safer around me than before. They don’t know that we treat them as if they have DID, we’ve had to adjust quietly, because the idea that they have DID triggers them so much that they treat us with legit ptsd type fear if we bring up the possibility. I’ve sworn that I’ve seen them switch many times. I have a list of the different states and how they act, their different preferences, I take notes in case one day he wants to know what I’ve witnessed. He refers to “different parts” of himself by titles like “New York me” and “Teenaged me” He told me he has “perfect memory” and nervously laughed about it, so I asked what we both did three days ago and he couldn’t remember anything at all, and using humor as a coping mechanism said “no! That doesn’t count!” and we both laughed about it. They are already diagnosed with DP/DR and severe ptsd for context. They have childlike parts that sound like little kids and want to be treated like little kids and cannot engage in anything inappropriate, after a very stressful situation the other day, one of those littles told me their name. Just announced it. I’ve tried to point out the signs of DID to them before and met a very very angry version of them I’ve never seen before who looked at me like I was a threat to their existence and threatened me to never bring it up ever again or else. (Which legit scared me, I’d never seen him treat me like that or act that way before and he looked at me like I was nothing but a threat to his existence. He never brought it up again, When I asked him about it a week later he had no idea what I was talking about, and only remembered the moments right before and right after, and he refused to believe he missed time in between. He then started dissociating and acting physically triggered so I dropped it)
So what do I do? I told the alter part that recently announced themselves that I loved their name and just went along with it, engaged with them as an adult would to a kid, and didn’t point anything out. I just treated them like they were always there and talked about whatever they wanted to talk about. I looked for signs of switching throughout the rest of the day and just acclimated to each part as I noticed them.
Do I keep up what I’ve been doing? If they start rapid switching or having a dissociative episode I comfort them the way I comfort my system and it works really well. When they switch I (for lack of a better word) code-switch and adjust to how I know that alter wants to be treated. (They all want to be treated differently—-which is why I had to start treating them like a system—-otherwise they’d get in fights with me because I’d point out that “as a singlet” they keep expecting so many different and opposite things from me and I can’t keep up, which just made them very defensive and would cause them to deny this fact and around we went in circles)
So should I respect the alter than told me to back off and not bring it up and just continue to be covertly aware and respect his different parts needs and adjust to them? It’s not super hard for me, it’s exhuasting to an extent but not the way it is for me to mask my autism or other things I deal with. It feels kind of healing to treat him the way I like to be treated, and he treats me just like that too. (He’s very good about me being a system and seems to intuitively understand a lot without me even needing to explain and has actually given me a lot of insight, something that so far only other “known” system-friends have been able to provide for me.)
They are going thru an extremely stressful financial period right now and have no health insurance for therapist and no access to the prescribed medication they need, and need to stay stable and in control in order to afford rent and hold down a job. So I do not think doing anything to risk causing him a crisis would be safe for him but I really want him to find healing and therapy eventually. Just looking for advice?

