What goes up in the sky when the rain comes down? An umbrella
In this rainy day I hope to find a kind single childless marriage minded man, who will have place for me under his umbrella.
Please, no low effort messages, fed up with one line messages, it's disrespectful and will be ignored.
Europe, 35 y.o.,168 sm/64 kg, pale skin, average building, long hair. Not too ugly. No kids. No bad habits. Hobbies: books, old movies, cultural events (museum, gallery, theatre). I search for intelligent ma rriage minded man, who has time, romance, opportunities, interest and efforts for me. Who will not demand sex before marriage. Who will never make me to feel, that I'm not good enough for him. Who has respect and will not hurt me. Who is able to take initiative and to write first always or at least tend to it.
I sincerely don't expect other people to live up to my expectations. Those, who seemed to be very close to my description at first, gave the worst contact later, we stopped talking in 5 minutes. Those, who were far from my description (not absolutely far, but didn't match in some points), were very pleasant people. That's why this description is not strict demand in most of points. But definitely that can be red flags for some people, maybe, I'm not good for you, so I just save your time, in case if we are too different.

1. That one, who will want to ma rry me and will be able to meet in real life soon. Please, write in your FIRST message, when you are able to meet, if we match. Yes, it's silly to ask, when it's not clear, if it's worthy to meet in general. But why to start conversation, if no opportunity to meet in foreseen future? Relationship with a big distances demand permanent efforts. 99% of all dialogs will end in houday/week. Maybe, in your current life situation relationship are not priority and you have no time to stay in touch. Then better even not to start.
   
2. I wish to meet that man, who is stable both psychically and in his work. Often someone writes, starts conversation, but later his bad mood, difficulties at his work, unstable psychic begins to ruin conversation. It ends with his ghosting and his "offends". If you can't stay stable for me, please, even don't start. I used to work at very stressful job and understand, how strong pressure and responsibility can be. If you can't control your mood, don text.
   
3. You can live anywhere, if you are ready to make efforts for meet in real life. If you are not ready to make any efforts, date locals. Obviously, when there are real feelings, there is wish to make efforts, but there is certain type of people, who will never do anything, they just entertain here without anything real in mind. Even not able to write adequate first message. They send short one line messages and wait, that they will be pursued, what is maximum disrespect.
   
4. Very important! You are officially single, not in any form of relationship and don't have kids. No exceptions from this rule. For a pity, many people are not honest and hide their status. Relationship, that started from lies, will end soon. Please, don't lie.
   
5. Expect, that I'm not from your country and you will have to travel. If you date only girls from your own country and can't travel, please, don't text. I wish your documents are in order. I wish you have passport or can get it soon.
   
6. I search for honest serious, quiet, logical, intelligent man, who has own place or plan to have it soon and can be a provider. Your age, appearance are not important. I prefer older person, who already knows, what he wants, who's love language is acts of service, not just words. Honesty is extremely important.
   
7. You shouldn't be pushy about having kid fast. If you want many kids, please, don't text. You are heterosexual, no exceptions. Sex is not a main thing in relationship for you. If it is, please, don't text.
   
8. You shouldn't demand to share expenses, because I wish to be stay at home wif e (though I have high education and work experience).
   
9. You can take my problems, as your own and will not run away, when know about my health problem, that demands surgical help (not plastic surgery, but more serious. Not in urgent condition, but if not to do anything, then can become urgent. All papers are on hands, ready to prove that need, when we meet, both in papers and in together visit to surgeon). Why do I mention this? Because 99% of men expect to build relationships with successful, healthy woman without any problems, who will never need any help from him, who will not be a burden in any way, who will stay young, sexually active and healthy forever. Most of men event don't have an idea to do anything real for her. They call that "to be with a girlfriend". So I just save your time in case, if you "want a girlfriend experience" without any responsibility.
   
10. You are able to make voice and video calls in teleg r1am, when I ask for it (of course, after work). If you can't for any reason, please, don't text. Some people are not able to use that messenger for many reason and they tell, they don't have camera, microphone, phone or something else. Before texting, please, check, if you can have it. No, I will not ask you to get any cr1 ypro cur rency and your num ber is not needed there.
    
11. I am very introverted by nature and when like someone, this person becomes almost a center of my world, I don't need any other men, I'm one-man-woman. I wish someone, who is same, one-woman-men. I'm jealous and will not forgive lies and cheating, even very light things like flirting with others. I will not run after any man and will not beg for attention. That means: it is you, who is expected to develop conversation, to text first and to offer something. If you are more in passive position and expect me to pursure you, then please, don't text.
    
12. You will get your own space and time, I try to be respectful and understanding to your needs (until it doesn't include other women).
    
13. Often people hate those, who are different from them, simply just for fact of their existence. So I need someone, who will not be irritated with my existence and hobbies (mentioned it in the beginning). I don't expect you to share these hobbies, but I just ask to be ok with it. It's difficult to imagine, that someone, who is deeply in gaming, sport, cosplay, k-pop will accept me as I am. I can't share mentioned activities, just not my thing. But I definitely will be ok with you doing your hobbies. Even if I can't join.
    
14. Very important ! Low efforts message will be ignored. First message MUST have at least 10 sentences about you and date of possible meet, if everything works. Respect my wish, please. You don't have to be big conversationalist, but a short message is a personal disrespect for me. Hope, you are respectful gentleman and will make efforts.
    

If you feel something common and think, you can be that man, then, please, write me about yourself and let's start our conversation. Thanks for your attention.

Exceptionally educational edition of Caitlin's Newsletter "The Media Skew Public Perception By Manipulating People's Attention", detailing how MSM's Palestine coverage makes propaganda clearer (and more evil) than ever:
(Clickthrough to see images of hand-marked highlights of the MSM's corrupt "linguistic gymnastics".)

