How to know when a taurus man likes you

Yeah, I'm posting again because these get buried in the sea of other posts pretty quickly. I usually get a few replies each time with maybe one or two promising ones but mostly people that need something or don't match up for one reason or another. But I'm an optimist so here I go again.
​

1. Rock star parking! Seriously, this is a big one.
2. I give wheelchair rides. I'm quite comfy and walking is overrated.
3. People let me cut in lines. I'm not sure why they do but it beats sitting outside in the cold.
4. Playing the "Cripple Card" is the best excuse for getting out of shit you don't want to do. Who's going to argue that I don't feel well? This superpower also applies to my +1.
5. People give me free shit. Again, I don't quite get their reasoning but you'll be covered under this policy as well. Free shit is good.
6. I'm the best comedy fodder ever. Ever been out with a drunk, crippled guy that makes up stories about how he got hurt? No? I highly recommend it.
7. I'm like having a built-in lawn chair. Everywhere we go, you'll have a place to sit. Think about it.
8. I use a power chair. Do you have any idea how much this thing can carry? Think shopping bags, picnic supplies, survival gear?
9. I'm really difficult to kidnap. Think this is just a perk for me? Think again, I can say with 99.99% certainty that you will NEVER have to pay a ransom.
10. In the event of a zombie apocalypse or bear attack, I'm easy to outrun. (I can't promise that I won't later eat your brains, but that's the risk you take when dating a pre-zombie.)

​
Not only am I funny, I'm also not horrible looking, smart, thoughtful, live alone, have a great career, a super-sexy minivan (total panty dropper, I know) AND a second bathroom! What else could anyone ask for?
I'm looking for someone that also has a sense of humor. I tend to gravitate toward sweethearts and I find intelligence to be sexy. I don't have a specific physical type, except I'm definitely attracted to thin or athletic body types. Sorry, "bigger" just isn't my jam. Age is inconsequential to me as I’ve dated both much older and younger than myself. I can handle crazy but not, like, stab me crazy.
I'm open to a lot of things but I'm looking for something more than just platonic friendship, I have friends and I don't want to make out with any of them. If you’re looking for “just a friend”, I wish you luck but it’s not me. And definitely something more than just online. Not necessarily jumping into a relationship right away (I'm open to it) but someone to DATE for a while. I want a connection. My career is here and I don’t see that changing in the near future so anyone interested needs to be open to distance at first. Madison is a great place to live, though. ;) So please be in the same part of the world or at least capable to be.
If you think we might vibe, let's give it a go.
Here's a recent selfie to show I'm not a hideous beast: Imgur (No, I'm not a giant. My seat elevates)

I (24F) have been with my husband (28M) for a total of 5 years and married for 2. My ongoing issue with my husband is that he is very lazy and very much one sided, and doesn’t seem to have any interest in doing things with our family. It hasn’t always been like this until he started asking to go out more with his friends around our one year mark, no big deal, go be with your friends and have fun, no issue. Well fast forward we now have 2 children and I find myself spending most of our days alone with just us and it is depressing. I have had many conversations with him about this and how idc if he hangs out with his friends but I would like to be invited or have at least 1 day out the weekend to do something with our family. Well it caused a big argument and now “ I am needy”. Mind you I work, pay half of ALL bills, cook dinner every other night (because we usually have enough for leftovers because I work every other night), clean, and am the sole caretaker for our children most of the time unless I ask multiple times for him to get off the couch and off his phone to spend time with us. He doesn’t read the kids books with me at night,he doesn’t play outside with us, no pool time, no baseball or trampoline, NOTHING, he doesn’t have a single interest in anything I try to plan or date nights I offer to pay for. I have tried so many times over the years to converse about how we can compromise on different activities we both like to no avail. We also don’t have the best sex life, he is very vanilla and I am very much not. I try to spice things up and just get shut down or ignored, it has made me not even want to try to engage in sex anymore which makes me feel like even more shit but he doesn’t seem to mind not having sex. I am so young and I feel like I am living with a room mate, I don’t want to go straight to divorce because I love my husband but I have tried to suggest marriage counseling and he turned this down. I got upset this last weekend because he left to go out with friends again and I had to take my kids to the park alone yet again and I asked him what I could do to be a better spouse or what I could do to make him more interested in me and he says he is content, I’m tired of feeling like I am single and a single parent when in fact I am not. I don’t know what to do. If communication and effort to try and better things isn’t working then what will? Men from your perspective what could I do? He hasn’t always been like this, like I said this happened about a year and a half into our relationship and I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet but I am so defeated.. sincerely a woman who just wants her marriage to work.

hi
I have a few questions for anyone who has or knows someone who has taken the nursing program at any of the Maine colleges (but specifically SMCC). Ideally I’d like to enter a nursing program within the next year but I find myself feeling a bit intimidated because so many people talk about how competetitve CC/university nursing programs can be.
• Are they actually competitive in Maine? • What were your grades/GPA when you got accepted • Did you do any extra curriculars during your pre requisites to stand out? • Do you feel like your program is hard? • Do you need a car to be in the program? • Do they actually waitlist people?
If anyone could answer that would be greatly appreciated. It’s nice to hear from people who are already doing the things I aspire to do and hopefully it’ll ease some of the anxiety that I have.

I’m 25 years old and have been battling Fibromyalgia and arthritis since I was 18. My hands & hips are the worst, with knees and ankles following.
I have allergies to all forms of oral NSAIDs. Some advice on medication? Topical or oral?
Some back story: Two months ago I slow walked on a treadmill for about an hour. The next morning I awoke to horrible bilateral hip bursitis (all bursae) and was hardly able to walk. That’s when I was finally diagnosed with the arthritis itself. I dealt with the bursitis for about 2 weeks. I was given an NSAID injection which helped and I had no allergy too. I have done steroid injections but I’m very weary of the frequency. About a week ago I worked a 12 hour shift and by the end of the day I could tell my left hip area all the bursae were inflamed. I don’t know if I’d say it was bursitis entirely as this pain was intermittent but I could pinpoint the bursae. Anyways, since the bursitis in the beginning my hips have been getting worse; especially my left. Yesterday, I bought a cane and a walking stick. I researched how to use them but I’m only comfortable using them at home. I worry using them in public due to the embarrassment and my job finding out. That all seems silly to say but I feel if my coworkers see me using a cane my boss may put me on light duty or leave when I don’t need to be. I know my body far better than my boss does and I just want him to listen to me.
Since I am so young I have been trying to communicate to all people I think potentially have arthritis in hopes to get good advice. My only feedback is “oh wow! You’re so young!” I just want help!
I’ve tried Physical Therapy about a year ago, I can’t go as often as they’d like and it put me in excruciating pain/fibro flare afterwards every. time. I’ve done some yoga stretches in bed but maybe a really good YouTube channel I need to be shown? I’ve tried some topical creams with no avail. Im eating a great diet. I can only control my sleep so much as I have RSBD. Heat seems to be okay. Cold is awful.
Any advice I can get I will take!

I’ve bought a few travel size samples from Fragrencenet to see what I like before I commit to a bottle of something. Two of them I liked enough to buy a whole bottle of. I was wondering, when the travel size runs out, if there is a way to refill them? Clearly they had to fill them but I can’t figure out how they did it. I know they sell ones you can fill yourself, but they’re 13 bucks each, so if I could reuse what I have, that would be best

P.S please seek out help to me, or call your loved ones if you notice these early signs.
Marriage with you was my happiness but prison was already the big red flag that I ignored the moment I knew you 8 months ago. I had it wrapped around my finger, mistakes were bound to happen on our journey but going out to go do cheating was never & ever will be on my list. An 18 year old girl and a 22 year old man. I pushed you to do the best but even the ‘your happiness is my happiness’ did not want to align in your mind. For nearly 8 months your inner hidden subconscious led you to believe I was jealous of you. Jealous of your trading currencies, jealous of your looks, jealous of your job, jealous of your successes & passes, jealous of your money. I made mistakes most of these people were my old friends who i left without a word for you but I am not a try to impress girl, i never was & i never will be. All i wanted & asked for were flowers not a daily bags of expenses from you. I only wanted you to be kind and have a nice tone. When you love, you do love hard but your hatred and want to hurt me surpasses your love for me Murad, you never ever wanted to forgive me Murad but I have and I still do. Since i met you i’ve been on fight or flight mode, I fear you but im not scared of you anymore, but this is still your nature from a little baby to a grown man entering his prime years. You will not change or learn Murad. Changing does not mean praying 5 times and reading Quran. You still managed to fit another woman from another country in our marriage, forget the relationship it was haraam. I never done that Murad. I didnt keep a man on my iMessage or WhatsApp in our marriage. You love money, sex & drugs. It’s what you worshipped since young. That is your qismat. The difference is I had my reason not excuses for my mistakes but you had no reason or excuse Mo because that is in your blood it is how you were born and grew up. You became the waste end product of this emerging environment. I was never the way I was last year Murad, when I was 8, I was taking my shoes & clothes off on roads in my country to give to the poor children, I stole biscuits from my grandmother’s corner shop and was smacked just so I could to give to the orphans whereas at 9 you were smoking weed, having intercourse with women & carrying zombie knives in your pants, leaving a gun in higham hills park or St james park. And if i met men before you and wanted to conceal it you rip my throat off and attempt to take my life? Your story does not deserve to be told in schools Murad, your story is not a life lesson but a facade because you have not learned your lesson, you just become more & more proud about your old ways. You know why? Because I know you don’t regret it Murad, a person who regrets their deed does not boast or feels proud, the man who is regretful of his past actions asks for forgiveness, conceals the sin and moves on. The real reason why you boast about your case is because you were controlling the city’s drug supply. You love control & you love power. Do you know what happens to the elite above when they have so much money, do you know what is above money and below Dajjal? Power. You love power & being in control of your family, friends & wife. That’s how you’ve created your trust issues as well as your own fake army. People can’t be honest around you because you’ve pre built a foundation of fear Murad through your tone, words & agression. Control yourself before you control those around you. That’s the dynamics of it. Stop instilling fear in people to get your stomach full. I have the right to diagnose you with this, you have borderline personality with narcissistic personality and a lack of empathy; a result of your traumatic past experiences so Murad prove my point you don’t trust anyone else to handle my mistakes and forgive me or try to understand me unless you handle my mistake the way your revengeful gut wants to hurt and deal with me. I’ve made mistakes but my love was stronger than me hurting you, we always found each other when we needed each other the most. But that fell off when we got married, you chose friends over your wife waiting for you for 5 hours at home, and coming home to find out you have a secret girlfriend from a week in our nikkah. I forgive you Murad. How do I go to my class with other 18 year old girls knowing I married the lover of my life who nearly ended my life nights previously? How do I deal with this ? Im very mature and I don’t feel my age but somewhere in me is still 18.
You moulded me into a liar because of fear & you moulded me into a broken girl because of your past experience and mistakes i did and you did. Murad I didn’t care that you had no money. My vision is slowly settling into my system and I think the women, family and friends around you is okay with you making & spending haraam money but not me Murad. Just like how you did not like some of my ways and I changed even if i stumbled and made silly mistakes half way or when we ended but i did not like some of your ways and you didn’t change. I didn’t meet anyone. In fact Murad you are my worst nightmare. i ignored all your mistakes every one but little i knew, one day shut me down as if i was your biggest mistake. I put you in your place and you have never had that and neither have I been forced in that position, but yet i still cared if i had money just like when you were at work all day I begged my mother to send me money so my husband can have food in his belly from my bed. I went miles for you but then so did you. You crossed the line on 08/06/2024. You suffocated me with a pillow, grabbed my throat so hard I could not breathe, held a knife at my throat and bruised me, smacked me right on my entire left face and nose, attempted to throw me across the balcony in a tightening grip. I tried to hide the bruises from you, but my arm were in so much pain that when you threw me around I had to let the pain escape my mouth. Murad you ruined an 18 year old girl’s life, Murad I didn’t deserve it at all Murad you tainted and left a big stain by destroying me. Murad you are my biggest mistake but was not your biggest mistake & if thats what you believe then one day you will face the consequence of how big of a mistake I was to you like you said because i never physically, intentionally hurt you behind or in front of you. Its okay, I won’t let your mother or your family know what you done to me because God is the one who delivers justice, not me Murad. I bit you and slapped you so hard because you deserved it at that time, but did I deserve what you physically, mentally and intellectually put me through? Murad i was reading my Shahadah that night in your arms. I was really scared, I’ve never felt that scared. I was shaking. My body was shaken. My mind was shaken. My heart was shaken. Murad you gave me PTSD & trauma, you left me neglected and abused many times but I accepted you for you. I now have to go therapy and take medication Murad just because I hid talking to men in my past and you punished me in a way Allah’s mercy wouldn’t do. I did not cheat on you & I payed my truth in blood when I slit my wrist to prove to you that I did not cheat & or sleep with any men, I was a virgin Murad, but you accused me of the worst Murad in front of everybody Murad. You should have shot me in my heart there because thats where I hurt the most, it’s not fair. Murad If you’re reading this and think you are still a good kind man after what you done to me then prove me wrong, find that goodness seed inside of your heart and hold on to it and believe me for once Murad you know that man was lying to destroy us & it worked.
The night that traumatic night occured, my father previously mentioned to my mother ‘ this girl will die in his hands’ my dad predicted this action.
But that was not enough, your end goal was to murder me & you have. I died that night Murad, you broke me into pieces before and tried to kill me but the night on the 08/06/2024 you murdered me & I did not deserve a pinch of it. I constantly pleaded with you softly, I begged you to stop and stop hurting me that night. Murad do you know what hurts me ? Is if my father witnessed with his eyes how much you mashed my body so much with my face into the bed and wall with your hands & weight, you suffocated and tried to kill me with your hands Murad, I would die before i let my father witness you choking his daughter, history has repeated in your family and someone will do this to your daughter Murad and this time i promise you will see it happen in the moment and that is when your world will end. I didn’t meet anyone when we were together. Murad i promised you my time will come one day when i’ll make you face & understand the consequences of your abusive actions forget words. I won’t punish you, what is gone before is long gone & all you have now is the result of your actions. And that will be my last remembrance of you, you won’t see my face anywhere, you wont hear my name anywhere & you won’t find my anywhere. Murad you are not a man, you are not a stay.busy17 man either and you are definitely not a money motivated man. You sit down on your bed more than you get to work. I do not stand for revenge Murad so destiny and god will restore justice for my silence & sufferings that I faced all alone in your house. I had nobody. Nobody Murad. It was just me And God in your house. That night you nearly ended my life, i repeatedly said to myself ‘Papa please help me God please help me Papa please help me God please save me’ Murad when someone is in so much pain God takes away the pain not by ending their life but by taking their soul out of their body for a few seconds to relieve the pain. I did not meet anyone. My ‘revenge’ is not violence nor revenge itself, my revenge is God, only a taste of your medicine Murad, I will disappear out of your life so quietly without notice because you hurt me more than you love me. Life is not a game, but you are the one who chose this game to play so you’ll play it nicely now.
In the UK, 75% of ex-inmates reoffend within nine years of release, and 39.3% within the first twelve months, If you are reading this and wondered why I have written this there then you have guessed right,
because you a 22 year old man attempted homicide on an 18 year old girl through grievous bodily harm (GBH), strangulation in form of abuse, with evident body bruises on arm, face, inner thigh and chest/neck.