I am looking for a lady between 25 and 35 years old, for a committed monogamous childfree relationship. My goal is to become a true team, supporting each other, caring for each other, nurturing each other and helping each other grow and realise our goals and dreams as much as possible. I'm hoping to find someone that values a relationship as much as I do and takes it seriously. It's not the only thing my life revolves around, but it's also not just something 'nice to have' for me.
I am 186cm tall, slim/fit built, dark brown hair, brown eyes. Both my arms are tattooed (full sleeve), as are my calves and the areas above my ankles. Regarding pictures see below. I am a runner, training multiple times a week. I'm also vegan. My love languages are physical touch and words of affirmation. While I am mostly securely attached, withdrawing from me triggers anxiety and I have made a horrible experience with an avoidant partner in the past, so that is something I fear I cannot deal with again.
I am also an atheist.
I am a very warm, soft and sensitive person, I think I am humorous, I am self reflecting a lot and I can also be really passionate and romantic. Those are traits that also are really important to me in a woman.
I can be quite social, I am a good talker, but also love to listen to really get to know someone on a deeper level. I can enjoy an evening out with friends just as much as the silence of sitting at the shores of the river and watching the sunset in solitude (although I've been craving to watch it together with a partner for a really long time now). I can be out in a pub, at a rave, a metal show or at a football game and have the time of my life, but I cannot do these things every day; I need recharge time (on the sofa, in the woods for a run, a lazy Sunday staying in bed etc.). This should give you an idea; basically, I am a homebody that thoroughly enjoys going out in moderation.
I won't say too much about hobbies; suffice it to say I am into the dark, the obscure, the macabre, the occult, the mysterious, the erotic. It won't surprise you that I had a gothic phase in my youth, bonus points if you did too!
What I'm looking for
Although similar hobbies and interests are a plus, emotional and intimate compatibility are more important to me. I am a very sensitive and emotional person (I do cry easily and by this point I don't think I'll ever be able to change that, sorry), so if you're too, we will definitely understand each other. I need someone who I can open up to (which I do rather quickly, anyway), be myself, bare my soul to and I need these things from you, too. I've had my share of emotionally unavailable women who were afraid of intimacy so I know I can't deal with that again because of the way how those things affect me. I am always emotionally invested with the woman I pursue and in those cases that was to my detriment. But my ability to feel so deep is also something I wouldn't want to change because as of yet, although it's getting harder, I haven't given up on finding someone.
With those emotional needs come two requirements that I found to be vital over the years: First, being able to be silly and cutesy together and to accept each other's inner child and care for it. I am not talking about having to deal with another person's immaturity or inability to perform basic adult skills, rather with the way sadness, hurt, anxiety and being overwhelmed manifests for me (and maybe for you, too?). I need someone who is able to comfort me, to hold me, to allow me to be weak and needy for a while until I've calmed down, and I'm more than ready to offer the same. Your inner child can come out for a while, no problem (: Also in a positive way: Thankfully, today everyone seems to be understanding of the cuteness overload cats (or any animal baby, really) can cause; I need that with a partner. I also still have plushies as comfort animals and ideally, you do too.
Apparently in every relationship, one person is the stronger one. In the past, I have been with women who obviously were stronger than me, but that doesn't mean they always had to be strong, far from it. I certainly need to be able to feel protected, but it's not like I'm a particularly needy partner, like everyone, I have my ups and downs, but I can pull my weight and have been told by past partners that I am very caring and that they felt safe and understood with me, and providing that for my partner is really important for me as well.
Second, intimate compatibility. I am rather insatiable and love to experiment when it comes to the bedroom, so you should, too, in order that we can explore and enjoy together. I found out how fulfilling living out those fantasies can be after years of never being able to try and in a relationship, this kind of fulfillment for both partners is a must for me. I found the term 'filthy best friends and partners' to be a perfect description.
I'm looking for a balance between healthy independence and being emotionally present. A relationship where we 'get' each other; we're both each other's number one and treat each other like royalty. Where a disagreement leads to more intimacy between us as we understand better, not to resentment. Where we're comfortable baring our souls to each other, becoming a safe haven and secure base for each other. I don't like the modern notion that you 'should never feel too safe in a relationship' because that sounds like running from the mafia (and believe me, I love mafia movies); you should always put in effort, yes, but safety is one of the things I always want to experience and provide in a relationship. We shouldn't fear that a disagreement leads straight to breakup. I know ‘self-sufficiency’ is trending right now, but I feel like as partners, we’re partly responsible for each other and not our own but also each other’s happiness. Being dependant and dependable at the same time is important; making each other’s wellbeing a priority. If you’re not able to healthily depend on someone and their support while you’re having a hard time, look elsewhere. If I have to be afraid you’ll run at the first major problem that surfaces, even if it’s a ‘you’-problem, it’s not going to work. I think that all things can and need to be talked about. If you think ignoring someone for days is a form of communication, please look elsewhere.
I am looking for someone real. We all have our problems, I don't want or need a 'perfect' person. You don't have everything figured out or 'all your shit' together. Be imperfect. Admit when you feel sad and angry, lonely, hopeless or even helpless – it's all relatable. Don't hide it. Be quirky, be dorky, be witchy, opinionated, be yourself. Don't pretend.
I'm looking for someone to share romance with. Not great gestures, but small, meaningful ones. Poems for each other, expressing our feelings; cards with heartfelt messages that we put our perfume/cologne on, and a symbol that means something to us only, the print of your lips with lipstick, the way I sign and seal my letters for you.
Just as important to me is agreeing on living a healthy life, staying in shape both for ourselves and for each other, regularly working out and eating healthy. I am drug and disease-free and expect the same of you. I do drink as I love a good beer or glass of wine, rum or whiskey, but I've never really been drinking much and especially during the past year have further reduced it. One vice I have is that I enjoy a couple of cigars a year, but I can definitely accommodate you in this regard.
Another important point is aligned life goals: I value safety more than adventure. I want to build a home together with my partner, a safespace for the both of us, where we always feel loved and protected, a place that we create together, make it cozy together so we just love to get back home there wherever we might have been, a home we decorate together for Halloween (my favourite holiday) or Christmas or Springtime, as we live in tune with the seasons, enjoying nature on a walk or the rain outside, reading in our cozy home. I value stability and harmony.
Appearance-wise, I am into ladies on the smaller side), so I'm looking for someone petite/slim/skinny/healthy-fit. Likewise, I am not really muscular and don't have visible abs; like I said, I'm a runner, so if you're more into the gym-type, I'm not a good fit.
I’d prefer to move from text to voice calls, videochat and then meeting up, all of that rather sooner than later. Not that there’s a need to rush anything, but I’d rather see earlier if we’re compatible or not; as someone who catches feelings fast I need to protect myself.
Caveats

• I don't like travelling as it stresses me out; I don't mind being somewhere else for a week or two, but the organisation part of it drains my energy very quickly and dealing with stuff that doesn't work out is overwhelming to me. Smaller trips are ok, but I'm not the right person to travel the world with.
• I am not the most awake person in the morning (i.e. I identify as nightowl)
• I don't want children and had a vasectomy
• I need space for my own projects/time to recharge after social interaction.
• While I feel like I am in tune with my inner child and working on/with it through therapy, I realise this is something that could be a turn-off for people.
• I have been diagnosed with depressive episodes in the past and am taking anti-depressants right now. I realise that I am a work in progress, maybe more so than in times past, but I manage and the fact that I'm putting myself out here is based on me being ready to get to know someone new.
• I want to create a home together here, as I'm firmly rooted where I was born; I realise this is a lot to ask, but I have seen many people here being open to moving, so I want to at least try reaching out to them.

If you're interested, feel free to message me and include some pictures of yourself and I will reply with my own. Have a nice day (:

General
I am looking for a lady between 28 and 35 years old, for a committed monogamous childfree relationship. My goal is to become a true team, supporting each other, caring for each other, nurturing each other and helping each other grow and realise our goals and dreams as much as possible. I'm hoping to find someone that values a relationship as much as I do and takes it seriously. It's not the only thing my life revolves around, but it's also not just something 'nice to have' for me.
I tried to be as concise as possible while still providing what details I think are crucial to know; I realise this post turned out very long, but I prefer those because I can get as good an idea as possible with detailed descriptions, bar actually talking to the person, and find that very valuable, so if that also applies to you, that would be awesome.
Basics
I am 186cm tall, slim/fit built, dark brown hair, brown eyes. Both my arms are tattooed (full sleeve), as are my calves and the areas above my ankles. Regarding pictures see below. I am a runner (ranging from 5k to full marathon), training multiple times a week. I'm also vegan. My love languages are physical touch and words of affirmation. While I am mostly securely attached, withdrawing from me triggers anxiety and I have made a horrible experience with a fearful avoidant partner in the past, so that is something I fear I cannot deal with again.
I am also an atheist.
I am a very warm, soft and sensitive person, I think I am humorous, I am self reflecting a lot and I can also be really passionate and romantic. Those are traits that also are really important to me in a woman.
I can be quite social, I am a good talker, but also love to listen to really get to know someone on a deeper level. I can enjoy an evening out with friends just as much as the silence of sitting at the shores of the river and watching the sunset in solitude (although I've been craving to watch it together with a partner for a really long time now). I can be out in a pub, at a rave, a metal show or in the stadium watching football and have the time of my life, but I cannot do these things every day; I need recharge time (on the sofa, in the woods for a run, a lazy Sunday staying in bed etc.). This should give you an idea; basically, I am a homebody that thoroughly enjoys going out in moderation.
I won't say too much about hobbies; suffice it to say I am into the dark, the obscure, the macabre, the occult, the mysterious, the erotic. It won't surprise you that I had a gothic phase in my youth, bonus points if you did too!
What I am looking for
Although similar hobbies and interests are a plus (and there have to be at least a couple things we have in common), emotional and sexual compatibility are more important to me. I am a very sensitive and emotional person (I do cry easily and by this point I don't think I'll ever be able to change that, sorry), so if you're too, we will definitely understand each other. I need someone who I can open up to (which I do rather quickly, anyway), be myself, bare my soul to and I need these things from you, too. I've had my share of emotionally unavailable women who were afraid of intimacy so I know I can't deal with that again because of the way how those things affect me. I am always emotionally invested with the woman I pursue and in those cases that was to my detriment. But my ability to feel so deep is also something I wouldn't want to change because as of yet, although it's getting harder, I haven't given up on finding someone.
With those emotional needs come two requirements that I found to be vital over the years: First, being able to be silly and cutesy together and to accept each other's inner child and care for it. I am not talking about having to deal with another person's immaturity or inability to perform basic adult skills, rather with the way sadness, hurt, anxiety and being overwhelmed manifests for me (and maybe for you, too?). I need someone who is able to comfort me, to hold me, to allow me to be weak and needy for a while until I've calmed down, and I'm more than ready to offer the same. Your inner child can come out for a while, no problem (: Also in a positive way: Thankfully, today everyone seems to be understanding of the cuteness overload cats (or any animal baby, really) can cause; I need that with a partner. I also still have plushies as comfort animals (some of which in quite a litteral sense as they make for really amazing pillows) and ideally, you do too.
There is a saying that in every relationship, one person is the stronger one. In the past, I have been with women who obviously were stronger than me, but that doesn't mean they always had to be strong, far from it. I certainly, like I said, need to be able to feel protected, but it's not like I'm a particularly needy partner, like everyone, I have my ups and downs, but I can pull my weight and have been told by past partners that I am very caring and that they felt safe and understood with me, and providing that for my partner is really important for me as well – this just to put the picture I'm (somewhat haphazardly) trying to paint into perspective.
Second, sexual compatibility. I have a high libido and I have kinks, so you should, too, in order that we can explore and enjoy them together. I found out how fulfilling living out those fantasies can be after years of never being able to try and in a relationship, sexual fulfillment for both partners is a must for me. Someone on here has coined the term 'filthy best friends and partners' which I have no shame to be stealing because it's such an apt description.
I'm looking for a balance between healthy independence and being emotionally present. A relationship where we 'get' each other; we're both each other's number one and treat each other like royalty. Where a disagreement leads to more intimacy between us as we understand better, not to resentment. Where we're comfortable baring our souls to each other, becoming a safe haven and secure base for each other. I don't like the modern notion that you 'should never feel too safe in a relationship' because that sounds like running from the mafia (and believe me, I love mafia movies); you should always put in effort, yes, but safety is one of the things I always want to experience and provide in a relationship. We shouldn't fear that a disagreement leads straight to breakup. I know ‘self-sufficiency’ is trending right now, but I feel like as partners, we’re partly responsible for each other and not our own but also each other’s happiness. Being dependant and dependable at the same time is important; making each other’s wellbeing a priority. I love the relationship model outlined in Stan Tatkin’s ‘Wired for Love’ and you should, too. If you’re not able to healthily depend on someone and their support while you’re having a hard time, look elsewhere. I know codependency is the latest thing everyone’s afraid of, but experiencing someone you’ve grown very attached to just bailing because they’re counterdependent and can’t stand working on themselves while simultaneously letting you in is something I’d rather not go through again. If I have to be afraid you’ll run at the first major problem that surfaces, even if it’s a ‘you’-problem, it’s not going to work. I think that all things can and need to be talked about. If you think ignoring someone for days is a form of communication, please look elsewhere. If you think’s it’s okay to lovebomb someone and then leave after a couple of months with the minimum amount of information and no proper conversation because you’re not ready to own up to what’s happening to you emotionally, please look elsewhere.
I am looking for someone real. We all have our problems, I don't want or need a 'perfect' person. You don't have everything figured out or 'all your shit' together. Be imperfect. Admit when you feel sad and angry, lonely, hopeless or even helpless – it's all relatable. Don't hide it. Be quirky, be dorky, be witchy, be opinionated, be yourself. Don't pretend.
I'm looking for someone to share romance with. Not great gestures, but small, meaningful ones. Poems for each other, expressing our feelings; cards with heartfelt messages that we put our perfume/cologne on, and a symbol that means something to us only, the print of your lips with lipstick, the way I sign and seal my letters for you.
Just as important to me is agreeing on living a healthy life, staying in shape both for ourselves and for each other, regularly working out and eating healthy. I am drug and disease-free and expect the same of you. I do drink as I love a good beer or glass of wine, rum or whiskey, but I've never really been drinking much and especially during the past year have further reduced it. One vice I have is that I enjoy a couple of cigars a year, but I can definitely accommodate you in this regard.
Another important point is aligned life goals: many childfree people seem to be adventurous, but that is a trait I don't associate with myself at all. I value safety more than adventure. I want to build a home together with my partner, a safespace for the both of us, where we always feel loved and protected, a place that we create together, make it cozy together so we just love to get back home there wherever we might have been, a home we decorate together for Halloween (my favourite holiday) or Christmas or Springtime, as we live in tune with the seasons, seeing them change around us, enjoying nature on a walk or the rain outside, reading in our cozy home. I value stability and harmony.
Appearance-wise, I am into ladies on the smaller side (albeit not regarding height), so I'm looking for someone petite/slim/skinny/healthy-fit. Likewise, I am not really muscular and don't have visible abs; like I said, I'm a runner, so if you're more into the gym-type, I'm not a good fit.
The natural progression for me would be to move from text to voice calls, videochat and then meeting up, all of that rather sooner than later. Not that there’s a need to rush anything, but having my heart broken because I already developed feelings due to a longer timeframe and then everything unexpectedly turning to shit is not something I want to have to live through again. I’d rather see earlier if we’re compatible or not; as someone who catches feelings fast I need to protect myself, I unfortunately had to learn that
Caveats/Possible red flags