“Israel Rescues 4 Hostages in Military Operation; Gazan Officials Say Scores Are Killed,” reads a New York Times headline from Saturday.
It’s a very odd-looking headline even if you don’t know anything about the propagandistic tactics being employed in it. The first half is very clear, while the second half is unintelligible and reads like some weird kind of riddle or word puzzle.
The New York Times is performing these bizarre, cryptic linguistic gymnastics to discuss the latest Israeli massacre in Gaza which as of this writing has a reported death toll of 236.
Right off the bat we can see something weird in this headline with the use of the word “scores” to describe the number of people reported killed in the massacre. The New York Times article itself says it was reported that “more than 200 people were killed in central Gaza,” so the correct quantifier for the headline would be “hundreds”, not “scores”. This would be like a headline saying “dozens” of people were killed on 9/11 instead of “thousands”; it would technically be correct since the number of people killed were mathematically speaking many many dozens, but it would give readers the wrong impression of the lethality of the incident.
https://x.com/TameeOliveFern/status/1799525189828649351
Next, notice the sudden switch mid-headline from active, certain voice to passive, doubtful voice. Four Israeli hostages were definitely rescued by Israel, while Gazan officials are alleging that scores were killed.
Scores of what? Cats? Chickens? Israelis?
Killed by what? Salmonella poisoning? Traffic accidents? Congolese militias?
There’s no way to tell from the headline.
The mass media in general and The New York Times in particular are notorious for their passive language “Palestinian child ceases breathing after encountering bullet” headlines when promoting Israeli information interests, but it really drives the point home when you see it switch from normal human language to something that sounds like a clue The Riddler would leave Batman within the very same headline.
And what’s interesting is that nothing The New York Times editors did here is technically a lie. Every word they meticulously selected for their headline is technically true, but it is shaped in such a way that it draws the reader’s attention away from the fact that Israel just massacred hundreds of human beings.
They could have just as easily written “Israel Kills Hundreds of Palestinians in Central Gaza Attack; 4 Hostages Rescued” and it would have been just as true, but then public attention would have been drawn in the opposite direction. The New York Times never, ever draws public attention in that direction; the slanting only ever goes one way.
https://x.com/ryangrim/status/1798799983447048303
We saw something similar the other day from The New York Times when they reported that Israel has been torturing Palestinian prisoners by sodomizing them with hot metal rods — sometimes to death — but buried this information at the very bottom of the article, without mentioning a word of it in the headline or sub-headline.
Here again, nobody can technically accuse The New York Times of lying; they didn’t report anything that wasn’t true or fail to report anything that was true. They just drastically underemphasized the real story in their report to direct their readers’ attention away from Israeli criminality.
A lot of people who grow skeptical of the mass media correctly assume that these outlets are propaganda services for the US empire, but incorrectly assume that this means they must be lying all the time. In truth the imperial propaganda machine is much more sophisticated than this, and much more effective.
Rather than making up whole-cloth lies and losing all credibility in the mainstream public, the mass media will generally rely on distortions like the above which skew public perception without actually technically lying. They’ll place emphasis in areas which benefit the empire, they’ll omit inconvenient facts, they’ll use tricky phrasing, they’ll uncritically report on the claims of favored government officials while saying the claims of unfavored government officials are made without evidence, they’ll mention convenient news stories over and over again, and they’ll report inconvenient stories only once before leaving them to get lost in the daily news churn.
I actually cite the mass media quite a bit in my own work, because a lot of useful and truthful information about the criminality of the western empire comes out through outlets like The New York Times. It’s just that that information is deemphasized and quickly shuffled out of public attention by the propagandists who run those outlets, allowing them to technically tell the truth while still manipulating the overarching narrative about what’s going on in the world.
https://x.com/AssalRad/status/1798757428764561889
The propagandists who edit outlets like The New York Times are able to skew public perception in favor of the empire because they understand that human experience is dominated by the movements of attention, so if they can manipulate those movements of attention, they can manipulate how people perceive the world.
I once met someone who described attention as “the uncrowned king of consciousness,” and I recall those words often because of their accuracy. Attention is the uncrowned king of consciousness because its movements dictate how we will experience our world: what we will think about, notice, see, hear, or otherwise perceive, but we don’t tend to place much importance on it or recognize the extent to which our life is ruled by it.
In reality there is little that is more crucial to our experience of life than the movements of our attention. It’s something so fundamental that two people walking across the exact same meadow at the exact same time will never have the same experience of it. One might experience a meadow with a pleasant breeze, a chirping bird in a tree, a grasshopper zipping across their path, and a sky of phenomenal beauty, while the other might experience the meadow as a distant and barely-noticed backdrop to their mental concerns for their future, their grievances about the past, their imaginary arguments with a family member, and a catchy song they’ve got stuck in their head.
After someone dies people often talk about the things they did in life — their accomplishments, their legacy, how many children they raised, what they did for work — but really the kind of life someone lived has less to do with the things they did than the way their attention moved. The movements of someone's attention throughout their life really was their life, because it determined what their experience of their time on this world actually was. How present they were for it. How much beauty they experienced. How much mental energy they wasted on imaginary bullshit. What they noticed. What they missed.
https://x.com/TheOnion/status/1721644886619836479
Our perception of the world is dominated by the movements of our attention, which means that our perception of the world can be changed by manipulating those movements. Propagandists understand this, so they spend their time doing things like telling us over and over again what a bad bad baddie Vladimir Putin is while just occasionally giving a single highly mitigated mention to an individual instance of Israeli criminality, or talking about October 7 over and over again while greatly deemphasizing the massacres Israel has been perpetrating on the Palestinians in Gaza every day since.
This causes public attention to move in directions that benefit the information interests of the empire and away from directions that would harm those information interests, all without having to tell actual lies. People’s perception of the world is shaped by these skillful propagandists without their even being aware that it is happening.
That’s what makes the propaganda of the western empire so much more effective than any other propaganda that has ever existed anywhere else: the inhabitants of the western empire have no idea they’re being propagandized.

https://youtu.be/_c_Yg8azAi0?si=Q_vn08wurgEkdQJR
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rem/newtestleper.html
Hello everyone, I hope all is well. Today we are going to be taking a closer look/listen at “New Test Leper” which is the third track from the “Hi Side” of the band’s 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
This song was actually one of the four songs from the album that was recorded in Seattle, Washington at the Bad Animal Studios. Even though this song wasn’t recorded on the road during the Monster tour like most of the album’s tracks, it was written and played during one of the band’s soundchecks. Peter said “And for some reason, we just forgot about it and never really played it. I don’t know why. Michael just happened to luckily enough have it on tape.” Peter also stated that this is the most “R.E.M.” sounding song on the album.
And I can see why Peter made that comment because the song starts off with Michael’s vocals right away, acoustic guitar, a shaker and some organs from Mike. With that acoustic guitar and that 6/8 time signature it’s definitely giving me Automatic for the People vibes, especially with a song like “Try Not to Breathe.” Now lyrically, here’s another quote from Peter in discussing the inspiration for the song;
“Michael was watching one of those talk shows and I think the subject was ‘People judge me by the way I look’ or something.” Whereas I, when I have the misfortune to look for two minutes at one of those Oprah, Geraldo things, I just get revolted at everyone concerned: the audience, me. Michael actually looked at it and felt like, ‘Gosh, what if someone’s actually trying to communicate something to these people and this person who’s in this awful, tacky, degrading situation?’”
The song starts off with the memorable lyric “I can't say that I love Jesus, that would be a hollow claim.” With this lyric in particular Peter said “It’s written from the perspective of a character that Michael saw on TV on a talk show. But are people going to think Michael’s talking about himself not liking Jesus? I don’t think that people will take us that seriously.”
The next lyric “he did make some observations and I'm quoting them today” seems to be Michael referencing the host of this religious talk show. The quote he uses is “judge not lest ye be judged” which, as Michael says, is a beautiful refrain. But the studio audience of the talk show don’t agree as they ask “have his lambs all gone astray?” It appears that there’s a guest on this talk show who is a “leper” which could mean an outcast of sorts. And in the chorus they say “call me leper.” I think the point that Michael is trying to make is how ironic it is that people of religious stature are judging someone else for not following teachings of the Bible when they are doing that themselves. As the title of this song deals with the New Testament and lepers played in a role in the different stories.
Now before we get into the rest of the song we gotta talk about the music up to this point. As I mentioned earlier, the song starts off with acoustic guitar, organs, vocals and a shaker. Despite it starting off as an acoustic number, the song has an upbeat tempo to it that makes it far from the slowest song on this album. And halfway through the first verse we get the bass and drums entering the mix. The song itself is fairly simple, but Mike’s bassline is far from it! Instead of playing a normal bassline, Mike is playing a lead melody that might as well be played on guitar. He’s what he had to say about this specific bassline just last year;
“I try to keep my bass lines a certain way, but for some reason with 'New Test Leper' I decided to basically play a bass solo all the way through the verses. You don't want the bass by itself, but in terms of free-forming and playing a lot of notes and having a lot of fun with it, I think 'New Test Leper' is the one where I took the guardrails off of it and had a good time."
I also love the electric guitar part during the chorus. Not only is the melody catchy but I love the tone to it. I can’t tell what effects it has on it but it sounds like a tiny bit of tremolo and it gives me strong surf vibe. It’s perfect because it fits alongside Michael’s simple delivery of “call me leper.” Which is also fitting because during the verses Michael’s vocal delivery is soft and warm and has a ton of great dynamics to it.
In the second verse we have Michael calling out the talk show after the host says “you are lost and disillusioned.” Michael understands how awful this show and crowd are and was hoping they’d be able to understand. But when the subtitle on the show say “I am not an animal” he realizes how ugly the whole event is. It should be noted that the quote “I am not an animal” comes from Michael’s favorite movie The Elephant Man which also inspired other R.E.M. songs like “Carnival of Sorts.”
After another melodic chorus we get an instrumental bridge with a gorgeous guitar solo from Peter over some mournful chords. It has that western Glen Campbell sound to it that Peter would return to in a couple albums with Reveal. The tone of that guitar shimmers and shines and the organs feel perfect backing the whole bridge. By far my favorite bridge on this album.
When the band goes back into that last verse we get this eerie sounding guitar feedback from Peter. I feel like this is suppose to be to leave a bad taste in your mouth the same way that this tv show has left a bad taste in this “leper’s” mouth. Michael sings from the perspective of the leper and how they finally understand the show was just a way to shock and awe people. Before they can tell their story, the show cuts to a commercial break. And as they are sitting through five commercials, the host is just staring blankly into his pre organized index cards. He explains how the guests were “scared and hardened” and ends the verse with the lyric “what a sad parade” which Michael admits he borrowed from his fellow songwriter and friend Vic Chestnutt.
The last chorus of the song starts off without any drums which is a nice way to slow the song down before one final chorus with all the instrumentation. Peter continues with that bouncy guitar riff until the band ends on a minor chord which is very appropriate.
Despite this song having a music video directed by Lance Bangs, and despite it being one of Michael’s favorite songs from the band, it was never an official single. It was only used a promotional single in Germany. Yet I feel that’s not a bad thing as this song and its profound meaning might have gone over some non fan’s heads after hearing that opening line. Yes, Michael used a real religious tv evangelism for the background of this song, but it’s not to hate on a specific religion. But more so to show the hypocrisy of preaching kindness and telling people to treating others how you want to be treated, to just then turn around and judge someone for being different. This message is wrapped up in this jaunty acoustic number that features all the great element throughout this album while remaining fresh. Plus it’s one of Mikes best basslines.
But what do you think of this song? Should it have been a single? What do you think the song is about? Favorite musical or lyrical moments? And did you ever see it live?