You know that feeling when life is sailing along smoothly, then suddenly - BOOM - everything just seems to go haywire? That was me a few months ago. We're talking major life upheavals, work stress, things just going wrong left, right, and center. It's like life decided to serve me a hot pot of trouble stew...and forgot the bread to soak it all up.
Now, I've always been someone who prides themselves on being able to handle stress. But this...this was like trying to drink from a firehose. My usual methods of navigating through it all weren't cutting it.
Then, a friend suggested mindfulness as a stress management tool. I was skeptical. I mean, what can sitting around and focusing on your breath possibly do against the tidal wave of chaos that was my life? But hey, I was desperate, so I thought, why not?
So, I started practicing mindfulness. No, not the cross-legged, humming-in-the-woods type, but the practical kind, where you're present in the moment, focusing on your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings without judgement.
Slowly but surely, things started to shift. Instead of being overwhelmed by everything that was going wrong, I found myself able to acknowledge my emotions, the situation I was in, and then let it all go. It didn't solve my problems, but it gave me the mental clarity to handle them without spiraling into an endless loop of stress and anxiety.
Think of it as the "Ockham's Razor" mental model. This principle states that the simplest solution is usually the best one. I had a heap of problems, and instead of trying to juggle them all at once, mindfulness helped me to simplify and focus, one issue at a time.
This mindful approach also spilled over to my work, enabling me to handle stress more effectively in high-pressure situations. I was more present, more focused, and surprisingly, more productive.
So yeah, I'm a mindfulness convert now. It's not a magic wand that makes your troubles disappear, but it definitely helps manage stress in a healthier, more productive manner.
P.S. I promise, no firehoses were harmed in the production of this analogy! 😅 And just FYI, this is a hypothetical story to illustrate how you can use mental models like Ockham's Razor in managing stress. But seriously, mindfulness DOES help!

^{This review appeared originally on the documentary megathread after the SXSW premiere in March of 2024. It has been posted separately to make room in that thread for updated screening info. Posting date/time is coinciding with the first premiere (in Guadalajara, Mexico} of the documentary outside of SXSW.)
This documentary does a great job of letting us know right at the beginning that it's not just going to be a straight line through the recording of 2021's As The Love Continues and performing it at Royal Concert Hall in 2021. Roping in producers and crew from the beginning of Mogwai's formation and through Mogwai Young Team and Come On Die Young, the documentary paints the picture of how As The Love Continues was even possible to do remotely because of those cornerstones during the band's formative years.
The film takes us through the creation of several Mogwai songs as well, and not just from As The Love Continues. The beauty of this film lies in the heart of why the band keep doing what they do: for the music. For the fans. For the emotions that can only be expressed through their music. Terrible heartache, immense joy, pensive reflections, and shirt-shredding guitars. That's Mogwai.
Antony Crook and co. have done not just a brilliant job of making a film about Glasgow's finest musicians, but also illuminating to the rest of the world just how the culture of Scotland and its rich history and unique outlook have shaped not only Mogwai's experiences, but our own through their music.
The film does show us how As The Love Continues was "made" and does a good job of sprinkling it throughout the film, reminding us that their #1 album wouldn't have been possible if not for the hard work during the decades prior to it. It can't be stated enough just how much the world that so desperately yearned for light at the end of the COVID tunnel hung onto it and helped to catapult it into something entirely different.
Funny, because this documentary has a similar vibe that when it started it perhaps was meant to be a linear journey, but along the path of life we all discover there are many nonlinear chapters that we are forced into (like COVID), and sometimes those paths have results that are catastrophic.
The stories from this film are not just those from the band, but from those who have helped guide the band over the years as well as many who have been influenced by their music, while sometimes illuminating those intersecting paths.
There's something in this film for everyone - those who have yet to discover Mogwai, those who have been a casual fan for a period of time, and those who have been hardcore fans for any period of time.
___________
I can't wait for you to see this film, and I promise to update about its journey to you. The world deserves this documentary in the biggest way possible and with some LOUD speakers.
Special thanks to Barry, Antony, Kyrie, Serena, Lauren, Stuart, Martin, Dominic, Kenny, and Kevin.

So many of you may have seen my last post, where I discussed how our current PayPal 2% Mastercards are going down to 1.5% in July.
For the longest time I’ve always said if it wasn’t for the extra .5% with the PayPal, I’d only ever use my Chase Freedom Unlimited. One of my biggest gripes with the PPL is the lack of push notifications when transactions occur. I also personally feel as though Chase is one of the strongest issuers and their cards come with a lot of benefits (including purchase and warranty protection). Not that some of these benefits are needed regularly, but it’s nice knowing they are in your back pocket for whatever reason. When I travel I can just use my Capital One Platinum to avoid FTF. For groceries I use the Amex Blue Cash. I also have the discover IT and Freedom for category spend.
I have been considering getting a Fidelity card, but I’m close to ruling it out because I’d hate having to log in and see my investments every time I go to pay my card off or check a transaction.
SoFi is another good option, but since SoFi is a fintech, I feel like it will be another PayPal situation with changing/inconsistent benefits in the long run.
Wells Fargo is a bank I’ve never been a fan of…ever since that fraud situation where the company opened up all of those fake accounts I’d be hesitant to do business with them.
Citi Double Cash seems great on the surface, but with all of the benefits they cut a couple years ago, it’s basically just a 2% card with very little else going for it.
I’m not saying that the PayPal had great benefits, but I’m just wondering if it’s even worth opening another card with the potential of getting some low limit I’d be disappointed in (since it will be my daily driver).
At this point I’m leaning towards just not applying for anything and switching over to the Freedom Unlimited full time come August, for non category spend. Would this be a poor idea?