• I don't like travelling as it stresses me out; I don't mind being somewhere else for a week or two, but the organisation part of it drains my energy very quickly and dealing with stuff that doesn't work out is overwhelming to me. Smaller trips are ok, but I'm not the right person to travel the world with.
• I am not the most awake person in the morning (i.e. I identify as nightowl)
• I need space for my own projects/time to recharge after social interaction.
• While I feel like I am in tune with my inner child and working on/with it through therapy, I realise this is something that could be a turn-off for people.
• I have been diagnosed with depressive episodes in the past and am taking anti-depressants right now. I realise that I am a work in progress, maybe more so than in times past, but I manage and the fact that I'm putting myself out here is based on me being ready to get to know someone new.
• I want to create a home together here, as I'm firmly rooted where I was born; I realise this is a lot to ask, but I have seen many people here being open to moving, so I want to at least try reaching out to them.

If you're interested, feel free to message me and include some pictures of yourself and I will reply with my own. Have a nice day (:

I (29F) am disabled. I have a genetic condition that causes neuropathy which means I am in pain constantly and am very fatigued quite easily. I was finally diagnosed 4 years ago.
I am completely independent from my parents and have been since I was a teenager. I own my house, pay all my bills, and am getting married here in a few weeks. I work full time. As far as I am concerned, I’m doing all of the “expected” things in life even though I am disabled and it certainly hasn’t been easy. I’m making it work for me and my partner.
My parents live in a different state from me and came to help with last wedding details. While here, they kept commenting on things that didn’t live up to their “expectations” for me.
Some examples include:

1. My house is a little messy. Not dirty, mind you. Just messy. We have a ton of boxes in the garage that we need to bring to the recycling plant, we have a table that tends to collect clutter, my office regularly looks like a hurricane hit a stack of papers.

My response: I get fatigued extremely easily. Cleaning can take me out of commission for a full day. My partner does a wonderful job of stepping up but also works a demanding job.

1. We are having a very small wedding (less than 50) and they can’t understand why I’m not inviting all of my aunts and uncles and cousins.

I am sad we won’t do a huge blow out but we just can’t consider spending the money when I have some medical debt from trying treatments not covered by insurance, surgeries, etc. I asked my parents for help with this and they were not willing to but they are willing to gift money towards the wedding. Priorities seem a little off to me but I digress.

1. I mentioned that we will NOT be having kids. This one made my mom cry about how she’d never get the chance to experience the birth of her grandchild (I have an older brother who has a kid so I think she was lamenting that my sister in law didn’t let her in the room while my niece was born? And would expect me to have her there which I never would even consider it anyway). I told her I have a genetic condition that I would NEVER consider risking passing down to a child. Plus I am disabled. I wouldn’t be able to pick up or hold my child for very long and being pregnant would be a risk for me.

There were more little jabs throughout their visit and towards the end I got fed up and told them that they need to adjust their expectations for having a healthy kid because I am not healthy. This sent my mom into hysterical crying and my dad ranted about how I was just lazy and didn’t want to do anything hard and was using it as an excuse.
I can’t help but wonder if they have a point in any of this and if I’m an ah for snapping. I think I’m doing fine with the life I have but it stings a little to be told I’m not living up to my parents’ expectations.

I 30M and my wife 30F just recently got married in our small southern town. (About 5k people) The usual people that you would find at a small town wedding were there. Aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, friends of family members, distant relatives, etc. Everything was fine & well with no complications, but everything got really screwed up during the honeymoon.
My wife and I decided to go to Vegas for our honeymoon. (I know it sounds cliche, but some of my family members lived in Vegas and have connections to get us a good hotel room.)
Saturday night, we decided to hit the strip, and we thought it would be really funny if we would go to one of those Elopement churches on the strip. (The ones that will have Elvis marry you.) I'm a Elvis fan and she thought it would be funny because we both saw an episode of Viva La Bam where Phil and Ape got their vows renewed so we thought it would be fun.
We got married a second time, in one weekend, I got a couple of good pictures, and I posted them to social media without a second thought. The next morning, I woke up to literally hundreds of notifications, messages, missed phone calls, and angry texts from damn near literally everybody saying that people thought that we had eloped in Vegas. Which makes no sense considering that we just got married, but I can't do anything about it. Literally, all of my elderly relatives are pissed except for my younger cousins, who thought it was hilarious.
Of my elderly family members are extremely pissed off and they are saying that I made the family look trashy by making it look like as if me and my wife got married in Vegas and not in the perfect Church like they always wanted. So, AITA?