Weird story. My coworker got a call from police to show up to tell his side of the story about something. Of course he shows up immediately without a lawyer because he was sleep deprived for 24 hours (maybe a micronap) by then because of work so he wasn't thinking straight. He gets there and is told in the interrogation room that he is not detained and free to leave but is then given his miranda rights on a piece of paper and told to sign. He gives his side of the story and is then told he is under arrest. Did being given his miranda rights imply that he was detained or under arrest already despite being told he wasn't detained and free to leave?

I am at a complete loss as to how to progress the story. I finished the last dungeon, I’ve seen all the cut scenes leading up to the meline crystal cave (talked to Scarlett, met Lucas, saw the magic trick show in the great tree plaza, & got the cutscene outside the restaurant), I’ve slept for days, my current main story event is telling me to go to the caverns, but the road to the caverns is still blocked by a fence. Every walk through says I should be able to go there after triggering the last cut scene, but I can’t! I have no idea what else I’m supposed to do. Can anyone help?

Im F-28 M-34— he is friends with this couple. his friend is cheating F35 (the girl) and she is cheating with a married man, with a daughter. Is it okay if I tell the M(32) boy? I like to create a dummy account in IG just to tell him!! Is it legal? Are they gonna find out who’s the sender? I cannot take it anymore!! the boy and girl is in a long term relationship (ldr but not too far) I cannot take the fact that the girl is cheating. My husband already confronted her but she is not telling the truth, keeps repeating that they’re only friends. I feel so sad for the daughter and wife (forgot to say;ldr) and my husband; friends also with the guy, my husband attempted to say it to him but he is always busy with his studies, still studying. ANY THOUGHTS? Should i tell the guy?? Im dying to tell him!! I feel ewww the fact that the girl is cheating, she always pretends shes so inlove.

TLDR: loving the Botox right now. 40ish year old female.
*****
I got Botox in my armpits about 2 weeks ago for hyperhidrosis. First time treatment. So far, this is my experience. I'll break it down by my treatment experience first. Then I'll break it down on how the outcomes affect my life.
Treatment Experience

• I have never had the worst hyperhidrosis, but enough that it affected my life (more on that later). It only really affects me in my armpits.
• I have visited GPs (GP = general practitioner) about this many times in the past, and they just prescribe me medical strength aluminum that I have to put on once a week. I have tried this a number of times during my life, and it was never effective. When I was 19 years old and tried this, I actually got red burns in my armpits that made me cry they were so painful. Reflecting back, I was probably putting it on too frequently.
• I am originally from the US, and have lived in 5 other countries. I moved to Italy about 1.5 years ago. I visited my GP and asked for a Botox prescription and he happily gave it to me after I described my experience. Though I have access to the public health care system in Italy, the wait times are very long. Like most people, I carry private health insurance as a result. I wanted my treatment before summer started, otherwise I would have had to wait until November for an appointment in the public system.
• My appointment was with a neurologist in Milan. The procedure took about 15 minutes. There were around 20 pokes in each armpit. I have a high pain tolerance. I would rate this a 2 or 3 out of 10. Very pokey. I just took some very measured breathing to calm myself through it.
• The cost was €340 without insurance. My insurance covers the procedure. I have Googled other procedures in other cities and at cosmetic clinics I can see it ranging from 700 to 1,000 for a treatment.
• My neurologist told me that I would feel the effects within 4 to 10 days, and that they should last anywhere between 4 to 9 months. Some people report the effects are gone by 2 months, but he cannot treat me again before 3 months otherwise I can develop antibodies to the procedure.
• I already felt the effects on days 2 and 3, and everything was definitely in full swing by day 4. More on the effects/outcomes next.
• My neurologist did tell me that hands are more painful but all of his patients come back for their repeat treatments because the outcomes are worth the pain. He also offered that if I get underboob sweat that he can treat me there too (I declined this first time).

Outcome Experience First take:

• I would say that my sweating has dropped by 90-95%.
• If I do sweat, it just has a more "normal" acceptable odor to it rather than being gagging rancid.
• I am still wearing deoderant for the 5-10% but I only need to apply once a day. And some days I forget to apply.
• Even if my insurance didn't cover this treatment, I would pay for it out of pocket. I would not visit a cosmetic clinic though because their prices are higher, I would simply visit a neurologist and pay out of pocket for the treatment there (which is what I do anyway, run the credit card and get reimbursed by my insurance company).
• I have not noticed any increased sweating anywhere else on my body, however summer really only just started so will be monitoring/journaling that one closely.

It is almost hard to have known how badly my sweating affected me until after the procedure. Some of my own reflections:

• Ghost Sweat/Smell and Anxiety/Panic: It's going to take me a long time to lose the sweating/smelling panic and anxiety. I have this almost phantom sweating now. I go about my day, I think I feel that I'm starting to sweat, then I panic about "oh gosh, now I'm out in public and I'm going to smell bad and my shirt will be ruined and I will have to change before I go to dinner later and darnit I should have brought my deoderant with me and yuck I hope no one can smell me right now and I'll just keep my arms squished down to tightly pack the smell in there until I get home". And then I do a sweat and smell check - and there is nothing. No wet stains. I smell absolutely fine.
• Wardrobe Options Unlocked: Pre-Botox I would say that I was very limited in wardrobe options. I bought/wore maybe 10% of the possible outfits that I would actually like to wear. Shopping freaking sucked. I would not buy any clothing tops or dresses that touched my armpits. Period. So all of my clothes were either tank tops with a kimono or other cover top I could easily swap out when it got too sweaty/stinky, or very loose t-shirts. Nothing form fitting, ever (except swimsuits and tank tops). Even tank tops I was very particular that the lower portion needed to dip as low as possible, I could not wear any tank tops where the arm pit was tight/touching. It's crazy to think of the wardrobe styles and colors that have been unlocked now.
  • One story I tell my friends was a few years ago I was speaking at a conference of around 100-150 attendees. This is a normal part of my job, I love public speaking and thrive on it. Even so, I will of course get a bit anxious in the 1 hour before I go on. For this specific conference, I had worked with my executive coach to buy a new top that had a pop of color - something memorable - in bright blue silk. Luckily I was staying at an Airbnb about a 10 minute walk away from the facility. After arriving in the morning, within 30 minutes I looked down and I was soaking wet through this bright blue silk blouse, with wide water marks. I was horrified at my rookie mistake. I immediately ran back to my Airbnb, changed into my dull frumpy black top and black sweater, and then ran back to do my speech/panel.
• Travel Packing: Holy heck now I realize how people can travel so light with just a backpack. They can re-wear most of their clothing. I have always needed to bring a lot of change of clothes. Not necessarily bottoms, but tops yes. Because even though I might have the ability to at least hand wash, it may take too long for them to dry before I need to wear them again. So I just pack a little bit more clothes to be safe. Just this last week I never had to do laundry and I was on a 10 day trip, and I re-wore every top I put on at least 2-3 times. Some clothes I never even wore because I didn't need to. I have unlocked so much more possibility for traveling light.
• Cute Airport Looks: I am a person that believes you should look nice when you travel, and since you never know who you are going to meet then you should look your best to be ready for such random encounters. But, I never got to be that person because of my sweating. "Travel Day" (arrival and departure) was always just planned around the outfit that would make me sweat/smell the least. I wouldn't even bother putting on makeup because I felt gross and wet and stinky anyway so why bother? Usually by the time I got to the airport, I was already wet and smelly from going up and down stairs and taking public transportation, just trying to hide it for my flight until I could change and reapply deoderant. But now? I can look cute when I travel. Today I hauled my suitcase to the airport, flew home to Italy from the Netherlands, with no sweat and no smell. I'm really looking forward to finally being able to "dress cute" at the airport and feel confident in myself.
• Intimacy: Pre-Botox I would make my outfit and dating choices around my sweating. I would have to really analyze the situation, the weather, whether we would be sitting outdoors or indoors or in air conditioning or not, if he had air conditioning at his home or not, all to determine whether or not I would go home with him. All of that anxiety about sweating/smelling meant that intimacy was never spontaneous, always planned, which I hate. Additionally, if the stars did align for something spontaneous (perfect outfit choices for the setting) then if I got to his home and realized I didn't have any deoderant with me I would check his bathroom cabinet for spray deoderant. If I found spray deoderant that I could use to top up before getting sexy and to top up again in the morning, then I would stay over. If not, I would leave and go home. Another example of one my crutches: I would always stink in the morning so I would try my best to wake up before him, run to the bathroom and apply deoderant, and then come back to bed before any morning intimacy began.

Overall, 10 out of 10 will get the procedure done again when the effects have worn off.

You can read Part 1 here.

Interlude: Two Promises

Japanese	Romaji	English
あなたしか見えないの	anata shika mienai no	I can only see you.
あなたしか見えないの	anata shika mienai no	I can only see you.
なんであなたしか見えないの？	nande anata shika mienai no?	...why can I only see you?

Feeling absolutely terrible, Subject A remarks without much thought, “You have everything that everyone else doesn’t have.” (The emphasis is the author’s, and is used in mostly the same way throughout the book when Subject A uses みんな “everyone” to refer to the five versions of her friend.) The moment those words leave her mouth, Subject A immediately realizes that she is blaming Four again as well as the fruitlessness of doing so. She is disappointed in herself for saying it. However, of course, Four doesn’t know the other versions of herself and thinks “everyone” refers to the people around them in this world, so she starts listing her own faults. Regretting what she said, Subject A apologizes and tells Four to disregard those words.
Subject A personally considers talking about other worlds to be taboo, but she ends up doing it again. “I still haven’t been to that beach,” she mutters, referring to a promise she made with Three to go together. It has been Four’s world for so long, Subject A hasn’t had the chance to meet Three. Four comments that she and her classmates had also talked about wanting to go to the beach, but she had to take on some student committee work. Hearing Four’s promise leaves a bad taste in Subject A’s mouth.

あたしもきみと海に行くって、約束したんだけどな。 皆あなたを愛している。 皆あなたばかりを求める。 みんなあなたとおんなじなのに。 なんであなたしか見えないの？
Even though I also promised to go to the beach with you [Three, while also seeing Three and Four as the same person]. Everyone loves you. Everyone wants only you. Even though everyone else [the versions other than Four] is the same person as you. Why can I/everyone only see you? (p. 80, emphasis is the author’s)

Chorus 2: Catchy

Japanese	Romaji	English
あなたしか見えないの	anata shika mienai no	I can only see you.
蠱毒巣食った呪ひ言	kodoku sukutta noroigoto	Words cursed in a venomous pit.[1]
此方は気にせずお幸せに	kochira wa ki ni sezu oshiawase ni	(*) Please be happy and don't worry about me.
嗚呼、堕ちていく	aa, ochite iku	Aah, I'm falling in...

(Note from original translator) [1] The wording used here is really interesting- "蠱毒" is a method of making poison where many venomous animals are trapped in a single vessel and are forced to eat each other until a single survivor emerges.
Subject A calls Four キャッチー (“catchy”). Both of them aren’t really sure what that means. Subject A thinks she was being cynical or sarcastic saying that. Four guesses that it means “popular” or “well-received”. It’s very clear that 呪ひ言 (noroigoto, curse) here refers to the word “catchy” itself. It’s referenced in the song Catchy !? here:

唯、何時かのあの子の呪いが / 焼き付いている It’s just, at some point that girl’s curse / Was etched into my brain… (TL by teary eyes, with edits by khattikeri and Violet)

And in the chapter linked to Catchy !? as well:

何時しかわたしに「呪いの言葉」を贈ったあの子。 That kid who, at some point, gifted me [Four] the “curse”. (p. 14) [TL Note: The first-person pronoun わたし is used exclusively by Four. The speaker in this chapter is the one who chooses between the versions, and whose first-person pronoun is recorded only as ■.]

Adding on to the original song translator Kaz’s note [1], 蠱毒 (kodoku) is an ancient poisonous magic with some recorded use in Japan’s Nara period (710-784 or 794) and appearing in Japanese folklore. r-906 also uses the classical Japanese_rule) writing style 呪ひ言 as opposed to modern 呪い言. These probably emphasize that Subject A’s emotions towards Four, the other versions and the person choosing between them have been brewing for a long time.
I also saw a Japanese comment on the song noting that 蠱毒巣食った is a homophone of 孤独救った (kodoku sukutta, "saved from loneliness"). Subject A does complain during narration about feeling lonely because there’s no way she could tell anyone about the five worlds and five versions of her friend (p. 65), so dropping those cryptic comments to Four about "everyone else" and calling her "catchy" could be a way of alleviating her loneliness, even if done unconsciously, or even if only for a little while.
Staring straight into Four’s eyes, Subject A adds that even though Four always receives lots of attention from everyone, she strives to and manages to respond to all the attention. Subject A begins to say, “Even if I didn’t exist, you…” probably intending to say Four wouldn’t be any less happier. This is linked to the third line of the lyrics, which uses unnaturally formal or polite words as Subject A puts a barrier between the two of them again.

Chorus 3: Consolation

Japanese	Romaji	English
あなたしか見えないの	anata shika mienai no	I can only see you.
有象無象のひとりなら	uzoumuzou no hitori nara	(*) Since I’m just another face in the crowd,
あなたの「特別」に成れたのね！	anata no "tokubetsu" ni nareta no ne!	(*) I’ve become "special" to you!
嗚呼、素敵だわ	aa, suteki da wa	(*) Aah, isn’t that wonderful?
クセになっちゃうわ	kuse ni nacchau wa	Oh, I could get addicted to this.
目も当てられないわ	me mo aterarenai wa	I can't stand watching this.

Four interrupts by joking, “Oh, what’s this? So you’re jealous? How adorable!” and pats Subject A’s head. For the first time today, Subject A bursts out laughing. It reminds Four of how the two of them used to play around. Four consoles Subject A,

「大丈夫だよ。自分がいなくても、なんて言わないで。確かにわたし結構友達多い自覚はあるし、色々と頼られたりするけど、みんな等しく友達なんだから。もちろんきみもね」 “It’s okay. Don’t say things like ‘even if you didn’t exist’. Certainly I know that I have quite a lot of friends, and they depend on me in many ways, but it’s because everyone is equally precious to me as friends. You too, of course.” (p. 81)

Subject A thinks about Four’s words.