(First Chapter)
Chapter 03
Unlikely Friendship
Unsurprisingly, Finn was already facing the first challenge of his new life in the form of a large, detailed map of the academy and its facilities. Not even 10 minutes after entering the academy's reception and heading down a random corridor, Finn was officially lost. With a bit of luck and mindless wandering, he, fortunately, or unfortunately, came across the map he was currently staring at with a frown in a random empty room.
His hands darted from left to right as he tried to understand even the slightest detail of the map, why was learning to read a normal map not on the list of priorities in school? He could make sense of a digital map, yet he was stumped by the map that could have easily been hundreds of years old! The design was clearly primitive in design and not intended for someone born in this day and age, why would the academy leave such a useless map strung up on a wall!? Finn’s brows furrowed at the thought. Maybe he was right, but he still needed to figure out how to get to the dormitory, was shouting internally at something so pointless going to help him here? The minutes passed by and Finn had made no progress in understanding the map, he was honestly about to give up and start walking mindlessly through the academy once again, until he was startled by a curious voice from behind.
“Excuse me!” the voice said from behind.
Startled by the sudden intrusion from behind, Finn physically jolted and spun around at what seemed like an impossible speed. As he spun around Finn’s eyes met the eyes of the person who had snuck up on him.
Pretty, Finn couldn’t help but think to himself. He was more than justified with that thought as the young girl who stood before him was nothing short of a natural beauty. The short-in-height girl’s medium-length auburn hair flowed down almost majestically to her shoulders and seemed to shine under the dim light, and her bright blue eyes reflected the image before them as though they were a mirror. She was dressed in normal attire, short white shorts followed by a long, peach cardigan. Finn couldn’t help but stare almost creepily at the girl, because compared to the girls from his hometown she was a top-tier model.
The young girl raised her hand and placed it on her neck, “Uhm… Sorry to startle you like that, I just thought you looked a little bit lost,” she suddenly said as she pointed toward the map.
Finn suddenly snapped back to reality, and nodded sheepishly after realizing what she said, “Yeah… I’m trying to figure out how to get to the dormitories, but can’t quite figure out the path,” he explained.
“I see!” she nodded assertively, “I can help you with that!” she announced.
Finn’s eyes opened wide upon the sudden revelation, “Really!? I’ve been stuck here so long-” he began, before adding, “I mean… cough, only a couple minutes,” he said, his tone changing to a more confident sound.
She giggled, “I sure can,” she paused as she reached out with her hand, “I’m Lyla, nice to meet you.”
Finn smiled as he reached out to grab her hand, “I’m Finn, nice to meet you.”
*
The unlikely duo began trekking through the academy, with Lyla leading the way while making small talk between each other, meandering left and right, down several corridors, and past several academy facilities. Fortunately, the academy was moderately quiet and empty because classes were still not due to start for another 2 days—Finn had decided it’d be best to come 2 days earlier to settle in. So they only passed by a couple of students along the way. The duo eventually entered a large, separate building and then into a long, empty corridor where they continued chatting.
“So you’re not even from the capital?” Lyla asked.
“Mhm. I’m from Velrid, quite a long way away from here,” he explained.
“Velrid? So you’re basically a country bumpkin,” she giggled to herself.
Finn shrugged in response, he can't really argue with that since it's mostly true.
“Even so, how did you manage to get into this school? 99% of the students are from the capital and or major families. You must be pretty amazing considering you were able to get in coming from Velrid,” she said, her joking tone changing to a more serious one.
“I wouldn’t say that. I guess I just worked harder than others,” he tried to brush off her statement.
“Maybe, but even with hard work you still need plenty of talent to be accepted here,” she shrugged, “Anyways,” she suddenly stopped and paused, “This should be your room,” she said, pointing to the door right next to them with a grin.
“Huh?” Finn looked at her, dumbfounded, “Oh!” he gasped, after coming to a realization, “I see, that was quicker than I expected,” he said.
“Well, that’s because I took one of my amazing shortcuts!” she said as she almost physically patted herself on the back.
“Of course. I will need to take note of your ‘amazing shortcut’,” he said, his voice tinged with a hint of sarcasm.
“Huh! It really is amazing! Did you not see how fast we got here?” she replied with a pout.
She's weird, but also funny, I like her, Finn thought to himself with a smile. “Sure. Anyways, thank you for leading the way, I’m not sure I ever would have found my way here without your help,” Finn said, thanking her sincerely.
“No problem. I didn’t have much to do anyway, classes don’t start just yet as you know,” she brushed it off before adding, “Ah! We should exchange contact details just in case you get lost or need help again.”
“What? I’m not that bad I swear,” he joked, “But sure, ‘just in case’ I get lost, exchanging details could save me,” he said with a shrug.
They reached out with their arms and touched each other's watches against each other gently, followed by a light “ding” sound, confirming they had exchanged details. Shortly after, they said their goodbyes, and Lyla left back the way they came. Finn smiled as he watched her move further away down the long corridor. She was quite energetic, but hey, I basically made a new friend already, right? He thought to himself excitedly. That was a surprisingly eventful encounter, maybe it was a good thing he got lost. He was surprised they got along so well, her excitable and energetic personality was almost the opposite of Finn’s, but hey, friends a friend.
Finn shook his head with a smile as he turned around and faced his door, only to be shocked to see there wasn’t a door handle, and neither was there a keyhole.
“Huh?” Finn audibly gasped.
Finn suddenly remembered back to earlier in the day, when the clerk at the gate had said his identification card was the key to his dorm room. He nodded in understanding, reached into his warm pocket, and pulled out his small identification card. He held the small, weighty card in his hand as he looked at it with intrigue, just how was this a key? He questioned to himself. He spun the card around in his hand, only to find nothing that could help on the back. He thought for a moment before raising his shoulders, maybe if I just touch the key against the door it will magically open? He chuckled at the thought.
He shuffled the card towards his fingertips and slowly reached towards the freshly painted, brown door. The moment the card came into contact with the door, Finn felt a light amount of mana get absorbed from the card and sucked into the door, disturbing his senses. Shortly after followed a sudden burst of dim, white light, that forced Finn to squint his eyes to keep them open, and just after the sounds of gears twisting and turning filled his ears, eventually followed by a light-clicking sound only for the door to suddenly swing wide open, without being touched or influenced in any way by Finn. Finn stood outside the open room, dumbfounded. His eyes were open in awe and his jaw was almost at the floor. What on earth just happened? He questioned to himself. A few seconds passed as he stood still, shocked by the door opening itself at just the touch of the identification card. Until he finally shook his head. He steeled his resolve, then confirmed that he was to study that door one day, something that cool couldn’t be left alone, it needed to be studied. Taking one final deep breath, he finally stepped forward. This was his new home, his new home for the foreseeable future.
Finn’s eyes lay upon the barebone room in all its glory, and he couldn’t help but smile. Sure it was basic, bare, and somewhat small, but he felt it was perfect. He could make it feel as homely as his room back at home with a bit of decoration and renovation. The room was square, with the nearest right corner to the entrance cut off for the on-sweet bathroom. In the back right of the room lay a small single bed, with simple white sheets and a thin duvet set. Right next to the bed was an old wooden drawer set with a small glass lamp illuminating the room resting on top. Just above the drawers was a small window overlooking the almost endless, luscious garden surrounding the academy. As he looked out the window into the seemingly infinite garden, he saw that the sun was now nowhere to be seen, as the dark of the night had enveloped the surroundings. Opposite his new bed lay a medium-sized closet, perfect for storing his limited amount of clothes.
Saying to himself that he would unpack everything tomorrow, Finn let his suitcase lean against his bed as his exhausted body sank into the soft mattress. Finn smiled as he breathed a deep breath of relief, the fresh smell of the newly renovated room, filling his nostrils. He wasn’t a big fan of the smell of fresh paint, but he honestly didn’t care right now. All he wanted to do was rest. Finn slipped off his shoes without sitting up and pulled the duvet over to cover himself. Closing his eyes, he reflected upon the long journey and the big step forward toward his dream that he had taken today. He was happy and proud of himself. The anxiety he had once felt during the morning was almost nowhere to be seen as he pushed it down to the depths of his mind, Finn truly felt like nothing could stop him now. Twisting onto his side he let his mind wander, and let the warmth and softness of his new pillows overtake him, pulling him into a deep, well-deserved slumber.
*
Finn’s unruly slumber was eventually disturbed in the early morning by the sounds of his stomach growling angrily. As it turns out, due to how busy he was the day before, he hadn’t had time to eat anything. Awakening with a muffled groan, Finn forced himself out of bed and over to the bathroom he had yet to check out. He wouldn’t normally get out of bed this fast, but he felt that if he didn’t eat anything soon, his stomach might start eating him from the inside out. Washing himself up quickly with the basic sundries provided by the academy, Finn dressed himself in similar attire to the day prior and headed toward the door. Opening the door with just a simple touch of his identification card, he stepped out into the corridor and watched the door close behind him autonomously with awe. Definitely going to learn how that works, Finn affirmed to himself once more. Racking his brain quickly on how to get to the cafeteria he nodded, thankfully Lyla’s “amazing shortcut” had taken them past the cafeteria yesterday.
As he took in the details of his surroundings and tried to push down the still lingering sense of anxiety he felt, he found himself pleasantly surprised to see the active flow of students funneling out from their rooms. Even a day before classes officially started, it seemed the academy was filled with plenty of life and activity. The morning sunlight shone through the tall windows that lined the walls and illuminated the path toward the exit of the dormitory building. Taking a deep breath, Finn let the energy of the cheery students around him invigorate his tired, anxious demeanor and began to follow the flow of students, through the long corridor, through the twists and turns, and out through the exit.
Immediately the fresh air of the summer day entered his nostrils as the warm, summer sun gently warmed the exterior of his skin. Finn breathed several deep breaths, before he began to walk through the lively academy grounds, his curiosity being piqued by the interesting mixture of classical and modern architecture of the buildings and facilities he passed, giving the academy a feeling of timeless charm. As he walked, the sounds of chatter continued to fill his eardrums, along with the sounds of people working busily inside the many different facilities he passed. He couldn’t help but notice the diverse variety of students that he passed. Magyo was home to a majority of the populous, allowing people of different nationalities and ethnicities to blend and thrive together. Despite their differences, there was a sense of camaraderie between them, a shared journey toward knowledge, growth, and power. Finn nodded in understanding and pride as he walked among them, who could have thought someone like Finn could find himself in a place like this?
He continued down the path, past the many unique facilities and buildings until he finally arrived at the cafeteria that sat near the heart of the academy. As Finn entered the cafeteria, after meandering his way through the tide of students arriving and leaving, a mouth-watering aroma wafted into his nostrils. As he took in the sight of the cafeteria, his jaw couldn’t help but open wide at just the sight. The cafeteria was a long, very tall, rectangular shape, with multiple different levels and stories seemingly floating above with hovering platforms bringing students up and down effortlessly. There were dozens of benches and seats on each floor, easily capable of occupying thousands of students. Finn’s eyes danced from left to right, up and down in awe with his jaw wide agape.
Everything in this academy is simply insane! He excitedly thought to himself. Something like this simply didn’t exist anywhere else in the world, Magyo was simply incredible. Finn eventually snapped back to reality and headed over to an empty bench. As he took a seat, he was immediately startled by the sudden intrusion of a translucent screen popping up in front of him. Before he could get annoyed he realized that the screen was actually the menu, and was how you ordered your food. Finn’s eyes lit up like fireworks at the revelation, this was even cooler than the floating floors and platforms!
He took his time in deciding what he would order for breakfast, before eventually deciding upon a popular dish he had been wanting to try for almost his entire life from the city in the north, Nordiff. It was a mixture of meat, vegetables, spices, and seasoning only found in the north. Somehow, it tasted so much better than anything he had ever tried, and he devoured it in less than 2 minutes.
Finn sighed a breath of relief, his stomach had finally stopped rumbling! That’s definitely going to be my go-to choice for my time here, he chuckled cheekily to himself. He let his food go down for a couple of minutes before finally leaving the cafeteria. Sure, he could stay there all day and try different foods and drinks, but he had other much more important things he wanted to do today. Mainly, check out the famous academy library! The Magyo Magic Academy was famous for many things, but one of the main reasons was its simply unparalleled library. The library held more knowledge and history than a single person could ever even begin to comprehend, and not only that, it held countless spells and detailed descriptions of magical appliances and weapons! He could study and learn of anything there, within his access level of course.
After asking a nearby smart-looking student for directions to the library, which he offered happily, Finn made his way toward the library. He took his time on the way, taking in all the details he had missed all around the academy, such as important landmarks or facilities he would almost definitely need in the future, before he eventually, after a long, relaxing sight-seeing walk arrived outside the library. Finn had to take a double take at the library building, he simply couldn’t comprehend how this shabby, wooden shack was the famed Magyo Magic Academy library.
“Hah,” he scoffed, “That boy must have played a trick on me, right?” he questioned with a dumbfounded expression.
He shook his head and was about to leave with a dismissive gesture before he caught a glance at a small wooden sign hanging above the dwarf-sized door labeling that it was in fact, the famous library that he had heard many magical things about. Finn’s face had a look of doubt as he stared at the shabby wooden shack once more, before finally shrugging and walking towards the door. If it really was the library, there must be some kind of magic at play, right?
What is there to lose? May as well check it out, he thought to himself.