So I have been following Israeli politics for some time now (especially after October 7th), but there are some things that I do not fully understand. The sources I have are usually heavily biased towards either Israel or Palestine, so I cannot get the correct picture easily.
And the one thing that kinda interested me is the Israeli protests (which, as I understand, began in early 2023, were set on pause due to the war, and then started again recently). Originally, IIRC, they focused primarily on internal politics, such as attempts by Netanyahu's government to forego the constitutional court, but are now also about the war, or at least how the war is waged.
What I do not understand is how much these protests are about the war. Suppose the protests lead for Netanyahu's resignation and the formation of a new government. How much is Israel's policy in Gaza, and Palestine in general, bound to change? Would we expect negotiations to begin right away, or would the new government probably still continue the invasion? How much are protesters motivated by the war?
The reason I am asking here is that the normal sources I rely on are, as I said, biased towards one side or the other, and I found that such biases prevent a correct reading of the situation inside the country. For instance, regarding Russian society and the Russo-Ukrainian War. I have heard claims that "all Russians are imperialists who support Putin and the war", "the people who oppose Putin simply want the war to be done more efficiently", "no Russian will accept the return of Crimea", etc.. But as a person who lives inside Russia, I know that this isn't true, because there are lots of people here who hate Putin, hate the war, and would even be willing to leave Crimea if that would mean peace. So I know that these accusations are baseless and biased.
Now, regarding Israel, I have heard similar claims - that all Israelis hate Palestinians, that all protesters are asking is for even more brutal war, that even without Netanyahu the invasion would continue, etc.. And I wonder if these claims are also baseless, made by people with an anti-Israeli bias. Of course Israel and Russia are very different countries and the wars they wage are also very different, hence why I am asking here.

Brace yourself, it's a long one.
We have had a bit of a horror week and hope the information may be useful to others. I guess this is also a bit of a cathartic AITA for us as well.
We hired our 18-year-old German au pair privately through an NZ Facebook group. She was in the last month of a long trip here, but her last family could not afford to pay her any more. We put her straight on a salary with our company, gave her a near-new nice car to drive, and even allowed her boyfriend to stay and fed him for over a week.
When we hired her, we insisted on a contract and included an instant dismissal clause for 'gross negligence' - we were glad we did.
She did an okay job. Looking after one four-year-old for around three to four hours a day and a few extra days by arrangement, she would turn up at the exact minute expected and stop working the minute scheduled. She didn't assist with things like cooking, other than one night, or with dishes after she or her boyfriend ate with us. But it's hard to complain about that as it was not like we enforced that as part of the remit.
Anyway, we get to the last week and allow her time off (after having spent the weekend away) to drop her boyfriend at the airport. She arrives back at the absolute last minute and bundles our daughter out the door quickly to go to the park via a local book-sharing room. A bit over an hour later, they rush back in, with the au pair upset and my daughter a bit concerned that a lady had been mean to the au pair. From this point, the stories start changing.
First version: The au pair says she got a call from her mum with some bad news and went to the car, parked around 10 meters away and in complete view of the playground, to take the call so our daughter wouldn't see her upset. She says she was there for three minutes before an angry mum comes up with Maeve, telling her off for leaving her alone, and taking a picture of the car. Having been told the 'bad news', I jump in my vehicle with the au pair to find the woman to give her a telling-off for being so mean to a young lady in a bad situation. Thankfully, we don't find her.
Through the wonder of social media, the mother does, however, find us and her story is rather different from the au pair's:
Second version: The mother tells us our daughter was on her own for 'quite some time', estimated to be at least ten minutes. This park is next door to a competition-standard skate park with some pretty hard skating and big drops, and she wandered all the way over there. There are some details I will skip, but she slowly made her way back to the playground (thankfully not the other way to the major highway) and played more (unfortunately including peeing herself on the slide), approaching other children and parents, and finally latching on to another mother trying to deal with her three kids.
That is when she asked our daughter where her parents were. Our daughter said she was there with her au pair, and after a while, the mother managed to find her where she explained to her the situation just wasn't right. The au pair's biggest concern - that she didn't want the mother to tell us as it would 'ruin her last few days in NZ'.
On this news, we confronted the au pair again who did not deny it.
Third version: The au pair now says she went back to the car as she was cold and wanted to put on more clothes. Our daughter had told her she wasn't cold and wanted to keep playing, so she left her as it was only for a few minutes. But indicated she stayed in the car to warm up and her mother called and following this she lost track of time. We checked phone records later and she had made an outgoing call, she wasn't the one called.
At this stage, my wife is incredibly upset, both from the lies, the fears around our daughter being alone, and that this was somehow her failure. I send the au pair back to her quarters, of a mind that if that is it, there will be no more out-of-home trips but she can see out the week.
But it still feels fishy to me, the au pair doesn't seem upset enough for the news she shared. So I contact a representative of the park to check their CCTV. They promise to do so in the morning. And here comes the kicker...
Fourth version: The park management tracked our daughter around the park, separate from our au pair, for AT LEAST 25 minutes. They can't say it wasn't less than that due to blind spots. The woman there is extremely disturbed that it happened considering the nature of the park, and suggests the au pair needs to be gone immediately. I agree.
At this point it is not just the negligence, it is the lies.
I confront the au pair - managing somehow to stay calm - and immediately dismiss her under the gross negligence clause. I tell her to pack, head back to the living area and book secure accommodation (but the cheapest I would send an 18-year-old daughter to) in the city for the six nights till she flies out, a bus ticket, and a taxi to the bus. I pay for it all, not wanting any comeback and still treating her as human and someone's daughter, even if she didn't extend us the same courtesy.
No apologies, no arguments, but there is a postscript.
The car she was using is, like most new cars, surrounded by cameras. There is even one that records on a small rolling memory in case of accidents, but when the car is off it is off. Her and her boyfriend clearly had panicked, thinking the video evidence we got the timeline from was from the car, and she was upset she didn't know the cameras were recording (they weren't, and can't) as they took the car camping on the weekend. I wonder if the concern came down to the condom wrapper we found in the back seat where my daughter sits, lol!
Anyway, our new, older, more mature Japanese au pair arrives on the weekend. We haven't let this deter us from what should be a great process. Just make sure you can terminate contracts and have an exit plan in place. And don't rush off to confront Karens without all the details.