数年前の切なる願いは叶わなかった。やはりそうだった。 あなたにとって全ての友達は等しく「特別」なのだ。あたしも含めて。 だからこんなどうしようもないあたしも見離さず会いに来てくれたんでしょう？
My fervent wish from years ago [to be “special” to you] didn’t come true. Just as I thought. After all, all your friends are equally “special” to you. Including me. That’s why, even though I’m so hopeless, you didn’t abandon me and came to meet me, right? (p. 82)

Subject A realizes that although she isn’t more important as a friend than others, she's still extremely precious to Four. The last line in the text above suggests that she's grateful and happy about that. Nonetheless, she feels hopelessly pathetic and lonely due to her wish not coming true and having wrongfully blamed and resented Four.
目も当てられない literally describes “something one cannot look at”, and is usually used to refer to a tragedy or disaster that one cannot endure watching. In this case, like how Subject A can’t stand watching herself. On the other hand, in line with the literal meaning, as Four invites Subject A to come to her classroom whenever she likes, promises to talk more with her and leaves, Subject A also thinks that Four is dazzling (眩しい, p. 83). In other words, so bright that Subject A can’t look at her.

ああ、なんて眩しいのだろう。 この一点のかげりもない清らかな眩しさはまるで―― Ah, how dazzling. This clear, dazzling brightness, without so much as a single shadow, is just like― (p. 83)

It's not stated explicitly, but due to the repeated use of the phrase 一点のかげりもない, it's clear that Subject A compares Four to the full moon with a completely unobstructed view.

一点のかげりもない満月は、眩しすぎて少し苦手だ。 The full moon, not obscured by even a single cloud, is so dazzling it's slightly difficult to bear. (p. 68)

I don't know what disliking the bright full moon is supposed to say about Subject A. It could just be that Subject A hadn't made up with Four at the time of p. 68, and the full moon reminds Subject A of her. The slideshow-like paper in the music video does state that Four's motif is the full moon. The other versions' motifs are other phases of the moon.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

The English title diaLOG is a pun using the Japanese title. 会話 (kaiwa) means "dialogue" in the sense of "conversation" while 記録 (kiroku) means "log" in the sense of "record". By the way, "dialogue" and "dialog" are different spellings of the same word, but "dialogue" is the preferred spelling when used to mean "conversation" in both British and American English, whereas "dialog" is used primarily in computing contexts like in "dialog box".
I mentioned this as a reply to a comment on Part 1, but it seems strange to me that Four specifically is depicted to scribble over the projector showing the other versions of herself while laughing and delighted at herself in the music video. Four is just a version that gets chosen and doesn't know that the other versions exist. Subject A did blame Four in the past though, so maybe the scene is showing what Subject A used to think.
Hatsune Miku is the main vocal playing the role of Subject A, while the five CeVIO AI Musical Isotopes sing the backup vocals and act as the five versions. COKO harmonizes and sings backup almost throughout all choruses/sabi, taking on the biggest role both in terms of duration and importance. In contrast, KAFU, SEKAI, RIME and HARU only get two or three lines to sing, so COKO outshines her fellow Musical Isotopes just like Four outshines her other versions.

Afterword

Thank you for reading my longwinded analysis! I love the song and book. Maybe too much, since I lost sleep one night hyperfixating on this song and how it relates to the book, so this has been my way of getting it out of my system.
Again, feel free to comment your own thoughts, including your own interpretations and parts you want clarified.

Spoiler for Penacony act 3, don't read if you haven't done it yet
I've been thinking about this ever since I've discovered Acheron is an emanator of nihility. I don't know why, but to me the existence of nihility THEMSELVES feels contradictory, in a sense that, if nihility believes nothing has a reason therefore everything is useless, wouldn't the existence of a aeon also fall in such category? Penacony was all about how Ena the order "died", and how they wanted to ressurect HER. But, Tayzzyronth is also dead, and so are Idrila and Akivili (as much as we know, 'cause it seems a complicated situation for these 2, but let's consider THEY are dead), which means aeons can die, and if aeons can die, why should THEY exist in the first place? And if aeons don't have a reason to exist, why should there be an aeon of how useless everything is because they'll die in the end?
And that's why I think IX doesn't know THEY are an aeon. If THEY don't know THEY are an aeon, THEY probably don't know what THEY are capable of, there is a possibility IX sees THEMSELVES as THEY were before THEY became an aeon, and THEY are completly apathic and uninterested in anything that is happening on the galaxy is because THEY think THEY are just "sleeping" and are completely unaware of THEIR surroudings.
It would also explain how can Acheron be an emanator of nihility, and yet, not follow nihility to it's core (because she does believe things have a reason). Reading her Character Story 3, a Doctor of Chaos goes on analyzing how can resist the effects of nihility and "hold it's reins". What if she can do that, because IX don't even know THEY are turning people into self-annihilators, but she can hold herself together because of her ideals. I mean yes, she is losing herself more and more as time goes by because of the effects of nihility, but the one important thing she can keep clear in her mind (she wanting to kill IX) and that has something to do with how she can tamper with the powers of nihility because IX are unaware of it?
Anyway, that's enough writing for me today, I hope I managed to get my point across, also tell me what you guys think about it, I really like Acheron's character and I'm really excited for future emanators to see their relatioship with their aeons.
TLDR: What if IX became an aeon, and no one told'EM about it, and so THEY are just sleeping peacefully completely unaware of the chaos THEY are causing?

For context me (32F) and my partner (32M) have been together for about 15 years and we’ve know each other a few years more than that, as far as I know the first time was the beginning of last year, he meets someone online while playing a mmo game, starts playing other games with them (which is fine). I suddenly start to notice that’s he will be playing games with them when I get home but as soon as I come home the game gets turned off (weird, maybe it’s just he wants to spend time with me?) suspicion sets in after a while, I check his pc, he’s been flirting and chatting said person up. Confront him, tell him to delete and block, he does but some suspicion still lies there.
Few months later notice the same patterns again, this time hes hiding/closing his discord every time im around or only using it on his phone, same situation follows, checks pc, confronted, argued, delete and block them, takes him about 4 weeks to do it this time.
Few issues again after this, really struggling with trust and suspicion at this point, feeling betrayed, like I’m not good enough anymore and now obviously im becoming a little depressed at this point, I don’t wanna go out, been more moody and more often but I can’t shake these feeling of hurt and paranoia/suspicion (this continues most of the end of last year).
Bringing us Ito this year, new mmo game, I notice a similar pattern again, there’s another, short lived but hurts all the same, confronted, blocked, deleted etc.
Bringing us to the last few weeks, Im seeing the pattern again, this time I’m noticing he’s up all night and mostly spending his time with me asleep or tired, I’m still struggling with trust and suspicion, paranoia (if you can even call it that, when my suspicions are usually correct). Anyway, gone to bed as I have work in the morning, not had much sleep wake up and just feel something isn’t right, can hear him talking on the pc with someone, so been suspicious, I listen, I’m not proud of this but I listen for a very long time, most of it just game talk but I can’t stop, I just feel there’s more to be heard. So, I keep listening, then comes the dirty talk and the admittance they can see each other, and you can guess where this is going, I try keep my cool but I can’t hold it in, I’m seeing red now (for context, we will say he’s in a off the house gaming room) I storm to the door, knocked on the door, he unlock it I burst in! At this point pc is now unplugged and his phone in his hand, I demand the phone I wanna know who he’s talking to, gets the phone, turns it back on, WhatsApp message ‘did your internet die’ so not only it’s it a pc person they have his number! I’m obviously fuming at this point, big argument follows, he lies says it’s an only fans girl, I’m like well show me the transaction that proves it, that’s a no, so you won’t show me because it’s not there to see, so on, so on, we spend the next few hours going round in circles coz I’m not getting any answers. I tell him, enough is enough, this time I want all the multiplayer games gone, I want him to delete anyone from his friends lists I don’t know and so on.
I go to work, as there’s only 2 of us on a weekend for a few hours, I managed to go in and get my stuff done and come home.
We talk some more, he tells me there all gone. I’m not sure if I believe he has done this as I don’t know exactly who it was to start with so I have no idea if they are still in his friend’s list or not.
I will add, in all the talks, I’ve always said if your not happy just tell me and we can work on it or I can go if that’s what he wants, he does say he’s happy most of the time which I do get coz my paranoia/suspicion/depression does get the better if me and he does have to put up with that side of me. Although I’ve tried to explain that if he wants doing anything to start with I wouldn’t have to feel like this.
How far would you or have you gone to confirm your suspicions?