Hello, throwaway account, I don’t know who to talk to about this. I’m so deeply uncomfortable and unsure about what to do plus I have so many questions and don’t know what to believe.
My (18F) boyfriend (18M) just told me the reason why he and two girls who used to be in his friend group had a falling out with the rest of the group. I’m not friends with those two girls (though I was briefly with the one not involved) since I’ve witnessed them cheat on their boyfriends and I’m not a fan to say the least. Live your life but I prefer not to associate myself with people who do that. Anyway, I had heard bits and pieces from him prior to this but he only fully explained everything not even an hour ago after giving a “not so bad” version initially. We’re both in university but since we graduated high school early we both would’ve been 17 when this happened (we only started dating recently). Him and the members of the friend group, including the girl and her friend, are all foreign students. For the sake of anonymity I’ll refer to him as Green and the girl involved as Red (the other as just Red’s friend).
I’ll copy and paste exactly what he said from our messages, “Basically, Red’s bf and Red and another guy and I were all friends. Red’s bf was sexting another girl so they broke up. I wasn't close to these guys like at all. Next day after breakup Red and i made out and she gave me head (it was bad) and I fingered her. Went on for a couple days, then her bf (ex) found out. He wanted a confrontation so we did that and he said he'd been sleeping w Red for the last 4 days, which no one was aware of, everyone thought they had broken up and Red and I would hang out during the day. Red agreed it was true and I was like 😦 But moving on, she acted like I initiated the whole thing and pushed her an all that Whereas I did not do a single thing without consent, and she initiated the kiss first. Her bf himself spoke to her and agreed it was her fault mainly and a few days later she brings up an incident from a couple weeks before that I barely remembered. This was when they were still together and this is the part I regret. I was immensely drunk and high, and Red said I touched her while we were all laying in her dorm room. I honestly do not remember shit, all i remember is i was kissing her and was being kissed back. I regret it because i have no idea if i actually did it and i had a class when they were confronting me about it so i just said i might have but i wouldn’t cause im a nice guy and yall know me, which they got on tape. I don’t know whose fault it is and i still feel guilty and angry about it. I didn’t realize until a year later when i was assaulted [which he’s told me about before when he was nearly raped by penetration when he was also incredibly inebriated] how it would’ve felt for her but the person who assaulted me was in their senses so idk.”
He said he only remembered kissing her and feeling stuff with his hands, but turns out there’s more after I mentioned I’d break up immediately even if it turns out he didn’t assault her but there’s more he’s hiding from me. He said he’s okay with me talking to Red to confirm what he said this time,
“We all were at a party and came back really drunk to Red’s dorm, where we smoked weed, after we smoked, her bf went to get pizza and, our friend (named H, the one the friend of Red cheated with) and Red and i were in the dorm. The three of us layed on her bed. I remember kissing her and fingering her. She didn't seem to be repulsed and didn't push me away, and held on to me a bit, next thing i remember is we were eating pizza. A couple weeks later, when they broke up, Red H and I slept in my dorm cause my roommate was in dallas. Red and I on the same bed, H on my roommates bed. Red and I cuddled here and there, next morning I woke up to her kissing me, we made out for a bit and she tried to give me head which i consented to but i also stopped her because H was sleeping on my roommates bed. After H left, I fingered her w consent and she gave me head. For the next few days, we did nothing sexual, just slept together and kissed here and there. The day the bf found out, we all had a big ass confrontation, and he said I'm a pos and it's majorly Red’s fault, and he never wants to see any of us ever again. The next day, they call me to their dorm and ask me if what happened the night we were drunk happened, and I wanted to be truthful so i told them what I remembered. And Red said she never consented to it and i felt like a very bad person in the moment, we were both drunk and high that night tho. Then the boyfriend continued sending me messages saying i assaulted her and I need to stay away from everyone and that I am a threat, he also said that I am a rapist whereas all Red said was "you touched me inappropriately.” H and him and I had a confrontation later asking how am I a rapist if I never even saw her naked and never penetrated ever. And he shut up after that. And we also mentioned how Red later came onto me first after breaking up w him. After that confrontation none of us spoke ever again. And a year later when i was assaulted, I saw Red’s side of it and I don't know if i was assaulted because i never fought back and what if the person never meant to, like I never meant to, and thought that she was going with it, just because she was moaning and not saying anything.”
Just what the fuck?? What do I do? I have ptsd from sexual abuse and I would never want to be with someone who does that! I wouldn’t want to be that girlfriend who defends her rapist boyfriend. Does it count? Does it make a difference if she doesn’t see it that way? Does it make a difference if he was so drunk? Plus he initiated that with her while she was in a relationship…
He’s never once been weird or done anything similar in our relationship. He’s asked for explicit consent and has never made me uncomfortable saying no. He’s probably the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had and he’s respected ALL of my boundaries. I’ve come to love him, we’ve had sex, but if it turns out he’s sexually assaulted someone I would be so heartbroken and disgusted with myself…Especially since I’d envisioned a future with this guy and thought he’d be my last.

So, I have been having an on and off again affair with my female bestie since last August. For context, I am poly and at the time had a 'primary' partner and so did she. A man. Anyway, we discussed having a romantic relationship a month before anything sexual occurred. She told me she had spoken to her bf about it and was shocked that he disapproved. The reason why she was stunned is because in the past (she is mixed and he is white) she had expressed her desire to want to have an intimate relationship with a black woman.
So when she brought it up and he angrily shut it down she was confused. It wasn't until a few weeks later when he 'forbade' her from seeing me alone in which his reasoning began to shine through. I am XX intersex and have been a tomboy all my life. He confessed he had always assumed she would pick a 'feminine' presenting black woman and found me to be a threat to their relationship. He also confided in her that his first marriage ended because his Brazilian wife cheated on him with masculine woman and then left him for her. Anyway we never stopped seeing one another and shortly after he forbade her we started having sex....alot. one of the main reasons I engaged in the act was because she assured me he just needed time to process and that he will soon come around to the idea. So cut to 2024 January and they go on a working holiday to Brazil.
She stayed with me for 2 night before they left and we had sex constantly day and night. Once she got to Brazil we argued pretty much all the time (I admit most of it was my fault) anyway when she came home a month later she just wanted to be best friends again. So reluctantly I agreed. We ended up having sexual contact a few times since then but not full blown sex. My bestie has a lot of childhood sexual trauma and because of this she goes through prolonged periods of being A-sexual.
She expressed that she is in one of those periods and isn't having sex with the bf either. Over the past 3/4 months we have had some intense arguments and discussions. She constantly tells me that 'our love' transcends sex. I understand that. But I am increasingly bitter as he has still not budged on the poly thing. He has absolutely no idea she was cheating on him and while I don't feel any guilt I do feel as if she played me.
That is her bf she should have known he would never agree. I trusted her when she told me it's okay and will be fine because he will get over it and agree in a few months. Now that she has realised he will never accept it because I'm not a femme (he admitted he had hoped for a 3sum) if she dated a femme, I can't help but feel as if I was an experiment for her.
Now I don't want anyone getting it twisted. She is an amazing woman. It is truly an honour to know her but I have recently decided to put up my own boundaries and she is not reacting well. I'm my eyes it's as if she returned from Brazil a different person.
We have a whatapp chat history that is very intense and intimate. Cut a long story short she keeps getting kicked from whatapp because of storage issues and my whatsapp got corrupted. I managed to export all the chat and have it as a pdf file. I emailed her a copy and said I am going to delete it from my backup and start fresh. This enraged her as 'the chat contains our sacred poetry', 🙄😐🤔 I told her I no longer wish to have any reminders of last year. The entire chat history needs to fall to Satan's throne in my eyes.
As platonic best friends we do everything but have sex. I can admit I have given her head a few times with the last incident about 5 weeks ago. I also talked her out of leaving him for me several times last year because I trusted her when she said he would get over it.
We had a huge fight today and I told her I am done and jumping off this crazy 🚆 we are both autistic, have ADHD Synesthesia and come from households where violence was normalised.
The argument we had today was basically about me telling her I have a job interview for a position in Korea on Tuesday. I admitted I only applied to put an ocean between us and she was deeply upset.
My question is - am I wrong for being annoyed that we are basically in a relationship without the sex?
She sees me more than her bf (who by the way had no idea) she stayed at my house for a week once and had sex all the time. They don't live together.
Am I being entitled? Personally I am conflicted because we do everything but have sex. I told her today I am struggling to see how we can continue to be platonic friends.
I regret advising her not to leave him last year. But with the same thought I am glad because I love her as a bestie first and I truly did tell her to stay with him from an unbiased position.
She is coming over tomorrow to talk and I just don't know what to say anymore. One of the main reasons we started messing around is that we both craved intimacy with a black woman.
I don't see how our relationship can withstand this. I feel like shit because I am practically ending our best friend relationship and i am bitter about it.

This game saved my life.
I am 27.
My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and adopted our son together. They are now both 4 years old.
When we were going through our separation, I found myself lost and miserable. I was self destructive. I got so mad one day from everything spiraling out of my control that I punched some concrete in a moment of overwhelming emotion. That caused me to break my 5th metacarpal in my right hand... my working hand... my games hand.. the hand that I held and carried my children to bed with.. The hand I desperately needed to make sure I could continue to provide.
After learning of the severity of my self-inflicted damage, I was borderline suicidal. Keep in mind that just a few months before this, I was the happiest man with no history of depression or anxiety. I have never had fits of rage, or been one to break down and cry, but I was in a low spot that just really buried me from being able to see the light on the other side.
Having nothing better to do, I searched for a game I could wait for loading screens on, while I recovered. I somehow stumbled upon this game and read some of the reviews. I decided that it had to be worth a shot... I must admit, I didn't beat the game, or play nearly as long as some of you. In fact, I may have only played this game a day or two.. With that being said, after doing so, I had a new found joy and hope for life. I was able to put behind me the pain and suffering that had been cast over me. I was able to experience other peoples joy and happiness. I was able to see the fruits of my "labor". I relaxed for 5 ♥♥♥♥ing minutes to this music long enough to realize that I was going to be okay.
After coming to that realization, I turned the game off, and I went back to work. It hurt my hand like hell but I was motivated. I stopped feeling so damn sorry for myself, and I became the father I needed to be in that moment, not the weak boy I was behaving as.
Today, I am close friend with my kids mother. We don't fight, or argue, or say hurtful things to each other. We are parents, and friends.
I now have 3 kids. My third child is, wait for it, ALSO 4 YEARS OLD. The woman I am with was going through a very similar situation at the time of my own separation, and we just stumbled in to each others life unexpectedly. We have been in a relationship for a year now, and are very happy together.
Moral of the story, you never know what life holds in store for you, and if I would have given up when all the odds were stacked against me, I wouldn't be where I am today. This silly little game helped me realize that. I love loading screens I love wait times thank you
Thank you

Hi! I’ve been looking tik toks and everything but I don’t know how to get muscle lean physique with my body type. When I exercise and eat less I look like a dead person. I want to have a tone somewhat muscly body. Any suggestions on what to do in the gym to get a physique somewhat like teyana Taylor or kehlani. Thank you anything advice would help

Op.gg my new main is killua#889 I have to other ones though which is sakurotus#dawn and another one but I forget the name. Anyways, if anyone can answer these question I’ll be very appreciative. 1. When my enemy laner is roaming (I know to spam ping) do I push the wave? It doesn’t seem like I get much from that. I only recall if I hit an item spike (1300) and roaming is pretty pointless on Vladimir pre 6. 2. How to get more cs? My games on bronze, everyone is kill thirsty so there is always a fight even when there are no objectives making it harder to farm. Plus I know if I’m not there they will lose should I just ping them off? And how can I get more cs mid-late game (I usually farm my jungle and just split push if I’m somewhat ahead but even this lands me on only 6cs/m plus I can usually reach around 80 cs at 10 mins) 3.do any of you high level players look at the minimap during a fight? I’m already looking at it frequently and I’m getting better.
Thanks <3