There's been a lot of talk around balance lately, particularly some (in my opinion) valid complaints about certain nerfs not making sense.
With that in mind, here are some suggestions around balance. The focus here is on fun and uniqueness.
Credit for most suggestions goes to the Helldivers community. I've mostly compiled what others have said, though I've tried to be more specific about stat recommendations.
For anyone who doesn't know, the stats shown on-screen are not the full picture. For instance, the CEO has said recoil is actually governed by 14 different values. However, I wanted to be as specific as possible.
For anyone wondering, I'm around level 50 and play on various difficulties, most often 7.
When in doubt, I've erred on the side of smaller versus larger changes, which I think is a good approach to balance in general.
Some more general thoughts about balance about the bottom, but for now, let's just dive in...
Liberator: Honestly great as-is; well-rounded starter for clearing crowds, compensated by being bad against armor.
Liberator Penetrator: VERY underpowered due to a 30-round mag (versus 45 for the Liberator), and 45 (versus 60) damage, though it does have Medium armor penetration. It's very strange that the "Penetrator" does far less damage than its "vanilla" variant. Suggest raising damage to 65 and keeping the clip at 30 rounds to emphasize its specialty anti-armor role.
Liberator Concussive: Suggest raising damage to 75. Come on... it shoots explosive, um, concussive rounds. The smaller clip would still balance it versus the basic Liberator, while the lack of Medium penetration would mean it doesn't invalidate the Penetrator.
Tenderizer: Suggest raising damage to 75 on this one too, or it will be completely invalidated by the Liberator variants (as it currently is...). This would make it a smaller-capacity, higher-caliber alternative, which aligns with the description. Also, ammo should be fully refilled by drops (as most other guns are) and the color fixed to match the trailer. Guessing these were oversights.
Adjudicator: Well-balanced thanks to recent buffs, but I do think the recoil should be more like 30-35 instead of 40. I'm a big fan (and liked it even before the buff), but it feels strangely hard to control the recoil, especially now that it's considered an assault rifle.
Diligence: Think it's great after the buffs. Not always ideal for bugs (though I use it for that too), but great for bots. No changes.
Diligence Counter-Sniper: Love it after the buffs; it was terrible before. I do think it should have 8 mags instead of 6 (matching the Diligence in mags, but still with less ammo overall due to a clip of 15 versus 20). It feels like it runs out way too fast.
Defender: Honestly not sure; I rarely use it and haven't read much about it. I suspect this means it's decent as-is.
Pummeler: Similar to Defender but less fire rate and lower damage in exchange for stun. Well-received by the community; good as-is.
Punisher: Powerful and well-rounded, good as-is.
Slugger: People were using it as a stagger sniper rifle, and somehow the balance "fix" was to remove the stagger and power, but keep the sniper accuracy? This is a slug shotgun. Suggest reverting damage and stagger to pre-nerf, but make it somewhat less accurate (or have the damage drop off more) at longer ranges.
Breaker: Good as-is.
Breaker Spray& Pray: Nearly half the damage / twice the capacity of the regular Breaker, but only 10% more fire rate? Granted this is a light crowd clearer, but I really think the fire rate should be more like 400. This would still be notably lower DPS than the Breaker, but with more ammo and much faster firing... it is called the Spray&Pray!
Breaker Incendiary: One of the best weapons imo, with a very reasonable trade-off of less immediate power for more BURN THEM ALL. My teammates often use it to set me ablaze with patriotism. Good as-is.
Exploding Crossbow: One of the worst-balanced weapons right now. The question is whether it should be more of a light crowd-clear (as it was pre-nerf), or armor penetrator (as the devs have claimed was their original intention), as currently it is bad at both. I would favor the former, only because A) that's what it was before and what people seemed to prefer, and B) that sets it apart from the Eruptor more, rather than basically serving the same role but without the ability to close holes. (I personally wish it could close them, as it is explosive, but being semi-auto that might be a bit OP.) I think it should be reverted to pre-nerf, but adding a couple more clips and keeping the faster-flying bolts (a nice change!). It was odd and a bit annoying how slow the bolts were when it first got released; even strafing could throw them off. It's a crossbow, after all, not a trebuchet. The tooltip should also say its level of armor penetration (currently it doesn't.)
Dominator: Not sure why it was recently nerfed down to 275 damage. I honestly feel the recent nerf made no difference to the balance, but I'd revert it just as a show of good faith.
Eruptor: There is a lot to say here... suggest reverting its stats and performance to the original release, but keeping the fix to it not 'imploding' players toward the explosion, and keeping the magazines at 6. I think it is potentially OK to keep the slight nerf to damage radius fall-off too (I didn't feel much difference, but it seemed more realistic somehow, whereas at release the explosion felt like it went abruptly from full damage to 0 at the edge of the radius).
HOWEVER, removing the "shrapnel" mechanic absolutely needs to be reverted. This was a massive, unnecessary nerf that removed the gun's identity and took it from being great to being awful.
A couple more points about that:
-Yes, it could randomly kill you from 30 meters away... like 0.5% of the time. Anyone claiming it didn't is wrong, though it was very rare. I had it happen maybe twice in a 10-hour period.
-No, it was not a big deal at all. However, it also did not make sense, and added nothing fun to gameplay. None of the other "explosive" guns, airstrikes, etc, work that way, and it appears from dev comments the rare weirdly long ricochets were not intended. If that could be fixed without removing the shrapnel, I think it should be... though I would personally rather have a quick revert/fix that adds back shrapnel but keeps the weird ricochet, versus a slower fix that resolves the issue completely.
-Removing the shrapnel was a dev decision. Some people need to stop blaming the community for that, because no one was asking for it to be removed completely; they just wanted the explosive mechanics to be more consistent, fun, and intuitive.
Punisher Plasma: Feels way better after the buffs; love the increased flight speed for the shots. I could see a slight buff to power or explosive radius, but think it's pretty good as-is.
Blitzer: Feels amazing after the buff to fire rate. Kudos to the devs, because this has gone from hot garbage to being my favorite gun... unless/until the Eruptor is fixed. Democracy rating: Taste My Lightning / 10.
Scythe: The buff helped, but it still feels quite weak. I'd buff power significantly (up to 450-500 DPS) and up the Fire Limit from 8 to 10. For comparison, the Sickle has a DPS of 687.5 (assuming its 750 "Fire Rate" means roughly 750 rounds per minute) and a Fire Limit of 9.
Sickle: Super fun, no notes. Great crowd clear, not so great against heavies. I think the nerf to its ammo cartridges was fine, though unnecessary. It didn't change much.
Scorcher: I haven't used it personally (literally just unlocked), but the community seems to feel it's in a good place. Looking forward to some Scorching!
Purifier: Also have not used this personally, so take with a grain of salt, but the consensus seems to be that it's like a much worse Scorcher. The chargeup is a neat mechanic, so I'd lean into that and add a lot more power... like, 400 versus the current 250. Maybe increase recoil to give it that extra kick. Also, I could be wrong, but the 250 displayed for the fire rate seems strangely high based on the gameplay videos I've seen... not sure if that's accurate.
General balance suggestions:
1) "Spreadsheet" balancing based on gun popularity is a bad strategy.
It's good to encourage loadout variety, but guns will never be used equally, and "more used" does not necessarily mean "overpowered." There are many reasons besides a gun being unbalanced that it might be used by more people. It could be unlocked earlier, or easier to learn, or just more fun to use (in which case it's the last thing you should be nerfing!). Some will be used by more people simply because they see other people using it. There are many examples of this in other games. In Rocket League, the "Octane" car is literally identical to many other cars in its stats, but it's still the most used by a wide margin. In Age of Empires 2, the French civilization has a higher win-rate among low-level players because it's easy to learn, but at a higher level, it's well-balanced.
2) Ideally balance for low and high difficulties... but high is more important.
At a high level, if a gun underperforms, you will either die, or worse, not contribute properly to your team... and Freedom.
Because there are some enemies that only appear on higher difficulties, you simply can't get away without playtesting on higher levels.
With that said, if something works well at a high level, the lower levels take care of themselves to an extent. There are some caveats (for instance, crowd-clearing weapons with low armor penetration are relatively better on lower levels), but it's hard to have perfect balance across all difficulties, and it's less important for lower levels because you can get away with a lot more and still survive. The same is not true in reverse.
If the devs don't have the time or inclination to play at a high level, a Preview server (as some have suggested) could help. Tapping skilled streamers/content creators for balance suggestions (after vetting them and/or putting some kind of NDA in place) is an option, too. Microsoft does that with Age of Empires, for instance.
3) This is a PVE game, not PVP. It's best to err on the side of limited changes... especially with nerfs. Fixes take time, but it takes 0 development time to NOT nerf something.
People emotionally invest in weapons they enjoy. (I bring my emotional support 500KG everywhere!) If you change them, they probably won't like it! This goes double for unnecessary nerfs (see 1 above).
In a PVP game, if something is overpowered, the person it's used against generally has less fun. In Helldivers, our enemies are subhuman and have no feelings to consider besides a hatred of all things free and Democratic.
If you've read this far, thanks for taking the time!
I'd love to hear what others think about these suggestions.
The CEO (Pilestedt) has made it clear that the community's concerns around balance have been noted, and the recent Discord posts indicate it's something the team is currently looking at, so hopefully there will be more positive changes soon.
See you on the front!