My (26F) boyfriend (29M) seeks constant validation and praise from everyone around him. I constantly find him talking about his accomplishments and owning/dominating every conversation. He is a big social media fan and is constantly posting on his story or messaging in group chats. It seems he goes out of his way to organize events and send overly kind and descriptive messages in group chats. He also recently decorated his room and I couldn’t help but notice every single thing he hung up was one of his accomplishments in life (diploma, awards from school, race bibs, etc). There were no decorations.
Ive started to lose respect for his constant need for attention and I find it extremely unattractive. I also find myself getting lost in his presence and feeling like I can’t be myself without being “outshined” by him. It doesn’t help that the majority of his friends are girls. Seeing him post on social media with one of his friends that is a girl makes me uncomfortable and I can’t tell if this is a jealousy problem on my end or just the fact that I’m uncomfortable he invests so much into relationships with people of the opposite gender. I can’t help but feel weird when I know friends of mine are also viewing these stories he is posting with other girls when I am not around. I just don’t think it looks great on either of us. Please let me know what you guys think! Is it normal for me to be uncomfortable with this?
TL;DR: boyfriend seeks constant validation from outside world by constantly positing on social media and dominating conversations; making me feel lost and outshined. He commonly posts on social media with other female friends when I am not around and I can’t tell if this is normal and I should be okay with this all the time. I trust him but I feel like this attention is abnormal.

[Sorry for the long post/essay] I was diagnosed with Major Depression about a year ago, but I’ve felt I’ve struggled with it since I was a small child. My first introduction to depression was actually, weirdly enough, a side effect of Singulair when I was 5-7 ish years old. That went away, but when I turned 13 it really got worse. My sister had turned to substance abuse, and suffered from Bipolar 2 and Borderline Personality disorder. Long story short, she got involved with the wrong people, and brought a lot of bad people to our house. I never felt safe in my own home, I quickly learned to be distrustful of people. My sister and parents were fighting constantly. This, in turn, made me turn in binge drinking at the age of 14. The situation got infinitely worse when she had a child, and left him for my parents to raise. After an aborted suicide attempt at 19, I ended up, slowly, getting better. I’m 24 now, I live with my girlfriend, I work as an EMT/ER Tech, and only one semester away from being an RN. My family situation, while not perfect by any means, is substantially better. I’ve been sober for 1 year. And, I’m currently taking 450mg of Wellbutrin and 30mg of Vvyvanse, they’re working wonderfully. Despite all this progress, one lingering thing remains. Everytime I go to the mall, and walk passed a toy store, or plushies, or similar upbeat/happy/cute items, I get an overwhelming feeling of sadness. It gets bad to where I end up holding back tears, and can’t even entego near those places. It sounds so weird, any idea why I feel like that? And has anyone else?

Listen to Unknown Animal Sound Recording by hopshead on #SoundCloud https://on.soundcloud.com/YVoPG
You can also hear the full story on Sasquatch Chronicles it's episode 940 "Unknown Animal on the Pipeline Site"
Hey all, just wanted to share this with the community to get some feedback. I'm curious to see what people think of this audio. I'll share the story here:
In 2018 I got a super easy job as a security guard for a natural gas pipeline construction project in rural Ohio. This was a ways outside of Minerva, home of the locally famous "Minerva monster" story from the 70s or 80s. My job was to just sit at the entrance to this construction site to make sure no one sabotaged or stole construction equipment, which never happened so I mostly did literally nothing from 7pm to 7am. There were 2 houses within a mile of where I was and most nights their dogs would bark all night in some kind of yelling match with the coyotes. It was just a constant that you could rely on. Dogs barking, coyotes yipping, and occasionally a cow or two mooing in between with a Neverending chorus of crickets and Frogs in the background. One night in August around 2am, EVERYTHING went quiet. It was the weirdest most eerie abrupt silence it gave me goosebumps. I genuinely thought there might be an earthquake or something about to happen. And it stayed silent for about an hour and I was anxious the entire time. Then, the roaring started. It started far off to my right side. So far, I could barely hear it. I thought it was a person messing with me from like a mile or two away. But it got closer SO QUICKLY. You'll hear in the recording, this thing was vocalizing every couple seconds and at some points it sounds pretty pissed at something. The sound quickly crossed my field of hearing in about 5.5 minutes it went from out of earshot on my right, crossed in front of me, and then was out of earshot on my left. I cannot describe how FAST this thing had to be moving to cover that kind of distance in that short of a time. At its closest, the sound reverberated in my chest and literally rattled the windows of my car. I've spent much of my life fishing, hunting, camping and hiking in Ohio. I know every kind of sound of every kind of animal Ohio has to offer. The ONLY animal explanation I will accept of this recording is MAYBE a beagle or some kind of hound Baying but even then I don't believe it I could just kind of see it could be that possibly. People have tried to tell me this is a deer and I laugh at them. Some people think it sounds like a rusty gate or machinery but I don't really hear that and the way it reverberated is not how squeaky rusty sounds carry through the woods.
If you find the episode on Sasquatch Chronicles you can hear some of the weird things that happened the nights before the recording was taken which I don't feel like typing up in detail but in short we found a muddy handprint on top of a shipping container, and then a whole ass rock was thrown THROUGH the side of a shipping container. I do not have pictures of those however :-(
Please feel free to ask questions and tell me what you think of the recording!

a little back story for better insight. we have a physical relationship but we’re very friendly outside of that. we’ve known of each other for about 2 years since we work in the same field but recently we developed a physical/friendly relationship for i’d say the last 4 months.
he sends me memes everyday (most just funny or interesting things) he’s always watching my Instagram stories, and he engages with my posts. yes, we do have each other’s numbers as well. one thing i’ve noticed is that he consistently asks me what perfume i’m wearing and always tells me that he likes it so much. what’s confusing is how many times he’ll ask being that it’s the same rotation of the ones i’ve already told him by now. you get what i mean? at first i thought it was a one time thing, or the 2nd-3rd go round i thought maybe he just found it intriguing but now when he asks i feel like im missing something.
we are supposed to be just friends. for example we linked up one night recently and after he got home he texted me to say that he was home. then proceeded to ask me what perfume i was wearing. i told him and he says “i still smell you.” he proceeded to tell me that it really catches his attention…. which is the first time he’s actually went on to say that statement before, which also made me think. mind you this is after the physical encounter even happened that night. he’s even asked about my perfume a few times when we were in a normal public settings around friends, and he said it directly to me actually so the other people around didn’t hear him. he’s also always smiling widely whenever he asks in person too. it’s just a vibe i get that has more emotion than what he’s letting on if you get what i mean?
i’ve just never seen a guy ask this particular question to one woman as much as him. i’ve definitely never had anyone else say it me before the way he does. is it just me or is he trying to hint something to me? i just feel like i can’t put my finger on something so i just wanna make sure

Im F-28 M-34— he is friends with this couple. his friend is cheating F35 (the girl) and she is cheating with a married man, with a daughter. Is it okay if I tell the M(32) boy? I like to create a dummy account in IG just to tell him!! Is it legal? Are they gonna find out who’s the sender? I cannot take it anymore!! the boy and girl is in a long term relationship (ldr but not too far) I cannot take the fact that the girl is cheating. My husband already confronted her but she is not telling the truth, keeps repeating that they’re only friends. I feel so sad for the daughter and wife (forgot to say;ldr) and my husband; friends also with the guy, my husband attempted to say it to him but he is always busy with his studies, still studying. ANY THOUGHTS? Should i tell the guy?? Im dying to tell him!! I feel ewww the fact that the girl is cheating, she always pretends shes so inlove.