Hello all I'm Vexas and my brother died suddenly this past Tuesday. He was over weight (severely), diabetic (likely), has had seizures (whole life but mostly in younger yrs), and had a form of bronchitis (known). These all combined into one of 2 most horrible and traumatic events in my life.
I had just gotten home from work and had begun my normal procrastination of doom scrolling through YT Shorts when my brother called me int the kitchen for some reason. When I got up and saw him he was sitting on our foldable chair and was sweating profusely and saying that he didn't feel good at all. (Writing this out makes me think he knew what was coming.) I went over and started with the "normal" qstns we had whenever this happened. "Have you had enough sleep? Enough to ear? Been dizzy earlier today?" Whatever qstns I could think of without having any legitimate medical training or learning. (I'm nearly 30 and have never had a serious issue other than a couple broken toes.) Then he slowly stopped making coherent sense and just garbled noises. Almost immediately after that he fell forward, and went limp except for some "minor" convulsing. He also started gasping for air. At this point I wasn't nearly as worried as I should have been. {30 sec mk}
I grabbed him and pulled him back into the chair and tried repeatedly to balance his head on his shoulders but it kept falling off to one side or another. I finally gave up and ran as quickly as I could to grab my phone. Rn idk y I didn't call 911 immediately but I called my oldest brother first and told him wat was happening. As u can imagine he told me to contact 911. As I did, my brother had stopped breathing as much and the time in between each breath was growing farther and farther apart and I had grabbed a cold wet towel to pat on his head and maybe make him breath more. It worked for a little bit. {3 min mk}
I called and explained what was happening and the lady said to try and get him on the ground. With him being around 350 to 400 lbs it was difficult especially with the stupid plastic chair practically suctioning to his body I had to lift him and shift our combined weight to one leg so I could kick the chair out from under him. I finally got him down and the lady was shouting over the noise to give him chest compressions. I tried for what felt like a century b4 the paramedics arrived and began banging on the door to be let in. I shouted as loud as I could to them that the door was unlocked and to come in but I guess they didn't hear me. Finally I bolted over to the door (only a couple steps) and opened it. They all rushed in and began setting up. {5 min mk}
Honestly it's a bit of a blur but they said the primary time to bring someone back to consciousness from this sort of medical problem was 30 min. After that.... well yeah. The time came and they couldn't bring him back. Since their arrival and the subsequent "calling it" I had kept a fairly straight face but it was painful to keep up. It's only because of my previous experience with my mother passing in the hospital that I had been able to "develop" the ability to use deep breathing to keep myself semi focused and cognitive during such painful times. Once they said they couldn't bring him back and that there was nothing to be done, I went back to my cluttered room and "slowly" but surely lost it. I kept deep breathing for... honestly no real reason and just cried..... {50 min mk}
When I came up for oxygen I called my oldest brother again and broke the news. When I got off the phone with him, I went to the cop on duty to wait for the funeral home I asked for, and asked if I could sit with my deceased brother while we waited. He gave the go ahead and I sat on the linoleum beside him. I removed the sheet from his left hand and just held it...... {1 hr mk}
After I think about 10 min I saw my older brother come around the corner to the kitchen and grumbled out "I thought I said stay at home" I hate that I said that because even though the two didn't really get along they were brothers long before I was even conceived. It wasn't fair. By this point the officer said the funeral home was on the way but it took them the better part of an hour to get to us. I sat there holding my brothers hand for another 30 to forty min b4 the ppl got there. {~2 hr mk}
When they went to work, I decided I couldn't hang around anymore and started walking to my favorite bar. On the way there, I called one of my uncles and his wife and talked with him about how his time and day were going. Again idk y I asked about this instead of coming straight out and saying that my brother passed but I did. After that I asked him if he knew my brothers favorite drink and he said Kraken Rum. I'm happy he knew because I had forgotten that I knew and was beating myself up about not knowing that one simple thing. After that I apologized for breaking such bad news on what was a "normal" day for him. We said our goodbyes and i continued trudging on to be blind drunk. {2.5 hr mk}
When I arrived I brought out 100 bucks that was planning on burning through to forget about life and my pain. Mr. B said that he can't legally serve me that much and asked about why I wanted to spend that much. I explained and he warned me about the dangers of what I was planning because he had had a similar experience in his past. I said ok how much can I get rn. He said I'll give a double on the rocks (Kraken). And I said yes pls and thx. I ended up downing 5 doubles this last Tues night. I got up and walked over to play some pool because I love it a lot. After a game of plying on my own I go to grab a other double but I met this other patron. And he had already gotten several mixed shots out for him and his friends and offered another to me and I accepted and said thx. To show my appreciation I asked if he wanted to play a game with me at my table and he accepted. As we r playing he gets to talking about how he had learned to play from his pops who was a champion and how he loved darts as well. I explained how I always wanted to learn how to play but never met anyone who could teach me and I asked if he would and he did try but when you teach ppl who r drunk off their asses they tend to not remember very well. Little bit later my oldest brother txtd and asked how I was doing and I typed in "Drunk as fuvk6" After that he came and tried to pick me up but I ended up puking all on the floor. Thankfully none of it hit the tables chairs or ppl. I was directed to the bathroom and continued throwing up for the next 30 something min. After that I don't remember. {4 hr mk}
TL:DR my brother died in my kitchen and I got so drunk I blacked out
Thank you all for reading this far. The main reason I'm posting about this so "soon" after his death is that he and I enjoyed a love for anime. Particularly isekai and the specific one he and I could never get enough of was Reincarnated as a Slime. With the new season being out, I want to watch it ths second but.... Idk if I should or can because my brother isn't here to talk with about it anymore.... idk if I even have the stomach to watch any isekai anymore. It's my all time favorite type but.... it feels unnatural in a way. I'd like some comfort and guidance from yall. And if u have any qstns pls pass them along I'll be happy to reply but do keep in mind I have ADHD so the "out of sight, out of mind" rule is a thing with me. If I don't reply it's not personal of course. Thnx again yall talk to yall tomorrow

P.S please seek out help to me, or call your loved ones if you notice these early signs.
Marriage with you was my happiness but prison was already the big red flag that I ignored the moment I knew you 8 months ago. I had it wrapped around my finger, mistakes were bound to happen on our journey but going out to go do cheating was never & ever will be on my list. An 18 year old girl and a 22 year old man. I pushed you to do the best but even the ‘your happiness is my happiness’ did not want to align in your mind. For nearly 8 months your inner hidden subconscious led you to believe I was jealous of you. Jealous of your trading currencies, jealous of your looks, jealous of your job, jealous of your successes & passes, jealous of your money. I made mistakes most of these people were my old friends who i left without a word for you but I am not a try to impress girl, i never was & i never will be. All i wanted & asked for were flowers not a daily bags of expenses from you. I only wanted you to be kind and have a nice tone. When you love, you do love hard but your hatred and want to hurt me surpasses your love for me Murad, you never ever wanted to forgive me Murad but I have and I still do. Since i met you i’ve been on fight or flight mode, I fear you but im not scared of you anymore, but this is still your nature from a little baby to a grown man entering his prime years. You will not change or learn Murad. Changing does not mean praying 5 times and reading Quran. You still managed to fit another woman from another country in our marriage, forget the relationship it was haraam. I never done that Murad. I didnt keep a man on my iMessage or WhatsApp in our marriage. You love money, sex & drugs. It’s what you worshipped since young. That is your qismat. The difference is I had my reason not excuses for my mistakes but you had no reason or excuse Mo because that is in your blood it is how you were born and grew up. You became the waste end product of this emerging environment. I was never the way I was last year Murad, when I was 8, I was taking my shoes & clothes off on roads in my country to give to the poor children, I stole biscuits from my grandmother’s corner shop and was smacked just so I could to give to the orphans whereas at 9 you were smoking weed, having intercourse with women & carrying zombie knives in your pants, leaving a gun in higham hills park or St james park. And if i met men before you and wanted to conceal it you rip my throat off and attempt to take my life? Your story does not deserve to be told in schools Murad, your story is not a life lesson but a facade because you have not learned your lesson, you just become more & more proud about your old ways. You know why? Because I know you don’t regret it Murad, a person who regrets their deed does not boast or feels proud, the man who is regretful of his past actions asks for forgiveness, conceals the sin and moves on. The real reason why you boast about your case is because you were controlling the city’s drug supply. You love control & you love power. Do you know what happens to the elite above when they have so much money, do you know what is above money and below Dajjal? Power. You love power & being in control of your family, friends & wife. That’s how you’ve created your trust issues as well as your own fake army. People can’t be honest around you because you’ve pre built a foundation of fear Murad through your tone, words & agression. Control yourself before you control those around you. That’s the dynamics of it. Stop instilling fear in people to get your stomach full. I have the right to diagnose you with this, you have borderline personality with narcissistic personality and a lack of empathy; a result of your traumatic past experiences so Murad prove my point you don’t trust anyone else to handle my mistakes and forgive me or try to understand me unless you handle my mistake the way your revengeful gut wants to hurt and deal with me. I’ve made mistakes but my love was stronger than me hurting you, we always found each other when we needed each other the most. But that fell off when we got married, you chose friends over your wife waiting for you for 5 hours at home, and coming home to find out you have a secret girlfriend from a week in our nikkah. I forgive you Murad. How do I go to my class with other 18 year old girls knowing I married the lover of my life who nearly ended my life nights previously? How do I deal with this ? Im very mature and I don’t feel my age but somewhere in me is still 18.
You moulded me into a liar because of fear & you moulded me into a broken girl because of your past experience and mistakes i did and you did. Murad I didn’t care that you had no money. My vision is slowly settling into my system and I think the women, family and friends around you is okay with you making & spending haraam money but not me Murad. Just like how you did not like some of my ways and I changed even if i stumbled and made silly mistakes half way or when we ended but i did not like some of your ways and you didn’t change. I didn’t meet anyone. In fact Murad you are my worst nightmare. i ignored all your mistakes every one but little i knew, one day shut me down as if i was your biggest mistake. I put you in your place and you have never had that and neither have I been forced in that position, but yet i still cared if i had money just like when you were at work all day I begged my mother to send me money so my husband can have food in his belly from my bed. I went miles for you but then so did you. You crossed the line on 08/06/2024. You suffocated me with a pillow, grabbed my throat so hard I could not breathe, held a knife at my throat and bruised me, smacked me right on my entire left face and nose, attempted to throw me across the balcony in a tightening grip. I tried to hide the bruises from you, but my arm were in so much pain that when you threw me around I had to let the pain escape my mouth. Murad you ruined an 18 year old girl’s life, Murad I didn’t deserve it at all Murad you tainted and left a big stain by destroying me. Murad you are my biggest mistake but was not your biggest mistake & if thats what you believe then one day you will face the consequence of how big of a mistake I was to you like you said because i never physically, intentionally hurt you behind or in front of you. Its okay, I won’t let your mother or your family know what you done to me because God is the one who delivers justice, not me Murad. I bit you and slapped you so hard because you deserved it at that time, but did I deserve what you physically, mentally and intellectually put me through? Murad i was reading my Shahadah that night in your arms. I was really scared, I’ve never felt that scared. I was shaking. My body was shaken. My mind was shaken. My heart was shaken. Murad you gave me PTSD & trauma, you left me neglected and abused many times but I accepted you for you. I now have to go therapy and take medication Murad just because I hid talking to men in my past and you punished me in a way Allah’s mercy wouldn’t do. I did not cheat on you & I payed my truth in blood when I slit my wrist to prove to you that I did not cheat & or sleep with any men, I was a virgin Murad, but you accused me of the worst Murad in front of everybody Murad. You should have shot me in my heart there because thats where I hurt the most, it’s not fair. Murad If you’re reading this and think you are still a good kind man after what you done to me then prove me wrong, find that goodness seed inside of your heart and hold on to it and believe me for once Murad you know that man was lying to destroy us & it worked.
The night that traumatic night occured, my father previously mentioned to my mother ‘ this girl will die in his hands’ my dad predicted this action.
But that was not enough, your end goal was to murder me & you have. I died that night Murad, you broke me into pieces before and tried to kill me but the night on the 08/06/2024 you murdered me & I did not deserve a pinch of it. I constantly pleaded with you softly, I begged you to stop and stop hurting me that night. Murad do you know what hurts me ? Is if my father witnessed with his eyes how much you mashed my body so much with my face into the bed and wall with your hands & weight, you suffocated and tried to kill me with your hands Murad, I would die before i let my father witness you choking his daughter, history has repeated in your family and someone will do this to your daughter Murad and this time i promise you will see it happen in the moment and that is when your world will end. I didn’t meet anyone when we were together. Murad i promised you my time will come one day when i’ll make you face & understand the consequences of your abusive actions forget words. I won’t punish you, what is gone before is long gone & all you have now is the result of your actions. And that will be my last remembrance of you, you won’t see my face anywhere, you wont hear my name anywhere & you won’t find my anywhere. Murad you are not a man, you are not a stay.busy17 man either and you are definitely not a money motivated man. You sit down on your bed more than you get to work. I do not stand for revenge Murad so destiny and god will restore justice for my silence & sufferings that I faced all alone in your house. I had nobody. Nobody Murad. It was just me And God in your house. That night you nearly ended my life, i repeatedly said to myself ‘Papa please help me God please help me Papa please help me God please save me’ Murad when someone is in so much pain God takes away the pain not by ending their life but by taking their soul out of their body for a few seconds to relieve the pain. I did not meet anyone. My ‘revenge’ is not violence nor revenge itself, my revenge is God, only a taste of your medicine Murad, I will disappear out of your life so quietly without notice because you hurt me more than you love me. Life is not a game, but you are the one who chose this game to play so you’ll play it nicely now.
In the UK, 75% of ex-inmates reoffend within nine years of release, and 39.3% within the first twelve months, If you are reading this and wondered why I have written this there then you have guessed right,
because you a 22 year old man attempted homicide on an 18 year old girl through grievous bodily harm (GBH), strangulation in form of abuse, with evident body bruises on arm, face, inner thigh and chest/neck.