I get that he won MVP and made the Finals with the Suns so on some level I get why when people discuss his playing career the image usually is of him in a Suns uniform. But doesn't anyone picture him in a Sixers uniform at all? He spent 8 years with them, lead the league in rebounding with them and won most of his All Stars and All NBAs with them. He was the one who flew their flag before AI came into the league. Why isn't he depicted as a Sixer more often?

John 1 starts with the phrase: "In the beginning was the Word", which reminds of the very first verse of the book of Genesis, "In the beginning God created the created the heavens and the earth", then the author of John proceeds to say that the Word was with God, but then says that the Word itself was God, and that through the Word everything was made, nothing was made without the Word, and that the Word became human and dwelled with us, of course the Word that it's being talked about here is Jesus. Jesus also talks about existing with the Father and sharing glory with him before the world existed in John 17:5, something that not only again affirms his existence before everything else, but also shows that Jesus is the God from the Old Testament since God said in Isaiah 42:8 and 48:11 that he will not share his glory with anyone else, so if God doesn't share his glory and Jesus shared glory with the Father then Jesus is either lying or one God together with the Father. In John 5:23 says that we will honor the Son just as we honor the Father, we honor the Father by worshipping him, so, if we should honor the Son just as we honor the Father, then it would mean we should worship the Son. In John 9:38 Jesus is worshipped, but he never stops the man from worshipping him. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush to sent him to the Israelites, Moses asked God what was his name, and he said: "I AM WHO I AM"(Exodus 3:13-14, Acts 7:30-32). Now when Jesus was talking with the people and said that Abraham saw his day and was glad, the Jews asked him how it was possible that he had seen Abraham, and he said: "Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58), and the Jews picked up stones to kill him, for he identified himself with Yahweh. Jesus also used the title to talk about himself in other occasions (John 8:24, 13:19). John also calls Jesus God by saying that the people wanted to stone him for saying he was the Son of God, making himself equal with God (John 5:18), he also called him the only-begotten God (John 1:18). In John 20:28 Thomas after seeing the resurrected Jesus says: "My Lord and my God", and Jesus says that he believes because he has seen him.