I have a crush on this girl, and we’ve been talking for 2 months, and she revealed to me some stuff that I don’t find attractive at all, like the fact that she smokes weed and does other things among that line, she really likes me but I had to tell her we should stay as friends because of the things she does, I thought I would get over her but I find myself bored whenever she doesn’t text me, or I get excited whenever she does, and however hard I try to leave her on seen or try to not text her, I always ending up texting her for hours, how do I get rid of these feelings I have for her?

My bf cheated on me and I made it worse. Idk what to do
I (16f) found my boyfriend (17m) looking at girls tiktoks who he used to like and has tried to get with before. Ik we are young and I feel immature to even being upset about it but there is a lot more to it. Around a year ago when we first started dating I had a groups of friends I hung out with, I became friends with them after I had broken up with my ex of 2 years who had cheated on me to many times to count, I was alone with no friends during this time because I wasn’t allowed to have any my ex didn’t like any of my friends who I had and I wasn’t very good at making new friends as I liked to stick to my circle. With this group of friends I had I didn’t want to lose they were all I had and we were all so close and got along. While I had a situationship with one of the boys in the group and another had liked me I still wanted be friends with this group while getting with my now bf (17m). I wasn’t allowed friends in my last relationship and I told myself I couldn’t go into that place I was again were I was alone with a guy I didn’t know if I could trust yet, so I continued hanging out with them for about 2-3 months before I eventually cut ties with no drama for my now bf. Fast forward everything goes perfect for months until about a month ago I had a gut feeling and decided to look on his phone, I ended up finding videos of women on TikTok wearing very little clothing ( I wasn’t really mad about that because I didn’t know them there could be no way he would know them in real life or cheat on me with them) AND one of my friends tiktoks and another girls that goes to our schools account, he had looked threw everyone one of their videos at around 12 at night after I had to go home at 11. He had also screenshots my friends account name so he could look it up on his other account. I felt sick so I played it off as I just didn’t feel good and asked for him to take me home and once I walked through the door I sent all the screenshots and proof of the videos the account name being copied all the other girls and said I didn’t want to hear from him. He then at first lied and said it came up on the people you may know slide on TikTok how it comes up and just showed people who you might know, then after arguing a bit more and me saying how he looked her up and screenshotted her account name doesn’t line up with he just stumbled along her account and the other girls account. a few days go by we’re not on the best of terms but we end up going on a trip with a few of his buddies to see another of his friends graduation, a few days after that I ask him to come up to my job on my break to talk and for me to tell him I’m moving (he is also moving to a different town 11 hours away for college in July and I’m moving to a town around a hour away from our home town) and talk about everything that has happened. During our talk he brings up me hanging out with my friends and the guys who liked me in the beginning of our relationship. I explain to him why I still did that and why I needed my friends (he knew about my past with my exs, and how I was kinda sa’d by one of them) he knew I wanted my friends there for me so I knew I wasn’t going to be trapped and felt alone again. At first he let me see them at our town hang out spot while he was there and I was perfectly fine with that then eventually it grew to I couldn’t see them at all. Im upset but I understand. Back to when we were talking , I end up storming out of the break room where we were talking to grab my friend who works with me to talk to her, I explained everything that happens, and I decided to break up with him. A few more days go on and we argue some more and I end up going with my friend who I had the situationship with before my bf to lunch that next school day, and start seeing my old friends again. We end up going to the lake one day and my friend (16f) tells me to f her brother (19m) we end up just lying and saying we did when we did not to get back at my bf for hurting me and doing what he did (I KNOW THAT WAS MESSED UP, that should have never happened for a number of reasons) Everyone hears about it and eventually my bf does too and he says it’s a case and eventually tells my mom about us drinking and about me and my friends brother and I get told to come home to exchange clothing and stuff. I end up getting grounded for the whole summer and I tell them both that we lied about it all and it was just to get back at my bf for hurting me , this almost gets my friends brother in trouble with the cops but my mom believed me when I said we didn’t so she didn’t press charges. Then my bf (now ex) and my friends brother get into a fist fight over something not involving me. And friends brother gets arrested and released.
I apologize this is not well formatted, and apologize for it being a little confusing as it is for me too. I do not know how to handle the situation further, I’m hurt, he knew about what I’ve delt with with guys and he told me I could trust him then he turns around and stalks my friends who are exactly his time, we are all blonds with blue eyes, but they are so much prettier then me and have better bodies, he says I’m the pretties girl in the world but how do I believe that when hes been looking at other girls who are obviously his type, it just makes me feel I’m not good enough for him and he just settled for me.
I just want opinions on what I should do, he treated me perfectly those months in between and we were happy I don’t want to lose that but I know I’ll never be able to trust him again, he probably won’t either. Im aware I messed up and made the whole situation worse and brought more drama into it but it helped me feel better at the time.

(my apologies if i used the wrong flair or if im in the wrong sub entirely)
for context i am 18f and have known for a while that i don’t want to have my own biological kids. like ever since i found out how pregnancy worked. for a little bit i thought i’d adopt, but don’t see myself being a parent AT ALL. tbh i’m kinda scared to be an auntie eventually too 😳
i also know that i don’t want to get married (but might consider a long-term relationship in the future) so a lot of my views are very foreign to others lmao. other ppl have shamed me for the way that i want to live my life, but now i’ve accepted that most ppl just won’t understand and that’s okay.
so i was very surprised yesterday on call w my grandma. when i tell you my grandma is the most blunt person i’ve ever known bruh it’s actually crazy 💀💀. we were talking abt how she wanted either me or my other two siblings (older brother and older sister; they’re both in relationships) to have twins some day since my dad’s two brothers are twins.
i’m awful at remembering what i say in conversation, but i know i said something along the lines of ‘i don’t want kids though grandma, is that okay?’ and she replied surprisingly really enthusiastically and said that it’s a good decision and that it’s best for me to just focus on myself and my (future) career.
also decided to feed two birds with one scone and tell her that i don’t want to get married either bc she mentioned singing at my wedding when i get married. and when i told her she said that she would sing at my graduation instead lmao.
i’m not doing the experience justice honestly bc i suck at telling stories, but it just felt nice for someone to finally accept me and my decisions 🥹. especially bc everyone else (my parents and siblings, friends, even my parents) just tell me that i’ll change my mind in the future/ i’m too young to make these decisions or that i’m setting myself up for a life of loneliness.
TLDR: your feelings and decisions are valid even if others don’t understand 🫶🏽

So this is just a slow burn theory I’ve had that’s developed over the course of things, and I’ve no idea if anyone else has come up with this prior but…
Everyone named after something from Earth related to the stars or space was named by either Subaru, or “The Sage”, and it just so happens that most of the things related to “The Sage” share Subaru’s color scheme.
Then there’s the whole constant plot bombs regarding Echidna and the Sage working together on body transference and a bunch of other things, and last but not least that whole thing with a certain dragon coming from Flanders, being named after “a dog from Flanders” despite current Subaru having no apparent way of knowing that.
Then the name of the show itself; Starting over from zero in another world.
Subaru was clearly “The Sage” who’s transferred his soul into a new body at the expense of most of his memories, right?
Right. We can at least agree on that, hopefully.
But here’s where my real theory comes in;
Pandora. Pandora is clearly named by Subaru, right? The original, Subaru, that is. She’s named after an earth celestial body, and like all his names it also serves as a tongue in cheek reference. Pandora’s purpose seems to be freeing Satella from her prison, or “Opening the Box containing all the world’s evils” in the “Witch of Envy” and then also Satella herself, “hope”.
Furthermore, the Cult she controls has access to the powers that used to belong to him, and uses books that are clearly based off of the knock offs of Echidna’s ability, someone who very clearly was working with and very likely used to be in love with, and possibly still is, Subaru OG. Cool? Cool.
So I guess my very paranoid question is; Is this entire story just a game of chess Subaru is unknowingly playing against himself?
And the even more terrifying question; Is Pandora just a good girl who’s doing what her Papa told her to do?!