I don't hate my job, I actually quite enjoy it because of how easy it is and brainless it is.
The problem I have though is having to deal with two different types of people, the person with the issue and the technician. I am kind of a middle man who does things remotely and can fix software issues but for physically broken things I need to send someone out. Kind of like I can fix why your email isn't working but if the printer is broken I have to send a guy out to fix it.
Anyways to today, I had called up the person with the issue to fix it but they were fucking stupid and couldn't do the simplest task of finding a power cord... so.... I had to send someone out for an issue and I stated in my little ticket that I made for him to go out, "This is offline, already tried to work with person to resolve issue. Please fix." Kind of vague, I know, but I was already annoyed because I was working with the dumbest person ever. I don't know how you cannot find a power cord, I described exactly what to look for but they kept saying "I don't see it.", "I can't find it." SO fucking annoying. I don't really like sending the technicians out on the weekends because they're always grumpy old white men who bitch about getting paid to do nothing but I HAD to send it out because it was a critical issue that couldn't be ignored.
I check back on the ticket later and the dumbass technician fixed the issue BUT he left a little comment "can we get better training for the ticket creators ((meaning me))? This could've been solved by blah blah blah and working with the person with the issue could've solved this." I got really mad at this because I specified in my ticket that I tried to work with them already. I guess I should've specified that it didn't work and clarified whatever, sure, I know that was my mistake but I thought it was kind of obvious that it didn't work because I made the ticket... AND.. he didn't have to be such a goddamn dick about it. He legit got paid to go out, reboot something and then go home. Why is he bitching? I have to deal with this type of shit all the time and its so tiring having these entitled ass technicians, who actually get paid to do nothing, bitch and bitch and bitch about having to actually do their job and it makes me feel bad like I'm stupid.
I really don't mind my job at all but shit like that pisses me off. Getting shit talked for a simple mistake.
IRDC if I sound butthurt, I'm just mad and venting. I'm learning from my mistake and it won't happen again but I'm just really mad about it atm. I'm probably not fit for customer service type of jobs but I need the money and I am currently trying to go back to school to get a new job so I don't have to deal with these type of people anymore.
IDEK what to say anymore I'm just mad.