I contemplated sharing all of these since the first two happened so long ago, but they’re eerie enough that I think that they should be shared. I have two stories from when I was young, when I was around age 5-6. Though they were over 20 years ago, the first one I remember vividly and the other occurred later yet I can’t recall that one much at all. However, my mom tells that story like it was yesterday so I’m pretty sure my brain blocked it out or something.
So for context, my mom had me when she was 20 and was a single parent for a while. My father was completely out of the picture, so we lived with her childhood best friend in different apartments when I was young. So one night, it was dark but not extremely late (like 7-8) and I was coloring in the kitchen while my mom was in another room. I vividly remember a knock coming from the sliding glass door only a few feet away from where I was. I turned to see a middle aged man with a sinister smile, pointing at the handle to let him in. I immediately screamed, which scared this guy off, and my mom ran in and called the cops. My mom later told me he was peeping at my her and her best friend for a while but this was the first time I had seen him and that he attempted to come in. Apparently he had left… evidence that he was there a couple of times but I don’t think the cops ever got him. But the rest of the time we lived there, my mom had security from her job (House of Blues) sleep over a lot for protection.
The next encounter is one I don’t remember happening but the story still terrifies me because of what might be out there and how easily these things can happen. It was a different apartment, like a townhouse, but only a few blocks away from where the other thing happened. There was a couple that lived across the street and my mom always got very strange vibes from them. The man would openly stare at me (around age 6) and my mom’s best friend’s niece (who was 11) when she would stay over, which would prompt my mom to angrily yell at him for being creepy for staring at us the way he was, calling him a perv. My mom’s best friend thought she was being paranoid but then at some point, I was playing outside, and that same man lured me over into his apartment with his dog. It didn’t take long for my mom to notice I was gone… it wasn’t even 10 minutes before she ran over to come get me. The couple acted like nothing was wrong and that I just wanted to see their dog but she freaked out on them. When we were home, I told her that he took pictures of me with their dog and she called the cops. They were kicked out but the pictures were never found… which creeps me the hell out to this very day.
The most recent creepy encounter was also with my mom but it was about 6 months ago. I’m still not sure if this was us being paranoid or if we were being followed but it felt wrong. We went to the mall looking for shoes for my wedding and started at Belk. My mom had to use the restroom so I went off on my own and while I was browsing, I got annoyed with this guy wearing a baseball hat because he seemed to be constantly in my way or hovering. It struck me as odd that he kept ending up around me in the women’s shoes section and I got annoyed with him quickly, shooting him a glare that seemed to back him off a bit. The aisles for shoes are short so I noticed him walking toward another man with a newsboy cap on the other side of the section with his arms crossed. I wouldn’t have thought much of it except the two spoke briefly before baseball cap guy made another round through the section. I’m not sure how to put it but they seemed out of place, like almost dirty or something, and I felt weirded out so I pulled out my phone to text my husband and pretended to look busy until my mom came back. She eyed the baseball cap guy lingering around but I felt much safer when she arrived, and I loudly complained a bit about the selection and “surroundings” so we headed somewhere else. We went into a bunch of different stores and when we were on the other side of the mall at an Earthbound (trendy hippie store if you’re unfamiliar), my mom made a loud comment how she kept seeing a guy in the same stores we were in. In the moment, even though I did have a strange feeling, I waved it off to keep browsing since I don’t go to the mall often and wanted to enjoy the day with my mom. She said she must be going crazy when I blew it off but the next store was when my mom’s suspicions grew into a serious full blown anxiety attack. I honestly was still oblivious to this guy but I saw how she was looking around a lot, had us weaving through people and quickly going down aisles. Like I said, I still wasn’t paying attention to the people around us so I bought a couple of things but as soon as I had my bags, my mom yanked me and rushed us out. While we were walking, she grew serious, kept glancing behind us and told me how she didn’t feel right about this guy with a newsboy cap and thought we were being followed. I took a look back for myself and sure enough, the man she described, and I finally recognized him as the same guy I briefly saw in Belk an hour or so ago, just left the same store we did and was walking toward us. He was by himself, looking down, carrying no shopping bags. We ducked into the first store we came across and the employees picked up on our frantic and nervous energy. When asked if we were okay, we told them what was going on and they stood in front of us, hiding us from view and assured us that we were safe. We didn’t see him (or the other guy with the baseball cap) after that but it spooked us to the point where we couldn’t even enjoy our day out anymore so we went home.
This same mall is known to be unsafe and honestly, this whole city is rampant with human trafficking so even though it could have been just paranoia, we anticipated the worst. Interestingly enough, this same mall recently posted a policy that visitors under 18 need to be accompanied by an adult after 4pm on Friday and Saturdays along with safety guidelines on how to stay safe. So there’s that.
Stay alert and aware of your surroundings. Trust your gut. I don’t walk alone without my phone in my hand, and I call someone anytime I’m in a parking lot or gas station. It’s sad but it’s always been hard to ever feel safe when I’m alone.