Hello everyone, I'm a bit late today with this. Tom Brevoort was sick with Covid so we all wish him well. As usual, here's a summary of some of his Substack Q&As. I always encourage people to read the actual Substack itself for the full context of questions and answers, you can find it here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-145215587

Is the Hellfire Gala over? If so, will some other fancy event take its place? It was very fun seeing all the thoughtfully designed and unique outfits based on characters’ costumes and powers, and even more fun seeing those looks brought to life at conventions. Even if it’s not mutant-focused, it’d be cool to see more Marvel galas/fancy parties.

TB: Hard to hold a gala when your island is gone, Joe. That said, we have been talking about a thing that would fill the same spot in the publishing plan that the Hellfire Gala occupied for the past couple of years. But more on that as we get closer to it.

From an editorial stand-point, does this make it difficult to carry Phoenix over into the new era given how powerful she is? The tidbits that have been shared have mentioned encounters with Captain Marvel, The Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, The black order, etc, which seems to steer in a different direction from the grand cosmic depiction we saw in RotPox 5. Is the intention to tone down her power levels to a more manageable state where she can be teaming up with the likes of the characters mentioned above, or are there still plans to keep her at that grand cosmic level and explore her as a character that is among the upper echelons of Marvel's cosmic hierarchy and deal with such cosmic abstracts and entities?

TB: Phoenix and PHOENIX are going to be plenty cosmic, Phoenix. But it can be a bit exhausting playing at that scale all the time—to say nothing of limiting to the interests of a great portion of the audience. So when it’s appropriate for the story, we’ll go there. But more typically, if you think of PHOENIX as having the scale and range of something like THOR, you’ll pretty well be on the mark.

What can we expect from Madelyne's future in this new mutant era? I would like to see her in the mystical core, but also her image kind of got hyped with X-men 97 and most people outside our bubble knew her

TB: Madelyine will be showing up next in X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES #7 in a few short weeks, Fernanda.

My questions are: Is there any limit to how far a writer or editorial policy can go in trying to "destroy" a character without the risk of ruining them forever? Do you regret making any controversial decisions that have ruined a character or characters? Looking back, do you consider the editorial policy and/or writing regarding Cyclops, Bishop and Beast to have gone too far? And finally, about controversial decisions as bad as those regarding Bishop, Cyclops and Beast: do you consider that ignoring the storylines as if they never happened and moving on would be the best decision, or is it better to give the characters something like what Geoff Johns did to Hal Jordan?

TB: I’ve heard various versions of this question over the years, Joel, so you’ll have to forgive me if I have to chuckle a little bit. But the idea that any creator or any editor is trying to actively destroy the characters is completely laughable. This idea tends to be an outgrowth of the strange fan disconnect where they view the characters as more like real people than the actual human beings who create these stories. Believe me, nobody is ever looking to do dirt to any of the characters. That said, if we’re not challenging the characters and really putting them through a crucible, then we’re not giving you our best. These are super heroes, and so the whole point of reading is to see them struggle against overwhelming odds and somehow through skill and moxy and smarts and luck to find a way to come out on top. Also, these characters have proven to be extremely resilient over the years—they’ve survived a lot of bad stories and short-sighted decisions and it only ever takes one good story to dust them off and get them back into the fight. They aren’t fragile. and so, from a storytelling point of view, the worst, most boring thing that you can do is to be precious with the toys. They’re toys, they’re meant to be played with and knocked around and smashed up. I don’t know which “editorial policies” you mean when you speak of Cyclops, Bishop and the Beast—I suspect what you’re reacting to are specific story choices with which you disagree, which is fine; but this need to inflate them into “policies” is another thing that fans routinely do—but from my point of view, while there maybe have been stories over the years that I wish hadn’t been done, coming to them completely fresh I don’t find a thing wrong with any of those three characters that keeps them from being used and used well—and so that’s exactly what we’ll be trying to do in the months ahead.

Do you have any thoughts on these kinds of "ally" or more benevolent-neutral human characters in the X-Men narrative, and whether we can expect those dynamics to return in From the Ashes? I know you said in a previous interview Stevie Hunter would return, which was very cool.

TB: I don’t know about “allies” specifically, but we’re definitely going to see more X-Men and more mutants interacting with regular human beings right from the first page of X-MEN #1. Not just with X-Men but throughout the Marvel line, I think our heroes are only heroic when they’re saving regular folks, and I find comic books that only feature characters in tights to get pretty boring pretty fast. We need to be interacting with people of all stripes, allies and ambivalent and antagonistic all the same.

As a big Cyclops fan, I found his treatment during the Krakoa era quite disappointing, particularly regarding certain narrative choices that seemed inconsistent with his established characterization. Over the past 25 years, Cyclops has developed into a complex and pivotal figure, especially highlighted by his evolution into mutantkind's leader which started with Morrison's New X-Men until Bendis' Uncanny X-Men. The Krakoa storyline, with its depiction of Scott's relationships and leadership dynamics, felt to many fans like a regression from his previous development, I don't think he would ever accept to be part of a nation with a council with Mr Sinister (the evil nazi scientist who abused and experimented on him as a child) and Apocalypse, the evil genocidal maniac who ruined his son's life forcing Scott to send him to a bad future to save his life and possessed his body (and then used it as a weapon against his friends) leaving him severely traumatized in the process, there's also the fact that going from mutantkind's savior and leader to being once again beneath Xavier and Magneto felt very mean spirited and disrespectful to the writing of many great writers such as Matt Fraction, Grant Morrison, Whedon, Bendis, etc who worked hard developing his character and an era that many fans of the character consider to be his peak.
Given this context, can we expect the new era to realign his character with the growth and leadership qualities he exhibited before Krakoa?

TB: It sounds like you’re looking for a very specific flavor here, John, and I don’t know that I can quite promise you that. (And that comment about Cyclops being secondary to Xavier and Magneto being “mean-spirited” and “disrespectful” is very much the outlook I was talking about above. Cyclops is a fictional character, it’s impossible to hurt his feelings or make him feel bad.) What I can tell you is that we’re going to be featuring Cyclops front and center in X-MEN—beyond that, it’ll fall to you and readers like you to tell us how well we might be doing.

Since you've mentioned Taylor Swift, what three songs of hers do you associate with the three leading titles of the new X-era: Adjectiveless, Uncanny, and Exceptional?

TB: Wow, that’s a good question, Alex. I’d say that X-MEN is Red, UNCANNY X-MEN is Fearless, and EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN is 22.

Hypothetically speaking, if I healed my abandonment wound and anxious attachment style would it take away limerence?
In all honestly I do think LO and I soul mates (I believe we all have lots of soulmates throughout life, and not just romantic) but we’re both too damaged to see anything through. I mean we both admitted we’re soulmates earlier this year. We always end up linking back up and there’s definitely a weird energetic connection between us. He’s admitted this multiple times. We’re human magnets.
I hope some day down the line I’m a healthier person and we can pick up where we left off. I know these thoughts are probably mostly there to keep me sucked into limerence. I’m scared to let go for whatever reason. There’s this gut feeling though that we’re supposed to teach each other something. And once we learn, we can move on.
Will there ever be a right time? Should I just accept I will always be limerent towards him? I’m a naturally limerent person, but he’s like the LO of my life it seems. He does care a lot about me and has been truly one of the greatest friends of my life, but my limerence overwhelms him understandably. He’s told me whenever the limerence is bad that he can tell I’m in a lot of pain and always steps away because that’s the only way he knows how to help.
Maybe I’m just naive or in denial and trying to put off the grieving process. Sometimes I worry I’m even fluffing up the story to make myself feel better, but he’s told me many things that show that’s probably not true.
Regardless of this situation though, I want to be healed and am working towards it. I want to be my best self even without the influence of us becoming friends again.