https://www.saucerswap.finance/ [6th AMA of 2024]
Pine_apple
Thank you all for joining our monthly AMA today. Next week is Father's Day here in the United States. So happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. ABFT is co-hosting today and we have two awesome guests in the house, Brady and Gaurang. Both are co-founders of Bonzo Finance, an open source, non custodial lending and borrowing protocol built on the Hedera network. So welcome to our AMA, Brady and Gaurang.
Brady (Bonzo Finance)
Hey, thanks so much for having us. Really appreciate it and excited to get the chance to chat with the SaucerSwap community.
Gaurang (Bonzo Finance)
Glad to be here.
ABFTFTW
Hey Brady. Hey Gaurang. Good to have you guys in the Bonzo Finance in the house. Happy to have you with us. I've been outside today and it's in Texas and it's a scorcher. I'm hoping some of that heat kind of passes off into the cryptosphere. I think the HBAR has a bright future. You know that most development going on in all the crypto space and I'm in it for the tech, so let's get this going. Talk to me, Peter.
Peter
Hi everyone. Welcome to our June AMA. And a very warm welcome to Brady and Gaurang from Bonzo, who will be answering some questions about their upcoming lending protocol. So super excited to welcome them up here to talk about that. So in the past, some of you may know, we've welcomed guests from projects like HeadStarter and Citadel wallet, so we are always excited to bring on builders in this space to talk about what they're building on Hedera.
Before we do jump into the questions from this week, we want to take a moment to address just the overall sentiment and roadmap. We wanna give everyone a sense of what's currently being worked on, what's coming next and our overall strategy to grow SaucerSwap.
So first of all, we have made some great progress on governance, which will provide a core utility to the SAUCE token. So for those unaware, governance is the core and sometimes exclusive utility of many DEX tokens. This includes UNI of Uniswap. With the release of governance, everyone will be able to vote with their SAUCE on proposals that align initiatives, create farms and LARI campaigns, decide token classifications, and so on and so forth. We have governance working now on Testnet and have created the UI for it. So we are looking at launching it early summer. So in the next few weeks. It could be towards the end of this month or it could go into next month but it is coming up.
Next we get to work on some features after governance that we know have been highly anticipated, namely Phase 2 and Phase 3 of Single-sided staking. We are super excited to follow through with these developments. We know that they've been a long time coming and they can contribute to some greater utility, both for the xSAUCE token and then also the Planck Epoch Collectible NFTs via kind of their redemption for Sauceling NFTs. So after we roll out governance, we'll be able to lock in the product schema for these features and move forward with their development. So we are really excited about bringing Phase 2 and Phase 3 of Single-sided staking online.
Additionally, with SAUCE having been listed on BitGet last month, we are looking forward to at least one more Centralized Exchange listing this month, with two being more likely. There is additionally a Centralized Exchange listing that is currently scheduled for July, which we are excited about as well.
We also want to just quickly bring to your attention we kicked off a major grant with the HBAR Foundation last week, providing over 20 Million HBAR in incentives for liquidity providers. At the time of receipt, that was over $2,000,000 USD an equivalent value for those tokens and those tokens are being distributed right now to SaucerSwap liquidity providers, in both Version 1 and Version 2, and we'll be live for the next few months. So if you haven't had a chance to check that out, feel free to do so on Saucerswap.finance on the liquidity page. You'll see kind of the effect of those increased rewards.
The salient point we do want to make in this introduction is we understand sentiment is lower today than it was a few months ago. We think this is kind of observed across DeFi on various networks, but you know the nature of these things is cyclical and we want our users to know that we are still developing, we're shipping major features coming up with governance and more on the roadmap that I just mentioned, as well as some other integrations in the coming weeks.
Looking back at the previous month, we think we had some major wins. You know we had this grant announcement with 20 Million HBAR, a major listing on BitGet, a MoonPay integration that's been in the works for a few weeks, not to mention the work that we have accomplished behind the scenes. So there's a lot to be excited about moving forward and we are very appreciative of all of your support as we continue to grow SaucerSwap.
I will just mention as well, you know the project depends on our community as much as it depends on development. So I would like to encourage everyone to stay positive. There's a lot to look forward to. We're working hard and remember that we have a well defined roadmap and we've consistently shipped features on that roadmap since the launch of SaucerSwap Version 1 almost two years ago, and we have a clear plan going forward as well to scale.
As we scale, the ecosystem has some exciting developments as well. So this is kind of the the feature of this AMA. We have Bonzo here, so lending and borrowing going live. It's a DeFi primitive that has an established symbiotic relationship with DEXs on other networks. It's a proven model, so we're excited to see projects like Bonzo and others coming online soon. There's a few lending and borrowing. I think HLiquity, it's already live. They created a pool on SaucerSwap. Bonzo is coming right up as well. And I think Sirio is another one. But anyway, all of these developments can bring a lot more awareness and activity to Hedera DeFi.
So with that preamble out of the way, we can get into the questions for this week.
Pine_apple
Thank you so much, Peter. Hedera DeFi, here we come. So the first question is from Rocco. With this environment being highly competitive, any project is required to have excellent marketing in order to succeed, regardless of how its tech is. What is SaucerSwap's long term plan to gain popularity and create brand awareness, especially to people outside of the Hydra ecosystem? As of my observations, current incentives don't reach far out of Hedera or SaucerSwap's community. So, for example, onboarding influential social media figures to talk about SaucerSwap, purchasing ad space or other collaborations in order to reach people that aren't already in the Hedera ecosystem. As of now, the average crypto enthusiast does not know of SaucerSwap's existence. What are your thoughts on that, Peter?
Peter
Yeah, Rocco, thanks for the question. So this kind of goes back to our overall marketing approach. And in general, it's always been to be objective and honest about the development of the platform. Reading brand awareness is a tricky thing and our philosophy is that it's linked to earning brand integrity. In our view, this comes from following through and executing on development.
So in Web3, you see a lot of marketing that focuses on hype and speculation, and in the short term that works. Our approach is different. We think that a long term, more sustainable approach that builds trust is better. It's not to say that we don't want visibility, especially to people outside the Hedera ecosystem. Quite the opposite. That's one of our main goals is to expand the challenge is accessibility. So right now there's one bridge to and from Hedera that not many people outside of Hedera know about. There is limited access to Hedera native USDC on Centralized Exchanges. The Hedera Token Service has not been integrated, full stop, on many Centralized Exchanges. These are substantial barriers to entry that that do make any marketing endeavors to users from other networks not impossible but definitely more challenging.
The silver lining to all of that is that all of these problems are being actively addressed, and when they are addressed, I think it's reasonable to expect the door to Hedera to open and because it will be so much easier to get involved by having easier access to native USDC for example, or being able to use the bridge that users are familiar with and trust, they will have less friction to get involved with Hedera and participate in the various network offerings.
So sum up our point of view, we think our marketing approach to date has been effective with a kind of high of reaching the top 25 DEXs across all networks by TVL, despite the accessibility challenges I mentioned before, and despite the lack of institutional capital on Hedera. So that is a massive achievement and we're not trying to rest on our laurels. I think it's just a good barometer of what we've achieved together. We surpassed Camelot, SpookySwap, QuickSwap, Bancor, Minswap - which is the leading DEX on Cardano - Loopring, and other very prominent DEXs, some of which had TVLs in excess of $1 billion last cycle.
So this growth we observed was not achieved by hiring influencers to create urgency or sense of hype, but just by being consistent and working hard and delivering on our roadmap. That strategy has been successful for the growth of SaucerSwap to date and that is our strategy going forward.
ABFTFTW
That was a great question Rocco, and Peter, you nailed it on the head. I couldn't agree more. Next question is for Bonzo Finance. Are there any plans to integrate SaucerSwap's API with Bonzo to enable collateral swaps directly from within the Bonzo Finance interface?
Gaurang (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah. To the question the answer is absolutely yes, but not immediately. We might be doing that in Q3 of this year. So what we are focusing on right now, Bonzo has a public Testnet live right now, which has the basic features like borrowing, lending, repaying, withdrawing and all these things, right. And we also have flash loans working right now on the Testnet. Our current main focus is to launch on the Hedera Mainnet with a basic set of features. These will include flash loans, liquidation bots, all the borrowing lending, you know, basic features of any lending protocol. Immediately after that, we want to launch the collateral swaps because our team has been using lending protocols personally and I think collateral swaps or even DEX swaps is a really nice feature, so if you see the APY for some token is more than the APY for the token that you have supplied, you can immediately switch that token without going through the whole process of withdrawing and supplying again. So yeah, it's definitely on the roadmap and that will be one of the first features that we tackle after launching on the Mainnet.
Brady (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah, and just to add to that as well. Bonzo Finances, it's based on the Aave V2 code base and so the functionalities that you're seeing on Aave V2 are all part of the roadmap. And I think we're taking a similar approach to SaucerSwap when it comes to sort of laying a a really solid and robust foundation initially. They had started with Uniswap V2 and then evolved feature sets and product offerings and eventually adopted Uniswap V3, and we're taking a very similar approach and it's sort of phased, but we want to deliver a really solid and usable product right off the bat, utilizing Aave V2 and sort of its core functionalities.
Pine_apple
Great. Thank you so much for that Brady and Gaurang. The Bonzo testnet is found on Bonzo.Finance, so for free to check that out guys. So our next question is from an anonymous user. When is SAUCE going to be listed on another Centralized Exchange? To get a ByBit listing, you need to have 40 million marketcap. SAUCE well past 50+ Million marketcap. Why is SAUCE not on ByBit? And another question is, did the team also apply for Binance after the recent announcement? What are your thoughts, Peter?
Peter
Yeah. Thanks for this question. So as I mentioned in the introduction to the AMA, we are planning for at least one Centralized Exchange listing this month, with two potentially being on the horizon. We can't speak on kind of specific exchanges or the exact scheduling right now, but we are satisfied with the progress we have been making and we're looking forward to the coming weeks.
I will just also note that so newer projects like PACK from the HashPack team tend to get listed faster or percede the scheduling in terms of listing of other network tokens. Just being a newer project, this is kind of what Centralized Exchanges want to capitalize on, and it's great for the ecosystem. It's been really good for us and it means that HTS is integrated on exchanges. There's more precedent for it and some more token listings can follow. And we have been working with HashPack to achieve the goal for the, you know, to the benefit of the entire HTS ecosystem to have HTS more widely integrated on Centralized Exchanges. And that of course kind of culminated in the BitGet listing last month with PACK and SAUCE.
ABFTFTW
Yeah, sounds good to me. Thanks for that explanation there, Peter. Septia. Hello, Septia. How are you? Septia wants to know what risk controls will Bonzo Finance have in place to minimize liquidity crunches.
Brady (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah, it's a great question. Happy to take that one. So there's a few things that we're doing to try and minimize that risk. The first one, which is foundational to Aave, is that when you're participating in lending and borrowing, it is an overcollateralized position that you're providing. So when you supply assets to the protocol, you are only allowed to borrow a percentage of the value that is supplied and the percentage is different per asset. So based on risk parameters and a risk analysis for each asset that's supported, that over collateralization amount is going to change. Essentially the loan to value amount will change. So when users are sort of over collateralizing, there's a buffer that exists for those assets.
And then in addition, dynamic interest rates. So the interest rates for borrowing adjust based on the utilization of that particular asset. So as more of an asset was borrowed, the interest rate for that asset increases and that incentivizes the behavior of repaying and also sort of encouraging liquidity to return to the protocol. Gaurang, anything else there that I may have missed?
Gaurang (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah. So I just want to give an example of the Aave market on the Scroll network. The Scroll is another L2 on Etherium. It actually happened I think on Thursday or Friday this week. So on the Aave protocol, there's a concept called utilization rate. Essentially, it's a rate of borrowed assets against supplied assets. So let's say all the people on the on the network has supplied 10,000 USDC and all the people have borrowed 9,000 USDC. So in that case, the utilization rate is going to be 90%. So as Brady was saying, as the utilization rate goes on increasing, the interest rate goes very high. So on Scroll, what happened this week was that the USDC utilization rate was at 99%, and because of that, the borrow and the supply APY on that particular asset was very high. So it was going towards like 80% or something for the supply. And you know what happens is with the market dynamics whenever the APY goes so high, there are more people in the market for supplying that asset. So it's kind of like an equilibrium and it's a game theoretical problem. So what we have observed in the protocol in the past is that the market dynamics kind of help with this. That's number one.
We are also looking at implementing something called Borrow Caps from Aave V3. We might bring in that functionality in [our] Aave V2 [fork] now. I'm not sure whether we will be doing it, but we are trying to do it before the Mainnet launch. With the Borrow Caps, we can actually cap the utilization of any assets, so we could cap it at let's say 90% or 85% or something. Yeah, these are like a couple of things that we're looking at.
Brady (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah. And then to add in addition to that, there is a mechanism within Aave that is also being employed in Bonzo called a safety module. Essentially, a safety module is a reserve of the protocols native asset. Holders of that native asset are incentivized to lock up their tokens into this safety module and receive a interest rate, an APY for doing so. That reserve can be employed in the case of a shortfall event related to liquidity. So if there's moments of extreme volatility for supported assets and liquidations that don't take place in a timely manner or take place improperly, that reserve is also employed to ensure that accreditors are made whole. So anticipation is that we are doing everything to mitigate the chance of that from happening, but it is sort of an insurance in the case of something like that taking place. And then if it is employed, the assets that are utilized from the safety module, it's shared across anybody who is participating in that functionality.
Pine_apple
Great. Thank you so much for that, Brady and Gaurang. So moving on to our next question, this is from a anonymous user. SaucerSwap Twitter is not very active recently and the number of followers is stagnating, which seems to indicate a lack of interest. Any plans to boost engagement, engagement and dynamism in the coming weeks?
Peter
Yeah, well, Bonzo's surely getting the fun questions. So SaucerSwap's Twitter account has grown by 3400 followers in the last 30 days, which indicates roughly a 10% increase month over month. That is an excellent growth rate. And over the next few weeks, we have several developments and integrations that we will announce and highlight right on our social media platforms, including Twitter. So in terms of recent growth, we have enjoyed a healthy rate of increase again 10% month over month is very good.
Going back to the answer from before regarding our marketing approach, we use our social media accounts to put out useful information about integrations and protocol developments, so that all the content we put out is not just fluff. We want to put out substance. Additionally, the Spring Incentives Campaign does present a unique opportunity for marketing. Looking into potentially doing a press release for this one to kind of target users from other networks. So highlighting that as an endeavor is something we're currently pursuing.
ABFTFTW
Sounds pretty good, Peter. Thank you for that. Next question is again for the Bonzo crew. Are there any integrations that will exist between SaucerSwap DEX and Bonzo Finance lending protocol?
Brady (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah, we're definitely looking into integrations between the two. I think the first thing off the bat is there are two core functionalities within the Bonzo Finance ecosystem for liquidation bots and flash loans that Gaurang mentioned earlier. And so for liquidation bots, essentially what that is, is anybody in the ecosystem who is technically savvy can operate a liquidation bot that seeks out opportunities for liquidations. Essentially when liquidation thresholds are met for users. And upon performing the liquidation, they would take the collateral that was supplied by the user and swaps would need to be performed as part of that process. And when we are building out the templates for liquidation bots in that ecosystem, it is going to heavily rely on SaucerSwap and their DEX and the liquidity in SaucerSwap to perform that action.
One thing I'm excited about that in the sense that I think that by adding lending protocols and particularly Bonzo Finance and our liquidation bot ecosystem, it should help further drive volumes that we see on the SaucerSwap DEX, which is a key health metric, and then in addition to that with flash loans.
Flash loans are essentially the ability to borrow assets from the Bonzo Protocol without providing collateral. And the way that works is it's the development of a smart contract that borrows assets or liquidity from the protocol, utilizes that liquidity for certain types of financial transactions, so it could be arbitrage between two Decentralized Exchanges or between a Centralized and a Decentralized Exchange, and then paying back that loan plus interest, all within a single transaction. And if the loan is unable to be repaid back within that single transaction, the process reverses. And so it's as if that process never happens. So flash loans are viewed as a very relatively safe way to be able to utilize larger amounts of liquidity in the protocol and earn a profit for doing so based on the various types of activities that would utilize that liquidity for in the templates that we're building out for our developer ecosystem. That includes SaucerSwap as sort of a key exchange that someone would utilize when participating in a flash loan type activities. Gaurang, anything else there to add in addition with regards to integrations?
Gaurang (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah. So we mentioned the collateral swaps earlier, so that will be another integration. Also, we are heavily relying on the WHBAR, the wrapped HBAR contracts deployed by SaucerSwap. So for us, I think for any blockchain protocol, composability is very important, right? So it's very important to be able to work with essentially all the contracts and all the things that have already been deployed on the network. That's why we are integrating with the WHBAR contract deployed by SaucerSwap. That way, there's very close tie and close relationship between Bonzo and SaucerSwap. Anyone who is kind of building liquidation bots on Bonzo or utilizing the flash loans on Bonzo will be able to use SaucerSwap very seamlessly.
Pine_apple
Great. Thank you so much for that, Brady and Gaurang. So this next question is from a user and you guys kind of touched on this a little bit. For liquidation bots on Bonzo Finance, will there be mechanisms in place to utilize SaucerSwap's liquidity to facilitate the liquidation process efficiently?
Gaurang (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say it's like the keystone for any liquidation bots on Bonzo. So without SaucerSwap's liquidity, the liquidation bots and the flash loans won't really work. So just to kind of explain in short how the liquidations work, let's say I have deposited some token on Bonzo token like KARATE or DOVU or SAUCE token, and I have borrowed USDC against those tokens. Now let's say what happens is, just like what happened yesterday, the supply token value goes down by 20% because of some events in the market that happened yesterday for example. Now what happens is in this case my loan to value ratio, my LTV, could go above the liquidation threshold and in this case, the liquidation bots will kick in. So what the liquidation bots will do is they will repay my USDC loan by taking a flash loan. They will swap my USDC on SaucerSwap back to SAUCE, and then they will essentially pay back the flash loan on Bonzo. So all these actions will happen in the same block, in the same transaction on the blockchain, not the same transaction, but the same block on the blockchain. And that's why without SaucerSwap, liquidation bots might not work unless you have like a big liquidity in your own wallet. Unless you have like 10s of thousands or even millions of dollars in your wallet, it won't work.
ABFTFTW
Awesome, Gaurang. Thank you so much for that. Next question goes to Joseph, what cross chain activities will the team be participating in over the next six months to encourage new users to come to SaucerSwap?
Joseph
Hi everyone. Man, I feel like a second class citizen during this far down. Well yeah, to answer the question, there are several interoperability solutions currently integrating with Hedera. So I believe Axelar has been the first to publicly announce this, and once integrated, there will be more avenues to bridge assets to and from Hedera and other chains. So SaucerSwap plans on leveraging this by allocating a portion of the 23 Million+ HBAR in THF grant money towards liquidity incentives in both V1 and V2 pools. And this would be pools containing these newly supported cross-chain assets, with an emphasis on stable coins.
On protocols like Axelar will also enable cross-chain swaps in addition to the standard bridge transactions, and this means you can access say Uniswap liquidity from within the SaucerSwap's web frontend.
Beyond this, we are continuing to assist with the onboarding of new active liquidity management or ALM providers such as Gamma and Steer protocol. These offer an alternative liquidity management strategy to Ichi. So ALMs, of course, are important for the health of SaucerSwap for V2 since concentrated liquidity positions can be a challenge to manage without the auto rebalancing.
And lastly, I think it would be great for multi-chain yield aggregators like Beefy to integrate with Hedera. This would enable V1 yield farmers and potentially V2 liquidity providers to automatically compound their earnings without the need to do like a manual harvest.
Pine_apple
Great. Thanks so much for that. Joseph, you're A1 in my book friend. So the next question is from anonymous user. Development seems relatively slow recently. Are you facing particular challenges such as technical staffing or other? When can we expect the release of the features in development visible on the roadmap? For example, improved LARI analytics, slippage optimization, Wallet Connect integration, etc.
Joseph
Yeah, good question. So development is fairly cyclical, meaning we generally spend several months with our heads down working on a new product or feature. Then once it's ready to ship, we allocate more resources to marketing and just become more public facing in general. So you may have noticed this pattern with single-sided staking, SaucerSwap Version 2, most recently Autopools, and the product that we're currently working on is on-chain governance.
Also, as our protocol continues to mature, the length of these development cycles tends to increase as considerations like scaling and stability become more pertinent, and this has become especially apparent in recent times, given that we experienced a 10x increase in traffic near the beginning of the year.
There's also external considerations that are outside of our control. So for example, we are unable to release Wallet Connect despite completing our integration. This is due to several outstanding differences between Hedera wallet providers, which are currently being resolved.
So all to say, we unfortunately can't move with the same cadence as we did at the beginning of our projects life cycle. However, we are taking proactive measures, such as hiring more developers and ensuring tech debt is minimized and we have a solid foundation on which to build. I do agree that frequent communication on the status of our development is important and the hyper competitiveness of this space is acknowledged. So we will put out a development update this week, and this should bring the community up to speed on what has been achieved and what can be expected in the near term.
ABFTFTW
Thank you, Joseph. Next question is what is the plan to deepen liquidity in Bonzo and also the Hedera DeFi ecosystem as the whole? And then a follow up question is a DEX partnership like Joe, Cake or JUP coming up?
Brady (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah, it's a great question and it's something that's really top of mind for us at the end of the day. In order to create an economically sustainable protocol, we need to have TVL on Bonzo and then we need to ensure that folks are utilizing that TVL for borrowing. That's where you know majority of the fees come from for the treasury for Bonzo Finance. There's sort of three key things that that we're looking at off the bat that that seemed critical and it's the incentivization of liquidity providers, offering a wide range of assets that are supported by the protocol, and then leveraging stable coins and in particular USDC.
With the incentivization of liquidity providers, there are two programs that were looking at running. The first one is we are in discussions with HBAR Foundation around liquidity incentives for their DeFi Spring program that SaucerSwap is also partaking in. Those discussions aren't finalized yet, but the hope is to be able to provide HBAR incentives for folks that are both supplying liquidity and borrowing.
And then the second is a points program that's being employed by the protocol. So we're actually going to be using the HCS-20 point standard using the Hedera consensus service for the protocol. I think it's one of the first times that in the Hedera ecosystem, there's been an employment of this HCS-20 standard for like a real world live use case. I think the only other one might be NFTier. That points program - we were inspired by Margin Phi, Kamino, and some of these other lending protocols that you see on networks like Solana and across the Web3 space - and it's going to run in seasons.
So each season is around five to six months, and points that are accumulated throughout those seasons for participating in supplying liquidity and borrowing. Users will receive rewards at the end of each season for the accumulation of those points. So we think between those two incentive models, it's sort of strong case for folks to want to be able to supply liquidity to the protocol.
In addition and sort of tangential to that, there's a lot of liquidity in the ecosystem today that is in the treasuries of these token based projects or in large holders accounts - sometimes employees or investors or folks that have you know are large holders of these token based projects - and there hasn't been a extremely safe place for them to supply that liquidity, which unlocks it for the ecosystem that's more sort of relatively lower risk where they're able to earn rewards on it. And so with Bonzo, because when you support a specific asset, it's a single liquidity pool. It's not like a token pair similar to like a DEX. And in discussions that we've had with token based projects, looking to them as potentially unlocking some of that liquidity that is in their treasuries or by these large holders that for many reasons they're unable to sell their tokens on market, but they do want to utilize them, Bonzo is a very appealing place to be able to supply those assets.
In addition to that, in terms of a wide range of assets, one of the things that I'm most excited about that's sort of in the process of being developed is bridging infrastructure and in particular the engagement with Axelar. I think the one of the few ways that we can really drive overall TVL and the ecosystem is through the use of bridging, and providing incentives for users to drive liquidity from other networks to Hedera. So we are in the process of waiting for Axelar bridging and bridge providers that are utilizing Axelar to come online, but those wrapped assets that can be brought over are going to play a critical role in like the growth and health of Hedera's DeFi ecosystem and in particular protocols like SaucerSwap and Bonzo Finance. We certainly want to run campaigns that target users on other networks and bring them and liquidity over to the Hedera network, but again, just waiting on the development of this bridging infrastructure to take place, but it feels very promising.
Then the third thing is stable coins. There's a huge emphasis on USDC right now in Hedera ecosystem as part of HBAR foundation strategy and I think just overarching strategy. The liquidity of USDC on Hedera is quite low relative to other public networks. So as Gaurang mentioned earlier, USDC and stable coins on lending protocols are one of, if not the most highest utilized asset. We think that's going to hold true for the Hedera ecosystem. So in our discussions with market makers and liquidity providers and other folks that would be supplying that liquidity, USDC is definitely top of mind and we want to be a liquidity powerhouse when it comes to USDC and other stable coin assets.
Pine_apple
Thank you so much for that thorough explanation, Brady. So our next question is from Maurice. Is there any consideration to use the Pyth network for better auto pools?
Joseph
Yeah. So our team actually has met with Pyth and we do see value in an integration. In terms of Auto Pools, I know that Ichi uses Chainlinks transaction manager to streamline the rebalance function. So this is done by quickly identifying and confirming transactions during periods of heavy network congestion. I don't think that's particularly relevant to Hedera just due to architectural differences between Hashgraph and Blockchain, but in terms of price oracles, Ichi currently looks at SaucerSwap TWAP oracles and these price assets based on token reserves and liquidity pools. So I'm not sure if they would how they would use third party oracles such as those offered by Pyth, but if you have any ideas, feel free to drop them in our Discord.
ABFTFTW
Next question is when is stage 2 and 3 of single-sided staking going to launch and what are the use cases for the PEC NFTs?
Joseph
Yeah. So Peter touched on this, but stages 2 and 3 of single-sided staking will be prioritized following the release of on-chain governance and this is planned for early summer. Our conception of how phases 2 and 3 will work has evolved since it was first announced, and we now have a better sense of how an optimal system could be developed that has product market fit within the Hedera ecosystem. So you can expect marketing and educational material on this extension of single-sided staking to become a focus once token weighted voting and a functioning DAO become live.
In terms of how Planck Epoch Collectible NFTs relate to stage 3 of single-sided staking, the idea is that holders of these NFTs will have the option of redeeming them for Sauceling NFT, and these Sauceling NFTs in turn can be staked to increase one's weight of rewards in a Community Pool.
Pine_apple
Thank you for that, Joseph. So this next question is for Brady and Gaurang. Can developers or traders use Bonzo Finance's flash loans to execute complex arbitrage trades or liquidity provision strategies on SaucerSwap?
Brady (Bonzo Finance)
Yeah, absolutely. So as mentioned before, flash loans can be employed to be able to perform these arbitrage activities in the templates that we're creating for users who are creating flash loans, automatically incorporate SaucerSwap's DEX as part of that. The way that that process might look is a trader identifies that there's a price discrepancy between an asset that's on SaucerSwap and maybe another Decentralized Exchange, or Centralized Exchange. They configure a flash loan where the trader is able to borrow the necessary funds to be able to execute this arbitrage trade that they want to perform. All within the same single transaction, the trader would sell the borrowed assets on the exchange with the higher price and then buy them back on SaucerSwap at a lower price as an example. Then finally, the trader repays the flash loan using the profits from the arbitrage trade and then keeping the remaining profits for themselves. This is sort of one example that flash loans can be utilized for.
In terms of liquidity provisioning - you can borrow assets against your collateral on Bonzo and then you really can do anything that you want with those assets that you've borrowed. So one of the things that I could anticipate seeing is there are various APY rates on SaucerSwap for providing liquidity. Based on these different asset types, and let's say you're a large holder of HBAR, you want to be able to get exposure to these other assets to supply them as liquidity and earn interest or earn rewards for doing so, but you don't want to sell your HBAR in order to do that. So you can collateralize your HBAR using Bonzo. You can take out a loan of let's say USDC because USDC interests APY on SaucerSwap is pretty high. There is a small borrow APY that you would pay for borrowing the USDC from Bonzo, but you would supply that to SaucerSwap and you'd be earning an ideally larger APY for supplying it as liquidity to the protocol. That is one strategy where liquidity provisioning can take place where it utilizes Bonzo and it utilizes SaucerSwap. That's going to help deepen the liquidity for assets on SaucerSwap's DEX, but then also create more sort of efficient market. So with greater liquidity in SaucerSwap's DEX, there's a less likely chance of slippage and other benefits that come along with that, as well as efficiencies.
ABFTFTW
Awesome, Brady, I appreciate all that information. That's really fascinating stuff. This is where we break away from the traditional AMA and move on to the TMS because this isn't the question, this is tell me something. So Anon wants to tell us. I think it's appropriate to use AI technologies to be more inclusive of non-English speaking communities and not be attacked with so many questions afterwards. Joseph, you want to tell him something back?
Joseph
Sure, take a stab. Yeah. So we actually did leverage AI to translate our gitbook documentation into, I believe, 11 different languages. I do think there's also value in translating the AMA transcripts, so I appreciate this suggestion. Slightly unrelated, but adding localization and multi-currency support to the webapp would also increase SaucerSwap's accessibility to non-English speakers. I'm not sure if automating this with AI is necessarily the right approach, as we'd want to ensure the translations are accurate, but in any case, we definitely plan on looking into this once current roadmap items are completed.
(...)

So setting boundaries is hard. It feels especially hard when I really don't care or react much to topics others find disturbing.
I try to assume people mean well, but I've been getting some tense interactions with people at work because I think I am an easy target. I stay calm and focus on behavior, not the person.
There's one girl who is going through a lot and I try to be kind to her and cheer her up. Little gifts and I've asked if she wanted to go to the zoo or beach to take her mind off things. I always appreciated that when I was going through a rough patch. I get that not everyone is like me and just appreciates the effort/gesture even if it's not my thing.
I gave her a little figurine a couple weeks ago, she slammed a clipboard on top of it, said, "I don't know what I would even do with that." And then corrected a mistake I made very rudely. It was a minor thing that I intended to correct later. We do it all the time.
In the moment I thought, "Man she must be having a rough day." And just said OK. But it's been bothering me. Has too much time passed for me to confront her? How do you respond to something like that in the moment?

It took me a very long time to accept that actually, I’m quite charismatic and sociable. I’ve been told as much my whole life - my Dad’s example is a party my grandparents held when I was like 7 that I’d been extremely nervous to attend, but ended up talking to just about everyone - and I think that’s most likely due to how the confidence I apparently exude certainly doesn’t equal how anxious and shy I might feel on the inside. I’m also not sure if my social abilities and charisma are just natural traits, or ones I’ve picked up from years of masking.
All that to say, I’m good at talking to people and I come across well. However, while I can do really well in those small, surface-level encounters with people, I can never seem to make it stick. Despite engaging people and getting on with them, I just never quite fit in.
And it’s always been that way; I did drama classes when I was a kid and despite getting on with the other kids there, they never accepted me into their circle. It was the same when I was at school, and college, and now work. I get along with everyone on my team, for example, however they regularly up and go for lunch together and haven’t invited me once. And don’t heat me wrong; if they don’t want me there, that is totally fine and their choice. But it still hurts, and it’s the same cycled I’ve lived my whole life. It’s almost as if there’s this big glass wall separating me from really getting close with others.
So why does this happen? Is it just a me thing? Am I doing something wrong? It’s hard to know I’ll probably never overcome this barrier, so I’d appreciate any help/insight at all on this. Thank you.